There’s certainly no shortage of researchers working on printable electronics these days, but a group from the EU-funded CONTACT project is now boasting of a “major step” towards being able to print electronics on everyday materials. At the moment, they seem to be focused primarily on printing organic TFT displays directly onto glass plates, which apparently required the use of some aggressive solvents that “attack” the organic materials between the TFT and liquid crystal layers. Their current Labratester 1 printer (pictured above) apparently still has some problems precisely lining up each layer, however, but they say that’ll be fixed with the addition of some optical cameras in the Labratester 2 machine they’re now working on. Eventually, they say the system could be used to easily and cheaply print displays directly on watch faces or glasses, or even print other electronics onto paper or other fabrics.

[Via Protein Feed, image courtesy of NSMZ]

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Original Post By Google News Donald Melanson

Using polymorph plastic, some curtain rods, electric screwdrivers, motors, and a whole lot of mad-scientist creativity, an Xrobots hobbyist created this organic-looking robot base. By using wooden sockets and curtain rings as hip joints, the designer is clearly going for a human-like creature of doom here. Knee joints are kept moving with four motors each while a network of bungee cords and strings will act as muscles and tendons. Meanwhile, electric screwdrivers provide power for rotation. The legs measure 26-inches tall alone, so it looks like he’s on his way to a real beast here. Hit the read link to see all the raw materials and sit in awe at this monster in the making.

[Via Hacked Gadgets]

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Original Post By Google News Joshua Fruhlinger

It’s not too often case mods cross over into the world of body mods, but when you kind of think about it, it was only a matter of time before people started using laser-etchers to give themselves immaculately detailed burn “tattoos.” It’s unclear what kind of lasting effects using an Epilog on your own skin will have, but don’t be too stunned if it just peels right off and eventually becomes some weird, blurry scar. In other words, attempt this feat at your own risk. Oh, and you didn’t think we would let this one off without a video, did you? It’s after the break — too bad there’s no smell-o-vision to give off the nauseating scent of precision-burnt human flesh.

Continue reading Laser-etched tattoos: don’t try this at home, kids

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Original Post By Google News Ryan Block

We’ve seen plenty of robots that are capable of showing their appreciation for music, but few have as refined a taste as this trio of bots designed by a team of UK artists and scientists, which have been trained to like punk music and nothing else. That was apparently done by employing “adaptive resonance theory,” which allows the robots to build up a history of patterns relating to different sounds, and analyze songs on the fly, matching the patterns against other types of music it has already listened to. As you can see in the BBC’s video available at the read link below, the bot’s were apparently easily able to recognize a band that they hadn’t heard before and, if you hurry, you can actually check ‘em out first hand, as they’ll be doing their thing at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts until July 5th.

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Original Post By Google News Donald Melanson

Buried under predictions that 2012 will bring dominance for Blu-ray over DVD and breaking news that the PS3 just may have had a hand in winning the format war the Entertainment Merchant’s Association 2008 Annual Report on the Home Entertainment Industry holds survey results showing 87% of PS3 owners reported they watch Blu-ray movies on their console. That’s a stark contrast to last year’s NPD survey indicating 60% of owners didn’t even know it played them. We don’t know what’s behind the jump, be it better marketing/consumer education, or something wrong with how one the surveys were conducted. You can mull that one over during the fast money round while also peeping results that say 22% of HDTV owners think they’re watching HD programming, but in fact are not — not like we haven’t heard that before.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

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Original Post By Google News Richard Lawler

Engadget HD managed to acquire one of JVC’s Everio HD40 camcorders — you know, that HD shooter with 120GB of onboard storage. If you’re interested in seeing it get unboxed and manhandled (along with comparison shots with Samsung’s delightful SC-HMX20C), click on over and enjoy. For those wanting some serious impressions, keep a check on this space — we’ll be forming some opinions and penning a review here shortly.

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Original Post By Google News Darren Murph

The Brickhouse Child Locator by Brickhouse is a device that lets you keep a constant watch on your child in public areas. This device works by attaching a tag to your child’s clothes or shoes to work as a homing device should your child leave the safety zone, the Brickhouse Child Locator will alert you when that happens. The portable tracking device will beep, vibrate, and visually lead you to your (tagged) child quickly and easily. This device also comes with a “panic button” on the homing tag for your child to use in the event of an emergency. The Brickhouse Child Locator with Distance Alert is priced at $189.95.

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A ten person line has been spotted outside Apple’s Fifth Avenue retail store as of this Friday afternoon. As ample supply is expected, it seems unnecessary to be waiting a full week outside the store. However, the lineup is acknowledged by both security and Apple employees, some who have left the store temporarily to talk to those in line. Chairs and other apparel make it clear that they are ready for the seven-day wait. No celebrities have been spotted this time (last year Greg Packer was there). The reason for the early waiting (camping?) could be that customers are required to activate their iPhones in-store this time around, as opposed to walking out quicky with their purchases, it is estimated that the time spent processing each customer will take at least 10 minutes versus a fraction of that time previously. Still, it’s crazy

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Original Post By Google News Click Here For The Entire Article

STARMAC is a multi vehicle test bed used to demonstrate new concepts in multi-agent control on a real-world platform. The fleet, consisting of six quadrotor vehicles that can fly indoors and outdoors as well as being able to carry computing and sensing resources sufficient for autonomous operations. Among the computing resources on board are a low level microcontroller board called the Robostix, the Gumstix Verdex for positive estimation and control, a PXA270 based single board computer and a PC-104 computer running Linux(Fedora) for onboard processing of vision information, optimal path planning and other high level automation tasks. These vehicles will be able to be used in real-world application with enough computing resources and excess lift capacity to get the job done… autonomously.

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Original Post By Google News Click Here For The Entire Article

The S41 is a mini-v which can handle full versions of Microsoft software applications such as Office. A mini-v is a new category of mobile device that is in between a large tablet PC and a small PDA. Since it can function as both a tablet PC as well as a laptop it is considered to be a mini version of both; hence the term mini-v. The S41 in tablet mode is a decent gaming device, having buttons on the side of its screen for that as well as a d-pad and mouse pointer on the left, and on the right there is left and right click and the scroll up ad down hardware keys which can be bound to an action. Specifications in the full post.

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Original Post By Google News Click Here For The Entire Article