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Archive: Computers
January 30, 2009
Picture of the XO-2 OLPC
Leaked picture of the upcoming XO-2 OLPC via netbooknews.de. The next OLPC is being reported to be an open source hardware project too...
It appears that the very first photo of the next-generation OLPC XO 2.0 low-cost laptop has finally emerged on the Internet, showing us some of the things we should be expecting. In addition to that, it looks like Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the One Laptop Per Child project, has confirmed that the next-generation XO laptop is going for a different design and marketing strategy. To be more specific, the upcoming laptop, which could be released sooner rather than later, will be meant to provide users with a book that can be a laptop as compared with the first XO laptop, which was meant as a laptop that could be a book.
Update: The OLPC press folks emailed back... I asked "will the OLPC be open source hardware"... They said--
That's definitely the intention of everybody at OLPC. However, when you outsource as much as OLPC does, it will be a challenge to persuade partners to open up their intellectual property.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jan 30, 2009 06:30 PM
Computers, Open source hardware |
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Besmoke - interactive fluid dynamics
Eric Gradman has created this awesome interactive fluid dynamics program called Besmoke. It is iPhone accelerometer aware and responds to sound input. It is based on Navier-Stokes fluid simulations.
Besmoke - Interactive Fluid Dynamics with iPhone and Sound Reactivity
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jan 30, 2009 04:00 PM
Computers, Science |
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January 28, 2009
The new OLPC XO-2 will be an open source hardware project?
This is pretty much the biggest news of 2009 - I am going to email the OLPC folks confirm, but according to this article - The new OLPC XO-2 will be an open source hardware project... Just to recap what that means... the source, the schematics, the PCB files, the firmware, the CAD files, everything will be available and commercial use is OK. If it's true, this is extremely exciting, I'd love to see the best company that can make these at the lowest price / highest quality flourish.
With the XO-1 now being deployed in the field, interest is turning to a follow-on project: the XO-2. This will be a $75 dual-screen device that's held like a book. You can also turn it around and use one of the screens as the keyboard.
"The first generation is a laptop that can be a book; the next generation will a book that can be a laptop," he says. "That's the switch.
One important thing about the XO-2 is that we're going to do it as an open source hardware programme. The XO-1 was really designed as if we were Apple. The XO-2 will be designed as if we were Google - we'll want people to copy it. We'll make the constituent parts available. We'll try and get it out there using the exact opposite approach that we did with the XO-1.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jan 28, 2009 06:00 PM
Computers, Open source hardware |
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January 27, 2009
Measuring pressure in the Internet tubes
After Professor Fzz's wireless base station died, he found himself continually looking at where it use to be to monitor the activity lights during downloads. He wanted to replace it with something else to help him visualize this data -- the Internet Pressure Gauge was born.
The electronics are probably overkill for this application, but they work well. A Devantech USB-to-I2C convertor takes commands from the Mac over USB, and sends them via an I2C bus to an SD21 21-channel servo controller board. I'm only using one channel at the moment, so expect more computer controlled hardware in the not too distant future....
The software is pretty trivial, comprising a 40 line program in C to send commands to the servo controller, and a 30-line script to get the network statistics and call the C program.
Too bad you could do pressure gauges for blog comments, with a pressure valve whistle that releases when things get over-heated.
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jan 27, 2009 11:00 AM
Computers, Retro |
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January 26, 2009
Hack lets you look someone directly in the eyes through your laptop camera
"Here is looking at you, Kid" by Berlin-based artist Aram Bartholl, is a low-tech way of fixing the annoying aspect of video conferencing where participants are not making "eye-contact" through their web cameras. Rather than looking at the camera, the typical person stares at their screen, thus not making eye contact with the person they are chatting with. The device is made of a mirror, some glass with mirror foil, and a piece of cardboard, in order to mimic what a teleprompter does to text for a TV news anchor. The result allows the viewer's eye contact to connect with the person and a final manufacturer fix might be to integrate the camera behind the LCD screen so that you can actually look directly at the other person.
Posted by Jonah Brucker-Cohen |
Jan 26, 2009 06:00 AM
Arts, Computers, Electronics, Imaging |
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Laptop Orchestra provides ambience and control to participants
"Laptop Orchestra" is an interactive synaesthetic instrument designed to allow for real-time performances. Attached to the system is a conductor podium consisting of a grid of metal stems that activate or deactivate each machine by touches from onlookers. This action can in turn generate an almost infinite number of compositions.
Laptop Orchestra via Network Research
Posted by Jonah Brucker-Cohen |
Jan 26, 2009 04:00 AM
Arts, Bicycles, Computers |
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DIY no-cost laptop stand
This is a really simple and inexpensive way to elevate your laptop. The basic components are a box and "a leg". Basically it's a modified shoebox with something added to elevate the back of your laptop. It certainly is inexpensive, and it seems to work quiet well too!
I am the happy owner of a macbook. What i always found annoying was that the screen was lower than my monitor while i was using my second monitor to view the content in dual screen.
