Category: Hardware Dev

Culture Hardware Dev Tech

Soundhawk’s smart earpiece tunes out noise to augment your hearing

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As reported on Engadget. BY CHRIS VELAZCO We’ve all been there. You’re standing around, trying to have a conversation — meaningful or otherwise — but that wretched, raucous noise means all you can do is cock your head and mouth “I can’t hear you!” to your friend. San Francisco-based startup Soundhawk doesn’t want that to ever happen again. The team can’t boost your hearing to Superman-esque levels, but with a new $299 gadget they can at least augment…

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Government Hardware Dev Legal

Backscatter X-ray gun will help police hunt contraband

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As reported on Engadget. BY STEVE DENT  Though “strip-search” backscatter X-ray machines were pulled from US airports for privacy reasons, the tech has found a new home in the MINI Z portable scanner. Made by American Science and Engineering (AS&E), it displays see-through images on a Windows tablet PC from low-intensity backscatter X-rays that don’t penetrate deeply into organic tissue. The company said it took seven years of research to shrink the X-ray tubes enough to create a handheld device that uses…

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Culture Hardware Dev

Ambient glasses put smartphone notifications right in front of your eyes

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As reported on Engadget. BY MAT SMITH Still not sold on smartwatches, but want to know what’s going on with your phone without taking it out of your pocket? Maybe Matilde’s Fun-iki glasses, spotted at CNET Japan’s Live 2014 event, will do the trick. Connecting to smartphones through WiFi, a trio of LEDs above each lens will glow (or pulse) when there’s a notification, or simply to add a little, er, color to your complexion. The lights…

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Culture Hardware Dev

Crowd-control drones reveal the technology’s dark side

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As reported on Engadget. BY DANIEL COOPER  The treatment of South African miners has been a troublesome issue ever since black laborers were forced into the mines in 1894. It’s led to a series of bloody strikes andprotests, starting in 1946 and continuing through apartheid right up until today. A new type of crowd suppression drone from a local defense contractor isn’t going to help matters, especially given the fact that the country is in the grip of a 21-week…

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Hardware Dev Internet

6 Stunning Photos of the Internet’s Hidden Infrastructure

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As reported on Wired. BY LIZ STINSON Arnall gained access to Telefónica, a 65,700-square-meter data center in Alcalá, Spain that handles much of Europe’s cloud computing services. TIMO ARNALL We know the internet as a 2-D screen, but in reality, the web is an immensely physical thing. The cloud isn’t an ephemeral, immaterial place where our pictures just happen to hang out, but rather a series of massive servers, wires and equipment tucked away in high-security buildings.…

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Hacking Hardware Dev

Watch Hardware Hackers Fly A Drone Over The Burj Khalifa, The Tallest Building In The World

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As reported on TechCrunch.  by John Biggs Robotics isn’t all stomping metal men and robotic dogs – it’s also about beauty. The folks from Team BlackSheep proved this by flying a powerful, long-range drone over the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. And when I say over I mean over. The average drone can hit about 165 feet before panicking and coming back to earth. TBS uses the TBS Discovery, a drone with a range of up to three kilometers. The team travelled to the UAE…

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Google Hardware Dev

The Next Big Thing You Missed: One Day, You’ll Google the Physical World With a Scanner Like This

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As reported on Wired. BY ISSIE LAPOWSKY   There are few technologies as comprehensive as Google. A simple search can tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the world around you. But the world’s largest search engine, robust as it may be, has its shortcomings. Most notably, there’s no way to Google physical objects. Sure you can type in the word “apples,” but you can’t Google the apple sitting on your kitchen counter. You…

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Hardware Dev Tablet

Wall Mount MagBak Turns Your iPad Into A Fancy Magnet

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Catherine Shu The MagBak claims to be the world’s thinnest mount for the iPad. Indeed, the entire kit consists of a wall holder  (called the MagStick) that is only slightly thicker than pencil and a strong but thin magnetic grip which adheres to the back of the tablet. The latest version of the MagBak, which is available for the Air and Mini models, is on Kickstarter and has already raised nearly double its $15,000 goal with…

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Hardware Dev

This tiny generator can power wearable devices using your body heat

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As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON Many wearables have decent enough battery life, but you know what’ll make them even better? If we never have to recharge them at all. That’s why researchers have been developing small power sources that can generate electricity using body heat, including a team from the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. This particular group has designed a new light and flexible generator made out of thermoelectric (TE) substances printed on glass…

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Business Hardware Dev

Samsung promises truly flexible electronics sooner with graphene breakthrough

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As reported on Engadget. BY MAT SMITH Graphene. It was going to reinvigorate the electronics industry. Better than silicon, flexible yet more durable than steel and with high heat conduction, it all sounded like The Dream for thinner components and wearables.. but it kinda faded away. Well, it’s back, according to Samsung. In a partnership with Sungkyunkwan University, it reckons it’s solved the tricky issue of manufacturing “large area, single crystal wafer scale graphene,” or simply: big,…

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