For centuries inventors and dreamers have pushed technology beyond our wildest expectations, taking us into the air, underwater and into space. While much is heard and read about these amazing feats, less is spoken about the many inventions that didn’t quite make the evolutionary cut. The Museum of Retro Tech celebrates the many ambitious but unsuccessful inventions from the fields of Transport, Computing, Communications, and Power Generation. Link.
Here’s a preview of the Atari Flashback 2.0 system which can be hacked to play original cartridges. This will be a great source of new hardware for Atari 2600 fans. Even says it implements the entire 2600 on a single chip. If you read the entire article it looks like you could make a portable Atari out of this, make game switcher (internal / cartridge) and more. Thanks Robert!Link.
SplineScan is a low-cost, cross-platform 3D scanning system. Although this project is not confined to a single method of scanning, the primary project at the moment is a motion controlled laser line scanner, which is now in phase two of a three phase development cycle. Less than $100. Will be exhibited at lugradio live 2005 in Wolverhampton, UK, on the 25th of June. Thanks monkeysailor! Link.
Back in February Lexmark lost their attempt to stop companies making less expensive printer cartridges, they tried to use the DMCA but luckily the courts threw it out. But that’s not stopping Lexmark, they’re still trying and went to the supreme court to stop Static Control Components (again) but it doesn’t look like they’re getting an audience. If Lexmark wins a case like this it would be hard to get less expensive cartridges, kits, power supplies and batteries since everyone would just add a chip in them with “copyrighted” programs Link.
Science Friday’s latest audio is up. Joshua Bloom Assistant Professor of Astronomy and the University of California, Berkeley talks about the mysterious gamma ray bursters, they also talk about using elevators to get to space and then engineering needed, along with some really neat research in how our eyes work. The more rare an object is, the less likely you’re going to recognize when you’re looking for it… Link.
Altoids tins are one of favorite projects cases (seen here). Now Altoids is having a very neat Maker-like contest. To enter you just need to make something out of the Altoids Tin, it can be techy or arty, it can also be the tin from mints, sours and chewing gun. I really like that Altoids is encouraging reuse of their containers. First prize is $1000! Update: Just be aware they’ll own the copyright to it. They should do a Creative Commons License Link.
Encouraging. According to AUTOSAR, replacing an evil stew of proprietary automotive software with open code could save OEMs and suppliers millions of dollars and improve systems’ efficacy and functionality. What’s more, if vehicles’ discrete systems were able to share standardized data, a car would become a kind of distributed computing platform — rather than a series of independent modules — allowing for far more efficient processes. Link.
