Fred sez,

I've just completed building the 2.0 version of Committee Caller for my master's thesis. It's called Cause Caller and it is a virtual phone bank web app powered by a Semantic Media Wiki.

I came up with the idea of automating call queues for phone banks while trying to organize one for myself, it was a total hassle to find everyone’s phone number on a particular committee, so I built CommitteeCaller last semester.  Over the last couple of months I’ve worked with several local causes to develop the idea into a generalized activist tool that is my thesis — Cause Caller. The result is a fully extendable, platform that drives a “live” VoIP application that hopefully takes a lot of the hassle out of phone banking.

Right now Cause Caller is a bit of a blank slate — while I have almost all of America’s federal politicians (Congressional representatives, Senators, etc.) in the database,  I am really interested in building state level politicians into it. Causes also need to be added as right now there are only two: the demo cause and SolarOne’s I Heart PV Cause. This is where you can help — if you are or you know any activists looking to organize phone banks, please forward this to them! I’m going to be presenting this project for my thesis at ITP on Friday, May 9th at 12:20pm, so I’ll be incorporating feedback I receive over the next week into the “results” section of my presentation.

Have fun getting in touch with democracy!

Link (Thanks, Fred!)

Matt Mason, author of The Pirate's Dilemma, sez, "I thought you'd be into this 3-D printed scale model of Cinderella’s Castle I received in the mail today. A few weeks back I was speaking at the Disney Imagineering HQ in California, where 3-D printing is used to develop new designs. They made one of these for Bob Iger, one for Steve jobs, and had this one at HQ, which they very kindly sent me as a thank you, after finding out about my obsession with all things 3-D printed. It’s the most detailed thing I’ve seen come out of a prototyping machine yet, this picture doesn’t do justice to the perfect brickwork, spires and columns, nor can you see the corridors that run through the model. It’s pretty nuts. Apparently it took 11 hours to print." Link (Thanks, Matt!)

See also:
Pirate's Dilemma author's speech: "To get rich off pirates, copy them"
Pirate's Dilemma slideshow video -- pirates will save the world

Mary sez, "While looking for something else entirely, I stumbled upon this eBay auction for an Antique Steam Pulley Driven Workshop with Lights. Good heavens. It’s got a lathe, jig saw, drill… It’s like a steampunk Shopsmith, but it’s real." Link (Thanks, Mary!)

Today on BoingBoing Gadgets, we tickled the dragon's tail, destroyed the evidence, then wrote it up on the world's smallest Mac. We learned that wherever Cory goes, the iPhone follows; that you can't kick a robot when it's down; and that magnetic shelves are the perfect place to store crap gadgets. Baffled by a 60-drive USB duplicator, we pondered how to measure its power consumption.

From the Malabar front came news of a robot spider droid army, just in time to take care of re-awaked elder god, AirJelly. John played with a pinhole panorama and min-maxed his weight loss, while Rob fawned over a neodymium magnet puzzle and a pet porthole.

Finally, it dawned on us: Apple Store Geniuses are douches.

Devin sez, "I believe this was the navigation system for several old English bombers (Victor, Vulcan, and Valiant). Very wire-y and cool. Many, many plugs and things all over the place." Link (Thanks, Devin!)

Watchismo's feature today covers the illustrious history of early LED watches, whose origins are stylish as only artifacts from a lost era can be.

With the recent release of the $350,000 Opus 8 and the de Grisogono Meccanico dG with their mechanically mimicked LED digits, I wanted to also share this video and photos from the collection of UK LED collector, Lloyd "Theledwatch". He was recently featured on Antiques Roadshow (see video above) where he shared some of the best examples of early 1970s digital light emitting diode watches like the Pulsar Hamilton P1, Girard Perregaux Casquette, Omega Time Computer and my one-of-a-kind favorites by the Royal designer Andrew Grima.

Link

This week's installment of The Command Line podcast is a recording from a panel on Secure Computing Environments with Vernor Vinge, held last weekend at Penguicon, the free software/science fiction convention in Novi Troy, MI. The panel's really fascinating and far-ranging, covering the nitty-gritty of how trusted computing is -- and might be -- implemented, to the policy, surveillance, and activist possibilities opened up by a universally available secure computing platform. Link

Today on BoingBoing gadgets, we poured ourself one from the firehose, studied from the codex of lilliputian laptops and, still thirsty, drank some vitamin water, which, in defiance of physics, mixes just fine with snake oil. Rob set about building a MAME machine inside the joystick, while John asked if anyone cared about MP3s killing off the LP. As for me, I relaxed under a fake skylight.. We wondered at yet another tiny computer; burned effigies of a disgraced tech CEO; looked at the future of prosthetic fingers; sniffed at some tasteless telephones; learned to play Beer Pong; and checked out the modern take on cheap, obnoxious electronic doorbells. Tonight, we'll be relaxing in the world's first LED spa before destroying worlds with new DARPA superweapons—all from the safety of electric unicycle-back. And, finally, a strange cigarette helps us off to the land of nod.

Instructables have just published their latest installment in their series of HOWTOs inspired by my forthcoming novel Little Brother, a young adult book about kids who use technology to wrest liberty from the Department of Homeland Security. This week, it's HOWTO block or kill an RFID chip.

