Thanks to Steve Bush, our Technology Eduitor, for flagging this amazing graphic. Ever wondered what a document of Linux distros would look like, in graphical form?Check out the Wikipedia page for List of Linux distributions. Specifically, check out http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Gldt.svg
And there's anoher one for the Debian family tree.
Just like the LockCracking robot, this one is a project featured in Wired.com's dependable GadgetLab. The headline brings back fond memories of Blue Peter and its toilet rolls and sticky-back plaster - Scan Old Negatives with a DSLR and Toilet-Paper TubesPhotographer, and Gadget Master, Claus Thiim has described a neat way to scan hundreds of nostalgic negatives and slides.
Charlie Sorrel writes:
Thiim's method eschews slow, bulky scanners and doesn't even think about mail-in scanning services. He uses the fastest scanner he has: his DSLR. Onto the front are mounted an old manual focus (90mm) lens, an extension tube (which moves the lens forward and allows closer macro focusing). Then things get creative, with a couple of toilet-paper tubes taped to an old filter with the glass removed, along with a plastic 35mm slide-mount on the end. The mount is opened at the sides to let the film slide through.
To scan, you just move the film through and snap a frame. If your camera has live-view, you can even check framing and focus from the comfort of the rear screen.
Here's a bit of fun, and we haven't had an Impossible Object for a while... How about a table with just two legs?This one is from the designer Shay Carmon, who also brought us the defibrillator toaster! When you see it, of course, it all seems obvious...
How does it compare a previous Impossible Object, the Liquid Table? What this one needs for adornment is a liquid lamp, an inside-out salt shaker, and the classic coffee pot, which kicked this whole series off!..Previous Impossible Objects we've covered:
We're all for BeagleBoards here on Gadget Master and this is one I meant to flag before - Texas Instrument's system has a little brother: the BeagleBone, powered by the company's Sitara ARM Cortex-A8 processor."It builds in the most loved features of the BeagleBoard but has shrunk the size and price while adding more I/O connections," boasts TI in the video below. The RRP is $89.
To get started, simply plug it into your PC (Windows MacOs or Linux) and you can begin development... It will appear as a Flash drive and you will be able to extract the files to get you going.
Features of the hardware spec highlighted by BeagleBoard.org include:
* Board size: 3.4" x 2.1"
* Shipped with 2GB microSD card with the Angstrom Distribution with node.js and Cloud9 IDE
* Single cable development environment with built-in FTDI-based serial/JTAG and on-board hub to give the same cable simultaneous access to a USB device port on the target processor
* Industry standard 3.3V I/Os on the expansion headers with easy-to-use 0.1" spacing
* On-chip Ethernet, not off of USB
* Easier to clone thanks to larger pitch on BGA devices (0.8mm vs. 0.4mm), no package-on-package memories, standard DDR2 vs. LPDDR, integrated USB PHYs and more.
What is the BeagleBone capable of doing? They are glad you asked...
Read more details >>At over 1.5 billion Dhrystone operations per second and vector floating point arithmetic operations, the BeagleBone is capable of not just interfacing to all of your robotics motor drivers, location or pressure sensors and 2D or 3D cameras, but also running OpenCV, OpenNI and other image collection and analysis software to recognize the objects around your robot and the gestures you might make to control it. Through HDMI, VGA or LCD expansion boards, it is capable of decoding and displaying multiple video formats utilizing a completely open source software stack and synchronizing playback over Ethernet or USB with other BeagleBoards to create massive video walls. If what you are into is building 3D printers, then the BeagleBone has the extensive PWM capabilities, the on-chip Ethernet and the 3D rendering and manipulation capabilities all help you eliminate both your underpowered microcontroller-based controller board as well as that PC from your basement.
This is a good one, from Gadget Master Oskar van Deventer. He had a vision for a mechanical or electronic puzzle without a screen and without lights, purely tactile and purely mechanical...The Four Bit Maze is an electronic mechanical puzzle that is 100% tactile. The object of the puzzle is to move all four sliders from the "0" position to the "1" position.
Each challenge has only 16 binary states, and the operation of each challenge is 100% deterministic without any hidden states. Some challenges are easy and playful, whereas others are fiendishly hard.
How does it work? Check out the video below:
If you wish, you can buy the device for €435 from Oskar directly.
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Well, the New Year is here and is already a month underway... Time to ask the question: which posts have proved the most popular on Gadget Master among your peers, in January?Well, the answer covers IO boards, LED displays, the Raspberry Pi and a whistle-activated light switch...
Let's take it in reverse order:
10. How to build a rotating LED display
9. Build your own wand based barcode scanner
8. A DIY Android Gadget Starter Kit
7. How to build a whistle-activated light switch
6. Android advances to centre stage
5. Keep your property where you can see it
3. The IOIO Android breakout board competition
1. Raspberry Pi #0001 goes for £3,500 on eBay
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