Cheap nostalgia, that’s the name of the game. If you can somehow build and ship ‘cheap nostalgia’, you’re going to be raking in the bucks. For the ‘musicians’ in the crowd, the king of cheap nostalgia has something great. Behringer is cloning the Yamaha CS-80. and it was announced at this month’s Superbooth. The Yamaha […]
The future of the musical instrument industry is in tiny, cheap, handheld synthesizers. They’re sold as ‘musical toys’. They bleep and bloop, and that’s about it. Korg may have just released the minimum viable product for this category, and thus the most popular product for this category. On the surface, the Korg Nu:Tekt doesn’t look […]
Simulacra and simulation and Kickstarter videos. The Amigo Robot is a 4-wheeled omnibot robot on Kickstarter. It does STEM or STEAM or whatever. Oh neat, injection molded magnetic pogo pins, that’s cool. Watch the video for this Kickstarter, it is a work of postmodern horror. We live in a post-reality world, and this is beyond […]
Lego is releasing a series of Braille bricks. As near as we can tell, these Braille bricks are standard 2 x 4 bricks, with studs corresponding to Braille letters on the top. There are also screen/pad printed legends on top. I don’t mean to be a downer, but why, exactly, is this being created now? […]
A Russian company has developed a drone with a very interesting control scheme. It’s a VTOL fixed wing, that takes off like a bicopter, transitions to use wings for lift, flies around for half an hour or so, and then lands on its tail. This is a big ‘un; the reported weight is 50 pounds. […]
Look at this prototype Apple smartphone from 1993! For a long time, Apple has been in the phone game, with many failed attempts to combine a laptop screen with a phone. The most noteworthy attempt would be the Snow White phone designed around 1982, but this didn’t go to market. Apple tried again in 1993 […]
It’s April, which means all the people responsible for doubling the number of badges at DEF CON are hard at work getting their prototypes ready and trying to fund the entire thing. The first one out of the gate is Da Bomb, by [netik] and his crew. This is the same team that brought you […]
You can now make flexible circuit boards of unlimited length. Trackwise was contracted out for making a wiring harness for the wing of a UAV and managed to ship a 26 meter long flexible printed circuit board. This is an interesting application of the technology — UAVs are very weight sensitive and wiring harnesses are […]
It has come to my attention that a few of you don’t know about Crystalfontz, an online store where you can find displays of all types, from USB LCD displays to I2C OLEDs, to ePaper displays. Thanks to [arthurptj] for that tip. Yes, Crystalfontz is cool, but have you ever heard of Panelook? Oh boy […]
There’s now an official Raspberry Pi keyboard and mouse. The mouse is a mouse clad in pink and white plastic, but the Pi keyboard has some stuff going for it. It’s small, which is what you want for a Pi keyboard, and it has a built-in USB hub. Even Apple got that idea right with the […]