TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin brought together startups and tech enthusiasts from all over Europe November 29-30, 2018. I stopped by to bring you the highlights. The scale of the event in Berlin, Germany was noticeably smaller than the one in San Francisco, which we covered here. Disrupt San Francisco reported around 7,500 attendees while Disrupt Berlin expected…

With the Holidays just a few weeks away, it’s probably time to think about what gifts the young kids in your life might like. If they’re into robotics, perhaps Bellrobot’s Mabot Plug-and-Play Modular Robot is just what you’re looking for. Sure it’s a STEM-based learning kit, but it’s easy to put together and program in…

With more houses becoming almost sentient with their built-in A.I.s and voice-activated functions, it can feel a tad creepy coming back home to find some invisible guardian controlling your personal living space. That said, mui is attempting to bring some of that analog connectivity back into the digital home. It isn’t a hovering know-it-all like…

We did a story earlier this year on where to find other HW nerds in Seattle. But what if you want to specifically find VR nerds? Wonder no more! In this article, we give you a peek inside a huge monthly VR MeetUp in Seattle. It’s a sure spot for a chance to demo VR…

Back in 2016, Nintendo released the NES Classic Edition – a miniaturized version of their 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System (called the Famicom in Japan). The console came preinstalled with 30 of the console’s best games. With titles like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, and Super Metroid included in…

Fans of open hardware that also just so happen to like using a Mac, your prayers have been… slightly heard? According to the internal service readiness guide for this year’s MacBook Air, Apple has made their new laptop’s battery a self-removable one. For context, ever since MacBooks and MacBook Pros with retina displays were released…

Just over a year ago, SolidSmack reported that Astropad creators Astro HQ had successfully funded their latest project — Luna Display — on Kickstarter, having raised over $645,000 to bring the project to life. The (minimal) hardware and accompanying app claimed to seamlessly turn any iPad into a second display. Well, now it’s here; we…

All of us were told off from drawing on the walls as children for a lot of reasons. Maybe it’s because we couldn’t reach high enough for our parents to appreciate our work. Or perhaps they couldn’t see art if it was right in front of their faces. Or it could just be the uncleanable,…

Despite advances in the field of helmets and head protection, few safety gear companies give as much attention to another critical part of the body for getting work done: the hands. Sure—your head is the brains of the outfit (literally), but without fully-functional digits, getting manual work done is next to impossible. While many gloves…

Ever since Amazon’s Alexa was released back in November 2014, I’ve been afraid of inanimate objects suddenly greeting me or setting my schedules. It’s gotten so bad I’ve decided never to name any future pets or daughters ‘Alexa’, for fear I might suddenly activate a bystanding Alexa-enabled device. This is only going to get harder…

Last year, Kano debuted a complete DIY desktop computer kit based around the Raspberry Pi as a way to get kids interested in computing. The unforeseen problem, however, is most kids today prefer to interact with touchscreen mobile devices—such as smartphones and tablets—rather than a desktop PC. Kano took notice and has launched an updated…

While the Nintendo Switch Labo lets you create your own external peripherals, there’s no getting around the fact the vanilla Labo consists of flimsy cardboard. To this end, people have been finding other materials to better improve Nintendo’s ambitious—but in some cases, materially flawed—creation. And what better material to use than LEGOs! Apart from being a…

It’s no secret that commercial 3D printing has been taking giant technological leaps in the past few years—but bringing the price per part down has been a significant technological barrier for just about every industrial 3D printer manufacturer. With their recently-announced Metal Jet commercial 3D printing platform, HP aims to take what they’ve learned from…

This year’s TechCrunch Disrupt had a reported 7,500 attendees bustling through the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, September 5th-7th, 2018. There were a ton of interesting talks, the Startup Battlefield competition with a $100k prize, exhibitors small and large at the expo and, yes, we’ve got all the highlights for you. See the details in…

It would seem like an impossible endeavor to top NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson’s Super Soaker water gun, but a team of German engineers may have taken the water weapon crown with their Spyra One- a water rifle that fires ‘water bullets,’ meant to improve accuracy and distance. Whereas the Super Soaker requires you to fill…

Being able to talk to friends and relatives from far away via Skype or Facetime is all well and good, but it just doesn’t have the physical interaction you get when the person is actually beside you. Combined with the first few minutes wasted shouting to see if the person can hear you over the…

What you’re looking at right now isn’t a Bluetooth speaker. It isn’t even a pint-sized Roomba. What you see in the photos and videos here is actually Logitech’s newest MX Vertical mouse. While older users of computer peripherals are no strangers to mice the shape of actual rodents (some early computer mice were even bigger…

