Category Archives: News

A new generation of tactile surfaces with relief effects

Marius tipped us to a new generation of tactile surfaces with relief effects: Swiss researchers have invented a new generation of tactile surfaces with relief effects – users can feel actual raised keys under their fingers. This technology could have many applications, particularly in improving access to electronic media for the visually impaired. Via the […]

Radio Shack to carry Arduino

Radio Shack has announced that they will begin carrying Arduino boards and shields. The product list (with RS part numbers) includes the Arduino Uno REV 3 (2760128), Arduino Mega 2560 REV3 (2760127), Arduino Mega ADK (2760129), Arduino Ethernet Shield Without PoE Module (2760130), Arduino Motor Shield (2760131), the Arduino SD Shield (2760132) and the Arduino […]

ARM announces 64-bit ARMv8 Platform

ARM announced that they will release 64bit microcontrollers. The ARMv8 uC will feature a 64bit instruction set, as well as extended virtual addressing. The uCs will have two execution states, AArch32, and AArch64. While the AArch64 handles the 64bit instruction set, the AArch32 executes the existing ARM 32bit instruction set. A compiler for the new […]

Atmel and Arduino Collaborate on AVR and ARM-based Development Platforms

Atmel and Arduino have announced a cooperative effort to produce three new AVR and ARM-based dev platforms debuting at the Atmel-sponsored Arduino Pavilion at Maker Faire located in Queens, New York, September 17 and 18, 2011. According to Atmel’s press release: Atmel and Arduino will be demonstrating several platforms in the Atmel-sponsored Arduino Pavilion including: […]

HackPittsburgh to launch messages via balloon

The crew over at HackPittsburgh is planning on a balloon launch message project today: This Friday (9-2-2011), join us as we celebrate the successful launch of our 4th balloon with more fun with balloons. We have often talked about sending a payload of ping pong balls up with our big balloons and then drop them […]

Winner of TS1001 op-amp design competion

Touchstone Semi announced the TS1001 Op Amp design competition winner: Eric John Holland, a senior electronics design engineer at Avery Weigh-Tronix, was awarded the top prize of $1,000 for his design of a working, low-power 555 timer using Touchstone‟s TS1001 op amp. The TS1001 is the industry‟s first 0.8V, 0.6µA op amp cutting power requirements […]

Microchip releases AR1100 USB touchscreen controller

Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller, analog and Flash-IP solutions, has announced the release of the mTouch™ AR1100 Analog Resistive USB Touch-Screen Controller. Building upon the AR1000 Analog Resistive Touch-Screen Controller series, the AR1100 controller is a high-performance, USB plug-and-play device that offers advanced calibration capabilities as a USB mouse or single-input digitizer. […]

Novel technology allows LCDs to recycle energy

The idea that LEDs can act as light detectors as well as emitters is well known. Now researchers at UCLA are looking at LCDs with an eye toward using them to produce electric energy in addition to functioning as your smartphone display. The UCLA engineers have created a novel concept for harvesting and recycling energy […]

TI launches new TIDeals site

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player Texas Instruments has a launched a new microsite known as TIDeals.com. They promise to deliver “the latest MSP430 MCU products at hugh discounts every two weeks!” At this writing they appear to be compiling an email list prior to the launch of their first “deal” in about two days.

Electronic circuit in a tattoo

UPI is reporting that researchers at Northwestern University have developed skin mounted electronic circuits. These devices which can either be attached with adhesive or temporarily tattooed could have applications in biomedical monitoring. Of course, we imagine “big brother” types of applications for this tech will be just around the corner… Thanks Chuckt! Via the Comments.

Big DIY: The Year the Maker Movement Broke

Wired magazine has published an online article summarizing the progress of the Maker movement in the last year. Tim Carmody observes that the Maker movement mirrors that of the growth of PCs and punk rock. Culturally, it’s mostly already happened — just like Hüsker Dü and The Pixies figured out Nirvana’s basic hard-rock punk-pop template […]

Engineering Radio from Digikey

Earlier this year, Digikey began sponsoring Engineering Radio. It’s an online radio program/podcast hosted by Joe Desposito, Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Design magazine, and is dedicated to providing engineers with the latest news in the electronics industry. There are currently 23 online shows archived, with new content added weekly. You can access the online player for […]

QUUB: tiny computing stackable dev board

GRAYnomad (Rob Gray) describes the QUUB as follows: QUUB is a Small Form Factor processor and co-processor design like this ATMega1284-AU based core processor board (above). The basic system topology is that of a “core” processor and up to 16 addressable daughter boards known as “stackables”. Stackables can be smart (with co-processors) or dumb (just […]

Instructables is joining Autodesk

Congratulations to Eric, Christ, Laura, and the whole Instructables team! Instructables, the world’s largest show and tell, has joined 3D-modeling powerhouse Autodesk. Instructables was a great platform for our first how-tos, and we still enjoy posting there and entering the contests. the whole team is staying on, our policies haven’t changed, you still hold copyright to […]