After a successful career on Wall Street, she became a leading buyer and seller of antique and estate baubles on Madison Avenue.
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четверг, 31 мая 2018 г.
Economic Scene: The Profound Social Cost of American Exceptionalism
Rich and technologically advanced, the United States continues to accept a degree of dysfunction that would be intolerable in any other rich society.
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Square Feet: New Jersey Town and University Bridge Their Divide, and Both Reap a Reward
Rowan University and the Borough of Glassboro overcame years of distrust to revitalize the downtown area with retail, restaurants and student housing.
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Starbucks’s Tall Order: Tackle Systemic Racism in 4 Hours
The coffee chain closed its U.S. stores for several hours to improve its image after the arrests of two black men at a store in Philadelphia brought heavy criticism.
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Shari Redstone Fires Fresh Volley in Legal Battle for Control of CBS
A new lawsuit suggests that a proposed merger between CBS and Viacom was just step one in a larger plan. It also asserts Ms. Redstone’s control of CBS.
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Counting Bees With A Raspberry Pi
Even if keeping bees sounds about as wise to you as keeping velociraptors (we all know how that movie went), we have to acknowledge that they are a worthwhile thing to have around. We don’t personally want them around us of course, but we respect those who are willing to keep a hive on their property for the good of the environment. But as it turns out, there are more challenges to keeping bees than not getting stung: you’ve got to keep track of the things too.
Keeping an accurate record of how many bees are coming and going, and when, is a rather tricky problem. Apparently bees don’t like electromagnetic fields, and will flee if they detect them. So putting electronic measuring devices inside of the hive can be an issue. [Mat Kelcey] decided to try counting his bees with computer vision, and so far the results are very promising.
After some training, a Raspberry Pi with a camera can count how many bees are in a given image to within a few percent of the actual number. Getting an accurate count of his bees allows [Mat] to generate fascinating visualizations about his hive’s activity and health. With real-world threats such as colony collapse disorder, this type of hard data can be crucial.
This is a perfect example of a hack which might not pertain to many of us as-is, but still contains a wealth of information which could be applicable to other projects. [Mat] goes into a fantastic amount of detail about the different approaches he tried, what worked, what didn’t, and where he goes from here. So far the only problem he’s having is with the Raspberry Pi: it’s only able to run at one frame per second due to the computational requirements of identifying the bees. But he’s got some ideas to improve the situation.
As it so happens, we’ve covered a few other methods of counting bees in the past, though this is the first one to be entirely vision based. Interestingly, this method is similar to the project to track squirrels in the garden. Albeit without the automatic gun turret part.
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Stock Market Prediction With Natural Language Machine Learning
Machines – is there anything they can’t learn? 20 years ago, the answer to that question would be very different. However, with modern processing power and deep learning tools, it seems that computers are getting quite nifty in the brainpower department. In that vein, a research group attempted to use machine learning tools to predict stock market performance, based on publicly available earnings documents.
The team used the Azure Machine Learning Workbench to build their model, one of many tools now out in the marketplace for such work. To train their model, earnings releases were combined with stock price data before and after the announcements were made. Natural language processing was used to interpret the earnings releases, with steps taken to purify the input by removing stop words, punctuation, and other ephemera. The model then attempted to find a relationship between the language content of the releases and the following impact on the stock price.
Particularly interesting were the vocabulary issues the team faced throughout the development process. In many industries, there is a significant amount of jargon – that is, vocabulary that is highly specific to the topic in question. The team decided to work around this, by comparing stocks on an industry-by-industry basis. There’s little reason to be looking at phrases like “blood pressure medication” and “kidney stones” when you’re comparing stocks in the defence electronics industry, after all.
With a model built, the team put it to the test. Stocks were sorted into 3 bins — low performing, middle performing, and high performing. Their most successful result was a 62% chance of predicting a low performing stock, well above the threshold for chance. This suggests that there’s plenty of scope for further improvement in this area. As with anything in the stock market space, expect development in this area to continue at a furious pace.
We’ve seen machine learning do great things before, too – even creative tasks, like naming tomatoes.
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The Tantillus, Reborn
In the beginning, around 2011 or thereabouts, there was an infinite variety of designs available for anyone to build their own 3D printer. There were Mendels, some weirdos were actually trying to build Darwins, and deltas were starting to become a thing. In the years since then, everyone just started buying cheap Prusa clones and wondering why their house burnt down.
One of the most innovative printers of this era was the Tantillus. It was a small printer, with the entire frame fitting in a 250mm square, but still able to print a 100mm cube. You could print the entire printer, and it was adorable. Face it: most of your prints aren’t bigger than 100mm unless you’re purposely printing something huge, and having a low moving mass is good.
