Slashdot Mirror

Not so much an arduino killer as a BugLabs competitor. Lets gloss, more bare boards.

http://www.buglabs.net/

Maybe even a nerdkit++
http://www.nerdkits.com/kits/

Reminds me of MIT undergrads.

Heh. They are MIT grads... From: http://www.nerdkits.com/team/ "We started NerdKits as MIT students "

Check out some of the NerdKits Video Tutorials, which are 20+ free video tutorials that cover all sorts of electronics topics. For example, Motors and Microcontrollers 101 talks about how to model motors as circuit elements (I'm the guy in this video). The Halloween Capacitive Touch Sensor talks about using aluminum foil as a proximity sensor. All in all, we sell breadboard-based electronics kits, which help beginners like yourself get started with electronics and programming.

Then, our customers adapt it to do things we'd never dreamed of: measuring how far a hamster runs at night, or controlling an RC helicopter, or building an intervalometer, or even building a video game system.

The communications / RF type stuff is very cool, and I hope you're able to get there! The most relevant content we have available right now is a 20-minute video about building a single transistor amplifier for a sound meter.

Best of luck in your electronics journey!

Check out some of the NerdKits Video Tutorials, which are 20+ free video tutorials that cover all sorts of electronics topics. For example, Motors and Microcontrollers 101 talks about how to model motors as circuit elements (I'm the guy in this video). The Halloween Capacitive Touch Sensor talks about using aluminum foil as a proximity sensor. All in all, we sell breadboard-based electronics kits, which help beginners like yourself get started with electronics and programming.

Then, our customers adapt it to do things we'd never dreamed of: measuring how far a hamster runs at night, or controlling an RC helicopter, or building an intervalometer, or even building a video game system.

The communications / RF type stuff is very cool, and I hope you're able to get there! The most relevant content we have available right now is a 20-minute video about building a single transistor amplifier for a sound meter.

Best of luck in your electronics journey!

Check out some of the NerdKits Video Tutorials, which are 20+ free video tutorials that cover all sorts of electronics topics. For example, Motors and Microcontrollers 101 talks about how to model motors as circuit elements (I'm the guy in this video). The Halloween Capacitive Touch Sensor talks about using aluminum foil as a proximity sensor. All in all, we sell breadboard-based electronics kits, which help beginners like yourself get started with electronics and programming.

Then, our customers adapt it to do things we'd never dreamed of: measuring how far a hamster runs at night, or controlling an RC helicopter, or building an intervalometer, or even building a video game system.

The communications / RF type stuff is very cool, and I hope you're able to get there! The most relevant content we have available right now is a 20-minute video about building a single transistor amplifier for a sound meter.

Best of luck in your electronics journey!

Check out some of the NerdKits Video Tutorials, which are 20+ free video tutorials that cover all sorts of electronics topics. For example, Motors and Microcontrollers 101 talks about how to model motors as circuit elements (I'm the guy in this video). The Halloween Capacitive Touch Sensor talks about using aluminum foil as a proximity sensor. All in all, we sell breadboard-based electronics kits, which help beginners like yourself get started with electronics and programming.

Then, our customers adapt it to do things we'd never dreamed of: measuring how far a hamster runs at night, or controlling an RC helicopter, or building an intervalometer, or even building a video game system.

The communications / RF type stuff is very cool, and I hope you're able to get there! The most relevant content we have available right now is a 20-minute video about building a single transistor amplifier for a sound meter.

Best of luck in your electronics journey!

Check out some of the NerdKits Video Tutorials, which are 20+ free video tutorials that cover all sorts of electronics topics. For example, Motors and Microcontrollers 101 talks about how to model motors as circuit elements (I'm the guy in this video). The Halloween Capacitive Touch Sensor talks about using aluminum foil as a proximity sensor. All in all, we sell breadboard-based electronics kits, which help beginners like yourself get started with electronics and programming.

Then, our customers adapt it to do things we'd never dreamed of: measuring how far a hamster runs at night, or controlling an RC helicopter, or building an intervalometer, or even building a video game system.

The communications / RF type stuff is very cool, and I hope you're able to get there! The most relevant content we have available right now is a 20-minute video about building a single transistor amplifier for a sound meter.

Best of luck in your electronics journey!

