Need For Speed reboots successfully for the stanced generation

Need For Speed is one of the longest running game franchises in the industry—and quite possibly the most veteran in the racing genre. The first NFS appeared back in 1994 and was as close as console gamers had ever gotten to a sim racer, featuring realistic (for the time) handling and real-world cars. Over the years sequels came and went, as did NFS's reputation among gamers. Now, NFS is old enough to buy itself a beer, but is this latest version—a reboot developed by Ghost Games and the series' 22nd entry—any good?

NFS is an open world racing game, a subgenre we first saw with games such as Test Drive Unlimited back in 2006. The action takes place in Ventura Bay, where no one ever sleeps and the sun never shines, because the entire game takes place at night. You play an unnamed driver who meets up with Spike, a trustafarian and young Brad Pitt lookalike (played by Adam Long) who introduces you to his rather engaging crew of underground racers, drifters, and tuners.

As with most games of this sort, you start out off with a rather cheap and underpowered car—in this case either a Honda Civic Type-R (the EK9 version), Ford Mustang (Fox body), or Subaru BRZ. You'll be able to supe your car up with prize money from races and drifting competitions, or you can save your winnings and upgrade to something faster and more exotic, including bona fide icons like the 1973 Porsche 911 RSR, Ferrari's legendary F40, or even the just-released McLaren 570S. Choose wisely; your garage will only hold up to five cars, so you'll have to sell one if you fill it up and want to drive something else.

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Fossil Q wearables reviewed: Smartwatches that actually look good

(credit: Valentina Palladino)

Until recently, wearables had an image problem. If the very first fitness trackers and smartwatches didn't look like a random piece of silicone with a honking module on top wrapped around your wrist, they were considered a fashionable success. Within the past year or so, companies like LG and Huawei have gotten a bit more style-savvy with their wearables, making smartwatches that closely resemble analog timepieces.

Now Fossil, the fashion company well known for its focus on American vintage styles, is coming out with its own line of wearables. The Q range consists of the Q Reveler and Q Dreamer smart bands, the Q Grant non-display smartwatch, and the upcoming Q Founder Android Wear watch. Fossil has experimented with wearables in the past, but it was nothing like this—the Q devices aim to be both fashionable accessory and smart device, pieces you can wear all day long that say something about your personal style while keeping you in touch with your digital life.

While the Q Founder isn't quite ready for us to test yet, we did get our hands on a Q Grant and a Q Reveler. Compared to other smart bands available now, both of these Q devices have fewer bells and whistles than most. They focus on tracking activity, delivering you notifications from your smartphone, and encouraging you to stay curious about the world around you. However, when we would normally consider that compromising, these devices don't make you feel like you're compromising at all. The Q range certainly provides a different type of wearable experience—but possibly a better one.

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Add a Simple Circuit Breathing LED Effect to Your Pumpkin

Create a cool, breathing LED lighting effect for your Halloween pumpkin using an analog circuit. No microcontroller required!

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The post Add a Simple Circuit Breathing LED Effect to Your Pumpkin appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

A recipe for an affordable, safe, and scalable flow battery

Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we are all rather dependent on batteries. We mostly think about small batteries at the individual level—in our cell phones, watches, or laptops. But batteries can be used in technologies that support multiple people, like the hybrid car. As scientists develop batteries with larger energy storage capacity, we can begin to expand our outlook to even grander applications.

If batteries could be designed to safely store large amounts of energy, they could be integrated into the existing power grid. This type of integration could be used to store energy harvested from renewable sources such as solar and wind, and to smooth out sudden surges in demand. Recent advancements in a technology called redox-flow batteries (RFB) hold out a promise for scalable energy storage.

RFBs are composed of organic materials that are able to transport electrons (redox-active). Almost all RFBs are composed of two pools of liquid electrolyte separated by a membrane, which allows some ions to cross between the two liquids. In these systems, electrons then flow from the negatively charged liquid (anolyte) through to the positive charged liquid (catholyte). These electrons can either charge the system or be extracted for use. Since the key components of the batteries are liquid, things can be scaled up simply by making the holding tanks larger.

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3D Scanned, CNC-Milled, Pumpkin Selfie

When you have a CNC mill sitting around, it almost seems anachronistic to pull out a kitchen knife to carve a pumpkin. You can hardly blame [Nathan Bentall] for choosing an endmill instead. If you’re feeling the same, check out his blog post where [Nathan] works through all the steps involved in going from a raw pumpkin to a 3D RGB LED bust of himself. To put his head on the pumpkin’s shoulders he captured a depth map using a Kinect and then got down to some unorthodox milling.

If you’d like to watch the CNC in action, [Nathan] has also posted up a time-lapse video of the work getting done. Watch the intro, and then jump ahead to 12:40 when the CNC work starts up for real.

One of our first questions was “how do you hold that thing in the mill?” Pumpkins are big and round, not flat and thin. Amazingly, the answer is just what you’d expect: it’s all held together with tape. Specifically, a saucepan stuck to the bed with double-stick tape cradles the pumpkin which is taped down into the saucepan with gaffer tape.

And it all looks fairly clean, too. We would have expected pumpkin mush all over everything, but it seems to have stayed quasi-contained. Who knew? Kudos for the great work and great documentation!

Filed under: cnc hacks

Is it a Haunted House or a Video Game?

[Rich Fiore] didn’t want just another set of spooky decorations for his house. He wanted something interactive. By combining a projector and some IR sensing, he turned his whole house into a Halloween-themed shooter.

Technical details are sparse, although some other sites are reporting that a projector and a camera take care of the graphics, while a modified Wii remote and an IR gun handle the crosshairs and the targeting.

Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference. If you shoot a window, you’ll hear (and see) the glass breaking. Shooting the side of the house makes the (virtual) siding blow off, revealing the insulation beneath.

It wasn’t clear if the graphics are a simple projection or if there is some Pepper’s Ghost magic going on. [Rich] says he plans to add more (and smarter) characters soon. Maybe he could even add a Kinect to put a ghostly version of the player up on the wall.

Filed under: Holiday Hacks, video hacks

Delightfully Horrible Idea: Twitch Installs Linux

Linux is a delightful OS. There are an amazing range of built-in tools, and innumerable others that can be installed from publicly available repositories using just a single line of commands. You can also hose your entire system with just a handful of characters; something that was en vogue as a method of trolling many years ago. Who knows if either of those will get used when Twitch Installs Arch Linux.

Beginning on Saturday morning, a single keyboard will be controlled by thousands of people whose collective goal is to install a Linux distro in a virtual box. There will undoubtedly be thousands of others trying to thwart the process. We were enthralled with Twitch Plays Pokemon last year. Live viewers’ keystrokes were translated to the Game Boy controls and the majority consensus decided the next move. This was insane with just a few controls, but now we’re talking about an entire keyboard.

Every 10 seconds, the most popular keystroke will be chosen. To put this in perspective, the previous sentence would have taken exactly 10 minutes to type, and only if the majority constantly agreed on what the next letter should be. We can’t tell if it’s going to be interesting or boring to participate. But either way, we can’t wait to see what unforeseen happenings shake out of the process.

Filed under: linux hacks