TechnologyIQ

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Any studio operator worth their Protools subscription will have a wide array of microphones to cover any conceivable situation. SM57s to cover guitar cabs, fancy gilded ribbon mics for vocal takes, and a variety of condensers to round out the selection. That’s all well and good for high-fidelity recording, but what if you want to go the other way? [LeoMakes] has just the thing, with his sub-$10 paper cup mic. The basic concept is that of a dynamic microphone. A paper cup is attached to a taut string, upon which a magnet is affixed. Sound waves hitting the paper cup cause the string, and thus the magnet, to vibrate. The magnet is located within a coil, created from thin insulated wire wrapped around an old solder spool. This induces a current, creating the audio signal. Read Paper Cup Mic Is Fun And Functional via hack a day * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! An ...

Seeing the internet interact with the real world is one of my favorite things and this project is right up there with the best of them. With a little Arduino ingenuity, people can control this whiteboard plotter from the comfort of their own home or office. — Douglas The Plotti Botti is an XY plotter attached to a whiteboard, which can be controlled by anyone via LetsRobot.tv. When it's online, you can find the Plotti Botti here. It was made using stepper motors with pulleys, a toothed belt, a Raspberry Pi, the Adafruit Motor HAT, a Pi Camera, a number of 3D-printed parts and googly eyes. Read The Plotti Botti: An Internet-Controlled Drawing Robot! via Hackster.io An interesting link found among my daily reading

Here is a Raspberry Pi project that is also some very useful. Check it out! -- Douglas Smart thermometers are not the  cheapest gadgets  around but if you have a  Raspberry  Pi 3 model B mini PC gathering dust or fancy a new project this weekend you might be interested in this Raspberry Pi smart thermostat created by Hackster.io member Attila Tőkés. Equipped with Bluetooth low energy connectivity and created with the NXP Rapid IoT kit the Raspberry Pi smart thermostat also provides data logging enabling you to track your energy usage. The Smart Thermostat will measure the temperature, relative humidity, air pressure and ambient light, all readings are then broadcast over Bluetooth and the Raspberry Pi provides visualization for the display, data logging systems as well as control the heating system. Read Raspberry Pi smart thermostat with data logging via Geeky Gadgets An interesting link found among my daily reading

Technology isn't just computers, networks and phones. Technology has always been part of the human experience. All of our ancestors have looked for ways to help them survive and do less work for more gain.  Archive.org has a host of old technology books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. Many of the technologies discussed within these books are being put to use again these days in the back to the land" and homesteading movements. You might even find something that could address one of your own garden or farm issues but has been lost to time and history. Enjoy! --Douglas Historical Technology Books: A practical course in horology (1944)  by Harold Caleb Kelly - 17 in a series   It is difficult to even imagine what life was like before the invention of the clock and — some might say — the invention of time itself. Life changed dramatically when our days became measured in hours and minutes instead of sunrises to sunsets. Ou...

Amazon announced Tuesday morning that it is rolling out a new feature to all Echo devices in the U.S. Alexa Guard turns your Echo into a security device when no one is home by enabling them to listen for sounds that might indicate danger or an intruder. Users will need to enable the feature in the Alexa app on their devices, (It’s in the settings menu). If the feature hasn’t rolled out to your device(s) yet, Amazon will offer to inform you when it’s available. When leaving, users will need to say “Alexa, I’m leaving” to set Alexa Guard to Away mode. The device will then listen for sounds like breaking glass, or smoke or carbon monoxide alarms. TechCrunch reports that Amazon worked with licensed contractors to break hundreds of different glass windows using different objects in order to create a wide range of different sounds for Alexa to listen for. Read Amazon Begins Rolling Out New 'Alexa Guard' Feature to Amazon Echo Devices in U.S. via MacTrast * A portion of eac...

I decided to make this project after seeing a project created by Jiří Praus called the Arduinoflake! I envisioned my version as more of a display that could be setup on a table as a decoration. The snowflake is driven by an Arduino Nano. There are 12 individually controllable LEDs and 6 pairs of controllable LEDs making a total of 18 individual pwm channels. I have programmed 4 different animations that can be tuned by various parameters including background and foreground brightness and animation speed. Read Freeform Snowflake via Explore all projects * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! An interesting link found among my daily reading

Make any speaker into an Alexa device with this Amazon Echo Input. Basically an Echo without a speaker. Bring your own powered speaker or connect to your hi-fi and start talking to Alexa. -- Douglas Have a Bluetooth speaker that sounds great but doesn't support smart features? You don't have to get rid of it to embrace Alexa. Deals BugThe Echo Input can add Alexa to any third-party speaker — and it's on sale for just $19.99 today. Just whip it out at this summer's parties, and boom: You can ask Alexa to replay Beyoncé for the umpteenth time without even touching the Spotify app. One of Amazon's newer Echo products, the Echo Input connects to an external speaker via Bluetooth or 3.5mm audio cable. It's smaller and even more inconspicuous than the Echo Dot (which is also currently on sale). Ask Alexa to stream Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, SiriusXM, and more; set alarms or timers; or check the weather or traffic. Read Grab an Echo Input for $20 and Add Alexa to...

Learning about coding doesn’t mean you need or want to become a programmer. It simply enlightens you to the methods used to create the software you use on a daily basis and how it affects you and your work. it also teaches logic, design and critical thinking skills, which can benefit you in everything you do. Dip your toe into coding and see what you might learn there. — Douglas  Nearly everywhere you look—from business management, to customer engagement, to product development—technology plays a massive role. As such, tech-related skills—and coding in particular—are excellent additions to nearly any professional’s resume. A variety of books, apps and websites make it easy for even busy professionals to get a start on learning the fundamentals of coding. But which entry-level resources are the most effective? Below, 13 experts from Forbes Technology Council share their recommendations for beginners interested in learning coding. Read Want To Learn Coding? Check Out These Resource...

R3-14 stands for ‘Raspberry Pi’ (geddit?), and the  R3-14 Personal Robot Assistant  is the debut Pi project of Year 12 student Sanjeet Chatterjee. Seeking to create something original, he settled on a robot personal assistant which would have a physical presence in the room, with interaction being an important feature. “In the beginning, I did not have a concrete plan,” says Sanjeet, “but slowly built up the features, whilst brainstorming different designs and ideas, before finally putting everything together, after having a clear vision of the final product.” He’s certainly packed in a lot of features. As well as acting as a smart speaker, using  Google Assistant  to respond to spoken queries, R3-14 has an impressive range of capabilities. Siri voice commands can be used to turn lights and home appliances on and off via 433MHz transmitters/receivers; a web app provides remote control of the robot’s motorised head and its on-board camera; while a face...

Technology isn't just computers, networks and phones. Technology has always been part of the human experience. All of our ancestors have looked for ways to help them survive and do less work for more gain.  Archive.org has a host of old technology books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. Many of the technologies discussed within these books are being put to use again these days in the back to the land" and homesteading movements. You might even find something that could address one of your own garden or farm issues but has been lost to time and history. Enjoy! --Douglas Historical Technology Books: The Fall 1984 DAK Catalog - 16 in a series My son and I were watching some retro video and it brought to mind 300 baud modems and the speed at which they played out the text to the screen -- slower than you can read it. (Yikes!) This got me poking around on Archive.org where I found ...