Biohacking : Discovering Our Relationship to the Denisovans

In December of 2010 the science journal Nature published an article about a newly discovered, but long extinct subspecies of humans. The name temporarily being used to identify these people is the Denisovans based on the cave in Siberia where a hermit named “Denis” had lived in the 1800’s. A young females pinky finger bone fragment was found...

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Happy 6th Birthday MicroPython! @micropython #micropython

We celebrated MicroPython’s 6th birthday on April 29th! Here are some important milestone dates we checked with the creator, Damien! 29th April 2013: first line of code written (in private, before anyone knew about it, before it was even called Micro-Python) 17th Sept 2013: first code running on a microcontroller, on the very first prototype...

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NEW GUIDE: Build your own SPARC workstation with QEMU and Solaris #Solaris #OpenSource #AdafruitLearningSystem #Adafruit @Adafruit

A new guide in the Adafruit Learning System: Build your own SPARC workstation with QEMU and Solaris Back in the late 80s and through the 90s, Unix workstations were super powerful, super cool, and super expensive. If you were making 3D graphics or developing applications, you wanted a high-performance workstation and Sun made some of the...

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Motown Records Announces Two Mentorship Programs #MusicMonday

Exciting news via Digital Music News: The company has confirmed the launch of two new mentorship programs. Read more about Motown Musician Accelerator: Motown Musician Accelerator’s 12-week program provides coaching, mentoring, industry networking, and grants to cohorts of four musicians and/or bands. It ends with a showcase, where the...

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How Amazon automatically tracks and fires warehouse workers for ‘productivity’

Here is some ominous news from Amazon’s autonomous employee tracking systems. As Amazon incorporates more and more robotic solutions, some of the human employees fear they are being treated like robots themselves. Via the Verge: A spokesperson for the company said that, over that time, roughly 300 full-time associates were terminated for...

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Open source may be the foundation of computing, but there are issues far from settled #makerbusiness

Wired recently ran a brief history of open source software and there are a few pieces worth diving into. You might wonder why companies like Google would bother making open source software when it’s a potentially lucrative product to sell or lease to its massive user base. The answer is that their goals and business models are different than a traditional software company, and open source aligns with a longer term strategy. [Google]...

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NASA to Broadcast Next Space Station Resupply Launch, Prelaunch Activities @NASA

Via NASA Editor’s Note: Launch time has been updated to 3:59 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 1. The What’s on Board Science Briefing time of 10:30 a.m., Monday, April 29 is unchanged. The prelaunch news conference will be held on Tuesday, April 30 at 1 p.m. (Updated April 27, 2019) NASA commercial cargo provider SpaceX is targeting no earlier...

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The Return of the Pie Company That Gave the Frisbee Its Name

Great piece on the history of The Frisbie Pie Company and its recent resurrection from Gastro Obscura. The Frisbie Pie Company got its name from William Russell Frisbie, a Civil War veteran who moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1871 to manage a new branch of the Olds Baking Company. Soon, Frisbie purchased the bakery and renamed it after...

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Secrets of The Synth Classic Soundtrack for ‘Escape From New York’ #MusicMonday

via Synthopia In his latest video, Alex Ball talks with Alan Howarth about the soundtrack to the John Carpenter film Escape From New York. Howarth discusses how he got his foot int the door in Hollywood, doing sound design for films like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and how that led to doing soundtracks with Carpenter. He also talks about the gear he used in creating the score to Escape From New York and the process used...

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Pick ‘n Place machine #ManufacturingMonday @adafruit (video)

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DataPhys.org is a Chronological List of Physical Visualizations and Related Artifacts

Cheers to Kottke.org for sharing this site! From DataPhys.org: This list currently has 329 entries. See recent additions. You can also get notified of new entries through Twitter. Read more and scroll around. We know we’ll spend countless hours on this site! from Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!...

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Researchers transmit data via a semiconductor laser, opening the door to ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi

via Phys.org Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences transmitted a recording of Martin’s classic “Volare” wirelessly via a semiconductor laser—the first time a laser has been used as a radio frequency transmitter. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,...

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When you move: what to do with your smart devices #IoT

Via Stacey on IoT – how does one deal with their smart devices when they move? Stacey Higginbotham recounts her experiences moving from a smart home to an apartment. The chaos of moving is no time to decommission 40 smart devices. Decommissioning your gadgets will take three times the time you expect, and you will forget one. And that one...

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Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: sign up today and get it tomorrow! #PyCon2019 #python #circuitpython @CircuitPython @micropython @ThePSF @Adafruit

The Python on Microcontrollers newsletter – your source for the week’s Python information Catch all the weekly news on Python for Microcontrollers with adafruitdaily.com. This ad-free, spam-free weekly email is filled with the Python information that you may have missed, all in one place! This includes Python...

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Fritzing gets a new maintainer, ongoing development plans #Fritzing

On the Fritzing GitHub, Kjell Morgenstern announces they are taking over maintenance of Fritzing: Hello, As announced in #3435 , I am taking over maintenance of Fritzing for André. My C++ / Embedded development / Robotics background is a good start, but I am not alone. Together with the help of the people at Aisler and @ovidiub13,...

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Rockstar Tries to Break the World’s First 3D Printed, Smash-Proof Guitar

Watching rockstars destroy guitars on stage usually gives me anxiety (yes, I realize I’m uncool), which is why the idea of a ‘smash-proof’ guitar sounds so appealing. Check out the whole story on design boom. henrik loikkanen, machining process developer at sandvik coromant, has played guitar since his youth, when he idolized malmsteen....

