Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Huge shocker here: removing your shoes at airport security causes massive headaches and makes the wait longer for everyone. Now that we’re all good with Captain Obvious’ latest headline, let us point you to one prototype that’s looking to solve said dilemma. SecuriScan, which has been developed by Professor Wuqiang Yang at the University of Manchester, would theoretically be able to “detect and pinpoint suspicious objects instantly,” all without requiring passengers to remove their kicks. Better still, the system uses electric and magnetic sensing instead of a radiation source, which could also address safety concerns while helping you get where you’re going more quickly. Moving forward, Yang hopes to develop a more advanced and realistic prototype for testing, and just in case you were doubting this guy’s determination, he’s also investigating a handheld version that could hastily screen abandoned luggage or packages.

[Via Physorg, image courtesy of ChangeAirportSecurity]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Laptops, Peripherals

Alas, here we are, 2008 drawing quickly to a close, and yet we still live in a world where the only viable portable fuel cell system is available exclusively to the US Army (unless you can make due with one lowly watt). Panasonic says we have another four years to wait, planning for a 2012 releasing of device powerful enough to run a notebook yet small enough to fit inside a battery compartment. The company estimates up to 5 hours of power could be had from 50cc of “highly concentrated″ methanol, and of course you’d always be just a squirt away from a full charge — the same sort of promises we’ve heard again and again about this tech. Four years may seem like a long way off, but it’s surely more realistic than the release dates we′ve seen on some earlier prototypes.

Update: A few 200cc, 20-hour prototypes displayed after the break.

[Warning: reg required on read link]

Continue reading Panasonic talks up 2012’s hottest fuel cell tech

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Original post by Tim Stevens

You know that one scene from all the old “Indian Jones” films. The one where the explorer and crew are trapped in a room that slowly gorws spikes and then starts to close in on them. Well imagine building that yourself and then making your party guests or trick and treaters go through it. Sounds like fun to me! Check out this complicated MAKER project here.

And when you get the chance be sure to lurk around our FLICKR photo group to submit some cool ideas of your own.

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Original post by David J. Neff

No Halloween party or Haunted House can be complete without at least one great looking CSI inspired corpse lying around. Check out what this MAKER did with some free time, a skeleton and carpet latex. Make sure you scroll all the way down as it looks a lot better in the 2.0 version. Here’s what he used the carpet latex for:

Well, first you cover a section of the skeleton with some carpet latex. Stretch some cotton across the section you want to bulk up, and then cover it with more carpet latex. The cotton will naturally tend to stretch out in strings, which just adds to the decaying effect. The cotton I’m actually using is “Sterile Absorbent Cotton” … a continuous roll of cotton about 6 inches wide. This stuff is GREAT for corpsing!

And while you are corpsing make sure you enter our MAKE Halloween Contest 2008!

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Original post by David J. Neff

I remember when Archie’s was a tiny shop selling surplus weirdness. They have a lot of their own products now, but you can still find the odd raw materials for your own strange creations. If you ever get a chance to visit the store in Seattle, it’s stuffed full of weird wonderful stuff. Their online site is here.

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Original post by Patti Schiendelman

In these tough times I think Halloween is going to be even bigger. Why? Because so much of Halloween fun is DIY magic. From the pumpkin carving to making your trash can into a monster.

So why not earn some extra cash for your work? Check out the User Generated Contest that FEARnet is running around haunting your house. The prize is 25,000 dollars and an appearance on Good Morning America.

Of course don’t forget about the mother of all DIY Halloween contests our own! We want to see what delightfully frightful items you′ve made and we have dozens of awesome prizes to give away! You can enter an Instructable, photos, or video, just make it amazing and it will be eligible to win in one of our six categories: Hack-o-Lantern, Costume, Gadgets and Gizmos, Decorations, Food, and Green, or our Photo and Video categories!

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Original post by David J. Neff

Mckeephoto put together an Instructable for attaching these skeletons to your house - I′d love to see them animated, or a whole swarm of them!

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Original post by Patti Schiendelman

I wish there were a larger picture of this snot - I think it’s some of the nicest looking fake snot I’ve seen. The recipe is here.

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Original post by Patti Schiendelman

Ok, this one is kind of gross, and kind of neat! It’s a group of animated rats eating a leg. Yummy! Check out the web site for pictures of the build and a movie of the final prop.

The pictures pretty much tell the story of this prop. A small motor turns a crank (or two in this case), wires are connected to the crank using ring terminals and then routed through eye hooks to each rat. The rats have their tails screwed down to the base board. Because of the design of the rats, this lifts their front feet off the board about half an inch. When the motor rotates, the flexible vinyl rats get pulled down as if they are taking a bite out of the flesh and as the motor comes back around they return to their original position.

More about the Motorized Rat Feast

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Original post by Marc de Vinck

Some video love for you today. Check out this gruesome scene as a fellow Haunted House/Halloween maker describes how he makes this BBQ seem a little too real for the people driving by in his neighborhood.

Also please check out last years Halloween Issue. We still have some copies left and it’s packed with amazing DIY Halloween tips.

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Original post by David J. Neff

Evil Mad Scientist Labs has done some pretty cool, iconic Halloween tech projects in the past few years, from Cylon and Dalek pumpkins to ghouly 8-bit art gourds. And don′t forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster Costume. If you′re tuning in late to the whole evil mad scientist oeuvre, you may want to check out their round-up of Halloween projects to-date.

Halloween Projects from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

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Original post by Gareth Branwyn

This is a great, and green, way to decorate your house for Halloween. Almost everyone has a few pieces of scrap wood that they could use to make some scary looking boarded up windows.

I first measured my windows and made a frame out of 1″Ҳ″ furring strips. The “boards are scrap 1/4″ plywood left over from building the coffin. I arranged the boards around the frame until I thought it looked good. I then screwed all the boards down to the frame

More about DIY Halloween: Boarded up windows

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DIY Halloween contest! This is the BIG ONE!!!!

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Original post by Marc de Vinck

I swear to God this is the last gravestone DIY link I will post this year. But here is a even cheaper version of making gravestones for all you Halloween peeps out there. This is from our fiends at Scooby’s Boo House and involves making them out of….you guessed it….16 inch tall kickboards. So raid your pool box and get started here. Thanks to Rob from the Haunted Report for pointing this out.

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Original post by David J. Neff

No, it’s not an old Captain Beefheart song. Spider cakes are cool, creepy, crawly desserts, easily made with cup cakes and some Pocky.

Details at Not Martha. [Via Boing Boing]

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Original post by Gareth Branwyn

John Edgar Park, the host of the forthcoming Make: television, used to work at White White Game Studio. He posed for the painting of Greger Anderssen - Prince of Stockholm for the Vampire: The Eternal Struggle card game. I think we should convince him to do his hair, eyebrows, and facial hair like this for the show. Make: TV could be hosted by one of those bumbling ghouls in overwrought make-up who used to host late-night TV creature features in the ’60s and ’70s.

Greger Anderssen - Prince of Stockholm

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Original post by Gareth Branwyn