GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Matt Richardson’s friend Lauren wanted a device to hold down the down arrow and physically scroll through Google Reader, like a sustain pedal on a piano. Matt built it for her using an old USB keyboard, wire, solder and a little DIY invention.

It’s surprising we don’t see foot pedals more often in mainstream desktop computing. They’re a natural, well-established interface: besides analog tech like pianos, drums, bikes or a spinning wheel, think of cars, table saws and electric guitars.

If you’re curious, there are plenty of commercial USB foot pedals available, mostly targeted for disabled users or industry-specific uses. For example, they’re extremely popular in professional digital voice transcription, often coming bundled with transcription or dictation software. These usually have three controls: play/pause (center), rewind (left) and fast-forward (right).

Musicians, too, continue to experiment with foot pedals: we’ve written about AirTurn’s Bluetooth sheet-music turner for iPad, with a special eye towards its potential for disabled users.

Other USB foot pedals are extraordinarily versatile and programmable. But because they aren’t a universal accessory marketed to mainstream users like a mouse or keyboard, all foot pedals tend to be expensive and often highly tailored to individual users’ needs.

Building a foot pedal yourself using a keyboard’s guts is one way to solve this problem. But I can’t help but wonder what a determined hacker could put together with an Arduino board, a weekend and a little imagination.

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

A homebrewed graphing calculator called Open SciCal promises to put a powerful machine built entirely from open source hardware into the pockets of quant jocks and statisticians.

“This is for the alpha nerds of the geek kingdom,” says Matt Stack who built Open SciCal. “The calculator used to be the ultimate status symbol among the nerdiest of the nerds and I wanted to bring that back.”

Open SciCal has a 4.3 inch color touchscreen and is just a little bigger than an iPhone. The device uses a BeagleBoard, a low-power, single-board computer that’s based on the same 1-GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor that drives most sophisticated smartphones today. It also has a 8 GB SD card, Wi-Fi capability and can run a web browser.

“It’s about the same weight as my Logitech G9 mouse (which weighs about 1.6 pounds),” says Stack.

A graphing calculator can take data sets and plot graphs in addition to running scientific functions on it. Many graphing calculators allow users to attach sensors to them so they can log data directly into the device. But as data sets increase in size and complexity, they are outgrowing traditional graphing calculators available from companies such as HP and Texas Instruments. Add to that restrictions on the kind of external sensors that can be attached and it makes a device built on open source components an attractive alternative, says Stack.

Open SciCal can run Linux, R–a programming language used in statistical computing–and will let users can program in C or Perl. All this for just $200.

“Texas Instruments has a calculator called Nspire that cost about as much but doesn’t do half that this calculator does,” says Stack.

To test Open SciCal, Stack used existing data to predict sunspots and understand the statistical significance of a recent solar storm.

Another task for the Open SciCal: Pull stock data from the sites like Yahoo Finance and run auto-correlation on the data to discern trends in the stock.

“It’s like every hedge fund quant’s dream,” says Stack, “and I have a device in my pocket now that can do that.”

Check out more photos of the Open SciCal:

The SciCal calculator is not much bigger than an iPod.

The SciCal can predict sunspots by using existing data to create graphs.

Photos: Matt Stack

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Someday humans and computers will meld together to create cyborgs. But instead of waiting for it, Martin Magnusson, a Swedish researcher and entrepreneur, has taken the first step and created a wearable computer that can be slung across the body.

Magnusson has hacked a pair of head-mounted display glasses and combined it with a homebrewed machine based on a open source Beagleboard single computer. Packed into a CD case and slung across the shoulder messenger-bag style, he is ready to roll.

A computer is a window to the virtual world, says Magnusson.

“But as soon as I get up and about, that window closes and I’m stuck within the limits of physical reality,” he says. “Wearable computers make it possible to keep the window open. All the time.”

Magnusson’s idea is interesting though one step short of integrating a machine inside the body. In 2008, a Canadian film maker Rob Spence decided to embed a tiny video camera into his prosthetic left eye. Spence who is still working on the project hopes to someday record everything around him as he sees it and lifecast it.

For his wearable computer, Magnusson is using a pair of Myvu glasses that slide on like a pair of sunglasses but have a tiny video screen built into the lens. A Beagleboard running Angstrom Linux and a Plexgear mini USB hub that drives the Bluetooth adapter and display forms the rest of this rather simple machine. Four 2700 mAh AA batteries are used to power the USB hub. Magnusson has used a foldable Nokia keyboard for input and is piping internet connectivity through Bluetooth tethering to an iPhone in his pocket.

Magnusson says he wants to use the wearable computer to “augment” his memory.

“By having my to-do list in the corner of my eye, I always remember the details of my schedule,” he says.

Check out photos of his gear:

The innards of the homebrewed machine are glued to a CD case. The CD case is slung across the shoulder by attaching it to a strap using velcro.

What the homebrewed computer looks like:

Photos: Susanna Nilsson

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews