nerdage.net

LEGO Book Needs You

2008-08-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

Greetings LEGO builders! I'm working on a book about LEGO and I need your help!

I want to do a series of profiles on adult brickers and their interests. Now, I can't guarantee that everyone will make it in, but the more interesting your responses are, the better chance you'll be in there.

If you're interested, and are 18 or over, send the following to brickbook@yahoo.com:

1) Headshot

2) Your name, age and occupation.

3) Answer as many of the following questions as you'd like: What are you building? Favorite set? Favorite brick color? Favorite genre? What music do you listen to when building? When's your best building time?

4) If I left off a question you're dying to answer, feel free to include it.

Thanks very much!

Citizen Engineer Inspires (Vicarious) Hardware Hackers

2008-07-21T13:56:00.001-07:00

No time to hack? Don't know which end of your soldering iron is hot? Well, check out Limor Fried and Phillip Torrone's fabulous new video series, Citizen Engineer, a fun and thought-provoking show about hardware hacking.

In Volume One, Fried (also known as Ladyada) and Torrone demonstrate SIM card and pay phone hacking. For the former, Ladyada shows how to decode the cards and even decrypt the secret code that authenticates the call. (Not coincidentally, she offers a SIM reader kit in her online store.) The second part shows her popping open a Western Electric payphone to make it work with Skype, and playing around with the payment system. She even adapts the phone to allow her to red box it.

If that weren't geeky enough, Citizen Engineer features digital art made with open source Processing and music made with Ladyada's x0xb0x synthesizer.

Citizen Engineer from citizen engineer on Vimeo.

Attend a Hacker Convention This Weekend (via the web)

2008-07-17T13:29:00.001-07:00

A lot of hacker conventions offer audio or video of programming weeks or months later, allowing non-attendees (or attendees who missed some tracks) to experience the panels.

Well, The Last HOPE, a hacker convention going on right now in New York City, is broadcasting many of the tracks via the internet as they happen.

If you can't make it to the convention, this is the next best thing! Go to http://radio.hope.net and take a listen.

The History of the Chaos Computer Club

2008-07-07T04:16:00.001-07:00

I've been enjoying Bre Pettis's great history of the Chaos Computer Club, a hacker posse from Germany that is quite possibly the coolest group of hackers anywhere. Founded in 1981, it has grown to an astounding 2,000 members.

With causes like ensuring secure voting machines, protecting privacy, defeating censorship and governmental obfuscation, and promoting hacker ethics, the CCC has become something of a hacktivist powerhouse. They hold an annual "Chaos Communications Congress" gathering and also a very cool hacker camp every four years. In 2007 the CCC camp coincided with Defcon 15 (the US's biggest hacker gathering) and a lot of people went to both on a special chartered flight, dubbed "Hackers on a Plane."

Anywho, take a peek at part one of Pettis's history (covering the club's founding through 1984) as well as part two where we learn that the CCC conducted the first computerized bank robbery (and gave the money back) and constructed modems out of toilet pipes to conceal them from government censors.

Make sure to check back at the 100% awesome NYC Resistor site to see the rest of the history as it comes out.

Photo by Mark Hoekstra (cc)

Review: The Big Book of Apple Hacks

2008-07-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

Time was, Apple products had zero credibility with serious geeks -- they were perceived as being purely artists' tools. And when Photoshop and other professional design programs migrated to Windows, not even that. The brand seemed so doomed that computer executive Michael Dell famously told a Gartner Symposium that he thought the company should be dissolved. Forget some Slashdot Mac vs. PC flamewar, nerds had very real and very sensible reasons for avoiding the platform. Perhaps it originated in the '80s and '90s when the Mac OS was closed to tinkering and the hardware was proprietary. PCs had a command line and Macs did not. Furthermore, so many important software development tools simply had no Mac equivalent. Serious programmers stayed away from Macs like they were carriers of some disease.

However, with the advent of Mac OS X, all that changed, and a few years later, Apple products are highly regarded in the geek community. And in that group of people, there is no greater respect accorded to a product than wanting to hack the hell out of it. That's where Big Book of Apple Hacks comes into play.

They're not kidding about the "big" -- the book weighs in at over 600 pages and describes 131 separate hacks. It covers every current project that Apple offers, from OS X to iPods, iTunes, and iPhones, as well as less ubiquitous products like the Apple TV. There are also sidebar minihacks and tips supplementing the main articles.