The Tantillus has fallen by the wayside, but now it’s back. The Tantillus R — the ‘R’ means ‘reborn’ — is the latest project to take the design goals of the original Tantillus and bring it into the era of the modern RepRap ecosystem. (German, Google Translatrix, but the English translation of all the documentation is in the works),
Of note in this new design, the Tantillus R is still using shafts driven with high-test fishing line, driven by steppers and belts. The R version is getting away from the J-head, but in the interests in keeping the moving mass down, the hotend is a Merlin. This might seem an especially odd choice in the age of all-metal hotends, but again the goal is to keep moving mass down. As you would expect from a modern 3D printer, there’s support for a heated bed, you can plug a Raspberry Pi into it for Octoprint, and in true RepRap fashion, most of the parts are printable.
While the era of self-build 3D printers is probably over — you can’t compete with the cheap Chinese firestarters on price — the Tantillus R is a great project that retains the spirit of the RepRap projects while adding a few modern niceties and can still produce some impressive prints.
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Convert A Kerbside CRT TV Into An Arcade Monitor
While an old CRT TV may work well enough on a MAME cabinet project, the real arcade purists are quick to point out that a proper arcade monitor and a TV aren’t the same thing. A real arcade board uses RGB to connect to the monitor, that is, direct control over the red, green, and blue signals. Conversely video over coax or composite, what most people associate with old CRT TVs, combine all the video information down into an analog signal. Put simply, RGB allows for a much cleaner image than composite.
Many in the arcade restoration scene say that trying to convert a bog standard CRT TV into a RGB monitor isn’t possible, but [Arcade Jason] had his doubts. Over on his YouTube channel, he’s recently posted a tutorial on how to go from a trashed CRT TV to a monitor worthy of proper arcade gaming with relatively little work. As real arcade monitors are becoming increasingly rare, these kind of modifications are likely to get more common as coin-op gamers look to keep the old ways alive.
Now obviously every TV is going to do be different inside. All CRT TVs contain high voltages, and on some the circuit boards aren’t even mains-isolated, so take care if you try this. [Jason] certainly doesn’t claim that the method he demonstrates will work on whatever old TV you happen to have kicking around. But the general idea and some of the techniques he shows off are applicable to most modern TVs, and can help you tailor the method to your particular piece of gear. It all starts with a wet finger. Seriously.
[Jason] demonstrates a rather unique way of determining which pins on the TV’s control chip are responsible for the individual color signals by wetting his finger and sliding it over the pins. When a change in color is seen on the displayed image, you know you’re getting close. We can’t say it’s the most scientific or even the safest method, but it worked for him.
He then follows up with a jumper wire and resistor to find the precise pins which are responsible for each color, and solders up his actual RGB connection for the arcade board. In addition to the three color wires, a sync signal is also needed. This is the same sync signal used in composite video, so all that’s needed is to solder to the pad for the original composite video jack. Add a ground signal, and you’ve got yourself a proper RGB monitor.
Interestingly, this one has come full circle, as [Jason] says his attempt was inspired by an old post on Hackaday. It’s the Circle of Hacker Life.
[Thanks to Seebach for the tip]
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VCF East: The Mail Order App Store
Today we take the concept of a centralized software repository for granted. Whether it’s apt or the App Store, pretty much every device we use today has a way to pull applications in without the user manually having to search for them on the wilds of the Internet. Not only is this more convenient for the end user, but at least in theory, more secure since you won’t be pulling binaries off of some random website.
But centralized software distribution doesn’t just benefit the user, it can help developers as well. As platforms like Steam have shown, once you lower the bar to the point that all you need to get your software on the marketplace is a good idea, smaller developers get a chance to shine. You don’t need to find a publisher or pay out of pocket to have a bunch of discs pressed, just put your game or program out there and see what happens. Markus “Notch” Persson saw his hobby project Minecraft turn into one of the biggest entertainment franchises in decades, but one has to wonder if it would have ever gotten released commercially if he first had to convince a publisher that somebody would want to play a game about digging holes.
In the days before digital distribution was practical, things were even worse. If you wanted to sell your game or program, it needed to be advertised somewhere, needed to be put on physical media, and it needed to get shipped out to the customer. All this took capital that would easily be beyond many independent developers, to say nothing of single individuals.
But at the recent Vintage Computer Festival East, [Allan Bushman] showed off relics from a little known chapter of early home computing: the Atari Program Exchange (APX). In a wholly unique approach to software distribution at the time, individuals were given a platform by which their software would be advertised and sold to owners of 8-bit machines such as the Atari 400/800 and later XL series computers. In the early days, when the line between computer user and computer programmer was especially blurry, the APX let anyone with the skill turn their ideas into profit.
The Fine Print
Of course, Atari’s goals with the program weren’t completely altruistic. At the time, the Atari badly needed more software. So badly that they were willing to take on the role of publisher themselves to help ease the burden of getting new software out for the platform. Developer Chris Crawford, who’s war simulation Eastern Front (1941) ended up selling over 60,000 copies through APX, recalls the origins of the program:
The guy who cooked up the idea, Dale Yocum, was trying to explain to the management that there are a lot people out there that like to write programs and if we can publish these programs for them, it’s a win-win. He put together a business plan for it and said ‘Look, we only need a little bit of money and this thing can be self-sufficient and it might make some money.’ They grudgingly agreed to let him do it because the Atari platform desperately needed a larger software base, a void not being filled by the other publishers of the day.
