Engadget http://www.engadget.com Engadget http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif Engadget http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/<![CDATA[Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video)]]>http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/21/hands-on-with-the-electric-imp-at-maker-faire-video/http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/21/hands-on-with-the-electric-imp-at-maker-faire-video/http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/21/hands-on-with-the-electric-imp-at-maker-faire-video/#comments Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video)

Yesterday at Maker Faire Bay Area 2012 we visited the Electric Imp booth to chat with the startup's founders and get some hands-on time with the tiny wireless computer. What is the Electric Imp? It's a module containing an ARM Cortex M3 SoC with embedded WiFi that's built into an SD card form factor. While the device looks just like and SD card, it's not pin-compatible with the standard -- the idea is to leverage a reliable and affordable connector for the Electric Imp. The module is not very useful on its own -- it only comes to life when inserted into one of several boards, which provide the Electric Imp with power and access to the real world. In turn the device gives these boards a brain and an Internet connection. Eventually the company hopes that appliance manufacturers will incorporate Electric Imp slots into products to make them network aware.

We talked with CEO Hugo Fiennes (formerly with Apple) about the past, present and future of the Electric Imp so hit the break to read more and to watch our hands-on video.

Gallery: Electric Imp hands-on

Continue reading Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video)

Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 00:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>applianceappliancesArduinoARMARM Cortex M3ArmCortexM3BlinkupboardCortex M3CortexM3Electric ImpElectricImphands-onHugo FiennesHugoFiennesintelligent appliancesIntelligentAppliancesMaker FaireMaker Faire 2012Maker Faire Bay AreaMaker Faire Bay Area 2012MakerFaireMakerFaire2012MakerFaireBayAreaMakerFaireBayArea2012SDSecure DigitalSecureDigitalsmart appliancesSmartAppliancesSquirrelstartupTwillovideoweb interfaceWebInterfacewifiwireless interfacewireless web interfaceWirelessInterfaceWirelessWebInterfWirelessWebInterfaceMon, 21 May 2012 00:20:00 EST<![CDATA[Square iPhone payment system gets itself a website, showcased in public]]>http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/square-iphone-payment-system-gets-itself-a-website-showcased-in/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/square-iphone-payment-system-gets-itself-a-website-showcased-in/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/square-iphone-payment-system-gets-itself-a-website-showcased-in/#comments Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and the quiet startup formerly known as Squirrel are finally opening up a bit. The company now called Square, as we noted back in October, has launched a website for its iPhone payment dongle, although it's still in somewhat private beta testing. TechCrunch managed to catch up with Dorsey, who gave a brief overview of the product and then showed it off by charging $4 for a cup of coffee -- so it goes in San Francisco. See Square in action after the break.

Continue reading Square iPhone payment system gets itself a website, showcased in public

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Square iPhone payment system gets itself a website, showcased in public originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>bankbankingcredit cardCreditCarddongleiphoneiphone dongleiphone payment systemIphoneDongleIphonePaymentSystemjack dorseyJackDorseypaymentpaymentssquaresquare iphone payment systemsquare upSquareIphonePaymentSystemSquareUpsquirrelstart upStartUptwitterTue, 01 Dec 2009 16:10:00 EST<![CDATA[Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's Squirrel project revealed... as the Square iPhone Payment System]]>http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/twitter-founder-jack-dorseys-squirrel-project-revealed-as-th/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/twitter-founder-jack-dorseys-squirrel-project-revealed-as-th/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/twitter-founder-jack-dorseys-squirrel-project-revealed-as-th/#comments Remember the Square iPhone Payment System we told you about back in August? If you'll recall, the device -- which involves an iPhone app and associated dongle -- enables an iPhone or iPod touch to become a kind of mini credit card reader, allowing payments to be taken on the spot, no matter where you are or how big (or small) the transaction may be. When we'd first reported the device, word on the street was that it was only being alpha tested around New York City, and there wasn't much else to say. Now, we may have a little more insight on just where this device is headed, and who's behind the project.

Jack Dorsey, the man who all but built Twitter in a matter of two weeks, has been working on a half-secret start-up project since around May. His new venture -- dubbed, funnily enough, Squirrel -- is based around the concept of using the iPhone as... yep, a portable, personal cash register; essentially the exact device which Square has created. And that's no accident. In the images we ran of the Square system, you can see a domain name on a receipt: squareup.com. Squareup.com is the domain of the Square System (obviously), and a casual investigation into the site's WHOIS profile reveals registrant info that points to an office in San Francisco, and a contact email address which reads... billing@paybysquirrel.com. Square, squirrel, square... are you getting it? So the cat, er, squirrel appears to be out of the bag. Now the question is whether or not Dorsey and co. can turn this fairly obscure piece of tech into the kind of firestorm which Twitter has become -- and who knows, maybe there'll even be a business model this time.

