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Pinoky makes it easier to pretend like your stuffed animals are real friends (video)
Seated above, from left to right, are Ms. Snuggleberry, Mr. Cuddlekins, and Professor Puddles. They congregated atop this egg yolk for what they thought would be another customary meeting of Mammalian Malice -- a vaguely neo-Jacobean slam poetry collective founded in the aftermath of the Crimean War. Little did they know, however, that they were walking straight into Yuta Sugiura's trap. Sugiura and his colleagues, you see, have created a toy known as Pinoky -- a small, ring-like device that wirelessly brings stuffed animals to "life," as Snuggleberry, Cuddlekins and Puddles soon discovered. Developed as part of a project at Keio University, Pinoky uses a micro controller, a Zigbee input device and a servo motor system to move an animal's extremities, with a set of photo sensors designed to measure the angle at which it bends. All you have to do is grab your favorite imaginary friend, strap a Pinoky around his limb, and use the accompanying remote controller to make him flail around like a fish on house arrest. See it for yourself, after the break.
Add lasers to a tennis ball, drive your dog crazy (video)
It's a "programmable disco ball," a "cat toy for humans," and a "personal laser light show," all rolled into one. That's how one Matt Leone describes his latest creation, aptly known as the Laser Ball. To realize his dream, Leone drilled a set of holes into a garden variety tennis ball, and inserted about 14 laser diodes, each with an attached strip of diffraction grating. Said diodes were then synced up with an Arduino-equipped Teensy microcontroller nestled within the ball, alongside a rechargeable battery. As a cherry on top of this DIY sundae, Leone then incorporated an infrared remote package from Adafruit, allowing him to remotely jump start his next house party. The result is a cyborg-like ball that makes any LED cube look... square. Check it out for yourself, in the video after the break.
Tacit sonar gauntlet gives the blind ultrasonic eyes (video)
Sure, your Arduino project can make a stuffed monkey dance, but is it really doing anything for the greater benefit of mankind? Okay, maybe -- but not to the same degree as Grathio Labs' Tacit glove, an Arduino powered sonar device that can help the vision impaired navigate foreign environments. This wrist-mounted gauntlet is comprised of an Arduino microcontroller, a few ultrasonic sensors, and a pair of servomotors to apply variable pressure to the user's wrist to indicate their distance from an object or obstacle. Best of all, the gizmo's circuit and software are registered under Creative Commons, which means you're free to snag the plans from the source link below, and build your own. Go on, build one. Sure, it's a lot of work, but would you rather rock a wrist-mounted sonar gun, or don an ear-tugging bicycle helmet? Your choice.
Charlie Miller finds MacBook battery security hole, plans to fill with Caulkgun
Those batteries have probably met a worse fate than the white MacBook line they came from. According to Forbes, Charlie Miller's managed to render seven of them useless after gaining total access to their micro-controllers' firmware via a security hole. Evidently, the Li-ion packs for the line of lappies -- including Airs and Pros -- are accessible with two passwords he dug up from an '09 software update. Chuck mentions that someone could "use them to do something really bad," including faulting charge-levels and thermal read-outs to possibly even making them explode. He also thinks hard-to-spot malware could be installed directly within the battery, repeatedly infecting a computer unless removed. Come August, he'll reportedly be detailing the vulnerability at the Black Hat security conference along with a fix he's dubbed Caulkgun, which only has the mild side-effect of locking-out updates by Apple. Worth being safe these days, though. Right? Full story in the links below.
GlowBots develop relationships, express emotions via LEDs
Although we can't deny that having a household humanoid that chases away intruders would be a welcome member to most families, a team of individuals more focused on actual "complex relationships" have developed a series of bots that can learn and express emotions via lights. GlowBots are wee wheeled creatures that "develop attractive patterns that are affected both by user interaction and communication between the robots," meaning that the days of expensive animal training in order to have a pet around are nearly through. The technology within is based on an open experimental robot platform, dubbed e-Puck, and the actual robots utilize "eight IR proximity sensors, a camera, a trio of microphones, three-axis accelerometer, a speaker, two stepper motors, Bluetooth interface, a number of LEDs, a PIC micro controller, and a 12-step-mode selector" to confess their love. The creators will apparently be showing off their heartwarming invention at this year's SIGGRAPH conference, but until these suckas come sheathed in some sort of faux fur and fully equipped with bad breath, we're afraid Fido will retain control of the dog house for now.[Via PastaAndVinegar]
