Gizmodo: circuits

Xerox Develops Ink To Print Circuits On Nearly Anything

Rosa Golijan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:07:50 EDT

Wearable electronics aren't news, but being able to make them cheaply and easily is. Xerox has developed an ink with which you can print circuits onto plastic, film, fabric, and nearly anything you can think of.

From more durable, flexible electronics to nifty, wearable gear to cheap, throw away gadgets, the possible applications will be endless the day Xerox's "silver bullet" ink hits the market. Despite the lack of details on when that'll actually happen or what sort of equipment will be required for the actual printing process, I'm already daydreaming about pants with all sorts of gadgetry built in. [Venture Beat]

Silver Circuit Goo For Thinner Gadgets

Brian Lam — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:00:46 EDT

The NYTimes has a post on Vertical Circuits, a company that has developed a 3d circuit stacking technology using a silver based epoxy—goo, basically—to closer fuse flash memory chips together.

The goo surpasses other 3d circuit technologies based on wires or solid material because it saves even more space. In that case, we're talking about 1.6mm of height, but that's enough to fit in a bigger screen or battery in something as thin as an mp3 player or slim phone.

The piece is pegged to ex CEO of Seagate Bill Watkins' arrival there. [NYT]

Hmmmm... Breakfast

Jesus Diaz — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:30:00 EDT

Some people would call these edible circuits—made of all things sugar, spice, and everything nice—"candy." I call them breakfast ready to be dunked in 100% fat chocolate milk. [Flickr via Boing Boing]

Bare Conductive Ink Turns Your Body Into Handy Extension Cord

Mark Wilson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Bare is a paint that can transform your body into a circuit (without the inconvenience of electrocuting you).

The product of a few Royal College of Art students, the non-toxic temporary paint, applied with a simple brush or stamp, turns your skin into a conductive surface. Mostly, the paint is meant for artistic performance. But give it some time. You'll see those body paint dudes at your favorite sporting event lighting up bulbs in no time. [Bare via MAKE]

Cara Lamp is Crystal-Like LED and Silver Circuit-Board Beauty

Kit Eaton — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:18:00 EDT

Those little interlaced blades of ice you sometimes get on the edge of ultra-cold things in wet air: that's the image that popped into my head on seeing the Cara lamp. It's by designer Andreas Ostwald and that fragile crystal-like shape is composed of interlocked flat white circuit boards with silver tracks, sprinkled with 70 white LEDs. How lighting should be to my mind: simple, elegant and stunning. Though presumably it's designer status gives it a price premium that'll place it beyond my lustful reach. [Contemporist via LuxuryLaunches]

Fragile Future Modular Lighting System Sprouts LED Dandelions From Your Wall

John Mahoney — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Make a wish, blow, see if the LED dandelion seeds sprouting from the circuit board on your wall stay or go. That seems to be the idea with Fragile Future 2, a cool modular lighting system by Dutch house Design Drift. Each piece is approximately 8x12 inches, and they can be combined in groups of up to 50 for custom wall-climbing circuits. I'll take some. [Design Drift, Generate Design via Technabob]

Scientists Build Computer Circuit From Brain Cells

Sean Fallon — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel have managed to build reliable logic gates out of neurons instead of wires. The process actually sounds fairly simple: a glass plate is coated with cell repellent then etched with the desired circuit pattern. The pattern itself is coated with a cell-friendly adhesive which forces the cells to grow only in the scratched areas. Because these scratched paths are so thin, the neurons grow in one direction only—forming straight connections around the circuit. This method has been used to replicate an AND logic gate that only produces output when it receives two inputs.

When stimulated with a drug, the neurons send signals around the circuit. "By changing the width of the bridges, the researchers are able to control how many axons link to the neuron island, and tune their device to behave like an AND gate."