[Thanks, Little Birdie]

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Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's Squirrel project revealed... as the Square iPhone Payment System originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>bankbankingcredit cardCreditCarddonglefeaturesiphonejack dorseyJackDorseypaymentpaymentssquaresquare iphone payment systemsquare upSquareIphonePaymentSystemSquareUpsquirrelstart upstart upsStartUpStartUpstwitterSat, 17 Oct 2009 12:54:00 EST<![CDATA[Robotic squirrel used to study real-life squirrel behavior, steal nuts]]>http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/03/robotic-squirrel-used-to-study-real-life-squirrel-behavior-stea/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/03/robotic-squirrel-used-to-study-real-life-squirrel-behavior-stea/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/03/robotic-squirrel-used-to-study-real-life-squirrel-behavior-stea/#comments
Most of the squirrels on our college campus were massive, hyper-intelligent little beasts that were best dealt with by vigilant avoidance, but it looks like Hampshire College professor Sarah Partan is taking the opposite approach, using a robotic squirrel named "Rocky" to interact with the local rodents up close. Rocky is controlled wirelessly from a laptop, and can realistically move his tail and body to communicate with other squirrels, as well as play pre-recorded squirrel noises from built-in speakers. The goal is to study how animals communicate, and it looks like Rocky's doing a good job -- the local squirrels seem to respond to him just like any other. That's pretty impressive for a bot (or pretty weak for the squirrels, depending on your point of view), but we're just waiting for Partan and her team to discover the shocking truth: that the squirrels are really studying them.

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Robotic squirrel used to study real-life squirrel behavior, steal nuts originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 May 2008 08:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>animalanimalshampshire collegeHampshireCollegerobotic animalRoboticAnimalrockysarah partanSarahPartansquirrelSat, 03 May 2008 08:56:00 EST<![CDATA[UCSD's Squirrel puts pollution monitoring on your mobile]]>http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/07/ucsds-squirrel-puts-pollution-monitoring-on-your-mobile/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/07/ucsds-squirrel-puts-pollution-monitoring-on-your-mobile/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/07/ucsds-squirrel-puts-pollution-monitoring-on-your-mobile/#commentsGiving an animal a phone to tote around and monitor pollution is one thing, but hooking up a critter to your cellphone sans wires sounds like a much more viable solution to keeping track of filthy surroundings. UC San Diego's Squirrel -- which sounds an awful lot like a project UC Berkeley was working on -- is a Bluetooth-enabled, palm-sized sensor that currently measures carbon monoxide and ozone, but eventually will be able to "sample nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide in the air, as well as temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity." After sampling, the device then utilizes a software application dubbed Acorn to allow the user to "see the current pollution alerts through a screensaver on the cellphone's display." Furthermore, the program can periodically upload the captured data to a public database operated by the "California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which is funding Squirrel's development." Of course, cleaning up the mess that these monitors will inevitably find is an entirely different matter.

[Via MedGadget]

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UCSD's Squirrel puts pollution monitoring on your mobile originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 May 2007 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>acornbluetoothcaliforniacalit2conversationdatabaseenvironmentepagreenmonitorpollution monitorPollutionMonitorsan diegoSanDiegosensorsensorssoftwareSquirreluniversityMon, 07 May 2007 17:05:00 EST<![CDATA[UCSD's Squirrel puts pollution monitoring on your mobile]]>http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/07/ucsds-squirrel-puts-pollution-monitoring-on-your-mobile/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/07/ucsds-squirrel-puts-pollution-monitoring-on-your-mobile/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/07/ucsds-squirrel-puts-pollution-monitoring-on-your-mobile/#commentsGiving an animal a phone to tote around and monitor pollution is one thing, but hooking up a critter to your cellphone sans wires sounds like a much more viable solution to keeping track of filthy surroundings. UC San Diego's Squirrel -- which sounds an awful lot like a project UC Berkeley was working on -- is a Bluetooth-enabled, palm-sized sensor that currently measures carbon monoxide and ozone, but eventually will be able to "sample nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide in the air, as well as temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity." After sampling, the device then utilizes a software application dubbed Acorn to allow the user to "see the current pollution alerts through a screensaver on the cellphone's display." Furthermore, the program can periodically upload the captured data to a public database operated by the "California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which is funding Squirrel's development." Of course, cleaning up the mess that these monitors will inevitably find is an entirely different matter.

[Via MedGadget]

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UCSD's Squirrel puts pollution monitoring on your mobile originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 May 2007 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>acornbluetoothcaliforniacalit2conversationCulturedatabaseenvironmentepagreenmobilemonitorperipheralspollution monitorPollutionMonitorsan diegoSanDiegosensorsensorssoftwareSquirrelstudiesuniversityMon, 07 May 2007 17:05:00 EST