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Daily Crunch: Coffee Mill

Posted: 09 Aug 2011 01:00 AM PDT

Video: Functioning CNC Mill Created From LEGO

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 06:33 PM PDT

mill

While I may have created some sweet spaceships in my days constructing LEGO, I never guessed how serious people would get with their blocky creations. Guns, computer cases, even a Tetris-playing device and a robotic hand. So I shouldn’t be surprised that someone has created a CNC mill with their Mindstorms NXT set.

It looks a little bit shaky, I have to say, so I doubt we’re reaching micrometer precision, but a few stabilizing blocks and it’d be more than sufficient for creating the occasional figurine or 20-sided die.

Incredibly, this isn’t actually the first CNC mill to be made from LEGO — by a long shot. In fact, the CNC tag at the LEGO Mindstorms community has several, going back to March of 2008 (there’s even video). There’s even an egg-decorating device using CNC principles. Sure, why not?

[via Make]

Rewriteable, Non-Electric E-Paper Makes Big Promises, But Is It Really Useful?

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 05:45 PM PDT

i2r

A new display technology called i2R e-paper is making the rounds today. It’s developed by ITRI, a Taiwanese research company that has produced flexible AMOLED and LCD displays in the past. i2R is essentially a plastic substrate with a heat-activated liquid crystal coating: you pass it through a thermal printer and a 300dpi monochrome image is impressed on its surface — until you want to rewrite it, which you can do up to 260 times by their calculations.

Putting aside the obvious comparisons to, say, using a pencil, I’m not sure this technology is the paper-killer ITRI and some sites think it is. I have several issues with the technology:

-The display is advertised as not consuming electricity. That’s something that can be said of any bistable display — e-ink is the same way, and once made to display something, it will display it without using electricity as long as it isn’t interfered with. And i2R may not require electricity (to be specific, it has no underlying circuitry, making it a closer analog to paper), but its thermal printing device certainly does. Essentially, it requires electricity in the same way e-ink does: to change what is displayed. Presumably the crystals wear out after a time, however, limiting the rewrites.

-Heat activation limits the ways in which people can interact with these displays. The advantages of a circuit-capable substrate is the ability to include sensors such as IR or resistive touch arrays, allowing for people to write on or “click” content. Obviously the point here isn’t interactive content but reusable displays, but the gains are questionable.

-No attached memory means changing what’s on the display/paper is an involved process of feeding it through its special writer. Doing this with dozens of i2R displays doesn’t look like anything a shopkeeper would want to do.

-I’m not sure which is worse for the environment: 260 pieces of A4 being recycled, or one A4-sized piece of plastic that isn’t being recycled (I doubt the crystal coating can be removed well enough to reprocess the substrate).

-It’s glossy!

On the plus side, $2 per A4 sheet is cheap compared with other display technologies; A 6″ e-ink display costs $60 or so. Obviously you won’t be plastering your walls with Kindles. And 300dpi is enough to get some very detailed graphics or codes on there.

While I’m skeptical, I think the issue is simply that ITRI (and Reuters) are overselling it. This isn’t a wholesale replacement for paper, or e-ink for that matter: it’s a niche technology that can and should be applied in an institutional way. Think bus passes, temporary ID cards, class handouts, the sort of things that need to be rewritten semi-frequently from a central source but are mostly interacted with as static pieces of information. A “For sale!” sign isn’t the right application for this technology, and more traditional “displays” like whiteboards are also safe.

Watch Reuters’s video here. I don’t think this is the narrator’s beat, though. “It doesn’t require a backlight to print,” indeed.

Why No AMD-Powered Smartphones?

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 04:48 PM PDT

amdphone

With companies chomping at the bit to enter the growing mobile space and take advantage of the opportunities therein, it’s almost more intriguing to explore why some companies don’t throw their hats in the ring. Case in point: AMD — the second largest x86 processor manufacturer in the world has yet to make their play. Why haven’t they made their push into mobile, just like everyone else?

Well, if AMD SVP Rick Bergman is to be believed, it’s because they believe their true strengths lie elsewhere. Rather than try and force their way into an already crowded market, Bergman said AMD has “other areas it can focus on in order to grow.”

