TaeKwonDood writes "LEDs don't beat CFLs in the home yet, but it's not simply because PG&E is getting rich making people feel like they are helping the environment buying CFLs made in China that are shipped to the US using a lot more fossil fuels than they save. It's a problem of indication versus illumination. However, some new discoveries are going to change all that."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've posted quite a bit about DIY biohackers over the years, but the trend continues as the tools become cheaper and the information easier to find. A few days ago, the Associated Press took a quick look at amateur gene jockeys. From the AP:

In her San Francisco dining room lab, for example, 31-year-old computer programmer Meredith L. Patterson is trying to develop genetically altered yogurt bacteria that will glow green to signal the presence of melamine, the chemical that turned Chinese-made baby formula and pet food deadly.

"People can really work on projects for the good of humanity while learning about something they want to learn about in the process," she said...

In Cambridge, Mass., a group called DIYbio is setting up a community lab where the public could use chemicals and lab equipment, including a used freezer, scored for free off Craigslist, that drops to 80 degrees below zero, the temperature needed to keep many kinds of bacteria alive.

Co-founder Mackenzie Cowell, a 24-year-old who majored in biology in college, said amateurs will probably pursue serious work such as new vaccines and super-efficient biofuels, but they might also try, for example, to use squid genes to create tattoos that glow.

"Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home"

M2Z's big plan to provide wireless internet to the entire country, if the FCC would just hand over free spectrum, never made all that much sense to us. Yes, the country could have a much better broadband infrastructure, and there are some interesting possibilities in the wireless space, but simply handing over a bunch of spectrum to a single startup company with a promise to provide free wireless to most of the country just seems like a boondoggle. There's little evidence that the plan would work or that it is even necessary. So, it seemed good that the plan went down in flames earlier this month -- though, most of the criticism was focused on the pointless requirement for anti-smut filters on the free connectivity.

However, Kevin Martin is making some news today by telling everyone who will listen that he's willing to drop the filters part if he can get the rest approved. This is a little surprising from Martin, as he's been a pretty big anti-smut crusader in his role at the FCC, but perhaps he's looking to leave a legacy beyond "AT&T lackey" now that he's about to leave the FCC. It still doesn't appear that he has the support to push this through, but that could change. Still, it would be good if someone (anyone?) could explain why it makes sense to just give a single company this spectrum without any clear reason why it should get the spectrum or proof that it can provide what it wants to provide in a reasonable manner? We've seen tons of promises about broadband wireless over the years from upstarts and very few have gone anywhere. Before just handing over valuable spectrum to one provider, why not see if (a) it's actually necessary and (b) if the company in question can actually provide what it claims it will provide.

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Migraineman writes "NASA has released a 400-page Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report [16MB PDF.] If you're interested in a detailed examination and timeline of the events leading to the destruction of Columbia, this is well worth the time. The report includes a number of recommendations to increase survivability of future missions." Reader bezking points out CNN's story on the report, which says that problems with the astronauts' restraint systems were the ultimate cause of death for the seven astronauts on board.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We have a lot of posts on MAKE (20,000+) and while we have our favorites we like to look at what ended up circulating around the web the most each year - it's always an eclectic mix of projects and passions. Besides our main blog page, magazine page, video/podcast and paginated pages we've put together the top viewed posts in 2008 on MAKE, check them out and relive the fun of 2008!

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PS3 Grill - When the final case design of the Playstation 3 was released, it was widely critsised as looking exactly like a George Foreman Grill ... we decided this would be a great project and challenge to actually build the Real PS3 Grill.

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Make your own vacuum tubes - Check out this absolutely mesmerizing (17 minute!) video of a French amateur radio operator who rolls his own vacuum tube triodes! I love the ease with which he performs these rather high-end skills (like glass forming), the gestural flourishes (like it's hand magic), and the Zelig-esque soundtrack.

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Entire NES stuffed into its cartridge kinda makes you cry - This amazing mod crams an entire Nintendo Entertainment System from the 80s into one of it's cartridges complete with power and reset buttons, controller ports and composite video and audio output jacks. This is equivalent to the gaming version of the "clown car" where there is so much stuffed into such a small physical area that it's pretty hard to understand how this could work.

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Man builds a living out of LEGO - A fun story about artist Nathan Sawaya who makes incredible LEGO sculptures.

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Weird bass guitars - Check out these great bass guitars! Which one is your favorite?

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Segway's new RMP! It uses the same parts that a Segway uses but just doubled, it can haul up to 400 lbs. The engineer was going to load the firmware on for demos later, but I took some video of video they had on a screen, it's creepy cool for sure.

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Open source hardware 2008 - The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2008 - Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 60 projects/kits - it's incredible! Many are familiar with Arduino (now shipping over 60,000 units) but there are many other projects just as exciting and filled with amazing communities - we think we've captured nearly all of them in this list. Some of these projects and kits are available from MAKE others from the makers themselves or other hardware manufacturers - but since it's open source hardware you can make any of these yourself, everything is available.

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Zombie Pumpkins! - pumpkin carving patterns - This guy has been updating his library of pumpkin stencils over the years and his catalog is just brilliant. He's a great artist and the site covers everything from movies to classical monsters. Some stencils are more involved than others when it comes to carving but the results have always been amazing. The best part is that you can get lifetime access to the library with as little as a $2 donation. Well worth it.

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HOW TO - build a water mortar - This water mortar is made from PVC using a variation on the "drill press lathe" technique from the book "Eccentric Cubicle." The finished product launches over a quart of water per shot!

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DIY Lamborghini - The car, called the "Woodighini" was made by a 33 year old Canadian named "Woody".

