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In this Weekend Projects podcast I′ll walk you through the different parts of the hardware on the reprap. You’ll want to take a look at the pdf for parts lists and more detailed info to get started on the hardware for this project. The software is still in development and until then you should be able to get your reprap working as a McWire Mill until the code gets done. Remember this is an experimental research community project! I really like this design. It’s solid, easy to take apart and put together. It’s also relatively transportable.

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Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

An anonymous reader writes “The rumor mill is already raging over the potential functionality and capacity for Google’s online storage service we talked about earlier this week (the company says ‘it makes sense’ to put all its Web apps under the same umbrella). But Internet rights advocates are now crying foul over liability issues, a probable lack of encryption and an cash-cow model that could scan all your personal data for advertising keywords. From the article: “‘Google would be wise to offer users an option to encrypt your information,’ says Nimrod Kozlovski, a professor of Internet law at Tel Aviv University. ‘It really needs to have really detailed explanations of what the legal expectations are for storing your info.’”"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by Zonk

Oh . . . this may be the iPhone of cameras. Keep up with me as I explain. This new powerful, stylish, Cybershot (a.k.a. the little black dress of cameras) isn’t even on the market yet (available for shipping starting December 10). We’re talking touch-screen technology (no what-are-those-for buttons!), 8-megapixels, 4GB of internal memory (that’s up to 40,000 VGA-quality photos or 1,000 8-megapixels photos). Internal memory means no more media cards to mess with or keep track of.

The Album Feature
The camera also features an album folder, which makes it simple to organize and access your thousands of photos stored in the camera. Photos are organized chronologically and the very helpful calendar view provides you with easy access (you just gotta rely on you′re own memory).

Straight-to-Web Feature
The ultra-cool PC-only feature is that the camera has a “sharemark″ folder, where you can store your favorite photos and YouTube-ready videos. Upload them directly to your favorite popular-publish sites (Crackle, Flickr, Photobucket, Shutterfly, and YouTube) via Sony’s PMB Portable software, a friendly application that runs when the device is connected to a compatible PC via the supplied USB cable.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Great NY Times article about bike stereos, photo Tyler Hicks/The New York Times -

A new biker gang is roaming the streets of Richmond Hill, Queens. This crew of mostly teenagers can be seen riding along 103rd Avenue just west of the Van Wyck Expressway. The bikes roar, but the booming sound has nothing to do with engines — because there are no engines. They are ordinary bicycles, not motorcycles, although these contraptions look and sound more like rolling D.J. booths. They are outfitted with elaborate stereo systems installed by the youths.

Bicycles That Carry Powerful Beats, and Even a Rider or Two - New York Times - [via] Link.

Thump:

DIY Bike stereo - Link.

Ultra-light/ultra-efficient pimped-out bike stereo system - Link.

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Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: Gaming

Doesn’t Nintendo know we’ve got a bit of a weight problem going on over here Stateside? The company just released its highly-anticipated Wii Fit in Japan today, which will most likely sell like gangbusters, while simultaneously symbolizing the death of the hardcore gamer in Nintendo land to a small portion of the faithful not completely won over by Miyamoto’s latest charming contraption. Unfortunately, the Wii Fit won′t crossing any oceans until early next year. Nintendo’s official Japan street date for Wii Fit was December 1st, but it seems that at least a few online shops are disregarding that pesky fact.

[Via Wii News]

Read - Buy at Play-Asia
Read - Buy at Amazon Japan
Read - Buy at Success-HK

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Paul Miller

A recent post on LifeHacker mentioned a little program called MPlayer, which allows you to play nearly any media file (like RealAudio/Video, Ogg, & ̆A) on your Windows Mobile 5 or 6 phone. However, the post mentioned the program was a rough port of a Linux version of the app, and  was somewhat of a killer on processor (and thereby, battery) usage. However, a commenter mentioned another program called Conduits Pocket Player, which they liked better, so I thought it was worth checking out. The Conduits Pocket Player, although not free (it’s $19.95), supports all Windows Mobile devices and offers a myriad of features. The Pocket Player supports MP3, WMA, WM͝ 2, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, Protected WMA, u-Law, A-Law, AU, &ADPCM WAV formats. It also has a Media Browser menu system with touch scrolling & gesture support; a Media Library with ratings, an auto-imports up to 1000+ tracks; an internet radio web guide for finding mp3 blogs & podcasts; voicemail playback as WAV attachments which integrates with your inbox; a skinnable player with visualizations and album art support; a playlist manager bookmarks; a sleep timer and so much more! If you′re looking to do more with your smartphone, this looks pretty cool!

