Kensington has announced SlimBlade Trackball which is nothing but an expanded version of trackballs present in most of today’s mobile devices. The idea is pretty simple – You move the trackball to use the mouse pointer, click through menus and do all sorts of stuff which you could do with the mouse. To make things more pleasant, Kensington has given the peripheral a glossy design with the ruby red ball and gunmetal gray colored base.
The Trackball can be operated under a couple of modes like the navigation mode for controlling the cursor and scrolling or in media mode to control volume, play/pause, zoom in/out etc. The SlimBlade Trackball will be available from the end of this month for $130.
Asus’ Eee branded products doesn’t seem to stop. The image you’re looking above is a prototype of Eee PC Keyboard. The chicklet style keyboard in fact is a fully functional PC with a small 5-inch touchscreen. An upped version of nettops?
The spec sheet includes an Intel N270/N330 Atom processor, 1GB RAM, 16 or 32GB SSD, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, LAN, VGA and USB ports, 4-in-1 card reader and HDMI out. Asus has not spilled the pricing or the availability details but is rumored to hit sometime in September.
SanDisk doesn’t seem to have learnt a lesson from its slotMusic initiative. Now that slotMusic has taken a backseat (assuming weak sales), the new bold move comes in the form of slotRadio. The slotRatio line consists of a music player and a microSD card. If a user is willing to shell out $100, he’ll get a slotRadio music card which has 1,000 songs handpicked from the Billboard charts and a compatible music player featuring a 1.5-inch OLED screen to display song info and integrated FM Radio. However, for people interested in songs only, SanDisk will offer slotRadio cards for $40.
I don’t know where this is heading to but the worst part about this is that the songs cannot be deleted from the card nor can users select their favorite songs.
Jnkyrdguy wrote up this instructable for crafting a basic flute instrument from PVC piping. As he points out, the limited range could be an advantage to those new to the instrument - and its simple construction can easily serve as the basis for many experimental designs -
This flute design is a common one on the net, and for good reason. Not only is it simple to build, it's also relatively simple to learn and rewarding to play. It only took a month of on and of playing to be relatively proficient (meaning I could get a clean sound from the first two octaves without difficulty.) The flutes are keyed instruments and only play in one scale (without more complex fingerings) which is actually a plus when just noodling around since you can't easily hit a note outside of the major scale of that flutes key.
Currently, we are working with the yellow Lego RCX's, but it seems like this idea could be worked out with just about any processing platform. Make Controller, Basic Stamp, Arduino, ATTiny or...We can give them sensing abilities by using photocells, pressure switches and other sensors. One of the thoughts that brought this on was the desire of students to go beyond the Lego system, looking to work with other materials.
The Lego connectors are good, but not very universal. By using aluminum or copper tape, it is relatively easy to make a more compatible wire connector. Students can get some experience with soldering and working with systems without having to make the entire vehicle themselves. It seems that the yardsale or dumpscore cars are a good place to start, but often they have other issues from being played with. Often the worst of them have been driven on the beach with some pretty heavy salt water corrosion. By getting a good collection of relatively inexpensive cars, there can be a good level of consistency in materials, and a greater level of compatibility in parts.
This project seems like it has some good long term potential. The gear train for the rear drive wheels is much more sophisticated than would be realistic to make in most shops, the steering assembly is pretty solid and proven, and the chassis is a great way to hold the thing together. Some of the issues to resolve are: What else can be done with the remote control radio transmitter and receiver? How can you drive larger motors with a small microcontroller?
Have you messed about with remote control cars? What success stories do you have of controlling dc motors with microcontrollers? Do you have documentation of great projects done with your students, kids or on your own? What are the possible pitfalls in a project like this? What is the best way to program the Lego RCX, Interactive C, LeJos, Logo or something else? If you had access to a group of students and a few or dozens of small, cheap remote control cars, what would you do with them? Add your thoughts and comments below and contribute your photos and videos to the Make Flickr pool.
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Digg this!
This is a really cool, if not over complicated, machine to make jumper wires for your next breadboarding project. Personally, I have made a lot of little jumper wires, and I would love to have a machine like this.
Here is another attempt from Motorola to woo mobile phone users. This time its offerings include an environmental friendly W233 Renew and socially active Motosurf A3100 touchscreen phone.
W233 Renew is an entry level phone with its housing made completely out of recycled water bottles. It also earns a CarbonFree Product Certification from CarbonFund.org because of its carbon neutrality. T-Mobile USA will start selling this phone from this quarter.
Motorola prefers to call its Motosurf A3100 phone, a ‘touch tablet’ device that has a customizable home screen. The phone runs on Windows Mobile 6.1, so the customization part is nothing new as many WinMo phones available in the market offer it. It also has a Blackberry-esque trackball, stylus, aGPS, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. A3100 will also debut at the CES and will be available in most markets by the end of this quarter.
The Indian subsidiary of Asustek today announced the availability of its luxury netbook, S101. It’s a 10.2-inch netbook with all the customary netbook features but with a classy looking exterior.
S101 will be selling for Rs. 27,990 (excluding taxes) with a storage selection of either a 16GB SSD or a 160GB HDD.
Full Specifications:
Model: Eee PC S101
Operating System: Genuine Windows XP Home
Display: 10.2” wide active matrix LED-backlit TFT, WSVGA 1024 x 600, 252K colors
CPU: Intel Atom
Chipset: Intel 945GSE; ICH7-M
LAN: Onboard 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet controller
Wireless Data: Network WLAN 802.11n; Bluetooth V2.0
Memory: 1 GB (DDR2)
Storage: Solid State Drive 16 GB / 160 GB Hard disk drive; 20 GB Eee Storage
1 x VGA port (D-sub 15-pin for external monitor)
3 x USB 2.0 ports
1 x LAN RJ-45
2 x audio jacks: Headphone / Mic-in
Camera: 0.3 M Pixel
Reader: 4-in-1 MMC, SD, Memory Stick and MS-PRO flash card slot
Touchpad: Multi-touch
Audio: Hi-definition audio CODEC
Built-in high quality stereo speakers
Digital Array Mic
Battery: 2-cell Li-Polymer (4 hours)
Dimensions: 264 mm (w) x 180.5 mm (d) x 18 ~ 25 mm (h)
Weight: 1 kg
Casing Colors: Brown, Champagne or Graphite