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AdamWeeden writes "According to research done by the Boston Globe, HP has been secretly using a third-party company to sell printers to Iran. This is illegal under a ban instituted in 1995 by then US President Bill Clinton. The third-party company, Redington Gulf, operates out of Dubai and previously stated on their web site that the company began in 1997 with 'a team of five people and the HP supplies as our first product, we started operations as the distributor for Iran,' though now the site has been changed to remove the mention of Iran. Has HP unknowingly been supplying Iran with technology or have they been trying to secretly get by the US government's export restrictions?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As promised here's today's year end Q&A. We'll try to keep the topic focused on what we thought were the biggest stories from 2008 and what will be the biggest stories in 2009, and see how well that works. We had some problems last week with the CoverItLive software, but hopefully this week will work better. The folks from CoverItLive have been in touch and are working hard to get rid of some of the bugs we encountered. Anyway, looking forward to seeing what people think were/are the biggest stories:

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Whenever we point to examples of musicians succeeding by embracing what the digital world enables, we always get some angry comments, often from folks claiming to be music industry insiders insisting that what we describe is really impossible -- especially for unknown artists. They say this despite repeated evidence this is untrue, including an increasing number of musicians who pulled off success stories. The response is always a search to find exceptions -- especially when it comes to live shows. One popular comment is that it's impossible for unknown musicians to ever get gigs. And, of course, there are some who still insist that you have to spend a ton of money to do a decent recording to get noticed.

This is, of course, ridiculous. The Wall Street Journal pops up with the story of Justin Vernon and his band Bon Iver. Vernon recorded a bunch of songs at his parents' hunting cabin in Wisconsin with a computer and some software, and put them on MySpace, where he was able to build up a huge following -- often by giving the music out for free. While he eventually went a more traditional route -- signing with a music label, his success suggests those criticisms are once again unfounded. This, of course, does not mean that every musician who records some songs on his computer will be a huge success, but those who say it's impossible are going to have to dig deeper, as it appears pretty much every day we hear of a few examples of musicians making all of this work despite the naysayers.

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2008 was a big year for the MAKE: Flickr photo pool there are over 4,527 members with over 29,190 items! As 2008 ends, here are the top 5 contributors to the pool (that's all that's possible to list it seems) along with the most popular tags, enjoy!

Top photo makers!
pt (1,026)
kentkb (726)
connors934 (497)
shifzr (489)
Laughing Squid (474)

And... here's a cloud view of the most popular tags, this is a list of the 100 most used tags associated with the content in the MAKE pool. The bigger the link, the more popular the tag. You can check them out on Flickr too....

2006 2007 2008 apple arduino art austin austinist austiniststock awesome bayarea bicycle bike boat build ca california car christmas cnet computers cool costume craft craftmagazine craftzine day2 diy diyhalloween diys dorkbotpdx electronics etsy faire fibra gadgets geek geotagged hack hacks halloween howto ipod kentkb kit led link mac magazine make makecrafthalloween makemag makemagazine makephilly makeplayday maker makerfair makerfair2007 makerfaire makerfaire07 makerfaire08 makerfaire2006 makerfaire2007 makerfaire2007day2 makerfaire2008 makerfaireaustin makerfaireaustin2007 makerfaireaustin2008 makerfairebayareamakerfairebayarea2007 makerfairemakeplayday makers makesubmit makezine mpdsf2008 music needstags needstitle oreilly oreillymedia pc pcb physicalcomputing pic project projects robogames robot robotics sanfrancisco sanmateo sculpture seattlepowertoolrace solar sptdrad upcoming:event=146064 upcoming:event=190362 usa usb wood zedomax

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tiedyejeremy writes "As covered by the Crosscut Blog, the Governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, is proposing a change in the funding of the Oregonian transportation system that drops gasoline taxes and, by way of GPS tracking, taxes the number of miles driven, to the tune of 1.2 cents per mile. The reason for the proposed change is that lower fuel consumption via fuel efficiency will leave the system underfunded. The concerns involve government tracking of the movements of vehicles within the state, though this has been denied by ODOT official, James Whitty. I'm wondering how this affects people using the Interstate System and private roads, and if the outputs can or will be used by law enforcement to check alibis."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you're a MAKE subscriber you get FREE access to the MAKE digital edition. The MAKE Digital Edition is a vivid replica of the print edition of MAKE, it offers an experience very much like the print magazine plus many additional benefits, such as online searching, sharing with friends, embedded multimedia and printing. Please note that MAKE Digital Edition can be viewed from any web browser / OS (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc.) and requires NO DOWNLOADING of software, no DRM - giving you instant access to your entire MAKE collection.

So.... we're also able to figure out which articles across every single volume was read the most - and for 2008 here they are!

Volume 11 - U-G-L-Y Your Bike
To deter thieves, camouflage your bicycle as a piece of crap while keeping it a first-class ride. Page 74-75.

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Volume 05 - Backyard Zip Line
Be the hit of the neighborhood with a high-flying, tree-to-tree transporter. Page 72-73.

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Volume 09 - Working with Carbon Fiber
Form, lay up, and cure your own high-performance composites. Page 166-167.

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Volume 13 - Boom Stick
Build a PVC air cannon that delivers maximum bang for the buck. Page 114-115.

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Volume 14 - Scanner Camera
Mod a flatbed scanner to take photos that decontruct time and motion. Page 78-79.

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Volume 02 - Printed Circuit Boards
Step-by-step instructions for making your own PCBs at home. Page 166-167.

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Volume 04 - Mint-Tin Amp
Pocket amplifier punches up headphones. Page 130-131.

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Volume 14 - Living Room Baja Buggies
With wireless cameras on board, these radio-controlled racers give you virtual reality telepresence. Page 96-97.

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Volume 05 - Wind Powered Generator
With a motor and some piping, it's suprisingly easy to build this inexpensive, efficient windmill generator--and enjoy free energy forever. Page 90-91.

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Volume 12 - Styrofoam Plate Speaker
Get surprisingly good sound from disposable picnicware. Page 130-131.

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So you want to play motion based games on something other than the Wii product? Try out the Darwin, the latest evolution in gaming.

Magnetometers that check the controller's movement against the earth's magnetic core. So cool. The result of all these sensors in the controller is that it gives a very accurate rendering of motion.

They developed the technology for a golf swing data gatherer, but there was no real mass market until the Wii. 30 million Wii consoles later, and suddenly they don't have to hitch their wagon to fussy pro athletes.

Gamespot has a good interview with Motus CEO Satayan Mahajan and Technology Review has a good piece as well.

Thanks Tien!

