30-minute profile of MAKE founder Dale Dougherty on CNN this Sunday night!

Dale says, it’s time to get back to making. It doesn’t matter what it is: cheese, wine, sculptures, robots, rockets, 3D printers – even electric muffins! As simple or as bizarre as a person wants to get, Dale believes everyone should be passionate about making something. So Dale decided over a decade ago to create a grassroots festival called Maker Faire. There’s one every year in the Bay Area, NYC, and all over the world. There’s one in Africa. Tens of thousands of people attend, showing off all of the spectacular things they’ve made. Things like a basketball bikini, art sculptures made from car parts and wooden catapults, large and small. Simply, makers are enthusiasts, amateurs and hobbyists. Dale also created MAKE magazine. The magazines are jam-packed with ideas and exact plans for making things. One issue might be dedicated to making robots, or rockets. Anyone with an interest can pick up a magazine and get right to work.

This is quite impressive! I love the view of the stars rising over the horizon. From Universe Today:

here’s something a little different: by taking photos at the rate of one per second and assembling them into a time-lapse, we can get a sense of what it’s like to orbit the planet at 240 miles up, 17,500 mph… in real time. Absolutely amazing!

…

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken January 30, 2012 from 06:13:36 to 06:23:09 GMT, on a pass from northern Mexico to northwest New Brunswick. This video begins looking northeast over Texas, where cities like San Antonio, Houston, and the Dallas/Fort Worth area can be seen. Continuing northeast over the Great Plains states, cities like Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and St. Louis can be easily distinguished. The pass continues over the familiar shape of the Michigan Peninsula, with Chicago at the south edge of Lake Michigan. As the ISS continues northeast, the Aurora Borealis can be seen over Canada.

You can check out and download more of these videos at the Johnson Space Center Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

A follow up, now with photos! – LayerWise builds the world’s first patient-specific lower jaw @ Layerwise via jwz.

Titanium lower jaw reconstruction – The implant is developed in collaboration with project partners in medical industries and academia. To treat a senior patient’s progressive osteomyelitis of almost the entire lower jaw bone, surgeons opted for such a complete patient-specific implant the first time ever.

MakerBot Demo at Apple Store 5th Avenue.

Tomorrow night, New Yorkers will have the chance to see The Replicator in action at The Apple Store Fifth Avenue! Explore the emerging world of 3D printing with MakerBot Industries and see a live product demonstration by CEO and co-founder Bre Pettis.

Woo! See our previous post about “MakerBot and Apple!”

Whitelabel Goods, China. Star writes –

Welcome to the world of Whitelabel goods.  What’s that, you ask?  Well, have you ever noticed how every hip California startup has a branded steel water bottle, without having had to go design a steel water bottle and figure out how to get someone to produce it, someone to supply the steel, someone to check the quality (and on and on)?

That’s because someone else has figured all of that stuff out, leaving only the selection of What Particular Things for the carrier or distributor – or whomever is going to slap a brand on and resell it.

I got to tour a whitelabel gallery (can’t say when, can’t say where) while out and about in China, and it’s positively creepy.  Everything is incredibly.. familiar.  And thus you realize that everything you’ve known and loved that formed the background and setting of your life was made in one place, waited here for someone to strike a deal and order in volume, then sent to the four corners of the earth for you to keep in your home.  It’s also doubly disturbing to not find a brand anywhere — and to realize you are reflexively looking for them. Here’s a short video

This is why Adafruit doesn’t just “slap our logo” on just anything, there’s no value putting your own logo on every odd-and-end. Anyone can put their logo on anything, and when they do – it means nothing special. When you see the Adafruit logo it’s because we made it, or it’s special to us un some way, it’s something we’re proud of.

When we get “generic” products like cables, tools or high end stuff like our calipers from Mitutoyo, we’re not going to paste over our own logo all over those things. We’d rather make it clear who made what and when we do make something – we want you to love it, and know it came from Adafruit.

The astronauts also engaged in less serious activities. Shepard brought a makeshift six iron golf club and two golf balls to the Moon, and took several swings (one-handed, due to the limited flexibility of the EVA suit). He exuberantly, and somewhat whimsically, exclaimed that the second ball went “miles and miles and miles” in the lunar gravity, but later estimated it actually went 200 to 400 yards (180 to 370 m). Mitchell then used a lunar scoop handle as a javelin, creating the first ‘Lunar Olympics’. Before the flight, backup crew members Cernan, Evans and Engle played a joke on the astronauts by stashing their own crew patches in every single locker and compartment in the spacecraft. Whenever one of the patches would float out of a locker during the mission, Shepard would say, “Tell Cernan, BEEP-BEEP my ass!”

Special thanks to Johngineer!

THE Printrbot by abdrumm @ Thingiverse via HaD.

This is the real deal, no derivatives here. These are the real Printrbot in it’s current version. I have a bunch of these printing all day, every day…. it works. It is expandable to larger widths and heights easier than any other reprap out there. Period. Its the most inexpensive bot out there being mass produced. And, its now yours to print, build, improve, change…. whatever you like. I can’t wait to see what you do with it. I will post pics of all the various forms it takes, news, etc at printrbot.com
-enjoy
Brook

On a related note, Brian at HaD has been rocking out lately, great posts.