-The easiest way to kill an RFID, and be sure that it is dead, is to throw it in the microwave for 5 seconds. Doing this will literally melt the chip and antenna making it impossible for the chip to ever be read again. Unfortunately this method has a certain fire risk associated with it. Killing an RFID chip this way will also leave visible evidence that it has been tampered with, making it an unsuitable method for killing the RFID tag in passports. Doing this to a credit card will probably also screw with the magnetic strip on the back making it un-swipeable.

-The second, slightly more convert and less damaging, way to kill an RFID tag is by piercing the chip with a knife or other sharp object. This can only be done if you know exactly where the chip is located within the tag. This method also leaves visible evidence of intentional damage done to the chip, so it is unsuitable for passports.

-The third method is cutting the antenna very close to the chip. By doing this the chip will have no way of receiving electricity, or transmitting its signal back to the reader. This technique also leaves minimal signs of damage, so it would probably not be a good idea to use this on a passport.

-The last (and most covert) method for destroying a RFID tag is to hit it with a hammer. Just pick up any ordinary hammer and give the chip a few swift hard whacks. This will destroy the chip, and leave no evidence that the tag has been tampered with. This method is suitable for destroying the tags in passports, because there will be no proof that you intentionally destroyed the chip.

Link, Link to RSS feed for Little Brother Instructables

See also: HOWTO Screen-print a tee

Liliputing has done a fantastic roundup of the existing and forthcoming micro-notebooks, the Eee and its successors and competitors. There's a lot of interest in these things in my household -- we're all sick of shlepping around shoulder-tearing laptops and the idea of a 2.5 Lb, sold-state submicro tablet is pretty attractive all 'round, especially if it goes for a couple hundred bucks. Link (via Gizmodo)

The Red Ferret's had a little experiment with a dual-SIM conversion kit for GSM phones -- pop it into one of the many compatible handsets and you can flip back and forth between two different carriers. I have a British and a US SIM that I switch between, depending on which continent I'm on, so this could be pretty handy.

The only thing I’ve noticed so far is that the offline mode doesn’t seem to be really offline with this thing in, because my battery now runs down a lot faster in offline mode than it used to. It’s no biggie, I’ll just switch the phone off or take out the twin SIM on flights, but it’s something to watch out for. It may just be a peculiarity of my setup, of course.

The other thing that’s not really clear from the site is the compatibility of handsets. The site has a long list of compatible handsets on it, which includes a lot of standard 3G and other phones, but even though the Nokia 6110 Navigator I upgraded wasn’t on the list, it still worked fine. So maybe it’s a matter of taking a gamble if your handset is not listed? Oh and remember you’ll need a phone with a back cover which bends enough, or has enough room to cope with the extra SIM.

Link

In December 1938, Popular Science featured this fantastic, gigantic 12-ton "landing strip in a box" for converting cow-pastures to airstrips.

ROLLING swiftly down highways on ten oversize balloon tires, a revolutionary airport-in-miniature for use by passenger air lines and military air forces now provides quick and complete assistance to stranded airplanes. This curious “twelve-ton tool box” is the invention of Kibbey W. Couse, of East Orange, N. J. It is capable of turning any level cow pasture into an airport complete with machine shop, repair parts, floodlights, and radio.

Link

Michael built a Claude Shannon/Marvin Minsky "Ultimate Machine" -- flip a switch and a hand emerges and flips it off.

About 7 years ago I was reading an article on Claude Shannon and came across one of the funniest ideas I had ever heard. Claude, you see, was one of these incredibly brilliant engineers with an obviously great sense of humor. As I understand it, he, along with Marvin Minsky came up with an idea they called the "Ultimate Machine". Basically a plain box with a switch on the top. When you flip the switch, a hand comes out of the box and flips the switch off. Thats it.

Well, after reading the article, and laughing out loud, I decided that I HAD to build one of these boxes.

Link (via Make)

Marilyn sez, "Modern Mechanix photographed the 25 pages of this April 1965 Nat Geo story on the 1964 New York World's Fair. Great photos of the General Motors Futurama exhibit, people riding a Ferris wheel made to look like a gigantic whitewall tire, attentive concertgoers at the New York State's Tent of Tomorrow, which looked all elegant back then, with that gorgeous, huge (130x166 ft) terazzo floor Texaco road map of New York State. (Interestingly, in the U.S. Pavilion a display predicted the world population would hit 7 billion by 2000, but we're still shy of that figure by some 300 million today). But the best part was the Westinghouse Time Capsule: which included 'The Bible, a piece of heat shield from a space craft, a National Geographic Atlas of the World in microfilm, freeze-dried food, a bikini bathing suit, and a popular recording by the Beatles...' Also a transistor radio, a computer memory unit, a heart valve, an electric toothbrush, and a package of birth control pills.

Some 7,000 visitors file through the RCA Pavilion each day to see themselves on color television (below, left) and hear a backstage briefing on the technological magic that splashes rainbows on their living-room screens. On the same site 26 years ago, RCA introduced black-and-white television to the United States. Official color TV center for the Fair, RCA telecasts news announcements, interviews with visiting dignitaries, highlights of other exhibits, and special events—more than 2,000 program hours from April to October. The pavilion also helped reunite families last year by showing lost children on some 200 television sets in buildings throughout the grounds. At the Dupont Pavilion, science joins showmanship (center). Here colorless liquids mixed in flasks shine with intense blue light in a demonstration of chemiluminescence—the same phenomenon that makes fireflies glow. In Dupont’s production, “Wonderful World of Chemistry,” live actors sing, dance, and talk with life-size motion-picture images on movable screens. One scene shows a live performer blowing out candles on a filmed birthday cake and spraying another actor with frosting. Eight different troupes, working simultaneously in two theaters, present the Dupont show 48 times daily.

