News

We spent our weekend at Maker Faire Bay Area, one of the four events we're attending this year, and while we've seen far more than we could ever hope to get into a blog post there's been one announcement that has really caught our attention: a shift by Arduino LLC to manufacturing new devices dubbed Genuino. Part of the rift between project founders that has led to the formation of Arduino Srl. and its direct competition with Arduino LLC - the one currently progressing through the legal system, aided by pictures of classic Arduino packaging provided by the community -...

Although there's no substitute for hands-on learning, a shelf-full of books is a handy way to pick up new skills or formalise your education in any subject - and making is no exception. For those who don't mind sacrificing the feel of classic dead-tree publications, the Humble Bundle - a company set up to sell pay-what-you-want packages of digital content, originally games - is currently running a deal in partnership with Make: Magazine to offer a selection of its books at knock-down prices. For $1 upwards, you can get five books aimed at introducing the concept of making, robotics and...

The Arduino project began life as a standalone thing, creating low-cost development boards based on off-the-shelf microcontrollers from Atmel. As it gained in popularity, its open-source nature saw numerous spin-off Arduino-compatible devices appear - everything from direct clones to innovative new devices like the Tsunami. More recently Arduino LLC has been looking to formalise things with 'Arduino Certified' partnerships, including a deal with Microsoft to make Windows 10 the first Arduino-certified operating system. Now, the Arduino Certified family grows still larger with the news that Samsung has launched an application processor and development board family dubbed Artik. Announced by Arduino...

The Arduino project is open-source and community-driven, but for those who have little experience actually contributing has traditionally been tricky. In particular, the Arduino IDE - the integrated development environment software used to write Arduino Sketches and upload them to Arduino boards - has a reputation for being somewhat inflexible, requiring users to edit confusing configuration files in order to add something as simple as support for a third-party board or breadboard-style ATmega chip. Thankfully, this is changing: project co-founder Massimo Banzi recently announced plans to add improved community-driven features to the next release of the Arduino IDE, including the...

Nesta - the charity formerly known as the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and responsible for the illuminating report into children's desire to join maker culture we highlighted back in March - has published its research into UK makerspaces, demonstrating their remarkable growth over the last decade. For those not familiar with the term, a makerspace or hackspace is a collaborative environment for makers to gather primarily for social reasons but also as a means for education and access to tools - such as large-format laser-cutters, 3D printers and CNC mills - which are considered impractical or too expensive...