Check out some of the NerdKits Video Tutorials, which are 20+ free video tutorials that cover all sorts of electronics topics. For example, Motors and Microcontrollers 101 talks about how to model motors as circuit elements (I'm the guy in this video). The Halloween Capacitive Touch Sensor talks about using aluminum foil as a proximity sensor. All in all, we sell breadboard-based electronics kits, which help beginners like yourself get started with electronics and programming.

Then, our customers adapt it to do things we'd never dreamed of: measuring how far a hamster runs at night, or controlling an RC helicopter, or building an intervalometer, or even building a video game system.

The communications / RF type stuff is very cool, and I hope you're able to get there! The most relevant content we have available right now is a 20-minute video about building a single transistor amplifier for a sound meter.

Best of luck in your electronics journey!

(Actually, not 32-bit -- it's all still 8-bit, except for the AVR32 line which is another set of chips altogether.)

You're right, there was a lot lacking and people could be "scared away" from getting started with microcontrollers, but what we're trying to do with NerdKits is make it less scary without hiding the complexity or the conceptual learning. Our hypothesis is that people are actually smart enough to handle real tools, if you show them how, and will be far better off with that experience. Guide newbies through looking at the datasheet, setting registers, etc. Add some unique content that really makes you use your brain, and we've got a lot of very happy customers!

(Actually, not 32-bit -- it's all still 8-bit, except for the AVR32 line which is another set of chips altogether.)

You're right, there was a lot lacking and people could be "scared away" from getting started with microcontrollers, but what we're trying to do with NerdKits is make it less scary without hiding the complexity or the conceptual learning. Our hypothesis is that people are actually smart enough to handle real tools, if you show them how, and will be far better off with that experience. Guide newbies through looking at the datasheet, setting registers, etc. Add some unique content that really makes you use your brain, and we've got a lot of very happy customers!

I too had one of those as a kid -- the ones where you follow the book to connect the various spring terminals! While I might be able to go back and learn some more from it now, I can't really say I learned much from it at the time. It was very much focused on just following the step-by-step directions, with little emphasis on creativity / customization / concepts. So after finishing my Masters in EECS from MIT, I decided to build my own electronics kits for the "digital generation", with a tremendous focus on creativity / customization / concepts. Check us out :-)

Whatever you do, find something where there's real teaching and interactivity and creative thinking going on -- not just polishing some rocks or a step-by-step Lego project. And furthermore, interacting with your child while they're using whatever science gift you pick is also extremely valuable.

Ages 7 and 9 may be a bit young... but we know that 11-year olds do well with getting introduced to electronics and programming, and the interaction that it offers with the physical world through various sensors and actuators. In our experience at NerdKits electronics kits, our youngest customers tend to learn the fastest, because they are the most fearless! They're able to try building something, get something wrong, but just keep working at it until they succeed. Our various free video tutorials help teach various electronics and programming concepts as well.

Here's an 11-year-old's NerdKits "Kid Review" in Make Magazine, or a reading by the author of the review.

Challenge them a bit -- with a bit of guidance, they're capable of taking on more than you might think!

Whatever you do, find something where there's real teaching and interactivity and creative thinking going on -- not just polishing some rocks or a step-by-step Lego project. And furthermore, interacting with your child while they're using whatever science gift you pick is also extremely valuable.

Ages 7 and 9 may be a bit young... but we know that 11-year olds do well with getting introduced to electronics and programming, and the interaction that it offers with the physical world through various sensors and actuators. In our experience at NerdKits electronics kits, our youngest customers tend to learn the fastest, because they are the most fearless! They're able to try building something, get something wrong, but just keep working at it until they succeed. Our various free video tutorials help teach various electronics and programming concepts as well.

Here's an 11-year-old's NerdKits "Kid Review" in Make Magazine, or a reading by the author of the review.

Challenge them a bit -- with a bit of guidance, they're capable of taking on more than you might think!

You've got to get their attention first -- impress them with something that makes them say, "Wow, that's cool!" This is particularly important when reaching out to high schoolers and others who aren't necessarily techies yet. While some "neat" algorithm or circuit may capture your attention or mine, it's really hard to visualize for people who aren't already in that mindset, so you generally need a good physical interaction to capture their attention and spark their interest in the first place. From our NerdKits DIY video tutorials collection, I can particularly suggest USB-Guided Servo Squirter (a water gun you can point and control with a computer), our iPhone-controlled R/C car, our Valentine's Day LED Heart with PRNG for a randomized twinkling effect, or even our Morse Code Decoder which automatically translates dits and dahs into letters.