But what are the benefits? While there are doubters about whether brain "circuits" actually resemble logic gates, the researchers involved with the project believe that brain-cell logic circuits could bridge the gap between computers and the nervous system. That would give pasty weak nerds hope that they could rise up one day as a pasty, yet powerful race of cyborgs. [New Scientist]

Autonomous DIY Fireflies Make Order From Blinking Chaos

John Mahoney — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:40:00 EDT

Start a swarm of these DIY Firefly LEDs a-blinking, and they'll create a random pattern and blink an angry red. But after a few minutes, thanks to some clever microcontroller code and a light sensor, they'll soon all be blinking in sync with a nice, calming blue color. It's a neat bit of DIY electronics that's elegant in its simplicity, and surprisingly cool to see in action on video.

Even if you disturb their perfection with a flashlight, the system will eventually self-correct:

The code works like this:

Each firefly has a value that stands for the power to flash. This value rises over time. If the power reaches a certain limit, the firefly flashes and the power is reset to zero. If the firefly detects another flash nearby, it increases the power by a small boost value. That way it will flash slightly earlier than last time. Doing so over and over again may lead to all fireflies flashing in sync.

For instructions on making your own, check out: [Tinkerlog via MAKE]

New Memory Resistor Circuit Could Make Instant-Boot PCs, Emulate Brain Functions

Jason Chen — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:16:56 EDT

A fourth circuit element called memristor (the first three being resistors, capacitors and inductors) has been proposed since 1971, but HP labs has finally made a working physical model of the thing. What's so special about this type of circuit? It remembers how much charge previously flowed through it, leading to applications like modeling and simulating brain behavior in hardware instead of software. For the rest of us, it can totally revolutionize PCs by remembering the state of RAM when you shut off your machine, instantly booting back up where you left off when you come back—as opposed to current RAM that just dumps its load like so much last night's fajitas when powered down. [Wired]

Circuits Made of Paper, Printed By You

Mark Wilson — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:38:57 EDT

There's very little that's practical about these paper circuits. Oh, except that they can be printed out as a template and glued directly to a cardboard base. From there, builders can trace markings with wire and the circuit practically builds itself (the link here has some cool music boards for the aspiring eletroneers among you to try out). But in terms of building a personal Batcomputer out of nothing more than processed trees...you might want to invest in technologies that won't go up in flames when the Penguin ashes his cigarette. [PCBs via MAKE]

SFW Circuit Sex Positions

Adam Frucci — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:00:00 EST

You know you've hit rock bottom when a bunch of circuits are seeing more action than you are. Wait, correction: you know you've hit rock bottom when you get turned on by a bunch of circuits seeing more action than you are.

Not that I've hit rock bottom, I'm just saying… you know, for your reference. A couple more shots after the hop.

–Adam Frucci

Thanks for the tip, Blakeley!

LED and Resistor Circuits Sex Positions [Smithappens]

Geek-Out the Kiddos Early with Snap Circuits

Travis Hudson — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:30:57 EST

Want to ensure your children will never become a booze-chugging floozy-banging meathead jock? Start them out early on the path to geekdom with the Snap Circuits. Snap Circuits teaches kids all of the ins and outs of circuits without the need of a soldering iron. Some of the basic projects include radios, digital voice recorders and more.

Snap Circuits are available in a range of sizes with prices beginning $30. A small price to pay for the innocence of your first-born. – Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via OhGizmo!]

Circuitboard Coasters

gizmodo.com — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 15:09:10 EST

Remember the kid you picked on back in high school who was winning math Olympiads and what not? You should probably give him a call and apologize this holiday season. In fact, a gift is more appropriate. So why not get him these totally radical circuitboard coasters? Made from REAL circuitboard and not painted on, these coasters are the epitome of geekdom. Now I know this is not the first time you've seen a circuit board used as a coaster. But all hues of the PCBoard rainbow are represented here—amber, green, blue, and others. You can net a set of six coasters for only $20. You'll still get picked on if you use them, but at least you won't have those ugly water rings on your wooden tables.

Circuitboard Coasters [Oh! Gizmo]