Don’t get me wrong – today’s graphics cards are no slouch. While they deliver images which are almost on par with blockbuster movies, the biggest issue graphics cards have to deal with right now is light; more specifically, how it bounces, reflects, and refracts off objects similar to the real world. Nvidia Turing isn’t the…

Let’s face it: the days when learning for kids meant going outside to play are dwindling fast. Instead of experiencing the outside world for themselves (or reading about it in a classic paper bound book), children of this generation are more content to sit in front of a screen for hours on end and absorb…

There were scattered reports of Mackbook Pro users covering themselves in ash and eating gallons of ice cream earlier this week with Lenovo’s announcement of their new ThinkPad P1 ultralight mobile workstation. Ultralight mobile workstation. Yeah, I just used those words together in a sentence – TWICE. First though, I admit, ‘Ultralight’ is my word…

Rather than forcing chunky peripherals on your head or hands via VR or AR, real holograms are the stuff of science fiction: true interactive displays which humans can interact with on a more personal level. The day when such a display would come to fruition was thought to be right up there with flying car…

An unusual robot designed by professor David Zarrouk at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is capable of changing its shape to overcome obstacles, allowing it to roll around on wheels, crawl like a turtle, and even flip itself over to traverse difficult terrain. The RSTAR (Rising Sprawl-Tuned Autonomous Robot) features sprawling wheel-leg assembly, which…

It’s all over the tech news, of course, but the Magic Leap mixed-reality headset, yeeeears in the making, is now available for developers, creators or anyone who wants to shell out $2,295 for ML’s inaugural edition HMD. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition launches with SDKs, Unity and Unreal Engine 4 support, tutorials, preview experiences, games,…

An interesting 3D camera has launched, the Wunder360 S1. This is a 360-degree camera, similar to one you may have or others you’ve likely seen: it captures visual activity happening all around you. It’s developed by Evomotion and a follow-up to their highly-rated Wunder360 C1 camera. But the S1 adds quite a bit more. It’s…

Researchers from UC Berkeley’s Biomimetic Millisystems Lab have been busy developing their Salto jumping robot since its debut in 2016. Back then, the robot was capable of jumping at great heights, but had orientation issues and could only complete two jumps in a row before crashing. The researchers have since solved the orientation issues with…

We’ve all had remarkable careers as air drummers at least some point in our lives. And no matter how musically incompetent we think we are, there’s always a beat sitting somewhere deep in our bones just ready to bust out. For folks who want to take their air drumming mastery a step further, the Oddball…

Forget their proposed drone delivery system; Amazon just solved one of the biggest problems for engineers, designers, DIY’ers, or anyone handy enough to use a screwdriver: identifying a screw. Don’t you just hate when you find one of those buggers under your sofa or behind the fridge and have no idea where it came from or…

If your kombucha fizz just sprayed out your nose, you likely just heard about the new ThinkStation P330 workstations… or took too big a swig. Either way, Lenovo thought it would be clever to release the news of their new entry-level, CAD-class workstations the same day Intel announced its new Xeon E-series, entry-level processors. Don’t…

Over the course of evolution, plant life has gotten pretty complex. There are carnivorous plants, poisonous plants, heck, there are even plants which camouflage themselves to either look more attractive for pollination or hide from predators. But there has never, ever, been a known existing plant which grew legs. After seeing a dying sunflower in…

One of the oldest inventions ever, there is very little need for improvement from the standard wheel. With the ability to make transportation and overall movement a heck of a lot easier than dragging things on a flat surface, it’s no wonder no one tries to mess with a good thing. Through a project called…

… Anything computer-related, that is. If the computer’s spiel has any truth to it, this may be one of the most powerful portable supercomputers out there. Powered by AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 SoC processors, the UDOO BOLT can handle everything from ginormous 3D CAD models to triple-A computer games. Depending on which version of the…

Toy company Mattel and the portable camera savants at GoPro have really done it now: they’ve attached a camera to something you’ll never be able to ride or experience yourself. Dubbed the Zoom In, this toy car comes with a hollowed-out body and stand which allows adrenaline junkies to slap a GoPro Action Camera on…

Fans of inflatable bouncy castles and comfy car seats have reason to rejoice because 3D-printed inflatables are now a thing! Created by the minds at the Self-Assemble Lab of MIT and BMW, these inflatables adapt and transform by themselves to suit your comfy needs. Dubbed “Liquid Printed Pneumatics,” these silicone materials take on different shapes…

