Centurion Bridge Layer, Now In RC

Hackaday

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Radio controlled models are great fun. Most of us have had a few RC cars as children and maybe dabbled with the occasional helicopter or drone. It’s a rare breed of modeler, however, that gets to drive a radio-controlled bridge laying tank.

The model is a replica of the British Centurion Bridgelayer – a modified tank designed to allow mechanized units to readily cross rivers and similar obstacles in European battlefields. While the genuine article relied on hydraulics, the RC version takes a different tack. [hawkeye3guns] built custom linear actuators out of motors, gears, and brass to deploy the bridge. …read more

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Challenge yourself by building this DIY wooden combination lock

Boing Boing

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Is a wooden lock as tough as one made out of metal? Nope. Is buying a lock easier than building one? Absolutely. Is a lock you made with your own two hands significantly more badass than anything you can purchase, ready-to-use? Without a shadow of a doubt.

If you’re looking for an unusual woodworking project to undertake, Matthias Wandel has you covered. You can buy the plans for his wooden mechanical lock, here. Once you do, you’ll also get access to the plans for a laser cut iteration of the project. While it might not provide the level of security that you’d want for keeping your valuables safe, the level of whimsy that this project could bring to a woodworker’s life looks like it would be hard to beat. Read the rest

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Rock Out to the Written Word with BookSound

Hackaday

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[Roni Bandini] has given the world a new type of music with, BookSound. As the name implies, it takes the written word and turns it into electronic music.

You’re no doubt familiar with audiobooks, which are basically the adult equivalent of having somebody read you a bedtime story. They’re an easy way to boast to your friends that as a matter of fact, you have read that popular new novel when in all likelihood you were probably just half listening to it while you drove to work. But for all the advantages audiobooks have over their traditional pulp-based brethren, they …read more

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Matt Whitaker and Daredevil’s Kingpin, separated at birth?

Boing Boing

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It’s been driving me crazy. I knew acting Attorney General slash Cult45 tool, Matthew Whitaker, reminded me of someone. Someone awful. My first thought was Lex Luthor. But yesterday, I figured it out. It’s Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin, from Daredevil. Played by Vincent D’Onofrio in the Netflix series, Kingpin is a scary, hot-headed, New York City crime lord. I did a search on Whitaker and Kingpin and found this pic on Imgur. Whitaker could be Kingpin’s double. Read the rest

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RFID stickers could signal contaminated food

TechCrunch

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If a food item isn’t safe to eat, it’s best to find that out before someone eats it. But manual testing of every jar and bottle isn’t possible, even when a threat, like the recent baby food scare, is known. MIT researchers have found a way to check many items instantly, non-invasively, and from a distance — using the RFID tags many products already have.

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Bread faces

Boing Boing

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Carbo pareidolia. Artist: Sabine Timm, “artist, creator, beach-trash collector, flea-market lover and photographer.” She’s on Instagram as @virgin_honey.

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Bobtail bread

A post shared by Sabine Timm (@virgin_honey) on Oct 3, 2018 at 2:06am PDT

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…party is over

A post shared by Sabine Timm (@virgin_honey) on Nov 1, 2018 at 6:12am PDT

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…endless varieties of dog breads

A post shared by Sabine Timm (@virgin_honey) on Oct 13, 2018 at 2:22am PDT

[via Laughing Squid] Read the rest

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The Nokia 106 feature phone has a 1.8-inch screen that’s perfect for Snake

The Verge

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HMD Global has announced the Nokia 106, an affordable feature phone destined for the global market. The 106 has a 1.8-inch, 160×120 display that’s a perfect match for the built-in Snake game. (You’ll have to pay for others, though demos are included.) The phone can store up to 2000 contacts, and retain up to 500 SMS messages. Yes, these are the highlights advertised for a device like this.

HMD says the battery lasts “from sunrise to sunset with one charge,” which is something I’d honestly expect from a feature phone. That all-day battery life — 15.7 hours, to be specific — is for active use; the battery “lasts weeks” on standby. That’s 21.9 days, according to the spec sheet. If you want to use this thing solely as an FM radio, it’ll…

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3D Print Springs With Hacked GCode

Hackaday

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If you’ve used a desktop 3D printer in the past, you’re almost certainly done battle with “strings”. These are the wispy bits of filament that harden in the air, usually as the printer’s nozzle moves quickly between points in open air. Depending on the severity and the material you’re printing with, these stringy interlopers can range from being an unsightly annoyance to triggering a heartbreaking failed print. But where most see an annoying reality of pushing melted plastic around, [Adam Kumpf] of Makefast Workshop sees inspiration.

Noticing that the nozzle of their printer left strings behind, [Adam] wondered if it …read more

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Nikon’s Z6 mirrorless camera launches on November 16th for $2,000

The Verge

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Nikon’s first mirrorless camera, the Z7, launched back in September for $3,999.95. If you’ve been holding out for the cheaper Z6 model, your patience has been rewarded: it’ll hit stores on November 16th, starting at $1,999.95 for just the camera body or $2,599.95 for a bundle with a 24-70mm f/4 “kit” lens.

The pricing puts the Z6 right up against Sony’s similarly priced A7 III mirrorless camera, which has long been the go-to option, and it also starts at $2,000.

As for the Z6, it’s largely similar to the Z7, although it trades the 45.7-megapixel sensor, 493 focus points, and 64-25600 ISO from its pricier sibling for slightly lower specs of a 24.5-megapixel sensor, 273 focus points, and 100-51200 ISO. That said, the Z7 costs $1,400 more…

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LG’s featherweight Gram may stretch to a MacBook-beating 17 inches

The Verge

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The current LG Gram lineup advertises strong battery life. Maybe not this strong, though...

