conventions

Gadgets

Just Let Me Use My Gadgets

11:00AM Brian Lam | Lisa at Boingboing—OK, actually, my girlfriend—wrote about our long standing debate about checking email in public. Reading it I felt indignation, and then shame, but in the end I have to yet again disagree. More »
Gadgets

The Technology Behind the Democratic National Convention

10:31PM Mark Wilson | Denver’s Pepsi Centre and Invesco Field are just fine for their concerts and professional sporting events. But when the Democrats come into town for their National Convention this week, the two buildings are getting technologically gutted. In fact, Qwest, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, AT&T, Level3, Comcast, EchoStar, Hewlett-Packard, and Symantec all teamed up to give the old venues a new digital backbone. Here’s the snazzy list of upgrades: More »
Gadgets

Wired Previews Hackable Defcon 16 Badge

12:00PM Matt Hickey | Wired got a sneak peek at one of the more fun aspects of this coming weekend’s Defcon, the hackable badge. Last year’s badge was hacked in just ten minutes, but it didn’t have an SD card slot at USB support. The new card has fewer features than last year’s but is more powerful. And it comes with a longer battery life, good news. But not everything is known, and that’s kind of the point to these fun trinkets. [Wired] More »
Robots

Shot-Glass Printing Bot, Darko-Like Rabbit, Molten Beer Bong Turn Up at Roboexotica “Cocktail Robotics” Convention

2:02AM Wilson Rothman | Apparently the science of cocktail robotics was woefully neglected until some enterprising alkies created Roboexotica, a convention to celebrate cyber-assisted drunkenness. The action is taking place this weekend in Vienna, and from the looks of the opening night pictures, things are still as academic as they were when I was in college. (Just looking at this molten steel beer bong gives me a tear of nostalgia.) The homemade replicator—or “reprap”—you see above stamps shot glasses using a thermistor, stepper-controlling arduinos and, of course, an extruder. Man those nerds know how to party! [Roboexotica, Brex's Flickr Page and Sean Bonner's Metroblogging Vienna via Make] More »