JöLLY Tracker is a shockingly awesome way to spread holiday spirit

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This Santa-like beard uses sensors to gently zap your face as a reminder to turn that frown upside down.

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You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, the JöLLY Tracker is why. Truth be told, the holiday season can be a stressful one. Between deciding what to get loved ones to navigating your way through crowded malls, sometimes all that happiness can get lost in the hustle and bustle.

Developed by creative ad agency McKinney, the JöLLY Tracker is a wearable of a different kind. It’s not a fitness tracker. It’s not a smartwatch. It’s not even a hat. It’s an embedded Santa Claus beard that has one job, and one job only: to monitor how much you smile. Should you frown, it’ll emit a friendly little reminder in the form of an electric shock to your face. Ho, ho, how about that?

A team of creatives and hackers wanted to devise a wearable concept that would skip the normal metric tracking and go straight to helping spread some cheer.

“We wear devices on our wrists, pin them to our clothes, carry them in our pockets, each one sending us data about our well-being in hope of improving our lives,” McKinney’s ECD Peter Nicholson explains. “JöLLY is a spoof on our obsession with wearables and data. It is, simply, a joyful reminder that the holidays are the happiest time of the year.”

The setup is fairly simple, and resembles that of a recent project from our good pal Simone Giertz. A set of five electrodes are attached to the wearer’s face: two to monitor muscle movement, two to give off the shock, and most importantly, one for ground.

Hidden behind the white facial hair lies an Arduino, a Muscle SpikerShield, a battery pack and a TENS unit that gently jolts the nerves in your face. The JöLLY Tracker is controlled by an accompanying Android app that communicates with the beard over Bluetooth. It counts how many times a minute your smiling, measures the intensity of your smile and displays real-time changes in jolliness over preset intervals. If you’re too grumpy, JöLLY will send electric pulses to your cheeks and jaw. Safe to say, you’ll turn that frown upside down in no time — albeit nervously.

So in the words of Clark Griswold, just “press on and have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny ****** Kaye.”

[Images: Engadget]

This smart lamp lets you ‘paint the light’ in your room

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FLUXO is a full LED fixture, not just another smart bulb.

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Although the idea of a smart lamp is nothing new, one Austrian startup has come up with an innovative design that allows you to move the light using simple paint gestures on your smartphone.

Thanks to FLUXO, any mood is now possible using a single pendant lamp comprised of 300 LEDs with an output of up to 2800 lumens. An accompanying mobile app enables you to control the intensity, direction, color and overall distribution of light to particular areas with a mere gesture.

Instead of dimming the light in your room, the Luke Roberts team’s “Paint Your Light” approach makes it easy to adjust the lighting for any space, time of the day, mood or social situation. The more you “paint,” the brighter it gets, while the other parts of your room will remain subdued. FLUXO even illuminates immediately to provide you with real-time feedback.

“The dining room, for example, can be personalized to have a portion of FLUXO focused solely on the table while having the remaining LEDs emit a soft, ambient glow to the rest of the room,” the crew writes.

You can independently control downlight and uplight, which gives a pleasant indirect light to create different moods, which is not possible with other lamps. Particular light scenes can be stored on the app for each FLUXO lamp, which includes intuitive motion sensors connected with smart software in the lamp that can learn how people prefer their lighting based on their overall usage. You can store any setting as a light scene and come back to it with just one swipe of your finger. What’s more, the app lets you seamlessly switch between FLUXOs.

When you don’t have your phone in hand but want to change to another light scene, you can do so by simply turning the light switch off and on again. The lamp recognizes this “click” and switches to the next scene. FLUX’s presence sensors also can detect when you walk into a room and turn itself on. Conversely, it will shut itself off as you leave to save energy.

Unlike other competitors in the growing smart lighting market, Luke Roberts has developed a fixture with built-­in LEDs that allow the FLUXO to give off increased light output compared to more conventional LED bulbs, directional lighting controllable at different angles and improved heat management for a longer lifetime.

FLUXO comes with a specially-designed mount to fit it to any kind of flat ceiling surface, and has universal power supply so that it can be directly connected to any outlet. The team has carefully engineered the lamp with all relevant sensors and a future-proof Bluetooth wireless module, so that new features can be added down the road.