Have you tried the Darwin? The writeups say that it will work on other platforms, and on the pc as well. Are you happy with your wiimote, or do you need something more full featured?

Share your ideas in the comments, and add some photos to the Make Flickr pool.

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Just after the UK's culture minister, Andy Burnham, announced that he thinks all websites can and should be rated, comes a story that highlights what a ridiculous suggestion it is to say that you can simply classify all websites. Facebook is facing a bit of a backlash after the company started banning some photos of women breast-feeding as being inappropriate. Basically, Facebook has been making its own judgment on which of those photos are "obscene" and which are fine -- and it's pissing off a bunch of moms whose photos have been deleted. And, of course, this is just one simple example. Thinking that there's some sort of single objective measure by which all sites (or content) can be rated is so wrong it's hard to believe that someone thinking such a thing was possible could hold down a serious job, let alone elected office.

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will_die writes "The people at iSuppli have taken apart an October 2008 version of the PlayStation 3 to create a bill of materials, along with providing a comparison to original PS3. The article provides information about the changes Sony has made. Some of the big ones are the hardware has gone from costing $690.23 to the current price of $448.73. This was done using a combination of removing parts (currently 2,820 vs. the original 4,048), cutting the cost of the CPU ($46.46 vs. $64.40), and cutting the cost of the graphic processor to $58.01 from $83.17."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It seems that the ridiculous patent holders are trying to go out with a bang in 2008. Worlds.com, which holds a patent that never should have been issued on virtual worlds has sued NCSoft, makers of a bunch of popular online virtual worlds -- including some that were launched before the patent was even filed for in 2000. The Register link above shows a few examples of such virtual worlds, but you can dig back even further. In 1996 I was using OnLive! Traveler which did all of the things described in the patent described, as can be seen in the video below: Not surprisingly, the lawsuit is actually being brought by General Patent Corp (GPC), one of a growing number of IP licensing firms who prey on companies (that actually innovate) by trying to enforce incredibly broad and highly questionable patents. Not surprisingly, GPC's execs have been active in protesting any sort of patent reform, claiming it would "mar innovation." I would suggest that patent reform is a hell of a lot less likely to mar innovation than suing innovative companies with overly broad patents that were applied for well after the technology in question was in common use.

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An anonymous reader writes "Talking viruses, infected physical devices, and lights that go out are some of the 'problems' Panda Security's tech support service has had to face. Many of them were not a result of computer viruses, but of confused users. This proves once again, that antivirus manufacturers must make a special effort to increase user knowledge regarding computer security and malware effects." For anyone who's been on the receiving end of such questions, now's a good time to tell your cathartic tale.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Modern Hobo code...

The legendary "hobo code"was a set of covert markings used to warn other hobos about danger or to clue them into good situations. As times have changed, a new set of code symbols have emerged to alert other hobos to circumstances in modern America. Perhaps you have seen them on your own city streets.

Used Frying Oil Available for Biodiesel

No-fee ATM

Overpriced Drinks

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Here's the transformation of a lawn into an edible landscape:

Thanks to Rebekah and Stephen Hren, authors of The Carbon-Free Home, whose lawn is featured in the photos, and Bountiful Backyards for the slideshow.

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Sam from Octopart sent along the top 10 electronics parts that were searched for in 2008!

Hitachi - HD74LS04P

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Skyworks Solutions - SKY77340-13

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Texas Instruments - SN74LS74AN

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Atmel - ATMEGA168-20PU

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PanaVise - 201

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Sanyo - STK392-150

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AVX - TAJA105K016R

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Hitachi - HD44780A00

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NEC - 2501

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Intel® 82371EB (PIIX4E)

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Last week we noted that Larry Lessig wanted to get rid of the FCC, and replace it with an agency that was designed to get rid of regulations, rather than add them. As we noted, no matter what the good intentions of regulators who are tasked with deregulating, it's unlikely it would turn out that way. It wouldn't be long before lobbyists and corporate interests were able to turn the "deregulators" into regulators in their favor. Related to this, Tim Lee points us to a good old fashioned barn burning rant from Jim Harper that should be a must read for anyone who thinks that today's financial crisis shows why we need more regulation. Harper is responding to a conversation on a recent episode of Meet the Press where some commentators were discussing the Bernie Madoff fraud, and noting that it shows the need for "real regulators." Harper then points out that we have real regulators and those regulators fail, regularly. And that's the problem.

People who support increased regulations do so under the mistaken impression that such regulators do the right thing most of the time and are able to spot fraud and stop fraud. That's quite rare. What happens instead is that such regulators are very fallible, and often co-opted by the very industries they're supposed to be regulating. Real regulators don't work nearly as well as the imaginary perfect regulators we'd all like to see -- and they often give us a false sense of security. It's what makes people think that a scam like Madoff's couldn't happen. The "real regulators" were alerted to Madoff's questionable activity time and time again. The real regulators also stood by and didn't realize the extent of the problem in the mortgage market. It wasn't a lack of regulations that was the problem that resulted in the financial crisis -- it was the fact that people actually thought the regulators who were in place were protecting us from such a mess. Real regulators are a problem. Imaginary, platonic ideal regulators would be great, but they don't exist.

When regulators fail to address a problem ahead of time, when they regulate inefficiently, when they hand their rulemaking organs to the industries they are supposed to oversee, those are all the actions of real regulators. That's what you get with real regulation.

What Burnett meant when she called for a "real" regulator, of course, was "the regulator I can imagine." The regulators people imagine are foresighted, interested only in the public good, they're resistant to lobbying, and they run efficient organizations. But these characteristics are simply imaginary.

Watching discussions like these, you come to realize how legislation and regulation thrive on self-deception and the appeal to ego.

Thousands of people come to Washington and stay because they believe that they can design the ideal regulatory system. They think they know how to write a law or a regulation that works for everyone, that protects consumers, that doesn't pick winners and losers in the marketplace, that doesn't make the glaring errors that we see month in and month out on Sunday morning political shows.

(If only voters didn't elect the wrong guy. If only lobbyists didn't 'corrupt' the system. If only, if only, if only . . . .)