Link (Thanks, Marilyn)

See also:
18 hours of 64 World's Fair audio!
Bell System film for 1964 World's Fair
Giant road map from 1964 World's Fair

John sez, "A giant mechanism will park your bike for you in an underground facility in a train station in Tokyo. It packs more than 9,000 bikes tight as sardines, and when you swipe your card to pick it up, it will find your bike and spit it out in 23 seconds!" Link (Thanks, John!)

Jake von Slatt sez, "The inexorable march of technology has rendered my 4:3 aspect ratio 19" LCD mod and my pump-less water cooled PC obsolete, so when I saw at 24" wide screen monitor on sale for $299.00 I grabbed it with the intent on making a Victorian All-in-One PC."

I connected the plastic top and bottom together with some lengths fo aluminum angle iron and then give them a coat of Krylon semi-flat black spray paint. When the paint was dry I masked off some of the trim using "FROG Tape" from Inspired Technologies - it works much better then regular painter's masking tape.

I hand painted the trim with a brush and small pot of gold paint which I then proceeded to spill into my lap. The Lady von Slatt has taken to calling me Goldmember.

Next I fabricated the back from perforated aluminum and pop-rivets.

Link (Thanks, Jake!)

The voice-changing Dalek helmet looks like it would be a lot of fun -- hey, hon, let's play stern Dalek and recalcitrant Time Lord! Link (via Gizmodo)

Designer Erik De Nijs's concept design for a pair of jeans with a built-in keyboard are intriguing if impractical -- I'm the kind of guy who often finds himself walking around with a laptop tapping out a few final words before going lids-down. Link (via Beyond the Beyond)

A Danish company called Agroplast has figured out how to turn pig-piss into plastic and into a cigarette "flavor enhancer":

Transforming farm waste into plastic precursors is potentially attractive over other bioplastic ideas because the feedstock effectively has no value. In fact, it has negative value because animal waste must be disposed, which costs money. Some other bioplastic companies make their resins out of corn starch.

Tøttrup claims that the process could, conceivably, result in plastics that cost a third less than conventional plastics made from fossil fuels. That's a big conceivably. Traditionally, bioplastics made of vegetable matter have cost more than fossil fuel plastics. Evaluation of the pricing will have to wait until large volumes of this stuff are made. Agroplast is going into a pilot study now, Tøttrup said.

Link (via Gizmodo)

(Image: URINE: a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo from Salvez's Flickr stream)

Do follow our Joel as he traipses through the forest, laden with gadgetry, granola, and gore-tex.

From Popular Science's short-lived "groovy" period, this November, 1970 article on constructing your own 12-sided "Meditator":

The fun, then, in making your personal Meditator, is double: First you create 11 pholages (only the access panel is left bare), then discover the unexpected cross-referencing when you wrap yourself in the assembled panels. Beyond that, you’ll be able to compare responses with your friends. And when you feel you’ve exhausted the potential of a given assembly, it’s easy to paste new pictures over the old.

I think you’ll be surprised by the new perspectives you’ll get toward the world about you, and your own part in it. I’ll soon be taking the Meditator with me (knocked down, it fits into a station wagon or sedan) on a college lecture tour as part of my demonstration of design technique. Teachers who have had an advance look at the - Meditator feel that—with changeable panels—it could be utilized in schools as a teaching environment. [Editor’s note: College groups interested in booking Isaacs to speak should write him in care of Popular Science. ] A breeze to build. When you go to the lumber yard for the 3/8″ plywood, see if they’ll saw the 4-by-8 panels in half for you. Four-foot squares are easier to handle.

Link

Christiaan Postma's "Clock" is a cunning arrangement of hour- and minute-hands on a black background. As the hands swing around, they spell out the name of the present hour.

The starting point with this project was a personal study about form & time. I put together more than 150 individual clockworks and made them work together to become one clock. I show the progress of time by letting the numbers be written in words by the clockworks. Reading clockwise, the time being is visible through a word and readable by the completeness of the word, 12 words from “one” to “twelve”.

Link (via Cribcandy)

I love these light-fixtures made from obsolete CRTs from Technoscrap (whose site, unfortunately, has no way to directly link to them, hence the link to Make). Link

Jonathon Yule's Invdr features a lovely gallery of robots made from various sans-serif fonts. Link (Thanks, Jake!)

Recently on Boing Boing Gadgets we looked at my final list of stuff I'll be taking with me into the woods tomorrow as I attempt to blog powered by the sun alone; a GPS tracking device jammer; an outdoor table with solar device recharger; an almost great plan to offer a free, nationwide internet service from the guv, sans the porn; an air jack for your car that is filled by the exhaust; the Robotron, a vintage Soviet desktop computer; Swashbot, an adorable homemade robot; a concept laptop that looks like a book; the sad, cranky history of the Motorola Razr; Rob's lament that Verizon wants to charge him $420 in fees to get business DSL; the upcoming launch of an Intel Atom-powered Asus Eee subnotebook (hopefully increasing the battery life); Amazon Kindle is back in stock; headphones inside a headband, for sleeping; wine sold in a TetraPak; a man playing a 1973 Buchla Music Easel synth on video; a documentary about how the computer effects in Star Wars were made, circa 197x; Apple's bizarre patent for a virtual online Apple store (which will probably never happen).