3ders.org – 83 year-old woman got 3D printed mandible @ 3D Printing news via jwz.

The University of Hasselt (Belgium) announced today that Belgian and Dutch scientists have successfully replacing a lower jaw with a 3D printed model for a 83 year-old woman. According to the researchers, It is the first custom-made implant in the world to replace an entire lower jaw.

The lower jaw of the elderly woman was badly infected and needed to be removed. Considering the age of the patient, a “classical” microsurgical reconstructive surgery takes too long time and can be risky. Therefore a tailor-made implant is the best choice.

Normally it takes a few days to produce a custom implant, but with 3D printing technology it takes only a few hours.

Pictured above a prototype from 2008. We are looking forward to Bre announcing MakerBots for hospitals soon

An E-Waste Depot for Brooklyn @ NYTimes.com.

The Lower East Side Ecology Center in Manhattan, a longtime promoter of recycling and composting, is expanding operations by opening a new, permanent drop-off site for electronic waste in Brooklyn.

The site, a warehouse at 469 President Street (at Nevins Street) in the Gowanus section, is scheduled to start accepting electronics from households, nonprofit organizations and small businesses on Tuesday. (A list of acceptable materials is here.) The warehouse can accommodate 260,000 pounds of unwanted electronics.

The Ecology Center, an educational organization, has organized e-waste collection events citywide since 2003, but it has more ambitious plans for the new site. Christine Datz-Romero, the nonprofit group’s executive director, said by e-mail that the drop-off site would also refurbish and test equipment and create a retail outlet where wireless cards, keyboards and other discarded parts in working condition can be resold at affordable prices.

Read more…

NEW PRODUCT – Ada Lovelace, large, oval black and white – Sticker! Celebrate Lady Ada Lovelace, one of the world’s first computer programmers. Adafruit offers a fun and exciting stickers to celebrate achievement for electronics, science and engineering. We believe everyone should be able to be rewarded for learning a useful skill, a badge is just one of the many ways to show and share.

This is the “Lady Ada Lovelace” sticker for use with educators, classrooms, workshops, Maker Faires, TechShops, Hackerspaces, Makerspaces and around the world to reward beginners on their skill building journey!

Here are some Ada-related facts, events and organizations.

Who was Ada? Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programs for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization that seeks to increase women’s participation in the free culture movement, open source technology and culture. Founded in 2011 by Linux kernel developer and open source advocate Valerie Aurora and open source developer and fellow advocate Mary Gardiner, the organization is named for Ada Lovelace, the “world’s first computer programmer.”

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.

A color woodcut-style portrait of Ada Lovelace, based on the nineteenth century A. E. Chaton portrait.
Original watercolor portrait (Ada lovelace.jpg): Alfred Edward Chalon
Woodcut-style graphic (Ada Lovelace.tif): Colin Adams, for the Ada Initiative
SVG conversion (Ada Lovelace.svg): Fred the Oyster
Colorization: Kaldari

Art licensed as: This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Perfect for laptops or the workbench.

These gorgeous stickers are glossy, vinyl and made to last a lifetime. Made with printing/vinyl machines that are solar powered and using the most green friendly supplies as possible.

MADE IN THE USA!

Adafruit’s stickers are manufactured in partnership with AMBRO Manufacturing located in NJ, USA. AMBRO is a family owned and operated business since 1990 that celebrates open-source with Adafruit Industries. You can meet their team here. AMBRO uses non-toxic soy based, water soluble and environmentally friendly printing supplies, threads and more when possible. AMBRO has over 250 solar panels that generate 50,000 Kilowatt hours per year. Their equipment runs solar powered, so the wonderful things AMBRO and Adafruit have worked together on are made with the sun! AMBRO Manufacturing was recognized by Impressions Magazine, a leading trade publication in the garment printing and embroidery business, who published an article highlighting AMBRO and their commitment to their environmentally focused manufacturing practices. Adafruit knows you have a lot of choices as to where you spend your money and time, we hope our open-source values, commitment to green technologies and partners helps make the decision easier and fun!

In stock and shipping now!

Phantom Limb Pain with the Kinect. Ben writes -

This is something I worked on over the summer last year and its finally out from under wraps. The idea is to create a version of the Mirror Box; effectively copying the real limb onto the Phantom Limb in order to relieve the pain that such people feel. This has been done once before with VR but now we have the kinect and cheaper VR goggles and XBee units from Adafruit, we can build a much cheaper rig and begin to investigate what works and what doesnt.

Peek offers remaining hardware to hackers: ‘maybe somebody can build something great’ @ The Verge.

