In simple terms – the only terms you’ll get from me! – the circuit is made of a gold lining slobbered with a coating of microcapsules. When the circuit is broken (most probably due to heat or scratching) the microcapsules that are also broken in the process release their payload – a liquid metal that seeps into the crack and kills John Connor fills in the gap. This process happens so fast you’ll never notice that your gadget was even damaged. Watch the video below to hear more from one of the engineers’ team leaders, aerospace engineering Prof. Scott White. Excited Skynet zealots can fast forward to 1:36 to see the tech in action.

Seriously though, if this means longer lasting gadgets, then I’m all for it. I just wish they’d make a counterpart for humans too. Just to even the playing field.

[via Popular Science & Laboratory Equipment]

Analogmachines’ LED nametag kit includes everything you need (except for a soldering iron, solder and wire cutters) to construct your own custom LED name badge. Of course, the biggest problem with this kit is that the size of the grid pretty much limits you to a 5 letter name. Anything longer than that, and you might have to wear more than one badge side by side, which might look silly. Though if you’re wearing one of these in the first place, you probably don’t mind looking a little goofy in the first place.

The kit comes with 50 LEDs, and comes pre-programmed to turn all letters on, letter chase, fade or blink. Source code is provided, so you can do your own animations too.

You can grab the LED Nametag Kit over at Etsy for $20 now.

These cool Click watches not only incorporate DIP or turn switches into their faces, the switches actually serve a purpose. Each one of the mechanical switches on the watch activates various watch functions and display modes.

Flipping the switches to the proper positions will display time in 12 or 24-hour modes, show the date, day of week, or even flip into a special bar graph time mode if digits aren’t geeky enough for you.

Each CLICK watch is crafted from stainless steel, and also offers a backlight (yet again activated by a dip switch). I suppose you’ll need tiny fingers or the tip of a small screwdriver to really get the best use out of the switches, although I seem to remember getting pretty good with flipping them even with my fat digits after dealing with my fair share of misconfigured SCSI drive terminations.

As an added bonus, each CLICK watch ships in an awesome package made from a circuit board. I wonder what it’s a circuit for? It seems to have spots for USB, display and serial connectors, but I’m betting even if you soldered a bunch of parts to it, you wouldn’t get anything functional. Or I could be wrong.

CLICK watches are available in a variety of face and switch color, as well as black or silver stainless metal finishes. Each comes with either a band reminiscent of an old ribbon cable or with a stainless band. The ribbon strap version goes for $149.99(USD), while the stainless band model sells for $169.99. All models of the CLICK watch are available now over at Watchismo.

Engineers John Rogers and Todd Coleman have developed this tech. EES has electrodes capable of measuring brain, heart, and muscle activity, just like an EEG. It can then transmit this data wirelessly. The circuits stick to skin because they are extremely thin, and will adhere thanks to molecular forces. These circuits have been integrated without any pain, suffering or surgery, which is pretty cool. The circuits are applied just like a temporary tattoo. The wires of the circuits are elastic, so they can move about without breaking.

Soon, you will be able to integrate transistors, LEDs, photodetectors, RFID tags, capacitors and more onto your skin. Once these circuits get sophisticated enough, it could make interfacing with computers and our other electronic gadgets a lot different than how we do today.

[io9 via DVice]

Designed by a couple of photography geeks, Haje Jan Kamps and Ziah Fogel, the Triggertrap will be able to trigger your camera with whatever you want. Out of the box, the little gadget will trigger pictures when someone breaks a laser beam pointed at it, or if you make a loud sound like a clap or fire a gun. But the way it’s designed, pretty much anything that closes a circuit can be used. It can also be used to trigger time-lapse photos without any extra hardware – not just any time-lapse either, but non-linear time-lapse which can slow down or speed up as it goes.

If you’re wondering if it’ll work with your particular camera, here’s a quick write-up on how to figure that out, but it’s their hope to support all the current dSLRs models on the market. By default, it should support most wired triggers, but they’re also building in an IR diode which could eventually work with cameras that offer an IR remote trigger.

The Triggertrap is being released as open-source hardware, but if you’d like to support the project, you’ll want to head over to Kickstarter and back it with some cold, hard cash. For as little as $70, you can get one in kit form, or for $75 or more, you’ll get one fully-assembled, which seems like a bargain to me.

The ink of the pen is composed of silver, which, after drying, maintains conductivity even if it is bent or folded. This handheld device will lower the cost of producing certain types of circuits, and allow for the production of circuits directly on paper and other flexible materials.

The idea opens up a whole new range of flexible and disposable electronic circuits, as well as electronic art. The research team behind the prototype was led by engineers Jennifer Lewis and Jennifer Bernhard, from the College of Engineering of the University of Illinois. Their research is published in a paper called Pen-on-Paper Flexible Electronics in the Journal of Advanced Materials.

