GeekwithEnvy

Electronics

Buddy the Futuristic Dog Collar

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With wearable technology slowly working it’s way into our everyday lives, it was only a matter of time before we got man’s best friend involved. This new futuristic dog collar called Buddy, is the ultimate must-have gadget for geeky pet owners.

‘Buddy’ will keep track of just about everything you could ever want to know about your dog, starting with temperature. No longer will you have to wonder if your dog is getting too uncomfortably hot or cold, you will now know the exact temperature of your four legged friend. In the event that your dog does get to hot or cold ‘Buddy’ can actually link into your Nest thermostat to have the temperature automatically adjusted.

With Geofences, you will be able to set a perimeter that your dog is allowed to be in by simply using an app for either iOS or Android. Once your dog leaves the perimeter that you set up, you will be notified with an alert. Even better, ‘Buddy’ will include GPS tracking so you can know exactly where your dog is.

To keep your pup in top shape, the Buddy collar will also include an activity tracker to measure how much exercise your dog is getting. This feature could also benefit some owners as it will persuade us to get up and get active with our pets. Need to know how much your pet is eating? Well, it keeps track of that too. How about appointments with the veterinarian? Yes, it keeps track of this information as well.

And last but certainly not least, it’s quite stylish. The Buddy collar has customizable LED lights that can be adjusted to pretty much any color you can imagine. Plus, having a well lit Buddy collar is great for safety as it provides ample night time lighting so drivers and cyclists will not only see you, they will see your pet as well.

All of these features of course are going to come at a premium, after all this isn’t your basic everyday pet store collar here. If you back the Buddy project early you will get the collar at a discounted price of $180 US. If the collar is fully funded and released for purchase, it could set you back approximately $450.

 Buddy the Geeky Dog Collar

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.

Amazon Prime Air Wants to Fly Things To Your House in 30 Min

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In what could be one of the craziest and most brilliant ideas, Amazon has announced that they are working on a new delivery service called “Amazon Prime Air“. The new delivery system uses a small unmanned aerial robot to fly packages you order from Amazon directly to your house in 30 minutes or less!

This delivery option would be absolutely amazing if it could work properly. More consumers than ever before purchase items online, in fact statistics show that e-commerce alone has brought in nearly $289 billion in the U.S for 2012. There’s no doubt that the will be a huge demand for this type of service but whether or not it can be done remains to be seen.

Amazon admits that it will take many years for this service to get up an running on a commercial scale and that one of the first major hurdles will be lining up FAA rules and regulations, but the service could be up and running as soon as 2015. What do you think about this service?

AmazonPrimeAir

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

Teardown of the Playstation 4 (Video)

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This video is of Sony engineering director Yasuhiro Ootori tearing down the Playstation 4. Ootori leaves out no details as he takes the PS4 down to it’s motherboard and reveals the true guts of the system. The Playstation 4 was designed with the game programmers in-mind, that’s been the mission of the PS4 from the very beginning.

Even though the Playstation 3 was extremely powerful during it’s release, it was notoriously difficult to create games for, and that’s a problem since great games are what really make a console shine. The hardware capabilities of the Playstation have a lot of promise, especially with the inclusion of GDDR5, and it’s likely that we won’t see games utilizing the full power of the system until a few years from now but there’s still plenty to be excited about right now as trailers for some pretty rad PS4 exclusives begin to hit the web.

Thanks to WIRED for the video.