Forty years after Apollo 11 landed on the moon, NASA open sourced the software code that ran the guidance systems on the lunar module.

By that time, the code was little more than a novelty. But in recent years, the space agency has built all sorts of other software that is still on the cutting edge. And as it turns out, like the Apollo 11 code, … Read More → "Wanna build a rocket? NASA’s about to give away a mountain of its code"

Does the world want an open source laptop? We’re about to find out.

The hardware/software team of bunnie Huang and Xobs are offering their highly hackable, portable Novena computers to backers on the Crowd Supply crowfunding platform. bunnie’s post about the project on MAKE generated a lot of buzz. Here’s how they describe it.</ … Read More → "The world’s first open source laptop makes its debut"

We admit it, we’re suckers for workbenches and toolboxes. [Jon] must feel the same way, because he built this portable surface mount electronics lab. It’s a beast of a project, which might be why it’s project #666 on Hackaday.io. [Jon] spends a lot of time working off site, and keeps finding himself without proper surface mount soldering tools. Ever tried to stack an 0603 resistor with a 40 watt pistol grip iron? … Read More → "Portable SMT lab for the hacker on the go"

Scientists are only just beginning to understand how the brain works — from what transpires in it while we sleep to how to optimize its memoryto what love does to it to how music affects it — and the rest of us fall somewhere on the spectrum between fascinated and confused when it comes to the intricate inner workings of our … Read More → "Neurocomic: a graphic novel about how the brain works"

When you think of biotechnology, chances are you conjure up pharmaceutical companies or genetically-altered food. But when DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar recently took the floor before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on defense, mutant tomatoes weren’t exactly on the docket. Instead, Director Prabhakar announced that biotechnology would soon surge into the military industrial complex, and that DARPA would be at the crest of that wave.
via DVICE

Read More → "DARPA’s new biotechnology lab will focus on cyborg tech"

GREAT SCOTT!! Marty has travelled back in time and taken the Flux Capacitor with him. We’re not exactly sure where, so Doc Brown has authorized us to make these smaller Flux Capacitors to you so we can crowd-search time for Marty. Each one is capable of returning to a specific point in time, so you can join the search. Just plug it into your car’s … Read More → "Flux capacitor car charger"

Circuits–the wires that carry electricity from point A to point B in an electronic device–are becoming more and more low-tech. Scientists are wiring them into our clothes via silver nanowires or redefining the circuit altogether by trading wires for nontraditional conductive materials like slime mold.

But one of the biggest innovations has been making it easier than ever to fabricate our own circuits at … Read More → "Turn any inkjet printer into a circuit printer with this DIY kit"

True to its name, Goat Simulator starts you innocently enough: in a goat pen, with nothing but a sticky tongue and a hard skull to your name. Across the street, some protesters are holding a rally. You ram a lamppost into the crowd and headbutt the survivors, glitching several feet backwards as you try to lick one of their signs: NO PENIS SHAPED FOOD. An empty pool filled … Read More → "If you play one goat simulator in 2014, make it this one"

Deciphering the traces left by organisms – whether footprints, tracks, trails, burrows – is the realm of a discipline known as ichnology. Basically, ichnology is what you would get if you mixed Sherlock Holmes with felonious fossils. Ichnologists look at the shapes of tracks, their distribution, and other clues to learn more about the animals and the environment at the time the tracks were made.

We didn’t always know what … Read More → "Fossil detectives close the case on prehistoric spider footprints"

Smart glasses are expected to gain a lot of momentum as “wearable computing” takes root in the consumer market. A lot of the details, like how to protect privacy in a world full of smart glasses, still have to be worked out.

Sales of the devices could grow from 87,000 in 2013 to more than 10 million a year by 2018, according Juniper Research.

As you can … Read More → "Which smart glasses will be right for you?"