Gizmodo: switches

LeaveMeAloneBox is Douglas Adams-esque in Its Simplicity

AddyDugdale — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:45:00 EDT

Inspired by Claude Shannon and Marvin Minsky's Ultimate Machine, the LeaveMeAloneBox is made of a couple of hobby R/C servos, a switch, a microcontroller, and a battery pack, all contained in a little box and with a sprinkling of code. "I get a pretty consistent reaction," says Michael, the guy who made it. "First no one wants to touch it. Next, someone reaches out tentatively and flips the switch. After that, all you hear is laughter and everyone's trying it out." And this is how it reminds me of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

Arthur listened for a short while, but being unable to understand the vast majority of what Ford was saying he began to let his mind wander, trailing his fingers along the edge of an incomprehensible computer bank, he reached out and pressed an invitingly large red button on a nearby panel. The panel lit up with the words Please do not press this button again. He shook himself.

Its slender hands remind me of my childhood ghoulish coffin bank, out of which an emaciated hand would snake, and avariciously grasp my pocket money before returning from whence it came. [LeaveMeAloneBox via MAKE]

USB Hub Has Individual On/Off Switches

Jason Chen — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:00:05 EST

USB Hubs come in all shapes and sizes (including fruit cake), but this is the first time we've seen a USB hub with individual on/off switches. This isn't only useful for switching off stuff without unplugging it and making a mess, it also helps save power when you're on laptop battery mode. It's a non-powered hub, however, so you won't be able to run four external USB hard drives off this thing. Those of you with four external hard drives should probably be getting a Windows Home Server unit and plugging those into there anyway. [Brando]

Essential Wall Dimmer Video Hands On, Soft as a Baby's Butt

Charlie White — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 10:17:30 EDT

When we first told you about the Essential Wall Dimmer from International Fashion Machines, we were wondering if its carpet-like conductive switch felt like a Brillo pad. The company sent us a demo unit, and we can now definitively tell you that it feels soft as silk, just like a fine piece of carpet. The $99 switch works well, and is extremely easy to turn on and off. We only noticed one slight downside to these pretty wall switches.

The only drawback we saw was the inability to have two or three of these switches together in a dual-gang or triple-gang arrangement, a common configuration around here. Some of us wished the conductive-fabric switching part was available in more than just that gray color, but the rest of us thought the whole concept was way cool. Big thumbs up! [International Fashion Machines]