Alas, we're stuck with real regulators. They fail, and when people rely on them, the failures of regulation are magnified.

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In 2008, the top 10 search terms on MAKE using our google search box at the upper right were...

• LED
• Arduino
• Solar
• Halloween
• 555
• Guitar
• RFID
• Steampunk
• Laser
• Bike

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Also in 2008 - the top 10 search terms in the Maker Shed store were....

• Arduino starter kit
• Arduino
• Make magazine
• SIM card reader
• Pinewood derby designs
• Arduino duemilanove
• Electronics kit
• Tube amp kits
• SX-150
• DIY electronics

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Today's yuletide pick for PC Mod of the Day is the Aperture Science PC, built by "Willsonman" as seen on the [H]ard|Forum. I like this mod because instead of building a case inspired by a videogame it builds one to emulate a prop found in the game.

Let's take a look at how he put this nice piece together...

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t3rmin4t0r writes "Just when you were breathing easy about Kaminsky, DNS and the word hijacking, by repeating the word SSL in your head, the hackers at CCC were busy at work making a hash of SSL certificate security. Here's the scoop on how they set up their own rouge CA, by (from what I can figure) reversing the hash and engineering a collision up in MD5 space. Until now, md5 collisions have been ignored because nobody would put in that much effort to create a useful dummy file, but a CA certificate for phishing seems juicy enough to be fodder for the botnets now."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We had this 15? long blade on the set of the Make: television show to serve as inspiration for a smaller-scale wind generator we built out of 8" PVC. It's a pretty incredible piece of work!

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This isn't the first time we've seen a plunger lamp, but this one from instructables user cityup comes with instructions!

More:

Plunger lamp in the Core77 gift guide

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ruphus13 writes "Alan Cox — one of the lead Linux kernel developers at Red Hat — is leaving the company after 10 years and is heading to Intel, where he can focus on more low-level development tasks. There is speculation if this is indicative of a shift to a more 'application-centric' vision at Red Hat. From the article, "Red Hat is integrating more application related, user- and enterprise-centric tools into its well-established "low-level", "core" development and support tools. It'd be more worrisome if Red Hat neglected to strike out in this direction. Cox was with Red Hat for ten years, and regardless of any suspected change of course within the company, that's a fair amount of time. ""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just a few weeks ago, we were talking about sports leagues freaking out over online streaming sites like Justin.tv destroying the value of their broadcast rights. However, in that discussion, we noted that these sports leagues seemed to be missing the point: the reason watching such streams online is popular is that the sports leagues have failed to adequately serve the needs of fans -- often falsely believing that online streams of games somehow take away from live attendance or TV viewing. Yet, now the NY Times is continuing this story, highlighting how various sports leagues are trying to crack down on such online streaming. About the only "good" thing in the story is that many of the leagues say they've learned from the RIAA not to sue people, but just to send cease and desist letters. That's a start, but it still misses the point -- which the NY Times contributes to by falsely claiming that anyone streaming a game live online is "stealing."

The only reason such streams are being placed online is because the leagues themselves have failed to adequately provide the video in a way that allows fans to conveniently watch the games. These unauthorized streams aren't "piracy" or "stealing." They're the market telling these leagues to shape up and improve their product. And, while the article incorrectly suggests that unauthorized streams have no ancillary product for people to buy (and thus are a true "loss"), that ignores pretty much all reality around sports fandom. If a sport or a team can build a strong fanbase, then there are tons of things that can be sold to that fan -- such as tickets to live events, uniforms, cards, memorabilia and much, much more. The real issue should be about trying to get and capture more fans -- because true fans will spend a ton on a sport or team that they love. It's disappointing that the various sports leagues mentioned in the article are too short-sighted to recognize this, but it's even more annoying that the NY Times reported their position as if it were factual, without any quotes from those who would point out how wrong the leagues are in their thinking.

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Inside the pocket DLP Pico Projectors via Giz...

[Ultra-small Projectors Teardown] DLP Projector Opened [Part 1]
[Ultra-small Projectors Teardown] Fly-eye Lens Commands Attention [Part 2]

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Dave Prochnow writes on PopSci:

Every AVR programmer worth her weight in ATmegas knows about the AVR Butterfly--a ridiculously low cost ATmega169 demonstration and evaluation kit. Lamenting the lack of such a kit for the ATmega168 drove me to design my own demo/eval kit for the Arduino microcontroller family. This project became a compulsion that cost three complete redesigns, five destroyed ATmega168s, and hundreds of hours of point-to-point wiring. The result was Polyphemus--an ATmega168 demo kit that you can build from your own spare-parts box.

Polyphemus Demonstration and Evaluation Kit

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RobGoldsmith writes "New images are now available of SpaceX's Falcon 9 being assembled, the images are accompanied with a small update from SpaceX. If there are no unexpected delays, its possible Falcon 9 will be completely integrated by the end of the year. This update shows real flight hardware and really brings the rocket alive. View images of the Falcon 9 nearing completion now!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The "Webcam" vs. the "Particle Beam"

A web camera is placed into a particle beam to show visually the affects of space radiation on electronics. This video shows the particles striking the camera along with streaks due to high angle impacts. In addition particles striking the audio circuit can be heard and the damage to the camera CCD is illustrated at the end of the video.This video was produced as an Education and Public Outreach product for the CRaTER Instrument (http://crater.bu.edu) that will fly on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission (http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/).

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Homegrown Evolution has a neat tensegrity coffee table made from found materials.

More:
HOW TO - Build a tensegrity coffee table

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While people who keep thinking that the "recording industry" is actually the "music industry" keep insisting that the business is in serious trouble, plenty of evidence of the actual market suggests this is a great time to be in the "music business." More musicians are making and distributing music than at any time in the past thanks to much cheaper means of production and distribution. And, as Rose M. Welch points out, the concert business continues to thrive, setting new records yet again. Last year we noted that 2007 was the best ever year for the live music business, and it appears that 2008 surpassed 2007 by 13%, even in the midst of one of the biggest economic downturns most of us have ever lived through. There is some concern about how the economy will impact 2009, but even if concerts decrease next year, it will be because of the overall economy, not because of any problem with "internet piracy," which has actually done plenty to help drive larger audiences to concerts by increasing the fanbases of many musicians.