Perhaps it’s a smart move for the perennial also-ran of the x86 processor race. ARM has already carried off the lion’s share of the mobile processor market, striking lucrative licensing agreements with companies like LG and Texas Instruments, meaning their processors now power a huge number of mobile devices. If AMD really wanted to compete, it would require a little bit of luck and a lot of cooperation — either with Intel to combat ARM’s stranglehold on the market, or with ARM to one-up their longtime rival. Neither of those options probably sounded very appealing.

For AMD, the future largely remains in their traditional desktop, server, and notebook offerings, but the higher-ups have set their sights on another booming market: tablets. Their Z-series processor, launched back in June, was AMD’s first step into tablet computing. While it hasn’t popped up in any must-have tablets yet, AMD remains hopeful that their graphics and processor technologies will align with the growing performance and battery needs of tablet customers. Their rival in graphics, Nvidia, thinks the same, however, and has an ambitious roadmap as well.

So is that it for them? Have they decided to watch the smartphone wars unfold from the sidelines? Not exactly: Mr. Bergman hinted that they may make a move “if the right circumstances come up and we can see a way to impact the market.” We’ll see if that conservative strategy pans out, but as my old Latin teacher used to say, “fortes fortuna adiuvat.”

Disney And Carnegie Mellon Create Motion Capture On The Go

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 02:31 PM PDT

mocapl1

By now, we’ve all seen behind-the-scenes footage of motion capture in action — an actor clad in a monochrome jumpsuit and the occasional handful of colored balls, spouting off dialogue and gesticulating wildly. It used to be that such work could only be done within the confines of a studio, a closed space where a camera would have as little trouble as possible picking up those little points of articulation, in hopes of translating them into lifelike movement for a CGI bobcat or something. Now, according to Disney Research Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, a recent breakthrough will allow mocap to take place just about anywhere.

The big idea? Instead of actors being filmed by cameras, the actors wear the cameras.

By attaching about 2 dozen tiny cameras to actors’ bodies, filmmakers will be able to capture movement that may not be feasible in enclosed spaces. Imagine a long, drawn-out chase scene: instead of having multiple takes of a guy jumping over a trashcan and leaping for a fire escape being stitched together, the body-mounted system could record all the video data needed in one go.

The technique, called “Structure from Motion”, isn’t quite there yet though. It hinges on precise placement of those cameras on the body, which are then calibrated with external reference structures. Once the video data is collected, it’s all processed to create a moving skeletal structure that replicates the wearer’s movements, but it comes at a cost. It requires a considerable amount of computing power to produce the finished product, and at this point a minute of footage may require up to a full day of rendering.

Takaaki Shiratori, a post-doc associate presenting the technique at SIGGRAPH 2011, says “anyone will be able to do motion capture in the not-so-distant future.” A bold claim, to be sure, but where’s the fun in innovation if you can’t wildly speculate about the future?

Given the type of equipment involved, we may even see homegrown mocap sooner than we think. GoPro cameras, while not cheap, perform impressively when mounted on the end of a sword or a hula hoop, so what’s to stop an impressionable young filmmaker with a credit card from buying a ton and strapping them to his or her body? The software required would be a stumbling block for sure, but if it happened to go open-source, just imagine what some imaginative up-and-comer could do.

Hackers Show DIY Defense And Disaster Response Gear At Defcon

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 12:12 PM PDT

hackfly

I tend to think of Defcon as a sort of massive free-for-all, with thousands of hackers all trying to be the one that replaces the speaker’s Powerpoint slide with a skull and crossbones, that sort of thing. In fact, it’s just a bunch of people who like to fiddle with stuff — whether it’s security, hardware, code, or what. It’s the people who tend to not just think “I wonder if…” but who then say “Maybe I’ll try it.” And in this case, they’ve even got the public good in mind. If only we could say the same about congress!

Rafael, an Israeli defense contractor, makes the Firefly, a wireless camera that can be launched from a 40mm grenade launcher. The trouble with this system is that 40mm grenade launchers aren’t particularly easy to come by, they’re illegal for private citizens to own, and cost a fortune. A pair of hackers is working on a replacement that could cost under $500, putting this useful tool in the hands of local police forces, rescue teams, and curious civilians.