Then, only once you have their attention and interest (they've got to be asking, "How'd you do that?"), you can go deeper into the underlying concepts and electronics and programming. Open up a dialogue, ask "How would you build this (conceptually)?", and once you've done that kind of analysis-style thinking on a few existing projects (learning to take things apart), the students will be empowered with the skills they need to start doing synthesis-style thinking on building projects of their own.

Only after that should kind of top-down, system-level thinking should you dive down into the details, like how to use printf and scanf in C for the LCD or serial port, or how to use interrupts in microcontroller programming.

Just yesterday I taught four high school physics class sections, 10th-12th grades, and we were able to talk about concepts around feedback control systems, sensors and noise, motors, etc all around a currently-unreleased project we're working on with our electronics kit. (Lots of links here, but I think they're quite relevant to my reply and show off how we do things in our part of the DIY educational space.)

So in summary, capture their attention with a few exciting projects, make them think analytically to figure out how they work, and from there, let their imaginations run with taking those projects in new directions or in coming up with their own!

You've got to get their attention first -- impress them with something that makes them say, "Wow, that's cool!" This is particularly important when reaching out to high schoolers and others who aren't necessarily techies yet. While some "neat" algorithm or circuit may capture your attention or mine, it's really hard to visualize for people who aren't already in that mindset, so you generally need a good physical interaction to capture their attention and spark their interest in the first place. From our NerdKits DIY video tutorials collection, I can particularly suggest USB-Guided Servo Squirter (a water gun you can point and control with a computer), our iPhone-controlled R/C car, our Valentine's Day LED Heart with PRNG for a randomized twinkling effect, or even our Morse Code Decoder which automatically translates dits and dahs into letters.

Then, only once you have their attention and interest (they've got to be asking, "How'd you do that?"), you can go deeper into the underlying concepts and electronics and programming. Open up a dialogue, ask "How would you build this (conceptually)?", and once you've done that kind of analysis-style thinking on a few existing projects (learning to take things apart), the students will be empowered with the skills they need to start doing synthesis-style thinking on building projects of their own.

Only after that should kind of top-down, system-level thinking should you dive down into the details, like how to use printf and scanf in C for the LCD or serial port, or how to use interrupts in microcontroller programming.

Just yesterday I taught four high school physics class sections, 10th-12th grades, and we were able to talk about concepts around feedback control systems, sensors and noise, motors, etc all around a currently-unreleased project we're working on with our electronics kit. (Lots of links here, but I think they're quite relevant to my reply and show off how we do things in our part of the DIY educational space.)

So in summary, capture their attention with a few exciting projects, make them think analytically to figure out how they work, and from there, let their imaginations run with taking those projects in new directions or in coming up with their own!

You've got to get their attention first -- impress them with something that makes them say, "Wow, that's cool!" This is particularly important when reaching out to high schoolers and others who aren't necessarily techies yet. While some "neat" algorithm or circuit may capture your attention or mine, it's really hard to visualize for people who aren't already in that mindset, so you generally need a good physical interaction to capture their attention and spark their interest in the first place. From our NerdKits DIY video tutorials collection, I can particularly suggest USB-Guided Servo Squirter (a water gun you can point and control with a computer), our iPhone-controlled R/C car, our Valentine's Day LED Heart with PRNG for a randomized twinkling effect, or even our Morse Code Decoder which automatically translates dits and dahs into letters.

Then, only once you have their attention and interest (they've got to be asking, "How'd you do that?"), you can go deeper into the underlying concepts and electronics and programming. Open up a dialogue, ask "How would you build this (conceptually)?", and once you've done that kind of analysis-style thinking on a few existing projects (learning to take things apart), the students will be empowered with the skills they need to start doing synthesis-style thinking on building projects of their own.

Only after that should kind of top-down, system-level thinking should you dive down into the details, like how to use printf and scanf in C for the LCD or serial port, or how to use interrupts in microcontroller programming.

Just yesterday I taught four high school physics class sections, 10th-12th grades, and we were able to talk about concepts around feedback control systems, sensors and noise, motors, etc all around a currently-unreleased project we're working on with our electronics kit. (Lots of links here, but I think they're quite relevant to my reply and show off how we do things in our part of the DIY educational space.)

