Assembling the SparkFun MegaShield
"The Arduino is a popular, in-expensive, open-source microcontroller board and software development enviroment. Arduino boards come in a variety of styles and are available from numerous suppliers including SparkFun Electronics. One recent version of the Arduino is the ArduinoMega. The 'Mega', just as it's name suggests, is an Arduino, supersized. More digital I/O pins. More PWM outputs. More Analog inputs. and 4 UARTS (hardware serial ports). And, if that wasn't enough, more memory."
(Robert Gallup, atomicsalad)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Jacob Sutton's L.E.D. Surfer: a night-time snowboarding short lights up the last of the winter snow
"Fashion photographer and filmmaker Jacob Sutton swaps the studio for the slopes of Tignes in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France, with a luminous after hours short starring Artec pro snowboarder William Hughes. The electrifying film sees Hughes light up the snow-covered French hills in a bespoke L.E.D.-enveloped suit courtesy of designer and electronics whizz John Spatcher. 'I was really drawn to the idea of a lone character made of light surfing through darkness,' says Sutton of his costume choice. 'I've always been excited by unusual ways of lighting things, so it seemed like an exciting idea to make the subject of the film the only light source.' Sutton, who has created work for the likes of Hermès, Burberry and The New York Times, spent three nights on a skidoo with his trusty Red Epic camera at temperatures of -25C to snap Hughes carving effortlessly through the deep snow, even enlisting his own father to help maintain the temperamental suit throughout the demanding shoot. 'Filming in the suit was the most surreal thing I've done in 20 years of snowboarding,' says Hughes of the charged salopettes. 'Luckily there was plenty of vin rouge to keep me warm, and Jacob's enthusiasm kept everyone going through the cold nights.'"
(Nowness, 16 February 2012)
[This dramatic clip appears to have been designed to target the audience of the new lifestyle magazine called "Nowness". The wish is presumably that the clip becomes a carrier for promoting the magazine's brand.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Will Li-Fi be the new Wi-Fi?
"FLICKERING lights are annoying but they may have an upside. Visible light communication (VLC) uses rapid pulses of light to transmit information wirelessly. Now it may be ready to compete with conventional Wi-Fi.
'At the heart of this technology is a new generation of high-brightness light-emitting diodes,' says Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh, UK. 'Very simply, if the LED is on, you transmit a digital 1, if it's off you transmit a 0,' Haas says. 'They can be switched on and off very quickly, which gives nice opportunities for transmitting data.'
It is possible to encode data in the light by varying the rate at which the LEDs flicker on and off to give different strings of 1s and 0s. The LED intensity is modulated so rapidly that human eyes cannot notice, so the output appears constant. ...
But some sound a cautious note about VLC's prospects. It only works in direct line of sight, for example, although this also makes it harder to intercept than Wi-Fi. 'There has been a lot of early hype, and there are some very good applications,' says Mark Leeson from the University of Warwick, UK. 'But I'm doubtful it's a panacea. This isn't technology without a point, but I don't think it sweeps all before it, either.'"
(Jamie Condliffe, 28 July 2011)
Jamie Condliffe (2011). New Scientist magazine, 23 July 2011.
Fig.1 Harald Haas, July 2011, TED.com.
2). Steve Perlman "Distributed-Input-Distributed-Output (DIDO) Wireless Technology: A New Approach to Multiuser Wireless".
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Soundmachines: a tangible music sequencer using visual patterns
"An instrument for performing electronic music. Three units, which are resembling standard record players, translate concentric visual patterns into control signals for further processing in any music software. The rotation of the discs, each holding three tracks, can be synced to a sequencer.
The Soundmachines premiered on the Volkswagen New Beetle stand at the IAA motor show in late Summer 2011. In cooperation with the sounddesigner/ producer Yannick Labbé of TRICKSKI fame, we developed three unique discs, each controlling one track of an Ableton Live Set exclusively made for the Event. The show was supported by a set of realtime generated visuals, running on a 25m wide LED wall."
(The Product)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Instructable web-based documentation platform
"Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others. The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects and help others."
(Eric J. Wilhelm)
Fig.1 Kipkay (Kipkay Videos) Blu-Ray Laser Phaser http://www.facebook.com/kipkayvideos/
Fig.2 SaskView "The Most Useless Machine EVER!" http://saskview.com/?page_id=11
Fig.3 Randy Sarafan. "Lunchtime Clock" http://www.instructables.com/id/Lunchtime-Clock/?ALLSTEPS
Fig.4 kaptaink_cg "Bacon Roses"
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
