What Task Do You Wish You Could Give Up to a Robot?

We were promised certain things about the future, via movies and television shows, such as Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Jetsons, and even books such as 1984. (Although granted, that is now thirty-five years in the past, a scary concept.) One of the things we were promised was a prevalence of robots to handle our daily lives. However, this has not really come to fruition just yet. When we do reach that point, what tasks do you wish you could give up to a robot? Our Opinion Miguel would give up washing dishes… Read more

Posted by / August 29, 2019 / Posted in Linux

Handle Your Hard Drives Easily in Mac With iBoySoft Drive Manager

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by iBoySoft. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence, even when a post is sponsored. You would think that after all these years, we’d have agreed on a universal file system format. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, and different operating systems still prefer to work with certain file systems and simply won’t work with others. No matter what your operating system prefers, sometimes you just need to work with a certain type of drive. If your operating system doesn’t support… Read more

How to Run Mac Apps on Linux

macOS and Linux share a common heritage. Unfortunately, that does not mean applications can smoothly transition between the operating systems. To run Mac apps on Linux, you’ll need some sort of virtual machine or translation layer. Run a macOS Virtual Machine (All Apps) The most reliable way to run Mac apps on Linux is through a virtual machine. With a free, open-source hypervisor application like VirtualBox, you can run macOS on a virtual device on your Linux machine. A properly-installed virtualized macOS environment will run all macOS apps without issue. Virtualizing… Read more

Sandmarc Film Rig for iPhone & GoPro cameras review

REVIEW – I’m always taking photos or video of something so when the chance to try out Sandmarc’s Film Rig came along, well I just had to try it out. There’s only one thing I like more than gadgets, and that’s camera gadgets!

What is it?

The Sandmarc Film Rig is a configurable mounting system for phones, action cameras, and DSLR cameras.

What’s in the box?

List contents – you can remove this heading and section if it doesn’t apply to your review.

  • Sandmarc Film Rig
  • Phone holder
  • Allen Wrench

Design and features

The first thing that you notice when you unpack the Sandmarc Film Rig is that it’s mostly made out of aluminum. The only part that is not aluminum is the knobs on the thumbscrews. There’s just something to be said about a nice sturdy, well-machined piece of gear.

The Sandmarc Film Rig is not only designed to mount various components for filming, but it’s also designed to be ergonomic. The handgrips are plenty large enough for a good grip, even with my large hands. The wide stance of the rig allows for more stable hand-held video.

Each of the top and bottom cross mounts have four slots and three mounting screw holes allowing for an almost unlimited number of configuration options. There’s also a swing arm that also has a slot and a mounting hole in it.

The phone holder is just simply outstanding! Made of aluminum, it opens up to 3.5″ to hold just about any phone. It is spring-loaded so you can mount and unmount a phone one-handed. It has a 1/4″-20 threaded hole in the bottom and back of the mount so you could use it with other things such as on a tripod or monopod.

The mounting holes and slots are all designed for the standard 1/4″-20 screws that are common with most camera equipment.

Although Sandmarc advertises use with DSLR cameras, my Canon 5D Mark IV was too large to fit inside, but I was primarily interested in mounting my Canon M100, which fit very nicely. I can use my M100 to record looking forwards, and I have two action cameras that film both forwards and backwards so when I want to talk to the camera I don’t have to turn everything around.

The entire rig can also be disassembled easily by removing the four screws for the handles. This makes it easier to transport if needed.

The rig definitely makes it easier to get stabilized footage from your phone while keeping your fingers out of the shot.

What I like

  • Sturdy!
  • Endless configuration possibilities

What I’d change

  • Would be nice to have some feet on it

Final thoughts

The Sandmarc Film Rig is a nice little piece of gear. It’s extremely well built and does just what it is designed to do.

Price: $99.99
Where to buy: Sandmarc
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Sandmarc.

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Sandmarc Film Rig for iPhone & GoPro cameras review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 29, 2019 at 10:00 am.

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Rotofarm is a countertop rotating hydroponic planter for those who want to grow some fresh veggies right in their kitchen

NEWS – The Rotofarm by Bace (Dezeen) is a countertop rotating hydroponic planter for anyone who lacks the space to grow their own food. Heck, I have the backyard space to grow a garden and I still want a Rotofarm! Anyway, this innovative device allows you to grow your own plants in a small amount of space because if its circular design. It only requires a 30 cm footprint to grow 1.5 m of plants. And, because it rotates once per hour, gravity doesn’t have its normal effect on the plants, thus they grow faster.

The water and nutrient reservoirs are located in the base of the unit and the light is placed at the center to allow all the plants access to it. The light emulates that of the sun with a little more of the red spectrum to increase the speed of growth. “The light automatically fades on and off at optimal sunrise and sunset times” (Bace video shown below). Rotofarm allows you to adjust the light settings (dimming and timing) via an app to cater to different plant needs. The light can be a bit bright to some people, so the developers created a magnetic cover to reduce the glare by about 50%.

Toby Farmer, who founded Bace, created the Rotofarm according to Dezeen. He plans “to launch the Rotofarm on Kickstarter in September” (Dezeen), but the price was not revealed. This rotating growing technology was initially developed by NASA to be used on the International Space Station (Dezeen).

Check out the above video illustrating the Rotofarm. And be on the look-out for it on Kickstarter soon. Seriously, I want this!

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Rotofarm is a countertop rotating hydroponic planter for those who want to grow some fresh veggies right in their kitchen originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 29, 2019 at 9:02 am.

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