From a GeekDad perspective, this resource has a lot to offer both parent and child. Think of it, how many kids out there pack a mobile phone and MP3 player? Throw in a kazillion laptops and that's a lot of potential hacking. With more and more kids having expensive hardware at home, it's important for them to understand the potential and risks of tinkering. The good news is that Apple Hacks has tons of kid-friendly hacks: Learning how to swap in a larger hard drive (Hack 110) or create your own screensaver (Hack 42) is something many kids would like to do. My 12-year-old is running Tiger on an older iBook. Would Hack 17: Kill Dashboard be helpful to speed up her machine? All it takes is a couple lines typed into the terminal -- anyone can do it.

Here are my favorite chapters:

Chapter 1: Before You Hack
A must read, simply because it educates you on the consequences of your tinkering. For most of us, popping open a product's case is a great way to make it never work again. Hack 02: Create an Emergency Bootable Flash Drive is a necessity before you tinker, as is backing up your data.

Chapter 4: Command Line Fun
While OS X is great, it overlays a much older and extremely stable operating system, Unix. Apple left a lot of stuff off of OS X menus because non-power users don't need them. Things like daemons and shell scripts.
But even if you don't need any of this additional capability, simply learning about the mysterious of Unix is a great educational experience.

Chapter 12: Hack the iPhone
Easily the most hackable mobile ever, the iPhone is screaming to be tinkered with. First, you have to jailbreak the phone -- however, you have to do it smart, because if you mess it up, your phone will become a metal and glass brick. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the chapter describes the jailbreak process, going over each firmware version and the steps needed to break it.

Chapter 15: Hack Some Hardware
Possibly the most intriguing chapter, this is the fun stuff that may be more fanciful than most people want, like home automation and putting a Mac Mini in your car.

Apple Hacks demonstrates the weakness of competing books. A lot of them insult the reader -- some even in the title -- by suggesting that they're well, dummies. Others present a very narrow breadth in headache-inducing detail that only someone who is already an expert would appreciate. Apple Hacks covers all the bases, with fun hacks for each product, giving non-technical types or casual tinkerers plenty to work on. The price is also reasonable. Seems like most tech books run forty or fifty bucks -- Apple Hacks is a mere $23 on Amazon.

Maker's Notebook

2008-06-26T08:34:00.000-07:00

Ask a hacker or maker and they'll tell you they measure their life in notebooks they've filled. Whether it's prototype sketches, circuit diagrams, snippets of fiction, role playing game scenarios, ideas, thoughts, or dreams, so much is going through their heads that they must rely on paper to keep track of it all.

Bob Thompson, author of The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments, devotes a whole chapter to keeping notebooks:

A laboratory notebook is a contemporaneous, permanent, primary record of the owner's laboratory work.

* Use permanent ink. Erasures are anathema.

* Record all observations as you make them. Do not trust your memory, even for a minute.

* If you make a mistake, draw one line through the erroneous information, leaving it readable.

He goes on to say that for purposes of proving that laboratory work took place, whether for legal or academic reasons, a permanent record is a must. But permanency appeals -- or ought to appeal -- to other users. Unless you're a truly hard-core maker, you're probably aren't worrying about backing up patents. What you want, and what the Maker's Notebook delivers, is a resource that can hold up during use and, once filled, will last forever on your bookshelf.

But... a $20 Notebook?!
My initial reaction when investigating the Maker's Notebook was to cringe at the price. As a fan of composition books for keeping notes, I naturally compared the two. In terms of construction, they don't really have a lot in common, other than both being bound stacks of paper.

Of course, instead of el cheapo paper, the Maker's Notebook boasts 150 pages 1/10" engineering graph paper on 60+ Lynx Smooth Opaque recycled stock. The front and back cover are pure cyan with a white dashed grid -- basically, a canvas for your creativity. Maybe you want to color-code the covers by topic or date, maybe you just want to make it pretty. In any case, you can customize your notebook like it was a Guitar Hero controller: the Maker's Notebook comes with tons of stickers to help you personalize it.

In classic composition book tradition it has reference charts in the back. But forget kiddie helpers like multiplication tables and classroom reminders. This is grownup stuff: it is a section of handy reference material for makers, hackers, tinkerers and scientists. A multimeter how-to, sewing needles, LEDs. Can't remember Asimov's Laws of Robotics? It's in there. Need a Morse Code chart? Got it. There are twenty pages of this reference material. The book even has a bookmark ribbon and comes with a giant rubber band to help keep it closed.