The LG Gram is one of the thinnest, lightest Windows laptops you can buy — also see: Acer’s Swift 7 — but now, it may be going places the new MacBook Air and its featherlight Windows rivals haven’t. Namely, all the way to 17 inches.

Today, LG offers 13.3-inch, 14-inch, and 15.6-inch variants of the Gram laptop, but an FCC filing may have just clued us in on LG’s laptop strategy this CES — a 17-inch version that’d offer a bigger screen than any of Apple’s MacBooks. (Apple discontinued its 17-inch MacBook Pro way back in 2012.)

Mind you, the evidence we’ll see a 17-inch model from LG isn’t overwhelming — just a US certification for computers with the model numbers “17Z990,”…

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‘The Amazing Spiderman Web Shooter’ was a favorite childhood toy

Boing Boing

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GenX kids had better toys.

I once shot my friend’s mother in the eye with a web-slung Spiderman wrist dart. It had to be an accident because you couldn’t aim these wrist mounted, weakly sprung dart pushers for anything. No one took the wrist launchers away.

An acceptable-by-current-parenting-standards version is nothing but a Silly-string can under your child’s wrist.

I am so glad I lived through the 1970s and 1980s.

Image of the OG toy via Hake’s Auctions, who sold one for over $400. I will stick with my Lone Ranger ring for now. Read the rest

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Mastering OpenSCAD Workflow

Hackaday

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As you may have noticed in our coverage, we’re big fans of OpenSCAD around these parts. The fact that several of the Hackaday writers organically found and started using the parametric CAD package on their own is not only a testament to our carefully cultivated hive mind but also to the type of people it appeals to. Hackers love it because it allows you to model physical objects as if you were writing software: models are expressed in code, and its plain text source files can be managed with tools like git and make. If you’re a real Pinball …read more

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Amazon Music is now available on Xbox One consoles

The Verge

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Microsoft’s November update for Xbox One consoles brings a plethora of new capabilities and changes, including the ability to directly stream from Amazon Music.

The app is available for Xbox One users today for customers based in the United States, according to a press release. More countries are expected to be added “soon,” but there isn’t a firm launch date just yet. Amazon Music joins Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and YouTube as apps that people can use to stream music.

Amazon Prime members can use the new Xbox One app to stream from their library at no additional cost, according to Microsoft. The app is available in the Xbox Store now.

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Three new bands are coming for the Apple Watch Nike+

The Verge

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Nike has announced new Nike Sport band colors that are coming for the Apple Watch Nike+, as reported by 9to5Mac. The new bands include two Nike Sport Loop bands and one Nike Sport band that will be available to purchase starting on November 16th.

The forthcoming bands were spotted within the Nike shopping app for the iPhone. The Nike Sport Loop is adding “smokey mauve” and “celestial teal” colors, and both new colors are reflective, like other Nike Sport Loop bands. The new Nike Sport band will come in a color called “olive flak.”

The bands are shown with the Apple Watch Nike+, and there’s no mention of whether they will be sold separately. The bands will be available on Friday, November 16th but only in the Nike app for iPhone within…

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Skullcandy’s first truly wireless earbuds leak in FCC filings

The Verge

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Skullcandy is apparently making the jump to truly wireless earbuds, with an unannounced pair of Skullcandy Push earbuds making it through the FCC today in a filing that managed to reveal almost every single aspect of the device, down to the instruction manual.

True to the name, each Push earbud has a large button on the side, which can variously be used to change volume, skip tracks, and activate a smart assistant on your phone (honestly, check the manual for the list of button commands because there are a lot).

Photo: FCC (via Skullycandy)

The headphones automatically turn on when you take them out of the companion charging case, and shut off when stowed. Additionally, the case appears to charge over USB-C, which…

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3D Printering: Blender Tips For Printable Objects

Hackaday

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3D models drawn in Blender work great in a computer animated virtual world but don’t always when brought into a slicer for 3D printing. Slicers require something which makes sense in the real world. And the real world is far less forgiving, as I’ve found out with my own projects which use 3D printed parts.

Our [Brian Benchoff] already talked about making parts in Blender with his two-part series (here and here) so consider this the next step. These are the techniques I’ve come up with for preparing parts for 3D printing before handing them off to a slicer program. …read more

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V-Moda’s new Bassfit earphones enter the fitness game for $130

The Verge

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V-Moda is releasing its first pair of fitness neckbuds today called the BassFit. They employ what V-Moda is calling “TriFit design,” meaning there are three different wear options to accomplish the best fit.

The first TriFit option uses flexible ear hooks that wrap around your ears to help the earbuds stay in place, the second option uses ear fins, and the third TriFit implementation uses both fins and hooks. These are handy features to ensure the fit is as snug as possible.

Image: V-Moda

The BassFit weigh just 17 grams, they have weather and sweat resistance, and they support AptX and AAC audio codecs for better and lower-latency audio. You can also connect the earbuds to two devices simultaneously. The BassFit…

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Cortana’s redesign is now available for iOS

The Verge

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Cortana’s version 3.0 redesign, which we first saw released in beta last month, is now available to all iOS users. As well as overhauling its interface, the update adds the ability for you to have “conversational experiences” with the voice assistant, listen to music and podcasts, and set up Cortana devices. These latter two pieces of functionality are especially relevant right now, given that Microsoft’s Surface Headphones are due to launch next week on November 19th.

As expected, the update also brings better integration with the rest of Microsoft’s ecosystem of services. You can now use the app to join Skype or Teams (Microsoft’s version of Slack) meetings, and also access your calendar, meetings, emails, reminders, and to-dos.

…

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