Printers & The Geeks Who Love Them

A new kit for 3D printers allows users to turn almost anything into an unmanned aerial vehicle. The Drone-it-Yourself kit was developed by Jasper van Loenen, an independent designer working in interactive art, and aside from a central control unit, the entire project can be recreated using a standard 3D printer.

The simple design consists of four vice-like clamps which latch onto the edges of any flat object, and house both the motors and accompanying rotary blades. Though the motors aren’t particularly powerful, various demonstrations of flying telephones, books and bicycle wheels gave the drone-it-yourself kit an impressive display.

Currently the design is available online to download for any interested 3D printer owners.

That’s Not What They Meant When They Said Empower Your Soul

A new innovation by SolePower could harness the power of walking to charge your cellphone.

According to their Kickstarter campaign, the company hopes to produce a shoe insert that will empower people to charge their portable devices on the go. The device works by capturing the energy that’s created when we walk, and storing it in an external battery.

A two-and-a-half mile walk generates enough energy to charge a typical smartphone. The device is ideal for those who are frequently without power. Company co-founder Matthew Staton discussed the potential for the technology, saying, “Our initial target market will be hikers, backpackers, and other outdoor enthusiasts in need of mobile power.”

Currently, the SolePower is only in the alpha stage of prototyping, and the company is looking to raise fifty-thousand dollars to finalize a mass-producible product. The SolePower will likely be sold for around $150, and should be ready for customers sometime in the second half of next year.

Garmin Displays Turn Your Car Into F-16s

Garmin, the GPS navigation company, just announced a new heads-up-display that will take driving directions from your electronic device and display them on your windshield.

The device works by projecting bright directions onto a transparent film mounted on your windshield, allowing the person operating the car to know where they need to turn without having to take their eyes off the road.

The simple interface keeps clutter from getting in your way, but still delivers relevant information, such as your current speed, the speed limit, turn arrows, and the distance to your next turn. The Garmin HUD will be compatible with any bluetooth equipped smartphone, and will interface with Garmin’s StreetPilot, or other Navigation apps.

Early adopters to the heads up navigation can get their hands on the device later this summer, when it hits shelves for $130.

How App-etizing!

Apple’s app store is turning five this year, and in what appears to be a celebratory gesture, Apple is giving away several top paid apps.

Popular games like Infinity Blade 2 and Where’s My Water are currently available for free. A number of non-gaming apps, such as Traktor DJ, and the Barefoot World Atlas, can be downloaded at no cost, as well.

With some of the free apps normally priced at ninety-nine cents, this celebration is unlikely to cause Apple to suffer from a loss in revenue. For more expensive apps, the promotion could even come as a sales opportunity. Apps like Traktor DJ, for instance, normally sell for twenty dollars, and might be too pricy for frugal users to try out. With the free offer, users who may have never considered the app can experience it, making them likely to purchase more expensive apps in the future.

So far, Apple hasn’t made any announcements regarding the offers, and the applications don’t mention the giveaways on their store pages. Interested iOS users should get to downloading before the promotion runs its course.

Testtube Baby Makes an American First

Connor Levy may seem like the typical Philadelphia-born baby, but unlike all the other little boys born this year, Connor was the first in-vitro baby ever to have his DNA screened before he, as an embryo, was selected.

Cells from a number of embryos were sent to specialists in Oxford, who checked them for chromosome abnormalities. The process helped doctors at the fertility clinic select one of the three embryos that had the right number of chromosomes, bypassing the ten that didn’t.

As women age, the chances of an embryo having the wrong number of chromosomes rises. Babies born with the wrong number of chromosomes often have birth defects, like Down’s Syndrome.

Women in their twenties can have as few as one in ten embryos with the wrong number of chromosomes, but for women in their forties, the odds of faulty embryos can increase to as high as seventy five percent. With the falling cost of genome sequencing, doctors may one day read all of the DNA of IVF embryos, allowing parents and doctors to reduce the child’s risks of developing diseases such as cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer’s.

Solar Plane is Anything But…

We’ve been following it since it first took off, and finally, after a smooth touch-down in New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, the experimental Solar Impulse airplane has finally reached its cross-country destination.

The plane was able to complete its journey thanks to some eleven-thousand solar cells on its oversized wings, that powered the aircraft as it soared at thirty thousand feet.

The solar craft managed the trans-continental flight at a top speed of forty-five miles per hour, which is a quick pace for something that weighs as much as a car, but has as much power as a motorized scooter. The Solar Impulse left San Francisco in early May and made stopovers in Phoenix, Dallas, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Washington DC.

Finally, after two month in the air, its designers can call its maiden voyage a success.

And that’s all the news we have for today. If you want to keep up with these stories and more, be sure to watch us every weekday morning on NewsDesk with Kristin Feledy.

photo credit: IntelFreePress via google cc
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