Just because the Peek service has been killed off doesn’t mean the devices themselves need to be crushed and swept off into a landfill somewhere. CEO Amol Sarva just dropped us a note to say that he’s got “a few thousand” Peeks still lying around the warehouse that are just waiting for a hacker’s touch: “maybe somebody can build something great,” he says. The notion of a pre-built and tested portrait QWERTY device with a jog dial, QVGA display, ARMv7 processor, and a GSM radio is, in many ways, a hacker’s dream — and Sarva says he can even throw in “some tools” to help them get started. The “operating system sucks but is workable,” he says. Sounds like a challenge to us. Interested folks should contact Amol himself via email — amol at peek.ly — and he says that one of the company’s developers will be in touch.

Online MSP430 Editor and Compiler.

This is an online MSP430 firmware editor. This means that you edit C-code within your web browser without having to install an IDE such as IAR or CCS on your computer. The files are compiled on our server and you download them from there. Using this tool to develop MSP430 firmware from within your browser is very simple, but does not offer as many advanced features as an expensive IDE.

MIT faculty see promise in American manufacturing @ MIT News Office.

As the United States seeks to reinvigorate its job market and move past economic recession, MIT Newsexamines manufacturing’s role in America’s economic future through this series on work at the Institute around manufacturing.

Not long ago, MIT political scientist Suzanne Berger was visiting a factory in western Massachusetts, a place that produces the plastic jugs you find in grocery stores. As she saw on the factory floor, the company has developed an innovative automation system that has increased its business: Between 2004 and 2008, its revenues doubled, and its workforce did, too. Moreover, the firm has found a logical niche: Since plastic jugs are both bulky and inexpensive, it’s not economical to produce them overseas and ship them to the United States, simply to fill them with, say, milk or syrup.

“Is this just an odd little story?” Berger asks. “Actually, no.” While the decline of American manufacturing has been widely trumpeted — manufacturing jobs in the United States have dropped from 20 million in 1979 to about 12 million today — conglomerates such as Procter & Gamble and high-tech firms such as Dow Corning have kept significant amounts of manufacturing in the country. Moreover, 3,500 manufacturing companies across the United States — not just the jug-making firm in Massachusetts — doubled their revenues between 2004 and 2008. With that in mind, Berger asks, “How can we imagine enabling these firms to branch out into more innovative activities as well?”

Read more…

Kyle Machulis (qdot) on Twitter. We’re tweeting Shannon Loftis from Microsoft Game Studios, Studio Head for comment We’re hoping this is not true…

Update!

Seeking Hardware Hacker for Fast-Track Interactive Installation at Damon Seeley at the Adafruit Jobs Board.

Electroland seeks a hardware designer/hacker for a fast-track interactive installation project. Candidates should have significant experience with embedded tactile interaction design using Arduino or similar and familiarity with coding for physical computing. Basic fabrication skills (cut, finish, fasten) are a plus. Candidates should be able to work with us to develop functional pieces that are reliable in the scope of a two week installation. The work will be fun and very fast-paced. We want to make things that illuminate, squawk, wobble, etc.

Read more…

Libraries, codecs, OSS @ Raspberry Pi.

There have been quite a few questions in the forums and on the comments about what libraries will be available, what codecs, what is open source etc. This short post will try and give people some idea of what will be available at or around launch time. It won’t be comprehensive – I am sure that for some it will generate more questions than answers, but I hope it will be of help.

Firstly, libraries. Any distribution will need to supply a set of closed source libraries that give access to the GPU acceleration features…

The Open/Closed source debate can become quite heated, as those perusing the comments and forums may have noticed. As stated above, the host side libraries for the graphics acceleration are closed source and are provided by the SoC supplier. The Foundation has no control over the closed nature of these libraries. Since the vast majority of people simply use libraries such as these, it was deeded a trade off worth making to get the high graphics performance.  It’s worth noting there are no other SoC devices with a similar graphics performance that are open source. There is no GPL issue here, these are user side libraries not linked in any way to the kernel.

There are a few drivers for the SoC which are linked in to the kernel, these are GPLed and hence OSS. One of these drivers is the interface from the user space libraries to the GPU. The user side libraries use this ‘driver’ to communicate with the GPU and tell it what to do.

Here’s a handy diagram that may help visualise what’s what.

Read more…

Gallery: Declassified Spy Satellite @ Space.com via BtB.

Gambit 1 KH-7 is one of three formerly classified reconnaissance satellites that went on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, starting Jan. 26, 2012.

8-voices mixed in the micro, with nothing on the output but an RC integrator.

What the heck is a “Fraunchpad”? Well, it’s similar to the Launchpad, but with FRAM (Ferroelectric RAM, not an oil filter). Specifically, it’s the MSP-EXP430FR5739. The song data is stored in the FRAM.

The source code and more info is available here.

Nice hack, oPossum!

Zakaria: Does America need an industrial policy? @ CNN.

[The president]… forcefully in his State of the Union about the importance of reviving manufacturing in America. If you talk with economists they will tell you it’s a very complex problem, involving tax, trade regulatory policy, exchange rates, and educational skills. It is all those things.

But when you move from high-level policy to specific cases, you will often find one element that is rarely talked about: a foreign government’s role in boosting its domestic manufacturers with specific loans, subsidies, streamlined regulations and benefits. In effect, these governments – many in Asia, though some in Europe as well – have a national industrial policy to help manufacturers.