Sound like a smart fixture you’d love to have in your smart home? Head over to FLUXO’s Kickstarter campaign, where the Luke Roberts team is currently seeking $54,266. Delivery is slated for late summer 2016.

 

KeyChainino is the first Arduino-programmable keychain game

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Play some Pong on your keychain as you wait for the bus… or even while unlocking your front door.  

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Remember Alessandro Matera who unveiled his Tiny Watch earlier this year? It was a simple 3D-printed LED timepiece based on an ATmega328P and powered by a 3V CR2032 battery. Well, the Italian Maker is back with yet another nifty little wearable device.

We’ve all at one time or another fiddled with our keys while anxiously waiting for the bus, train or our latte at the coffee shop. This was the inspiration behind Matera’s latest creation: KeyChainino. It’s an Arduino-programmable keychain gaming board that doesn’t require a standard mobile device to play. (In other words, it’s a great alternative for those who rather not have to whip out their smartphones.)

The Maker decided to ditch an LCD screen for an ATtiny84 powered 6×5 LED matrix and used Charlieplexing to drive the 30 tiny lights. Not only did it give it some old-school flavor, he wanted to make it easy for folks to design their own games without having to worry about how to devise boards.

One of the first games he made for it was no other than Pong. Matera shares, “I have created my first game: a simple arkanoid-like, where a ball just bouncing on the screen and you need to move the paddle – with the two buttons – to prevents the ball from falling from the playing field.”

Intrigued? Head over to KeyChainino’s page here, or see it in action below. In the meantime, those looking to play games on an Arduino-compatible business card should check out Arduboy as well.

 

The Arduino MKR1000 rolls the Zero and Wi-Fi Shield all into one

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The World’s Largest Arduino Maker Challenge will award 1,000 finalists with the newly-announced MKR1000 boards.

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Well, the Arduino/Genuino family has just gained another member. Everyone, meet the MKR1000. MKR1000, meet the ever-growing Maker community.

This MKR1000 is a powerful board that combines the functionality of the Zero (Atmel | SMART SAM D21) and the connectivity of the Wi-Fi Shield. It is based on the ATSAMW25 — an Atmel SmartConnect edge node module specifically geared towards IoT — and offers the ideal solution for Makers seeking Wi-Fi connectivity with minimal previous experience in networking.

The combination of 32-bit computational power like the Zero, the usual rich set of I/O interfaces, low-power Wi-Fi with a CryptoAuthentication chip for secure communication, and the ease of use of the Arduino IDE make this board the perfect choice for emerging IoT battery-powered projects in a compact form factor. It should be noted, however, that unlike most Arduino and Genuinos, the MKR1000 runs at 3.3V.

Other key specs include:

• MCU: Atmel | SMART SAMD21 Cortex-M0+
• Power Supply: 5V
• Flash: 256KB
• SRAM: 32KB
• Clock Speed: 32KHz, 32.768KHz, 8MHz and 48Mhz
• Supported Battery: Li-Po single-cell, 3.7V, 700mAh minimum
• Digital I/O Pins: 8
• PWM Pins: 4 (D2-D5)
• UART: 1
• SPI: 1
• I2C: 1
• Analog Input Pins: 7 (ADC 8/10/12-bit)
• Analog Output Pins: 1 (DAC 10-bit)
• External Interrupts: 8
• DC Current Per I/O Pin: 7mA

The newly-revealed board will be available for purchase beginning in February 2016; however, you can be one of the first 1,000 people to lay their hands on the MKR1000 by participating in the World’s Largest Arduino Maker Challenge, a collaboration between Hackster.IO, Microsoft, Adafruit and Atmel.

This contest is designed to celebrate the burgeoning Maker community with exclusive prizes. Inventors, artists, hobbyists, professionals and developers alike are encouraged to create an innovative and original IoT application, ranging from environmental sensors to gaming, to augmented reality, to robotics or drones using the power of Arduino.cc boards and Windows 10.

The 1,000 Makers who submit the best project ideas will receive the brand-spanking new Arduino MKR1000 (U.S. only) and Genuino MKR1000 (outside the U.S.) boards. Earn bonus points by tapping into the power of the Microsoft Azure cloud to capture, analyze and visualize your data with Azure IoT Suite, Azure IoT Hub, Stream Analytics and Machine Learning.