Costs of the program were reduced by using very utilitarian packaging for the software, and having the developers themselves write the manuals. All Atari had to do was run off the copies and mail them out. Even the split was heavily in Atari’s favor: the developers only received 10% of the sale price for each unit sold.
So not only did APX help fill a gap in Atari’s software library, it brought in plenty of money for them as well. Consider that Eastern Front (1941) is listed at $29.95 in the APX catalog, which totals to nearly $1.8 million (approximately $4.5 million, today) dollars in sales for that single game alone.
The APX Archive
While [Allan] did bring along an Atari 800XL to demonstrate some of the software distributed via APX, the real draw of his table was a selection of mint condition APX boxes, tapes, manuals, and catalogs. The sparse box art and utilitarian manuals were a stark reminder of the program’s frugality. Some of the manuals had all the frivolity of a high school book report; something which was immediately noticeable at VCF East, where there was no shortage of contemporary software to compare against.
[Allan] has made it his mission to scan the boxes and manuals for all of the APX software he can find, including the APX catalogs themselves, and make the information publicly available on the AtariWiki. So even if you can’t see his impressive collection in person, the data about this fascinating experiment in software distribution won’t be lost to time.
History Repeats
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this look at APX was hearing about its parallels with modern software marketplaces. Some of the programs released via APX were hyper specialized, such as an application for keeping track of a newspaper route and one that was used to calibrate color TVs. These programs would likely never have seen the light of day, at least commercially, if a marketplace such as APX didn’t exist.
But as APX became more popular, Atari had to start tightening up their standards. In the early days, the bar was fairly low for acceptance into the program, but towards the end more and more software had to get rejected. While there’s no hard numbers on how many programs got the boot, Director of APX Fred Thorlin did admit in an interview that some of the early titles would never have been accepted if they were submitted later on in the program.
So the next time you look at all the low effort copycat games and applications vying for your download on the Google Play store of Apple App Store, just remember: Atari tried to warn us.
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Friday Hack Chat: Logic Noise
If you like your synthesizers glitchy, squawky, or simply quick-and-dirty, you won’t want to miss this week’s Hack Chat with Hackaday’s own [Elliot Williams], because he’ll be brain-dumping everything he knows about making music with 4000-series CMOS logic chips. Break out your breadboards!
Coaxing sound out of chips intended for digital mathematical operations might sound odd, but there’s a tradition of doing so that dates back to the late 1970s. While the scene is dominated by hackers and artists, would you believe that there was even a commercial synthesizer (the EDP Wasp) based on these techniques?
Even more surprisingly, people are still coming up with novel circuits even in the last few years! Making synths out of logic chips is cheaper, more accessible, and more surprising than building yourself a modular synth, but we’ll be the first to admit that maybe it’s a gateway drug.
If you want to get a jump on the discussion, [Elliot]’s Logic Noise series ran twelve installments and covers a lot of the basics. (Start here, with square-wave oscillators and then skip around if you want.) He also just gave a talk at Hackaday Belgrade, and although it was mostly about the live demos, you can check out the slides here — scroll to the very end for a good bibliography.
Ever wondered:
- How to get triangle and sawtooth waveforms out of digital logic?
- Whether a shift register can handle all of your compositional desires?
- Just exactly what an XOR sounds like?
Don’t miss this week’s hack chat!
You are, of course, encouraged to add your own questions to the discussion. You can do that by leaving a comment on the Hack Chat Event Page and we’ll put that in the queue for the Hack Chat discussion.
Our Hack Chats are live community events on the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week is just like any other, and we’ll be gathering ’round our video terminals at noon, Pacific, on Friday, June 1st. Here’s a clock counting down the time until the Hack Chat starts.
Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io.
You don’t have to wait until Friday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.
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Don’t Get Left Behind in the Cryptocurrency Race
Cryptocurrency trading has been around for well over a decade, but for many of us it reached a zenith in December 2017. At its height, Bitcoin traded at $20,000 per unit, before plunging spectacularly. Today, this cryptocurrency trades in a tight range between $8,000 and $10,000. The relative stability of cryptocurrency prices is notable, given the extreme volatility this contrarian investment option is subject to. The total value of the digital currency market is hovering around $400 billion – a far cry from the $800 billion + towards the end of 2017.
Regardless, Bitcoin remains the dominant player in a market now saturated with 1,610 cryptocurrencies. By mid-May, Bitcoin’s dominance remained strong at 36.7%, while the other 1,609 cryptocurrencies made up the remaining 63.3% of all market capitalization. Consider that the top 5 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, and EOS account for $281 billion of the $400 billion market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies. That amounts to a whopping 70%. For this reason, traders tend to focus their energy on the top 5 cryptocurrencies as a barometer of what is going on in the virtual currency market.