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swestcott writes "The New York Times has a interesting article about the transition to the Obama administration and NASA's transition to the new Orion."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sub Zero 992 writes "Heise Security (article in German) is reporting that at this year's Chaos Communications Congress (25C3) researchers in Europe's dedected.org group have published an article (pdf) showing, using a PC-Card costing only EUR 23, how to eavesdrop on DECT transmissions. There are hundreds of millions of terminals, ranging from telephones, to electronic payment terminals, to door openers, using the DECT standard." So far, the Heise article's German only, but I suspect will show up soon in English translation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Portal" is another interesting lighting installation by James Clar, that is currently on display at the Roger Tator Galerie in Lyon, France. The project "creates a doorway from a diffuser screen and has abstract lines of light that travel back and forth through the door, bouncing around the room." A sensor at the doorway of the space changes the color of the illuminated lines, visually announcing new visitors to the space. Visually, the project reminds me of what a music video set from Duran Duran might have looked like in the 80s. Check out the link for more pictures of the installation.

Portal by James Clar

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I'm hardly a mobile operator apologist, but the NY Times' Randall Stross is trying to make a pretty tiny molehill into a mountain by picking up on that old, dead story suggesting that mobile operators are somehow ripping users off with SMS text messaging pricing. As was noted when Senator Herb Kohl first tried to make an issue out of this, per message pricing is fairly meaningless, since most users of text messaging subscribe to bulk plans or even unlimited plans. Besides, if pricing really were a problem, then people wouldn't be text messaging so much. The fact that they're using it so much, suggests there really isn't that much of a problem with the pricing. Stross tries to focus on the actual "cost" to the carriers for sending a text message, which is tiny, but that, again, is rather meaningless. A year ago, Tom Lee pointed out just how silly such an argument is for text messaging. As mobile phones grow more and more sophisticated, if SMS pricing really is a problem, alternatives (such as mobile instant messaging) will grow as well, and SMS providers will need to adjust their pricing. If, however, consumers don't have a problem with the current system (and all indications are that they don't), then why is the NY Times even bothering?

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Game programmer Jack Kern took time out from coding pixels and turned his house into a holiday color organ using Processing -

This is my first attempt at a computer controlled light show for our Christmas lights. Everything was DIY including the software which I wrote in Processing (processing.org). Simple wiring using parallel port output to switch some 120v relays. Only 8 channels, 1500w per channel max. Next year I'll be trying for many more, dimmable, LED's and DMX control of our RGY lasers!

Definitely looking forward to next year's yuletide laser-blast fest! [Thanks to Creae Digital Motion for this one]

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ScienceDaily at what the future might bring for atomic-scale computing. "Joachim, the head of the CEMES Nanoscience and Picotechnology Group (GNS), is currently coordinating a team of researchers from 15 academic and industrial research institutes in Europe whose groundbreaking work on developing a molecular replacement for transistors has brought the vision of atomic-scale computing a step closer to reality. Their efforts, a continuation of work that began in the 1990s, are today being funded by the European Union in the Pico-Inside project. [...] The team has managed to design a simple logic gate with 30 atoms that perform the same task as 14 transistors, while also exploring the architecture, technology and chemistry needed to achieve computing inside a single molecule and to interconnect molecules."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reader David Kopp writes in to point us to a story in the Boston Globe that yet again highlights the difference between innovation and invention -- this time in the virtual musician video game space. While we've already seen that Konami has sued over the video game Rock Band, claiming that it had patented the concept of virtual musician games, the Globe story highlights a Massachusetts startup that appears to have come up with a similar idea much earlier. The game was slightly different, but had many of the same elements -- including a virtual guitar (that had actual strings in this case) and involved playing along with music on the screen. The band Aerosmith played a big part in the game, predating all the bands suddenly jumping on the Guitar Hero and Rock Band bandwagons of today.

The game was moderately successful, but was clearly ahead of its time in a variety of ways. The game was way too expensive, first of all, as the virtual guitar added an extra $100 to the $50 game price. The company also had trouble figuring out how to properly market the game, especially with the extra guitar. Also, since it was a PC game, it was less convenient than today's console games, which are mostly played around a big television. These were all issues that were later worked out, but not in time for the folks at Virtual Music Entertainment, who had already sold out for a decent, but not enormous, payout in 2000. Still, it's nice to see they're not bitter or threatening to sue:

"Whether they stole it or not, it was a good idea. They were at the right place at the right time, and they executed it really well."

And that's exactly the point. Executing and getting it right is difficult, but that's what the market is designed to reward, and that's what really drives innovation.

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One of TIME's buzz words for 2008 was "staycation" staying at home for vacation because things are expensive, that sounds like a bad thing, but it's really not. You can use that time to make something, you'll probably enjoy it more too! As things wind down here at MAKE for the week I am looking forward to a "MAKEcation" - there are piles of projects I'm working on, I can't wait!

So, that's the word for 2009 - MAKEcation, let's make it happen!... Maybe in 2009 we could all think of a way to make staying home for vacation more of a "project" that you make and share when it's all over... "here's what i did on my MAKEcation"... What do you think makers? What will you make on your "MAKEcation" - it's likely some of you have already completed projects already! "Making cations" by causing ions to have few electrons than protons does not count.

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This how-to describes making a refrigerator that uses 1/10th the amount of energy of a traditional refrigerator. The website has a link to a PDF with all the building details. This would be a really great addition to any home running solar power, since the fridge is a major energy hog.

More about a DIY super-efficient refrigerator

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VHS era is winding down - Los Angeles Times...

The last big supplier of the tapes is ditching the format, ending the long fade-out of a product that ushered in the home theater. Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a creaky ghost of Christmas past.

After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.

"It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt," said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse we'll just give away or throw away."

Goodbye VCR, while your format is over - I still see years of projects with you ahead. Each week I see a dozen VCRs tossed in the trash in NYC. Sometimes I rescue some of them, other times I just wish I had more time to do things with them. Here are some projects you can do with an old VCR as well as the old tapes. If you have others, post them up in the comments. We'll start out with the VCR cat feeder projects and then move on to other fun ones, a VCR has gears, motors and precision electronics - a treasure trove for a maker.



