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A key feature of the maker movement is a desire to share knowledge. Where once the ability to create something may have been a jealously-guarded secret, nowadays - helped in no small part by the ease of communication afford by the Internet - it's possible to jump from watching a master craftsman walk you through creating a dovetail joint to downloading the printed circuit board design files for an Arduino in mere seconds. A new entry in the ever-growing library of publicly accessible projects is OpenGarage, the latest from Ray of US-based rayshobby.net. As the name suggests OpenGarage is an...

A recurring feature of science fiction has long been the replacement of human-computer interfaces with natural language processing. From the ship's computer in Star Trek: The Next Generation through to Iron Man's able digital assistant Jarvis, we've dreamed of a world where we can ditch the monitor and keyboard in exchange for having a conversation with devices. While science is rapidly catching up to fiction in devices like desktops and smartphones, the embedded sector - which could arguably benefit the most from losing bulky user interfaces - is lagging behind. Enter the 100+ Word Audio Shield. Created by Canadian maker Patrick...

The Arduino community is a special thing indeed. Since the launch of the original board, the ecosystem has exploded with everything from add-on boards to Arduino-compatible devices using new and novel hardware appearing almost every day. It's a strong ecosystem, and one that helps bootstrap hardware designs by offering a familiar experience and access to a wealth of accessories right out of the gate. There's little wonder, then, that companies like Intel are building Arduinos in an effort to convince makers to build on their particular platforms - and that makers themselves often pick an Arduino-style layout for their own...

The opening of pre-orders for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets has the world all a-flutter about the possibilities of VR, but with one major catch: it's all very, very expensive. The VR headsets themselves cost around £700 plus anything from £600 upwards for a PC powerful enough to drive them. It's no surprise, then, to find enterprising makers looking at the cheaper end of the market with projects like Google Cardboard, which uses an Android smartphone inserted into a low-cost head-mounted rig in place of an expensive dedicated headset. Matthew Hallberg's latest project takes Google Cardboard...

Back in January, we took a look at the new Genuino 101 - Arduino 101 for those in the US - from Intel and Arduino, which serves as demonstration of Intel Curie module's capabilities and as a powerful Bluetooth-equipped Arduino development board. There's no denying that it's a neat bit of kit, but compared to devices like the Arduino Leonardo and Uno it comes at a premium - and what if you only need Bluetooth support, rather than the extra sensors, memory, and processing power available from the Curie module? The answer's simple: add Bluetooth to your existing Arduino board....