So in summary, capture their attention with a few exciting projects, make them think analytically to figure out how they work, and from there, let their imaginations run with taking those projects in new directions or in coming up with their own!

You've got to get their attention first -- impress them with something that makes them say, "Wow, that's cool!" This is particularly important when reaching out to high schoolers and others who aren't necessarily techies yet. While some "neat" algorithm or circuit may capture your attention or mine, it's really hard to visualize for people who aren't already in that mindset, so you generally need a good physical interaction to capture their attention and spark their interest in the first place. From our NerdKits DIY video tutorials collection, I can particularly suggest USB-Guided Servo Squirter (a water gun you can point and control with a computer), our iPhone-controlled R/C car, our Valentine's Day LED Heart with PRNG for a randomized twinkling effect, or even our Morse Code Decoder which automatically translates dits and dahs into letters.

Then, only once you have their attention and interest (they've got to be asking, "How'd you do that?"), you can go deeper into the underlying concepts and electronics and programming. Open up a dialogue, ask "How would you build this (conceptually)?", and once you've done that kind of analysis-style thinking on a few existing projects (learning to take things apart), the students will be empowered with the skills they need to start doing synthesis-style thinking on building projects of their own.

Only after that should kind of top-down, system-level thinking should you dive down into the details, like how to use printf and scanf in C for the LCD or serial port, or how to use interrupts in microcontroller programming.

Just yesterday I taught four high school physics class sections, 10th-12th grades, and we were able to talk about concepts around feedback control systems, sensors and noise, motors, etc all around a currently-unreleased project we're working on with our electronics kit. (Lots of links here, but I think they're quite relevant to my reply and show off how we do things in our part of the DIY educational space.)

So in summary, capture their attention with a few exciting projects, make them think analytically to figure out how they work, and from there, let their imaginations run with taking those projects in new directions or in coming up with their own!

You've got to get their attention first -- impress them with something that makes them say, "Wow, that's cool!" This is particularly important when reaching out to high schoolers and others who aren't necessarily techies yet. While some "neat" algorithm or circuit may capture your attention or mine, it's really hard to visualize for people who aren't already in that mindset, so you generally need a good physical interaction to capture their attention and spark their interest in the first place. From our NerdKits DIY video tutorials collection, I can particularly suggest USB-Guided Servo Squirter (a water gun you can point and control with a computer), our iPhone-controlled R/C car, our Valentine's Day LED Heart with PRNG for a randomized twinkling effect, or even our Morse Code Decoder which automatically translates dits and dahs into letters.

Then, only once you have their attention and interest (they've got to be asking, "How'd you do that?"), you can go deeper into the underlying concepts and electronics and programming. Open up a dialogue, ask "How would you build this (conceptually)?", and once you've done that kind of analysis-style thinking on a few existing projects (learning to take things apart), the students will be empowered with the skills they need to start doing synthesis-style thinking on building projects of their own.

Only after that should kind of top-down, system-level thinking should you dive down into the details, like how to use printf and scanf in C for the LCD or serial port, or how to use interrupts in microcontroller programming.

Just yesterday I taught four high school physics class sections, 10th-12th grades, and we were able to talk about concepts around feedback control systems, sensors and noise, motors, etc all around a currently-unreleased project we're working on with our electronics kit. (Lots of links here, but I think they're quite relevant to my reply and show off how we do things in our part of the DIY educational space.)

So in summary, capture their attention with a few exciting projects, make them think analytically to figure out how they work, and from there, let their imaginations run with taking those projects in new directions or in coming up with their own!

You've got to get their attention first -- impress them with something that makes them say, "Wow, that's cool!" This is particularly important when reaching out to high schoolers and others who aren't necessarily techies yet. While some "neat" algorithm or circuit may capture your attention or mine, it's really hard to visualize for people who aren't already in that mindset, so you generally need a good physical interaction to capture their attention and spark their interest in the first place. From our NerdKits DIY video tutorials collection, I can particularly suggest USB-Guided Servo Squirter (a water gun you can point and control with a computer), our iPhone-controlled R/C car, our Valentine's Day LED Heart with PRNG for a randomized twinkling effect, or even our Morse Code Decoder which automatically translates dits and dahs into letters.

