TechWorld

We’ve known for a while that Microsoft doesn’t care too much about Windows phones these days, but this time it’s official. Not as in Microsoft provided us with a statement official, but as in 10Q SEC filing official, which Microsoft needs to file every quarter after its earnings report. Documents published by Microsoft for Q3 come with a little change from the previous quarter, and as spotted by DrWindowsPhone, the mobile platform isn’t getting any new improvements. As you can see in the screenshot included in this article, in Q2 Microsoft planned “significant improvements in research, development, and marketing for existing products, services, and technologies, including the Windows operating system, […] and Windows Phone.” For the next quarter, Windows Phone is no longer listed as a platform getting investments, and this is just another sign that Microsoft is giving up on this platform. As we’ve told you last week, Microsoft also confirmed in the call with financial analysts after th

It is not easy being a spy or a soldier: you have to be completely foucsed in dangerous situations, assess information in the field, speak many foreign languages, and also handle all kinds of technical weaponry and equipment. Learning how to do all of this needs a lot of training, which is why the US Department of Defence research wing wants to figure out other ways to make their workers learn the vital skills faster – even if they have to zap them to get the job done. To explore all the possibilities, Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA has awarded more than US$50 million in their funding to eight teams which are researching on how electrical stimulation of the nervous system can help them facilitate learning. The four-year program is called TNT(Targeted Neuroplasticity Training), aims to be the identity safe and also optimal neurostimulation methods which can activate what is called synaptic plasticity, the ability of synapses to weaken or strengthen, and by doing so,

Just two weeks ago our favorite supplier of cheap ESP8266 boards, WeMos, released the long-awaited LOLIN32 ESP-32 board , and it’s almost a killer. Hackaday regular [deshipu] tipped us off, and we placed an order within minutes; if WeMos is making a dirt-cheap ESP32 development board, we’re on board! It came in the mail yesterday. (They’re out of stock now , more expected soon.) If you’ve been following the chip’s development, you’ll know that the first spin of ESP-32s had some silicon bugs (PDF) that might matter to you if you’re working with deep sleep modes, switching between particular clock frequencies, or using the brown-out-reset function. Do the snazzy new, $8, development boards include silicon version 0 or 1? Read on to find out! The Good News The board design is basically perfect. It takes more than a little inspiration from Adafruit’s Feather series . Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It has 4 MiB flash memory onboard, a USB-serial adapter (cp210x), and a LiPo b

For the millions of people suffering from Parkinson’s and other causes of hand tremor, there is new hope in the form of [mohammedzeeshan77]’s entry into the Hackaday Prize: a glove that analyzes and controls the tremors . The glove uses an accelerometer and a pair of flex sensors to determine the position of the hand as it oscillates. A Particle Photon crunches the raw data to come up with the frequency and amplitude of the tremors and uploads it to the cloud for retrieval and analysis by medical staff. Hand tremors can vary in frequency and severity depending on the cause. Some are barely perceptible movements, and others are life-disrupting shakes. By analyzing the frequency and amplitude of these tremors, doctors can better understand a patient’s condition. The best part of this glove is that it also provides immediate relief to the wearer by stabilizing the hand. A rapidly spinning super precision gyroscope counteracts the tremor oscillations as it tries to maintain its position. T

One of the smash hits of the 1970s arcade was Atari’s  Lunar Lander . A landing craft in orbit around a moon would descend slowly towards the surface, and through attitude and thrust controls the player had the aim of bringing it safely in to land. Many a quarter would have been poured into the slot by eager gamers wanting to demonstrate their suitability for astronaut service. It was to this game that [Chris Fenton] turned when he was looking for inspiration for the 2016 NYCResistor Interactive show, and the result was a  Lunar Lander game with a difference, one in which the gameplay was enacted through a physical lander and lunar surface . In this case the moon in question is a papier-mâché-covered inflatable ball, and the lander is a 3D-printed model on the end of a lead screw. Control is provided by an Arduino, with a rough facsimile of the original control panel and a set of microswitches on the model to detect a crash or a safe landing. The result is a surprisingly playable game

Festo has released a video showing the workings of their BionicCobot , a pneumatic robot arm developed for lending a helping hand to humans at a workstation. Since it works intimately with humans, it has to be safe, producing no harmful movements, and reacting when encountering an obstacle such as an arm containing delicate human bone. This it does using pneumatics and rotary vanes. Rotary vane in action The arm has seven degrees of freedom, three in the shoulder, one in the elbow, another in the lower arm, and two in the wrist. But you won’t find any electric motor or gears. Instead each contains a rotary vane. Compressed air pushes on both sides of the vane. If the air pressure is the same on both sides of the vane then it doesn’t rotate. But with more pressure on one side than the other, the vane rotates. This is much like in a human arm, where two muscles work together to bend the arm, one muscle contracts while the other relaxes. Together they’re referred to as an antagonistic pai