Delaware authorized online gambling today, as the state Senate approved a bill by a 14-6 vote to allow online betting in the state.

The bill narrowly passed the required three-fifths majority. The measure heads to Gov. Jack Markell for his signature. The law is one of the first that shows a turnabout in sentiment about the legality of online gambling, and this change might prove to be interesting to companies such as Zynga that make online casino games such as Zynga Poker, where players cannot bet and win real money, for now.

… Read More → "Delaware’s approval of online gambling will make social game companies perk up"

At the Olympic level, where cyclists are in roughly the same physical condition, the difference between victory and defeat often boils down to a bike’s aerodynamics. The more smoothly air flows over a frame and rider, the less wind resistance he will feel and the faster he’ll go. Engineers at Cervélo used aerospace-grade computational fluid dynamics software and … Read More → "Engineers master bicycle aerodynamics with the Cervélo P5"

Startup Leap Motion wasn’t kidding when it said that it had a tiny peripheral that could read gestures “200 times more accurate than anything else on the market.” We caught up with the Leap to see if it really is a mouse and keyboard killer.

We’ll admit that we were extremely skeptic of the Leap’s tracking capabilities but after only a few minutes of seeing it in … Read More → "Hands-on with Leap, the most advanced gesture system ever"

Lithium-ion batteries work by stacking active ingredients in layers. In your laptop and phone, the layers are stacked into a block, but a new process could make that seem quaint: spray-paint the necessary layers onto any surface like paint, to make an instant battery anywhere.
via Popular Science

Read More → "Electric spray paint could turn any surface into a battery"

A slight media kerfuffle broke out this week after The Daily Beast released its Digital Power Index, a list of the 100 most influential people in the tech world. The problem? Only seven of the 100 honorees were women. Out of the 54 judges responsible for choosing who was on the list, only 13 were women.

Outrage started bubbling up on Twitter, and The Daily Beast responded by inviting Rachel Sklar to comment on the lack of women on the list; she said, in part:

Either you think all these industries are … Read More → "‘Girls Who Code’ looks to close the tech gender gap"

Travel-friendly guitars like the Backpacker from Martin are all fine and dandy if you’re into acoustic playing, and those of us who prefer electric portability might opt for something like Traveler’s Speedster or Bob Wiley’s Ministar. But you’re still going to need to lug around an amp and cables in order to be heard. Stanford graduates Andrew Penrose and Ari Atkins have developed a go-anywhere … Read More → "Unlimited guitar with built-in amp comes with smartphone-based digital effects"

The world of aviation took step backwards when the Concorde was withdrawn in 2003, but now we could leap forward again with a new business jet being developed by Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and Gulfstream, with help from NASA.

The X-54 will be able to reach speeds of 2,500-mph, or nearly double what the Concorde was capable of achieving. That will let you fly half way around the world from London to Sydney in just … Read More → "Boeing, Gulfstream and NASA collaborating on Mach 3 jet"

Even if you’ve seen the Leap Motion before, this is a demo you’ve got to watch.

By now, many of us are aware of the Leap Motion, a small, $70 gesture control system that simply plugs into any computer and, apparently, just works. If you’ve seen the gesture interfaces in Minority Report, you know what it does. More importantly, if you’re familiar with the touch modality — and at this point, most of us are — the interface is entirely intuitive. It’s touch, except it happens in the space in front of … Read More → "The most important new technology since the smart phone arrives December 2012"

Massimo Banzi is the co-creator of the popular electronics prototyping system called Arduino. He spoke at TEDGlobal 2012 about the cool things people are making with Arduino.

Massimo Banzi helped invent the Arduino, a tiny, easy-to-use open-source microcontroller that’s inspired thousands of people around the world to make the coolest things they can imagine — from toys to satellite gear. Because, as he says, “You don’t need anyone’s permission to make something great.”

via Boing Boing

A few months ago we caught wind of Tindie, a site that gives builders, tinkerers, makers, and hackers a place to sell their projects. Well, Tindie has gone live and it looks to be cooler than we expected.

Already there are some pretty awesome projects available on Tindie such as a truly awesome MIDI keyboard, an Arduino synthesizer, and even a robot that plays Angry Birds.
via HackADay

Read More → "An Etsy for electronics"