If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it – follow-up

After exploring the wonderful world of “State of repair“ from the Motherboard, I kept a  Close eye on other documentaries they put online.
And today I spotted a fantastic item (with a great title): “The Rogue Tesla Mechanic”.

It shows (in a painful way), what direction we are heading with our own capabilities to diagnose and fix stuff we buy (and though we fully owned)

The more I think about it, the clearer it gets that this really is an issue. Not only for professional users like the farmers and their tractors, but also for us, consumers who buy produces and automatically are ‘held hostage’ (in a friendly way…) by the companies that makes the products. It has been like that for many years, but recently I feel it has become part of the business plan / strategy. Before it was more the unwillingness or lack of interest to do something about it.

Just like with trying to improve the safekeeping of our private data with GDPR, I could be an idea to legislate diagnose and repair capabilities on a larger (European) scale, to force companies to design differently.

The reality is that new technology (upcoming IoT products) are so bad when it comes to ownership / control / secure that it becomes funny. just check “The internet of shit“.
(or check their Facebook page)

Eye-watering funny (and sad…)

The below example shows that selling you expensive headphones (300 euro) is only the beginning of the milking process…

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link-o -rama-2

Without words….

Feast your eyes on this fully automatic Hamburger machine that uses fresh ingredients.

Ain’t she pretty!


 

DARPA demonstrates 6 new technologies.


As always with DARPA; cool and scary at the same time….


100 degrees celsius!


This Frisdenker keeps his eyes open for interesting tech from all over the world, so also Germany is on his radar.

After sending my phone on an ‘ending-at-the-ground-flight’ when I stopped but my phone not, I’ve though about this case when I shelled out the 100 euro to repair my phone.,.. And this school kid, from Aalen is fixing it.


Peloton; wind drag experiment

In the special wind tunnel from the TU/e in Eindhoven a whole Peloton of cyclists was tested. CRAY computers had to crunch for 54 hours to do the calculation with a total of 49 Terabytes of working memory; a world record for a Sports application 🙂

 

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A new Link-o-Rama

Lumen mixed reality; interesting concept.
Then I remembered that Arvind is the guy from DIY Hacking…. yep.


A very old idea in a new and hip(ster?) way: The Ground fridge
https://vimeo.com/142989143


If you know the sounds of these things, you are older then me 🙂
Great project that is ‘saving’ sounds from the past.

»Conserve the sound« is an online museum for vanishing and endangered sounds. The sound of a dial telephone, a walkman, a analog typewriter, a pay phone, a 56k modem, a nuclear power plant or even a cell phone keypad are partially already gone or are about to disappear from our daily life.


A giant Ship-hull-breaking Hexapod robot from the TU Delft.


Raspberry Pi’s can be used for everything!
Just take a look at this flying sensor board.
Great fun and very DIY.

 

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Dutch Technology Week Eindhoven

A Busy, busy week in Eindhoven during the annual DTW.

Not only the Night of the Nerds and the Quiz Night XL, but also the HTOR was on the program. And on sunday the 11th it was time for the Expat Faire for Internationals.

Studio040 made a movie (in dutch):

I also competed again during the Quiz Night XL with 3 VDL ETG teams.
We came out 14th, 117th and 118th; not bad 🙂

the TUe cursor made a nice movie about the Quiz Night XL

 

Claudia Angenent published some behind the scene pictures of Quiz Night XL.

Quiz Night XL - Science & Technology 2018

Quiz Night XL - Science & Technology 2018

Quiz Night XL - Science & Technology 2018

 

Also a nice overview of the HTOR via twitter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A visit to Maker Faire Berlin 2018

In the weekend of 26/27 may, Maker Faire Berlin was organized at FEZ Berlin.

As you all know, I’m a big fan of the whole Maker movement and the Maker Faires.

So in preparation to Eindhoven Maker Faire 2018, I visited #MFB18 this year.

It was a great experience, even when it was a lot of traveling only for 1 day of Maker faire activities. The Eindhoven maker faire organisation also got a spot, right in front of the entrance. Our soap bubble machine worked wonders on the enthusiastic kids (and adults).
the picture below give a nice overview of the event.
I have to say I was positively surprise by the size, number of participants and most of all the venue itself. Of course the Klokgebouw is also fantastic, but the available space at FEZ Berlin is much bigger and there is more nature to interact with.

Foto’s courtesy of: @glpare, Mjanssen and myself.

see also this and this post for previous Maker Faire’s in Eindhoven.

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So, what are robots up to these days?

Back in 2015 I linked to a story about a Dutch company planning to 3D-print a bridge.
Now, 3 years later the bridge is almost done.
And I must say, it looks beautifully!

It’s not only a nice new way to 3D print stuff, but because of printing the bridge, it is also a engineering revolution.

When completed, I’m sure many tourists will gather to see it.


If you hate putting together IKEA stuff, but love their designs, these two robots can help putting an IKEA chain together in 20 minutes. The remarkable thing here is not the time, but the simultaneous motion, the visual capabilities, the motion planning and cooperation to get the task done. The Nanyang Technological University in Singapore is investigating this with the use of mostly “off hte shelf robot parts”.


Fully autonomous robot snow plough, isn’t that a good idea?

Yes, why not? meet YETI.

 

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Eindhoven Maker Faire 2018 – Start!

Hi all,

As you all know, I talk a lot about raspberry pi’s and even more about Maker Faire’s. (and here, and here)
Especially the Eindhoven Maker Faire is close to my nerdy hart.

Today march 22 marks the kick-off for the brand new Eindhoven Maker Faire 2018.

So much energy in the room and way too much makers sharing their passion of simply making stuff.
Sometimes in the process, improving the world and sometimes as a big exclamation point to the way we all live our lives.

Look at the program so far and get involved in the movement 🙂

“Years a go” I already knew: The Maker Faire belongs to Eindhoven!
(If only it could be in the Evoluon!)

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