From there, three finalists submitting the best completed projects will be awarded with a fully-funded trip to either Maker Faire Shenzhen, New York or Rome, a chance to present their creation at the Microsoft and the Arduino and Genuino booths, a professional video production of the project, as well as a whopping $500 gift certificate to Adafruit.

The World’s Largest Arduino Maker Challenge is now live, and those wishing to partake in the contest can sign up/log into Hackster and enter to win the new MKR1000 board by pitching their idea.

Protect your things with this picture-taking alarm

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This Maker built a simple, Wi-Fi-enabled alarm system with Arduino. 

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For those of you tired of your roommate using your things, colleagues taking snacks from your cubicle or classmates stealing stuff from your locker, Stefano Guglielmetti has come up with the perfect solution. That’s because the Maker has developed an Arduino-based alarm system, aptly dubbed You Can’t Touch This! 

With an Arduino Yún (ATmega32U4) at its core, the system is comprised of a PIR sensor, a camera, speakers, a microSD card and an optional USB hub. The idea is pretty straightforward: You discreetly place the device around whatever it is that you’d like to monitor. When movement is detected, the alarm will emit a siren and then proceed to take a picture and email it to you. What’s more, you can shame the thief by automatically posting their photo to friends on Facebook or Twitter via a simple IFTTT recipe.

Even better, the entire project is made up of only a handful of steps. These include configuring the Arduino, installing the camera and sound card, snapping a test pic, running an email script, building the circuit and finally uploading the Sketch to the Yún. Lucky for you, Guglielmetti has shared the entire process on MAKE:, including its code and schematics.

Let’s just say, install this alarm in your room, apartment or cubicle, and no one will take your belongings again.

This biometric band can unlock your touchscreen device

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Instead of passwords, what if your tablet authenticated you each time you touched the screen?

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Having to continually enter passwords isn’t so convenient, especially when you’re in a rush. With hopes of putting an end to login prompts, two researchers have developed an innovative way of authentication for pretty much any touchscreen device. The brainchild of Christian Holz and Marius Knaust (who you may recall from their earlier project Bodyprint), Bioamp is a smart strap that uses a biometric sensor and a low data rate transmitter to access and protect content on tablets.

“From each touch, the touchscreen senses the 2D input coordinates and at the same time obtains biometric features that identify the user. Our approach makes authentication during interaction transparent to the user, yet ensures secure interaction at all times,” the duo explains.

To test their concept on today’s gadgets, they first created a watch-like prototype. Bioamp is equipped with several electrodes that sense the impedance profile of a wearer’s wrist and then modulate a signal to the body through their skin. From there, the touchscreen obtains the biometric data, identifies the particular user, and continuously grants permission for each interaction.

As Hackaday notes, Bioamp’s electrodes couple a 50V 150kHz signal through a wearer’s finger to the touchscreen, which picks up both the finger’s location via capacitive sensing and the background signal that’s transmitted by the bracelet. This background signal is modulated on and off, relaying the biometric data.

“Since Bioamp senses contact with skin, it is sufficient to collect biometric values initially and then ensure that the same user is wearing the device during further use. When Bioamp detects that the user has taken off the band, it stops transmitting signals, waits for the band to be put on again, and repeats the biometric measurements for subsequent modulation,” the duo writes.

The researchers integrated their approach into a Surface 2 Pro running Windows 8.1 to demonstrate various use cases, which include payment for app store purchases, authentication for emails and notifications, as well as temporary access for sharing photos. Additionally, Bioamp supports logins that require more than one person to be present at a time. For example, two users would need to touch a single login tile simultaneously in order to unlock and open sensitive emails.

In terms of hardware, Bioamp is driven by a Blend Micro. This board features an ATmega32U4 MCU and an nRF8001 BLE chip, which handles the wireless data transmissions to the tablet to compensate for low touchscreen sampling rates. Meanwhile, power is supplied by a pair of 110mAh LiPo batteries.

While some may argue that there are limitations to the design, this idea of making touch interaction convenient and secure is pretty darn cool. You can see it in action below, and be sure to read all about it in their research paper here.