But there's more! Rob reviewed the D-Link DSM-750 media streamer (not so great); after a crap date, I saw this interactive art piece called "I Want You to Want Me" which prevented me — barely — from writing poetry; someone made bracelets from old camera lenses; Nalgene ditched a (probably) toxic chemical from their bottles; there was a nice discussion about accessibility, web design, and blindness; a Hong Kong company made a media player with a built-in projector; Rob reviewed the Casio Exilim EX-Z80 camera. And lots more, but sheesh.

TC Studio's Knife Hooks are a limited-edition coat-hook that make your home or office look like it's frequented by a dagger-hurling magician. Also: the seller ships to Antarctica. Link (via Gizmodo)

I bought a double-boiler, high-end espresso machine back in February and I'm brewing a pretty badass cuppa these days, but I can't quite perfect the art of making patterns in the latte froth (I'm pretty good at doing a flying spaghetti monster, but that's it).

Enter the latte-froth printer, which produces surprisingly hi-rez art in the top of the machine. Time to clear some more counter-space. Link (via Neatorama)

Decades before Manifold Destiny (the engine-block roadkill cookbook) Modern Mechanix published this guide to cooking with waste-heat from your car-exhaust while camping. Given that this was back in the era of leaded gasoline, I'm sure the car-exhaust imparted a magic flavor to the chow.

MEALS can literally be cooked on the run through the use of the automatic cooker shown in the photo above. The cooker is mounted on the rear bumper of the motor tourist’s car and an extension from the exhaust pipe connected up with it, as shown in the insert. The cooker contains a steam pressure kettle which is heated by the hot exhaust gases. An hour’s drive is quite sufficient to thoroughly cook meats and vegetables. Total weight of the unit is so slight that running qualities of the car remain quite unaffected. Motor tours are much more pleasant when one is assured of a well-prepared meal at the end of the trip.

Link

Here's an ad for a multi-level-marketing scheme for a "high-tech" car headlight, circa 1931. With artwork like this, I'm ready to sign up. I think I just found my next tattoo.

AT LAST! An amazingly queer yet simple invention lifts the curse of night driving from the motoring world. This altogether new discovery called “Perfect-O-Lite,” replaces old glass “bulbs” in your automobile headlights with truly amazing results. Road illumination is instantly doubled yet glare is absolutely banished. Ordinary objects in the road, ruts, animals, obstructions, etc., are made clearly visible at least three times as far. Instead of ordinary “direct” light, this beam is composed entirely of double-reflected or “infused” light. This new kind of light cuts right through the other fellow’s headlights. Even shoots through fog, mist, rain and snow. There is no wiring or installation. No extra upkeep. Banishes the need for glare shields. No wonder concerns like Wallace & Tiernan, N. J., Houston Post-Dispatch, Tex., Columbus, Ohio, Fire Trucks, etc. have already installed Perfect-O-Lite as standard equipment. To prove what this invention will do, the manufacturer now offers a set to every motorist on FREE TEST. Simply mail the coupon promptly for details.

Link

& Design's "Frame hanger" is a huge, leaning cut-out of a silhouette of an artistic scene, intended to be used as a coat-hanger. Link (via Cribcandy)

On the final day of Boing Boing tv's week-long "best of" retrospective, celebrating our first six months of mutant internetelevision...

No one ever envisioned this kind of hands free roaming... Today on BBtv, we explore the age old question of which cell phone brand is the most compatible with your stomach. This phone fricassee takes place at Machine Project, host of the Fry-B-Que social. So, turn your gullet on vibrate, and sharpen your bluetooth. It's time to taste test some telecommunications.

The cookie-dough encrusted treo was delish, but none were so nice as the clamshell Motorola wrapped in bacon.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion and downloadable video. See also this related episode:
* Meat Cloning at Machine Project.

I love this "robot celebrity" tee from ChopShop -- science fictiontastic! Link (via Gizmodo)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Rob's cooked up Super Blockquote, a Flash version of Breakout in which you operate the little paddle in order to smash the blockquoted words of corporate shills. Sheer genius! Link, Discuss on Boing Boing Gadgets

In the 1960s, Leon Berry built an insanely incredible pipe organ. He dubbed it the "Beast In The Basement." Berry outfitted the Beast with a slew of electromechanical special effect sounds too, from birds chirping to a Chinese gong. John Brownlee has more on this amazing instrument over at Boing Boing Gadgets. Link to BBG, Link to YouTube clip (via MAKE:)

Wired's got a great article on all the diverse uses that hackers are coming up with for the Chumby, the adorable, hackable, wide-open bean-bag computer that does anything you can think of.

The Chumby is designed in a way such that its core electronics can be easily separated from its outer shell. This lets Chumby owners create that exact look they want. Some enterprising crafters have already stuffed the screen into teddy bears and footballs and even exquisitely designed wooden cases.

