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February 9, 2009

Kindle 2 photos and video from the press conference + Stephen King reading...

I was at the Kindle 2 press conference today, here are some photos and a video (40 minutes). Some quick hits...

16 shades of gray (previous kindle was 4)
new five way rocker
live dictionary as you read
"read to me" text to speech
screen is 20% faster
super tiny form factor, nice design, iphonelike
25% more battery life 2 weeks on one charge
ships 2/24, $359
whispersync / wireless bookingmarking allows you to pick up where you left off reading on any device (pc/mac/iphone?)
to get a PDFs/txt files on the device you mail it to yourself, it gets converted that's the only way.

Not exactly ready for the pages of MAKE, but getting closer!

Posted by Phillip Torrone | Feb 9, 2009 05:30 PM
Gadgets | Permalink | Comments (1) | Suggest a Site

Toolbox: Portable lighting

A lot of what makes a successful DIY build is not in the gory details of build itself, it's in everything that surrounds it: the working environment, the available tools, the preparation done beforehand, the patience and working methods of the builder, etc.

Soldering is a good example. Successful soldering is not so much about the soldering technique itself -- most people can learn that pretty quickly. It's about keeping the iron and components clean, keeping the iron hot, and spending the time to carefully set up each weld so that you get proper heat and solder transfer and flow.

One overlooked factor in the working environment is often adequate lighting. I was amazed, after years of haphazard lighting on my work bench (from nothing but ambient, overhead lighting, to a cheap incandescent clip on, to a floor lamp next to my desk), when I got a good swing-arm, bright florescent lamp. With this new light, and a magnifying glass on my third hand, I could actually see what I was soldering! I felt like a fool having gone so long basically working in the dark. When I got a magnifying light for my hobby desk, where I paint sci-fi 28mm miniatures, suddenly I could see levels of detail I couldn't have dreamed of with a clip-on incandescent.

For portable lighting, I like lights that are very directable, lights that clip on, twist around (snake lights), or stand on their own. I like to be able to direct the beam exactly where I want it.

Years ago, my brother-in-law, an auto tools salesman, gave me a Stylus Reach Streamlight ($21) for Christmas. This is a flexible-head (7" extension) pen light with a super-bright LED on the end. It has a pocket clip and a clip that the extension attaches to. You can also use it to attach the light to narrow objects (like PC case frames). I also use the clip like a stand and can direct the light where I want it, hands-free. This tool has lived in my zipper-case electronics tool kit ever since he gave it to me and I use it all the time.

This year, bro-in-law gave me a new toy, the AmPro T19701 6 LED Flashlight with Magnetic Pick-up Tool ($15). This thing is SO cool. It has six high-intensity LEDs in the lens and a 20" telescoping rod with a magnetic retriever head on the tip. This rod comes out of the center of the lens. Like a magic trick, it's a real crowd-pleaser. The magnetic head, which is flexible by the way, can pick up as much as three pounds. I have arthritis in my back, so it's hard for me to reach behind computer stations and the like to retrieve lost objects. This super-bright light brings daylight to such areas and a means of grabbing what you find there (at least if it's metal). Pictured above is the flexible,magnetic stand you can also get for the AmPro.

The NovaTac EDC 120T ($111) is a really impressive "tactical light." It weighs next to nothing, fits in the palm of your hand, and will darn-near blind you with its up to 120 Lumens. It's made of matte black aircraft aluminum and is virtually indestructible. You can submerge it up to 66 ft. It has three light settings (.3, 10, and 120 Lumens). It also has a "disorienting strobe" setting. It comes with a belt clip. I got one sent to me for review last fall. A few days later, I went to a late-fall cookout, clipped the light onto my belt, and was ready for anything darkness could throw at me. I didn't end up using it at the party, and when I got home and went to unclip it from my belt, I discovered I somehow already had, inadvertently. The $100 flashlight was gone. My phone was clipped next to it and I must have yanked it off as I unclipped the phone. The light is so lightweight and unobtrusive, I never noticed it was missing. So, if you buy and carry one of these lights, keep an eye on it! If I'd actually paid $100 for it, I'd have been one unhappy camper.

