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Discrete electronic components such as resistors, capacitors and even larger IC's are shrinking down smaller every year, and that makes it harder for the average home maker or hobbyist to create their own DIY circuit boards. The difficulty comes in melting the solder paste that is used to affix the components to the PCB's circuitry. Why something as simple as a hotplate can do this, certain pad configurations and joint specifications require the "Reflow" process to be done in stages of varying temperature. In the past toaster ovens have been used for this and manually controlled, but that process was time consuming.

Reflowster is a new product which has just went live on Kickstarter that aims at making the toaster oven reflow method much more accurate while automating the temperature ramping process. Reflowster is basically a smart-outlet that is controlled by an Arduino-compatible microcontroller that utilizes a thermocouple temperature probe to turn the power to the toaster oven on and off to regulate the temperature. This allows the user to create custom temperature ramp profiles based on the instructions provided by various solder paste manufacturers. $100 is all it takes to get your own Reflowster which will begin shipping at the end of the year.

EA sports have finally revealed the mystery fighter for the upcoming MMA title EA Sports UFC is none other than the father of mixed martial arts Bruce Lee himself.

EA's development team worked with Lee Enterprises who provided digital references, life-cast of Bruce's body and behind-the-scenes photos of Bruce Lee for developing the character. EA wanted the most accurate resources they can get to create a representation of the legend as much as possible.

UFC President Dana White said,"There's no debate, Bruce Lee is the father of mixed martial arts. He believed not one style of fighting was the best and that you had to have a little piece of everything to be a complete fighter. He was proven right when the first UFC event took place in 1993."

Ex Digg Nation host and Revision 3 founder, Kevin Rose, became a target of a very odd movement in San Francisco over the weekend. Rose says that anti-tech protesters gathered outside of his home in San Francisco and chanted phrases such as "Kevin Rose is a Parasite." The protesters targeted Rose because he is one of the partners at Google Ventures, and they claim that the booming tech industry is causing San Francisco to become affordable for anyone but the rich.

Rose first posted the incident on Twitter, where he posted an image of the flyer that the group calling themselves "The Counterforce" handed out to his neighbors. "As a partner venture capitalist at Google Ventures, Kevin directs the flow of capital from Google into the tech startup bubble that is destroying San Francisco. The start-ups that he funds bring the swarms of young entrepreneurs that have ravaged the landscapes of San Francisco and Oakland," the pamphlet read.

The group says that it is made up of anti-capitalist, anti-tech, anti-racist members from the bay area, and they feel that the San Francisco culture has been killed by rich techies from big corporations and start-ups throughout Silicon Valley. In an interview with Leo Laporte on Twit.TV, Rose said that he spoke with the protesters, and they did no seem violent, but he was not happy about the protest.

Every map and game-type in Battlefield 4 has a different loadout requirement depending on which class you plan to play. For instance, if you were heading into a Conquest Large battle and chose Assault as your class, you might set yourself up with the M416 with an ACOG Scope, Canted Iron Sights, Heavy barrel, Angled Grip and a grassy paint job. You might opt for a 44 Magnum with the 3X scope, the Medic bag, Defibrillator paddles, and camo that matches the map. However, your Assault loadout would be completely different for a map like Metro, so you would have to change it all when the map rotated.

DICE knows what a pain the rear this can be, and today they announced a new feature that will ease some of the pain. Tomorrow a new Loadout Preset feature will be installed to Battlelog that will allow players to create and save up to two different preset slots per class with their favorite loadout mashups. Premium players will be able to save 4 slots per class, making this a very useful and appreciated feature for those of us who play hours of Battlefield every night.

"Going into battle prepared is key to succeeding in Battlefield 4. With the new Loadout Presets, we've made it easier for you to quickly hit the Battlefield with the exact kit and vehicle Loadout of your choice," DICE said in a blog post.

Smartphone users face a growing list of security problems, and many of them are simply ignoring the risks, according to a recent study completed by security company Avast.