Back to Basics: What Is Cryptocurrency and Why Is Everyone Interested in It?
The rush to buy Bitcoin and Altcoin is born from a need to invest in a future-oriented technology that has far-reaching implications. Nobody disputes the power of blockchain technology on financial transactions processing, smart contracts, frictionless executions of trades, and the like. There is a little hesitation about regulatory measures and how that will impact cryptocurrency functionality. The core tenets of digital currency trading include anonymity, zero intervention by central banks, and free transfers in double-quick time.
Of course, traditional financial institutions cannot possibly keep up with the technology advanced by Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, or even Bitcoin. As such, there is an opinion that banks are doing everything in their authority to hamstring cryptocurrency exchanges, for fear of losing valuable revenue streams. The authorities are now stepping in to try and regulate cryptocurrency exchanges and provide a framework for trading and investing in this new-age technology.
Leading cryptocurrency trading broker, Wilkins Finance offers a comprehensive Cryptocurrency definition: ‘… A cryptocurrency is a digital asset in the form of virtual money that is transferable between two or more parties over an electronic network…’ This definition provides clarity on what the technology does, and who can use it. Cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin is not only a medium of exchange such as fiat (fiduciary) currency, it is also an investment vehicle. Had you purchased Bitcoin when it was worth fractions of a penny, you would enjoy asset growth valued at thousands of percentage points. Such is the explosive potential of this technology and digital currency that it has been deemed the most volatile financial instrument on the market.
Cryptocurrency exchanges are designed to facilitate trading of cryptocurrency such as BTC, LTC, XRP, BCH and the like. It is imperative to research the type of cryptocurrency under consideration, the merits of that technology, and the growth potential. Once this has been done, it is relatively easy to trade cryptocurrency. Back in the day, people would mine cryptocurrency for hours on end. That type of technology is largely avoided owing to the excessive time and cost constraints involved. Success in cryptocurrency trading is dependent upon research. As more companies like American Express adopt digital currency as their go-to transactions medium, so we will see a move towards stronger fundamentals in this burgeoning new asset class.
The post Don’t Get Left Behind in the Cryptocurrency Race appeared first on Home Business Magazine.
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5 Tips to Obtaining a Low Interest Rate in Singapore
A loan can either help you improve your business, or it can be a source of misery. Part of what determines whether a loan will be good for you or not is the interest rate. The higher the rate, the more difficult it becomes to repay it. To help you make the most out of a loan, here are 5 tips to obtaining a low interest rate loan in Singapore.
1. Choose your lender wisely
If you have taken out loans in the past, then you know that not all lenders are the same. That’s why it’s good to do some research before you commit to a lender. The best lenders allow for flexible rates, depending on the needs of the borrower. One such lender is credit thirty3. Credit thirty3 is a top moneylender in Singapore. That’s because they take their time to guide people on the best loans, based on their income and project budget.
2. Improve your credit rating
One of the smartest ways to lower your loan interest rates is by maintaining a healthy credit rating. The better your credit rating, the better your chances of negotiating for lower lending rates. One of the best ways to improve your credit rating is by repaying your loans on time. This gives lenders trust in your ability to repay, and they may lower your risk assessment levels. Higher interest rates are usually a reflection of a borrower’s higher risk profile.
3. Go for short-term loans
Unless it is extremely necessary, go for a short-term loan and repay it within the shortest time possible. Long-term loans may look like they have a lower interest rate, but the duration of the repayment will ultimately lead to a higher cost. Besides, with a long-term loan, things can happen along the way, and you may fail in your repayments. This can ruin your future credit profile, and make your future borrowing costs more expensive.
4. Get a collateralized loan
Online loans that don’t require any security usually attract high-interest rates. That’s because the lender needs to cover the risk, in case of default. As such, it makes sense to go for collateralized loans where you offer some form of security to the lender. These loans attract a lower interest rate because the lender has something to fall back on, in case you default on the loan.
5. Negotiate with the lender
Before you get into a loan agreement, you need to talk to the lender and persuade them to lower the rate for you. You will be surprised at how low they can go, if you have some good negotiating skills. When negotiating for a rate reduction, focus on convincing the lender that you are a low-risk borrower. You can easily do this by providing a clearly defined business plan, if you are borrowing to start a business. You can also show them past records of your business earnings, if you have some good ones. No lender will refuse to cut rates for a low-risk borrower. If you have a bad credit score, you may need to accept the higher rate or search online for lenders willing to take a chance on providing you with a loan to grow your business.
The post 5 Tips to Obtaining a Low Interest Rate in Singapore appeared first on Home Business Magazine.
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Why Google Home Is the Perfect Gift for Employees
Are you looking for a gift for one of your employees? Whether to reward employees for great work, keep them happy and motivated, or give gifts for birthdays, this can be a difficult task. The struggle ends with Google Home. In this article, we will discuss some reasons why Google Home is a wonderful present to give to a member of your staff or anyone for any occasion.
