Developages - Development and Technology Blog

We added a new section in MAKE a few volumes ago and I wanted to introduce it here… Here’s Charles the section editor -

The projects in MAKE encourage us to transcend our default role as passive consumers. Armed with screwdrivers and soldering irons, we boldly go into basement workshops, creating new gadgets or ripping open old ones, sometimes achieving mixed results but always enjoying ourselves.

Earlier this year, it occurred to me that the magazine could extend its interests from the physical world into an area that I think of as “digital arts and crafts”: photographs, videos, music, text, computer code, and animations. The snag is that the software involved is increasingly diverse and complex. Almost anyone knows how to use a hammer, but how many of us have the time and patience to enhance a video with Adobe After Effects — and retrain ourselves each time an upgrade is published?

Numerous magazines are dedicated to specialty tasks such as photo retouching or sound synthesis, but what I want is a broader view of the whole digital-arts spectrum, featuring small-scale, specific projects that will be fun, quick, and easy to complete.

Because I was unable to find such an overview, I was excited by the opportunity to assemble it in this new section. Under the broad title of Upload (meaning anything digital that can be uploaded via email or to web pages) you’ll find projects ranging from chroma key video to infrared photography to online book publishing. In the future I hope this section continues on a regular basis — but this, of course, will depend on you. Do you have a new and clever application of a digital tool, to achieve an unexpectedly creative product? Be sure to let me know. Anyone interested in contributing should send a short summary of his or her idea to me at platt@makezine.com.

—Charles Platt, Upload Section Editor

And, here are some of the article to check out…

As a special treat we’ve published one of the articles here on the MAKE blog - Go Green! Greenscreen effects are available to anyone with a camcorder and $25 of software. By Bill Barminski. You can view it here or in your digital edition (subscribers).

Looking at the Low End by Richard Kadrey. Infrared photography reveals a world invisible to the naked eye. MAKE 12 Page 50.

Book Yourself by Kevin Kelly. Innovative options enable you to publish your own text and pictures. MAKE 12 Page 50.

Seeing Red by Charles Platt. Shifting the spectrum can transform a landscape and create dramatic artistic effects. MAKE 12 Page 50.

Go Green! by Bill Barminski. Special video effects are available to anyone with a cheap camcorder and $25 of software. Greenscreen is the most powerful of these. MAKE 12 Page 50.

Quick Bits by Mark Frauenfelder, Charles Platt. Tips and tools for digital diversions. MAKE 12 Page 50.

The Family Photo Archive by Brian O′Heir. Use simple, powerful tools to rescue your photos from stored obscurity and turn them into a DVD slideshow. MAKE 12 Page 50.

Gnarly CAs: Cellular Automata for Pattern Creation by Rudy Rucker. Autonomous software bots can create complex, colorful digital patterns. You just have to tell them what to do. MAKE 12 Page 50.

Remake Your Own Hollywood Movie by Richard Kadrey. Dissatisfied with the director’s cut? Direct it yourself! MAKE 12 Page 50.

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

This video shows how to build your own USB powered fan to cool your laptop or other over-heating piece of electronics. This is especially useful for those of you with the lemon Macbooks with the faulty heatsinks that constantly overheat.

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Original post by Jonah Brucker-Cohen

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Sheesh, I know laptops are getting a lot lighter these days, but this is ridiculous! Yosoyelger shows off what at first appears to be an iBook of divine power, alas it is an old shell repurposed as an Applelover’s choice lighting fixture, which of course is still quite neato. - iLamp 2 on Flickr

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Original post by Collin Cunningham

Hewlett-Packard wants to employ a new tactic to market netbook computers in the U.S., offering them at a steep discount to customers who sign-up for wireless service contracts.

This bundling of cellular service with PCs isn’t done in the U.S., but in Asia and Europe wireless carriers routinely knock hundreds of dollars off the price of a computer if a customer also buys a long-term service contract.

Maybe AT&T and Verizon Wireless are interested?

For example, Taiwanese carrier Far EasTone Communications sells the EEE PC from Asustek Computer for $29 with a two-year contract, rather than the usual price of $429.

Hewlett-Packard says the surging interest in netbooks — stripped-down computers that offer basic applications and Web browsing — is driving the move. With the economy fading and lots of high-speed cellphone networks available, the world’s largest computer seller by revenue sees bundling as a way to move more of its computers into customers’ homes.

Yesterday, H-P introduced three new netbooks, including a $399 HP Mini 1000 and a $699 HP Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam Edition, with flourishes like a “red with peony flower”-colored case.

More at the Wall Street Journal.

Tags: asustek, at&t, eee, far eastone communications, hewlett-packard, hp mini 1000, netbook, verizon wireless

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Original post by nafiz

Igor writes-

Conway’s Game of Life has fascinated computer scientists for decades. Even though its rules are ridiculously simple, Conway’s universe gives rise to a variety of gliders, spaceships, oscillators, glider guns, and other forms of “life”. Self-printing programs are similarly curious, and - rather surprisingly - have an important place in the theory of computation.

What happens when you combine the two? You are about to find out, but one thing is for sure: the geekiness factor should be pretty high.

I wrote a little C# program that contains a Game-of-Life grid. The program advances the game grid to the next generation and prints out a copy of itself, with the grid updated. You can take the output, compile it with a C# compiler, run it, and you’ll get the next generation of the game. You can iterate the process, or change the initial grid state manually

When I first saw the title of this post I thought this might be a 3D printing thing that someone did with our Game of Life kit before I saw the C# part, but it’s just as cool!