Some friends gave me this snake light for Christmas (what's the deal with gifting me with lights?). It's awesome. It has a 2' bendable shaft with a dome light on the end of it. The LED light has two settings, adjusted by the lid of the dome (all the way open, high beam, slighting closed, dimmer light). I've already used this in a number of situations around the house where I needed direct working light. And I snake it around the bars of my iron bed to use as a book light at night. Really handy. Unfortunately, there's no information on the light itself and I threw away the packaging. I don't know what it's called or where to get it. If anyone knows anything, please post in the comments.

MAKE magazine's Project Editor Paul Spinrad sent me info on this Bandi Light Pen ($9), a ballpoint pen with an LED in front to help you write in the dark. A friend got them in the UK and gave one to Paul. He swears by it. It says he hasn't been able to find them in the states except in wholesale channels. Here's a place in Australia that sells them. Here's the manufacturer (in Korea).

More:

Toolbox: Portable workbench

Toolbox: From "miserable old box" to workshop showpiece

DIY USB Arduino plug

Nothing terribly clever here, but sometimes you've got to build your own tools before the real fun begins. I've been doing some mobile Arduino development and I got annoyed with carrying around a bulky coil of USB cable. I could buy a pre-made A-to-B gender changer, but not at 10pm on a Sunday, when I need instant gratification! Plus, in these hard economic times, why purchase something new if you can avoid it?

So, I chopped the ends off an old cable and spliced/soldered the four wires of the USB A male end to the USB B male end. I wrapped it in heat-shrink and electricians tape, and now I've got a little stub to jack an Arduino into the side of my laptop. The plug fits in the same small case as an Arduino, a breadboard, and a few LEDs, resistors, and hookup wires.

What have you made instead of purchased lately? Let us know in the comments and put your photos up on the MAKE Flickr pool.

HOW TO - Make a Gray Hoverman UHF antenna

MAKE subscriber William F. Dudley Jr. sent us a link to his plans for building a Gray Hoverman UHF Antenna. Why would you want/need a UHF antenna? He explains:

Assuming you get your television "over the air", i.e. from an antenna, then after the transition to digital television, sometime after February 17, 2009, channels 2,3,4 and 5 will cease transmitting on their old frequencies in the VHF band (approx 52-76MHz) and will start transmitting on new channel assignments in the UHF Band. For example, in the NY Metro area, that means that channels 2,4, and 5 will now be at UHF channels 33, 28 and 44. So even if you never had any interest in UHF before, if you like watching WCBS, WNBC, or FOX television from NY City, you'll need to be interested in UHF now. Note that these reassignments are true nationwide, though the actual UHF frequency that 2,3,4 and 5 will be reassigned to depend on what other channels exist in that market.

Build of Gray Hoverman UHF Antenna

MAKE: television Episode 6 - the torrent

Here's the torrent of Episode 6 of Make: television!

Episode 106: Music Machines & Trebuchet
Enter the plugged-in world of Tim Kaiser, a maker who fashions experimental musical instruments from scavenged objects. In the Workshop John Park assembles a portable trebuchet from plastic plumbing pipe, and circuit bender Bianca Pettis demystifies the art of soldering. The Maker Channel presents a Smash Bat that snaps moment-of-impact photos, a drum synthesizer played with Skittles, a pedal-powered tennis ball launcher, and an evil mouse that causes the cursor to misbehave when moved.

Find PDFs to our projects and a guide to all of the previous episodes at makezine.tv

Make: is available in HD on Public Television, Vimeo, Blip, and YouTube.

HOW TO - Make rope from plastic bags

Seems like a lot of work, but it's actually amazing how much rope you get from a single plastic bag. I love that his young son is directing the video. Cute.

Too Many Hobbies, Too Little Time

Staredown betwen Tim O'Reilly and Einstein at TED

Joi Ito took this fantastic photo (Creative Commens Attribution 2.0 Generic License) of Tim O'Reilly studying David Hanson's Einstein robot at TED last week.

