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RSS: HTC beginning Froyo rollout tomorrow? Maybe, maybe not:
HTC Europe director Mark Moons caused quite a stir t… http://bit.ly/8XABgg

RSS: Apple investigating issues with iOS 4 upgrade on iPhone 3G:
Back when we outlined the iOS 4 features missing… http://bit.ly/aORajh

RSS: Comic for July 28, 2010: http://bit.ly/colEVu

O’Reilly Media (the publisher of MAKE), in partnership with creativeLIVE, has just announced a new online course, Processing and Arduino in Tandem: Creating Your Own Digital Art Tools:

Create your own drawing and animation software-and learn basic programming and electronics skills at the same time. This engaging 5-week online course introduces you to two simple tools: Processing, a programming language for visual thinkers, and Arduino, a hardware platform for working with electronics. You’ll learn how to use these tools together to build something useful right away.

You don’t need programming or electronics experience to get started. Processing is easy to learn, and you’ll get to know Arduino with a starter kit. You’ll also have direct access to the instructor via online Q&A during the workshop. And here’s the best part: the courses are free. It’s a fun and inspiring way for designers, artists, and beginning programmers to learn basic graphics programming.

The course is free if you watch it live, and the video of the course is available for purchase ($89 for all five sessions, but the price is reduced to $49 until September 28, 2010). There is a project kit available for sale as well.

Schedule: Tuesdays @ 3 p.m. Pacific Time
August 31 – September 28, 2010
Each session is 90-120 minutes

Online Course: Processing and Arduino in Tandem

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Spotted in the MAKE Flickr Pool, this 3D printed set of chassis components from user nathanmatsuda:

So far I’ve made end panels for the duemilanove and the ethernet shield. Next up- a new top piece that’ll have an opening for the prototyping shield. Also planning a top piece for the touch shield (but I don’t have one of those yet).

The parts are available in his Shapeways shop.

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It’s a prototype called txtBOMBER, by Felix Vorreiter. It has seven solenoid-actuated pens and an Arduino for a brain. [via Dude Craft]

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RSS: 200 mile RF transmitter (and high altitude balloon):
If there is one thing we like, it’s a fellow hacker so … http://bit.ly/bCAxh2

photo: jurvetson

Matthew Reyes of NASA Ames sent word that the RocketMavericks launch event on Saturday in Nevada’s Black Rock desert was a resounding success. Traveling 28K feet aboard James Dougherty’s Intimidator-5 rocket was a payload consisting of a Nexus One/Arduino SmallSat. Matthew and his cohorts are championing the use of smartphone components to lower the cost of deploying a satellite and expect it to become even more affordable with every revision.

Civilian space exploration is starting to take off. In fact, MAKE: v24 will be our “DIY Space” issue, so if you’re working on an interesting project you think we should see, feel free to post a link in the comments.

Here’s a video with Matthew explaining the evolution of the SmallSat shot earlier this year at Maker Faire 2010:

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I went down to the LA Convention Center yesterday for the first day of SIGGRAPH, the annual computer graphics convention. Once of the coolest things I saw in the Emerging Technologies area was this tactile display for light and shadow called Touch Light Through the Leaves. It was created by Kunihiro Nishimura who says:

Touch Light Through the Leaves consists of a camera and 85 vibration units. The camera detects light and shadow, and the vibration units, controlled via image processing and vibration motors, change those inputs into tactile sensations. The display is palm-sized, so it can be used anywhere under various conditions.

People who have experienced this display report weird, new sensations. In their daily lives, light and shadow are perfectly ordinary, but when they feel light and shadow directly on their palms, they are “touched” by light for the first time.

I tried it out and agree that it’s an interesting sensation to feel light and shadow through the sense of touch. Next up, I’d like to walk through the dappled light of a forest trail while wearing a full-body tactile display leotard.

They had a few versions on display, including this lower resolution unit which runs off of a couple of Arduino Nanos and has pager motors inside drinking straws acting as actuators.

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RSS: Docky & application indicators, improved stacks and Docky user group: If applications were movie genres then … http://bit.ly/czczYE