So can it truly be worth $20? Yes, and here's why: The quality of paper and binding are far superior than any grocery store notebook. Composition books aren't made to last 20 years, this is. With a flat spine you can keep track of contents, dates and so on without having to haul the book out of the shelf. And forget spiral bound jobbies, the wire will smush and the pages will fall out. When you factor in the stickers and charts, this notebook becomes a compelling -- not to mention fun -- way to take notes. Your thoughts are important; treat them that way.

(By the way, the Maker's Notebook is only $13 and change when you buy it from Amazon.)

Arduino Class at Studio Bricolage

2008-06-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

As a father of three I don't get out for "me time" very often, and certainly not classes to broaden my geeky horizons. But the Mrs. graciously allowed me to take a class, so I signed up for a course on arduino at Minneapolis's cool maker collective, Studio Bricolage.

And what are arduinos? The unsatisfying technical answer is that they're easily programmed microcontrollers. A better answer might be that they're a little chip with a bunch of ports in it. Some of these ports can be designated for input and others for output. For instance, you can plug a switch and a light bulb into the arduino, and flicking the switch causes the chip to send power to the bulb. But there's so much more -- anything that works electrically can be controlled by an arduino. But what's really cool about the technology is that it's inexpensive and easy to control. High school students and middle schoolers can play with arduinos, and that's a wonderful opportunity for kids to delve into the world of electronics and hardware hacking.

Part of the burgeoning movement toward hacker collectives and maker spaces, Leonardo's Basement began as an independent program teaching geeky and crafty classes to kids. Pretty soon, envious parents began demanding their own group! Thus was born Studio Bricolage. I had the good fortune of being a part of the very first formal Bricolage class, Arduinos for Artists.

When I got there with my laptop, there was a box of electronic components waiting for me, including LEDs, wires, a switch, a solderless breadboard and, of course, an arduino. If you've never seen one, an arduino is a small circuit board that fits in the palm of your hand. The first thing we did was install the Arduino software. This is a simple language related to Processing, and can be used to program the arduino through a USB cable. Once programmed, the arduino needs no connection to the computer, so long as it has battery power. The arduino and all associated software is open source, keeping it free for all to play with and develop.

Anyway, back to the class. We were given all sorts of projects to construct -- starting simple with a a button that turned on an LED. But more than just a simple switch that closed a circuit, the switch provided only data to the arduino, telling it when it was time to send voltage to the LED. The learning curve was so non-existent within an hour we were modifying the projects. For the blinking LED lesson, we soon adapted the program to blink at different rates.

At the end of the first session we were given homework -- we were to come up with a "knock your socks off" use for the arduino. For my project I wanted to do something simple because I didn't have much time to work on it. I created a simple circuit that lit up an LED if two simultaneous conditions were met. First, that a button was pressed; second, a Kidwind turbine blade was spinning (and therefore generating voltage). To my amazement it worked after only a few minutes' tinkering. Unfortunately, the following session when I presented the project to the class, it failed to function. Another case of "demo-itis"!

The second session was tougher for me, it was more self directed and I was too sleepy to come up with my own projects. I ended up just observing other students' explorations and reading up on arduino resources.

I'm the busiest dad I know, but I still was able to make time for this course, and get something out of it. I heartily recommend an aduino class for anyone who has an interest in hobby electronics, or just wants to stay up on this amazing new development.

Here is a woefully incomplete list of resources:

www.arduino.cc: The main site of the project.

processing.org: Processing H.Q. Also, check out the awesome and definitive book I link to above.

wiring.org.co has the poop on Wiring, the language that underlays the Arduino programming software.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, run by a couple of brilliant hardware hackers who use arduino in a lot of their projects. Great for inspiration.

Ladyada has a great site and also has a cool store if you want to buy electronic kits, including arduino.

Leah Buechley created the fabulous Lilypad arduino -- wearable electronics! -- demonstrating just how amazing arduino is as a starting point.

And finally, see my Flickr set of photos I took at the class.

Hardware hackers, post in the comments section if I missed any important resources.

RepRap Creates Child, Grandchild

2008-06-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest possibilities of the home fabrication movement is the prospect of a fab printing out a working copy of itself. One group, called the RepRap project, considers that capability to be so integral to its mission that chose a name that reclected it -- RepRap comes from Replicating Rapid Prototyper.

