Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Arduino's new 3D printer lets you modify just about everything

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/30/arduino-materia-101/

Arduino / Sharebot Materia 101

If you're a fan of Arduino's tinker-friendly approach to computing, you'll be glad to hear that it's now extending that open philosophy to 3D printers. The company has teamed up with Sharebot to unveil the Materia 101, a small (5.5 inches by 4 inches) printer that's built to be both friendly to beginners and very accessible. You can modify the code on the underlying Arduino Mega mini-PC, of course, but you also have access to the full schematics of the printer -- you can upgrade it or even make your own, if you have the know-how and parts. Arduino hasn't said when it plans to ship the Materia, but it'll be available both as a build-it-yourself kit (priced under $800) and fully assembled (under $1,000).

Filed under:

Comments

Source: Arduino

Read More...

Pavlok needs you to shock more people into breaking bad habits

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/30/pavlok-shock-wristband/

There's no way you'd use a shock collar to train your beloved dog, but you wouldn't mind using one on yourself if it means breaking your nastiest habits, eh? If that's the case, then your day has come: Pavlok (a wearable band that can zap you with electricity) is now up on Indiegogo, with its designer hoping to raise $50,000 to develop more features and to begin mass production. In order to train yourself to stay away from bad habits or continue doing good ones, you'll need to program the Pavlok app -- for instance, you can instruct it to zap you awake if you hit snooze twice on your alarm. The good news is that you can set the electricity the wristband zaps you with from 17 to 340 volts, so you can adjust it accordingly and make sure each it's not strong enough to actually hurt.

According to the device's Indiegogo page, its creator (Maneesh Sethi, a Stanford alumnus) is working on IFTTT integration and also opening up the Pavlok platform so anyone can make an app to go along with it. It even listed some possible software tie-ups, such as instructing the wristband via IFTTT to zap you if you send a message to an ex, to beep loudly and embarrass you whenever you step into a McD's with the help of a navigation app, or to remind you to walk more when paired up with an exercise app.

When we saw Pavlok earlier this year, the prototypes cost $250 each, but now you have the opportunity to grab one for $125 via Indiegogo if you can wait until it ships out by April 2015 at the earliest. By the way, Sethi's no stranger to the idea of receiving pain to break bad habits. Back in 2012, he hired a girl off Craigslist to, erm, slap him every time he went on Facebook -- something he claims quadrupled his productivity.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Source: Indiegogo

Read More...

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Crackdown on spying apps leads to StealthGenie CEO's arrest

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/30/crackdown-on-spying-apps-leads-to-stealthgenie-ceos-arrest/

Apparently, the US government is now on a mission to bring down mobile applications offering spyware services -- which, for a variety of well-documented reasons, simply seems kind of ironic. Controversy aside though, the Department of Justice revealed today that Hammad Akbar, CEO of StealthGenie, had been arrested in Los Angeles and charged with conspiracy, advertisement of a known interception device, advertising a device as a surreptitious interception device and sale of such a device. StealthGenie, which had been available on iOS, Android and BlackBerry, was known for providing an app capable of monitoring someone's calls, texts and photos, as well as tracking their location and more. StealthGenie wasn't shy about doing that either; a quick glance at a StealthGenie promotional video, found after the break, sums up the ideals behind the application and the consumers it targeted.

"So you want to keep an eye on your loved one or your employees, because you suspect they're hiding something and it might get too late?" the video asks. "How do you know where they are or what they're doing right now? Maybe they're not really telling you the truth about their activities or whereabouts." Eventually, after a few seconds, StealthGenie claims to be the solution for those needs: "You are worried, so you wonder if the only way to find out is to know what they do on their cellphones right away," says the message. "You know that's the only way to give you all the answers. What you need right now is a solution that lets you uncover the truth by secretly monitoring all the activities of your loved one or employee, and let you know their location at all times."


As the DOJ points out in its briefing of the situation, the app was undetectable by users who were likely being spied on, which made it rather easy for StealthGenie's creepy magic to go untraced. Interestingly enough, Akbar's criminal case is the first one ever having to do with the advertisement and sale of a mobile spyware app -- and something tells us we're going to see more of this type as people adopt new technologies like smartphones and tablets.

"People ought to be able to control who can access their sensitive information, and stalking apps on cellphones directly violate that principle," outspoken Sen. Al Franken said regarding StealthGenie and the arrest of its CEO. "Currently, there is no federal law banning the secret collection of location data. That's why we need to pass my legislation to ban stalking apps once and for all."

