ControlCircuit
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NES controller lets you stomp Koopas, save Princess Peach in capacitive fashion (video)
Is your NES controller in another castle? Maybe you're just pining for your smartphone's capacitive game controls for some reason. Regardless, here's a little piece of tech that just might put the fire in your flower: the capacitive touch NES controller. This sucker is milled from a copper board using a device called the MezzoMill, which -- besides making turtle-stomping peripherals -- also can be used to produce guitar effect pads, virtual keyboards, bicycle rim lights and all sorts of circuits that might tickle your fancy. Unfortunately, the creator isn't as well-funded as this inkjet-based control circuit project so he's trying to raise money through Kickstarter to make the mill in a large enough run to lower costs. Given how Kickstarter generated nearly $100 million in funding last year, maybe he's got a fighting chance. See the buttonless controller work its capacitive magic after the break.
Researchers print a fully-functional OLED control circuit using an inkjet
Don't worry, this isn't about teaching bacteria how to climb out of a petri dish and follow a subway map. The picture above actually shows an OLED display control circuit that was quickly and cheaply manufactured thanks to the joys of inkjet printing. Its makers at UCLA start-up Aneeve Nanotechnologies also claim their carbon nanotube circuit yields better performance than traditional silicon counterparts and should therefore be considered a competing technology. On the other hand, it's also true that inkjet circuitry has been around in various forms for years, so we must return to the fundamental question: will we ever be able to afford one of these?