We plan to publish a robotics issue of MAKE later this year, and we'd like to include a project for making a robot that has facial expressions. If you've built such a robot and want to write a how-to for us, let me know!

HOW TO - Identity-preserving ski mask

Andrew Salomone figured out a way to make a ski mask that doesn't hide who you are. He writes:

It's pretty easy to wear warm clothes on just about every part of your body except for your face. As far as I can tell, the main reason that cold-weather facial attire is somewhat socially taboo is because it generally obscures the identity of the person wearing it. Despite all of the progress our society has made towards accepting and treating all people fairly, we are still yet to escape the notion that a person in a balaclava (or ski mask) is generally up to no good. The "Identity Preserving Balaclava" is my solution to the social stigma associated with the identity concealing effect of the average balaclava. Here is the method and pattern that I used to make my own "Identity Preserving Balaclava." Hopefully other people will be able to use this to liberate their cold faces from social repression!

Sugar on a Stick: try the OLPC experience on any PC

Sugar on an EEE PC

Lilliputing reports on Sugar on a Stick, an easy way for you to try the XO Laptop's user interface on any PC:

The OLPC XO Laptop may have sparked the netbook revolution by showing it's possible to create and mass produce a low cost but quite capable computer. The project provided the spark that led to the creation of the Asus Eee PC, HP Mini Note, and scores of other low cost ultraportable computers. But there are a few things the OLPC team did that have yet to be imitated, including the group's advancement in cheap display technology and the innovative Sugar OS which packs a whole bunch of educational tools into an open source desktop environment.

But a few of the founding members of the OLPC project have moved on to new enterprises, where they're hoping to bring their innovative ideas to the masses. Mary Lou Jepsen's Pixel Qi is expected to begin producing low cost, ultra low power, high quality displays this year. And Sugar OS creator Walter Bender has moved on to Sugar Labs, a group which hopes to bring the Sugar interface to additional devices.

The goal is to bring the Sugar OS to any computer, not just the OLPC XO Laptop. And as step one, the team released Sugar on a Stick a while back. Basically, what Sugar on a Stick lets you do is download and install the Sugar OS onto a USB flash disk with 1GB of storage space or more. The end result is a USB stick that you can insert into pretty much any x86 based computer to boot into the Sugar environment.

Sugar on a Stick: Run the OLPC operating system on any PC

Cheap and easy patchbay for circuit bending

Patching out an instrument for easy experimentation is a great idea - but drilling an array of holes and installing the appropriate hardware can be a bit of a hurdle to overcome. Experimentalists Anonymous points out this inventive use of a breadboard as a simple patchbay [scoll to bottom of page]. No need for banana plug or alligator clips, just trim some regular solid core jumper wire as patch cables. Wiring up the board should be pretty straightforward once you remove the breadboard's backplate.

From the pages of MAKE:

MAKE, Volume 04, Page 90

Inside the Elphel open source camera

Elphel Open Source Camera

LinuxDevices has published a paper that goes deep into into the open source (hardware and software) Elphel cameras:

Foreword: -- This paper describes the recent imaging advances by Elphel, supplier of open source (hardware and software) cameras to customers that include Google (for select Street View and book scanning projects). It should interest imaging engineers, fans of open source, and those curious about open source hardware.

The paper was written by Dr. Andrey Filippov, the Russian physicist who founded Elphel in 2001. Filippov has contributed many papers to LinuxDevices through the years, as regular readers will be aware.

... Filippov includes a fairly mind-boggling description of the image compression algorithms used in Elphel cameras. He provides instructions for calculating the number of electrons each of your camera sensor's pixels can hold before welling over, and then provides a javascript calculator to use that "full well capacity" FWC figure, along with several other specifications, to determine the effective bit depth of your sensor...

Elphel camera under the hood: from Verilog to PHP

Upgrading the SSD in an EEE PC 900 running XP

Upgrading the EEE PC SSD

A while back, JKKMobile reported on some new upgrades from MyDigitalDiscount: replacement SSDs (solid state drives) for a number of netbooks, including the ASUS EEE PC 900. As you can see in the comments on that post, a number of EEE PC 900 users had compatibility problems with this upgrade; the first couple of versions shipped by MyDigitalDiscount simply didn't work with the Celeron EEE PCs (including mine). A couple RMAs later, I was in possession of the latest and greatest SATA variant of the drive, and I'm happy to report that it's not only working, but it's really fast!

