Electronics

Los Altos-based start-up Electric Imp is looking to make putting the "things" into the Internet of Things both cheaper and simpler with Imp - a Wi-Fi equipped card designed to connect appliances to the internet so that users can remotely monitor and control them. Read More

Thanks to the popularity of 3D printers like the Replicator and the Cube, there are plenty of devices out there for crafting almost any solid object from just a design. But what if you're more interested in building a 3D object from something a little less voluminous like, say, a simple line drawing? The materials used to create most 3D printed object unfortunately aren't sturdy enough to recreate objects that thin. That's why New York-based design consultancy, Pensa, has built the DIWire Bender, a machine that follows vector diagrams to bend and shape pieces of wire into elaborate structures. Read More

Once upon a time, tasters were employed by the well-to-do, in order to check that their food or drink wasn't poisonous. Today, there are electronic biosensors that can do more or less the same thing. Unfortunately, as was no doubt sometimes the case with the tasters, the biosensors can’t always give us immediate results. Additionally, they’re usually only able to test for specific substances, and not simply for “anything that’s toxic.” An experimental new device known as the Dip Chip, however, is said to address both of those problems. Read More

If you listen to your elders, electricity is a dangerous, often fatal, medium that shouldn't be toyed with. If, like Rob Flickenger, you decide to completely ignore such sage counsel, then electricity is awesome and a whole bunch of fun – especially if you build yourself a working battery-powered Tesla Gun that handles some 20,000-volts and 2,000 amps of current and shoots out bolts of lightning! Read More

As I discovered when reviewing the Minty Geek Electronics Lab a while back, experimenting with circuit building can be a great deal of fun. There was one particular project in this kit that made use of the human body to complete a circuit, with a simple lie detector test being the end result. With their Makey Makey open source hardware project, Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum have taken such touch interaction to a much more entertaining and inventive degree. Everyday objects like bananas, coins, and even Play-Doh can be transformed into a computer keyboard key or mouse click to control onscreen gaming action, play software-based instruments or type out short messages. Read More

As machines get more and more sophisticated, the mental capacity of their human overlords stays at a static (albeit seemingly impressive) level, and therefore slowly starts to pale in comparison. The bandwidth of the human brain is not limitless, and if an overloaded brain happens to be overseeing machines carrying out potentially dangerous tasks, you can expect trouble. But why had we built the machines in the first place, if not to save us from trouble? Brainput, a brain-computer interface built by researchers from MIT and Tufts University, is going to let your computer know if you’re mentally fit for the job at hand. If it decides your brain is overloaded with tasks, it will help you out by handling some of them for you. Read More

If you’re a fan of things retro and an electronics do-it-youselfer, this might might be just the thing for you – it’s a kit that lets you built your own clock, that displays the time using wonderfully outdated nixie tubes. Read More

As great a convenience as they are, headphones and earbuds appear destined to forever plague active music listeners. First, there are the annoying, dangling cords smacking you in the face. Then, there's your complete obliviousness to the outside world. For the former, we have inventive storage systems like Cordcrunchers and Hoodiebuddies. For the latter, AIRbudz. Read More

The newest entry in ARM's Cortex line, the Cortex-M0+ is claimed to be the world's most energy-efficient processor, delivering 32-bit performance on around one third of the typical energy requirements of an 8- or 16-bit processor. Targeting low-cost sensors and microcontrollers, the M0+ will come with a very modest price tag and could act as a crucuial stepping stone to a world in which everyday objects communicate with each other, sharing data to make smart, coordinated decisions that will improve our quality of life. Read More