Monday, 20 May 2013

Raspberry Jam at the National STEM Centre York, Saturday 8th June 2013

A post from Mr Raspberry Jam himself, Alan O'Donohoe. This one promises to huge and fabulous, and the National STEM Centre is an outstanding venue. I am strangley drawn to joining the trans-Pennine convoy from Preston. "You may have seen that we are holding a big Raspberry Jam in York on Saturday 8th June, 3 weeks today.

The Tumblr Architecture Yahoo Bought for a Cool Billion Dollars


It's being reported Yahoo bought Tumb

Two Arduino-based Kickstarter projects worth a look

Some weeks ago I read an article on the New York Times talking about Kickstarter. The author was exploring the logic of the platform and especially in which way backers shouldn't really be considered like investors. They aren't because their main aim is not looking for the project that will give them the greatest return on their money.

A brilliant trip back to the technological future

Continue reading page |1 | 2 Stanislaw Lem's forgotten masterwork Summa Technologiae, now in English half a century after publication, is a heady mix of prescience, philosophy and irony Book information Summa Technologiae by Stanislaw Lem, translated by Joanna Zylinska Published by: University of Minnesota Press Price: $34.95 Lem concluded we should abandon analysis for creative activity (Image: Aleksander Jalosinski/Forum/Reuters/Corbis) WHEN Germany occupied Poland during the second world war, a young Pole was scratching a living under false papers as a car mechanic.

Customizing Unity

?With Linux, it is easy to customize many settings and features including appearance. Unity (one of many desktop interfaces) is no exception. Unity is the desktop interface that is maintained and de

Sharing made simple for iOS apps



Today we?re making sharing from your iOS apps e

NEC phone is liquid-cooled and gender-specific

(Phys.org) ?Pink is the color of princess fairy-tale gowns, magic slippers, upscale cupcake icing, and everything else favorable to girls who just want to be girls. "Ladyphones" appear to be concepts

The Inflector class from Cake 1.2 ported to C#

Source code provided by [url]http://www.thinkingmedia.ca[/url][code] /// /// The Inflector class takes a string and can manipulate it to handle word /// variations such as pluralizations or camelizin

Expectations high for next Xbox

It's almost time for a new Xbox. Eight years have passed since Microsoft unveiled the Xbox 360, double the amount of time between the original Xbox debut in 2001 and its high-definition successor's la

Sally Ride National Tribute at Kennedy Center Tonight

NASA and Sally Ride Science are inviting journalists to tonight's "Sally Ride: A Lifetime of Accomplishment, A Champion of Science Literacy," a national tribute to America's first woman in space. The

International Space Station Program, Science Briefing Set

NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will host a news conference and social media event at 1 p.m. CDT (2 p.m. EDT) Wednesday, May 22, to preview the upcoming Expedition 36 mission aboard the Interna

NASA Administrator Visits California Centers, Meets Media

NASA Administrator Visits California Centers, Meets Media WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will hold media availabilities at all three of the agency's centers in California this week, highlighting progress on the asteroid mission, commercial crew transportation and space technology development.

Vanderbilt Takes Top Prize in NASA Student Launch Challenge

The Aerospace Club of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., took first prize in the 2013 annual NASA Student Launch Projects challenge, in which student teams design, build and fly small rockets

NASA, Bigelow to Discuss Private Sector Human Space Exploration and Development

NASA and Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas are holding a media availability at 1:30 p.m. EDT, Thursday, May 23, to discuss the agency's Space Act Agreement with the company for its insight on collaborati

NASA and The White House Pay Tribute to Sally Ride

NASA and The White House Pay Tribute to Sally Ride WASHINGTON -- NASA and President Obama are honoring the life and legacy of Sally Ride on the day a national tribute was held for the first American woman in space.

The Inflector class from Cake 1.2 ported to Java

Source code provided by [url]http://www.thinkingmedia.ca[/url][code]import java.util.ArrayList;import java.util.HashMap;import java.util.Iterator;import java.util.LinkedHashMap;import java.util.List;i

Terminology: Modules

Learning modern modular frameworks like Backbone.js and AngularJS involves mastering a large amount of terminology, even jus

The Mood Lamp recognizes your facial expressions and turns them into light

The Mood Lamp project by Vittorio Cuculo, is a system using interactions to communicate an emotional state to a physical object and receive back a coherent response. In particular, through your facial expression you communicate your emotional state to an RGB color lamp .

A week of symfony #333 (13->19 May 2013)

A week of symfony #333 (13->19 May 2013) This week, the new Symfony 2.3 branch was created. In addition, the first Symfony 2.3 release candidate version was published, which includes tons of great small improvements. Lastly, one of the biggest Symfony events of the year, the Symfony Live Portland 2013 conference, will take place next week.

Maker Faire Google Hangout with Eben


We?ll be talking more later this week about the New Out Of the Box System (NOOBS) wh

A look back at NASA's planet-pinpointing space 'scope

The space agency says the Kepler space telescope is having equipment issues. With the mission threatened, we look back at Kepler's mind-expanding search for Earth-like exoplanets. (Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech) NASA announced this week that a key piece of gear on its Kepler space telescope has run into trouble.

New in the Swag Shop: recycled CD case pencils!

These feel lovely when you sharpen them, have a beauteous Raspberry Pi logo at the end, and are made in solid colours from recycled CD cases. Buy some, look funky when you doodle, help fund computi

Robots Podcast #130: Autonomous lethal weapons



Stop Killer Robots campaign logo

In episode #130, interviewer AJung talks with Pete

RoboGames 2013: Combots-General vs Toro - (watch video)

General faces off against Toro in an exciting Combots match at RoboGames 2013.