Initially, I decided to keep my configuration as-is, so I wanted to clone my original drive onto the new SSD. This was pretty simple because the upgrade replaces the slower 16GB secondary (D:) drive in my EEE PC. So all I had to do was copy the files to the new drive, swap the drives, and reboot. At least that's what I had to do in theory. I had made my life a little harder by not only installing some apps on the D: drive, but by moving my shell folders to D: as well.

So, if you're like me, and you have some important junk on that D: drive before you upgrade, try these steps:

Boot into Safe Mode (hold F8 as Windows XP starts up).
Log in as an admin user.
Plug your new SSD drive into your EEE PC using the supplied USB cable; wait for Windows to detect and install the drive. Format it as NTFS.
Open a Command Prompt and copy the files from the internal drive to the new SSD. For example: xcopy /s D: E: (replace D: with the drive letter of your 16GB SSD and E: with the drive letter of the new runcore SSD). This could take a while.
Shut down when it's done.

Now the drive should be cloned, and you can install the new SSD:

Install the new SSD (make sure you unplug your EEE PC and remove the battery)
Boot into BIOS by pressing F2 as the system boots. Go into Advanced: IDE/SATA Configuration and set SATA Master to [Auto]. Go into Boot: Hard Disk Drives, and set the RunCore drive as the 2nd Drive. Save the BIOS changes and reboot.
Boot Windows into safe mode again.
Go into Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management and change the drive letter from E: (or whatever it is) to D: (or whatever the old drive was)
Reboot and all should work as it did originally, just a lot faster!

So how much faster was it? I ran PassMark Performance Test on the D: drive before and after, and came up with these results:

Benchmark	Original 16GB SSD	New 32GB SSD
Sequential Read	19.3 MBytes/s	64.1 MBytes/s
Sequential Write	5.8 MBytes/s	42.1 MBytes/s
Sequential Random Seek + RW	0.1 MBytes/s	12.0 MBytes/s
Disk Mark	18.3	427.6

Runcore and MyDigitalSSD team up: High Speed SSD for $69

LED fish = art circuitry

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Feurig etched a well-planned fish-shaped circuit to hosts a slew of pink LEDs as scales. Great work - though it would be nice to see all those lovely copper traces exposed in the final product.

A lot of work goes into designing circuitry and etching your own provides an excellent opportunity for self expression. When planning your next board, consider how those lines can serve an aesthetic purpose in addition to their primary function - you may end up wanting a transparent enclosure or perhaps none at all.

We've covered some similar 'illuminated circuits' in the past, for some examples you can even make yourself, check out -

Implied chaos & sound circuits of Ciat-Lonbarde

Fyrall Comptur: Circuit Bent From Scratch

From the pages of MAKE:

Volume 10

MAKE, Volume 10, page 28 - Illuminated Circuits

Haptic Compass

You've heard of magnetic orientation in migrating birds, the theorized "sixth" sense that allows them to see the earth's magnetic field using deposits of magnetite in their beaks. To see what this experience might be like for a human, you can build a north-sensing feedback device into a belt using some pager motors, an Arduino, and a digital compass.

Last night I built a haptic compass, also known as the Clown Belt. This is a belt which features twelve vibrating pager motors equally spaced around the perimeter of the belt. The control box uses a digital compass to determine which way is north, and continuously buzzes the appropriate motor. The effect is subtle but noticeable. I feel like I've been granted a strange new sense of direction.

The belt has additional features: it can be connected via serial to my iPhone which delivers up a bearing to an arbitrary destination. I have a first generation iPhone, which means my current location is highly approximate, but for distant locations it works great. It can also be controlled wirelessly over an XBee RF link, but the peculiar application of that is the subject of a future post.