Carlos Camargo, an assistant engineering professor at the National University of Columbia, has taken to hacking both the Chumby's hardware and its software. His current project, which centers on constructing a Chumby-based vehicle-tracking system, will let the Chumby communicate with a cellular modem and with GPS to measure the driving habits of people in Columbia.

"The Chumby's accelerometer will be a good driving indicator, storing the mean speed and acceleration and the strong changes in the acceleration," says Carmargo, who is currently writing the source code and developing his user interface with Qt application-development framework.

Indeed, with so many sensors and potential applications for the Chumby, it's often hard to keep track of the myriad projects developers, hackers and crafters are embarking on, Maxwell says.

Link

Continuing in our week-long retrospective of viewer favorites on Boing Boing tv (we're a big honkin' six monfs old now!), a look back at this epic Lego time-lapse from Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson:

Here are several evenings of my life condensed into 3:38 of time lapse footage as I assemble the "Ultimate Collectors Millennium Falcon" LEGO set, the largest yet sold, with over five thousand individual elements.

My thanks to Matt Goodell for cutting me a great deal on this set. It was even better than new, since he even sorted out all the pieces for me. Thanks also to Judson "Cicada" Cowan for letting me use the track "Earth's Assault on the Enemy A.I.," one of my favorite tracks of 2007. Finally, thanks to Brian Lam and Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo who had the idea first but were kind enough to give me permission to run my version before theirs to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Thanks, everyone!

I captured one frame out of every 150. It's a great set; much more fun to put together than the giant Star Destroyer. Far fewer repetitive sections. Now the ultimate question: keep it on my shelf to scare potential dates, sell it, or press its parts into service to build more ships of my own design?

(Don't miss: My snazzy sweatpants with the hole in the knee, then my realization that I have a hole in the knee after, like, a day of filming.)

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion and downloadable video.

My friend Wayne de Geere is in Vegas this week for NAB, cruising the halls for cool stuff. He shares this snapshot of one of the more interesting products on display -- the "Flying-Cam," a methanol-powered aerial vehicle with on-board camera, used in the production of such films as Harry Potter (3 of 'em), 007 (at least 3 of 'em), Van Helsing, and The Kite Runner. The company's website contains a bunch of groovy Quicktime movies that show the device in action.

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we looked at a new handheld camcorder from RED and the future of digital cinema (as well as all the various resolutions, some of which I assembled into the chart you see above); Nintendo's newly announced price for the Wii Fit balance board ($90); Rob's impressions of the Fujitsu P8010 laptop after a month; a new do-everything open gaming platform from the makers of the GP2X; a concept bag that doubles as a bike seat; the 'Wi-Fi Predator,' which slurps up remote Wi-Fi connections and shares them locally; listened to Tom Whitwell's review of the Sony PFR-V1 head-mounted speakers (not headphones!); Blue Jeans Cable's ESaD response to a cease-and-desist from Monster Cable; the Datto 500, a NAS that also mirrors your data off-site if you pay them a monthly fee; lamented the worsening state of CAPTCHA; saw this nitro-powered R/C car possible break 240MPH (according to reader estimates); noted that it is possible to sell a laptop bag without the actual bag; the K2, a light with metal teeth that can be exposed to make hurting; the Sigma DP-1 was reviewed by Richael Reichmann, who said even its beautiful images don't make up for its horrible UI; caught you up on today's Tetris news; discovered that yes, it is possible to make a shopping cart belch flame; and had fun playing Video Store Clerk, a new game that uses real customer ratings to simulate customers, then rolls your answers back into a big crowdsourced...look, it's fun if you like movies, I'm saying.

Back in 1970, Life magazine profiled the pioneering Rodman family, who installed a teletype terminal connected to a mainframe in their home, to explore the whacky far-future possibilities of "home computing." We got our teletype in 1977 and by that point, we had Eliza and a few other nice bits of ready-made software, but the main attraction was still doing silly things in BASIC.

When he got the computer for his home, Dr. Rodman had no idea his family would become so involved with it. His original project, which he is still working on, was to write a program for diagnosing lung ailments through test readings. Because a successful program will mean instant written diagnoses and also teach interns, Temple University agreed to pay for it.

Because he was a novice at programming, Dr. Rodman required uninterrupted access to a computer. The service he purchases hooks his terminal, a standard Teletype, through his telephone to a large computer 90 miles away in Teaneck, N.J. When the central unit is dialed, it responds with an audio pitch. An electronic device connected to the Teletype translates the computer’s messages to print.

The computer costs $110 a month terminal rental, plus $7.50 to $11 an hour. Once a program is stored, the cost is negligible. “Eat,” for example, costs the Rodmans about 10c for a weekly run-through. The computer, of course, does the bookkeeping for the bill.

Link

RCA unveiled the 53 Lb backpack TV transmitter in 1951 -- man, they sure knew how to make a box look sexy and futuristic back then! Link

IO9's located an 1893 advertisement for a laptop (typewriter)!

Measuring 12 inches long by 6-1/2 inches wide by 2 inches deep, and weighing a mere 3 pounds, the World typewriter was roughly the same size as many of today's laptop computers. Instead of a keyboard, however, the World used a dial; users chose a character with the right hand, then used the left to operate a lever that pressed it into the paper. Yet another lever was used to make spaces between words. Even so, the World typewriter was said to be

Link

The Urwerk UR-202 watch uses a pair of tiny spinning air-turbines to wind itself:

The UR-202’s twin turbines are coupled with the winding rotor. According to the position of the selector lever, the turbines act as shock absorbers.