Turn heads with this wearable LED purse

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CAT Clutch is a chic, wearable art for your arm.

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The most essential things a girl needs for an evening out are a fully-charged phone and a cool outfit. But lately, it seems that carrying a phone charger is just as necessary because of all the Instagram pictures and Snapchats of the fun night out, which ends up being a total battery sucker! So what’s a girl to do, without cramping her style? The team at Creative Arts & Technology (CAT) has the solution with a fresh new take on a classic bag, and a touch of Silicon Valley.

The CAT Clutch is a chic bag that displays LED pixel art and charges your phone. This fashion-forward wearable is the brain child of a tech geek and a fashion enthusiast, who also happen to be husband and wife. Like its founders, CAT is described as a “funky, fresh marriage of tech and fashion.”

The bag has a classic clutch design, but its LED front display is what makes it unlike any other bag seen before. With its Bluetooth-enabled app and customizable pixel art, the CAT Clutch is guaranteed to be a conversation starter. Through the mobile app, you can upload your own pixel animations in .GIF format or create a scrolling text banner, in addition to the 30 pre-loaded animations. If you want to go for a more muted look, but still want to make use of its integrated phone charging capability, the CAT clutch still looks chic without the animations. It is offered in three styles: gold glitter, white marble and blue marble.

Of course, we can’t forget to mention what this clutch can hold. After all, it’s still a bag beyond its cool functions. The dimensions are roughly 7 3/4″ long, 4″ tall and 2″ wide, and it weighs approximately one pound. There’s a small compartment to hold your lipstick or cash, and enough room to fit a phone equivalent to an iPhone 6 Plus or a Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+. The bag also comes with a zippered canvas pouch to store your loose items such as credit cards and change. A finishing touch is the built in mirror that can be personalized with an engraving.

At the heart of the CAT Clutch is a microcontroller. Because of this, you will want to keep your clutch close as it can be damaged if immerse in water or thrown around. The clutch is made from acrylic and comes with a cross body strap. It has 10-12 hours of battery life and a USB port for phone charging. However the phone charger will reduce battery life when in use.

Interested in this wearable art piece? Head over to the CAT’s Kickstarter page, where the team is just about at its $20,000 goal. You can expect to light up the night with the first delivery of units starting October 2016.

 

Spark up some childhood nostalgia with this DIY claw machine

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This Arduino-based claw machine is faster, fairer and more controllable than anything in the arcade.

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Just think how much of your parents’ money you spent as a kid playing those candy or stuffed toy-grabbing machines. You know, the ones where you put a quarter in and maneuvered a joystick in hopes of snatching a piece of junk that cost less than the amount of coins you inserted. Well, Maker Ryan Bates and the Retrobuit Games crew has developed a fairer, faster and more controllable version of the infamous claw game. The best part? It won’t require you to dig deep into your wallets.

Instead, this arcade-inspired tabletop device measures only 20” x 26” x 19” in size and is made out of aluminum extrusion and custom laser cut acrylic/wood. At the brains of the it all lies an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) along with some NEMA 17 stepper motors.

“Everything is custom designed, from the XYZ gantry, to the claw, to the game logic. Stepper motors move the gantry, and a servo motor controls the claw (giving the claw an analog grip, not just open/close). Some parts are sourced from the plentiful DIY 3D printer market, other parts I went for cheap alternatives like replacement shower door nylon rollers,” Bates explains.

The game itself is based on a 55-second timer, which counts down on an LCD display. Simply insert a quarter (or set it to free play), and press start. Then, no different than in the arcade of yesterday, you have just under a minute to move and position the claw, grab a prize, return it to the chute and continue to reach for more. Once the clock hits zero, the claw closes, the gantry moves back to the ‘home position’ and the claw opens releasing anything it might be carrying.

Unlike the traditional arcade machines, however, this DIY model provides players with total control of the X, Y and Z axes. Horizontal and vertical movement is handled by a joystick and two buttons (up and down), respectively. Meanwhile, a knob lets users open and close the grip.

“Personally, the game is more fun since it’s based less on one-time spatial judgment and more about motor skills and planning the best route for multiple prizes,” Bates adds.

