Dragon Innovation Helps Startups with Manufacturing

I met up with Herman Pang, President and co-founder of Dragon Innovation this morning at Australia Dairy Company in Hong Kong (“no connection to Australia whatsoever”, according to Herman), for the best scrambled egg breakfast in Hong Kong and a chat about…

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Shenzhen is Like Living in a City-Sized TechShop

Being in Shenzhen is like living in a city-sized TechShop.

- Zach Hoeken Smith

Today we toured just a few of the expansive electronics markets in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen. Our tour guide was Zach Hoeken Smith, program director for HAXLR8R and former co-founder…

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Impressions of China, Day 3

In the morning we took a fast ferry and crossed over into Zhongshan in mainland China, this time to visit a plastics manufacturer that makes products for some of the biggest toy companies in the world. It seems all of southern China…

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Innovate with China

We’re changing “Made in China” to “Innovate with China” on our labels, what do you think?

-Eric Pan of Seeed Studio on our visit Sunday

Eric Pan and his company, Seeed Studio, are showing the future of hardware development: hackers around the…

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China Trip Day 2: Impressions of Shenzhen

Today we took the train from Hong Kong through the New Territories to Shenzhen, a city of over 10 million which basically didn’t exist 30 years ago. Though both Hong Kong and Shenzhen are part of China, the border control that separates…

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Nomiku, Making Sous Vide in China

We had lunch (a Chinese classic, pizza) with Abe Fetterman, one of the makers of the Nomiku. He and his partners came to HAXLR8R in Shenzhen last year to turn their DIY sous vide machine into a prototype for a consumer product.…

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We’re in China!

Ethan and I are in Hong Kong now, headed to Shenzhen and Zhongshan, two big factory cities just over the border from here into mainland China. Our mission: to meet entrepreneurs who’ve tapped China’s vast manufacturing prowess to bring their creative products…

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We’re at the 3D printing conference, so where’s the 3D printed schwag?

We’re at the Inside 3D Printing conference in New York City this week where 3D printer makers, investors, service firms, hackers and futurists have gathered to immerse themselves in the present and future of all things 3D printing.

So where’s the 3D…

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3D Printers Get Cheaper, Better, Faster

No one seems to know what to do with a 3D printer, not even the people selling 3D printers. But that might not matter.

It turns out making a 3D printer isn’t that hard. A typical ink printer has most of the…

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See you in NYC for Inside3DPrinting

The Inside 3D Printing Conference

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& Expo

is taking place next week (April 22-23) in New York City and Hack Things will be there to cover the action and meet with emerging…

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Hacking the Perfect Garden with Embeddable Technology

I just pledged $39 on Kickstarter towards the new Smart Herb Garden by Click & Grow. The technology is well-suited to indoor use. It centers around a special nanotech engineered soil, a computer-controlled watering system and a natural-light spectrum LED lighting system…

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What’s the Difference Between Raspberry Pi Model A and B?

The new Raspberry Pi Model A is finally for sale in the USA (in addition to Europe and Asia where it went on sale beginning a few weeks ago.)

So now there’s two models to choose from. The two are very similar,…

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DUO: a DIY 3D Input Controller (Kickstarter)

In the coming onslaught of new connected devices, figuring out new and unobtrusive ways to interact with users will be key. Many devices will live in the real world and will require new ways of capturing input from users. After all, the…

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Five Fabulous Retro Device Hacks

Here at Hack Things we feel a certain nostalgia for old-school vintage goods — many of which seem to be getting replaced by iOS apps on a daily basis. It’s refreshing to see projects that bring new life to vintage goods. Here…

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Kickstarter Hardware Roundup (3/21/13)

Here’s some of the more interesting hardware projects active on Kickstarter right now.

KADE – A open source arcade game controller with USB that allows personal computers, console gaming systems and DIY projects to easily add authentic retro-style arcade game controllers.

The…

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Bike Speed Projector

Matt Richardson has created an interactive headlight projector for bikes that can be used to create a kind of unobtrusive heads-up display for cyclists. It works by measuring the rider’s speed using some custom electronics and a Raspberry Pi and a portable…

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RFduino: Fingertip-Sized Microcontroller with Bluetooth LE (Kickstarter)

The folks at OpenSource RF have launched RFduino on Kickstarter, one of the smallest Arduino-compatible microcontrollers around, and it even has Bluetooth 4.0 LE built in.

This looks like a wonderful platform for prototyping Internet of Things sensor-based applications where your smartphone…

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A Toddler Dilemma: the Remote Control (Kickstarter project spotlight)

Kyle Myers, a former colleague of mine, just launched Tot Switch on Kickstarter. Tot Switch is a homegrown solution to a common dilemma facing young parents: how to prevent the little ones from changing the TV channel but without making them cry…

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Fitness tracking companies: here’s what I REALLY want

I’ve counted more than 12 “activity tracker” device companies ala Fitbit, Nike Fuel Band, Jawbone Up, Mistfit, Basis, etc. It’s great that we have so many convenient options for quantifying and comparing our activity levels. After all, even moderate amounts of activity…

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Inaugural Hack Things Meetup in Seattle

Special thanks to the around 30 entrepreneurs, software, hardware and mechanical engineers, industrial designers, consultants and investors that showed up for our inaugural Hack Things Meetup today in Seattle, featuring guest speaker Jon WineBrenner (@jonwinebrenner) of OneOak Design, Inc. Also, a special…

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