Then, only once you have their attention and interest (they've got to be asking, "How'd you do that?"), you can go deeper into the underlying concepts and electronics and programming. Open up a dialogue, ask "How would you build this (conceptually)?", and once you've done that kind of analysis-style thinking on a few existing projects (learning to take things apart), the students will be empowered with the skills they need to start doing synthesis-style thinking on building projects of their own.

Only after that should kind of top-down, system-level thinking should you dive down into the details, like how to use printf and scanf in C for the LCD or serial port, or how to use interrupts in microcontroller programming.

Just yesterday I taught four high school physics class sections, 10th-12th grades, and we were able to talk about concepts around feedback control systems, sensors and noise, motors, etc all around a currently-unreleased project we're working on with our electronics kit. (Lots of links here, but I think they're quite relevant to my reply and show off how we do things in our part of the DIY educational space.)

So in summary, capture their attention with a few exciting projects, make them think analytically to figure out how they work, and from there, let their imaginations run with taking those projects in new directions or in coming up with their own!

You've got to get their attention first -- impress them with something that makes them say, "Wow, that's cool!" This is particularly important when reaching out to high schoolers and others who aren't necessarily techies yet. While some "neat" algorithm or circuit may capture your attention or mine, it's really hard to visualize for people who aren't already in that mindset, so you generally need a good physical interaction to capture their attention and spark their interest in the first place. From our NerdKits DIY video tutorials collection, I can particularly suggest USB-Guided Servo Squirter (a water gun you can point and control with a computer), our iPhone-controlled R/C car, our Valentine's Day LED Heart with PRNG for a randomized twinkling effect, or even our Morse Code Decoder which automatically translates dits and dahs into letters.

Then, only once you have their attention and interest (they've got to be asking, "How'd you do that?"), you can go deeper into the underlying concepts and electronics and programming. Open up a dialogue, ask "How would you build this (conceptually)?", and once you've done that kind of analysis-style thinking on a few existing projects (learning to take things apart), the students will be empowered with the skills they need to start doing synthesis-style thinking on building projects of their own.

Only after that should kind of top-down, system-level thinking should you dive down into the details, like how to use printf and scanf in C for the LCD or serial port, or how to use interrupts in microcontroller programming.

Just yesterday I taught four high school physics class sections, 10th-12th grades, and we were able to talk about concepts around feedback control systems, sensors and noise, motors, etc all around a currently-unreleased project we're working on with our electronics kit. (Lots of links here, but I think they're quite relevant to my reply and show off how we do things in our part of the DIY educational space.)

So in summary, capture their attention with a few exciting projects, make them think analytically to figure out how they work, and from there, let their imaginations run with taking those projects in new directions or in coming up with their own!

You've got to get their attention first -- impress them with something that makes them say, "Wow, that's cool!" This is particularly important when reaching out to high schoolers and others who aren't necessarily techies yet. While some "neat" algorithm or circuit may capture your attention or mine, it's really hard to visualize for people who aren't already in that mindset, so you generally need a good physical interaction to capture their attention and spark their interest in the first place. From our NerdKits DIY video tutorials collection, I can particularly suggest USB-Guided Servo Squirter (a water gun you can point and control with a computer), our iPhone-controlled R/C car, our Valentine's Day LED Heart with PRNG for a randomized twinkling effect, or even our Morse Code Decoder which automatically translates dits and dahs into letters.

Then, only once you have their attention and interest (they've got to be asking, "How'd you do that?"), you can go deeper into the underlying concepts and electronics and programming. Open up a dialogue, ask "How would you build this (conceptually)?", and once you've done that kind of analysis-style thinking on a few existing projects (learning to take things apart), the students will be empowered with the skills they need to start doing synthesis-style thinking on building projects of their own.

Only after that should kind of top-down, system-level thinking should you dive down into the details, like how to use printf and scanf in C for the LCD or serial port, or how to use interrupts in microcontroller programming.

Just yesterday I taught four high school physics class sections, 10th-12th grades, and we were able to talk about concepts around feedback control systems, sensors and noise, motors, etc all around a currently-unreleased project we're working on with our electronics kit. (Lots of links here, but I think they're quite relevant to my reply and show off how we do things in our part of the DIY educational space.)

So in summary, capture their attention with a few exciting projects, make them think analytically to figure out how they work, and from there, let their imaginations run with taking those projects in new directions or in coming up with their own!