VCR Cat Feeder on MAKE: television
A MAKE: magazine favorite! Here's a quick peek at John Park demonstrating how to use a motor from an old VCR and use it to drive an automated cat feeder.

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VCR Cat Feeder
Liberate a motor from an old VHS deck, attach it to a food chopper, and program the deck's recording timer to fill Fluffy's bowl on schedule. Voila! Your own programmable pet food dispenser.

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VCR display turned amplifier
5Volt turned an old VCR's vacuum fluorescent display into a headphone amp, here writes - "VFDs are common on VCRs. I have a few of them I took from some broken VCRs. Last night I was working on how I could use them as vacuum triodes. I don't have much experience with real vacuum tubes so I had to invent some, possibly wrong, arrangements, but I finally got something".

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Control your VCR with a text message
Frisnit shows you how to control a VCR with SMS (cell phone) - "Imagine it, it's 3:15 on a weekday afternoon and you've just realised you've forgotten to set the video to tape 'Pet Rescue'. Usually you would be condemned to an afternoon of misery and disappointment, knowing you had no heartwarming cute animal stories to come home to. But not any more. Below I describe a simple interface between a T28 mobile phone (ME) and Matsui VX770 VCR to allow remote recording of programmes."

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Make PCR out of a VCR - The VCRVO
North writes in I decided gut the VCR and use it as a computer case. This would replace the functionality of the DVD player and video recorder with one unit that looks more like a VCR than a computer (thus keeping the wife happy). My initial goal was to get Freevo running on it, so during the build I affectionately referred to it as my "VCRVO" project. Here are the steps I took..

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Made - Solarroller, bot from from junk parts.. VCR...
The prolific Maker family' - Thethompsonfive writes in with the solarroller bot built from MAKE 06... - "Here it is, my completed Solarroller from Make #6. I got the parts bag from Solarbotics and scavenged a VCR from someone I work with. I've built a bunch of robot kits in the past, but I have to say that starting out with a pile of junk and some components and getting a working robot out of it brings a much greater sense of accomplishment than any of them ever did. "

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HOW TO - Make a wind powered LED out of a VCR
Charles was inspired by all of the nonsense about the format wars lately, and after breathing a sigh of relief that the HD-DVD Blue-Ray fiasco ended he was reminded of the VHS and Betamax war of yesteryear. It occurred to him that he still had an old VCR in his basement and was wondering what to do with it... It turns out that you can make some pretty cool gadgets from the innards of a VCR. So, he posted a tutorial about how to make a wind powered LED out of a VCR.

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DIY Video tape encoding station - Ryan made a video tape encoding station setup using some old gear he had laying around and a Neuros MP4 Recorder. He's recording the tapes at 320 x 240 at super fine quality and the files produced are beautiful. As a bonus they play perfectly without conversion on both Zunes and iPods.

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Sonic Fabric - Alyce Santoro, creator of sonic fabric, has demonstrated her amazing 50% cotton, 50% audio tape creations to an already aurally stimulated dorkbot audience. Alyce found she could take recycled 1/8th inch audio tape and place it directly into a weaving loom to create a flexible yet strong blend of tape and fiber that amazingly still holds its magnetic properties once woven. With this sonic fabric, she has created dresses, handbags, and other clothing which all retain their magnetic audio qualities. She was also able to actually play for us some of the fabric using a hacked up portable tape player. The audio sounds more like record scratching as the tape head is moved across it, but that's because of the random nature the tape enters the weave of the fabric. She's looking at possibly recording onto the fabric after it has been woven to produce recognizable audio... perhaps music or vocal recordings or just sections of fabric that produce certain tones. I think VCR tapes could potentially be used for an application like this.

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There have been a few stories in the past about people successfully catching thieves by putting up videos on sites like YouTube, so it's always interesting to see another person try it out -- especially when it sounds like the police aren't able to do very much. In this case, a guy who noticed packages often went missing from his front doorstep set up a video camera and successfully recorded a woman approaching his door and supposedly making off with a decoy package (the video isn't all that well positioned, so you can't actually see the woman open or take the package): What's interesting is that this is exactly the sort of case where police are unlikely to be able to be of much help directly if there's no other evidence concerning the woman's identity. But by taking the video and posting it online, it seems much more likely that the alleged thief will be identified.

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Music, film, kids' books, and yoga. It must be a Michael Franti Christmas. At least that's how it felt around our house this year, and it was all my fault. I bought the limited edition boxed set release of Franti's latest CD, All Rebel Rockers, for our 13-year-old (and myself), his beautifully illustrated children's book, What I Be, for our 6-year-old, and his Yoga DVD for Shawn.

I admit right off the bat that I'm a huge Michael Franti and Spearhead fan, and I'm sure many readers of Boing Boing are at least familiar with some of their music. But I couldn't pass up this opportunity to turn on some others to this inspiring man and offer up a few links. Franti's music is hard to categorize, but if you like reggae, hip-hop, and funky beats with intelligent and positive lyrics, I highly recommend checking him out. For me, grooving to the Sly and Robbie-powered dub versions from All Rebel Rockers was a highlight of my holiday.

As I read about the latest news of more violence in Gaza, I also can’t recommend enough Franti’s 2005 documentary film about the Iraq war and the Middle East, I Know I’m Not Alone. I had the fortunate opportunity to take my son to a screening of I Know I’m Not Alone that Franti presented at a local high school, and we both found it to be a deeply moving film and experience. I was a little concerned about taking my young son to a documentary about war, but Franti has an amazing ability to take on the most serious, heavy, and depressing topics and still offer an uplifting message. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to put a positive spin on what’s been happening in Iraq and with the Palestinian conflict (he deals with both in the film, traveling to Baghdad, Israel, and Palestine), but Franti somehow sees the good in all of us and uses his music as a powerful force for peace.