Men are more likely than women to face vulnerabilities on their smartphones, 36 percent compared to 32 percent, with more than one-third surveyed saying they don't use any type of anti-theft or security software.

"The findings suggest an ongoing disconnect people have with their phone and computer when it comes to security protection," Avast said in a blog post. "Many smartphone users have not yet grown accustomed to thinking of their devices as small computers that store valuable, sensitive, and often priceless data. One can now perform the same functions on their phone as the trust PC or laptop, but the majority of people are still learning about the necessary to protect their phones from viruses and hacking."

3D printing enthusiast world wide have at some point used Netfabb's cloud service to repair .STL files that were not solid meshes and not manifold. Over the last few years the service's popularity has grew can that has caused the service to slow down quite a bit. On Friday Netfabb announced that it has partnered up with Microsoft to host the cloud service on Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform.

The new service is called Microsoft Model Repair, and uses Netfabb technology at its core to provide a more powerful and efficient mesh repairer that can scale as its popularity continues to grow. Instead of each model being issued a separate download key like before, Microsoft Model Repair uses your Microsoft Account credentials to securely store your fixed files. This greatly cuts down on the time it takes to get the file back to you after repair too, and users will notice a increase in speed with most repairs taking just seconds.

"We are extremely happy to announce the latest product of our partnership with Microsoft to enable seamless 3D Printing for the mass market. Our cloud service on cloud.netfabb.com has been serving the community for years with an easy to use and automatic solution to prepare all their files for 3D Printing," Netfabb said in a release... "We would further like to emphasize, that - in contrary to most other services on the web - neither Microsoft nor netfabb claims any copyright on your uploaded models or other connected content. We are a strong believer in the idea that this service shall take the pain out of 3D Printing, and we are extremely grateful about Microsoft sharing this vision."

Its been more than two years since the first Raspberry Pi was shipped, and today the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced a new way to get your Pi on. The new Raspberry Pi Compute Module is based on the SO-DIMM form factor that is popular with DDR2 and DDR3 RAM in many modern laptops, but do not confuse that as being compatible with the SO-DIMM port on your laptop because it is not. The Raspberry Pi foundation says that this new form factor is designed to help makers embed their Raspberry Pi projects into final products.

The new Raspberry Pi compute module features a Broadcom BCM2835 chip with 512MB RAM with an on board 4GB eMMC Flash memory for booting the OS. The overall footprint of the device is 65mm x 30mm and its 200 pin edge connector allows the full i/o and other pins from the BCM 2835 chip to be utilized instead of just 19 I/O like the original Raspberry Pi.

Accompanying the Raspberry Pi Compute Module is the new Raspberry Pi Compute Motherboard that features a 200-pin SO-DIMM module socket that enables you to connect the Raspberry Pi Compute Module. This board features 45 GPIO Pins, as well as CAN buss connectors, SPI and I2C connectors. Placement for an optional JTAG header is on the board as is a Micro USB power port and a separate Micro USB data port. A USB 2.0 host is featured and an HDMI port handles the video and audio out duties. Additionally two DSI Display Connectors, and two CSI Camera Connectors are featured as well.

Viper is a company that has been making car alarms for years. It has announced a new device called the Viper SmartKey that makes keyless entry truly keyless. The SmartKey system creates a wireless perimeter around the car that responds to your smartphone without having to press any buttons or open an app.

You do need a Viper security or remote start system for the SmartKey to work. The company says SmartKey is compatible with all Viper alarm systems. The SmartKey system itself sells for $149.99. Once installed, the system will lock or unlock the doors without you having to do anything.

All you need to do is have the smartphone on you. SmartKey will unlock the car and turn on the alarm when you approach the car without you doing anything. When you walk away from the car, it will automatically lock and arm the alarm system.

An owner of a Tesla Model S was recently fiddling about with his car after discovering a hidden Ethernet port inside the vehicle. He cobbled together some sort of Ethernet cable and set about sniffing the car's network for fun.

