Illustrator Christoph Niemann made a not-quite-scientific series of illustrations titled Unpopular Science , which purport to explain how the laws of physics affect our daily life. My favorite is the explanation for why fridges full of food seem so attractive- obviously it is because they have a lot of mass! How many of these ‘forces’ do you experience on a daily basis
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Unpopular science
One of the constants of the past few years is that the number of portable devices per person is on the rise. The per-user ratio will become even greater as tablets grow in popularity , since they will at least initially be additive to the total amount
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Confronting the Wireless Charger Problem
The Make: Electronics Components Pack 1 is finally back in stock and shipping! The first companion pack to our wildly popular Make: Electronics book covers all of the experiments (1-11) from the first two sections of the book. We’ve spent (many!) hours sourcing all these parts, so you don’t have to. This pack will get you right into it experimenting, and most of the parts are re-used throughout the book, so it’s a great starting point
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Back in stock! Make: Electronics Components Pack 1
Our friends at the New York Hall of Science are going to be launching pumpkins this weekend with their in-house trebuchet “Chuck”: See NYSCI’s 20-foot-tall outdoor catapult in action! Learn about the history and science of catapults, and then watch it hurl pumpkins across the field. The demonstration will show how adjustments on the catapult affect the distance traveled and/or height of the projectile. Click here for more information about the event.
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This weekend: Catapult a pumpkin at NYSCI
Hardware ninja and engineer Amanda “w0z” Wozniak gave a talk at Toorcon called ” Hardware Will Cut You ,” all about the electronics design process: The hardware design process is fraught with pitfalls, from library component sketchiness, parts availability, erroneous data sheets, underestimates of complexity and long lead times.
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"Hardware Will Cut You" presentation by Amanda Wozniak
Choosing a Smart Phone Video: Consumer Reports The latest smart phones are the most consumer-friendly ever, yet they’re still the most complicated devices Consumer Reports tests (smart phone Ratings are available to subscribers). Our lab technicians perform more than a hundreds tests on smart phones to score and rank their competence on everything from voice and display quality to phone, messaging, multimedia, and battery-life performance—and everything in between. Besides raw performance, phone shoppers need to consider the phone’s operating system, which not only determines the phone’s core strengths but also gives the phone its “personality,” as Consumer Reports Senior Editor Mike Gikas explains in our new video on choosing a smart phone
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Video: Which smart phone is right for you?
For our fourth week in the Make It Last Build Series, we’re looking at how to turn our electronic thermometer into a data logger by adding storage capability. You’ll probably want to check out the most recent newsletter for background data, before continuing with this post. Also, before we forget, we’re getting to the end of our first build
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Make It Last Build Series: Building the data logger
The familiar yellow-and-black EnergyGuide labels you’re used to seeing on appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners will be coming to televisions next year, thanks to a change in the FTC’s Appliance Labeling Rule . The hope is that by having the labels—which list a set’s estimated yearly energy cost and how that cost compares it to other similarly sized models—prominently displayed, consumers will be able to make better-informed choices about the TVs they buy.
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TVs to get EnergyGuide labels, just like refrigerators
I like this concept design from German product designer Konstantin Slawinski that integrates the pieces of the classic three-piece “wooden knot” puzzle into a knife, a fork, and a spoon to make an interlocking set of cutlery. I don’t think there’s a deliberate nod to Bill Cutler (WOTD: “metagrobologist”) going on here, but I kinda wish there were. [via Core77 ] More: Puzzle table bases Math Monday: Giant burr puzzles Traditional Japanese wood puzzles Precision puzzlemaking (or something like that) @ Maker Faire Read the Full Story
By Eric de Goeijen, Océ North America, Production Printing Systems Vice President Product Marketing Every print job you can think of today has a workflow associated with it – specific tasks and processes that have to be managed and ideally, automated. Not surprisingly, workflow means different things to different people. Jobs flow differently in commercial print shops than they do in high-volume transactional data centers, direct mail houses, service bureaus or CRDs in enterprise environments
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Defining Workflow in Today’s Transaction Printing Environment
Put on your conspiracy tin foil hats boys and girls, this ones a doozy! A woman is seen in a 1928 Charlie Chaplin film “The Circus” appearing to hold a a cell phone to her ear. Of course, there are no cell phone towers back in 1928, so this must be a futuristic Star Trek communicator or some kind that doesn’t need any stinkin’ towers. 5 bars of signal everywhere you go! Woohoo! Can’t wait for the future to get here
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Cell Phone Time Traveller Caught on 1928 Film?