Well, it’s finally happened. After years of fumbling on quadrupedal legs and jumping like patients with back problems, robots have finally learned to run on rough terrain. ACHIRES (short for “Actively Coordinated High-speed Image-processing Running Experiment System”) is an Ishikawa Senoo Laboratory running robot system which uses a high-speed camera to detect the legs’ position…

We’ve seen just how much potential there is for AR/VR headsets in the design and engineering world—whether it be modeling in the context of the real world or assisting assembly line workers. That said, we’re still on the cusp of knowing just how significant that shift can be. But when Apple gets involved—there’s usually a…

Seamlessly bridging the physical and digital worlds has proved to be a significant challenge for even the world’s most advanced electronic manufacturers. While HP has made considerable strides with their “mixed reality” Sprout platform, the creative market has grown to favor more portable tablets and laptops over full-fledged desktop platforms. With Project Zanzibar, the Microsoft…

We’re stoked to welcome Hardware Massive with this special guest post by Greg Fisher, Founder at HardwareCon. Check out Hardware Massive and, if you’re in the San Jose area this week, you’ll want head over to HardwareCon to learn about the future of hardware. Having spent the last 13 years helping more than 900 hardware startups…

As reported on SolidSmack back in February, music streaming service Spotify is getting into the hardware game—as evidenced by three job postings for hardware engineers or supply chain managers. “Spotify is on its way to creating its first physical products and setting up an operational organization for manufacturing, supply chain, sales & marketing,” explained the…

If you’ve been on the fence about finally entering into digital tablet sketching (or notetaking) territory, both Google and Apple revealed some great news for you this week. First up is the all-new $329 9.7-inch iPad. While marketed towards educators as a low(er) cost of entry to bring iPads into the classroom (the education-adjusted cost…

Although IKEA takes the cake for masterminding the ready-to-assemble (or flat-pack) furniture, the concept was initially captured in an 1878 US patent described as “(A) class of furniture which is so constructed that it may be packed and transported in parts, and put together for use by skilled or unskilled persons.” Either way, decades of…

Modeling a 3D object and prepping it for 3D printing on a 2D screen sounds counterintuitive… because it is. You’re stabbing your mouse at a 2D plane in 3D space to make something which can be interacted with in the real world. I thought we were in the future? So, what if you could design the…

Whether it be music, movies, documents, or photos of your cat – everyone has something precious they keep as digital data. But let’s be real – that’s a lot of data you have to keep stored. Those photos of your cat alone might not even fit the 1TB hard drive you keep. Keeping backups of…

It’s incredible how easy it is to trick the mind into thinking it isn’t doing work. Playing sports makes training your body fun, watching nature shows on TV makes learning biology possible, and playing video games makes puzzle solving compelling. But this particular 21st century device tries to mix both learning and physical activity into…

From production artists to design engineers, few design tools have graced the desktops of design professionals as much as a Wacom tablet. But of all the Wacom tablet models, the Cintiq Pro display tablet takes the cake for the most bells and whistles. Now, the Japanese-based company is kicking things up yet another notch for…

Unlike science fiction movies, where “A.I.” is commonly associated with usurping humanoid robots, real-life artificial intelligence looks far less creepy and is a lot more specialized. They still do our bidding, but without the constant worry that one day they will wake up wondering why they’re doing manual labor without pay. Getting the jump on…

Back when I was a kid, I built a model of the Tardis Console from season 13 using my parent’s cable spool coffee table and a healthy supply of cardboard. Although I could travel anywhere I wanted to in my mind (Calvin & Hobbes style), I wasn’t able to leave the confines of my yard.…

If you still think your desktop PC’s storage space isn’t enough to hold all your CAD projects, then you’ll be happy to know that Samsung just combined 32 1TB NAND flash packages to create the world’s largest SSD. The PM1643’s name doesn’t roll off the tongue so well, but the 2.5-inch SSD holds 30.72TB worth…

3D printing in color can be costly. Given how much time and resources spent upfront, having a failed print isn’t exactly as easy to deal with as printing a 2D color picture incorrectly. MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)’s new ColorFab method (not to be confused with printing filament company ColorFabb) doesn’t aim…

Remember those scenes in Iron Man where Tony Stark fiddles around with an interactive hologram? Of course, you do. Well, Google is about to bring that same experience to reality, because one of their latest projects seeks to make this technology available for everyone—right from your favorite device. Article is an upcoming 3D model viewer…

While nearly any tech or mechanical junkie can appreciate a hulking giant robot, one should always leave room to admire its smaller brethren. Sure, bigger may be better, but giant robots don’t always have the level of precision that many smaller robots come equipped with. Delta robots consist of three individually controlled arms connected to…