If you're truly trying to integrate science with "mainstream culture", a big part of the overlap is in engineering. Science for the sake of scientific knowledge is great, but we've found that it's often easier to connect to people by looking at how science connects with their lives, which often falls into the realm of engineering (or medicine). We have tried to do that with our free educational electronics videos.

Even as science and medicine and gadgetry continue to advance, it's important to make it accessible and exciting to those outside the field. But while the original book being reviewed argues that "the scientists themslves" must take up the lead in educating the public, the fact is that making these subjects accessible has its own set of required skills that are not necessarily the same as those needed for being an excellent scientist. Some will be able to do both, but it's not for everyone.

If you're interested in more electronics projects with detailed explanations, take a look at the NerdKits tutorials, which have been featured many times before on Slashdot (DIY Sound Level Meter, Hackable Microcontroller-Powered Valentines Day Card, iPhone-controlled R/C car, and others).

http://www.nerdkits.com/

Unfortunately meets all the criteria you set forward except for the price one, which I feel may be your greatest limiting factor.

Perhaps a round-robin approach with one kit. Pair students into groups, and give each group a time-slot with the kit?

I really hope you manage to pull this off! I wish any of the teachers in my high school would have had the ambition to try and teach me and my peers this stuff at such an early stage in the game.

I found instructions on how to build your own OBD-II protocol reader, although it only works on some types of cars. Apparently the manufacturers couldn't agree on one protocol...

Yeah, I'm sure all the students MIT accepts sprung from their mothers' wombs as fully formed engineers. None of them should ever need to learn the basics. If you think the point of the NerdKits is for use by current students of MIT, read the description on the home page:

A NerdKit is appropriate for software hackers looking to branch out into electronics, and has educational material to allow even middle-schoolers and high-schoolers (ages 12+) looking for a fun challenge to learn by doing, especially with the help of a techie parent!

You'd probably bash kids for playing with Legos too, since real world machines and buildings aren't made that way.

Site seems slashdotted, but this might be similar to the DIY iPhone-Controlled R/C Car story from October -- links to this video tutorial about the project.

Getting kids excited about science can be quite a challenging task. I have been in the business of getting kids excited about science and electronics for several years now, and we have found the best way to inspire is to show them things that they could actually do (and understand) themselves. Our approach has been to be as thorough as possible as possible in explaining what happens in our projects, while still leaving some room for independent thought and creative thoughts. Striking that fine balance is key. The DIY community on the internet can be a great resource. My suggestion is to just point them at websites and give them credit for "expanding" on any project they find. Make sure you don't just give them credit for copying a project, they have to add something of their own. We have some ideas on our website which tkjtkj mentioned above (mostly microcontroller based) at http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/. A good friend of ours has more mechanical based projects at http://www.crazybuilders.com./ The Make blogs and Sparkfun have some good stuff too, but it tends to be a bit too advanced for the true beginner.

You mean... like this USB-controlled servo squirter?

No pop-ups, no flashy animations--these are physically impossible in the paper medium.

But... Pop-ups and flashy animations are physically possible in the paper medium

Hi all,

We had tuned the www.NerdKits.com site to survive slashdottings with its old PHP backend, but we recently started experimenting with some Django. Django is great as a programming framework, but I suppose we have discovered that our tuning of the server settings isn't quite up to handling a Slashdotting! We've temporarily disabled that stuff so the site is back and running. My apologies for the downtime.

- The NerdKits Team

For a slightly more holistic project approach, take a look at a MIT 2.009 Product Engineering class (Mechanical Engineering dept), which now has videos from their projects for this semester: microwave fire extinguisher, self-adjusting electric cook-top array, basketball player tracking system, etc. There are also some neat projects for microcontroller beginners on the NerdKits videos page. DIY digital scale interface over USB, morse code decoder, iPhone R/C car control, and more. (Disclaimer: I did some of the electronics design for the 2.009 Purple Team, and am one of the NerdKits team.)

How about a microcontroller kit with an LCD screen, breadboard (no soldering), and a C compiler? That's what they've got over at NerdKits, supported by a detailed instructional guide. Probably could use some parental assistance too. :-)

We've heard about micropayments for years, mostly for web content. But clearly this kind of market for virtual goods emerged in WoW -- without the explicit support of the company. It looks like the vendors are catching up! Still, there are lots of games that aren't based on continuous user profiles, and where the imbalance created might be significant and disruptive.

