Electronics

Though digital technology offers home movie-makers the advantages of increased quality and convenience compared to analog film, some of the “magic” has arguably been lost in the switch – few would liken double-clicking an icon to dusting off a reel of film, after all. Bioscope, by designers Jon Stam and Simon de Bakker, is a digital movie player that invokes the nostalgia of film, while simultaneously compelling the user to take an active role in their own viewing experience.  Read More

Pinoccio is a new Internet of Things-friendly microcontroller designed to get home-brew electronics projects talking to the internet and, usefully, each other. Pinoccios come with or without Wi-Fi capability, but can wirelessly natter away with each other by low-power radio using mesh networking. And an in-built battery untethers your projects (hence the name, d'uh). Think of these as Arduino's roaming gossipy cousins, then.  Read More

It consists of one-atom-thick sheets and it could revolutionize electronics ... but it’s not graphene. Chemists at Ohio State University, instead of creating graphene from carbon atoms, have used sheets of germanium atoms to create a substance known as germanane. Because of its numerous advantages over silicon, it could become the material of choice for semiconductors.  Read More

Heineken is introducing a new twist on the ordinary beer bottle with the Heineken Ignite, which uses LEDs and wireless sensors to light up when two bottles are clinked together and flashes in time with music.  Read More

I must confess that the more time I spend tapping away on a computer keyboard, the more my guitars sit ignored and unplayed in the corner. This is also something that troubled Wieden+Kennedy's David Neevel. Unlike me though, he decided to do something about it. With a little help from a Roland GR-33 guitar synth, an Arduino Uno, some electronics and custom code, he managed to trick his laptop into treating his Flying V as if it was a standard keyboard input.  Read More

For the most part, printing out an image on an inkjet printer is a pretty mundane task – unless you add fire of course. That's exactly what Lucien Langton, a student at ECAL (Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne), did when he built the FireWriter, a handheld printer that burns pictures onto wood with a torch, while an optical sensor keeps track of the image's positioning.  Read More

While 3D printers are gradually becoming more popular, their possibilities are limited if you lack the skills to create custom 3D models. This has led to a surge in the development of user-friendly 3D software, as well as affordable 3D scanners that can digitize real world objects. Matterform's Photon 3D scanner is the latest and most affordable example to be launched via a successful crowdfunding campaign.  Read More

The uniqueness of a fingerprint has helped keep thumb drive files, computer systems and wallet contents safe from intruders for a good while now. Now, a team from Carnegie Mellon is breaking fingerprint recognition technology into new ground with the development of a secure payment system named PayTango, that uses a fingerprint scanner to identify shoppers and pay for items.  Read More

The EyeFly 3D screen protector film, brought to consumers by Nanovue, promises to turn regular screens in mobile devices into glasses-free 3D displays. The product, originally nano-engineered by the Temasek Polytechnic (TP) and A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering’s (IMRE) in Singapore, is not the first of its kind of the market, but Nanovue claims it offers considerable advantages over competitors. The film has no perceivable influence on screen brightness, works both in portrait and landscape mode and, most importantly, does not distort regular 2D images.  Read More