Original post by Sarah Perez

jbrodkin writes “A new McAfee report finds that 120 countries, notably the United States and China, are regularly launching Web-based espionage campaigns. Government-sponsored cyber attacks against enemy countries are becoming more common, targeting critical systems including electricity, air traffic control, financial markets and government computer networks. This year, Russia allegedly attacked Estonian government news and bank servers, while China was accused of hacking into the Pentagon. A McAfee researcher says this trend will accelerate, noting ‘it’s easier to attack government X’s database than it is to nuke their troops.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by Zonk

Filed under: GPS

The European Union’s next generation satellite navigation system has finally gotten to green light from all involved parties… except Spain. As we reported in July, the project had gotten the high five from US interests, but the works had been stalled as Spain fought to maintain a control center in Madrid. In the end, 26 of the 27 member states of the Union decided to move forward with the project, declining Spain’s request, and leaving them to bow out of the agreement. As of now, there will only be control centers in Germany and Italy, but the project will begin to move forward once again, with a launch slated for 2013. Says EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, “Galileo will become the spearhead for European technology.” We’re all for the new system, but we hope a few satellites don’t spark another Thirty Years’ War.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Gaming

We’ve been hearing quite a bit about next week’s Fall Dashboard Update for the 360, but Microsoft’s finally ready to spill all of the beans. Obviously, the biggest update is the “Xbox Originals” downloadable Xbox games, but other improvements include enhanced online profiles, increased social networking, beefed up parental controls, improved menus, and our personal favorite: DivX support. As stated before, Xbox Original games, like Halo 1 and Fable, will be going for 1200 MS points (about $15), which is roughly comparable with your local game store’s bargain bin. Also on the fiscal side of things, certain titles on Xbox Live Arcade are getting permanent price drops, akin to “Platinum Hits” of retail titles. As for DivX, Microsoft was a little vague when speaking with Joystiq about it, but it sounds like XviD is in play as well, which is just double fun. It’s all hitting as a free download on December 4th, starting at 2AM PST.

[Via Joystiq]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Paul Miller

Here’s what the underside of the bot looks like. You can see the iron pipes that work as a base, the lasercut platforms, and the skate bearings that make it move silky smooth.

Zach of the Reprap foundation has done a lot of work to get ordering the Repstrap’s parts organized. He’s put together a really easy way to order the stuff from McMaster Carr. I chose regular shipping and it arrived the next day in NYC and then I brought everything to Europe to work on in a Pelican case. - Link

Photo Credit: Jay

In the PDF you can read about some of the obstacles overcome in making this bot, but those aside, the best part of this project was the awesome team that pulled together to work on it. The folks at Metalab, GRL Vienna, and Monochrom came together to make this project happen. At one time there were about 12 people all working on the project at 3 in the morning and the focus and excitement in the air was tangible. This project is on the same level as the drawbot and the near-space balloon. In all three of these projects, I’ve made great new friends out of sheer necessary and desperate collaboration. It’s been super fun! I recommend doing ambitious projects as a team!

I got my steppers donated to me from Marius at the metalab. They were sourced from 2 broken printers and a scanner. The important thing when you are looking for bipolar steppers is that they have 4 wires coming out of them. This indicates that they are bipolar steppers.

There is more information about steppers for you to check out here. - Link

Dowload the PDF and start ordering up your parts to get your Repstrap robot hardware going! - PDF Link

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Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Many of our Channel 10 audience has noticed that Tina Wood no longer posts videos nor is she active in the community. Some feel abandoned, some feel betrayed and some just simply haven’t noticed. Whatever category you fall into, I felt the need to clear up some misconceptions.

Original post by Laura Foy

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

At this point, we′re fairly certain i-Station will only use a number other than “43″ in its product titles once it has exhausted the entire US alphabet, but since we′re not quite to that point, we’re forced to live with U43 this go ‘round. As expected, this Korean PMP is packed to the brim with features, including a 4.3-inch WQVGA (480 x 272) display, WinCE 5.0, a T-DMB receiver, GPS, e-dictionary, 30GB / 60GB hard drive and support for a smorgasbord of file formats. Notably, some features will depend on which flavor you pick up — Standard, DMB or NAVI — but the whole lot plays nice with MPEˇ/2/3/4, AC3, DivX, XviD, WMV, WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC, FLAC, APE, JPEG, BMP and PNG. ‘Course, all this functionality won’t run ya cheap, as word on the street pegs this bad boy at ₩448,000 (or around $481).

[Via AkihabaraNews]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Brian Cartmell writes “An article at the Minneapolis — StarTribune site covers a significant setback for the Hormel food company, in a case that’s being closely watched by security companies across the country. Seattle-based Spam Arrest has gone up against the creator of the food substance in court, fighting for the right to use the word spam in its company name. The US Trademark Trial and Appeal board has sided with the spam fighters, agreeing that consumers of the Spam product would never confuse the food with junk email. ‘Derek Newman, Spam Arrest’s attorney, said the decision opens the door for many other anti-spam software companies … “Spam Arrest fought this battle for the whole software industry,” Newman said.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by Zonk

Today only, Walmart.com is selling the Garmin n??vi 200 GPS system for just $178, regularly $320. The n??vi 200 features a 3.5-inch color TFT touchscreen, turn-by-turn directions with voice guidance, preloaded maps for the U.S. and Puerto Rico, world clock, currency/measurement converters, SD memory card slot, 2D and 3D mapping, and a battery life of up to 5 hours. Get it now while it’s in stock!

Original post by Jen the Weird Hunter

Today only, Walmart.com is selling the Garmin nüvi 200 GPS system for just $178, regularly $320. The nüvi 200 features a 3.5-inch color TFT touchscreen, turn-by-turn directions with voice guidance, preloaded maps for the U.S. and Puerto Rico, world clock, currency/measurement converters, SD memory card slot, 2D and 3D mapping, and a battery life of up to 5 hours. Get it now while it’s in stock!

Original post by Jen the Weird Hunter