Well, guess what, it happened -- a RepRap created a copy of itself. And then the child created a 3rd generation.

Adrian Bowyer (left) and Vik Olliver (right) with a parent RepRap machine, made on a conventional rapid prototyper, and the first complete working child RepRap machine, made by the RepRap on the left. The child machine made its first successful grandchild part at 14:00 hours UTC on 29 May 2008 at Bath University in the UK, a few minutes after it was assembled.

I cant stress enough go cool this technology is. The prospect of people being able to create all sorts of necessary products in their basement, paying only electrical and raw materials costs, promises to revolutionize the way we live.

The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey

2008-06-13T11:59:00.001-07:00

Anyone with even a passing interest in the history of hacking needs to check out this book. The magazine got its start in 1984 and it has covered every peak and valley of of the scene -- momentous events like Operation Sundevil and the bust of Kevin Mitnick, as well as glacial changes like the decline of blue boxing and the rise of the Internet. And for cool, try to spot the pseudonymous contributions from writers who have moved on to find success in the mainstream world. For instance, Cory Doctorow got his start writing for 2600. Preorder this book today, and look for a full review here on Nerdage.net in the next month or two.

YES! YES! OH YES!

2008-06-11T19:18:00.001-07:00

Me and a bunch of college kids uploaded pictures showing how much we love Jolt. Who won? I did. SUCK IT, college kids! So Jolt sent me a mess of product.

I really, really love Jolt.

A Home Lab/Shop For Kids?

2008-06-10T09:17:00.001-07:00

Slashdot contributor "sharp-bang" put the following question to the supernerds who follow the site:

When I was growing up, my Dad let my brother and I have the run of his wood shop, and kept up a steady stream of Lego kits, Estes model rockets, chemistry sets, Heathkit projects, and other fun science stuff from the Edmund Scientific catalog, and the rest was history. I'd like to give my kids that kind of experience. If your kids were interested in science, computers, robots, and building stuff, how would you build and outfit a lab/shop for them (and you) to play in?

Check out the responses. Many of them are tongue-in-cheek but a many responders left thoughtful comments.

So what about you? How would you equip your child's lab for maximum geekification?

Photo by Ladyada (cc)

Review: The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments

2008-06-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

Geeks everywhere weep for the modern chemistry set. There was a day when kids of all ages could perform all sorts of fantastic experiments. We were not unfettered by safety rules -- guidelines were strict and clear. You do not mix certain things. This is flammable and that is acidic. And yes, some of us made gunpowder and other explosives. It was a magical time of daring and high adventure.

Then came the dark times, when set manufacturers bowed to the fear of litigation. Gone were the no-holds-barred outfits where nitroglycerine was seemingly a page-flip and beaker-shake away. No longer were we presented with rules and rationales, and expected to follow. Instead, manufacturers decided we were too dumb to be trusted with our own experiments, and tried to sell us "spa science" and "candy chemistry" and other pseudoscientific pap. Kit manufacturers no longer had the stomach for the real deal. And when they made that decision, they doomed themselves to irrelevance.

Today is the DIY era, and we don't need a set to learn about chemistry. All we need is the internet and the Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments by Robert Bruce Thompson.

In the book's introduction, Thompson makes two basic points: that commercial chemistry sets are dying, and that science education is getting worse. He tells the story of Jasmine, his young neighbor who told him that her middle school only teaches 15 minutes of science per day. He thought he'd let her use the pro-quality chemistry lab he has in his basement, but without a guidebook she'd be lost in all the possibilities. It was this situation that induced him to write the book.

In an email, Thompson told me why he believes public schools' science curricula are suffering so much. Mainly, he said, safety concerns, limited facilities, and lack of qualified teachers are to blame. However, he was especially down on the Bush education initiative, No Child Left Behind. "NCLB is the real killer, because it focuses the attention of school teachers and administrators on meeting NCLB requirements, which focus almost entirely on reading and math. NCLB doesn't specify science requirements, so schools don't 'waste time' teaching science. You can't really blame the teachers and administrators; their jobs depend on students scoring well in reading and math, so guess what, they focus all their attention on teaching."

