Hardware Things: Listening for the first time
Hello there,
Before I get into it, I’ve been enjoying a couple of new-ish podcasts that I think are pretty great: Minor Details, by two industrial designers talking about the trade, and The Edge, by Bantam Tools.
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Things I Enjoyed Reading
Surgeons in South Africa successfully performed a middle ear transplant, replacing the defective middle ear of the patient with one made of 3D printed titanium.
Side note: I’m a tiny bit of a middle ear geek (my masters thesis was to design a pressure regulating headset for kids), and this part of the ear is between the ear drum and the inner ear that sends signals to the brain. What they’ve done to mimic the behaviour of the three middle ear bones is simply outstanding - looking forward to more details.
I’m usually very skeptical about non-profits, but africanDRONE is working very hard to grow local expertise in using drones for citizen research, journalism and flood mapping.
Chris ‘Akiba’ is documenting technology applied to environmental or humanitarian applications, and writes about the Audio Moth, a sensor used to monitor audio sounds in the wild.
Interesting Things
Heat treatment nerds would love this essay about soda-lime vs borosilicate glass.
Researchers are circumventing drone regulations by putting weather sensors in pigeons.
A beautifully simple improvement on the conventional accessible door opener and a repository of interesting assistive devices.
A Data Thing
As many rural parts of the continent are still unconnected to the grid, it’s incredibly useful to see the national electrification plans of countries, as well as the opportunities that can be pursued.
openelec.me does so beautifully; a very useful tool for seeing how the demand for electricity, population sizes and even mini-grid generation cost differs in different places.
Company Spotlight
RealDrip, by Trep Labs, is a unique solution for hospitals that helps to remotely control the administration of intravenous fluids. The company recently graduated out of Facebook’s FbStart Accelerator in Lagos, Nigeria, and have big plans for the future pursuing a hardware-as-a-service model.
[Read more about this technology].
Tweet of the Month
The best tweet this month is actually a thread. It starts with this question:
Why is the production of machine tools so concentrated? cc @MarkLutter @tylercowen @NickPinkston
https://twitter.com/SamoBurja/status/1109938544053649415
And then Nick Pinkston, Plethora’s CEO, takes it away:
@SamoBurja @MarkLutter @tylercowen 1/ Sorry I’m late guys :D - I’ll comment here as a factory owner, buyer of many machine tools, and industrial history buff. First, it’s true that today only a few countries make all the machine tools today, so let’s look at that history. Thanks for indulging me :-)
Other Things
If you’re Lagos between Thursday and Saturday, no matter what you do, don’t miss Datasheet. It’s Hardware Lagos’ first conference MC’d by yours truly.
What to expect? A number of interesting sessions, some (hopefully) good lunch, a new programme, and four startups exhibiting prototypes.
à bientôt,
Chuma.