More about the DIY no-cost laptop stand
Posted by Marc de Vinck |
Jan 26, 2009 02:00 AM
Computers, Green |
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Internet dog feeder
MAKE subscriber Lynn writes in about the Internet dog feeder which allows this lucky dog to get food even when the owner is away from home. From the video I would guess that the maker is fairly young, which makes this project even more awesome. Apparently the project was completed in about an hour. Now that's a quick project with some nice results.
Every once in a while you stubble across something on YouTube that strikes you as both entertaining and educational. I was searching around when I found the "Internet Dog Feeder" by Tyler. I don't know much about who is behind the project, but it for sure works well and is a very cool design. Of course it uses the ioBridge IO-204 module to drive a continous rotating servos from a web page that also has a live camera feed of the dog's bowl. Tyler can log on to his web page and see if the bowl is empty and send some food. With a click of the mouse, the servo spins to fill the dog bowl.
More about the Internet dog feeder
Posted by Marc de Vinck |
Jan 26, 2009 01:00 AM
Computers, DIY Projects, Electronics |
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January 24, 2009
Mario eeepc
Taking devotion to Mario to a whole new level is this eeepc etching by flickr user Revolvingdork. This project taught me 2 things:
1. 70% speed 40% power are good settings for etching with an Epilog on an eeepc.
2. The levels in Mario really weren't that many screens long!
You can pick up an image of the etch to do your own here.
Posted by Luke Iseman |
Jan 24, 2009 10:00 AM
Computers, DIY Projects |
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January 23, 2009
Firefox art panel at ROFLThing NYC
Jamie Wilkinson of F.A.T. writes:
I'll be moderating a panel at the ROFLCON NYC event this Saturday (Jan. 24th) with fffffellow ffffatties Steve Lambert and Tobi Leingruber (@ 2:45pm; just before Bre Pettis among others) We will be talking about Firefox-based art projects like Add-Art, China Channel, Tourettes Machine, and how to win the internet. We'll also present Artzilla, our new repository for Firefox add-on projects usually denied from listing on the addons.mozilla.org universe for being *cough* "useless art."
New York City ROFLThing
*When:* January 24th, 2009
*Where:* Santos Party House (96 Lafayette Street, Manhattan, NY)
Posted by Becky Stern |
Jan 23, 2009 11:00 AM
Arts, Computers, Events, hacks |
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January 22, 2009
Error prompt etching
From the MAKE: Flickr pool
Flickr member Nick Russo demonstrates that irrevocable feeling of a system error with metal etching ... I'm guessing the above window will prove unresponsive. - Error on Flickr
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Jan 22, 2009 03:00 PM
Computers, Crafts |
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Boot Beep - The story of the Mac's boot chime, with source code
Boot Beep - The story of the Mac's boot chime, with source code written in 68000 assembly language... Andy Hertzfeld -
When you powered up an Apple II, it would make a short beep sound to let you know that it was alive. We thought that the Mac should do something similar, once it passed the diagnostics, sort of like an infant's first cry, letting the world know that you actually made it here.
The 1981 Macintosh just had a square wave sound generator, where the software controlled the frequency by loading a value into the VIA's timer. I wrote a boot sound routine that gradually incremented the frequency at an accelerating pace, so it had a whooping quality to it that was almost humorous. People generally liked it, but we knew that we'd have to do something better for the real product.
In August 1982, the Mac was redesigned with much better sound quality, so we had the possibility of a better boot sound, since we now had 8-bit samples to play with. I started experimenting a little bit, to see if I could come up with something.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jan 22, 2009 12:00 AM
Computers, Retro |
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January 21, 2009
ATtiny breadboard headers
Alex, of Tinkerlog, writes:
The Problem:
Whenever I was prototyping on a breadboard I was annoyed by all the wires to setup before the actual project could begin. Arduino projects were much easier. The 6 pin ISP (In System Programming) header alone was troublesome. Make an adaptor to plug a 3×2 pin header on a breadboard. Then cut short wires and connect the controller to the header. Which pins are what? MOSI, MISO and SCK? So I decided to do it only once more.
The Solution:
These little breadboard headers are very handy. They occupy only one more row on each side as a controller would need.
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jan 21, 2009 12:30 PM
Arduino, Computers, Electronics |
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January 20, 2009
Lexington, KY hacker space meeting this Thursday
Todd Wiley writes to us:
We're starting up a co-op hacker space in Lexington, KY. Were going to have a brief planning meeting this Thursday, 7PM, at Common Grounds (343 East High Street). I hope other area makers will come out and pitch in. I'll likely be keeping information flowing on twitter.com/xtoddx.Common Grounds
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jan 20, 2009 12:00 PM
Announcements, Computers, Makers |
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s3fs - FUSE file system for Amazon S3
As the title suggests, s3fs is a FUSE-based file system for Amazon S3. What this means is that you can mount an S3 bucket and use it just like a standard disk—a crazy-huge distributed disk that you can mount from any machine.
s3fs supports mode (e.g., chmod), mtime (e.g, touch) and uid/gid (chown). s3fs stores the values in x-amz-meta custom meta headers and uses x-amz-copy-source to efficiently change them....