Instead of using a grenade launcher, Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet are using a 37mm flare launcher — something you can buy at your local bodega. Well, maybe not that close, but they’re around. They designed a custom payload for launch: at the apex, a parachute will deploy and the camera will begin transmitting an image of the area directly below it to the operator. This could be really helpful for seeing briefly the other side of rubble or other obstacles, though there are of course packbots and throwable cameras for that as well.

The prototype still a bit buggy right now and their goal height (250ft) is just half of the Firefly. That said, at $500 it costs a fraction as much and was designed by two guys who thought it would be cool, not a high-tech defense corporation. A little polish and it could be a real product. My suggestion? Kickstarter.

TechWorld highlights two other projects, one a rather shabby but cool flying surveillance station, and the other a simple solution for ad-hoc communication between phones. The latter could be used by people trapped by debris to communicate with each other or rescue teams, no cell signal required.

It’s nice to see these positive and interesting projects coming out of Defcon. I may have to drop by next year if I can build up the courage.

This Sexy Coffee Gadget Probably Won’t Ever Exist

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 11:03 AM PDT

nespresso_03

What is it? A laser cutter? A mod photo enlarger? A microscope? A tattoo remover? Nope, it’s a coffee maker, but an extremely svelte coffee maker. In fact, I imagine this little Nespresso-friendly caffeine inducer would look pretty sweet in your typical “ice hotel” or ad agency lobby.

Clearly, we’ve come a long way since days of yore when a Cuisinart was enough you get you by in the couture circuit.

To answer whether or not industrial design student Tali Shilo’s lovely little coffee machine actually exists yet is another question. Looking in the Yanko online store I don’t see it — though unlike many concepts from Yanko, this one actually seems like a practical design for the real world.

That said, I’m not sure why it’s being billed as a “minimalist” machine, when it’s electrically powered and requires fancy coffee packets. These low-tech coffee solutions are probably a little more minimalist, but this one is definitely cool.

[via Trendhunter]

HTC Launches Developer Support Site, Still No Unlock Tool

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 10:39 AM PDT

htcsdk

Last time we heard from HTC, they had just announced that they would begin to make good on their promise to unlock their devices’ bootloaders. Well, we don’t have that long-awaited unlock tool yet, but thanks to a recent announcement, at least we’ll know where to find it when the time comes.

HTC announced the opening of HTCDev.com this morning, which is intended to be a one-stop shop for your tinkering needs. While we’ll have to make do with our locked bootloaders for the time being, we can at least start playing with their OpenSense SDK, which among other things includes SDKs for their Sense 3D interface and the Scribe pen technology. HTC was also kind enough to make the source code and binaries for most of their devices available to boot, which means the ardent Android devs among you have more than enough to play with for now.

While HTC Dev’s contents skew heavily toward their Android offerings, they do also make a token effort to reach to their Windows Phone developer base — one page is dedicated solely to giving up-and-coming developers a crash course on the WP7 development process, but to say it’s sparse is a bit of an understatement. The effort is welcome, and the real onus to drum up developer support is on Microsoft, HTC wculd do well by making the site a little less one-sided. Still, you can hardly blame them — since the heady days of the G1, HTC has been been an Android advocate of the highest order.



HTML5 Game Seen Working on Apple TV

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 06:45 AM PDT

appletv

A hacker has managed to get an HTML5-based game working on the Apple TV (2G), after having first jailbroken the device and installed the Couch Surfer application. (Couch Surfer provides a Web browser for jailbroken Apple TVs.)

The game is a simple BlackJack card game, and frankly, it’s not much to look at. But the addition is notable as it demonstrates that the Apple TV is a functional platform for HTML5-based applications.

Of course, whether or not Apple wants to open up the Apple TV to support a wide range of HTML5 games and apps is another thing altogether. While HTML5 would provide an alternative to simple Flash-based games, it could also become a compelling alternative to Apple’s native App Store applications in time, too. (The AppleTV doesn’t currently run apps, but it’s been rumored that it will eventually.)

Here’s the video of the game in action:

via RedmondPie 
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