Slashdot Mirror
Domain: wa5znu.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to wa5znu.org.
Stories · 7
-
Google Engineers Open Source Book Scanner Design
c0lo writes "Engineers from Google's Books team have released the design plans for a comparatively reasonably priced (about $1500) book scanner on Google Code. Built using a scanner, a vacuum cleaner and various other components, the Linear Book Scanner was developed by engineers during the '20 percent time' that Google allocates for personal projects. The license is highly permissive, thus it's possible the design and building costs can be improved. Any takers?" Adds reader leighklotz: "The Google Tech Talk Video starts with Jeff Breidenbach of the Google Books team, and moves on to Dany Qumsiyeh showing how simple his design is to build. Could it be that the Google Books team has had enough of destroying the library in order to save it? Or maybe the just want to up-stage the Internet Archive's Scanning Robot. Disclaimer: I worked with Jeff when we were at Xerox (where he did this awesome hack), but this is more awesome because it saves books." -
DIY Live Photos From ISS
leighklotz writes "The international amateur satellite organization AMSAT is reporting live reception of TV images directly from the orbiting ISS via the ARISS-SSTV project. The images are said to be preparations for the upcoming visit to the ISS by Richard Garriot (W5KWQ), which will provide images from space as part of the Windows on Earth project." -
NASA's Mars News Is Not Life, But Perchlorate
leighklotz writes "In an update to the little green men story of not-life-on-Mars, NASA has twittered: 'The buzz this weekend was due to an interesting soil chemistry finding, still preliminary, but now avail here:' where 'here' is NASA Spacecraft Analyzing Martian Soil Data. The exciting bit: 'Within the last month, two samples have been analyzed by the Wet Chemistry Lab of the spacecraft's Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA, suggesting one of the soil constituents may be perchlorate, a highly oxidizing substance.' Also, 'NASA will hold a media teleconference on Tuesday, Aug. 5, at 2 p.m. EDT, to discuss these recent science activities.'" -
FCC Drops Morse Code Requirement
leighklotz writes to mention a story discussing what some might consider a historic event. The FCC has dropped the Morse Testing requirement for amateur radio certifications. The public announcement was made on Friday. Ham radio operators will no longer have to study Morse, in a move patterned after other western nations. Says leighklotz: "The U.S. joins Canada and other countries in eliminating the morse code testing requirement, after being authorized to do so on July 5, 2003, when the World Radio Telecommunications Conference 2003 in Geneva adopted changes to the ITU Radio Regulations." -
13 Pico-Satellites to Launch June 28th
leighklotz writes "The CalPoly CubeSat Program announced a launch date for its 13 amateur satellites: June 28, 2006 at 19:39:11Z, from the Kazakstan Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Russian DNEPR-1LV rocket. The satellites are made from a kit, and are 10cm cubes." Read on for more info, including links to many of the individual satellite projects.leighklotz continues: "There are also pictures of 14 satellites and info about some of them:
- ION, University of Illinois
- RINCON, University of Arizona
- ICE Cube 1, Cornell University
- KUTESat [also] University of Kansas
- nCube nCube Norweigian University of Science and Technology
- HAUSAT-1 Hankuk Aviation University
- SEEDS Nihon University
- CP1 and CP2 Cal Poly
- AeroCube 1 The Aerospace Corporation
- Voyager University of Hawaii
- ICE Cube 2 Cornell University
These folks have a list of ongoing CubeSat projects. And as always AMSAT is a good organization to join if you have any interest in using or building your own satellites."
-
Webcam Jigsaw Solver in 200 Lines of Python
leighklotz writes "Jeff Breidenbach and 200 lines of Python code have brought us the Glyphsaw Puzzle solver. Hold a puzzle piece up to a webcam, and the display sgiws exactly where in the puzzle the piece belongs. The solver uses the Python Imaging Library (PIL), Numerical Python, and the PARC DataGlyph Toolkit. By the way, you can make your own DataGlyphs." -
PARC Signs On A Partner: Fujitsu
leighklotz writes "PARC, which a few years ago was said be be targeted for a spin-off from Xerox, has signed on its first major partner under its new life as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xerox. Fujitsu has announced "Joint Research in Ubiquitous Computing," a three-year sponsored-research plan beginning in January 2005. 'Because we're not a product company, we need a partner like Fujitsu who can deliver our products into the marketplace,' said Teresa Lunt, according to InfoWorld."