In normal activity they cushion sharp movements of the rotor. This reduces wear and increases the lifespan of the movement. While the selector position is continuously variable, the three principal positions are: normal activity, where the turbines spin freely; vigorous activity, where the air pressure generated by the turbines reduces the winding rate by approximately 35%; and extreme activity, where the turbines and rotor are fully blocked.

Link

Alex sez, "At Worldchanging, we just did a post on how high a percentage of their monthly budgets many families are now paying for their cars, and why many "expensive" close-in neighborhoods are actually affordable when you factor in the gas pump. The centerpiece is a great new mapping ap from the center for neighborhood technologies that shows the interplay between the two in great clarity."

One factor that often doesn’t get considered in discussions of Seattle’s rising prices is transportation costs. It makes sense that if you have to “drive until you qualify,” as one common justification of living in the suburbs puts it, the cost of that driving ought to be considered as part of the cost of living far outside the city. Generally, though, it isn’t—allowing pro-suburban, anti-regulation, anti-density pundits and politicians to claim that Seattle’s housing prices are “out of control” and that the suburbs are the only “affordable” alternative.

According to CNT’s analysis of the Seattle region, the most affordable parts of our region are actually inside city limits—once transportation costs are factored in.

Link, Link to mapping app (Thanks, Alex!

Watchismo's got some exclusive photos of the DeWitt Concept No. 1, a €400,000 watch that's like a cross between an AT-AT walker and a steampunk war-zeppelin control-center.

Selling for 400,000 Euros at the OnlyWatch auction before it had been shown to anyone, the DeWitt Concept No.1 was a beast to behold last week at Baselworld. Devoloped with French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, this gothic pirate spaceship of a watch is taking the steampunk oeuvre to new heights with its expanding riveted case, flying tourbillon, five barrels and a 21 day power reserve.

Link

Our buddies at Boing Boing Gadgets have had a hard look at the MagicJack Internet telephony thingamabob and discovered that it is a festering pustule of crappy terms of service, spyware, and lies:

In short, it not only has one agree to ads with its paid-for system, but claims that the ads are necessary for it to work. It will also snoop on your calls to target ads more accurately, and has you sign away your legal right to take it to court if it defrauds or otherwise harms you. Delightful.

Neither the EULA itself, nor any other privacy or legal information, can be easily found at its homepage. It's not even provided at the point of sale, where one enters credit card info, email and street addresses as such, so as to gain access to the service and have your MagicJack dongle delivered. I found the EULA's URL through Google.

It gets sexier. When you access MajicJack's instant web help page, a bizarre series of "compatibility tests" take place first, reporting lies like "Your MagicJack is functioning properly" even if you don't have one installed.

Even the "look how many people came for a free trial" counter on the homepage is a fake, a javascript applet that increments itself automatically...

Link, Discuss on Boing Boing Gadgets

Boris sez, "A great video showing Bruce Sterling giving the closing talk at the conference 'Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign' in Potsdam, Germany. As usual, he creates a weird and wonderful vision of a technological and interface-driven future. The 'Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign' was one of the most important conferences on interaction design in 2007. All presentations from the conference are available as videos on the conference site."

Just listening to Bruce lay out the litany of devices that the mobile phone has replaced is a moment of sheer technological hilarity; and hearing him talk about why science fiction writers love talking computers (which all turn into Mr Clippy in the real world) is an eye-opening exercise in the difference between sensawunda and cognitive loading. Link (Thanks, Bruce!)

Flavour Designs' "And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon" bowls have a place to rest your spoon while you eat, sparing the tabletop/linen napkin between mouthfulls. Link (via Neatorama)

Here's a great Naughty Secretary Club project for turning dead watches into weird-ass wrist-art with a little spray-paint and patience. In the era of wristwatch obsolescence, why not turn a dead cheap timepiece into a brightly colored commentary on time itself:

After your several thin coats of paint have dried slap those babies on your wrist and sport them around town. I have a hot dinner date and art viewing with my lady friends this evening and I fully intend to work these bad boys into my outfit. I think I might even wear all 3 at once because I am crazy like that.

Link (via Craft)

Avatar Machine, by designer Marc Owens, is a wearable device that simulates the experience of third-person gaming environments.

By wearing this costume and head-mounted camera with VR goggles, a user can view themselves as a sort of virtual character while moving around and interacting in the real world.

Owens created Avatar Machine to explore whether such a device would grant users "a diminished sense of social responsibility (...) and demonstrate behaviors normally reserved for the gaming environment." In other words, turn them into instant board trolls.

Owens, 26, is a design student at the Royal College of Art, and lives in East London. An earlier version of this experiment from Owens circulated around the web in 2007.

In part one of today's Boing Boing tv episode, we premiere an all-new experiment with Avatar Machine -- live beta testing conducted in 2008, in the Harajuku area of Tokyo. Here, the user (Owens) flirts with Harajuku hotties, then almost gets his ass kicked (for real!) by some Japanese rockabilly gangster dudes.

In part two of today's show, Xeni speaks with Owens over a Skype video connection, live from his studio in East London.