"My commonsense bill will help a whole range of people -- including victims of domestic violence," he said. "My bill would finally put an end to GPS stalking apps that allow abusers to secretly track their victims, and it would also give consumers more control over their very sensitive location data."

Filed under: ,

Comments

Source: Department of Justice

Read More...

A Spoonful of This New Material Can Suck Up a Whole Roomful of Oxygen

Source: http://gizmodo.com/a-spoonful-of-this-new-material-can-suck-up-a-whole-roo-1640787388

A Spoonful of This New Material Can Suck Up a Whole Roomful of Oxygen

A team of scientists in Denmark just invented a crystalline material that can absorb oxygen with astounding efficiency. How astounding? Well, a single spoonful of the stuff can suck all of the oxygen out of a room. The best part is that it can release it again with just a little bit of heat. Say goodbye to bulky oxygen tanks.

Read more...

Read More...

How To Make An 'Invisibility Cloak' At Home For Under $100

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-a-rochester-invisibility-cloak-2014-9

Rochester Cloak

Physicists at the University of Rochester have created an incredibly versatile cloaking device, which hides things from view. But more importantly, you can make this crazy concealing device at home for under $100.

All it takes is four lenses, an optics bench for holding the lenses in place, and an insatiable appetite for making things disappear.

The four lenses, when aligned just right, will bend light around the object you place between them, cloaking the object in the process. Watch this device, called the Rochester cloak, in action below, "cloaking" the researchers hand:

Invisbility Rochester CloakTo first understand how to perform your own disappearing act, here's a basic lesson in lenses.

Lenses, like the convex lens below, bend rays of light. When a lens is convex, these bent light rays focus to a single point.

lightrefractionThis point is called the focal point, and it is where the bent light rays converge to produce a magnified version of an object.

The distance from the center of the lens to the focal point is called the focal length, which is shown below. How strongly a convex lens can magnify an image depends on its focal length. The shorter the focal length, the stronger the magnifying power of the lens.

focal lengthWith these principles in mind, you're ready to build your own Rochester cloak in four simple steps!

What you will need to do:

  1. Obtain two sets of two lenses with different focal lengths. The first set will have one focal length while the other set will have a different focal length. You will have four lenses in total, which should cost you no more than $30. The lens provider will include the focal length information (sometimes denoted as FL) so you don't have to calculate it yourself.
  2. Using an optics bench, select one lens with the first focal length and a second lens with the second focal length. Separate them by a distance that is the sum of their focal lengths. For example, if your first lens has a focal length of 5 centimeter and your second lens has a focal length of 3 centimeters, then separate these lenses by 5+3 = 8 centimeters.
  3. Now, do the same with your remaining two lenses.
  4. Lastly, you need to know how far apart to separate your two sets. This will take a little math, but here's an example using the same measurements in Step 2: D=[2 (3) (5+ 3) ]/ (5— 3) = 12 centimeters should be the distance between your two lenses with the focal length of 3 centimeters.

You can see the full equations with a diagram on the University of Rochester's website. Here's a helpful diagram to give you a better idea:

Buid your own Rochester cloakBelow is the device that the University of Rochester physicists designed.

They used lasers to show how each of the four lenses bends light rays to recreate the image at the back of the set up, even if something's in the way between lens 1 and 2. You can see a great example of the laser rays converging at the focal point after exiting lens 1 located at the far left.

rochester cloak lasersTo make an object disappear, the physicists place it in between the first two lenses on the left side of the optics bench in the image. Below, they have placed a silver ruler between these two lenses.

Rochester CloakThe ruler then disappears when you look through the front lens. Ta da!

dissapearingrulerThis is the first cloaking device that can make an object appear to vanish at multiple angles. So, if you move your eye from looking straight down the center of the lens to looking slightly from the left, right, top, or down, you still won't see the ruler in the image above.

The device does have its limits, though. The device only cloaks at 15 degrees in either direction from where you deviate your eye from ! the cent ral axis of the lens. But that's 15 degrees more than any former cloaking device. Here's the video, from Rochester University, with more details:

SEE ALSO: An 'Invisibility' Cloak Is Getting Closer To Reality

READ MORE: Invisibility Cloak Allows Combat Vehicles To 'Disappear' And Change Shape

Join the conversation about this story »








Read More...