Defcon 17: Early Badge Details

July 21, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 8 Comments

Every year, the Defcon badge takes a technological step forward. The details are starting to emerge for this years hardware lineup. Last years badge, pictured above, had LED status indicators and an IR transceiver. There’s no telling what this years badge will do, but we do know it has a new processor. They have chosen the Freescale MC56F8006 to build everything around this year. We think it would be cool to see some RFID, maybe a heat map of the traffic in the facility. Maybe some distributed computing would be cool. What could we do with an embedded camera? We eagerly await more details.

Toilet Paper Dispenser

July 18, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 47 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTsXlTKaFq0]

Solving the age old problem of… wait, what problem are they solving? These students at UC Berkeley have built a toilet paper dispenser prototype. Not only does it meter out an exact amount for you, it will fold it and cut it as well. They mention this being the perfect accessory for a high tech bathroom, and we can agree. To be serious though, in public places, metering out limited amounts of toilet paper at a time could possibly result in major cost savings. We think the next prototype should have different preference settings such as; wadded, folded, or wrapped around your hand. Anyone else’s mind suddenly filled with unpleasant imagery?

[via Makezine]

Arduino Shield With Offset Headers

July 16, 2009 by Eliot 15 Comments

arduinoshield

Here’s another adafruit product launched today: a prototyping shield that compensates for the Arduino’s stupid oddly spaced headers.

Related: The Seeeduino has an alternate row of headers with protoboard friendly spacing.

Adjustable Breadboard Supply

July 16, 2009 by Eliot 12 Comments

breadboardpowersupply

adafruit industries’ latest product is an adjustable breadboard power supply kit. We’ve seen breadboard supplies before, but like most of adafruit’s kits, this is the best design you’re going to encounter. It uses an MIC2941 voltage regulator instead of the more commonplace LM317. It has a very low dropout which means your output voltage can be much closer to the input voltage. Their example is using 3AAA or a Li-Ion battery for an output of 3.3V. Input can be through a barrel jack or terminal blocks. There is a selection switch for 3.3, 5, and adjustable voltage. Using the adjustment pot you can select an output voltage anywhere from 1.3V to within .5V of the 20V maximum input. The adjusted output voltage will remain the same even if you increase the input voltage. Like all of their kits, you can find schematics, assembly and usage instructions, on their project site.

Bus Pirate Preorder 1 Ships

July 16, 2009 by Ian 40 Comments

panelized-470.iijpg

A few weeks ago we held a pre-order for the Bus Pirate V2go, the first official Hack a Day hardware. We had initially hoped for a group purchase of 20 or 40 Bus Pirates, maybe 200 if it was extremely popular. In total, nearly a thousand Bus Pirates will be made.

The first 350 Bus Pirates (pre-order 1) have already been manufactured and tested. Seeed Studio has done a great job handling the orders, pre-order 1 should start shipping more than a week early. How long will it take to get to your mail box? It will vary for everyone, but our packages usually arrive from Seeed in 7 days.

Seeed sent us pictures of the Bus Pirate depaneling, programming, and quality control process. Check them out after the break.

Continue reading “Bus Pirate Preorder 1 Ships” →

Robots Learning Facial Expressions

July 10, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 30 Comments

einstein (Custom)
Researchers at UC San Diego have been working on a robot that learns facial expressions. Starting with a bunch of random movements of the face “muscles”, the robot is rewarded each time it generates something that is close to an existing expression. It has slowly developed several recognizeable expressions itteratively. We have a few questions. First, are we the only ones who see a crazy woman with a mustache in the picture above? Why is that? What makes [Einstein] look so effiminate in that picture? Secondly, what reward do you give a robot? You can actually see this guy in action in a video after the break.

Continue reading “Robots Learning Facial Expressions” →

Inside The Asus EEE Keyboard

July 9, 2009 by Nick Caiello 37 Comments

asuseeekeyboard

It seems that our french friends over at BlogEEE.net have gotten their hands on a prototype of the Asus EEE Keyboard all-in-one keyboard computer. After plugging it in and messing around it a little bit, they decided to take it apart. Although BlogEEE.net is in French, we were able to learn several things about this prototype. According to the site, the PCB in their EEE keyboard is marked as Revision 1, meaning that it is very possible that this could be the finalized version of the PCB that will be seen in retail units. Also, they mention the presence of a Silicon Image sil1392cnu, a chip responsible for sending HD graphics via the EEE’s onboard HDMI port, supporting resolutions anywhere from 480i to 1080p. Perhaps one of the most impressing details uncovered was that when weighed the EEE keyboard clocked in at an impressive 2.1 pounds, lighter than most keyboards that don’t have an onboard CPU or display. While we’ve learned a lot about the Asus EEE Keyboard so far, there is still no information available regarding its release date.

[via Gizmodo]