Link to Boing Boing tv episode, with discussion and downloadable video. (special thanks to Susannah Breslin)

De Grisogono Meccanico DG is an all-mechanical "digital" watch that uses a wind-up mechanism to rearrange the "pixels" on its face to update the time. Only 177 will be made, which lets me out, but it doesn't stop me from drooling. Link (Thanks, Dan!)

The folks at Sanrio have achieved total Hello Kitty liftoff with this Hello Kitty Sander (unless it's a joke or a bootleg, in which case, it's time for Sanrio to copy the pirates and get into production). I don't have anything that needs sanding and I still want one.

Before the words were even completely out of my mouth, I knew I had guaranteed new depths of Hello Kitty Hell upon myself. Not only will my wife be looking for a Hello Kitty power sander, I’m sure I will also end up with a Hello Kitty tool set and Hello Kitty tool belt. My only hope is that I also receive a Hello Kitty nail gun (most likely with Hello Kitty nails included) that I can use to shoot nails into my head and put me out of my misery. It’s only a matter of time before they end up on our doorstep and Hello Kitty Hell takes on deeper and darker dimensions…

Link (via Make)

Update:: it's a racing power-tool! It comes from Global Cat-astrophe's Flickr stream. Well spotted, Meerkat!

Unusual device for people afraid to touch anything. Check out the videos -- it's a hook on a switchblade mechanism. I can't help myself -- I want one -- not because I fear germs, but because it looks like fun to use.

For germ conscious Americans The Handler is the next best thing to wearing surgical gloves in public bathrooms, airports and when you are traveling. It's a keychain sized mechanical device that allows you to open doors, pull levers, operate the paper towel dispenser and push ATM keypads without having to actually touch those things with your bare hands --- avoiding direct contact with germ infested public surfaces. This totally new product is infused with bacteria and virus killing nano-silvers that kill germs on contact, so it is always disinfecting itself. Perfect for the millions of germaphobes who burn through reams of paper towels in order to avoid contact with door handles, the retractable armature never touches you, your clothes or purse and proceeds to kill almost any and all germs after you use it. International travelers will definitely appreciate this totally new approach to reducing their risk to the host country's bacteria and cold and flu viruses.

Link

Wired's got a fantastic photoset of the unboxing of a freshly built Difference Engine, constructed to Charles Babbage's 1822 blueprints for a mechanical calculator of then-unheard-of sophistication:

But Babbage never completed it. It took engineers and curators at London's Science Museum almost six years of work to bring Babbage's 20 pages of blueprints to life in 1991.

Now, thanks to Microsoft multimillionaire Nathan Myhrvold, a second Difference Engine has been built and delivered to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, where trained docents will turn its brass handle to crank out the calculations Babbage dreamed of automating.

Link (via JWZ)

Brett Foster made a working 1:12 scale television for his daughter's dollhouse -- you can hook it up to any traditional TV peripheral, like cable feeds, consoles, DVD players, etc. He's selling them for £99 (US$6,700,232.22).

"The TV's are easy to install, they have a very clear crisp picture and are a must for any dolls house enthusiast," added Brett.

"With the colour TV being common place in homes from the 70's and 80's it stands to reason that they would find there way to the dolls house scene."

Link (via Geekologie)

I'm awfully fond of this Chinese mobile phone strap that unfurls into a USB charging/data cable and includes a microSD reader. Link (Thanks, Brando!)

Etsy seller Rivkasmom has these gorgeous cufflinks made from old watch-movements on sale for $55 -- I saw a similar item at a posh London men's store on Jermyn Street last week for £400! Link (Thanks, Dani!)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel takes note of a Slate article by Alexandra Harney on the end of cheap Chinese electronics, led by unstoppable inflation

The era of cheap Chinese consumer goods may finally be ending, thanks to irrepressible inflation. Now when the Chinese present their lists, some American importers are conceding higher prices, meaning that American shoppers, for the first time in years, are starting to pick up the tab for rising costs in China. Some Chinese factories are now asking their American customers for price increases of as much as 20 percent to 30 percent.

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On WorldChanging, Alex Steffen gives a briefing on the Freeaire System, which pipes in cold external air when available to cut energy bills.

"...designed to provide such free cooling for walk-in coolers, freezers and cold storage warehouses. The system utilizes an electronic controller to finely tune the operation of standard refrigeration equipment, and this controller simply monitors the outdoor temperature and desired temperature settings and stops refrigerator evaporator fans when not needed, which also reduces the compressor's refrigeration load. Proper airflow is maintained when the evaporator fans switch off by operating one or more energy-efficient circulating fans.

Roughly half the electricity consumed by a typical convenience store is used for refrigeration. The Freeaire System is designed to save energy year-round by allowing refrigeration equipment for a walk-in cooler or freezer to run only as much as it has to. Once the system is installed, evaporator fans typically operate 50 to 75% less often, and reach-in door heaters operate 90% less frequently. Condensing units also usually experience a 10 to 20% reduction in operations. Moreover, a Freeaire System saving 20,000 kilowatt-hours annually can prevent 40,000 pounds of CO2 from being emitted to the atmosphere.

Link

A Japanese roboticist plans to build a 13-foot-high Gundam clone (and wants to take it one further and build a six-storey version!)