Here are some valuable features of Google Home that your valued employee will surely enjoy:
1. It controls your smart home products
Google Assistant supports many smart home products from different brands like LG, GE, Nest and Whirlpool, among many others. You can ask a Google Home to change the temperature, dim the lights, turn on the music, turn on the microwave and many other requests. You can easily control your smart home appliances with this.
2. It reminds you to work out
This product is indeed perfect for those who love to exercise and even those who do not want to exercise as this reminds you when it is time for your workout.
3. It allows you to make hands-free calls
Wouldn’t it be convenient to be able to attend to your calls while doing other things in the house – without even picking up your phone? Well, with Google Home this is possible – you can make hands-free calls at any time.
4. It can set up your daily schedule and remind you about it
This device can arrange your daily schedule and you can ask it to remind you a few hours or minutes before the scheduled time. This is indeed perfect for busy people who have very hectic day-to-day schedules.
5. It can share a story
You can even ask your Google Home to tell a story! This is perfect for a household with children who are always ready to listen to a story.
6. It can speak in various languages
Google Home is capable of speaking different languages including English, French, Italian, Japanese or German. It is versatile! Google Assistant on tablets and phones has even more languages to choose from.
7. It can be your own directory to find local handymen, plumbers or others
Finding local handymen, plumbers or other professionals you need around the house has been made easy with Google Home. You can simply say “Google, find me a plumber” and it will show helpful results within your area. Google has local-business recommendations that have been screened by Google and companies like Porch and HomeAdvisor.
8. It can help you in the kitchen
This device can give you lists of recipes to help you cook or bake. And not only that, you can also ask questions like “how many tablespoons in a cup” or other things about cooking.
9. It can remind you to watch your favourite TV shows
Sometimes you watch so many TV shows, movies, Netflix shows and others that you can no longer keep up with the schedules. Well, Google Home can remind you when it’s time to watch your favourite shows. This way, you are always up-to-date with your shows, avoiding any spoilers when you check out your social media accounts.
10. It plays white noise while you sleep
Another lovely feature of Google Home is that it can play white noise while you sleep, making you feel more relaxed. You can set a timer to ensure that it turns off at a certain time.
With all these features of Google Home, there is no doubt that your employee will love it. So no need to look further; buy Google Home at Harvey Norman now!
The post Why Google Home Is the Perfect Gift for Employees appeared first on Home Business Magazine.
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Iris Keyboard Case #3DThursday #3DPrinting
Amedee shares:
Iris keyboard case. Print as they are oriented, with supports. There is enough clearance to socket your pro micros.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
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Folding Hanger #3DThursday #3DPrinting
muzz64 shares:
The Folding Hanger is a simple solution that makes hanging items of clothing easy… just insert the folding hanger through the neck of your shirt (or other garment) then unfold it’s arms inside to hang it up… simple. And it’s great for travel use because it folds down to a compact size (175mm in length)
download the files on: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2861428
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
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Arduino LED Matrix Clock #3DThursday #3DPrinting
Manuauto shares:
This is a simple Desk Clock made from five 8×8 LED matrices and an Arduino Nano / Pro Mini
This clock uses a DS3231 RTC IC, which is not only quite accurate, but does also provide a temperature reading (which isn’t as accurate but good enough). In order to switch between the normal Time-Display to the Date / Temperature Reading, a touch sensor (TTP223) or button can be used.
download the files on: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2861401
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
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From the mail bag…
Thanks for making great content and selling quality products. You all really provide an incredible resource and a great value to the community.
Thanks.
Aaron
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Jefferson Han : One of the main developers of “multi-touch sensing #AsianPacificAmericanHeritageMonth
Via TED
After years of research on touch-driven computer displays, Jeff Han has created a simple, multi-touch, multi-user screen interface that just might herald the end of the point-and-click era.
Why you should listen
Jeff Han’s intuitive “interface-free” computer displays — controlled by the touch of fingertips — will change forever the way you think about computers. At TED 2006, the audience whistled, clapped and gasped audibly as Han demoed (for the first time publicly) his prototype drafting table-cum-touch display, developed at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The demo included a virtual lightbox, where he moved photos by fingertip — as if they were paper on a desk — flicking them across the screen and zooming in and out by pinching two fingers together, as well as a Google Earth-like map that he tilted and flew over with simple moves.When the demo hit the web, bloggers and YouTubers made him a bit of a megastar. (His video has been watched more than 600,000 times on YouTube alone; “Amazing,” “Incredible” and “Freaking awesome” are the typical responses there. Also: “When can I buy one?”) After this legendary demo, Han launched a startup called Perceptive Pixel — and when he came back to TED2007, he and his team brought an entire interactive wall, where TEDsters lined up to play virtual guitars. His talent and reputation earned him a place on Time Magazine’s 2008 list of the world’s 100 Most Influential People.