As for as chemistry sets go, the only one Thompson felt had any value was the Thames & Kosmos C3000 kit, though he said it "would have been considered an entry-level chemistry set back in the mid-60s." He said the Smithsonian line of chemistry sets have been discontinued, "and the Thames & Kosmos web site has been unresponsive for a month now, which really worries me." Even the Internet has few sites that provide robust science education for kids. "There are a lot of 'making slime' type experiments," Thompson said, "but they're mostly presented as, in effect, magic shows, rather than going into the science behind the phenomenon being looked at. They're useful only in the sense that they may interest some kids in pursuing chemistry, but not in the sense of actually teaching them anything much about chemistry."

So that's it, can nothing be done? "The first chemistry sets became available about 80 years ago," Thompson explained, "but people had been doing home chemistry for more than 100 years before that. They built their own chemistry sets. Now that commercial chemistry sets are a dying breed, we're just going to have to go back to building our own, at least if we want our kids to learn chemistry."

And that's where Thompson's book comes in.

The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments is a hefty tome with over 400 pages. The initial chapters focus on preliminaries such as maintaining a laboratory notebook, safety, as well as two huge sections on equipping a home laboratory with glassware and chemicals -- remember, you can't rely on a set to give you everything you need. Next comes a laboratory skills chapter, covering measurements, filtration, separations, and so on.

It goes without saying that the section on lab safety is as robust as it is necessary. However, Thompson took it a step further by making a conscious decision to leave out any illegal content such as explosives and meth labs. "Obviously, there's a very real danger involved, and I'd feel terrible if a kid blew himself up," Thompson explained. And of course, in today's world, an author has to pay attention to legal liability issues, both for himself and the reader. "Back 40 years ago when I was a teenager, the local cops pretty much looked the other way when kids played around with explosives. Making explosives nowadays is a sucker bet. You're going to get caught, and you're likely to face federal charges. It just isn't worth the risk."

And then Thompson jumps into the experiments. They start off easy -- the author targets middle schoolers with the initial projects. Here are my favorites:

10:1: Reduction of Copper Ore to Copper Metal -- smelt'em if you got 'em! I always wondered how this was done.

16.1: Produce Hydrogen and Oxygen by Electrolysis of Water -- never again worry about running out of rocket fuel and air on those long space voyages.

However, one of the most tantalizing sections is the one on forensic chemistry. The final chapter, it's kind of a sneak peek at Thompson's next book, which will be about home forensics experiments. It includes such experiments as detecting blood, testing for drugs and revealing latent fingerprints.

There you have it. Set manufacturers may have given up the ghost, but with an awesome book of experiments, all sorts of possibilities come into play. "I think it's critical that every student be exposed to science," Thompson said. "Not that I expect all of them or even many of them to pursue careers in science, but having at least a basic understanding of science is important for anyone in today's world. And very few of our students are getting even that basic understanding."

As I mentioned earlier, Thompson, who also wrote the Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders, is working on a book on home forensics: "It's serious forensics lab work, including stuff like fingerprinting, drug and poison analysis, soil analysis, fiber analysis, questioned documents analysis, and so on. Real stuff, not the fake stuff that you'll find in the few forensics books targeted at students."

By teaching professional methodologies and trusting his readers to follow them, Thompson has done a huge service to smart kids everywhere. This book brings home chemistry back to the good ol' days.

Test & Take at Studio Bricolage

2008-06-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

Someone donated a monster pile of electronic components to Minneapolis' awesome maker space Studio Bricolage. They needed geeks to play around with it and take stuff home. About eight of us answered the call.

There was a lot of junk, to be sure, but there were treasures to be found. One lucky father-and-son team snagged a working oscilloscope. There were six big infrared lasers. I opened up one with my handy dandy 100-piece screwdriver set and we all gathered around and geeked out over the guts, finding the solenoid shutter and the focusing chassis. The actual laser was an unassuming tic-tac-box-sized block of metal with a large copper heat sink on top. Another gem was an awesome control board for a CC camera system, though I regretfully passed on it. I did snag 3 of the cameras, however.

Of course there were countless smaller prizes like switches and old resistors. I grabbed a bunch of stuff I wouldn't normally have, figuring I could spice up my contribution to the TGIMBOEJ I'm sending out next week.

One of the best part of the experience was listening to 96-year-old telecom engineer Rob Pratt telling stories of pre-WWII phreaking, and discussing technologies that were obsolete even before the end of the war.

The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronics Junk

2008-05-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

Look in your mailbox, if you're lucky, someone just sent you a box of junk. The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk (TGIMBOEJ) project was conceived by Windell and Lenore at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Eight boxes were stocked with tantalizing bits of electronic components and sent out to find their destiny.