In a front page story last week, the New York Times detailed how Apple’s iPhone ended up being made outside America. The Times wrote about the Apple executives who visited a factory in China to see if it could cut the glass precisely for the phone’s touch screen. When the Apple team got there, the factory owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager explained.

How could they afford such an extravagant gesture? Well, it turns out, the Times noted, that they received subsidies from the Chinese government. That one incident is part of a pattern.

In 2009, for example, Bridgelux, a light-emitting chip manufacturer in the United States, was searching for a new factory site, the company considered the cost of building in the U.S. and elsewhere. The government of Singapore offered to pay half the setup cost of the plant.

Read more…

If there were similar programs in the USA for companies like Adafruit, Makerbot, etc – we could easily employ thousands of Americans, almost overnight. We’ll get there for sure – we must, it certainly seems we’ll get there without any subsidies – time (and the markets) will decide which way works best.

Swap-O-Matic.

The Swap-o-matic is a vending machine which playfully tries to remind us that reusing and recycling can be just as fun as buying something new. The machine allows users to donate and receive items, instantly and for free!

The basic rules of use for the Swap-O-Matic are simple. Though each item in the machine (donated by another user) will not cost the recipient any money, it will require “credits”. A credit is earned when the user donates to the system, and a credit is required to retrieve an item from the machine. New users receive 3 credits to start. Users can donate, recieve, or swap using the touch screen interface on the front of the machine. Other features, such as a user flag system, have been developed and implemented to prevent misuse or stalemate of the system.

Double Quadrotor @ equals zero.

I’ve been practicing with Tinycopter a little more, and it’s fairly stable and working now. In fact, I might even make a page for Flying Objects now that it’s working. That still doesn’t prevent me from randomly “re-zeroing” it on the ground, however, nor other unfortunate mishaps.

Material Libraries.

There are thousands of types of materials to make things from. The first impulse for most of us is to use known materials like wood, steel, concrete, and glass. But each of those have hundreds of varieties, each with their own properties. How about metallic ceramics? And every year brand new materials are invented. How can one find out what materials are available?

One way to become familiar with the vast possibilities of materials is to visit a materials library. That’s what professional designers and architectures do when embarking on a project. Maybe what they design can be made of some kind of glass? Or super strong plastic? Or bendable wood? Larger design firms have their own material collection, which they use for inspiration, research and for sharing with clients. Below is an unusually large material library at the New York City architecture firm 1100: Architect. Smaller ones can be found at most design firms.

Read more…

You Bought It, but Do You Own It? @ bunnie’s blog.

On February 10th, I’m sending a letter to the Library of Congress in support of granting exemptions to the DMCA for jailbreaking your own devices. If you believe that you should be able to run whatever programs you want on your own hardware, please sign my letter to show support; anyone from anywhere in the world can sign. You can also submit your own letter to the Library of Congress, if you feel so inclined or disagree with my opinions.

In 2002, I intercepted a key on the original Xbox that allowed me to encrypt and run my own software on the device. Even though that Xbox had a Pentium processor on the inside — the same CPU found in my desktop PC — without that key, I could only run the limited selection of software provided to me by Microsoft.

When I was informed about the DMCA, which became law in 1998, it was a bucket of cold water thrown at my face; I felt deeply disenfranchised. You see, I was a graduate student at MIT at the time, and up until that point the freedom to create, explore, and overcome barriers was encouraged, even celebrated. It was bewildering that running linux on this PC with the green X is illegal, yet running linux on this architecturally identical beige box next to it was legal. A chill descended upon the situation; MIT sent letters to me officially repudiating involvement in my activities, fearing the worst. Fortunately, brave souls at the MIT AI lab stood up for me in defiance of the campus counsel, and provided me with resources and the connections to the EFF to negotiate with Microsoft and see a positive ending to the whole situation.

I’m lucky. Not everyone has the encouragement, wisdom and strength of a team of MIT faculty and EFF counsel behind them. Without further exemptions to the DMCA enabling jailbreaking, freedom to innovate and tinker withers. Since then, many lawsuits have been filed under the DMCA, creating a tone of fear. Research projects are abandoned, business plans are scrapped; and the stalwart operators left with the will to research jailbreaks work in shadow, a constant fear of lawsuit haunting them for the mere practice of attempting to load their own software onto hardware that they legally own. Entrepreneurs and innovators should not be so burdened, especially at a time when we need their valuable contributions to bootstrap new businesses.

I believe if you buy hardware, you should own it; and ownership means nothing less of full rights to do with it as you wish. If you believe in this too, please sign my letter to the Library of Congress in support of extended exemptions to the DMCA, enabling jailbreaks for more platforms.

Jailbreaking Is Not A Crime: Tell the Copyright Office to Free Your Devices! @ Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The Problem – Smartphones, tablets, and video game consoles are powerful computers with lots of untapped potential. Yet many of these devices are set up to run only software that’s been approved by the manufacturer.  Modifying a device to run independent software – known as jailbreaking – is important to programmers, enthusiasts, and users. But jailbreaking creates legal uncertainty. Some device manufacturers claim that jailbreaking violates Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which carries stiff penalties.