The other concern I have is about how to manage this between kids and parents. It's one thing to have a fixed up-front payment to buy a game, but to have kids (teens) linking credit cards (or even pre-paying) to a game seems like it might not go over well with the parents...

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

When fuel prices got too high, interest in electric vehicles and alternative energy sources boomed, but simultaneously demand weakened. Now oil prices have come off ~30% from their highs, and suddenly EVs are not a totally obvious solution anymore? Duh... this is how the market it supposed to work. This means that electric vehicle companies are going to have to start competing on real merits and not just squishy fuzzy green feelings. And I hope that makes them stronger! But it's not the worst thing in the world if conventional gas-burning cars remain an acceptable/affordable thing for the time being.

--
Learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

So this appears to be for older drivers (50+) only. I suspect we shouldn't jump to the same conclusions about younger drivers, because I'm not totally confident that Grand Theft Auto, or the Battlefield series will really make better drivers. Perhaps more aggressive ones, for better or worse. :-P

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

The law referenced "makes it illegal to misrepresent the extent to which software is required for computer security or privacy." This is such a fishy thing that I'm not really sure if I want courts to determine what exactly is required and therefore whether it is being misrepresented.

Now, maybe there's a case for fraud if the program doesn't do what it purports to do in its advertising, but that doesn't seem to be what's at stake here.

There also might be a case for fraud if, perhaps, the advertising pop-ups are being confused for actual Windows messages. But I suppose in the "real world" advertisements mimic other things to be creative, but are still fairly obviously ads.

Just not sure I like the sound of a law that requires a judge or jury to determine what's required for computer security.

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Given that they're all probably receiving thousands of e-mails asking them to reject the bailout, I doubt they're really doing much with them. I'd actually be surprised even you get the standard form-letter reply if they're so overwhelmed.

But I think the overall message is clear. It's not a cacophony, it's thousands of people singing the same message: reject the bailout or we'll reject you in a few weeks!

Ultimately, they're doing the worst possible thing right now, which is preserving the hope of a bailout. This leads to a further credit freeze, because banks won't sell their troubled assets at the (very low) market price because there's still the possibility that they'll be getting a much better price from Uncle Sam.

If you want to free up credit again, we really need one of the presidential candidates to stand up and say, "There will be no bailout." That will force banks to start doing transactions again. Some might go under, but that's OK. We just need to end this idea that a bailout might happen, because right now that uncertainty is what is preventing people from liquidating their assets.

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

From what I gather from the articles, they didn't actually write any code that tapped into the server... it was just getting information from the client app that was residing in memory but was not displayed to the screen.

This is just an enormous case study suggesting why strict client/server separation is essential, and that clients only get the information on a "need to know" basis.

Isn't this a fairly standard design practice? How did this happen?

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

So, from reading the reviews, it sounds like the video quality isn't that great. To me, this indicates that it's something you'd want to watch on at most a PC-sized screen anyway. But yet this is exclusively a TV display device.

Still a cool device, and I suspect they'll now sell a bunch to the torrent-download crowd too. The big partnerships with the networks probably won't have been affected by the existence of an open source tree. So really I think they're doing it to win over the hacker crowd (and I mean that in a positive way).

--
Learn electronics! Microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

We just had a career fair for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science students, and the organizers mentioned to me that it was the busiest they've ever seen. Not that there are any more students in the department.

My theory is that all the students originally planning to go into finance/consulting realized they might actually have to get jobs in the real economy, doing more than Excel and Powerpoint (investment banking). This was during the week of the Lehman/AIG collapse.

--
Learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

DRM sucks, yes, but the alternative is a world where your transfers are logged or filtered by your ISP so you can swiftly be prosecuted for copyright infringement. Publishers and content creators are going to protect themselves, understandably -- a huge fraction of working people in this country (and especially on Slashdot) are content creators in one way or another.

So which one would you prefer? DRM annoyances, or logging/filtering/prosecution? (I suspect we may be on the road to both...)

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

There seem to be some set of natural situations where monopolies essentially must exist due to physical constraints: frequency bands, roads, cable/electric, etc. But it seems to be that a logical principle is that whenever one of these monopolies must be assigned, this is one case where government intervention is warranted -- ensuring that services are decoupled/debundled to the maximum extent reasonable.