TGIMBOEJ is a progressive lending library of electronic components. An internet meme in physical form halfway between P2P zip-archive sharing and a flea market. It arrives full of wonderful (and possibly useless) components, but you will surely find some treasures to keep. You will be inspired look through your own piles, such as they are, and find more mysterious components that clearly need to be donated to the box before it is passed on again.

Take out and add as much electronics junk as you like (but keep it small enough to fit in a USPS flat-rate Priority Mail box). Write up, photograph, document or otherwise publish in some way online at least one thing you took out (suggested flickr tag: TGIMBOEJ). There is a little book in the box. Add a checkmark by your name to show that the box has been to you. Also propose a future recipient by adding their name and e-mail address to the book. Within two weeks pass the box along to one of the people whose name is in the book.

I was lucky enough to receive one of the eight boxes, code-named "Quito" after the Ecuadorean capital city. After some gleeful digging, I chose two toggle switches, a time meter and a fairly cryptic but aesthetically pleasing soldering diagram. I replaced them with... well, I'm not saying. If you are fortunate enough to end up with Quito you may inherit some of the goodies I added.

So what do you do if you want to participate? Simply visit the TGIMBOEJ wiki and sign up in the appropriate place. If you are deemed worthy -- you must have some sort of web presence, and at least a smidgin of nerdcred -- you may find yourself added to a box's book. Or forget the wiki and get all viral and start your own rogue box!

Art of the Cube

2008-05-28T08:25:00.001-07:00

Forget Banksy-esque minifig stencil graffiti or Nathan Sawaya's Art of the Brick -- there's a new brick in town and it's already on its second museum, the Santiago Calatrava-designed Milwaukee Art Museum.

As I mentioned on the GeekDad Blog earlier this year, Q-BA-MAZE is a modular building system that can be used to create anything from towers to brontosauruses. Each brick has channels and holes enabling sculptures to double as marble runs.

The Walker Art Center commissioned Q-BA-MAZE inventor Andrew Comfort to create huge fish display for its lobby, and from there the sculpture migrated to Milwaukee. Comfort is working with some of the 65 museums that currently sell his bricks. He hopes the Fish will travel to Chicago, Columbus, Washington and New York by the end of 2008, as well as the West Coast, Southwest and South in 2009 -- and maybe even Japan after that.

Two Weeks Until 4E Day

2008-05-23T07:46:00.001-07:00

It's an exiting time to be a D&D-head. A scarce 14 days 'til the titanic release of the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Rules.

Next, if you aren't aware, the GeekDads are running a contest now where you can win fabulous D&D prizes simply by drawing your self portrait!

Finally, it's only 15 days until June 7th, also known as Worldwide D&D Game Day. Go to your local game and hobby store and try your hand at the 4th Edition rules, playing a special scenario sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. They're even celebrating the day on military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, honoring the long-standing tradition of soldiers playing RPGs.

Encrypted Cake

2008-05-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

What better way to wish someone happy birthday than making them decrypt their own cake!

via

Nerdage.net Review: WowWee Chatterbot

2008-05-20T12:02:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, all your computer needs is a little personality. Sometimes (*cough beige box cough*) it needs a lot of personality. WowWee's new line of Chatterbots might be the answer.

These collectable, highly stylized character figurines always have something to say about what you are up to -- and it's not always appropriate!

Each Chatterbot features a unique personality and a signature animation. Connect directly to your Mac or PC using the included USB cable, then listen and watch as your Chatterbot entertains you with its unpredictable stream of jokes, dialog, and comments about your virtual life.

WowWee currently offers three models:

Dog/Cat: A dog sitting in a litterbox with a kittie squished underneath.

Devil/Angel: A blue devil with a pitchfork, harp and halo, sitting on a cloud.

Fairy Godfather: A mobster-looking guy dressed like a ballerina. He sits on an easy chair and clutches a magic wand.

Interfacing with email, the web browser, calendars and instant messaging, the Chatterbot is triggered by these data sources and animates and/or makes comments relating to the text. The bots represent an extension of WowWee's robots (such as the Robosapien) which can be programmed to demonstrate certain simple personality traits -- for instance, friendliness or irritability. The Chatterbot can be set to make jokes, spout out trivia, or make wisecracks about the website you're visiting. You can even press buttons to "punish" and "praise" the bot, presumably altering its behavioral parameters.