The Solution – EFF is asking the U.S. Copyright Office to declare that jailbreaking does not violate the DMCA, and we need your help. In 2010, the Copyright Office said jailbreaking smartphones doesn’t violate the DMCA.  This year, we’re asking them to renew that exemption (otherwise it will expire) and expand it to cover tablets. We’re also asking for a new exemption to allow jailbreaking of video game consoles.

How You Can Help – The Copyright Office needs to hear from people who depend on the ability to jailbreak to write, use, and/or tinker with independent software (from useful apps to essential security fixes) for smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. You can submit comments online at this link.

The President’s State of the Union Address transcript…

… if you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut.  If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making your products here.  And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers. 

Adafruit is 2 blocks from ground zero and 2 blocks from Wall street. We’re trying to get more space and more manufacturing, it would be great to see specific things for companies like us (woman / engineer owned, profitable and self-funded – we make things!).

John writes-

Here is a photo of the [plastic] coffee can storage bins I showed on Saturday. You are free to use it and share it. The side boards are 1x8x36 and the eight dowels are 7/16 diameter x 48″. The second shelf down has a bunch of coffee can lids. I have not thought of a good way to use them yet. Any ideas?

We saw this on the weekly SHOW-AND-TELL and thought it was a cool DIY solution for storage.

Microsoft Unleashes The Kinect And Promptly Misses The Point @ Co.Design.

This is not to say that a lot of amazing Kinect-based applications won’t find their way to market. For all that individuals make their way through the world by grasping and holding things, we interact with one another socially through the Kinect’s two inputs–voice and touch. The Kinect offers a way to live in society with machines. Think HAL 9000 before he went crazy. There will be great applications, but I doubt very much that the successful ones will look anything like the video.

It’s worth remembering the road that brought us here. Writing for Wired, Tim Carmody gives an excellent overview. Back in 2010, Microsoft representatives were making vaguely threatening comments about Kinect hackers as Adafruit sponsored a $3,000 bounty on the creation of open-source drivers for the device. Microsoft quickly reversed course and it was later revealed that one of the Kinect’s designers, Johnny Lee, had secretly sponsored the bounty after he failed to convince Microsoft to open up their drivers. In effect, Microsoft has had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the future.

Nice video

“Things” on The Pirate Bay @ MakerBot Industries. Bre, as always – leading

…Things, and digital designs for things, are very different than other types of media. Copyright doesn’t work the same way on things as it does with music, movies, and books. If you’re into exploring the intellectual property landscape of things, you need to read “It will be awesome if they don’t screw it up” by Michael Weinberg.

The Pirate Bay announcement of a new category for digital designs is interesting because it’s another place where people can share digital designs for real things. As a technology, torrents are particularly great for super mega giant files because they distribute the downloading load and I’m curious to see what kinds of things will begin to show up in that category. Because The Pirate Bay takes a bold, no-holds-barred approach to sharing, I’m sure there will be controversies as companies and people who long for the proprietary days of the 20th century come to terms with the raw power of contemporary sharing technology. Cue squeaking of the world’s tiniest violin.

In the contemporary age of sharing, those who share will be the leaders of tomorrow. The sharers will be the ones who will emerge in the 21st century as winners in the rapidly changing innovative landscape. I’ve consistently advised individuals and companies to push their comfort level and share more. If you have a company that feels threatened by the idea of someone sharing digital designs for your products, I suggest you join the sharing community and share those design files yourself on Thingiverse.com.

(pictured above, the Parrot AR Drone)

By now, you’ve probably seen this article that Phil wrote over on MAKE about how to save the Post Office — one suggestion was that drone aircraft could be used to pick-up and deliver the mail. Though I personally don’t think it will save the Postal Service (assuming the tech existed, it could not be implemented quickly enough at this point), I still thought it was a pretty cool idea. It got me started thinking about these drone things and what they could be used for, so I made up a short list of ideas.

It is by no means exhaustive, and there are several advancements in the technology which would have to occur before the ideas can become reality, but the fun of dreaming about the future is looking passed the limitations of now. A lot of people talk about how drones will revolutionize warfare and surveillance — while definitely true, that’s not really my thing, so I decided instead to focus mostly on public health and safety. This is a partial list, but you can read the whole thing on my blog.

In the future, drones will…

… direct traffic: There is an accident or fuel spill or something on a highway. The police car rolls up: now the officer has to investigate the situation _and_ control/avoid the traffic at the same time, or wait for a second officer to show up. In the future, a drone — launched from the roof of a police car or emergency vehicle and equipped with a suspended blinky sign — will hover in place keeping traffic a safe distance away. The message on the sign will be remotely controlled by the officer (who can update it in real time) and it will tell you what’s going on: “keep to the left” or “slow down, accident ahead” or “oil on roadway: proceed with caution”, etc. They could also provide temporary traffic signals in the case of a power outage, where the regular stoplights might cease to function.

