Duke University students are building and will live in a 4,500-square-foot “SMART” house. The purpose of the experimental project is to continuously invent and test home tech. For example, humming a tune will turn on the stereo and play the song you were humming. Alarm clocks initiate the process of breakfast being cooked by machines. [via]. Link.
In our quest for simplicity and low cost, we decided that eliminating the pump was a key objective. Enter the Thermosyphon. What attracted us to thermosyphons is the utter simplicity of it all – a closed system with no pump requiring no maintenance. In addition, the working fluid can be non-conductive and non-toxic, desirable characteristics for any liquid cooling electronics. [via] Link.
It looks like someone made their own version of the OLED keyboard, you know the keyboards that might be coming out soon with tiny LCD screens on the keys that can change based on application, language, etc…It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on, other than someone made their own DIY version from an Apple Keyboard. Link. Attempted translation here.
Casey rules…a simulation of the old Wooden Labyrinth game. the cool part is that its controlled by a web cam attached to a slate Tablet PC. so you physically have to tilt the Tablet PC which tilts the game board and makes the marble roll accordingly. you can also control it with a web cam attached to a desktop computer by holding the camera and tilting the camera yourself (else you can just use a mouse). this is actually the first game i’ve ever written, and its also the first time i’ve written a Managed Direct3D application from scratch. oh yeah, the binaries can be downloaded … and i’ll put the code up within a couple days (need to clean it up). finally, there are also some videos of it in usage Link.
We’re still experimenting with delivering audio, video, enhanced podcast HOW TOs with slideshows & URLs along with PDFs from the pages of MAKE.. If you use iTunes, check it out by clicking here and clicking SUBSCRIBE. We’re going to try some other interesting things this week too.
I know there’s a lot of you costumers out there who have touted cheap and effective alternatives to traditional costuming supplies, who don’t believe that “cheap alternative” means “crappy substitute”. Many of you reading this may already be familiar with some of these tricks, or you might have your own dirty little secret about where you get your costuming supplies (and please do tell me). My personal favorite place to get costuming goods is Home Depot… Link.