Although he began this project three years ago, the Maker has since upgraded his proof-of-concept, which includes an improved layout of the control panel (relocated the screen to the center), an increased height to allow for a gravity fed prize chute, and a ‘return to home’ function when the game ends.

He also added LEDs that illuminate the play area and offer visual cues for the game’s start and end. For instance, the lights flash when time expired” is displayed and turn off whenever the machine goes idle.

Admittedly, as awesome as the project may be, Bates still has a few things he’d like to change. He shares, “I wants to make the frame just a little bit taller (about two inches) as the coin acceptor is a big crammed, but really I am very pleased with everything! The electronics have been beefed up to handle more power if needed. I did add a secret switch on the back that can switch the power given to the z motor from 5V to 12V. This boots the lifting power from ~6oz to ~3lbs.”

Intrigued? You can also check out the entire project in more detail here.

 

This robot makes PB&J sandwiches just like mom

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Hey bot, make me a sandwich! 

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Ever since it made its debut at Y Combinator’s Demo Day back in August, we’ve been keeping a close eye on Bistrobot— a sandwich-making robot.

With hopes of one day expanding into more stores and dining establishments, the Bistrobot was recently installed at Andi’s Market right here in San Francisco. The automated machine crafts peanut butter sandwiches on white bread with your choice of honey, blackberry jam, sweet chili or chocolate sauce. Earlier demonstrations have even included Nutella.

“It’s already much faster than traditional methods, and we’re working to make it cleaner and more consistent,” founder and CEO Jay Reppert recently told us. “For me personally, the coolest part about Bistrobot, and why I’m working on it, is because I think robots are awesome and this is a way for more people to share in something really cool without having to spend a lot of money,”

How it works is pretty straightforward. For just $2, a customer places an order on a tablet kiosk and then watches through its transparent plexiglass enclosure as the robot creates their sandwich.

And we agree, PB&J is the most simple sandwich around, but when a robot is the chef, things get a bit more interesting. The Bistrobot team notes that it’s easy to change around the menu, making the device even more versatile and appealing to commercial users. Impressively, the robot can produce 300 sandwiches an hour — that equates to five per minute.

While Bistrobot may still be in its infancy, we definitely look forward to seeing what the future holds. Until then, you can watch it in action below! (You may also want to check out fellow Y Combinator grad TeaBOT, which as its name would imply, is an automatic tea-brewing machine.)

Nuvap N1 detects health hazards in your home

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A safer home and a healthier you. 

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Being the bearer of bad news is difficult, especially when it brings vexation, but did you know that in the comfort of your own home, you are exposed to the leading environmental risk factor for death and disability in the world? What’s more startling is that it’s an invisible threat: household air pollution. The good news is that Italian company Nuvap has taken on the feat in creating a clean home energy solution to monitor air pollutants and further protect your health.

Nuvap N1 is the first device with international patented technology, specific for monitoring the main sources of indoor pollution. With N1, Nuvap hopes to achieve its goal in providing people with an open and user-friendly gadget that can detect risks in one’s environment and recommend the solutions.

N1 can monitor up to 24 different environmental parameters such as electromagnetic pollution, radon gas, radioactivity (ionizing radiations), carbon monoxide, methane, noise and water pollution (through outside filters), temperature, humidity, air quality, fine dust, fire and smoke presence and more. The unit works by transmitting this data over Wi-Fi to the Nuvap platform, which provides real-time alerts on your home’s air quality.

Using its accompanying mobile app, N1 remotely informs you of simple precautions to improve home living. Some useful features are: detecting fires or gas leaks, or helping you choose the best position for your beds to avoid exposure to dangerous electromagnetic sources while sleeping.

What’s more, N1 will even notify you locally through a series of LED lights that constantly reveal the quality of your surroundings: green is ideal, yellow brings attention to one or more pollutants, and red signifies danger. Whenever you feel like it, simply touch the device’s top button and it will provide an audible message about its findings over the last 24 hours.

In terms of hardware, N1 boasts a 100 MHz 32-bit CPU at its core with 2 MB of Flash, 4 MB of SDRAM and 1GB of storage, along with an ATWINC1500 Wi-Fi module for connectivity. It runs off a 5V power supply and a 2200mAh battery.

Ready to “know your home and protect your health?” N1 is now available for purchase, starting at $499.