… help firefighters working structure fires: Drones will go airborne and scope out a burning building from above, allowing a bird’s eye view of the fire and helping track how it spreads. A camera (possibly IR) feed relayed to the ground will be useful in detecting an impending roof collapse or locating trapped survivors that the firefighters on the ground cannot see. These drones might also carry grappling hook ropes into position, to aid in either pulling a building down or providing an escape route. In addition, they will…

… be equipped with powerful lights. This can be used in emergency situations for lighting large, outdoor areas quickly. It can also be used by filmmakers and photographers to provide high-angle focused or diffused light sources. I can’t tell you how many shoots I’ve done where I wished for an easily positioned (and controllable) overhead light.

… transport clean water: one of the biggest problems in developing countries is the lack of fresh, clean water. Contaminated or dirty water causes all sorts of diseases, including dysentery, but often sources of clean water are a day’s walk away or more. Sometimes pipelines are not an option either, due to geography or other barriers. Water-bearing drones (“aquarians”) can be used to carry water from the clean sources to the people who need it.

… chase away birds at airports: birds getting sucked into jet engines poses a serious safety risk, particularly on takeoff and landing. This problem is currently dealt with by using decoys or actively hunting the birds. A squadron of drones could be useful flying around in pseudo-random low-level patterns and generally creating an unfriendly environment for the birds.

Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted @ latimes.com.

Germany with its manufacturing base and export prowess is the U.S. of yesteryear, an economic power unlike any of its European neighbors. It has thrived on principles America seems to have lost.

Their secret: little debt, frugal habits and a government that is intensely focused on high production, low inflation and extensive social services.

That has given them job security and good medical care as well as well-maintained roads, trains and bike paths. Both of their adult children are out on their own, thanks in part to Germany’s job-training system and heavy subsidies for university education.

For instance, Volkmar’s out-of-pocket costs for stomach surgery and 10 days in a hospital totaled just $13 a day. College tuition for their son runs about $260 a semester.

Germany, with its manufacturing base and export prowess, is the America of yesteryear, an economic power unlike any of itsEuropean neighbors. As the world’s fourth-largest economy, it has thrived on principles that the United States seems to have gradually lost.

Read more.

On a related note, Germany as a country is one of our top customers – they all seem to love electronics and making things.

The Postal service’s “estimate shipping” is down for first class international. There was a rate change and some API/tech changes over the weekend, we’re looking in to this now. We appreciate your patience while we look in to this!

Record time, and on a Sunday – we fixed this! They changed a few things so we needed to update our code to reflect their changes, everyone should be all set now. Thanks!

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

…

…a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

…

For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies. For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.

…

Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States. In China, it took 15 days.

From the mail bag… Dear Adafruit…

I just wanted to tell you folks at Adafruit that I really appreciate your approach to customer support forums. Unlike similar outfits, you actually help the customers on a reasonably prompt basis. Other places seem to randomly choose which problems to address – often serious design flaws go uncorrected.

I know support is hard and, in addition to the normal ones, you get questions that range from stunningly ignorant to angry to completely off the wall. You always seem to take every question seriously and do your best to answer (well, maybe not 100% but darn high). Good for you.

Stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation. Like many others, we at Adafruit believe SOPA/PIPA will impose harmful regulations on American businesses.

The Internet blacklist legislation—known as PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House—invites Internet security risks, threatens online speech, and hampers Internet innovation. Urge your members of Congress to reject this Internet blacklist campaign in both its forms!

To make the most impact, we’re asking YOU to do two things. Today, use our handy tool to send an email to your representatives, letting them know you oppose these bills and they should too. Then, on January 23, when the Senate is back in session (and scheduled to vote on PIPA on January 24), call your Senator and tell him or her that it’s time to stand with the Internet and against the Internet blacklists!

Read more and take action on the EFF’s site.

Which sites in the electronics space are making a difference?

Adafruit Industries
Dangerous Prototypes
DorkbotPDX
Evil Mad Scientist
Hack-a-Day
Hacked Gadgets
MAKE Magazine (And O’Reilly Media)
MakerBot Industries
NYC Resistor
Sparkfun
WIRED

You have many choices for who you support to supply you with news, electronics and more. Please support the companies that are using their sites to raise awareness of this important issue.

Pretty amazing to hear Alexander Graham Bell in these restored recordings, via Element14:

Carl Haber and Earl Cornell, the restoration specialist, used a hardware/software system called IRENE/3D to captures sound direct from any disc in any condition. What IRENE/3D does is take high resolution images of the broken disc while spinning and  removes the errors of the damaged disc or cylinders. They then mimic the stylus as it moved over to the media, on a computer, reproducing the originally recorded voices.

At Berkeley National Laboratory, the software was used to scan a 125 year old recordings from Alexander Graham Bell, (cousin) Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter. The disc, along with 200 others, were sent to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. However, a way to play them did not accompany the recordings. Over time the glass and wax recording began to crack and crumble. (So much for safekeeping).