What others say
“Working all but alone from his hardware-strewn office, Jeff Han is about to change the face of computing. Not even the big boys are likely to catch him.” — Fast Company
In the video below :
Jeff Han shows off a cheap, scalable multi-touch and pressure-sensitive computer screen interface that may spell the end of point-and-click.
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ASK AN ENGINEER 5/30/18 LIVE! @adafruit #adafruit #AskAnEngineer
ASK AN ENGINEER 5/30/18 LIVE! (video). What is “Ask an engineer”? From the electronics enthusiast to the professional community – “Ask an Engineer” has a little bit of everything for everyone. If you’re a beginner, or a seasoned engineer – stop in and see what we’re up to! We have demos of projects and products we’re working on, we answer your engineering and electronics questions and we have a trivia question + give away each week.
Live text chat in discord in the #livebroadcast channel, and we’ll have live video on Youtube, Twitch, Periscope (Twitter) and Facebook.
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SHOW-AND-TELL LIVE VIDEO! 5/30/18 (video) #ShowAndTell @adafruit #adafruit
SHOW-AND-TELL LIVE VIDEO! 5/30/18 (video). Want to join the #showandtell Here’s how and video. The live chat for videos is over on Adafruit’s Discord server, JOIN here!
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NEW PRODUCT – Purple Aluminum Chassis for TT Motors – 2WD
NEW PRODUCT – Purple Aluminum Chassis for TT Motors – 2WD
This royal undercarriage is made for the most noble, born in the purple robots! This Aluminum Chassis in Blinka purple makes for an excellent robot body. It’s a single piece of bent 2mm thick aluminum, with a variety of holes, slots and cutouts for mounting boards, sensors, and servos. The sides are notched to fit two DC Gear ‘TT’ motors perfectly – you’ll want to get four M3 or 4-40 screws in about 24mm/1.0″ to mount the motors. In the front you can screw on a ball caster. You can build a very sturdy (and quite handsome!) little robot rover with this metal frame.
- It’s made of aluminum so it’s light and strong
- The anodizing is quite attractive to boot
- Can be used to build a 2-wheel or 4-wheel robot
- Tons of mounting holes & slots!
- You can drill and cut aluminum so it’s easy to modify
- Won’t crack or break if it falls down the stairs (alright, it happens)
Remember, this is just the metal frame chassis! Motors, wheels, motor driver, microcontroller, etc are not included!
You’ll probably want to also pick up the following to complete the robot body.
Then you will also need a microcontroller and motor driver that can drive the 5V DC motors. We recommend one of the following
- Adafruit DC Motor & Stepper Shield for Arduino
- Adafruit DC Motor & Stepper FeatherWing
- Adafruit DC Motor & Stepper HAT for Raspberry Pi
- Adafruit TB6612 DC Motor driver (can drive two DC motors)
- Adafruit DRV8833 DC Motor driver (can drive two DC motors)
- Adafruit Crickit (there’s various types)
A matching microcontroller or microcomputer is also required!
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NEW GUIDE: Soil Moisture Sensor with @Adafruit Circuit Playground Express and Microsoft MakeCode @MSMakeCode
These days, we all get busy and soon a week (or month) has gone by. Then we remember: water the plants! Run over to the plants and the soil is like a desert and we apologize to the poor plant.
This situation can be averted through a simple project using the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express. The amount of moisture in the soil can be measured by the board and indicators used to show if the plant needs watering. The project uses Microsoft MakeCode to monitor it all.
See the new guide on the Adafruit Learning System!
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NEW GUIDE: Stumble-Bot using CRICKIT & Circuit Playground Express #Adafruit #CRICKIT #MakeRobotFriend
This guide shows how to turn a cardboard box into a fun walking robot. “Stumble-bot” moves using servo controlled legs controlled by the Adafruit CRICKIT– A Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit.
This guide takes you through the process of making a walking robot friend using any flat box, Adafruit’s CRICKIT and Circuit Playground Express, and materials you can find around the house.
This guide demonstrates how to control two servo motors simultaneously using CircuitPython and Mu.
Check out the Stumble-bot Learn Guide to learn more!
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Robot Archaeology: Bicycle Style Self Balancing Robots #Robots #MakeRobotFriend
A very popular robot form factor these days is the self balancing robot. And the best example is the Segway personal transport with two horizontally mounted wheels.
But has anyone done a robot with two vertically mounted wheels, like a bicycle, that can stay upright? We went to find out.
It turns out that, YES, there are some cool robots with inline wheels! In the Youtube video above, Youtuber aoki2001 shows a great example. The large wheel where the rider would be is what makes sure the vehicle doesn’t topple over. It acts as an inverted pendulum, pushing against the large wheel’s inertia by rotating the motor to which it is attached.