[via gizmag via designboom]

But instead of just cheaping out and cutting up some old circuits like we often see over on Etsy, these guys make their jewelry from mirror-polished stainless steel, then hung them each from a 16″ chain. The pendants themselves measure 2″ x 1.5″ and are available in either silver or gold finishes, but not in copper – which would be even more appropriate for a circuit board. Still, they’re quite good looking, IMHO.

If you’re looking for something a little more girly (or want you’re a guy and want to get your girlfriend something sweet and geeky), there’s always the version shaped like a little 1″x1″ heart, too.

I wonder if there’s a schematic available for the parts that could go into these things. I suppose if you really wanted to, you could solder some components in, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you won’t end up with a functional circuit. I guess you can always find out for yourself. Each of these circuit board necklaces sells for $60 (USD) over at the Design Glut shop over on Supermarket.

And you can get one from Enlighted Designs, a company that prides itself with producing illuminated clothing, including the all-new Circuit Board LED Tie.

The circuit board is actually just printed on the fabric but the LED lights integrated into the tie are fully functional and flash in different patterns. The addition of the LED lights will either make the tie more appealing to your geek side or make you recoil because of its hideousness. So which is it?

These ties are actually made-to-order so you can head on over to Englighted Designs to order one for $75 (USD).

One particular geek out there has taken one of those large fake foam pumpkins and cut the back out of it to make way for a control board, power supply, and a bunch of LED lights. The LEDs in this project are red and poked into the front of the pumpkin in an arrangement that allows the controller set up to provide different facial expressions.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The final project looks weird in the daylight, but when it’s dark, it looks really awesome. Plus, using a fake pumpkin means you don’t have to scoop out those disgusting pumpkin innards. The directions to replicate the LED pumpkin for yourself can be found over at The Vapor Trail.

The prototype circuit sends signals using radio waves in the 60GHz millimeter waveband (I think I saw them play at a local nightclub last night), and can transmit data at up to 11Gpbs over a distance of up to 14mm. As the components get further apart, transmission speeds drop to about 4.3Gbps from up to 60mm away.

In addition to cutting down on the complexity and cost of wiring, the breakthrough could someday be used to create gadgets that could be disassembled and maintained much more easily than today’s electronics with all of those wire harnesses that need to be disconnected for service. Never mind the fact that the wireless circuit board concept could allow for much more flexibility in where the various circuit boards are placed within a piece of equipment.

No word on if or when Sony will introduce this technology in any production devices, but it’s a pretty cool idea for sure.

[via Tech-On!]

Just plug the WiiChuck into to bottom of your Wii Nunchuck controller, and you’ll have access to all of the wonderful data the controller can generate. No more cable cutting! The teensy adapter board provides quick access to the Nunchuck’s interface, letting you use data sent from the controller’s 2-axis joystick, two buttons and a 3 axis ±2g accelerometer.

And if you’re into Arduino build projects, you can head on over to TodBot’s site and grab some open source libraries to get you started with reading the data from the Nunchuck and using it in your own programs. The best part is that each WiiChuck costs just $2.95 (USD). Head on over to SparkFun and grab one if you have any interest in hacking your Nunchuck.

Designed by inventor Wayne Poulton of Addject, Machine PP3 glides and spins along any smooth surface while his little bug-like red eyeballs light his way. His buddy bOb is only described as “a bit more skittery” than PP3, and buzzes along to keep him company on your desktop. With no 9-volt battery, he’d not likely to be as mighty as PP3, either.

Still, with his googly eyes, and vibraty metal ball feet, what’s not to like. You couldn’t possibly separate this dynamic duo, could you?

Both Machine PP3 and bOb can be found over at UK hobby shop AntiGravity for £9.99 (appx. $14 USD) each.

SparkFun Electronic’s mechanical engineer Casey came across this oversize belt buckle and said to himself: “self, I bet we can cram that new MP3 player development board we’re working on inside that massive brass buckle, because I really want to wear one, because after all, chicks really dig guys in huge brass belt buckles.”

Turns out that their MP3 player development board didn’t exactly fit, so the guys at SparkFun set to creating a custom circuit board with the similar componentry, and fit it perfectly to the rectangular opening in the face of the buckle. Now why the buckle has a huge opening in the middle, who knows? Maybe it’s so you can put an engraved name plate on the front. Sweet.

You’re probably asking yourself how you change tracks on this thing, right? Well thanks to an on-board accelerometer, you’ll just need to do a little pelvic thrust to jump to the next tune. And if you really get your groove on, a tri-color LED gets to blinking when you do your badass dance moves.

While you can’t find the belt buckle MP3 player in a store, you can make one for yourself. Just head on over to Spark Fun for the complete parts list, circuit schematic and source code.