The owner found that the car has a 100 Mbps full duplex Ethernet network with three devices on it. The addresses on the network are in the 192.168.90.0 subnet and includes the center console, dashboard/nav screen and another unknown device.

He found that some of the ports and services were open and that Port 80 was being used to serve a webpage with the image or media for the current song being played. He also notes that the OS is a modified version of Ubuntu.

HP has been making a line of monitors that aim at very high levels of color reproduction for years now. These monitors fall into the DreamColor range and are aimed at pros that need the most color reproduction possible. Two new monitors have been added to the range including the Z27x and Z24x.

These screen swill work with Mac or PC systems and each support up to 1.07 billion colors on the screen. HP says that the amount of color error the screens produce is so small that the human eye can't even see it. Both of the monitors have 10-bit color accuracy and are made for easy color calibration using commercially available sensors.

The Z27x supports 100% of the sRGB gamut, 100% of the AdobeRGB gamut, and 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut. This monitor also supports HP Night vision interface that has fading button backlights and a red backlight color for better visibility in low light.

Yahoo has made no secret of its desire to compete in the video streaming market. It tried to buy DailyMotion last year, but failed to close that deal. Rumors continue to circulate that Yahoo will launch its own video streaming platform. Whether it will buy an existing service or roll its own remains to be seen.

Sources that claim to be familiar with the goings on at Yahoo are claiming that the company is looking to land four TV quality shows to help its streaming effort. According to this source, Yahoo wants a quartet of half hour comedy shows written and directed by people that have TV experience.

The budget for these programs is tipped to be in the range of $700,000 to a million dollars per episode. Each of the shows will have ten episodes making for a lot of money spent. There is no word at this time indicating if Yahoo is negotiating on specific shows.

This morning, Seagate Technology announced that it has begun shipping the world's fastest 6TB capacity 3.5-inch hard drive. The new Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD V4 features the fastest performance available for a "nearline" HDD, thanks to Seagate's utilization of an eighth-generation platform that allows the new HDD to deliver up to 25-percent more performance than competing 6TB drives.

"Unstructured data growth is doubling exponentially and will propel the digital universe to reach 16 Zettabytes of data by as early as 2017. This will cause cloud service providers to look for innovative ways to store more within an existing footprint while lowering operational costs," said Scott Horn, Seagate vice president of marketing. "Seagate is poised to address this challenge by offering the fastest 6TB enterprise capacity HDD based on our proven, reliable platform meeting this never-ending demand in both private and public cloud data centers."

Seagate says that they have designed this new drive with the enterprise storage market in mind, and it is ideal for 24X7 bulk data storage. The drive features a 12Gb/s SAS interface, or in a SATA 6Gb/s interface. The new 6TB drive also features multi-drive rotational vibration tolerance, and robust 7200-RPM performance, ramp load technology alongside a humidity sensor to allow it to deliver optimum performance even in the harshest environments. Seagate has purpose-built the drive for enterprise environments, and utilized it to the T10 and T13-compliant power management standards enabling customers to adjust systems for optimal energy usage resulting in up to 90 percent more energy savings.

A rare Quake Arcade Tournament Edition cabinet from LAZER-TRON tipped up on EBay this past week. The seller claims it's one of only twenty made. This is the first one we've ever seen or heard of.

From the seller:

While researching this amazing find we managed to find another, 1 of 20 machines, this time with black trim instead of white. Both are priced near the $5000 mark and both in Texas. The images of each show they are not the same machine.

If you cannot make the time to do grocery shopping, a retail giant may have the solution you. Amazon introduces 'Dash', a service that allows you order groceries via a device that uses barcode scanner and a microphone for voice search.

Dash is an approximately 6-inch device which connects via Wi-Fi to PCs or smartphones where you can check the ordered items. Once the device is connected to your Wi-Fi network, Amazon Dash is always signed in to your Amazon Fresh Account.

