The great thing about bamboo is its propensity for growth. The grass practically nurtures itself and is a great renewable resource for product manufacturing. However, most products made from bamboo tends to be shredded then laminated, meaning more energy and more glue. This speaker, however, is as minimal as it gets. The bamboo’s hollow core gets refined as a conduit for sound and a small incision is made to hold an iPhone where the speaker and wood channels sound waves. I especially like the warmth the wood imparts on the sound.

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Galaxy S 4 Active phones are advertised as water-resistent, which means it’s often portrayed as submerged in pools of water. In real life, however, this is not as safe as one might expect. That’s why AT&T has offered to replaced the water damages, but only once.

Samsung designed and tested the Galaxy S 4 Active to adhere to IP67 standards for water resistance (1 meter for 30 minutes). If your Galaxy S 4 Active has been damaged due to water exposure, bring it back to an AT&T retail store as soon as possible for a one-time exchange for another Galaxy S 4 Active.

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Vavuud is a simple, plastic wind meter for your smartphone that takes advantage of magnetic power in order to give you an accurate wind reading. It plugs into your phone’s jack and relays the information to you via a simple app. Here’s how it works:

As its arms spin in the breeze, the magnetometer in your phone detects the field created by the two magnets embedded in the Vaavud’s rotor. The app then converts the rotations of these magnets into wind speed using modified sound processing algorithms.

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It’s one thing to build a soapbox car in your backyard, but what about building your own plane? The engineers at MakerPlane hope to raise $75,000 on IndieGogo to finance the building of MakerPlane, an open source aviation project that would allow people to build their own planes using CNC mills and 3D printers.

The money would allow the organization to build an aircraft and then provide free open source plans, build instructions and electronic files to the public. Here is more about the project: “Basically we are designing an aircraft that can be built on a computer controlled mill at home, or at a makerspace which is easy to assemble and quick to build.  The plans and instructions will be available for free to anyone that wants them!”

Follow this link to check out a video demonstration of the plane. (Via Wired).

The makers of the Myo armband at Thalmic Labs are using wearables to simple gesture interfaces. Unlike other software that requires light for infrared sensors, the armband attaches to the user’s skin and can detect electrical impulses to power electronics and computers. According to the founders, a small movement of a finger is as easy to detect as a wave of the hand. The best part about the interface is walking around and opening window blinds and controlling UAVs like Darth Vader.
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Drone-powered aerial photography has a bad reputation thanks to drones with guns, but it’s not always death and destruction. Flying robots have been capturing some amazing photography from above and now they have a home at Dronestagr.am. Not all of the photos are taken by “drones” so even if you have a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) or even a kite with a camera attachment you can share your photos at Dronstagr.am.

The photos are stunning – once I stopped caring about privacy issues, it was easy to take a ten minute aerial vacation over Vancia, France over to the Kintzheim over to the beautiful Coco Palm Bodu Hithi in the Maldives. A search on the public site showed zero results for Fan Francisco – a place I know that is teeming with professional and amateur drone builders. There’s even a drone store on my block! Evidently there are few San Franciscans willing to be social with their drone photos. Read more

We’ve heard a lot about 3D printers being used to make things, but would you eat what comes out a 3D printer? MIT researcher Marcelo Coelho thinks that you might. He has created a 3D printer called Cornucopia that creates food for you out of fresh ingredients using robotic tools that Betty Crocker could have never imagined. Coelho’s invention is designed to help people get away from processed foods and eat fresh meals that are built at home.

The machine stores, mixes and cooks and even cools ingredients together to create “digital gastronomy.” Check it out:

Its cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user’s favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate food combinations with sub-millimeter precision. While the deposition takes place, the food is heated or cooled by the Fabricator’s chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but, through a touch-screen interface and web connectivity, also allows users to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.

Tinké is a tiny device that can measure your health rates with a simple touch of your fingertip. The accompanying app measures your heart rate, blood oxygen level, and respiratory rate. It’s useful when you want to monitor these measurements over time or just nice to see how your exercise routine is shaping up. The tiny device hooks up to your phone and doesn’t require a battery or extra screen. Did I mention it looks gorgeous?
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If you are one of those rare creatures that receives postal mail every day, this Postifier mailbox device is not for you. It’s an infrared sensor that can detect light changes in your mailbox, indicating that you have new snail mail. As the makers say, it’s a great product if you live in extreme temperature or suffer from acute laziness.
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The dream of technology is to improve the human condition – which often means better access to health care. With tablets and phones, there are plenty of health care apps, but now we’re also seeing accessories using  mobile devices as a tool for treating patients anywhere, anytime – like this ultrasound system from Mobisante that’s gotten the green light from the FDA.

It’s small and affordable so it’s a perfect tool for rural communities with little or no access to health clinics. The device can travel anywhere doctors go, enabling them to use it like traditional ultrasound machines in hospitals:

“Having a portable ultrasound in a remote setting, where investigations are limited, gives me valuable information that greatly enhances my ability to diagnose and manage my patients.” – Dr. Shelter Lee, Rural and Remote General Practitioner, Locum Tenens.

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