It's hard to say how hackable these bots are. You can certainly tweak the keywords the bot reacts to in order to customize it to your own tastes. Hardware-wise, other than the animation aspect, the Chatterbot basically serves as a speaker, and in fact the various models can be used as iPod speakers. On the other hand, the Chatterbot's quips are all .WAV files, so it's a simple matter to record your own, as long as you don't expect it to sound the same as its normal voice.

When all is said and done, the Chatterbot has a lot of potential and I'd love to see WowWee support the line over multiple generations. As the interface and personality evolve, expect to see the Chatterbot become more of an electronic pet than a curiosity. Like a program in beta, you can really see its potential while acknowledging that it has only begun its journey.

The Chatterbot may be found at the following stores: Circuit City Online, MacMall.com and the WowWee Online Store. Look for it at Target.com and iQVC.com in the next few weeks.

Hacker Convention to Make Art Out of RFID

2008-05-16T08:18:00.001-07:00

This summer, hackers from around the world will track the movements of thousands of visitors to New York City.

As part of a social experiment, attendees at a hacker conference in July will be issued badges with electronic tracking devices. Large displays will show in real-time where people go, with whom they associate, for how long and how often.

The tracking technology, known as RFID, is fast becoming an unseen part of everyday life. This July, for the very first time, the general public will be able to participate in the transparent operation of a major RFID tracking program.

Conference attendees will participate in games built around the tracking system. Players will seek ways to protect their privacy, find vulnerabilities in the tracking system, employ data mining techniques to learn more about other participants, and choose how much personal information they will disclose in order to play.

This demonstration will be open to the public at The Last HOPE conference from July 18-20 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. The first 1500 preregistrants will be guaranteed an RFID badge enabling them to participate in the game. More information and preregistration is available at www.hope.net.

Admin stuff...

2008-05-14T10:59:00.001-07:00

Just getting set up on Technorati, don't mind me.

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Legacy of the Force Minis Storm Onto The Scene

2008-05-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

This spring, D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast announced the release of Legacy of the Force, a 60-figure miniatures set based on the popular Star Wars: Legacy Dark Horse Comics series. With this set, players act out epic battles from the years after the fall of the Empire. Play bounty hunters, Jedi, droids and rebels. You'll even find classic characters of the original movies like Darth Vader and Boba Fett.

You've heard of collectable card games, but collectable miniature games? Players face off with pre-painted plastic figures, referring to stat cards and rolling dice to see the outcome of the fight.

The highly detailed, pre-painted Miniatures are not only valuable collectibles; they are part of a highly tactical strategy game incorporating hundreds of characters from across the Star Wars universe. Together with the Roleplaying Game, these Star Wars products give fans a truly immersive experience.

The rules of the Miniatures game are made to simulate the many skirmishes and battles that make the Star Wars universe so exciting. Gamers can recreate epic conflicts of the Clone Wars, or assemble their own squads and create all-new battles between their favorite Jedi Knights, Sith or troopers. The Star Wars Roleplaying Game takes this a step further, allowing players create their own characters within the Star Wars universe.

You typically begin with the Star Wars Miniatures Starter Game Set which comes with playing surfaces, rules, a small number of minis and their all-important stat cards -- everything you need to get started. Need more minis? Pick up a booster pack, which is a grab bag of figures that may contain what you want, or may not -- or might have a rare figure that will overpower the enemy.

Collectible minis are starting to get big, with Wizards selling multiple lines, battling competition from feisty rivals, mainly WizKids' Shadowrun Duels and various Clix products. Will Wizards' megabrands D&D and Star Wars win out? Or maybe WizKids' underdog moxie will prevail.

But before you decide, Wizards has more goodness in the hopper:

August continues another popular comic book theme -- Knights of the Old Republic -- with a 60-figure Miniatures set exploring the tale of the Republic 4,000 years before the original movies, when Sith Lords and Jedi Knights clashed and invading Mandalorians threatened the Galaxy. Each set contains iconic characters, vehicles, and beasts from the various storylines for a truly comprehensive Star Wars experience.

Choose The Next LEGO Star Wars Scene

2008-05-10T08:15:00.000-07:00

The LEGO Group and Toysrus.com want your opinion on LEGO Star Wars products for 2009. What epic scene from the movies would you like LEGOized?

