Heads-up iPhone AR navigation system
Tokyo-based Ubiquitous Entertainment has built the iPhone ARider, a portable head-mounted navigation prototype.
Year: 2009
Highlights from TransWorld Halloween show 2009
If you’re short on inspiration for your haunted house this year, you need look no further than this video by Terra of HalloweenForum.com showing the highlights of her visit to the 2009 annual TransWorld Halloween & Attractions Show. Highlights include a door that dents inward as an ax murderer apparently chops on it from the other side, a struggling victim chained in a box full of water, and giant vampire bats that swoop down from the ceiling.
MAKEcation: Teach Your Family to Solder winners!
Flickr member Leviathan34 is the winner of the MAKEcation: Teach Your Family to Solder challenge! A teen, he was the only entrant who actually taught his entire family. He and his mother, father, sister, and little brother all worked on a Joule thief. We asked our Solder Challenge Camp Counselor Dave Hrynkiw to choose the […]
Yet another HDD clock
Lovely hard drive clock. Unfortunately, the text is all in Polish, but you can derive a lot of the details from the hi-res images. HDDClock [via BB Gadgets]
Most annoying floor ever made of robot tiles
Hiroo Iwata, of the University of Tsukuba, created these robotic floor tiles that automatically arrange themselves to build a floor beneath you.
$2 Egg-beater centrifuge may save lives
Harvard’s George M. Whitesides is arguably the world’s most significant chemist. How arguably? Whitesides has the highest Hirsch index of any living chemist in the world. The Hirsch or h-index is a kind of weighted score based on a numerical analysis of a scientist’s published work which factors in both the number of papers and the number of citations those papers receive by other authors.
Back in October of 2008, Whitesides published a paper in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Lab on a Chip that describes a technique for separating blood plasma for use in various immunoassays using a piece of plastic tubing taped to an eggbeater. The method can replace a $400 bench centrifuge for many purposes.
Electrobike Pi
Spotted this sexy commercial electric bicycle in a back issue of Popular Science at the barber shop today. It’s called Pi, and the company that makes it is based out of San Francisco. The magazine article claims it uses a Nu Vinci continuously-variable transmission but the official company specs now only mention a Shimano 8-speed. Sounds like they’re still working out the kinks. Something to keep an eye on, though.