Haber and Cornell used IRENE/3D to create a high-res image of one broken disc’s surface.

More about the IRENE project here, and from the Smithsonian project page.

Also, you have to love the way the “tone” in the third video sounds like they’re just using a pigeon as a primitive function generator. Must be some kind of special “carrier” pigeon.

MakerBot Playsets…

Handcrafted dollhouses are nothing new to the serious Maker, but MakerBot is taking steps to make this practice easier and more widely adopted than ever before. For the rest of January, MakerBot and a squadron of Makers will be introducing the MakerBot Playsets to the Thingiverse: 1:18 scale dollhouses as full of imagination and mischief as craft, modeling techniques, and cleverness.

MakerBot’s own design superstar Michael “Skimbal” Curry, creator of such Thingiverse megahits as the Turtle Shell Racers and Gothic Cathedral playset, starts the ball rolling by architecting a pair of MakerBot Playset buildings. Introducing two new Thingiverse superstars: Cushwa and PrettyLittleThings are doing a tremendous job furnishing these playsets with their imaginations.

We’re sure LEGO having a meeting to see if they should develop their own 3D printer, partner or buy MakerBot. It’s interesting,it’s very likely that someone is going to make a real playset for kids that celebrates engineering (for girls and boys) before LEGO will get to it We really want to print out a Ladyada’s workshop, complete with Pick-a-place, laser cutter and Mosfet the cat.

So cool, Hudson writes -

This weekend PMF and I cleaned an IBM 129 Card Data Recorder and were able to fairly reliably punch cards once we were done. When we started it would frequently jam during feeding, mis-feed during the punch, and not cleanly stack the cards in the output bin.

PirateBox DIY @ David Darts Wiki.

PirateBox is a self-contained mobile communication and file sharing device. Inspired by pirate radio and the free culture movement, PirateBox utilizes Free, Libre and Open Source software (FLOSS) to create mobile wireless file sharing networks where users can anonymously chat and share images, video, audio, documents, and other digital content.

The PirateBox can be built using a number of different configurations depending upon your needs and budget. The basic system consists of a lightweight web server connected to a wireless device. When users join the PirateBoxwireless network and open a web browser, they are automatically redirected to the PirateBox welcome page. They can then begin uploading or downloading files.

Radio hams seal launch deal for FUNcube satellite @ Electronics Weekly via freaklabs…

UK educational satellite FUNcube-1 will be launched by in the third quarter this year.

The spacecraft, which has been created volunteer radio amateur organisation AMSAT-UK, will join a number of other spacecraft on a DNEPR rocket sometime in the third quarter of 2012
“Our target audience is students at both primary and secondary levels, and a simple cheap USB dongle ‘ground station’ for schools has already been developed,” said a FUNcube spokesman.

The 145MHz dongle means satellite signals can be received directly by students.

“Telemetry will give details of the spacecraft’s health – battery voltages and temperatures – and from this it will be possible to determine its spin rate and attitude by plotting simple graphs,” said the spokesman. “Additionally, experimental data and messages can be displayed in an attractive format and provide stimulation and encouragement for students to become interested in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] subjects in a unique way.”

There is also a 435 to 145 MHz linear transponder for radio amateurs to use during local non-school times.

Launch will be from Yasny in southern Russia near to the Kazakhstan border, brokered by Delft-based ISIS Launch Services.

“The spacecraft needs to be completed by the end of July 2012, ready for shipping from the Netherlands to Russia,” said the spokesman.

More stickers tests

WebGL Space Ship Maker (and 3d printer) – Ship – shapeWright.com. A glimpse of what may be very common soon, design and 3D print from browser… via HN.

We’re working on our product line up for 2012 and it’s going to be filled with great stuff all of you are going to do amazing things with. One of the things we’re thinking about is how many of the products/projects like the Arduino are getting more networked, and therefore the sensors attached are getting more networked.

One of the earliest projects we did to show this was through a real shipping product was the Tweet-a-watt.

Very soon, with makers/hackers leading the way, devices will favorite, tag, like, follow, friend and un-friend. People like to do this, but smart connected devices will like to do this even more. What it will mean for artists, designers and engineers who creatively use these technologies?

Perhaps one day your Tweeting power meter will automatically “friend” the other ones you install in your home, and if you’re publicly sharing the data they’ll follow others in your area. We believe in open-source and open-source hardware, so you’re always able to know what is being shared, stored and how the device works. We think this is important.

We hope to have some fun examples soon, we’ll be showing some cool stuff on some upcoming ASK AN ENGINEER shows about all this, stay tuned.

DNA Sequencing is Now Improving Faster Than Moore’s Law @ Forbes.

A “worldwide genomics revolution” is upon us. The genomics industry marked a new milestone on Tuesday. As Forbes’ Matthew Herper reported in three separate posts and nearly 100 related Tweets, the two leading manufacturers of DNA sequencing instruments announced almost simultaneously at an investors’ conference that they would introduce new machines this year capable of sequencing an entire human genome in a single day. Life Technologies said its forthcoming Ion Proton machine, which processes DNA on a semiconductor chip, will do it for a cost of $1,000 per genome.

