New Twitter Shifts the Car from Neutral into Drive

Twitter:

?Today, we?re introducing a new, re-engineered Twitter.com that provides an easier, faster, and richer experience.?

This is a smart move. It helps them on two fronts: bringing in more brand marketers and newbies.

Twitter had been stuck. They are growing significantly for sure ? but all of it is coming off a small base of active users.

The redesign gives marketers more flexibility in design and newbies a reason to stay longer. This ? over time ? will turn them from passive users into more active ones that tweet.

It?s what they had to do get out of neutral gear.

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A Very Merry Thursday Product Post

First order of business - SparkFun is going to be closed tomorrow (12/24) and Monday (12/27) for the holiday. We'll be back up and running Tuesday, so plan your orders accordingly!

Being as this is the holiday season, I felt it fitting to add a little holiday cheer to my weekly new product posts. So in addition to the video and the usual list of products, this week I've included a poem written by yours truly.

Just days before Christmas, and my goal is to write
 A holiday poem, which is sure to delight.

I'll borrow this classic, and well known rhyme theme
And toss in a reference to an Internet meme.

Our product selection, it grows every week
We're doing our best, to help show off your geek!

The SparkFun red boxes, are all packed with care
With sensors and widgets, and electronics you wear!

With RGB LEDs, you can make them glow,
It will make you exclaim, 'I can haz double rainbow!'

We are quickly approaching, another free day
You're probably preparing, for possible dismay.

But don't fear or fret, for there's plenty for all
Actually not really, some of you might bawl.

There are more products to post, so I'll waste no more time
On trying to use puns, be clever, and rhyme.

Though I do hate to leave, we must call this done
So have a happy New Year, from all at SparkFun!
 

Now that you've seen the video and read my lovely adequate poem, let's have a look at all the new products we have this week.

If you're looking to kick it old school, these analog meters are the way to go. We have a current meter, which measures from 0-20mA and also a voltage meter which measures from 0-5VDC. Both are a great size for embedding into a project enclosure and would look fantastic in a finished product.

The serial LCD kit allows you to build your very own 16x2 serial-controller LCD. Using the pre-programmed ATMega328 and some other parts (all included), you can make a kit that can display serial text on the included LCD. We've even broken out some pins on the ATMega328 so you can program it to be your full microcontroller!

Although we're calling this a kit, the MOSFET power control kit is really just a MOSFET breakout board. It uses a RFP30N06LE MOSFET and some screw terminals to allow you to easily use higher powered devices with your microcontroller. These can be useful to have on hand.

Some of our favorite projects always seem to include fire somehow. I am also a personal fan of Mythbusters, so it's only fitting that we would carry something that can be used as an igniter for such projects. The piezo igniter is just like the one found in gas grills. This one has a nice 'click' to it, and a long lead for remote mounting. We're not sure what to do with this, but we sure hope you do.

The ShiftBrite has been a pretty popular product so we're excited to talk about a few other products from MaceTech. The MegaBrite is a brighter version of the ShiftBrite. It uses 5-chip 100mA red, green, and blue LEDs. Each LED provides about 35,000 mcd, which is pretty bright! With an SPI interface, these can be daisy-chained with other modules to create a really impressive display.

The ShiftBar is essentially an SPI LED driver board. Think of it as a ShiftBrite or MegaBrite without LEDs. You can use this to control RGB LED bars, individual LEDs, or the Satellite Module 001. It also has a handy trimpot so you can adjust the current limiting for your LEDs.

The Satellite Module 001 is cluster of really bright LEDs. It has four reds, three blues and three greens. You wire the board up like a traditional RGB LED and can control it with the ShiftBar or another controller. Unlike the ShiftBrite or MegaBrite, this does not have an SPI interface, so it allows you to just use it like a big, bright LED.