But why use two wheels when you only need one? His unicycle version is below:
Here are some more bicycle robots:
- Self-balancing Bicycle Robot by Youtuber nkmrnrk
- Bicycle robot by Youtuber TOPTHL
- Gyroscopic scooterbot and bikebot by Youtuber niasean
- Reaction Wheel Balanced Robot Bike by Youtuber Reaction Wheel
You can build your own with the guides below:
- Self Balancing Unicycle by ScitechWA
- Self balancing bike
- OneWheeled has a bunch of information on these bots
We also found a humanoid robot that can ride a regular bike!
Consider building your next robotics project with Adafruit Crickit – A Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit. It’s an add-on to our popular Circuit Playground Express that lets you #MakeRobotFriend using CircuitPython, MakeCode, or Arduino, to build robotics, arts, crafts, audio animatronics, sensors, agriculture/robot farming, physical computing, kinetic sculptures, science experiments, telescope control and much more!
Do you have a self balanced unicycle or bicycle? Post your experience and build in the comments!
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NEW GUIDE: Adafruit NeoPXL8 FeatherWing and Library #NeoPixel #AdafruitLearningSystem
NEW GUIDE: Adafruit NeoPXL8 FeatherWing and Library
NeoPixels are magical things. It couldn’t be simpler…a single data wire from the microcontroller, linking pixel to pixel for as long as you need. When NeoPixel projects get really large though…hundreds of pixels or more…this simplicity starts to become a bottleneck…
NeoPXL8 (pronounced “NeoPixelate”) is a hardware-and-software combo for our Feather M0 and related boards, bringing buttery smooth animation to large-scale NeoPixel projects.
NeoPXL8 splits the problem 8 ways…rather than one long strand, 8 shorter strands are refreshed concurrently, greatly reducing transmission times. Additionally, NeoPXL8 uses direct memory access (DMA) to allow the CPU to continue with other tasks while these data transfers take place in the background. Your code could start processing the next frame of animation, or load data from an SD card. All interrupts and timekeeping functions operate normally, no drift.
It’s not a new idea, but achieving this on the economy-minded SAMD21 microcontroller required hijinks and shenanigans, and we’re excited to share the results.
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Working replica of Snake Plissken’s Lifeclock countdown timer watch from Escape From New York #WearableWednesday #Sci-Fi
At $300 this one is only for the die-hard fans, but it looks pretty fun!
Via Boing Boing:
The Lifeclock One: Snake Edition is a $300 licensed replica of the countdown timer watch worn by Snake Plissken in Escape From New York: it’s very cool looking and faithful to the original prop, but regrettably, the designers have added in a bunch of “smart-watch” features (Bluetooth, an app, text-message and app notifications from your phone) that raise the price, create needless attack surface, and add complexity.
the watches are custom made, with high-quality leather straps, a choice of anodized aluminum or stainless steel back, and custom backing engraving.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
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Wi-Fi Smart Scale #AdafruitIO
Working out this summer and need to record your weight? IgorF2 on Instructables built a smart scale:
In this project I designed a smart bathroom scale, using some 3D printing, an ESP8266, IFTTT and Adafruit.IO. You can use this tutorial to practice several skills: 3d printing and laser cutting skills, soldering, electronics, programming, etc.
On the next steps I’ll show you how I 3D printed it, wired the circuits, and made the code. In the end of this tutorial you’ll be ready to measure your weight and log it online!
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Bosch Jet Thruster Blasts your Motorcycle out of a Skid
Via Engadget!
Modern motorcycles have gained safety features like antilock brakes and even (experimental) self-balancing, but riders still highly exposed in crashes. Bosch is trying to stop accidents in the first place in a crazy new way: using jet thrusters. Let’s say you’ve leaned into a steep curve, hit a patch of gravel or sand and started to slide in an unrecoverable way. A sensor will detect the wheel slip and fire gas from an airbag-type accumulator out of a tank side nozzle, creating a reverse thrust that miraculously rights your motorcycle.
The tech is not unlike the thrusters used to maneuver spacecraft and looks, as you’d expect, pretty cool when it engages (see below). The downside is that it’s for one-time use (like an airbag), increases complexity and is likely to come only to expensive motorcycles, if it ever arrives at all. It would have to work flawlessly, because if it engaged by accident, it could possibly knock you right over.
Bosch also showed off new motorcycle tech including adaptive cruise control, blind spot warnings and more. It plans to introduce those features in the Ducati Multistrada and KTM 1290 Super Duke, but didn’t say when, or if, the anti-sliding thruster tech would come to market.
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Wear It Festival Berlin 2018 #WearableWednesday
This year’s Wear it Festival will be held at Kulturbrauerei Berlin June 19-20! Ticket sales end june 17 and late ticket sales end June 19. From WearIt-Bearlin.com:
19 and 20 June 2018:
Experience two conference days filled with inspiration, learn from successful companies and meet the most important influencers within industry, politics and culture. Wear It Festival brings together designers, artists, investors, founders, companies, research and media in the heart of Berlin and therefore bridges between people, ideas and products. Besides talks, roundtables and workshops there are going to be further highlights such as performances, an exhibition, a startup show and pitches.