That’s our biohacking skill badge, we’ll be needing to send these out soon to many people it seems!

Cubify™ – Express yourself in 3D™. Wow, 3DS is coming in to the low-cost 3D printing arena…

The Cube™ – the first 3D Printer designed for your home!

From the living room to the kitchen, the Cube’s portable, plug and play design enables everybody in the family to express their creativity like never before.

With ten different material colors to choose from enjoy the freedom to print in your true colors or to mix it up.

Cube™ 3D Printer is ready-to-print your ideas, provide a new dimension to your imagination and help you share your creations with others in the Cubify™ community.

• Prints Objects up to 5.5 X 5.5 X 5.5 in. (140 x 140 x 140 mm)
• EZ Load Print Cartridge
• Durable, ABS Plastic in 10 Colors
• 50 Free 3D Print Files
• USB & Wi-Fi Connectivity

Glimpse of Stephen Hawking’s Computer via Slashdot.

“Intel application engineer Travis Bonifield has been working closely with Hawking to communicate with the world for a decade. He’s traveled from the United States to England every few years to hand-deliver Hawking a customized PC. Bonifield talks about the technology that powers the customized system.”

Hawking’s latest machine is a Thinkpad x220. Lately he’s been trouble speaking due to weakened cheek muscles (down to one word per minute). New Scientist has a brief interview with Hawking’s outgoing technician on the challenges he faced. It turns out Hawking is still using a DECtalk (despite some reports suggesting otherwise).

2011: The Stats » The Kickstarter Blog.

2011 was a year of milestones. In April we celebrated our second birthday by announcing $50 million in pledges. In July we reached 10,000 successfully funded projects. And in October we reached $100 million in pledges and had our one millionth backer. It was an eventful year.

3D Printer Company Needs an Electrical Engineer! at Formlabs @ Adafruit Jobs Board.

Formlabs is a funded MIT spinoff developing a high quality, low cost 3D printer that works out of the box, enabling designers and makers to create 3D forms by simply hitting the print button. Our product will fuse a novel additive manufacturing technology with a unique design-centric approach to achieve an incredible user experience yet to be seen in personal fabrication.
We’re looking for a talented and passionate full-time Electrical Engineer to harness mastery over digital, analog, and electromechanical devices and lead the development of the hardware brains of our product. Equity compensation for your early-stage involvement in our company from the ground floor will be provided.

Responsibilities: 
Own the development of electrical systems, from prototyping to volume PCB production.
Design and implement embedded system architecture, and work closely with our software engineers to integrate firmware and software drivers
Work closely with our mechanical engineers and industrial designers to develop product grade hardware integration
Manage PCB fabrication at scale, unit assembly, and QA

Requirements:
3+ years of experience in the design and troubleshooting of embedded systems, analog/digital feedback control systems, and motor control electronics
Ability to design, build, and debug robust and tightly integrated PCBs
Good knowledge of common embedded peripherals and communication protocols
Strong embedded C programming skills

What we really really want:
A skilled electromancer who can wield their powers to cause many intricate subsystems to sing together in perfect harmony
An individual who finds true joy in creating precise designs as well as nasty hacks (when necessary)
Someone who is passionate about and/or has experience in the field of rapid prototyping
Experience designing and shipping electronic products in volume

Location:
We are located in Industry Labs at 288 Norfolk St., Suite #4, Cambridge, MA 02139. 
http://industry-lab.com/

Limor and Phil chatted with WIRED yesterday while Limor installed a new fan system in our laser – Tim Carmody did a great job painting the landscape of what’s happened and what is to come… Microsoft Bets Big on Kinect for Windows, But Splits Its Community @ Epicenter / Wired.com.

The few bits of genuine news in Microsoft’s CES keynote on Monday all concerned Kinect, the company’s natural user interface sensor. CEO Steve Ballmer announced that 18 million devices had been sold since launch, either as standalone units or bundled with Xbox 360. A smattering of Xbox content deals with Fox and others, using Kinect as a selling point.

And finally, Kinect for Windows: a brand-new software development kit, developer program and PC-optimized hardware device launching February 1, designed to decisively push Kinect beyond gaming and media, precisely when companies like Samsung are charging behind the Xbox with gesture recognition for TV sets.

Shining a light on Kinect and pairing it with Windows shows that even with PC sales slumping, Microsoft’s future is bigger than the PC, at least as it’s been narrowly construed. It also shows that Microsoft is working towards integration of its far-flung products at a level higher than a common set of orthogonal Metro tiles. And with Kinect and Windows Phone 7 drawing raves, Microsoft’s on the verge of regaining a reputation for innovation, not just domination.

But make no mistake: this was almost entirely an accident. The push to bring the Kinect to the PC and create a developer community for the device came almost entirely outside and in spite of Microsoft. And by wrapping its arms around Kinect development, Microsoft isn’t simply embracing it or even asserting its ownership; it’s also breaking that development community into pieces.

Read more.