If enabled via "use_cache" option, s3fs automatically maintains a local cache of files in the folder specified by use_cache. Whenever s3fs needs to read or write a file on s3 it first downloads the entire file locally to the folder specified by use_cache and operates on it. When fuse release() is called, s3fs will re-upload the file to s3 if it has been changed. s3fs uses md5 checksums to minimize downloads from s3.
The folder specified by use_cache is just a local cache. It can be deleted at any time. s3fs re-builds it on demand.
While this will technically function as a cvsroot or mysql store, it's probably a bad idea to use it this way, as writes mean copying the whole file across the network, making that use particularly error prone and inefficient.
More interesting is using this as a simple way to manage web files that you are delivering over S3 via HTTP. Most content management systems can be configured with an alternate path for file uploads, and you could basically cloud-enable all of your asset storage without rewriting a line of code.
This could also serve as a network drive for less frequently updated data, such as your desktop's mp3 or photo folders, or a backup drive for nightly rsyncs.
s3fs - FUSE-based file system backed by Amazon S3
Posted by Jason Striegel |
Jan 20, 2009 12:00 PM
Computers, hacks |
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Knitting your voice
This installation by Magdalena Kohler and Hanna Wiesener called "Gelsomina" records your voice and knits the waveforms of the sound on a knitting machine controlled by 24 servos. I just got an electronic knitting machine and I can't wait to dig in and hack together a computer connection for just this sort of project. Via Bre Pettis.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Jan 20, 2009 07:00 AM
Arts, Computers, Crafts, Electronics |
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Balloon weaves webs through controlled magnetism
"Click and Glue" is an autonomous installation that "locks itself into a corner" using a complex system of mechanical actions. The piece consists of a floating balloon equipped with a hot glue gun, nylon threads, electro-magnets, and an enclosure built with steel walls. The Balloon bounces between the walls puling a nylon thread behind itself, when it hits a wall, it sticks to the wall with magnets and uses the glue guns to anchor the thread down. The result is a nylon web woven with the threads filling the space. Check out the link below for some videos of the piece in action.
Posted by Jonah Brucker-Cohen |
Jan 20, 2009 04:00 AM
Arts, Computers, Electronics |
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January 19, 2009
HOWTO - use Amazon EC2 for Bittorrent
Brett O'Connor wrote an informative article on using Amazon's EC2 service to host a Bittorrent client. For an estimated $75/mo, he can feed his torrent addiction without impacting the bandwidth on his local network.
For me, at home, trying to maintain my ratio has caused big problems for my evening Left 4 Dead sessions, and can sometimes even make day-to-day web browsing a frustration.
So then why not then move Bittorrent out of the home/office and into the cloud? This weekend I was able to do just that with great success. Using Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and TorrentFlux (a web-based Bittorrent manager which runs on top of Bit Tornado). I created a web-based, open-source Bittorrent "machine" that liberated my network and leveraged Amazon's instead. I can access it from anywhere, uploading Torrent files from wherever, and manage them from my iPhone.
Apart from the bits about setting up TorrentFlux, this is actually a great introductory guide to configuring and using the Amazon EC2 service. Those of you who have used EC2 would probably agree with me that it's a more concise and straightforward introduction than Amazon's own documentation.
Posted by Jason Striegel |
Jan 19, 2009 12:00 PM
Computers, hacks |
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Crochet pattern generator
Georgia Tech grad student Matt Gilbert has been making some awesome crochet from a pattern generator he made, finding inspiration in acoustics. He and I share a strong opinion that computing and iterative crafting (crochet, knitting, weaving, etc.) have much in common. He writes:
While the Jacquard Loom allowed for the beautiful and elaborate patterns to be woven again and again effortlessly, it automated the process of textile production, putting many people out of work and separating the producer from their product. Most of the weavers (or "spinsters") who lost their jobs were women. Knitting was also automated in 1589 by William Lee, out of sheer jealousy that his wife was spending more time with her knitting than with him. Surprisingly, a similar historical event occurred in computation; the term "computer" was once a job title and those workers were also often women. Much of computation was seen as a kind of clerical work on par with typing and many of these jobs were lost once computation was automated.
On one level, this project is an experiment in appropriating technology for mass production for the purposes of small-scale production, while maintaining a connection between the producer and the produced good. This is what I call "augmented craft", as distinct from automated production. The computer plays a role, but it does not displace the person.
I couldn't agree more. And his sweaters are pretty eye-catching on their own, too! Via Extreme Craft.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Jan 19, 2009 07:00 AM
Arts, Computers, Crafts, Wearables |
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January 17, 2009
Scrabble keyboard
Scrabble keyboard via Giz. Datamancer writes -
This keyboard was commissioned by a couple of friends of mine from back east (NJ) who are avid Scrabble players. Most of the keys are made from real Scrabble tiles that were all hand-beveled (truly an exercise in patience/masochism!) and built onto a USB, clicky, mechanical-switch keyboard. This keyboard was going into a Mac environment so I decided to use brushed aluminum for the casing and round all of the corners to keep with the sleek, simple Macintosh styling. Near the end of the build, I decided that the keyboard looked a little too minimalist so I added some silver hardware and a seam to put a slightly industrialized twist on the design.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jan 17, 2009 08:38 PM
Arts, Computers, Mods |
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