soldered

Italian artist Leonardo Ulian's mesmerizing piece "Technological mandala 02," doesn't look like the average sacred art commonly seen in Buddhism and Hinduism.

Ulian, based in London, created the mandala with hundreds of microchips, circuits, resistors, and other components found within everyday electronics.… Read more

Ford's newest employee has moved from the army to the assembly line. But since he's virtual, that type of job change shouldn't pose a problem.

Designed to test the safety of Ford's auto factories, Santos is a virtual avatar that can mimic and record all the physical strains and pains that plague us poor humans. By reaching, lifting, and stretching in his own virtual world, he can provide feedback on how those activities might affect an actual person.

Initially created for the U.S. Department of Defense to help find ways to relieve physical strain on soldiers, Santos is now working at Ford testing the ergonomics of assembly lines. His job is to perform the same physical tasks that a factory worker would perform when building a car to gauge their impact on the human body. The automaker's goal is to improve the quality and safety of its factories before assembly lines are even created.

… Read more

Wednesday's video was a basic overview of how to wire up an amplifier to your car stereo system. Well, today's clip is a practical demonstration of grinding grounds, soldering the terminals, and running the power cable from the front end of the car all the way to the back.

To run the wire from the front of the car where your alternator and battery are, you'll need to find or make a hole big enough for your wire to make it into the interior of the vehicle. (Don't worry, the narrator describes where to look for … Read more

Tuesday's video blog was all about wiring and hooking up an aftermarket head unit into your car stereo, but let's suppose you want to create a big, bumpin' system. In that case, you want to get yourself an amp. And if you want to see how to hook up an amp to your car stereo, you've come to the right place, as this Web clip is a practical demonstration on how to make it happen.

This instructional clip goes over some of the tools and materials you'll need to wire and install the amp, how to … Read more

Words, words, words. We're all about e-book readers and obscure vocabulary today.

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Plastic Logic eReader.

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John in Israel wants to know about getting radio on his iPhone. In … Read more

Nvidia on Wednesday introduced its GeForce 9400M graphics chip, a direct threat to Intel's graphics silicon.

Apple's choice of the 9400M for its refreshed MacBook line heralds a much-needed infusion of competition in the market for mobile integrated graphics--a low-cost solution that is built into Intel chipsets. To date, Intel has dominated the market, with many of the top notebook vendors defaulting to Intel graphics in low-end models and ultraportables. Apple chose Intel graphics for previous versions of the MacBook and MacBook Air.

Not this time though. Apple did its homework and CEO Steve Jobs made a point Tuesday … Read more

Up for a do-it-yourself project this weekend? Rarely does Web site swag get as intricate as the Digg button from Adafruit Industries. The $20 kit gives you everything you need (sans soldering tools) to put together a slick, working Digg button that has a three-digit counter on it to keep track of Diggs. Every time you click the tiny, red button, you get a nice "dug" message on the LED display, and the count goes up by one. The real-world possibilities for this are endless.

The kits were first made available at last month's Digg 1 million user party, … Read more