As of now, Amazon implemented this service for public testing. The online retail giant is accepting applications from those who are interested to test the product. The company will be testing this in Southern California, San Francisco or Seattle.

Qualcomm recently made an announcement about Mu-Mimo (Multi-User, Multiple input and Multiple Output) technology that is considered as a breakthrough in wireless technology as its three times faster than Wi-Fi speeds.

The development of MU-Mimo took seven years for research, but in the end it turned out to be a great technology. Wi-Fi access points work by serving one user at the time, but MU-Mimo works even with multiple users.

The company explains,"Using MU-MIMO is like using the carpool lane: the Wi-Fi Highway doesn't change, but grouping up with other users lets you go much faster while de-congesting the other lanes."

Ransomware is becoming a major business for cybercriminals, and users can expect sophisticated attacks that go beyond just Cryptolocker, according to Web security company KnowBe4.

Cybercriminals are developing next-generation malware designed to infect users and steal information, or hijack the computer with ransom demands to unlock affected machines.

"There is furious competition between cybergangs," said Stu Sjouwerman, KnowBe4 CEO, in a press statement. "They did their test-marketing in countries like the UK, Canada and Australia and are now targeting the US. CryptoDefense doesn't seem to be a derivative of CryptoLocker as the code is completely different, confirming this is a competing criminal gang."

Not enough websites and Internet browsers utilize the HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) policy to keep Internet users secure, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

HSTS forces encryption by opening HTTPS sessions instead of just HTTP, so information to and from the website is encrypted. Using HSTS, websites never allow Internet users to interact with an HTTP session, with everything automatically converted.

The EFF believes not enough web developers know about HSTS, while browser support has also only increased slowly but surely. Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera have long-supported HSTS, while Microsoft said it will use the Web standard with Internet Explorer 12.

We already heard that Watch Dogs will require a 64-bit OS and some beefy hardware, but now we have some specific hardware requirements for Ubisoft Montreal's open-world hacking [hopefully] masterpiece.

You'll need at a minimum, an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 at 2.6GHz, or AMD's Phenom II X4 940 at 3GHz. Ubisoft does recommend much higher specs, where it would like to see you use an Intel's Core i7-3770 running at 3.5GHz, or AMD's FX-8350 X8 processor clocked at 4GHz. When it comes to RAM, you'll need 6GB minimum, and for GPUs, Ubisoft's minimum requirements for Watch Dogs is an NVIDIA GeForce GX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5770 with at least 1GB of VRAM.

When it comes to recommended GPUs, you'll need an NVIDIA GeForce GX 560 Ti or AMD's Radeon HD 7850. Storage wise, you better have over 25GB free to install Watch Dogs - not bad considering Titanfall requires a mammoth 48GB.

The bitcoin cryptocurrency has hit a few bumps in the road, but consumers now find it easier to make purchases and spend their bitcoins online. Silicon Valley startup companies are going beyond simply trying to mine and own bitcoins, and want to focus on apps and services for consumers to use.

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently ruled that bitcoins are property, not a real currency, while other countries are struggling how to deal with the digital currency.

"It's all about to change over the next 12 to 24 months," said Marshall Hayner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur hoping to bank on bitcoin with a QuickCoin app. "We are going to see all kinds of people adopt it. It's going to power transactions on the Internet."

The top social media network in Russia is now being sued by Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music, with vKontakte accused of "deliberately facilitating piracy on a large scale."

Each of the top three music labels filed individual suits against vKontakte, spearheaded by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). In 2012, the social media site made $172 million in advertising revenue, but didn't pay the IFPI for copyrighted music shared through the site.

vKontakte says it allows copyright holders to submit removal requests of any content that violates copyright rules, but IFPI officials noted the process is too cumbersome. Both the US government and copyright holders have believed vKontakte provides large-scale music piracy - originally launched in 2006, vKontakte has 143 million global users, and 88 million Russian members.