Congrats to Adam Gutterman for finding the cake. The cake is hidden on an internal ground layer, printed in “negative” (i.e., lack of copper on a copper plane). The visible-light photos I make of the motherboards are all taken with front-lit scanners, so the negative image is virtually invisible when viewed in that way. There’s also a solid copper ground plane behind the cake as well, so you can’t simply hold the board up to a light to find the cake (hence the larger bounty). The only two methods to find the cake are to either X-ray the board, or to mechanically delaminate the board using either knife or sandpaper (or both) to reveal the cake. And for the record, the region where the cake is located is electrically inert, such that defacing the chumby logo to reveal the cake does not damage the function of the device.
I just finished my first musical instrument based on the Kinect controller. The Therenect is a virtual Theremin, which defines two virtual antenna points that allow controlling the pitch and volume of a simple oscillator. The distance to these points can be controlled by freely moving the hand in three dimensions or by reshaping the hand, which allows gestures that are quite similar to playing an actual Theremin.
At the moment I am getting in contact with some trained Theremin players in order to tune the application to fully simulate the behavior of an actual Theremin. We will then publish some additional videos with a more musical experience … The software has been developed using the Open Frameworks and OpenKinect libraries and will be released under an open source license when it is more mature.
In his videos and in over 300 radio pieces Bill Hammack has explored the technological world. He’s revealed the secrets of his high-tech underwear, explored the mysteries of mood rings, probed the perils of nanotechnology, and examined the threats to privacy from technology. Bill’s work reflects a humanistic approach: He emphasizes the human dimension to technology – from the trial, tribulations, and triumphs of inventors and scientists to the effect of technology on our daily lives.
Back in the day, hands-on photography required you to be closeted away in a darkened room, where you dunked sheets of paper into solutions of smelly chemicals. Now we manipulate photographs with software, a much less messy and oppressive process. But wouldn’t it be great to have more control still—even before the photo is taken? Many cameras allow you to adjust their exposure settings manually, but that’s about it. What if you could have full command of your camera’s hardware?
Such thoughts motivated an anonymous programmer going by the online name VitalyB to reverse engineer the firmware for Canon’s PowerShot series of digital point-and-shoot cameras. With hacker-level control, he could do things the engineers at Canon had never thought of.
CITIES are the great engines of growth in the world economy. Istanbul, with income growth of 5.5% and employment growth of 7.3% over the past year, is currently the world’s best-performing city, according to a new report by the Brookings Institution and the London School of Economics. The report ranks 150 cities from across the globe according to growth in gross value added per person (a proxy for income) and employment.
Adafruit has WISH LISTS! For your shopping pleasure! This means you can add things to a “wish list” and then send it to someone else (or yourself) and that person, or you can add ALL the items to cart and buy them!
Over the last year or so many customers, students, hacker spaces and more told us what type of features they’ve wanted in a wish list and we’re please to launch this before the holiday season!
To use the wish list just visit any product page and click the “Add to Wishlist” button. Later you can email it to someone, or yourself!
The email can be HTML or text, Adafruit does not store, collect or spam any address you use, the wish lists are private, it’s up to you to share them if you’d like – you must be logged in to your Adafruit.com account to email a wishlist.
I would say that the real drivers of the “Post-American World” won’t be China… or India… or Brazil — or any nation for that matter. The real drivers will be women. Women entrepreneurs. Women business, political, academic and cultural leaders. Women innovators. The truth is women already are the most dynamic and fastest-growing economic force in the world today. Women now control over $20 trillion dollars in spending worldwide. To put that into context — that’s an economic impact larger than the U.S., China and India economies combined.
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So, let’s for the moment forget all the talk about the “China Century” or the “India Century” or the “BRIC Century.” The real story is that the 21st century is going to be the “Women’s Century.” As the world desperately looks for ways to restart and reset the global economy, the solution lies right in front of us. In the words of World Bank President Robert Zoellick, gender equality is simply “smart economics.”