For example, roads are a monopoly assigned by local governments to be built by various contractors, but it'd be crazy to imagine that only buildings built by said contractors would be allowed to lie along that road.

I'm usually very against government intervention/regulation, but when these natural monopoly situations occur, that seems to be the point for some reasonable involvement.

--
Learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Sorry... There's a huge difference here.

Prohibition of alcohol involved a personal decision with essentially personal consequences -- never something the government should have been involved in. (Screw that silly trans fats thing too!)

But piracy is distorting what should have been an interaction between two parties: creator and consumer. But instead of the consumer respecting the desires of the creator, they're ripping that away and screaming "Mine!" like a toddler. That kind of behavior doesn't get much respect from me. Let the creators choose.

--
Learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Lots of the problems described occur because a voter must actually punch a bunch of buttons in just a few minutes -- matching a (hopefully predetermined) set of things they wanted to vote for. It seems like there's lots of room for error because of the time crunch that everyone feels in this situation.

What if you could actually do the ballot on your computer at home, carefully making sure that the buttons you push are what you intended, and then bring a printout with something like a barcode or other digital encoding of your selections? (This wouldn't have to be tied to your name -- that can still happen in the booth.) Then you bring that barcode to the booth, and it scans it after you walk in, and that "preloads" your selections. Then, you're just down to a verify step, under less pressure.

Seems to even open a new market for various parties to distribute the barcodes of their respective positions... :-/ don't want to make things *that* easy.

Just a thought...

--
Learn electronics! Microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

From Senator Wyden:

"With over 30,000 civil suits filed by a single entity against individual Americans it is clear that industry is more than able to enforce its intellectual property rights in civil courts without the contribution of taxpayer funds and busy federal prosecutors."

But while that's a kind of system that should be working, it really isn't. There are still tens of millions of Americans who either believe that it is within their "fair use" rights to freely redistribute copyrighted materials to dozens of unknown online participants, or do so fully knowing it is illegal.

So while the method sucks... isn't this actually a reasonable place for government action, you know, in enforcing the law?

--
Learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

So, let's face it... intellectual property piracy is rampant and rights owners need to do something about it. As the recent RIAA case news a day or two ago shows, it's important to prove that actual illegal distribution took place. So something is going to happen to slow the piracy.

Would you rather have:
1) active filtering, deep packet inspection, watermarking, etc
OR
2) transfer logs on a packet or file-level basis, so that they actually can prove an illegal copy was made.

I think you're going to have to choose (or, really, the industry/gov't is going to choose). Both of these are somewhat defeated by encryption, but that's only after a point-to-point connection is made -- encryption doesn't hide the fact that a particular media was requested or to verify that it was from a trustworthy source.

So hurry up and pick, because if you don't start suggesting a solution to the very real problem of piracy, I promise you that "they" will.

--
Learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

From TFA:

In addition to the same so-so Intel 945 graphics found on other netbooks, the N10 also has a discrete nVidia GeForce 9300M graphics chipset - enabled with the flick of a switch (and a reboot)

Very strange feature, definitely the first I've heard of this. You would really think that they could be able to power down enough of the 9300M to compare with the 945. But I guess they did the math and it makes sense to include two separate graphics controllers?

Seems like a pain to have to reboot to play games... but I guess I already do that between Debian/Windows. :-/

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

The site says they've got $10 million sitting ready to implement these ideas.... but the idea submitter gets zero (or even any involvement in the process). So they're basically crowdsourcing the brainstorming step, and then will do a normal quote/bid process beyond that. So they've already made a disconnect -- people with truly great ideas are going to want to 1) have something to do with seeing them happen, and 2) want to benefit personally. (Even non-profits pay good salaries!) So I don't think this model provides adequate benefit to the idea owner to relinquish control of their intellectual property. Will the really good ideas come out?

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

There's a lot going on here and it sounds like a neat project, but I just hope that beginners aren't misled. This is a complicated project and there's a lot of separate skills which would all have to be learned at once: masking/etching PCBs, fine-pitch SMT soldering, lots of pieces of code that all have to play together right.

Just hoping that newbies will realize that there are simpler electronics projects (relevant shameless plug) with much more instructional guidance they should start with before taking on something like this.

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.