Read more and see more on YouTube
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
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Parley for the Oceans turns waste plastic into sunglasses to fund ocean clean-up
Via Dezeen
A collection of limited-edition sunglasses are the first product to be launched as part of a new fundraising platform that seeks to recycle plastic from the ocean into consumer products.
The platform, called Clean Waves, has been set up by beer brand Corona and marine organisation Parley for the Oceans, which has previously created footwear and swimwear made from ocean plastic in collaboration with Adidas.
The Clean Waves project is aimed at boosting the use of eco innovative materials in fashion and industrial design.
The first Clean Waves product to be launched is a pair of sunglasses made in Italy from the plastic that Parley for the Oceans and Corona harvest from the oceans and beaches they protect.
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Baohua Li’s ‘Mizukami’ Lets You Walk…err Stomp on Water Without Sinking | #makerfaire
It's a great fun to see the Project Walking on Water by Baohua Li. Love it, and would definitely try it on @MakerFaireSZ#ProjectSpotlight pic.twitter.com/n1F01nsVbw
— Maker Faire Shenzhen (@MakerFaireSZ) September 13, 2017
I just stumbled upon this project by Baohua Li at 2017’s Maker Faire Shenzhen and had to know more. Now the tweet above is golden, but check out the video below courtesy of TAKASU Masakazu – especially at the 1:00 mark where Li performs multiple ‘stomp-n-sink’ maneuvers to prove the concept of his water-walker project – amazing! (And a total cardio workout I’m sure!)
The text below is translated from Japanese using Google Translate, via diamond.jp:
I am participating in the Asian Maker Fair the most in the world. Compared to other countries’ maker fairs with that eyes, Chinese maker fair has strong nature that young people who entrepreneurs who start a product that smells like (mostly dishonest) will exhibit, “I want to make it because I want to make it I felt that I would not see much what creativity and originality overflowed. It seems that the industrial trade fair and the Maker fair introduced in the previous series, “Shenzhen’s Electrical Show, Cutting-edge fun from the cutting edge to pakuri” report do not change very much. However, this time the Maker Fair Shenzhen 2017 felt a sign that it will change.
What I was attracting great attention is a tool for the new sports of walking on water called “water floating” in the above picture. It was an inventor named Baohua and entrepreneurs were exhibiting it.
The board arranged like a comb becomes like a plate when it sinks into water, the resistance becomes large, and when raising it from water it falls and the resistance becomes small. Even though there is some resistance, even if there is some resistance, it will eventually settle in a couple of seconds, but this mechanism will eventually sink, but by this mechanism it will take a few seconds to sink and moment to raise There. So you can walk on the water if you continue the act of pulling up your left foot before putting your right foot down and putting your right foot forward before your left foot sinks.
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Breaking Down the 76477 “UFO” Sound Effect Chip from Space Invaders
Another fantastic reverse engineer from Ken Shirriff – this time of the 76477 sound effect chip from Space Invaders responsible for the “UFO” sound:
The 76477 Complex Sound Generation chip (1978) provided sound effects for Space Invaders1 and many other video games. It was also a popular hobbyist chip, easy to experiment with and available at Radio Shack. I reverse-engineered the chip from die photos and found some interesting digital circuitry inside. Perhaps the most interesting is a shift register based white noise generator, useful for drums, gunshots, explosions and other similar sound effects. The chip also uses a digital mixer to combine the chip’s different sound generators. An unusual feature of the chip is that it uses Integrated Injection Logic (I2L), a type of digital logic developed in the 1970s with the goal of high-density, high-speed chips. (I wrote about the chip’s analog circuitry last year in this article.)
Looking under a microscope, you can see the circuitry that makes up the chip. The yellowish lines above are the metal traces that connect the circuits of the die. The reddish and greenish regions are the silicon of the chip, forming transistors and resistors. The black blobs around the edges show where tiny bond wires connected the die to the integrated circuit pins. I’ve outlined the analog circuits outlined in purple, while digital circuits are in cyan. The 76477 is primarily analog—most control signals are analog, the chip doesn’t have digital control registers, and most sounds are generated from analog circuits—but about a third of the chip’s area is digital logic.
The block diagram below shows the 76477 chip’s functional elements and can be compared to the die photo above. The voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) produced a tone whose frequency depends on the control voltage. The “super low frequency” SLF oscillator generated a triangle wave. Feeding this into the VCO generated a varying pitch, useful for bird chirps, sirens, or the warbling sound of the UFO in Space Invaders. The “one-shot” produced a pulse of a fixed length to control the length of the sound. The envelope generator made the sound more realistic by ramping its volume up at the start (attack) and down at the end (decay). The digital white noise generator was used for drums, gunshots, explosions and other similar sound effects. Finally the digital mixer combined these signals and fed them to the output amplifier.
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