Author: Paul

Dean Kamen Thinks His New Stirling Engine Could Power The World

July 3, 2014 / Paul / 0 Comments

For the new issue of Forbes Magazine I wrote an article about David Crane, the visionary CEO of NRG Energy. When I met Crane for lunch a couple weeks ago, no sooner had we sat down than he began singing the praises of this new contraption he had in his basement. The machine â€” which can generate 10 kilowatts of continuous power, fed by Crane’s natural gas line, is a new iteration of an old creation, the Stirling engine. This version, called the Beacon 10, was created after a decade of engineering by famed inventor Dean Kamen. I caught up with Kamen (who is best known for creating the Segway scooter) over the phone last week to ask him about the device. We’ve turned his …

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Dean Kamen Thinks His New Stirling Engine Could Power The World

Microsoft wants Visual Studio to be your one-stop cross-platform dev shop

July 3, 2014 / Paul / 0 Comments

Microsoft has bought SyntaxTree, the developers of the UnityVS plug-in for Visual Studio, for an undisclosed price. UnityVS enables developers using the cross platform game engine, Unity, to write and debug their Unity programs directly within Visual Studio, and judging by the logos on its homepage, the plug-in is popular in the gaming industry, with Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Valve, and many others listed. The plug-in, formerly costing $99 for small teams, $249 for larger ones, will soon be made freely available from Microsoft. What’s notable here isn’t the purchase per se, but what Microsoft is doing with Visual Studio. Since last year, Redmond has been cross-promoting Xamarin, the development environment that lets developers write apps for Android, iOS, OS X, Windows Store, …

Original Article Can Be Found Here:

Microsoft wants Visual Studio to be your one-stop cross-platform dev shop

No Crankshaft, No Problem: Toyota’s Free Piston Engine is Brilliant

July 1, 2014 / Paul / 0 Comments

Let’s get one thing straight: The variable-valve-timing, direct-injection, turbo-wonderful powerplant in your new car is not cutting-edge. Despite the complexity of the modern engine, the fundamentals haven’t changed since Grover Cleveland was in office. Pistons turn a crankshaft that eventually spins your car’s wheels. Yawn. Electrically driven cars are the future. But until we have cheap, 1000-mile batteries, we still need range-extending fossil-fuel engines. Those devices don’t need to turn wheels, just generate juice. The simple solution is to strap a generator to a piston engine, as BMW did with the two-cylinder range extender in its i3 EV. But if the engine never turns a wheel, there’s no need for it to rotate anything. Why not cut out the …

Original Article Can Be Found Here:

No crankshaft, no problem: Toyota’s free piston engine is brilliant

How Did LeadPages go From 0 to 15,000 Customers in 12 Months?

July 1, 2014 / Paul / 0 Comments

Launched in January 2013, LeadPages has gained over 16,000 paying customers. Hitting a $3.5 million run rate the first nine months after launching, they are growing at about 20% month-over-month (compound growth). The tips and tactics Tim Paige, Conversion Educator at LeadPages, shares in this webinar are based on billions of data points and thousands of split tests. LeadPages processes about 3 million opt-ins per month and about 15 million page views per month. They store billions of data points. But how did LeadPages go from 0 to 15,000 customers in 12 months? In the webinar, Paige shares the following tips: Create a Lot of Opt-in Opportunities (Webinars, Free Reports, Live Demos, etc.) When LeadPages was created, Paige said the founders didn’t start by building a product. Instead, …

Original Article Can Be Found Here:

How Did LeadPages go From 0 to 15,000 Customers in 12 Months?

Learn Electronics and Programming

June 30, 2014 / Paul / 0 Comments

We designed the DuinoKit Essentials project to be a simple, cost-effective development system for learning and experimenting with electronics and microprocessors. Last year we created the DuinoKit Experimenter system and learned a lot in the process. My most common response was “Wow”, “Overwhelming” and “too expensive”. Our response to these comments was a slightly smaller, less expensive development system for learning electronics and programming. Share the love of electronics and programming with someone with this easy to use kit. You may just inspire the “Next Big Invention”! DuinoKit is the “Easy” way to build, learn electronics and program with *Arduino! Contains all parts necessary for numerous projects. Easy to understand diagrams and part specifications. Fun and easy to build projects. (You will need your own Mac…

Original Article Can Be Found Here:

Learn Electronics and Programming

Also published on Medium.