I first heard of this hack in a March 2007 Wired article, titled Mixed Feelings, which describes a few experiments that show how our traditional 5 senses can be tricked into proxying data from external extra-sensory devices:

The world is full of gadgets that detect things humans cannot. The hard part is processing the input. Neuroscientists don't know enough about how the brain interprets data. The science of plugging things directly into the brain -- artificial retinas or cochlear implants -- remains primitive.

So here's the solution: Figure out how to change the sensory data you want -- the electromagnetic fields, the ultrasound, the infrared -- into something that the human brain is already wired to accept, like touch or sight. The brain, it turns out, is dramatically more flexible than anyone previously thought, as if we had unused sensory ports just waiting for the right plug-ins. Now it's time to build them.

Vibrating belts can give you the ability to sense direction. Rare earth magnets, implanted in your fingertips, can enable you to detect the electromagnetic field surrounding live AC wiring. If you could choose to sense anything beyond the typical 5 human senses, what would it be, what device could you build to detect it, and how would you jack your existing senses into that new data feed?

On the Haptic Compass

Noise Night - 2/12/09 & 2/26/09

Boston area benders and builders be aware - Noise Night is happening on the 12th and 26th of this month @ Willoughby & Baltic - even if that little octopus [see above] complains!

The ongoing event now has its own Flickr and YouTube groups. Jimmie P posted a sampling of noise jamming that went down at a recent night, putting the 'fun' back in 'function generator' -

In the Maker Shed: Aurorarium

Later this week I will have a detailed build and video of the Aurorarium kit from the Maker Shed. It looks like a cool kit that I should be able to hack or modify to make it even more unique. The Aurorarium is another kit made by Gakken, so my expectations are high.

Create your own aurora-like effects with this awesome device. Leave the cone on and enjoy the soft changing lights, or fill the tray with water and see the amazing aurora lights on your wall or ceiling. Instructions are in Japanese but features highly detailed assembly pictures, sorry no English translation at this time.

Don't worry that the Aurorarium doesn't include English instructions. I looked over the Japanese version and this kit is really easy to build. The pictures, along with my build instructions, are all you will ever need.

Maker Birthdays: Jules Verne

Today is Jules Verne's birthday. Verne was born in Nantes, France on February 8, 1828 and died on March 24, 1905. Along with H.G. Wells, his work gave birth to the science fiction genre. One of the things Verne pioneered, and much of the sci-fi to follow has emulated, was writing about the fantastic upon a foundation of real science and engineering. I remember, when reading his works as a kid, marveling at how possible he made these adventures sound, to the moon, through the oceans, and to the center of the earth. Sure, a lot of it was pure fantasy and scientifically unsound (e.g. firing men to the moon in the barrel of a giant gun) but there was always enough reality behind it, and enough imaginative speculation, to fire ones imagination. And like a lot of sci-fi after him, Verne inspired generations of engineers, scientists, and garage makers to try and turn his fantasies into reality. And, of course, there's the whole genre of steampunk, which likely wouldn't exist without Jules Verne. So Happy Birthday, Jules, from the entire maker community.

BTW: Wikipedia points out some fascinating similarities between Verne's trip to the moon in From the Earth to the Moon and the Apollo missions:

The story is also notable in that Verne attempted to do some rough calculations as to the requirements for the cannon and, considering the total lack of any data on the subject at the time, some of his figures are surprisingly close to reality. However, his scenario turned out to be impractical for safe manned space travel since a much longer muzzle would have been required to reach escape velocity while limiting acceleration to survivable limits for the passengers.
The story bears similarities to the real-life Apollo program:

Verne's cannon was named the Columbiad; the Apollo 11 command module was named Columbia.

The spacecraft crew consisted of three persons in each case.

The physical dimensions of the projectile are very close to the dimensions of the Apollo CSM.

Verne's voyage blasted off from Florida, as did all Apollo missions. (Verne correctly states in the book that objects launch into space most easily if they are launched from the earth's equator. In the book Florida and Texas compete for the launch, with Florida winning.)

In honor of Verne's Birthday, I'm reposting the most-excellent Jake von Slate/Steampunk piece from Make: television, episode 103. It's a full-featured documentary on steampunk, in a 10-minute TV segment. I think it perfectly captures the adventure, romance, and technology of steampunk, and the spirit of Verne in the process.

