Fully Charged: Check out the 3D-printed smart ring, make-good gifts offered for PSN downtime, and Tesla’s snake-like automated car charger
Our morning tech news roundup is just what you need to kickstart your day
The 3D-printed smart ring
Smartwatches are working their way to mainstream acceptance, so what’s next? How about smart rings? We’ve seen a couple of these pop up on Kickstarter with varying levels of success, functionality, and promises made, but the Bluetooth-connected Ö ring is already up and running as a solid prototype.
After seeing those crowdfunding campaigns, creator Kevin Bates wanted to see for himself if he could make a worthwhile smart ring. Having previously designed a business card-sized Game Boy and a playable Tetris bracelet, he clearly has a knack for putting tech into impressively small packages. The result here might be bulky for a ring, but it’s a start – and it displays Elvish text!
The body is 3D-printed, and it houses a 64×32 OLED display with a touch button (allowing both reading and responding), and it connects to a smartphone for notifications and the like. According to the Arduboy website, Bates has gotten quotes from manufacturers to push ahead with producing a batch of proper, finished rings in the near future and bring this wearable gadget to market.
READ MORE: Remember Apple’s ‘iRing’ joke?
Sony’s make-good PSN gifts
Both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live went down on Christmas due to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, but Sony’s gaming service took the harder hit – it was almost three days before service was fully restored, and then it struggled again a couple days later. Considering the major downtime, Sony plans to reward users for their patience.
PlayStation Plus subscribers will automatically receive five days of additional service added to their accounts in the near future. However, the bigger perk here applies to all PSN users: Sony will soon make available a one-time-use 10% savings on a cart full of anything and everything in the PlayStation Store, letting everyone load up on games, movies, DLC, and more at a discount. Consider grabbing some of our picks for the best games in the world right now.
[Source: PlayStation.Blog]
Tesla working on automated wall charger
Tesla Motors already makes some of the coolest cars on earth, and its electric vehicles are pioneering tech that may inform the future of transportation. But Elon Musk’s company is always pushing ahead into new and interesting things, and the next could be… an automated, snake-like wall charger for your car?
The celebrated CEO tweeted Wednesday, “We are actually working on a charger that automatically moves out from the wall & connects like a solid metal snake. For realz.” He also added that it will work with all Model S cars, including current models. That’s all we know for now, but if it’s truly for realz, then we’ll have to take Musk’s word on it.
[Source: Twitter]
READ MORE: Tesla Model S review
This Hobbit sword detects Wi-Fi
Want an ultra-nerdy project that’s also potentially useful? How about hacking a toy replica of Bilbo Baggins’ mighty sword Sting from The Hobbit, which allows it to turn blue when it detects a nearby open Wi-Fi network? You’ll need the right plastic sword and a Spark Core Wi-Fi development kit, which all told should run you about US$70 (£45). Here’s the full step-by-step tutorial from Spark CEO Zach Supalla should a network-vanquishing sword sound appealing.
Andrew Hayward
Freelance Writer 