Go to www.Toysrus.com/LegoStarWarsVote from May 10 at 12:01 am to May 18 at 11:59 pm to vote for one of three classic Star Wars scenes that you'd like to see transformed into a LEGO set. Results will be released in February 2009, and the product will be available only at Toys"R"Us stores nationwide and online at www.Toysrus.com in September 2009!

What would you like to see made into a LEGO set? Unfortunately we won't get to see which three scenes you get to vote on until the 10th. Personally, I'd really like to see a "LEGO Jabba's Palace" with a mess o' alien minifigs. (There have been some fan recreations, but I don't believe there is an official set.)

Also see: LEGO Star Wars: The Saga Continues

Photo photoshopped by Don Solo from images created by contributors to FBTB.net (cc)

RFID Tags: Invasion of Privacy or a New Kind of Art?

2008-05-08T13:06:00.001-07:00

You've heard of them, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID, pronounced arfid) tags, little transmitter chips that broadcast your identity to airline check-in stations as well as to anyone who has a RFID snooper. The phenomenon has all sorts of people up in arms over the possibility we'd be tracked wherever we go, or that criminals could clone our identities from nearby.

Some people use the technology to make art.

This year, the Dana Centre's festival has asked us to run a 1 day RFID workshop on May 14th. Lead by Alex Zivanovic and Nick Weldin, this
intensive 5 hour workshop will be followed by an exhibition of the work produced.

Registration is free and open to at least 30 people. You will get to play with RFID modules, antennas and tags and an RFID shield for Arduino. These components will be sold on site.

To be able to get something out of it, we advise people to have a solid understanding of Arduino already as 5 hours is very little time and Alex and Nick won't go over the basics. If you're a newbie but desperate to get going, do email me and I'll make sure you're put in a team with people who will help you get there faster.

"Technology and design consultancy" tinker.it is offering the class in associated with the TakeAway Festival. To learn more go to http://www.takeawayfestival.com/node/129.

Hackerteen Entertains, Educates and Inspires

2008-05-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

While "white hat" or ethical hacking has been around for ages, there has been very little effort on the part of its adherents to pass on these values to the next generation. To clarify, there has always been a element of ethical pressure directed at n00bs. "Script kiddies," neophytes too raw to do anything except duplicate others' hacks, are considered to be the lowest of the low, and are accorded nothing but contempt -- well, and scripts. But in terms of positively encouraging ethical hacking on the part of kids too little to actually script, I can't recall anything as cool as Hackerteen Vol 1.: Internet Blackout.

The comic's story involves Yago, a young computer prodigy who is sent to Hackerteen, a school for gifted kids. Run something like a dojo with freshmen taking White Belt classes and the seniormost students called Black Belts, the school provides the perfect environment for Yago. As his skills increase over the years, he finds himself being targeted by criminals seeking to hire him for nefarious ends. When his family runs into some financial misfortune, he accepts the wrong job and ends up getting tangled up in the criminals' schemes.

The story itself probably won't wow the average adult, but it's great for preteens and insidiously -- in a good way -- it sprinkles mature concepts like ODF in the story without explanation, with a footnote supplying a link so kids can learn more. If readers aren't interested they can skim over the unfamiliar terms and still understand the story.

Parents unfamiliar with the concept of ethical hacking may get nervous about exposing their children to a comic book that glorifies hacking. However, there is a strong moral current throughout the story, with predatory adults (the usual scum: suits, politicians) attempting to turn the Hackerteen students' elite skills towards criminal activities, to the utter scorn of the kids. My stepdaughter, who had some -- how shall I put it -- administrative difficulties in 5th grade for creatively accessing school systems, was quickly engrossed by the book, and it encouraged me that a kid who had made mistakes in the past was fascinated by a book that so unequivocally blasts similarly illegal acts.

Interestingly, Hackerteen is a real school that mainly teaches via distance learning. Admitting students between the ages of 14 and 19 and offering a 2-year program, the school teaches about open source software, ethics, psychology and entrepreneurship. Headquartered in Sao Paolo, Brazil, the school is currently seeking franchises around the world.

There is a clear moral message in the real world, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do that thing. To educate kids that that applies to computers too, and to do it in an entertaining and respectful manner, as Hackerteen does, is incredibly valuable.

Print your own chain mail!

2008-05-06T13:15:00.001-07:00

Thinglab sample, originally uploaded by toxi.

Check out this awesome rapid-prototyped mail on Karsten Schmidt's Flickr page.