Ari’s hulking watch began life as a simple binary pocket watch, but at the urgings of the BenHeck.com forum community, he turned it into a wrist watch–something he had considered from the beginning. Not many watches are attached to a huge battery pack, but that’s okay. It’s one of the modern equivalents of the pocket protector, only heavier and more awesome.

Eventually, the watch will even have a USB charging cable, to keep it juiced in the only acceptable way.

[via BenHeck.com forums]

Created by Lonneke Gordijn of the Dutch outfit known as DesignDrift, the Fragile Future 2 lamp combines the modern, linear look of circuit board traces and LED illumination with the contrasting organic shapes of puffy dandelion heads.

Each one is custom-built and is made from modular pieces, so you can build complex wall fixtures using anywhere from 3 to 50 light modules.

All I can say is that you’d better not sneeze anywhere around this thing.

The Fragile Future 2 is available from Generate LE.

Adafruit’s Botanicalls Twitter Kit lets your plants communicate over the web, letting you know when they need water, or if they’re feeling happy that they’ve been recently cared for. And since Twitter can notify your mobile device of new posts, you can receive a text message when your plant is feeling blue.

The easy-to-assemble electronic kit uses wired moisture sensors to detect your plant’s state of mind and send information out to the Internet via an on-board Ethernet jack. Connect the board to your PC using a USB cable, and the Arduino-based circuit can be programmed to send custom messages to Twitter.

The kit is available from Adafruit for $160 USD. All I need now is for my dogs and cat to start Twittering too and I can finally take a nice long vacation.

[via MAKE]

As a result, the trusty C64 has become a popular platform for “circuit bending”, which is hardware hackers’ terminology for taking old technology, applying circuit modifications to output audio or video effects that the original device wasn’t necessarily designed to produce.

Now you can own your own circuit bent C64, without any electronic know-how. The circuit bending wizards from Bighead Electronics have made this extremely limited edition pre-modded C64, appropriately called the Bent64.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The system comes completely loaded Paul Slocum’s Cynthcart, a custom program which helps the heavily modded Commodore produce a wild cacophony of retro noise as you press keys on the keyboard.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The Bent64 is a ready-to-go electronic musical instrument, capable of cranking out 3-note polyphonic analog sounds, applying effects with a “whammy” tuning knob, and even stereo support if you can wrangle a second sound chip and install it in the provided socket. The Bent64 can even output a psychedelic light show through a composite video output, so you’re ready to rave out of the box.

Oh yeah, it’s still fully functional as a standard C64 with the flip of a switch before you boot up. So you’d better brush up on your Commodore BASIC.

[eBay Auction Page]

The latest Open Source creation from Evil Mad Science Labs, “Peggy” gives you the parts you need to make a pixelated grid of LEDs in any design your little heart desires.

Peggy is named for her 25 x 25 pegboard which can hold up to 625 LEDs in place for your custom signs. It’s able to drive just about any LED you’d like, and can be run off of 3 ‘D’-cell batteries or on an optional AC adapter. The kit includes the pre-populated circuit board, battery pack and a photosensor which lets you automatically turn off the display in daylight. And yes, the whole thing is driven by a fully-programmable micro-controller, so you can create animations, blinking and flashing displays if you know what you’re doing.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to buy your own LEDs, and will need some basic soldering skill and a soldering iron to create your own signs. The kit is available from the EMSL Shop for $80 USD. You can also pick up a batch of LEDs while you’re there. (For those more adventurous, there’s a bare-bones version of the board without the electronics already installed for $50).

The system can be programmed to display widget-like channels on your television, using a library of freely-available software. There’s even a built-in IR sensor so it can you can change widget “channels” with a remote control.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Designed by engineer Robert Quattlebaum, the Ybox2 connects to your computer network using a built-in 10BaseT Ethernet port, and outputs video to your TV using a simple Composite video output (NTSC or PAL). The device is based on Uncommon Projects’ original Ybox platform, which first surfaced back in 2006 (shown in the video above).

The entire Ybox2 can be built for about $50, less than half of what the original version cost to build. At the heart of the system is a programmable Propeller 32-bit multi-processor, and the latest version improves on the original by adding an internal speaker as well as a multi-color status LED.

You can find more details, including the board schematics, parts list, and source code over on deep darc.

[via MAKE]

The Circuit Watch uses a pair of tall stacked LED segments to illustrate the current time. The bars on the left show the current hour, while the bars on the right display appear to be split into two sections, one which displays tens of minutes and the other which shows individual minutes.

The watch features a sleek, stainless steel case and a matching metal band. STORM offers several different accent colors for the protective crystal, including mirrored, black, red, blue and brown. However, the LEDs always remain red, no matter which version of the watch you choose. The Circuit Watch is available in limited quantities from STORM’s online shop and costs £109.99 (appx. $225 USD).