This little piezo element can have a lot of uses. You can use it as a knock sensor, buzzer, or vibration sensor. By reading the output, you can easily detect taps or knocks. Or, by feeding it a signal, you can make a buzzer, alarm, or miniature speaker. These come in very handy indeed!

Measuring a fluid's level can be quite difficult. You could use some sort of mechanism with floaters and such, but if you're looking for a way to easily integrate the reading into your electronics, the liquid level sensor is perfect. This sensor can measure up to 8 inches of depth by simply changing its resistance based on the level of the liquid.

The right hardware can make all the difference in a project. In addition to our other standoffs, we now have two standoffs in black. They come in lengths of 3/4" and 3/8" and are tapped to accept 4-40 screws. They look quite nice in person and will add a little bit of style to your next project.

We have a new version of the geiger counter out. Not a lot has changed, mostly just some footprints and some layout fixes. It's still the same ol' counter, but we thought it would be worth mentioning since it has a new product number.

Speaking of revisions, we also have a new revised XBee shield. As with the geiger counter, we've just fixed a few footprints and revised the layout a bit and labeling a bit. Functionality remains the same!

As always, we will have even more products for you next week. Have a fantastic Christmas, Festivus, or just weekend. We'll see you next week with another product post.

Source: http://www.sparkfun.com/news/510

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6' Robot Revived After 45 Years

Former Royal Air Force officer Tony Sale built a 6-foot-tall humanoid robot from scraps of a crashed bomber back in 1950. Now, decades later, Mr. Sale has retrieved the walking robot from storage. George, as he is named, was built way before computers were affordable and small enough, so he's remotely controlled. All it took was new batteries and some oil to bring George to life after standing quietly in the garage for 45 years. George the robot has been donated to the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park which he helped found.

Source: http://robots.net/article/3076.html

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Winners of the Bing Windows Phone 7 tweet giveaway

Last week, we asked you to tweet your favorite Bing features for chance to get your hands on a new Windows Phone 7.   Thank you to everyone who took part.   It was great to hear what you love about Bing.  Some of our favorites included:

  • @Bing I absolutely love the travel section of Bing! I can figure out different flight costs and times that it's the cheapest #windowsphone
  • @Bing I love the new Bing Holiday Shopping app on Facebook. For easy search & compare shopping! #windowsphone
  • @Bing gets me the info I need quickly without needing to link surf. Bing powers my life on the go with maps and voice search. #windowsphone
  • @bing I love how my previous searches are highlighted at the top. I can click it if I want to repeat a search. #windowsphone
  • I love @bing because it is a combo of a visually pleasing interface (e.g. video search) and relevant, useful search results. #windowsphone

Congratulations to the 5 lucky tweeters who will soon be the owners of a brand new Windows Phone 7, Samsung Focus available on the ATT Network.

1. Stacy – Seattle, WA

2. Michael – New York, NY

3. Wadha– Sacramento, CA

4. Kerri– Clinton, MD

5. Sergej – Dallas, TX

image

Because this was so successful, we will be holding another giveaway soon.  So keep checking back.

In the meantime, keep letting us know what you think at twitter.com/bing.

- The Bing Team

Source: http://www.bing.com/community/Site_Blogs/b/search/archive/2010/12/17/winners-of-the-bing-windows-phone-7-tweet-giveaway.aspx

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Gamestop and Toys R Us offering Pokemon download promos next month

If your six-strong roster in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver could use a little sparkle, a little pizazz, a little shimmer -- any of that stuff, a handful of download promotions slated for early next year should satisfy your needs quite well. You can download rare, shiny versions of legendary monsters Raikou, Entei and Suicine during various week-long periods in January at Gamestop. Check out the schedule of their availability after the jump, and plan your retail excursions accordingly.

If you're looking for something a little more plain Jane, you can pick up Ash's Pikachu -- a version of the iconic lightning mouse with a special set of abilities -- at Toys R Us between January 30 and February 5. Don't get it twisted, though; this guy starts out at level 50. This isn't the adorable mascot you came to know and love in the anime series. This Pikachu is a hardened killing machine.