Jake Von Slatt invites us into the alternate universe of Steampunk. As leading figures in the Boston arts community, members of Steampunk combine the power of modern technology with the grace and intricacy of Victorian design. Working with brass, recycled items and found objects, Jake and other Steampunkers party like it's 1899, bringing old-world, steam engined-inspired touches to everything from computers to flatscreen television. Plus, watch the story of steam power, from the first crude water pump to a bionic arm. Watch the clip, and visit steampunkworkshop.com.

More:
Sift through all of Make: Blog's steampunk coverage here.

Space colony artwork - 1970

Ac75-1085F
Space colony artwork - 1970...

A couple of space colony summer studies were conducted at NASA Ames in the 1970s. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed. A number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made. These have been converted to jpegs and are available as thumbnails, quarter page, full screen and publication quality images.

Making red wine vinegar and best of CRAFT

Red wine vinegar is really easy to make at home. All you need is some leftover red wine, some water, red wine vinegar mother, and a few tools. You can look for red wine vinegar at your local homebrewing shop, but mine was out, so I ordered it online. It's basically "live" red wine vinegar which contains the bacteria Acetobacter, which eats alcohol and turns it into acetic acid, the tangy flavor we know as vinegar. This project appears as an article in CRAFT, Vol. 9 by Alastair Bland, which you can preview in our Digital Edition.

Subscribe to the CRAFT Podcast in iTunes, or download the mov, mp4, or iPhone/Android video of this project.

Get the PDF of this project and then check out CRAFT: 09 for more great projects!

Here are some of my favorite posts from this week on the CRAFT blog:

Grow your own fresh air indoors

It's no surprise that indoor plants help to reduce carbon dioxide and increase oxygen in the buildings they inhabit, but this TED presentation discusses a particular indoor planting strategy that is being used by a business park in New Delhi specifically to improve air quality above industry standards, while also sealing all external fresh air and exhaust.

We have tried and tested these plants for 15 years at Paharpur Business Centre and Software Technology Incubator Park (PBC™ - STIP) in New Delhi, India. It is a 20 year old, 50,000 ft2 building, with over 1,200 plants for 300 building occupants.

PBC™ - STIP is rated the healthiest building in Delhi by the Government of India.* Their study found that there is a 42% probability of increasing blood oxygen by 1% if one is inside the building for 10 hours.

Also, compared to other buildings in Delhi, the incidence of eye irritation reduced by 52%, lower respiratory symptoms by 34%, headaches by 24%, upper respiratory symptoms by 20%, lung impairment by 10-12% and Asthma by 9%. As a result of fewer sick days -- employee productivity also increased.

They suggest that a typical living environment needs only three plants for this purpose. The Areca Palm is used for the general purpose of increasing O2 during the day in most living areas. Mother-in-law's Tongue serves a similar purpose but for the bedroom, as it converts CO2 to O2 in the evening. Finally, the Money Plant can be used to scrub Formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds from the air.

The recommended number of plants per person in a living space varies from 4-8 depending on the size of the plant. It's not a huge amount, but it's definitely more than I have in my own home (and I have a lot of plants), and grossly different from most offices I've worked in. Imagine everyone in your office bringing in 4 shoulder high palms on Monday!

Do any readers have a living or work space that resembles this? Please share your story in the comments.

How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air - TED 2009

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MAKE: television Episode 6 - Music Machines & Trebuchet Enter the plugged-in world of Tim Kaiser, a maker who fashions experimental musical instruments from scavenged objects. In the Workshop John Park assembles a portable trebuchet from plastic plumbing pipe, and circuit bender Bianca Pettis demystifies the art of... More...

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Many thanks to everyone involved with Maker Faire in 2008! The attendees, makers, exhibitors, sponsors, volunteers, and crew...it was an AMAZING year! Over 1,000 Makers and 87,000+ attendees total! Be sure to check out the photos @ Flickr, and our Maker Faire posts for all the action! Tickets are now on sale for Maker Faire Bay Area, May 30th & 31st 2009!