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Filed under: Laptops

We knew more Inspiron Minis were in the works, and Dell’s just officially announced the next member of the family, the Inspiron Mini 12. Yep, the same machine we first spotted all the way back in June, and nothing much has changed in the meantime — you’re looking at either a 1.3GHz Atom Z520 or 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor (a step up from the usual 1.6GHz Atom N270), up to an 80GB drive, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth / WiFi, and that 12-inch, 1280 x 800 display, all in a 2.72-pound package less than one inch thick. The bad news? It’s Japan-only for now, but it’ll hit the States late next month with a starting price under $600. That’s a pretty hot price / performance ratio on paper — if this thing performs like it should, it could potentially take away sales from more full-featured ultraportables like the Envy 133 and the MacBook Air. We’ll see how it goes — the netbook market suddenly got interesting again, eh?

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Original post by Nilay Patel

If you′re going to Maker Faire Austin you can follow our Twitter feed and get the latest updates, schedule and more.

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

Welcome Makers! It’s day 2 of Maker Faire Austin!!! Follow along via photos and updates!

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

Welcome Makers! Maker Faire Austin is open!!! Follow along via photos and updates!

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

If you′re going to Maker Faire Austin you can follow our Twitter feed and get the latest updates, schedule and more.

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

From now until the awesomeness that is Maker Faire Austin, I’ll be highlighting projects that you can find at Travis County Fairgrounds on 10/18-19. Tickets here; see you there!

Shopbot will be out in full force this weekend, including a complete DIY house project:

The New Orleans House Project is prefabricated housing that can be assembled without any hardware using only a rubber mallet in a very short time by unskilled labor. The goal of this project is to provide quick, easy, temporary housing for areas effected by a natural disaster.

Bat Houses: provide a safe nesting area for bats. This helps keep bats out of your attic. There will be a Bat Expert coming from Georgia, with some live bats.

Kids projects 3D glowing skulls, and rubber band racers.

I almost want to get in a suspended animation machine until tomorrow…

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Original post by Luke Iseman

From now until the awesomeness that is Maker Faire Austin, I′ll be highlighting projects that you can find at Travis County Fairgrounds on 10/18-19. Tickets here; see you there!

You won′t just be doing this with your schedule to see all the projects this weekend, but also with homemade juggling clubs! From juggler.org :

Learn how to make three great juggling clubs for less than eight bucks. Then make three balls for mere pennies! There will be free juggling lessons and demonstrations throughout the day.

We will also be excited to debut the results of our experiments with EL wire to make cheap glow props!

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Original post by Luke Iseman

From now until the awesomeness that is Maker Faire Austin, I’ll be highlighting projects that you can find at Travis County Fairgrounds on 10/18-19. Tickets here; see you there!

NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program will be showcasing their Yahoo photo-uploading geo-tagging bikes and talking shop about their other projects at Maker Faire Austin. Check out their other work here, and be sure to come see them (plus hundreds of other Makers) starting tomorrow in Austin!

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Original post by Luke Iseman

The Stribe is a really cool open source music controller. It takes some serious soldering skills to make one, but the end results are fantastic. Check it out at Maker Faire in Austin.

Eight touch-sensitive strips are flanked by dual columns of LEDs, providing subtle fingertip control coupled with illuminated feedback. The Stribe’s firmware communicates via USB with music programs such as Max/MSP and Reaktor.

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Original post by Marc de Vinck

This is a really cool project by Eric Lundquist. He will be displaying his Video Head at Maker Faire in Austin. I can’t wait to see it in person.

The Video Head Project was inspired by the amazing art project called Drum Head by Murat Konar. In a attempt to take it to the next level, the Video Head will have multiple mouth and eye expressions in order to display a wider range of emotions and interactions. The foam head gives the image an eerie lifelike 3-d appearance.

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Original post by Marc de Vinck

From now until the awesomeness that is Maker Faire Austin, I’ll be highlighting projects that you can find at Travis County Fairgrounds on 10/18-19. Tickets here; see you there!

From the creator of Blinkybug, here’s a beautiful new kit debuting at Maker Faire Austin:

I’ll have these new LED Art Kits ready for the upcoming Austin Maker Faire, where I’ll be doing demos and workshops for these (as well as Blinkybugs).

They’re really easy to make, and use color-changing RGB LEDs to cast slowly shifting patterns of light on the translucent “canvas.”

Yet another reason to be in Austin this weekend!

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Original post by Luke Iseman

The MAKE and CRAFT teams are all assembling in Austin… Assembling Maker Faire! You can follow along at my photostream on Flickr or tune in to the MAKE and Maker Faire Twitter feed…

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

Do you want to learn about making an earthen oven? Make sure to check out Design~Build~Live at Maker Faire in Austin this weekend.

Natural building uses natural, locally-available materials to construct beautiful, nontoxic, environmentally-responsible structures for living. As a demonstration of natural building that anyone can create in a couple of weekends, we will build a wood-fired earthen oven that not only can be sculpted into limitless forms but bakes amazing pizza!

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Original post by Marc de Vinck

From now until the awesomeness that is Maker Faire Austin, I’ll be highlighting projects that you can find at Travis County Fairgrounds on 10/18-19. Tickets here; see you there!

One of the projects I’m most excited about is the Eco-Modding Illuminati has been doing on a Hyundai Genesis:

The Illuminati Motor Works Team is an official Automotive X-Prize Contender. They are competing for the “1 Gallon of Gas, 100 Miles — $10 Million: The Race to Build the Supergreen Car.” At Maker Faire, they will be conducting daily eco-modding workshops as they focus on how to get better mileage and improve performance on the Hyundai Genesis.

Mr. Jalopy has interviewed Kevin Smith From Illuminati, and you can hear the audio here. Much respect to Kevin for doing this interview, even though he’s clearly exhausted from working on this project non-stop! Also check out the Illuminati blog for video updates. See you this weekend!

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Original post by Luke Iseman

Thanks to Scott Beale from Laughing Squid, here’s a look at Maker Faire Austin 2007:

How will last year compare to this weekend’s insanity? Tons more Makers, awesome new projects, fighting robots, better food… basically, even more spectacular:) Get your tickets now!

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Original post by Luke Iseman