OVERVIEW: MFC-7220 The MFC-7220 is the ideal companion for your home or home office business needs. Its compact size and full functionality doesn’t sacrifice anything – high-quality laser printing, copying, scanning, faxing and also PC-Fax are all included. It also includes a built-in telephone handset and an automatic document feeder for copying, scanning and faxing multiple pages
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Brother MFC-7220 printer is on sale in Staples
Our friends at Sparkle Labs are having a retrospective show to present “products and experiments from their first 6 years.” Opening November 4th, the Sparkle Labs retrospective at gallery hanahou will feature a landscape of hi-tech, hi-touch products and tools for inventors. The enlightened team behind Sparkle Labs will present interactive exhibits of some of their most exciting projects to awaken your creativity and inventor spirit. Sparkle Labs retrospective November 5 – December 2, 2010 gallery hanahou 611 Broadway, Suite 730, NYC galleryhanahou.com Opening reception: Thursday, November 4, 7-9 pm RSVP info@galleryhanahou.com Electronics workshop: Saturday, November 13, 2:30 – 4:30 pm Cost: $59.99 (includes Discover Electronics kit ($49.99 value) + $10 workshop fee) Sign up at info@galleryhanahou.com In the Maker Shed: DIY Design Electronics Kit Read the Full Story
Advanced charging techs to top $34 billion in 2015 Markets for advanced charging technologies (including solar-powered handsets, solar chargers, wireless power units, fuel-cell battery charging products and public charging kiosks), worth about $1.5 billion in 2010, are forecast to grow at a robust Compound Annual Growth Rate of more than 86 percent to exceed $34 billion in 2015.
“Large-format printing is not a supplement to our business; it’s a necessity,” says Kyle Yeager, owner of two UPS Stores in the Atlanta area. “It’s a major part of our product line, and a piece of our business that we use to define and separate ourselves from most of our competition.” Yeager’s UPS Store has
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High Five: Profiting from Large-Format Printing
This harrowing t-shirt cannon was built by Team 254 Robotics of Bellarmine College Prepatory of San Jose, California with the help of NASA Ames Robotics. It weighs 160 pounds, can shoot over 200 t-shirts per tank, has a range of upwards of 150 yards, and packs a rate of fire of 3 shirts a second. Check out the build notes if you want to learn more.
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10-shot gatling t-shirt cannon
Printer News: The Last of the Konica Minolta Bizhub 423 Series Laser Printers Delivers Plenty of Features For Less The Konica Minolta bizhub 223 is the last monochrome, multifunction laser printer in the bizhub 423 series, but not the least. The printer shares many of the choice features of the more expensive bizhubs 423, 363, and 283: a 8.5-inch color touch-screen, two 500-sheet paper trays and the ability to print directly from a USB device. But the 223 has the lowest MSRP of the bunch while still offering speedy output up to 22 pages per minute.
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Konica Minolta Bizhub 223: Big Features, Low Cost
The BeerTender from Heineken and Krups B90 Home Beer-Tap System will provide your party guests with the kind of service they’d expect at their favorite local bar. Offer a convenient and very stylish experience at your next party
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BeerTender from Heineken and Krups B90 Home Beer-Tap System
When you think about surveys touting the benefits of cars, or lack thereof, the researcher that probably jumps to your mind first is the venerable J.D. Power and Associates.
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New survey makes me wonder: Who’s buying electric and hybrid cars, anyway?
Elastic powered airplane and Elastic crossbow by Sublime . Nathan Patterson, aka Thingiverse user pattywac , has organized a pair of user-funded design contests and is soliciting entries and prize donations for each. The first , with a current prize pool of $100US, is to design the cleverest MakerBot-able object that incorporates a rubber band.