Download

Electronic ‘skin’ can monitor your heart - SentinelSource.com: Health Fitness Posted: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 12:15 pm | Updated: 1:33 pm, Wed Aug 31, 2011. Electronic ‘skin’ can monitor your heart By Elizabeth Landau CNN News Service SentinelSource.com Electronic ‘skin’ can monitor your heart Hospital monitoring devices are clunky and uncomfortable, with all of their wires and plugs like you’d see with any old machine. An online service is needed to view this article in its entirety. Click here if you already have a login to the site. Login now Need a print or online subscription? Subscribe Choose a subscription 1 Online subscription $9.00 for 28 days$18.00 for 56 days$27.30 for 91 days$53.30 for 182 days$99.84 for 364 days$1.00 for 1 day$3.00 for 7 days 2 Print & Online Subscription $15.96 for 28 days$31.92 for 56 days$51.87 for 91 days$103.95 for 189 days$207.90 for 385 days Need an account? A study in the journal Science demonstrates an extremely thin device that’s like an electronic skin, which attaches to your own skin and measures vital signs.

BlinkM Smart LED as the Smallest Arduino Did you know you can run Arduino programs on tiny BlinkM Smart LEDs? It might make BlinkM the smallest Arduino so far. To use a BlinkM as an Arduino, all you need is the free Arduino software, a low-cost AVR programmer, some wire, and a BlinkM. Here’s a quick video showing how it all works. BlinkM Capabilities as an Arduino The BlinkM board doesn’t have nearly the I/O pins and other features of a real Arduino board. And if you snip off the RGB LED, the three I/O lines used by it can be used as analog or digital inputs. Most libraries will probably not work without some modifications. Software Setup To enable the Arduino software to program BlinkMs, you’ll need to teach Arduino about new “Boards”. The BlinkMuino.zip zip file contains everything you need. Unzip the BlinkMuino.zip file, and copy the resulting “hardware” folder into your Arduino sketchbook folder. Restart the Arduino software and the “Tools” -> “Board” menu should now have entries for BlinkMs. Hardware Setup Have Fun!

The Free Universal Construction Kit Ever wanted to connect your Legos and Tinkertoys together? Now you can — and much more. Announcing the Free Universal Construction Kit: a set of adapters for complete interoperability between 10 popular construction toys. Fig. 1. The Free Universal Construction Kit. Overview Video by Riley Harmon for F.A.T. F.A.T. The Free Universal Construction Kit offers adapters between Lego, Duplo, Fischertechnik, Gears! Motivation Our kids are already doing it! Opening doors to new creative worlds is one major reason we created the Free Universal Construction Kit. The Kit offers a “best of all worlds” approach to play and learning that combines the advantages of each toy system. Finally, in producing the Free Universal Construction Kit, we hope to demonstrate a model of reverse engineering as a civic activity: a creative process in which anyone can develop the necessary pieces to bridge the limitations presented by mass-produced commercial artifacts. Download Figure 2. We (F.A.T. Implementation

Nokia shows off stretchable “electronic skin”, other futuristic stuff (video) Ever since Nokia showcased the Morph concept a couple of years ago, the company’s fans have been wondering: when will such a phone become available? We still don’t have the answer to that question, but we do know that Nokia is serious about turning this concept into reality. In a post published today at its official blog, Nokia has presented some of the work it’s doing at its Research Centre in Cambridge, UK. One of the things the team at NRC Cambridge is working on is the so-called stretchable electronic skin. As seen in the video below, this opens up endless possibilities, including the manufacturing of flexible, shape-shifting mobile phones (like the Nokia Morph). Another interesting Nokia project is related to “nanowire sensing.” See the video below for more: The third project showcased by Nokia has a lot to do with touchscreens. Via Nokia Conversations

CyzRgb - codalyze - CYZ_RGB: An alternative firmware for [ BlinkM] - A software playground Version Beta 1 BlinkM is a Smart LED produced by ThingM: BlinkM is a “Smart LED”, a networkable and programmable full-color RGB LED for hobbyists, industrial designers, prototypers, and experimenters. Just connect it to an I2C bus and start sending commands like "Show RGB Color" or "Fade to HSV Value" and so on and so forth (it does much more; see the human-readable data sheet). The original BlinkM firmware from ThingM is closed source due to licensing issues, so CYZ_RGB was written to provide an open-source implementation which can be shared and extended to support additional features. The latest release implements all documented features of the original firmware with the exception of the built in light scripts which are sacrificed to make room for the extended features of CYZ_RGB. In addition to the stock features of the BlinkM firmware, CYZ_RGB implements a 16-bit PWM routine and a logarithmic dimming table to provide smoother fades and more accurate color mixing. Browse the source code.

Learnable Programming Here's a trick question: How do we get people to understand programming? Khan Academy recently launched an online environment for learning to program. It offers a set of tutorials based on the JavaScript and Processing languages, and features a "live coding" environment, where the program's output updates as the programmer types. Because my work was cited as an inspiration for the Khan system, I felt I should respond with two thoughts about learning: Programming is a way of thinking, not a rote skill. Thus, the goals of a programming system should be: to support and encourage powerful ways of thinkingto enable programmers to see and understand the execution of their programs A live-coding Processing environment addresses neither of these goals. Alan Perlis wrote, "To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program." How do we get people to understand programming? We change programming. Contents A programming system has two parts. The language should provide: Wait.