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

Remember when we told you about Vivienne Tam’s fabulous HP Digital Clutch which she previewed at Fall 2008 fashion show in Bryant Park during New York Fashion Week? With everyone clamoring to get it for the holidays, HP moved up the production and you can get yours now by calling 1-800-230-5752 or online at HP MiniVT. By making a reservation now, you are guaranteed one in early December. ($699.99 with the colorful,protective Vivienne Tam silk sleeve.)

At only 2.25 lbs and a mere 1″ thin, it’s the perfect accessory.

Product Specs:

· 10.2″ High Definition display

· Under 1-inch thick

· Built-in HP Mini Webcam

· Windows XP Home with SP3

· Intel Atom Processor

Put it on your Christmas list today or do what I did and enter the contest.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

In response to International Caps Lock Day last week, Sean Ragan made this caps lock trainer key:

DOES SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAVE A SHOUTING PROBLEM? IF SO THEN THIS HANDY TRAINER KEY MAKES THE PERFECT GIFT. A standard 101-pattern caps lock key has had its lettering removed by wiping with a paper towel soaked in acetone, and has been augmented with two fourteen-gauge 10mm lebret spikes from the body jeweler’s, which are threaded into appropriately sized holes drilled in the key with a pin vise, and then secured with epoxy. You only have to hit it once to be cured of using the caps lock key forever.

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Original post by Becky Stern

Today only - get CrossOver (usually $70) for free - runs Win apps on Mac and Linux… Saw this all over the place today, downloading now…

CodeWeavers’ mission is to make Linux and Mac OS X fully Windows compatible operating systems. We do this through the power of Wine, which powers all of our CrossOver products. The CrossOver products make it possible to run Windows programs on Mac OS X and Linux without needing a copy or license for Windows itself. Wine is an open-source reimplementation of the Win32 API for Unix-based operating systems. Wine allows Windows applications to be run without a Windows operating system license. CodeWeavers is the largest corporate sponsor of the Wine Project, and contributes all of its work to free Wine.

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

3D scanner using a webcam and laser pointer.

More:

HOW TO - $10 XY Laser scanner.

Make - Volume 14 - Homebrew 3D Scanner.

If you use/make these, post up your favorites in the comments.

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

This project uses a PIC microcontroller with an RS232 interface on one end and the PS/2 keyboard or mouse hookup on the other side. Interesting way to easily get your keyboard or mouse talking serial in order to integrate it into a project and communicate with software.

via Electronics Lab

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Original post by Jonah Brucker-Cohen

This fellow is selling a boat load of Votomatic III punch-card machines from the 2000 election. Only $75 and would likely make a cool case mod for a PC via 27B Stroke 6.

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

Excellent video series “The Machine That Changed The World” spotted via True Films.

The Machine That Changed The World
WGBH Television and BBC 1992

Part 1: Great Brains
Part 2: Inventing the Future
Part 3: The Paperback Computer
Part 4: The Thinking Machine
Part 5: The World at Your Fingertips
Also available as a single BitTorrent file from Waxy.org

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

Any Apple event brings about endless speculation and anticipation, which crash sometime during the event when the photoshopped images of fake products don′t end up being introduced. Today’s Apple event announced new MacBooks and MacBook Pros and a new Cinema display.

Nutshell review:
1.- Are there significant changes from the prior generation of MacBooks or just small incremental changes in design or speed? Answer: Pretty significant but not killer.
2. Will people be able to tell that you have the newest MacBook, therefore entitling you to a couple months of envious glares? Answer: Yes, but only from pretty serious geeks as the new models don’t look dramatically different at a glance.
3. Is there something so ground-breaking and new (like the iPhone, which changed the game for a mobile Internet device) that you should go grab a sleeping bag and camp out in front of the Apple store now, before the shipments even arrive at the store? Answer: No, mercifully no.

Details on the new MacBook Pros:
As rumored, the MacBook Pros are fashioned out of single piece of aluminum, for a sleeker, more streamlined design. The 15.4″ backlit LCD is now even slimmer, although it’s a glossy finish, which won’t please some people who constantly fight glare. Battery life is the same, 5 hours, when you’re using the wireless connection. The graphics chip is updated to the NVIDIA Geforce 9600, with 256 or 512 MB of video memory. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor comes in speeds from 2.4 to 2.8 GHz. You can get 2 GB or 4 GB of RAM and a 250 GB or 320 GB hard drive with an option for a solid state drive.

Perhaps the most striking new feature is the larger, glass touchpad which now supports more touch functions and gets rid of the mouse button as the whole touchpad is now a large, hardware button which can be pushed, not merely tapped.

New MacBook:
The new 13.3″ MacBook also has improved graphics, faster processor, and the larger, glass touchpad. The higher end model also has a backlit keyboard like the MacBook Pros. The MacBook, like its bigger sister, also is made from a single piece of aluminum.

The size and weight of both the MacBook and MacBook Pro remain unchanged. It’s a pretty big overhaul, both inside and out, but the end result doesn’t look too different.

The new MacBook costs $1299 for the 2.0 GHz model, and $1599 for the 2.4 GHz. The older white MacBook is still available for now.

The MacBook Pro is $1999 for the 2.4 GHz model and $2499 for the 2.53 GHz.

The MacBook Air is also getting a small makeover (insides only) with a faster NVIDIA graphics card and more storage, but they won’t be shipping until November. The MacBook and MacBook Pro should be available in stores tomorrow.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Today is a big day on the gadget sites, new Apple MacBooks - the cool thing (I think) is Apple showed videos of how their new laptops are made from carving them out of sheets of aluminum - how things are made (and why) is becoming more important and the lead story once everything else was commodified in the industry. There’s great coverage on Engadget and Gizmodo.

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

Nice Battlestar Galactica mod via the Giz!

If you want to make your own Cylon pumpkin this Halloween - we have a kit!!

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Original post by Phillip Torrone