Source: Jalopnik.com
Starting with an old cell phone a friend gave him, 17-year-old Steven Ortiz of Glendora, CA, used Craigslist to trade up 14 times over two years to eventually end up with a Porsche Boxster. Here’s how he did it.
Jul 20
May 25
Source: PopSci.com
Pretty amazing stuff from the DIY UAV world: robotics researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany have created a small, fully autonomous helicopter that can track and land on a moving target–a simulated aircraft carrier landing pad mounted on the back of another robot–tracking its LED runway lights with a Wiimote’s infrared camera.
It’s an interesting demo of what can be done with ultra-cheap, consumer-level parts. Reading the info from the harvested Wii IR sensor, as well as onboard accelerometers monitoring the orientation of the copter, is an onboard Atmega microprocessor. Software analyzes the orientation and intensity of four LEDs on the landing pad, then regulates the four electric motors to guide it in for a soft touchdown.
The team is also working on a similar copterbot that uses photos from a mobile cameraphone to navigate open, outdoor spaces by comparing live images from the phone with a database of the surroundings.
May 24
Source: PCMag.com
E-commerce site 6pm.com, a sister site to Zappos.com, accidentally priced all of its products at $49.95 on Friday, costing the company $1.6 million.
“This morning, we made a big mistake in our pricing engine that capped everything on the site at $49.95. The mistake started at midnight and went until around 6:00am pst,” Aaron Magness, director of brand marketing and business development at Zappos, wrote in a blog post.
The mix-up cost the site $1.6 million, Magness wrote. “However, it was our mistake. We will be honoring all purchases that took place on 6pm.com during our mess up,” he said.
Among the consumer electronics available on the site that some lucky shopper possibly snapped up for $50 are GPS devices from TomTom and Magellan that range in price from $300 to $550, as well as pricer GPS systems from Humminbird that range from $1,000 to $1,600.
May 20
Source: Gizmodo.com
Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly sent 20-year-old reporter Liu Zhi Yi undercover in Foxconn’s factory in Shenzhen, China. For 28 days, he experienced dreadful conditions that the factory’s 400,000 employees endure, churning out iPods, iPads, and iPhones for Apple nonstop.
There’s no doubt about it. The Foxconn suicides were caused by job stress. Within half a year, there have been nine suicides attempts with seven confirmed deaths at Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory. In the last month, that number suddenly increased to 30 new suicide attempts, prompting the company to hire counselors and even Buddhist monks to free the souls of the suicidal from purgatory.
May 20
Source: DailyTech.com
Pakistanis aren’t going to be getting Facebook messages anytime soon
In the internet censorship war, major internet firms like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Facebook constantly struggle with the at-time seemingly irrational demands of volatile foreign nations. Lately China has been getting the lion’s share of the censorship criticism for kicking Google out of the country. However, another major hot-bed of internet censorship is the Middle East.
Middle East news network Al Jazeera reports that this week Pakistan banned Facebook after a group was formed called “Draw Mohammed Day”. The group encouraged a “contest” of drawing caricatures of Mohammed, the highest prophet in the religion Islam.
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May 18
May 18
Source: DailyTech.com
The producers of “The Hurt Locker” are prepared to unleash a massive nuke on the torrent community
Those who pirate software, music, or movies often don’t think about the consequences of their actions. However, if the makers of “The Hurt Locker” have their say, they may send a few pirates running for cover.
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Apr 26
Moth-like drones could quietly conduct surveillance or creep closer to targets, while recharging or ducking inclement weather