I’ve been looking at some interesting data from the NSF regarding women in engineering. Here’s what I found:
Data from Table C-4, NSF Statistics on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering
Between 2000 and 2008, the total number of 4-year engineering degrees awarded in the US increased from 59,497 to 69,895. Of the over 10,000 additional degrees, very nearly all of them went to male students. While the number of degrees awarded to females remained constant at around 12,500, those awarded to males increased by about 1,200 per year; from 47,281 in 2000 to 57,977 in 2008. This increase in turn reduced the percentage of women receiving engineering degrees by about 2 percent, from 20.5% to 18.5%.
Data from Table C-4, NSF Statistics on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering
At the same time, the ratio of women to men who were awarded 4-year degrees in all fields remained largely the same (3:2).
Women receiving graduate engineering degrees, on the other hand, increased by about 2,300 over the same period (from 20.5 to 22.5).
Data from Tables E-1, E-5 and E-6, NSF Statistics on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering
But while “engineering” is typically considered in an academic context, at least as far as credentials are concerned, there are other areas that should not be ignored. The open hardware community, for example, represents a less established, but nonetheless valid, arena for similar talents to flourish. Consider the Open Hardware Summit. In contrast to the percentages stated above, of the individual speakers at the Summit, over 30% (4 out of 13) were women. Further, it should be noted that the conference itself was organized by two women, with about 23% of attendees being female. Granted, this cannot be considered a direct comparison, but it is still interesting.
I am very curious as to why the number of women pursuing engineering degrees has effectively stayed the same, while the number of women attending college grows by about 20,000 each year. At the same time, I think it’s fair to say that engineering as a profession, and technical professions in general, have become less stigmatized as exclusively male. So it’s a bit discouraging to see that the number of women pursuing a career in this field has basically stagnated. And I am at a loss to explain why.
What do you think?
Many thanks to Alica Gibb for providing attendance data from the Open Hardware Summit.
The second in Weekend Edition’s feature on hackerspaces, featuring Bre Pettis (MakerBot/NYC Resistor), Chris Thompson (Hive76), Jack Zylkin (Hive76) and Patrick Buckley (TechShop). This segment focuses on hackerspaces as a launchpad for new businesses. via NPR:
Last week, we broadcast a story on DIY hackerspaces. Now, those are real, not virtual spaces. They’re sort of communal work rooms where do-it-yourselfers can find the tools and expertise to repurpose everyday items.
This week, Jon Kalish reports on how these facilities serve as incubators for small businesses.
JON KALISH: You can join a hackerspace if you want to do crafts and put together electronic kits. But most are much more than that. They offer state of the art machinery and like-minded people who can inspire your own creativity. Hackerspaces are an ecosystem for invention and innovation.
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KALISH: The Makerbot was created by three members of the Brooklyn Hackerspace NYC Resistor.
Mr. BRE PETTIS (Co-founder, Makerbot): Being at a hackerspace is what let us to start Makerbot.
KALISH: Hacker Bre Pettis is co-founder of Makerbot.
Mr. PETTIS: We had tools there. We had friends there all the time who were resources and helpful. And we just had a space that we could go to that wasn’t our living room, that wasn’t our kitchen, that wasn’t our closet, that was shared and could go and be creative at. And I just think it’s so important if you’re going to push the boundaries, to have a place where you can do it and have support.
KALISH: Pettis and his fellow hackers initially put together Makerbot kits at NYC Resistor, making parts with the hackerspace’s laser cutter. But demand was so high, they had to rent a manufacturing space of their own, which is known as the Bot Cave. Makerbot now has 15 employees.
Number of Processing users, every four weeks, since 2005. Long version: this is a tally of the number of unique users who run the Processing environment every four weeks, as measured by the number of machines checking for updates.
Here’s a sale that looks pretty good, 60% ALL ebooks at O’Reilly – Code DDF2H. Good time to stock up on programming books. We are not affiliated with this sale and do not make $ from it (that code is for everyone) – but we thought it might be a good deal for folks to check out.
Printable catalog (PDF)
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