I really do believe that the world can be changed by music, and Michael Franti is out there doing it. Shawn just chimed in, saying that she thinks his acoustic version of “Nobody Right, Nobody Wrong” should be played at Obama’s inauguration next month. At the very least, we’ll be playing it in our household to drown out Rick Warren’s invocation and keep us thinking positively about the future. Along those lines, Franti’s just added his own Obama-themed song to the mix of musicians paying homage to hope. It’s available for a free download. Power to the Peaceful!

--Bruce

(Shawn Connally and Bruce Stewart are guest bloggers)

Zonk pointed out an interesting video presentation by Shamus Young on the importance of the new Prince of Persia, calling it the most innovative game of 2008. Young brings up the fact that many of today's games punish failure by wasting the player's time; being sent back to a check point, the beginning of a level, or sometimes even further. This cuts into the amount of time players have to enjoy the meat of the game — the current challenge they have to overcome. Unfortunately, as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile. The combination of these factors therefore limits or prevents the interest of new players; a problem Prince of Persia has addressed well through intuitive controls and the lack of punitive time sinks.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you have the Google Phone and prefer hacking Python over Java, this is just what you've been waiting for:

Here's an early Christmas present for all those Python fanatics (self included) out there! With a lot of help from my friends (thanks Manuel and Thomas!) I managed to install Python 2.4.5 on my G1. It's still rough around the edges, but I think it's a good start. Klaus Reimer has a nice overview of how to cross-compile Python. My instructions borrow a lot from his.

You'll need to do a bit of patching and cross compilation, but Damon's instructions are thorough enough to get you through it.

Python on Android

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It's been talked about for over a decade now, but are we finally reaching the tipping point for physical bookstores? Some are pointing out that Amazon's continued success in online sales represents an element of "creative destruction" for physical retailers, and a NY Times piece notes that plenty of bookstores are shutting down -- including some of the big name brands, such as Borders and Barnes & Noble.

What may be most interesting in the NY Times article, though, is that the blame isn't necessarily placed at online retailers directly -- but on the fact that online sites have made it much easier to resell used books. Thus, the argument goes, the market is now flooded with used books that individuals are selling out of their bedrooms, meaning that it rarely makes sense for anyone to pay full price for a new book anymore. It's an interesting argument -- and it's the type of argument we've seen made against used book sales in the past, and more recently that video game makers have been making concerning used video game sales.

However, it's not clear if this is really true. Past studies have shown that an active second hand market helps to boost the sales of new goods, because it makes those goods more valuable to folks who recognize they'll be able to resell them on the second hand market later. That may not be helpful to physical bookstore retailers, but those retailers have to learn to adjust with the times as well. Obviously, just selling books is going to make less and less sense, but we've seen retailers that have worked hard to turn their stores into destinations, where there were good reasons to go and buy stuff, rather than just being a physical version of what you could get online. If bookstores are unwilling to make those changes then is it really a huge loss?

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Posted to Peter Nidzgorski's frequently beautiful "This isn't happiness" tumblog today, with the caption "This is our cat Bob. He died today. He was 20 years old." A colleague of mine lost a cat on Christmas Eve who had been a loving four-pawed companion for about that long. Losing a pal like that is a sad thing. (Thanks, Susannah)

Michael writes "AMD has just released code that will allow for open-source 3D acceleration on their ATI R600 and R700 graphics cards, including all of their newest Radeon HD 4xxx products. This code consists of a demo program that feeds the commands to the hardware, updates to their RadeonHD driver, and a Direct Rendering Manager update. With this code comes working 2D EXA acceleration support for these newer ATI graphics processors as well as basic X-Video support. AMD will be releasing sanitized documentation for these new ATI GPUs in the coming weeks. Phoronix has an article detailing what's all encompassed by today's code drop as well as the activities that led to this open-source code coming about for release."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Keith our copy chief sent around a Make: television fact sheet so I figured I'd post it up here too...

SHOW DESCRIPTION
Make: is the DIY series for a new generation! It celebrates “Makers” – the inventors, artists, geeks and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels. The series encourages everyone to invent, revent, recycle, upcycle, and act up. Based on the popular Make magazine, each half-hour episode inspires millions to think, create, and, well, make.

Make: premieres nationwide on Public Television stations and online at makezine.tv in January 2009.  It's produced by Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) in St. Paul, Minn.  Full episodes will be available at makezine.tv as well as PDFs of all the DIY projects on the show. (Makers can submit their own videos for the Maker Channel segment of the show at makerchannel.org)

AIRDATES
Broadcast feed starts January 3, 2009, at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Television premiere is January 3 on some stations, but air dates differ (see list below). See your local public television station for air dates and times.

Web premiere is January 3 at 7 a.m. Eastern time at makezine.tv

PROGRAMS
Season 1 consists of 10 half-hour episodes; all will be available at makezine.tv and also on iTunes. MAKE author John Park hosts the Maker Workshop (DIY) segment, and MAKE author Bill Gurstelle is the technical consultant for the show. Preview video is available at makezine.tv.

SPONSORSHIP
Major funding is provided by Geek Squad.

PUBLICITY CONTACTS
Mark Ballard, The Rosen Group, 212.255.8455 ext. 225 or mark@rosengrouppr.com
Heidi Van Heel, Twin Cities Public Television, 651.229.1436 or hvanheel@tpt.org

For more information visit tpt.org/make/press

CARRIAGE: MARKETS AND STATIONS
Stations confirmed as of Dec. 29, with premiere airdates where known:

Market(s) / Station or Network / Premiere Date Day Time
New York Thirteen/WNET airing on sister station WLIW
New York WLIW 1/7/2009 Wed 11:30 PM
New York + Philadelphia, (NJ statewide) New Jersey Network 1/3/2009 Sat 5:30 PM
Los Angeles KCET Orange or KCET Desert Cities (digital)
Los Angeles (San Bernardino) KVCR
Los Angeles (Huntington Beach) KOCE-HD (digital) 1/6/2009 Tue 6:30 PM; KOCE-HD 1/7/09 Wed 7:30PM
Chicago WTTW
Philadelphia + Salisbury DE WHYY Wider Horizons (Digital) 1/10/2009 Sat 5:00 PM
Dallas-Ft.Worth KERA 1/4/2009 Sun 10:00 AM
San Francisco KQED 1/10/2009 Sat 8:00 AM; KQED WORLD (Digital 9.3 & Comcast Cable 190) Sat 2pm & 7:30pm
San Francisco (San Jose) KTEH 2/4/2009 Wed 12AM-1AM
San Francisco (San Mateo) KCSM
Boston WGBH 2/HD
Boston + Burlington-Plattsburgh (NH statewide) New Hampshire Public Television
Atlanta + Savannah, Augusta, Macon, Columbus, Albany, Jacksonville, Chattanooga (GA statewide) Georgia Public Broadcasting
Washington, DC WETA 1/10/2009 Sat 5:30 PM
Houston HoustonPBS 1/8/2009 Thu 11:00 PM
Phoenix KAET
Tampa-St. Pete WEDU 1/9/2009 Fri 3:00 PM
Tampa-St. Pete WUSF
Seattle-Tacoma KCTS
Minneapolis-St. Paul Twin Cities Public Television (tpt2) 1/10/2009 Sat 5:00 PM; Sat 1/17 8:30AM;
Also two stunts: 1/6/09 7-8pm (#105 & 106); 2/1/09 3-5pm (#102, 104, 107, 110)
Minneapolis-St. Paul (Bemidji, Brainerd) Lakeland Public Television 1/24/2009 Sat 2:30 PM
Miami-Ft.Lauderdale WPBT 1/4/2009 Sun 11:30 AM
Cleveland WVIZ
Denver + Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, (CO statewide) Rocky Mountain PBS
Orlando WMFE
Orlando (Daytona Beach) WCEU
Sacramento KVIE
Baltimore + Washington, Salisbury, Pittsburgh (MD statewide) MPT Digital
Charlotte +  Raleigh-Durham, Greenville, Greensboro, Wilmington, (NC statewide) UNC-TV
Indianapolis WFYI
Indianapolis (Bloomington) WTIU
Nashville Nashville Public Television 1/31/2009 Sat 11:30PM (NPT2 in Feb)
Grand Rapids (Kalamazoo) WGVU 1/4/2009 Sun 7PM-8PM
Albuquerque New Mexico PBS
Oklahoma City + Tulsa, (OK statewide) Oklahoma Educational Television 2/23/2009 Mon 10:00 PM
Louisville + Charleston-Huntington, Lexington, Paducah, Bowling Green, (KY statewide) Kentucky ETV Network
Austin KLRU-2 (cable) 1/4/2009 Sun 11:30 AM
Tulsa RSU Public Television 1/9/2009 Fri 1:00 PM
Flint-Saginaw + Alpena, (Manistee, Cadillac) CMU Public Broadcasting
Syracuse WCNY 1/10/2009 Sat 6:30 AM
Topeka

Makers, if you plan to have a "Make: television screening event" or anything like that please let me know.

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Tyler Cowen points us to an interesting post on the future of the classical music market. Bill Stensrud predicts that the major record labels will soon exit the classical music business, leaving behind Naxos, a label that saves money by paying musicians very little. Stensrud urges classical musicians to give up on the idea of making money by selling recorded music, and instead think of recorded music as a promotional tool. He paints a pretty stark picture of the future of the music business, predicting that "live recordings will completely replace studio recordings."

It certainly seems like a reasonable prediction that we'll see growth in live performance relative to studio performance. But Stensrud's overall prediction seems unduly grim. There's plenty of evidence that the Internet has benefitted classical music by introducing more people to the genre. And it seems pretty implausible that studio performances will disappear completely. If there's a demand for studio recordings, someone is going to figure out how to meet that demand profitably, whether that's through an ad-supported streaming service or as a way to promote the sale of products like musical instruments. Also, we should remember that most major orchestras depend on charitable contributions, so if it's really the case that it will be impossible to make studio recordings profitably (which seems unlikely) the same wealthy patrons who subsidize orchestras now are likely to step up to help pay for the costs of some studio recordings. Perhaps we'll see fewer studio recordings than we did in the 20th century, but studio recordings aren't going to disappear.

Still, Stensrud's fundamental point seems sound: in the 20th century, many classical musicians supported themselves by selling copies of recorded music. In the future, that's probably the wrong approach. Instead, musicians should free their music in order to increase sales of other products and services, such as music lessons, live performances, and (for the most successful) product endorsements.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Lulfas writes "Worlds.com today sued NCSoft over a patent filed in 2000 (granted this February) over its patent on a scalable virtual world. This is a very broad base patent, and there is no reason to expect they will only sue NCSoft, when they should be able to use the same patent against other companies. 'Specifically, the suit claims that NCsoft has infringed on patent 7,181,690, "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space" through its games, including City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dungeon Runners, Exteel, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage II, and Tabula Rasa.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We had a lot of fun last week with the live Q&A that we did, and a bunch of folks have asked us to do it again -- so we'll try for doing another one, the same time as last week: 1:30 pm PT on Tuesday (tomorrow), December 30th (if you need to figure out what that is in your time zone, check here). Some folks asked for a theme to make the discussion more coherent, so let's try to talk about what we think the biggest stories of 2008 were, and what will be the biggest stories in 2009.

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Nottingham pranksters have been putting up official-looking signs that say: "Public Urination Permitted After 7:30PM."

We already think that noncompete agreements don't make sense for companies, but Motorola may be taking the concept to a new level. Rather than trying to stop employees from leaving Motorola to go to a competitor, it's now trying to stop employees it already laid off from going to work for RIM. Motorola had already sued RIM earlier this year for trying to entice employees to jump ship, and this followed another suit by Motorola against Apple for hiring away an exec. Maybe rather than trying to prevent employees from going elsewhere, Motorola might want to focus on improving its own offerings and its own working conditions so that this isn't even a problem? But if it's laying people off, it seems rather ridiculous to then try to stop them from joining another company.

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Not quite production-ready, this is probably the most sustainable DIY housing I can imagine:

Here's an explanation with an architect behind the concept:

Any ideas/instructions for slightly-smaller-scale growable structures?

(Via Chelsea Green)

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