[Thanks, Michael!]

Continue reading Gamestop and Toys R Us offering Pokemon download promos next month

JoystiqGamestop and Toys R Us offering Pokemon download promos next month originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/12/29/gamestop-and-toys-r-us-offering-pokemon-download-promos-next-mon/

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It's the End of the Web as We Know It

The following essay is also my AdAge column this week.

Wither the web? It's hard to believe but soon, if not already, the web is going to become a lot less interesting to consumers -- and just as it approaches its 20th birthday.
 
According to Morgan Stanley, within five years global internet consumption on mobile devices will surpass the same activity on PCs. This sounds like good news. It's natural to think that browsers on the third screen (phones) and the fourth screen (tablets) will simply replace time spent in front of the same on a PC. That's not the case.
 
Mobile devices, by their nature, force users to become more mission-oriented. As more internet consumption shifts to gadgets, it's increasingly becoming an app world and we just live in it. Innovation, fun, simplicity and single-purpose utility will rule while grandiose design and complexity will fall by the wayside.
 
It won't be enough just to build branded mobile applications that repurpose content across all of the different platforms. That's like newspapers taking the print experience and replicating it on the web as they tried back in the 1990s. Rather, we will need to rethink, remix and repackage information for an entirely different modality than platforms of yore.
 
First, let's look at the trends.
 
1) The canvas. The iPad has been deemed by some a blank slate. When you use any mobile device, you're really only able to do one thing at a time. This means that we become entirely engrossed in whatever we have on the screen. Companies will need to up the ante if they hope to keep users in their fold longer. Development costs will go up, and the economics of content and experiences will look more like Hollywood -- where a few hits deliver enough profit to pay for the dogs -- than Madison Avenue.
 
2) Content snacking. How often do you consume media meals -- e.g. engage with a unit of media like a newspaper, magazine or film from start to finish in one sitting? My guess is that you do this less than you did 10 years ago. Content snacking rules today. Popular digital metrics, such as time spent, may soon be useless.
 
3) Infinite choice. It never ceases to amaze me what a single mobile device can hold. Every time I turn on my phone, my finger needs to decide what's more important to me at that time -- friends, work, entertainment, etc. Choice will scale, human attention is finite, and mobile devices put all of this in our pockets. Time is your competition.
 
To succeed, here are three new behaviors we need to consider:
 
1) Adoption. Marketing and media has long been about invention. We like to control our own destiny by bringing to bear the best content and experiences we can muster. However, in an app world it's easier to seek out those who have been successful and partner or acquire them. That's the road chosen by Disney with its purchase of Tapulous, and eBay (an Edelman client) with its acquisition of Red Laser.
 
2) Collaboration. In the mobile world, there's strength in numbers. To fight shrinking attention spans, companies will need to increasingly create partnerships to cut through the noise. Look for applications to pop up that are co-branded and curate content in high-interest verticals.
 
3) Context. When it comes to mobile, one size doesn't always fit all. Content producers will need to rethink how they package up information and chunk it down. ESPN, for example, is rolling out mobile applications that cater to local markets, in addition to wider offerings that are all things to all people.
 
Marketers and media companies must adapt to this new construct -- and fast -- or they will get left behind.
 
Photo credit: #53/365 BlackBerry Apps by Tatsuhiko+ (RIM is an Edelman client)

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Best of Make: Online 2010 - Crafts

In the Maker Shed: Monochron clock kit

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The Monochron clock kit from the Maker Shed is a completely hackable, open source, clock kit that has a funky retro feel. It can be programmed to display several different clock "faces" or you can program you own. The kit comes complete with all electronics (soldering required), laser cut case, and power plug.

From Make: Projects

Build a Monochron clock kit

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Maker Shed Store | Digg this!

Source: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/12/in_the_maker_shed_monochron_clock_k_1.html

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