The folks over at iFixit go the extra mile to bring you the Microsoft Surface Tablet Teardown. Not your average piece of hardware, the Microsoft Surface is a slim entry into the already bloated tablet market–though a release that was eagerly anticipated and met with great enthusiasm. Getting inside the svelte confines of Surface enclosure proved to be and arduous task deftly performed by iFixIt’s crack team of teardown experts.
Tangible interface researcher Andrea Bianchi, along with his colleague, Ian Oakley (University of Madeira / Carnegie Mellon Europe), have come with a novel approach to interacting with a mobile device. Using the magnetometer built into most modern smartphones, Bianchi and Oakley have created a series of tangible user interface demonstrations that go beyond what’s achievable with capacitive touch displays.
Flipping the touch screen paradigm on its ear, a group from Autodesk Research, the University of Toronto, and the University of Alberta have created a new method and apparatus for user interaction. Dubbed Magic Finger, the system consists of a micro NanEye RGB camera, an optical mouse sensor, and an LED attached to the index finger with hook and loop.
Yesterday I went to check out Burning Man Decompression in San Francisco. As always, there were incredible costumes: a pair of giant cardboard robots, interacting with passersby, a gentleman dressed as a walking gold lamé shower, and my personal favorite, brainwave-controlled animal ears.
Over at Teague Labs maker John Mabry has been having a bit of fun creating printable consumer electronics. Named after its elapsed print time, the 13:30 is a pair of working stereo headphones. The idea for these stylish ear goggles centered around the notion of printed prototypes as actual products.
Complete instructions for this episode of Weekend Projects can be found at
http://makeprojects.com/Project/Monkey-Couch-Guardian/2232/1
Combine an Arduino with a proximity sensor, and make an obnoxious device to discourage cats and other fur-shedding pets from jumping on beds and couches. This project will also introduce you to the SPDT relay, a fundamental component of hobbyist electronics projects.
The EnableTalk system uses a glove-mounted microcontroller to collate information from a passel of onboard sensors—11 flex sensors, 8 touch sensors, 2 accelerometers, a compass, and a gyroscope—and transmit it wirelessly to a nearby computer or smartphone for translation into machine generated speech.
