For everything from family to computers…
Nearly every car has an ashtray, but for non-smokers, it just turns into a small hole that collects dust, trash, and other nonsense. Instructables user hells-oui shows us how to turn it into a smartphone dock. More »
from Lifehacker
It happens to the best of us: you slog through the summer heat on your morning commute and wind up a messy ball of sweat by the time you make it to the sweet comfort of your air-conditioned office. Now a team of MIT grads is trying to solve that problem by borrowing temperature-control technology from NASA.
The team, Ministry of Supply, is taking donations via Kickstarter for their Apollo line of dress shirts, which use phase-change materials to absorb heat from your body to cool you off when it’s hot, then release it when things cool down. It’s similar to technology used in NASA-approved spacesuits. The shirts keep sweat and moisture off of you, and use an anti-microbial coating to keep you smelling fresh.
The shirt has been a hit on Kickstarter so far, blowing past its initial goal of $30,000. To keep the funding rolling in, the team has been offering incentives, like new colors or patterns for reaching certain goals. At last count they were at more than $178,000.
[Kickstarter via Tech Crunch]
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now
Google may be a little late to the tablet party, but its Nexus 7 should make plenty of friends.
After the iPad came out in 2010, many electronics companies attempted to cash in on the craze by rushing out their own tablet devices, many of them running Google’s Android software.
There will come a time when our homes are completely automated, just like in several horror movies in which a house slowly murders its unsuspecting occupant. The Insteon is a pretty good step towards that inevitable murder–it’s the first LED lightbulb that you can control with a smartphone app.
Lots of LED bulbs have some kind of remote triggering–I’ve been using the GiiNii speaker-in-a-bulb lately, which can be controlled with a little remote–but this is the first we’ve seen to have a smartphone app. It assigns each bulb in your house a unique IP address, so you can trigger each one independently with an app (compatible with iOS and Android). And for the system to really be worth the cost, you’ll want to outfit your whole house in these things. The bulbs cost $30 each (which is not too bad; LED bulbs last for decades and even the current best LED bulb on the market runs $25), but the real cost is the $100 Insteon SmartLinc Controller you’ll need to buy if you want to hook up devices like smartphones.
[Insteon via SmartPlanet]
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now
An LCD screen can bring a whole new level of interactivity to your Arduino projects. They can provide instant data without using your computer and give visual feedback about your project. Normally, you would use a separate breadboard to hook up an LCD but using a MakerShield and this tutorial from Make: Projects, you can make your own LCD shield!
LCD screens look complicated but using an Arduino it’s not too bad at all. This tutorial will teach you how to hook up an LCD display to an Arduino using a MakerShield. All the components you need for this build are included in the Ultimate Microcontroller Pack.
You can pick up an Ultimate Microcontoller Pack from the Maker Shed, Micro Center, and select RadioShack locations. Call me crazy but I love the look of all those jumper wires!
More:
Using the MakerShield – Button
Using the MakerShield – Servo Control
from MAKE
For today’s edition of Deal of the Day, Amazon has a Small Fan & Mini-Air Conditioner for just $36.95 plus free shipping. That’s 59% off the cooler’s usual retail price of $89.95.
Small fan that can cool air up to 30F. This revolutionary evaporative cooling fan is the closest thing to a hand held mini air conditioner! Use it outdoors or keep it indoors as a desk fan. Provides gentle cool breeze. Uses evaporative cooling technology. Add water to soak the cooling filter. Ambient air is forced through the wet cooling filter and cools down. Works best in dry and hot climates. Fully portable and mobile, take it literally anywhere you want.
–Small Fan & Mini-Air Conditioner: The Original Handy Cooler in Blue – $89.95 $36.95 (59% Off)
Fifteen-year-old John Duffy is the subject of Gadget Freak Case #216, over at Design News, with his clever modification of Steve Hoefer’s Eternal Flame Indestructible LED Lantern from MAKE Vol 30. Though Steve’s “floating throwies†can be opened, when the coin cell is dead, to change it out, John’s wirelessly-rechargeable version is both greener (because you don’t have to throw out the dead battery) and tougher (because it can actually be glued closed). See the full build deets at the link, below, and Steve’s original project here. [via Hack a Day]
from MAKE