MAKE 23: Matt Gryczan interview

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• MAKE 23: Matt Gryczan interview
• Vox shuts down, users can migrate to TypePad, Posterous or Wordpress
• Weekly Make: Projects round up
• This Week's Best Apps [Apps]
• Cambridge scientists develop lower-than-low power WORM memory
• Hands On With The New Xbox 360 Controller [Xbox 360]
• How-To: Cast a solid ice beer caddy
• Without a Trace: Turn Your Flash Drive into a Portable Privacy Toolkit [Privacy]
• SD Card Association: flash card speeds to triple by 2012
• What Are You Playing This Weekend? [Lazy Sundays]

MAKE 23: Matt Gryczan interview Posted: 03 Sep 2010 04:00 PM PDT Life-long maker Matt Gryczan conceived of and documented the how-to for the Gyrocar in the current issue of MAKE, Volume 23, and I had the privilege of meeting him and his family at Maker Faire Detroit in July. Matt worked the MAKE booth with us all weekend, and his enthusiasm for sharing knowledge never waned despite the long hours. We recently asked him 10 questions about his inspirations, the Gyrocar design, and the future of Michigan. Here's what he shared with us. 1. Tell us about yourself. How did you get started making things? When I was in fourth grade, my older brothers at Christmas got the Kenner toy kits for making things: the two that come to mind were the hydrodynamics set and the skyrail set. From then on, I was hooked on technology. Soon after, I followed instructions in an old book from the local library on how to build a battery and solenoid, and I've been making things from scratch ever since. 2. How did you go about coming up with and designing the Gyrocar? I'd seen a photo of an antique toy of a jockey riding a horse that was kept upright by a string-pull gyroscope, and I thought it would be fun to make a contemporary version that was battery powered. Anyone who has played with a string-pull gyroscope knows how quickly they run down. Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Interviews | Digg this!

Vox shuts down, users can migrate to TypePad, Posterous or Wordpress Posted: 03 Sep 2010 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Blogging, Web services If you've been using the Vox blogging service, you've got until September 30 to figure out what to do with your blog. Vox is closing its doors so that Six Apart can focus on its other blogging platforms, Moveable Type and TypePad. They're at least trying to soften the landing for Vox users, though: you can easily move your Vox blog to TypePad, and export your Vox photos to Flickr. Posterous, famous for creating tools that let you move over from other blogging platforms, is also offering a new home to Vox users. Six Apart's main competition, Wordpress, is also an option. If you've been using Vox for your OpenID signin, that will be supported until September 30, and then TypePad will handle it. A spokesperson for Six Apart clarified the OpenID situation for us: After 9/30, if you've migrated your blog to TypePad, any OpenID requests to your blog will have authentication delegated to TypePad. TypePad is also an OpenID provider, so the mechanism of delegation that we're using is perfect for that. I can't vouch for the smoothness of export process to each of these different platforms. Users in the comment thread at Vox's closing post seem to be having wildly varying degrees of luck. Vox shuts down, users can migrate to TypePad, Posterous or Wordpress originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Six Apart - OpenID - WordPress - Vox - Movabletype

Weekly Make: Projects round up Posted: 03 Sep 2010 04:00 PM PDT Here are a few of our favorite new offerings on Make:Projects. If you haven't registered yet, done a project, or posted one, what are you waiting for? Here's how to get started. Projects from MAKE magazine and Make: Online: Playable Pac-Man Costume Halloween will be sneaking up and scaring the stuffing out of you before you know it. Time to get started on your costume, especially if you want it to be as epic as this playable Pac-Man costume, from the pages of our MAKE Halloween special edition. Crooked Knife Tim Anderson, writer of MAKE's "Heirloom Technology" column, shows you how to make your own version of a northern nomad's woodworking tool. From MAKE Volume 22. All the northern tribes in North America and Asia have their own version of it. My farm relatives use them to trim their horse's hooves. I think that whatever wave of invaders brought horse culture to Europe must have brought this style of knife with them. Ball-in-Cage Alarm Switch Sean Ragan fabricates this cool mechanical switch which can be used to control an alarm (or anything else you want to be motion-triggered). User-Contributed Projects Origami Spinner On the heels of our electronic origami project comes another paper-folding project -- building a 6-numbered spinner from a single sheet of paper using only folding. There are plenty more projects, recipes, tutorials and primers to be had on Make: Projects! Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