CakePHP Modular Admin And Structured Content - Cloggy

Every website that we made, still need an administration area to manage their users,contents, and others. This is a mission of Cloggy. To help programmers to manage their admins.Today i want to introd

Arduino IDE 1.0.5 is released!

We're happy to announce the release of a new version of the Arduino software, version 1.0.5. Barring any unexpected bugfixes, this is the final planned release of the 1.0 series of the IDE. Future releases will be from the 1.5 branch that has been in beta since last summer.

Content Part Development Checklist

Here's a high-level checklist you can run through so you don't forget anything when building content parts...

Media Manager And Image Editor In 1.7

Orchard 1.7 contains a new media manager as well as a number of features to help process and edit media within Orchard. All of this is still in development, but I am seeing new built-in media conte

Creating A Theme From A WrapBootstrap Template - Part 4

Sorry that it's been a few weeks since the last post, I've been incredibly busy and haven't had a chance to sit down and write the next installment, but here we are finally and ready to start makin

Google I/O 2013: For the developers

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor "Google I/O is an annual developer conference featuring highly technical, in-depth sessions, and showcasing the latest from Google's product teams and partners." - official description Google I/O 2013 has just ended, and even more than usual, this one was for you, our developers.

Fitbit for Dogs - (watch video)

Pawprint Has Built An Activity Tracker For Dogs, Along With A Doggie Social Network

Charging Mobile Devices From A Cooking Fire - (watch video)

Startup Flamestower is hoping a low-cost gadget that turns thermal energy from a cooking fire into electricity to charge mobile devices will be a boon to the developing world.

Can Visualization Software Make Land Mine Detectors More Accurate? - (watch video)

Red Lotus Technologies has figured out to turn signals from basic land mine detectors into visualizations that appear on a mobile phone or pad computer.

Congress gets mixed advice on regulating drones

May 17, Electronics/Robotics (AP)-The growing use of unmanned surveillance "eyes in the sky" aircraft raises a thicket of privacy concerns, but the U.S. Congress is getting mixed advice on what, if anything, to do about it. A future with domestic drones may be inevitable.

Congress gets mixed advice on regulating drones

May 17, Electronics/Robotics (AP)-The growing use of unmanned surveillance "eyes in the sky" aircraft raises a thicket of privacy concerns, but the U.S. Congress is getting mixed advice on what, if anything, to do about it. A future with domestic drones may be inevitable.

Node v0.10.7 (Stable)

2013.05.17, Version 0.10.7 (Stable)



  • uv: upgrade to v0.10.7



  • npm: Upgrade to 1.2.21



  • crypto: Don't ignore verify encoding argument (isaacs)


Stanford Startup's Clever Audio Speakers Snap Into the Corner of a Room - (watch video)

When students design audio speakers, it's no surprise that they'll look good in a dorm room or small apartment. But Tiptop Speakers' twist--using the corners of the room to maximize the sound--could broaden the appeal beyond the student crowd.

Tickle's Haptic Armbands Reach Out and Touch You - (watch video)

Project Tickle hopes sending "touches" via cellular systems or the Internet will add a new dimension to long-distance relationships.

Which ear you hold your cell phone to may reveal brain dominance

Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit say that, similar to handedness, most people who hold their cell phones to their left ear are right-hemisphere dominant and vice versa. It has long been understand that right-handed people -- who make up about 90 percent of the population -- have left-hemisphere dominant brains, and left-handed people the reverse.

The Week in Pictures: Google's utopia to a stem cell burger

Google CEO Larry Page imagines a tech-driven utopia, robotic bees take flight, and a $325,000 stem cell hamburger is ready to be eaten. The technology world was buzzing with news this week. From Google's annual I/O conference to some very tiny robotics, these are the images from the week's tech stories that stood out.

API Blackout Testing on May 22, 2013

In further preparation for the retirement of API v1 on June 11, 2013, we'll be conducting another blackout test on May 22nd, 2013 from approximately 2

Windows Azure Community News Roundup (Edition #66)

Welcome to the newest edition of our weekly roundup of the latest community-driven news, content and conversations about cloud computing and Windows Azure.

Ready for the Official Arduino Robot?



Via FreeIO.org comes news of a new open hardware robot: the official Arduino Robot. The Arduino Robot will be on s

XAudio2 Performance and Battery Considerations for Windows Phone 8

RoboGames 2013: Great Pumpkin vs Sabretooth - (watch video)

Fire breathing Great Pumpkin tries to toast Sabretooth during the 220 Lb/100 Kg Combot competition at RoboGames 2013.

RoboGames 2013: Combots - Pretaraptor vs Prometheus - (watch video)

Pretaraptor takes on Prometheus during the Combots compettion, 220 Lb/100 Kg class, at RoboGames 2013.

NASA Seeks Proposals for Commercial Operations at Kennedy's Launch Pad 39A

NASA Seeks Proposals for Commercial Operations at Kennedy's Launch Pad 39A WASHINGTON -- NASA released a synopsis Friday announcing plans to issue an announcement for proposals for the commercial use of Launch Pad 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The announcement is expected next week.

NASA TV Coverage Set for Next Soyuz Space Station Crew Launch

NASA Television will provide extensive coverage of the launch and docking of the next crew members who will fly to the International Space Station on Tuesday, May 28.

Google and NASA team up to use quantum computer

Are quantum computers about to revolutionise our lives? You might think so now that Google has bought one from the only organisation that sells them, D-Wave of Burnaby, Canada. However, questions remain over just how D-Wave's quantum computers work and whether they would beat ordinary computers in like-on-like tests.

Gliding robot mimics flying fish

IT MIMICS the leaping glides of flying fish and needs no external power. The Jump Glider could be the first in a new generation of robots, harnessing aerodynamic lift to travel further than it would if it simply hopped, and without using additional energy.