[Takayuki Furuta,] the director of the Future Robotics Technology Center in Chiba, Japan, figured out how to make a real-life, six-story-tall Gundam, the classic battle robot from Japanese anime. He ran computer models on every aspect of the bot to determine what parts he would need to power and control the beast. Then he surfed electronics and industry-equipment catalogs to find the components. The result: a complete blueprint for a $742 million bot. By showing how the anime fixture can actually be built, he hopes to get schoolkids fired up about robotics. Well, that and he actually intends to build one. A 60-foot-tall robot may not be financially feasible, Furuta says, but he's going to try making a version that could be as tall as 13 feet. He aims to have it working by 2011, when, ideally, someone will have created something for it to fight.

Link (via Futurismic)

When you look up gumption in the dictionary, you should find a reference to this July, 1931 Popular Science article entitled "Anyone Can Fly a Blimp." Ah, the sweet promises of yesteryear. We have been betrayed by the future comrades. I want to fly a blimp, dammit.

On the top end of the rope was a parachute. Untrustworthy as it may have been, it was better to clutch the three- quarter-inch manila than to ride a burning hydrogen bag down. In these modern blimps, however, there is no fire hazard. Helium will not burn and for that property blimp owners pay $60 for each thousand cubic feet. It costs $4,500 to fill her with 76,000 cubic feet of helium, and nearly $100 a month to replace in the envelope the helium that seeps through the rubberized fabric.

Here we were, comfortable in upholstered chairs, looking out from an inclosed five-passenger cabin, suspended beneath a gas-filled bag that, barring some nearly-impossible accident that would tear a great hole in the top, would bring us to earth under any circumstances. No parachutes here—no need for them.

WERE the blimp to become disabled, the motors to stop, Smithy would merely free-balloon her down again on some level spot, deflate the bag if necessary, and wait for help. These blimp pilots, you see, must become pilots of free balloons before they’re trusted with one of the six in the Goodyear fleet.

Link

Back in July, 1931, the Western Secretarial school whipped up this four-foot high working telephone dial to help initiate its students into the mysteries of the tele-phonic business instrument.

Not a dummy, the big dial actually works. It is connected with two telephones, an amplifying apparatus, and a loudspeaker. When the instructor dials a number, the loudspeaker reproduces, so that all may hear them, the typical sounds that will be heard; and the instructor explains to the pupils what they mean.

Link

German company Lodenfrey have displayed a pair of high-tech lederhosen with built-in iPod controls for when you want to rock out during your ambulatory yodel-wanders.) Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel posts a link to a pictorial history of storage media -- these behemoths roamed the prehistorical jungles when a kilobyte was a kilobyte and we were damned grateful for it.

You know we love the retro tech around these parts, so it is impossible to resist Royal Pingdom's collection of now-ancient computer storage technology, like this Selectron vacuum tube that could hold up to a full 512 bytes of data when plunged directly into the exposed brain of a screaming test subject.

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ThinkGeek has started carrying $100 remote-control cam-glasses with a discreet, 1.3 megapixel camera built into the temple. This is the beginning of the end for photography bans. Once these things become easy to install -- undetectably -- in a pair of ordinary glasses, the idea of stopping people from snapping photos in museums, clubs, stores and airport checkpoints is dead. Link (via Redferret)

Further proof that physical fitness has gotten less and less fun over the ages: this Popular Science article from August, 1931:

One of the newest of exercising devices is a mechanism that somewhat resembles a hobbyhorse without rockers. Seated in its saddle and operating this odd contrivance, the user can exercise and develop all the principle muscles of his body. A pair of pedals work a crankshaft device which imparts an up and down motion to the saddle similar to that experienced in riding a horse at a trot. Assuming different positions on the machine while working it develops legs, back, stomach, or neck muscles. The machine is designed for the use of invalids as well as for those who wish to reduce with the aid of scientific exercise.

Link

In July, 1961, Popular Mechanix brought its readers "a life-size, remote-controlled servomechanical robot built by Vienna engineer Claus Scholz. The MM47 can do almost anything from housework to handling radioactive materials or fighting fires from the inside while the operator stays at a safe distance. The 105-pound plastic robot cost about $760 to build."

Another one lost to the ages. Link

Here's a kick-ass gallery of a NASA refurb/prep procedure for the Space Shuttle. KOMPRESSOR LIKE BIG MACHINES. Link (Thanks, Spider!)

Recently on Boing Boing Gadgets we've looked at an upcoming exhibit showcasing the plush electronics of Blythe Church; Penny Arcade's new indie games download platform; the all-too-timely death of Richochet wireless; Nike's new iPod-less SportBand training bracelet; the ClarityLife phone for the elderly; a way to send hot leaden death from the mouth of a plush kitty cat; Creative's campaign against a driver hacker, as well as his first public response; 9 common phrases that come from technology; Babbage's Difference Engine coming to California; baggage handlers stealing gadgets from luggage; a cute line of handmade clay robots; Microsoft's latest failure to convince the FCC that White Space devices can work; video of the "awesomest Finder bug of all time"; a snap-on glove radar for checking baseball pitch speeds; Comcast's latest HD over-compression disaster; a simple way for African villagers to shell peanuts without pain (top hat and cane optional); a British newspaper's attempt to wheedle stories of videogame sociopathy; a clever twist-cap for instant tea; the old Kodak disc cameras; a thumbs-up for a Kyocera mandoline; and Denmark's latest contribution to childish sniggering, DONG Energy.