Announcements

We’ve added a badge on our /blog section for the EFF Bloggers Rights fundraiser, we hope Makers out there will consider supporing the EFF too – “EFF is a donor-funded nonprofit group of passionate people—lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries — who depend on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights. Litigation is particularly expensive; because two-thirds of our budget comes from individual donors, every contribution is critical to helping EFF fight —and win—more cases.” [via] Link.

Nick writes “In reference to Xeni Jardin’s mention of the “American Inventor TV Series” on Boing Boing, I thought you might be interested in a TV series that runs on the Australian national broadcaster called ‘The New Inventors’ – It’s a revival of a late 70’s series called ‘The Inventors’ and each week features three makers and their projects which are assessed by a panel of design and engineering experts. The linked page doesn’t reference more recent episodes, but should give you some idea of the kind of ideas presented.” Link.

MAKE will be covering ABC’s American Inventor’s auditions November 17th at 8am in San Francisco. If you’re going, let us know (before or after if you want to share your experience). “AMERICAN INVENTOR is an exciting new primetime reality show for ABC from Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol. Set to premiere in early 2006, the show will undertake the biggest search ever for America’s best new invention. An embodiment of the ultimate American dream, the show will uncover the hottest new product and make some struggling inventor’s dream come true. The show will celebrate the best in homespun American ingenuity and will turn one person’s idea into the next big thing.” – Link. Look for our special write up this week!

One of our favorite web comics The Joy of Tech did an excellent job of breaking the story about our new entry in the Magazine arena – MAKE OUT: Geek love on your terms. In the premiere issue you can win a McGyver Fantasy date and build a love detector. Thanks to everyone who sent this in! Link.

MAKE will be on G4’s Attack of the show on 11/07/2005 – “Make magazine’s Phillip Torrone shows us some cool DIY projects and how to hack some new gadgets. Harmonix president Alex Rigopulos rips some licks on Guitar Hero, the new rockin’ music game for the PlayStation 2. We return to the car mecca that is the SEMA Show for a look at the hottest accessories inside cars these days.” Link.

Brian writes “A great Maker competition, founded buy a bunch of guys with some spare parts and mechanical know-how and a desire to see how far they could throw a pumpkin. I’ve taken my family for the last five years and it’s great to see the machines, from human powered onagers of Roman design to hundred foot long air powered cannons.” Link. The event was over the weekend, so expect to see some photos and results soon.