Monday, 31 July 2017

These DIY projects are great for curious minds of all ages

Many people find it easiest to learn things by doing them. If you’re looking to give a doer in your life an interesting, hands-on project, check out these tech-focused DIY kits:

DIY AT-AT Cable Organizer & Card Case ($32.99)

DIY AT-AT Cable Organizer

With this kit, you get to put together a wooden replica of an AT-AT that keeps cables, pens, and other desktop detritus organized. And it’s legs are totally posable to let you re-create the battle on Hoth.

CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit ($69.99)

CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit

To set up a Raspberry Pi computer as quickly as possible, this Complete Starter Kit includes a MicroSD card preloaded with the aptly-named NOOBS OS, and all the hardware you need to boot it up.

The Complete Raspberry Pi 3 Training Bundle ($19)

Complete Raspberry Pi 3 Training Bundle

The Raspberry Pi is capable of so much more than emulating old video games. You can learn how to use it for penetration testing, robotics, distributed computing, and internet-of-things devices with this course bundle.

TinyTesla Musical Tesla Coil Kit ($197)

You can build a singing Tesla coil, also known as a zeusaphone, with this kit. By controlling your plasma speaker from a laptop or midi source, you can put on quite an electrifying performance.

Extpro DIY Assemble Toy Set Solar Powered Car Kit ($10.95)

Extpro DIY Assemble Toy Set Solar Powered Car Kit

You and your kids can get excited about robotics and renewable energy together with this homemade Solar Powered Car kit. This project is best for ages six and up.

SunFounder Raspberry Pi Robot Kits ($149.99)

For a much more advanced electronic car project, this Raspberry Pi Kit will have you building a 4-wheeled robot. You’ll learn Python to program its camera and movements, or you can drive it in real time with an external device.

littleBits Electronics Synth Kit ($112.94)

littleBits Electronic Synth Kit

The littleBits analog synthesizer modules can be combined to make some truly amazing sounds. They snap together magnetically, so you can try out different arrangements without needing a mess of patch cables.

Makeblock mBot Kit ($94.99)

Makeblock mBot Kit

If you’ve got a little one that’s itching to learn about programming, electronics, and robots, they can do it all with this mBot Kit. After putting it together, they’ll learn to control their robot’s Arduino brain with the Scratch graphical coding environment.



Sunday, 30 July 2017

How African speculative fiction gave birth to itself

Geoff Ryman -- the brilliant science fiction author who curated last year's 100 AFRICAN WRITERS OF SFF project, continues to publish and curate excellent, exciting science fiction from across Africa. (more…)



Scottish government agencies move to block expansion of Trump's unprofitable golf courses

Trump's Scottish golf courses are hemorrhaging money (they lost $1.8M in 2015) and the only way they can be profitable is if they're allowed to expand, but that's almost certainly not going to happen. (more…)



Defcon vote-hacking village shows that "secure" voting machines can be broken in minutes

Since the 2000 Bush-Gore election crisis and the hanging-chad controversy, voting machine vendors have been offering touchscreen voting machines as a solution to America's voting woes -- and security researchers have been pointing out that the products on offer were seriously, gravely defective. (more…)