This new toolkit, called “Android” meets Arduino, allows you to connect an Arduino to your device and communicate back and forth. You could trigger external events at the Arduino end when an event happens on your phone, or even trigger things on your phone side when something happens at the Arduino. We can’t wait to see the stuff people come up with beyond simple notifiers.
[via littlebirdceo]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFb5_mKfnR8]
This security system called G-spot requires that you touch a special place on the car prior to attempting to start it. This is pretty slick as it could be completely un-obvious and doesn’t require any special fobs or minor surgery. With the right placement, no one would ever notice that you had touched it.
[via HackedGadgets]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuDZnJX5kqw]
[Jeri] got her hands on some of the DuPont Luxprint EL ink and had some fun conducting experiments. She tried different materials for the base and the display itself. Not only does she just play with materials, she also tears apart a VFD and an LCD to see if she could use them for parts. The LCD turned out to be the most successful. We saw this stuff show up at the Bay Area Maker Faire and we’re excited to see it become more accessible.
[via Makezine]
[Razor] shares with us the plans for an intelligent battery charging circuit. Instead of blindly charging your battery into oblivion, this one shuts off once the battery is fully charged. It is a nice clean circuit that can be adjusted and fine tuned to your specific needs via some trim pots and dip switches.
[via HackedGadgets]
Take a few moments and browse this gallery from the Library of Congress. Tasked with the job of preserving the roughly 150 million historical items, they are constantly developing new methods using bleeding edge technology. There is an odd balance of some of the oldest documents in tandem with some of the newest technology evident in these pictures. From doing spectral scans of ancient books to laser mapping warped phonographs, everything must be preserved and documented.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvOGwylZOM4]
[Steve Norris] has been devoting his time, effort, and knowledge to the most noble of causes; cool beverage acquisition. Baxter the ButlerBot and RoboFridge work in tandem to deliver cold ones when needed. As you can see in the video, this possibly over engineered system works quite smooth. Though the details on his site are pretty limited, browsing his Flickr stream will get you all those delicious construction photos you crave.
[via Flickr]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iHZKMDvdNI&w=470]
Though it is in the beginning stages of development, the Distributed Flight Array is already looking very interesting. Each unit can scuttle across the ground using the down force from its prop, but when 4 or more join forces, they can take off and fly. The documentation shows that they should be smart enough to fly in random configurations, though in the video we only see the standard 4 prop layout. This is being worked on by the same people who produced the balancing cube.
[via BoingBoing]
