GeekwithEnvy

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Check out the World’s First REAL Hoverboard

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Hendo Hover has created a technology that uses an engine that creates a magnetic field which pushes against itself to create lift. The board currently hovers 1 inch above the ground. The technology in these boards currently requires a special surface in order to operate, so it’s not quite like the hoverboard from Back to the Future, but it’s still pretty awesome.

Hendo Hover is also offering a small scale developer kit called “The Whitebox” which allows users to get creative and utilize their new hovering engines in any way they like. These developer kits can be programmed and controlled with both Android an iOS devices. This project is being funded through a Kickstarter campaign which is linked in the widget below. For more information head here.

 

Draw Circuits With a Pen

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Creating basic circuits by hand is the best way to learn about how electronics work and using a breadboard has traditionally been the best way to do this, at least until now. Circuit Scribe is a kickstarter project that features a cool new ball point pen that uses a conductive silver ink which is perfect for drawing simple circuits. Utilizing just a Circuit Scribe pen, piece of paper, and a few electronic components like a LED light or a small motor, you can create just about any small project that you can imagine. This catchy idea has already pulled in $260,000, which is far beyond the set goal of $85,000.

This pen would make a great tool for children to use in the classroom to learn about simple circuits and there’s even a Classroom kit that includes 10 basic kits and a activity book. You can also buy just one basic kit for yourself to see what you can come up with. You can also get two larger kits, the Maker Kit and Developer Kit.

Each kit includes the Circuit Scribe pen which can be purchased separately for $20.

Here’s what’s in the Basic Kit (Cost $30):

  • 2 LED Boards each with two (2) LED lights attached
  • 2 Coin Batteries
  • 9V Battery Connector
  • 2 PIN which you can add Resistors, Capacitors, and Switches to
  • Slide Switch
  • Jumper Stickers
  • BJT NPN Transistor

Maker Kit ( Cost $50):

  • Includes Basic Components
  • Maker Notebook
  • RGB LED
  • Photo Sensor
  • Sound Buzzer
  • Potentiometer
  • 8 PIN ( NAND Logic Gate, 555 Timer, OP AMP)
  • Stencil
  • 9V Battery

Developer Kit ( Cost $100):

  • 2 Basic Component Kits
  • Maker Notebook
  • 2 Sets of Maker Components and Developer Components
  • 10 Magnetic Connection Cords
  • USB Micro B Power Adapter
  • Motor
  • 2 DPDT Switches
  • 10 DIY Solder Boards

CircuitScribe

 

Apple Developer Center Slowly Back Online

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Apple Dev Progress

It’s been over a week now since Apple’s Developer Center has gone offline. This is all thanks to an intruder that hacked his way into the developer center last Thursday. Apple has since promised to completely rebuild everything and to slowly bring things back online. They have created an status page that shows the progress of their developer system and as of today, about half of it has come back online.

Here’s the actual statement that was sent out to developers via email.

Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website. Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down immediately on Thursday and have been working around the clock since then.

In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we’re completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the developer website up again soon.

 

 

 

WebP a New Image Format from Google

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WebP Logo

There is a huge demand for everything to be faster, especially internet speeds. We are constantly trying to see how much data we can pack into our devices and how quickly we can do it. Instead of always focusing on giving each user more bandwidth, it also helps to reduce the size of the files that we are trying to send and receive. The combination of these two methods can greatly improve overall internet “speed”.

The development team at Google has focused on the latter of these two and they have created a new image format which is called WebP. WebP is an image format specifically designed for the web and it’s based off of the VP8 video codec. Google claims it’s WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to the PNG format. Google also says that WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller in size when compared to JPEG images.

WebP is not widely supported, mostly because it’s brand new, but Google is trying to change that and they hope to completely replace the current web image standards. You can find our more information on this new image format on Googles’ own developer page.

 

Apple’s WWDC is Nearing

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WWDC2013Banner
Image credit: 9to5 Mac

Apple’s upcoming World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) is creating a lot of buzz in the tech community and rumors are at critical mass. What’s next for iOS, OSX and will there be any hardware announcements?

It’s highly likely that Apple will announce iOS 7 at this years event especially considering that banners, like the one above, are being placed at Moscone West in San Francisco, California where the event is being held.

iRadio could be a Spotify or Pandora replacement and with the recent announcement of Apple closing deals with all three major music labels, WWDC could be the perfect place to introduce the new service. OSX 10.9 is also very likely, especially considering we didn’t get any news about an OSX refresh earlier this year and the fact that there’s also a big banner with an “X” on it at Moscone, much like the iOS one. I’m thinking that we will see more integration of iOS features into OSX along with Jony Ive’s UI changes in look and feel, which is rumored to be much “flatter”.

What about hardware? Apple could be refreshing the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with new 4th generation Intel hardware, which we mentioned earlier this week. It’s hard to believe that the MacBook line up could get much thinner but they may do just that as well. If you have never picked up a MacBook Air, it almost feels fake and making it thinner would actually be pretty impressive. We have also been waiting quite a while for a big update for the Mac Pro and anything at all about this would be nice. There are also hopes to hear things like an Apple TV announcement or an iWatch release but like with any of this, we won’t know till the conference begins.

The conference is June 10-14 and you can get complete details including a schedule on Apple’s developer page.