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Twenty Techniques For Generative Music Inspired By Brian Eno #MusicMonday

via Synthopia The video takes inspiration from Brian Eno‘s concept of Generative Music. Eno has been creating systems for generating music since the 70’s. While he initially applied this approach to ambient music, on albums like Music For Airports, his later work has explored creating systems for generating other types of music, too. Hear more! from Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!...

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Identification Day at the American Museum of Natural History

I hate to say that we already missed it this year *BUT* it is such an amazing event that I have to mention it. And since this is so far ahead, it also gives you time to plan for the next one. via the American Museum of Natural History The Museum celebrates natural history collections by inviting visitors to bring in their own specimens...

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Names Dress is a 3D Printed Art Piece Paying Homage to Women in STEAM

We absolutely love Names Dress – a new project from designer and artist Sylvia Heisel. A big thanks to Sylvia for including our very own Limor Fried! Sylvia Heisel, head of design lab Heisel and fashion tech pioneer, is the creator of The Names Dress, a wearable, compostable conceptual art piece engineered with over 300 handwritten, 3D...

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When Herbie Hancock Brought Music from the Future #MusicMonday

Here is the always fascinating Ethan Hein on the deep influence of Herbie Hancock’s track “Rockit” and the iconoclastic live performance from the 1984 Grammys that broke turntable scratching and breakdancing into the mainstream. From Ethan Hein: The more I think about it, the more I feel like Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” is the most interesting musical recording of all time. It touches every form of twentieth century American music,...

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Dark Arts at Hogwarts Castle with Drones at Universal Studios Hollywood #drone #droneday

Harry Potter world at Universal studios uses coordinated drones to create a massive Patronus. The whole sequence is pretty neat but if you just want to see the drones jump to the end (3:03) Shared by Attracions Magazine on YouTube See highlights from the all-new Dark Arts at Hogwarts Castle projection show at Universal Studios Hollywood,...

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National Tropical Botanical Garden Researchers Search for Rare and Endangered Plants with Drones #drone #droneday

Wow, incredible sights to behold in this video from NTBGSavePlants on YouTube– and, what is that at around the 1 minute mark? a presumed extinct hibiscus that was rediscovered this year?! See more and checkout NTBG here Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned...

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Watch Robots Flip Water Bottles With Style

Super satisfying video from ROBOCON Official [robot contest]. These robots are made by Japanese technical college “KOSEN” (高専) students (15~20 years old) as the theme of the Robot Contest “KOSEN ROBOCON” (高専ロボコン) this year. http://bit.ly/VtaTwI Read more. from Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! http://bit.ly/2V332cf via IFT...

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Insurgents Seek to Oust Wayne LaPierre in N.R.A. Power Struggle

A rift between Mr. LaPierre, the chief executive, and Oliver North, the president, threatened to turn the N.R.A.’s annual convention into outright civil war. from NYT > Business https://nyti.ms/2IZgjeD via IFT...

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Adafruit Mother’s Day Gift Guide 2019 #MothersDay #GiftGuide

Mother’s Day is 2 weeks away, which means we all have plenty of time to find that elusive thing that’s ‘just right’ for the mothering person in our lives. Whether your mom is a maker who needs just ooooone more item to complete the most recent WIP or is itching to take on something brand new, you’re in luck, dear friend – Adafruit’s here...

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Build LaundReminder and Say Goodbye to the Days of Forgetting Laundry in the Machine

From DCSE Team D, Dionysios Satikidis on Hackster.io: The device consists mainly of an IoT device to monitor the washing program and operations is realized on a breadboard with the provided Particle Photon as embedded system controller… If the end of a washing cycle was recognised, the device starts a timer and will send a notification to the user every hour until the device senses some sort of impact that would occur e.g....

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Brain Implant Device Allows People With Speech Impairments to Communicate With Their Minds

A really interesting piece from Smithsonian that breaks down speech and developing communication tech. With advances in electronics and neuroscience, researchers have been able to achieve remarkable things with brain implant devices, such as restoring a semblance of sight to the blind. In addition to restoring physical senses, scientists are also seeking innovative ways to facilitate communication for those who have lost the...

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Ending Slavery Wasn’t Enough. It Took My Family 5 Generations to Become Truly ‘Free.’

I recently had the pleasure of being invited by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to speak at a breakfast gathering honoring D.C. Emancipation Day. We would be celebrating the 157th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s formal emancipation of over 3,000 enslaved individuals in the district (on April 16, 1862). Several months later, on Jan. 1, 1863, Lincoln would go on to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which legally emancipated...

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LA May Cap Charter Schools to Appease Unions. But Kids Would Pay the Price.

When policymakers in California enacted a charter school law 25 years ago, many children had educational choice for the first time. But now, teachers unions want to needlessly limit children’s choices. Francisco Nunez’s story is a prime example of how charter schools use their independence to inspire and empower children through learning. Growing up in foster care, Francisco rarely attended school, and he started participating...

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New Jersey Parents to Rally Against LGBT Education Law

A rally this weekend will give New Jersey parents an opportunity to oppose a new state law requiring public schools to teach children about the “political, economic, and social contributions” of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. The new law also requires schools to stress such contributions made by disabled persons, but it’s the LGBT education component that prompted organizers to plan the rally. “When you teach...

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