This Week's Best Apps [Apps] Posted: 03 Sep 2010 03:20 PM PDT In this week's rockin' and rollin' round up: Shazam, improved; Spidey's webs, slung; photographs, bubble-ified; restaurant waits, crowdsourced; space, explored; to do lists, beautified; iPad music making, jettisoned into the future, and more! More »

Cambridge scientists develop lower-than-low power WORM memory Posted: 03 Sep 2010 03:01 PM PDT Researchers at Cambridge University have recently published a paper on their new type of WORM (write once read many) memory which is even more low powered than the ones that came before it. The new electron-only design of the memory is solution processed, making it low cost as well as it requires no lithography. The device, using ZnO semiconductor nanoparticles to inject electrons into a polymer which is capable of conducting. The electrons are then used to program the memory by permanently lowering the conductivity of the polymer, producing insulation. This result is far lower power densities than previously recorded, by orders of magnitude. The research team believes that it can make further improvements to the device as they continue to work. Cambridge scientists develop lower-than-low power WORM memory originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink   |  PhysOrg  | Email this | Comments

Hands On With The New Xbox 360 Controller [Xbox 360] Posted: 03 Sep 2010 03:00 PM PDT Xbox Live's Major Nelson was roaming PAX here in Seattle, probably needing something fun to do. So I asked him to let me try the new Xbox 360 controller with transforming D-pad — oh, and the analog sticks are different. More »

How-To: Cast a solid ice beer caddy Posted: 03 Sep 2010 03:00 PM PDT Rob Cockerham--who has previously brought us spring shoes, a sweet Doc Ock costume, and How Much is Inside?, among other delights--wanted to serve a six-pack out of a solid block of ice. The block had to be cast with openings that would hold the bottles tightly but still let them slip loose when somebody wanted one. It took a bit of trial and error, but he eventually got the process figured out. The whole story is here. Rob hasn't tried it yet, but he thinks, as I do, that one of these will probably float in a swimming pool fully loaded. Nice work, Rob! [via Boing Boing] More: Beer bottles with tuning levels printed on labels Hacker Trifecta: iPad, Arduino, kegerator combined in single device Reblown bottle glasses Basement kegerator with kitchen tap Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Chemistry | Digg this!

Without a Trace: Turn Your Flash Drive into a Portable Privacy Toolkit [Privacy] Posted: 03 Sep 2010 03:00 PM PDT Whether you're trying to increase your security at an internet café, tunnel your way to your home computer from your cubicle, or leave no trace on your friend's borrowed computer, a flash drive turned portable privacy toolkit is invaluable. More »

SD Card Association: flash card speeds to triple by 2012 Posted: 03 Sep 2010 02:35 PM PDT The SD Card Association (truth be told, one of our favorite card-related associations) has a new spec in the works that will almost triple the speed of its SDHC and SDXC cards, according to CNET. The specification, which should be complete Q1 next year, will achieve 300MB per second by adding a second row of electrical contacts on the bottom face of the card, and will be backward compatible with older, slower devices. Although being referred to internally as SD 4.0, brand names for the technology are still being considered -- with UHS-II (the successor to UHS-I ultra-high speed bus cards) as one possibility. SD Card Association: flash card speeds to triple by 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink   |  CNET  | Email this | Comments

What Are You Playing This Weekend? [Lazy Sundays] Posted: 03 Sep 2010 02:30 PM PDT It's Labor Day weekend here in the United States and we at Kotaku will celebrate the three day weekend in the traditional way, with portable logic puzzles. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, here I come. More »

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