Take a d.school class Applications are now closed. See each class page for more info. Core Classes In a core class you can expect a well-rounded design thinking experience that will flex your skills in most (if not all) core design thinking abilities. While the subject matter and style of each course differs, our core classes will be your most comprehensive design thinking experience. Advanced Design StudioCreativity and Innovationd.org :: prototyping organizational changeDesign for Extreme Affordability (Ongoing: Winter + Spring)Design Garage (Ongoing: Winter + Spring)Design Thinking for Public Policy InnovatorsDesigning Solutions to Global Grand ChallengesFrom Play to InnovationLaunchpadMethods in Systems ThinkingOrganizational Psychology of Design Thinking Boost Classes Creative GymVisual Design Fundamentals Pop-Up Classes If you’re looking for a short, fun activity for a weekend, take up a pop-up class. Our Most Experimental Pop-Ups: Special Course for PHd, Post-Doc, Grads & Fellows:

New BlinkMSequencer Features ThingM’s Multitrack BlinkMSequencer has been updated to work with both LinkM and with Arduino running the BlinkMCommunicator sketch. Download: New Features and improvements include: LinkM and Arduino connectivity supportPreviously, you used the new Multitrack Sequencer if you had a LinkM and the older single-track sequencer if you had an Arduino. Fixed colorchooser same-color-twice bug One of the biggest pet peeves we’ve had with the standard Java ColorChooser we use in the sequencer is the fact you couldn’t select the same color twice in a row. Danc's Miraculously Flexible Game Prototyping Tiles RPGs love PlanetCute So do platformers... One of the commenters on the SpaceCute posts wondered what would happen if you visited one of those delightful spa-like planetoids that decorate our little galaxy of cuteness. Well, now you know. These are Lowest Common Denominator graphics. Some of the fault lies with the existing graphics, be they free sets scrounged from the internet or leftovers from a previous project. 3D graphics are notoriously difficult to convert between formats, are optimized for use on a specific platform and often present a confusing technological challenges to student developers. Even 2D graphics are tricky. The PlanetCute set attempts to wiggle past many of those problems. Building blocks, not tilesets: Instead of having complex tilesets, each block stacks nicely with pretty much any other block. This set is also quite amendable to original games. Why does the world need nice graphics for prototyping? Many developers are driven to improve their graphics.

Square Updates Mobile Payments App For Merchants With Loyalty Features, Printed Receipts And More After hitting $11 million in mobile payments volume per day, Square is announcing more news—an update to the startup’s flagship iOS and Android payments apps. As you may know, Square Card Reader and companion app transforms any iPad, iPhone or Android phone into a full point of sale system. One of the major additions to version 2.2 of the app relates to customer loyalty. Now merchants can reward their regular customers with a new in-app loyalty feature that allows merchants to recognize their most frequent customers when they enter their store. The new feature also allows merchants to offer repeat customers discounts, which the customer will see reflected in their Square Card Case. As we’ve written in the past Square Card Case is a mobile app that consumers fill with ‘cards’ of all the merchants they visit and buy from who accept Square. On the consumer side, Square has invested heavily in loyalty. The latest version of Square now wirelessly with cash drawers and a receipt printer.

Harnessing the Power of Data: Todd Park’s Vision for Rebooting U.S. Healthcare 0inShare The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hasn’t traditionally been thought of as a bold, risk-taking agency. HHS Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Todd Park has been working hard to change that. Park, who co-founded healthcare technology firm Athenahealth and later Castlight Health, was offered his current position two years ago. HHS asked Park to come work for them as an entrepreneur in residence. “The [CTO] job title is a little bit of a red herring; I actually don’t run technology at HHS. “They brought me in as an entrepreneur,” Parks says. The first example Park cited was the Health Data Initiative. Park also points out the availability of GPS data, which was made public in the 80′s. HHS is releasing data that has never been released before and also improving access to data that has already been published. “We are marketing the bejesus out of our data to the innovators of the country,” Park says. An Ecosystem of Innovation and Joy’s Law

Silk Woven into Bio-Chip of the Future in Share Interest in silk has been growing within the biomedical engineering community in recent years, thanks to the remarkable properties of silk proteins and fibers. Silk is strong and durable, can be engineered to be non-immunogenic, and is completely resorbable. Most recently, silk has been incorporated into biosensors. More from the University of Sydney press release: The protein that underpins the strength of silk, fibroin, can be purified to form a clear material that can be used to display tiny drops of thousands of different biochemical compounds in patterns where they are no farther apart than the width of a human hair. “The particularly interesting thing about silk,” Peter says, “is that the biochemical compounds it holds retain their activity. The above combination of factors makes silk a unique candidate for implantable biochips – devices like electronic microchips that can sit in or under the skin and detect chemicals in the blood. Silk microchip for rapid medical testing…