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Willow Brugh, of Seattle's Jigsaw Renaissance, sent us word of this new org, Geeks Without Borders. In the above video from Gnomedex, Johnny Diggz explains the origins of the idea. Right now, they're looking for folks to spread the word to other geeks who might be interested in being involved and they're traveling to hackerspaces to try and drum up support.

Geeks Without Borders (GWOB.org) is an international humanitarian organization of geeks and their technology-friendly friends, working together to assist people whose survival is threatened by lack of access to technology and communications due to violence, neglect, or catastrophe.

We want to have the bases of operation for GWOB be hacker and maker spaces across the world.

BTW: The official launch date for the organization is 10.10.10 at 10:10am PST (1:10pm EST)

Geeks Without Borders

Update: We got an email from Paul Luther, who's the director of another org called Geeks Without Borders, that's been around since 2002. Shame that there has to be a conflict/controversy over the naming of an altruistic group. Hope this can be amicably worked out:

One of our board members is an avid follower of makezine.com and just noticed your article titled "Geeks Without Borders," which we are concerned about as it represents our long-established non-profit organization as a new endeavor by someone unaffiliated with us.

It would be nice if you post a correction to the article pointing out that Geeks Without Borders is not new, or related to Mr. Johnny Diggz, who is not affiliated with the official 501(c)3 organization Geeks Without Borders.

Although his mission sounds good, and we wish him the best of luck, using our name misrepresents his organization as ours, and that's not helpful to either organization.

Pat Luther
Director, Geeks Without Borders

Update to the Update: The parties involved are going to talk to each other, I understand. Hope it all works out.

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You may have noticed that Digg got a pretty major overhaul yesterday. One of the nice aspects of the improved site is that it's a little more social than its previous incarnation. So if you're in the market for someone new to follow on Digg... well, you could always hit up Engadget on Digg. You probably won't regret it. You can also follow Engadget on Twitter and Facebook, too!

Follow Engadget on the new and improved Digg... you know you want to originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thanks to everyone who entered the MAKE/Design News Gadget Freak Design Contest sponsored by Alibre, Allied Electronics, and Texas Instruments. We had lots of great entries and were really splitting hairs among the top five or so, but after careful consideration we are now pleased to announce the winners:

Grand Prize: Infrared seeking sentinel

Rick Prescott outfitted a Nerf® Vulcan EBF-25TM foam dart shooting machinegun with an array of Devantech TPA81 thermopile sensors, all controlled by an ATmega168, to create this wicked Aliens-style heat-tracking autocannon:

An idea sparked in my mind one day while walking the toy gun isle in a store with my kid and later that evening learning of the workings of a thermopile array while surfing the internet. The result is this infrared seeking sentinel which joins a realistically priced infrared sensor to a realistically operatable Nerf® machine gun to create a slightly less deadly yet still highly deterring automated machine. Personally I have grand plans to deploy the infrared seeking sentinel facing the entrance of my work cubical in order to speed interaction with less desirable visitors.

Rick has won $1,000 and a storefront in Makers Market with 6 months of free service. Congratulations!

Second Prize: GPS bus notifier

University of Florida student Miles Moody used a WizNet Ethernet module wed to an Arduino Nano to scrape and parse HTML from a local web service that reports the real-time GPS coordinates of the bus that takes him to school every day:

The program compares the location to where my apartment is located and depending on where it/they are, the device will light up one of three LEDs: red if no bus is close, yellow if a bus is somewhat close, and green if the bus is coming and I need to hightail it out of my apt. For the green case, a piezo buzzer also sounds so I dont have to be looking at the device all the time. It also twitters the current location of the busses every five minutes. This allows me to check via text message the bus locations when I am on campus.

Miles has won $500! Congratulations!

Third Prize: Not lazy Susan

MAKE buddy, occasional guest author, and all-around wondergal Dustyn Roberts built a custom board and enclosure from scratch to create this hands-free Lazy Susan for the dinner table that rotates with just a wave of the hand:

In this project, we'll use at lazy Susan (also called a turntable or thrust bearing) to create a rotating platform. To make things interesting, we'll use an infrared LED and phototransistor to make the table rotate with just a wave of your hand. You can use this as a table to magically serve food to dinner guests, or to make a fun interactive centerpiece for the next wedding you plan.

Dustyn will receive one of two $100 gift certificates redeemable at the Maker Shed. Congratulations, Dustyn!

Third Prize: Magic 8 ball mod

Mariano Alvira replaced the message die in a standard "Magic 8-Ball" toy with a blue OLED display that can be wirelessly programmed from outside the ball:

The steps outlined here will show you how to modify a standard Magic 8 Ball to replace the normal message icosahedron with a OLED screen, and how to add wireless microcontroller, and accelerometer. The screen is submersed in the normal Magic 8 Ball goo so that all the original aesthetics are preserved. The messages can be reprogrammed wirelessly without having to open the 8 Ball. The accelerometer detects when the 8 Ball is in use (e.g. tipped from resting to looking through the Magic Hole) and signals the microcontroller to turn on screen and fade in the messages.

Mariano, as our other third-place winner, will receive one of two $100 Maker Shed gift certificates! Congratulations, Mariano!

Thanks again to everyone who entered!

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this!

Thanks to everyone who entered the MAKE/Design News Gadget Freak Design Contest sponsored by Alibre, Allied Electronics, and Texas Instruments. We had lots of great entries and were really splitting hairs among the top five or so, but after careful consideration we are now pleased to announce the winners:

Grand Prize: Infrared seeking sentinel

Rick Prescott outfitted a Nerf® Vulcan EBF-25TM foam dart shooting machinegun with an array of Devantech TPA81 thermopile sensors, all controlled by an ATmega168, to create this wicked Aliens-style heat-tracking autocannon:

An idea sparked in my mind one day while walking the toy gun isle in a store with my kid and later that evening learning of the workings of a thermopile array while surfing the internet. The result is this infrared seeking sentinel which joins a realistically priced infrared sensor to a realistically operatable Nerf® machine gun to create a slightly less deadly yet still highly deterring automated machine. Personally I have grand plans to deploy the infrared seeking sentinel facing the entrance of my work cubical in order to speed interaction with less desirable visitors.

Rick has won $1,000 and a storefront in Makers Market with 6 months of free service. Congratulations!

Second Prize: GPS bus notifier

University of Florida student Miles Moody used a WizNet Ethernet module wed to an Arduino Nano to scrape and parse HTML from a local web service that reports the real-time GPS coordinates of the bus that takes him to school every day:

The program compares the location to where my apartment is located and depending on where it/they are, the device will light up one of three LEDs: red if no bus is close, yellow if a bus is somewhat close, and green if the bus is coming and I need to hightail it out of my apt. For the green case, a piezo buzzer also sounds so I dont have to be looking at the device all the time. It also twitters the current location of the busses every five minutes. This allows me to check via text message the bus locations when I am on campus.

Miles has won $500! Congratulations!

Third Prize: Not lazy Susan

MAKE buddy, occasional guest author, and all-around wondergal Dustyn Roberts built a custom board and enclosure from scratch to create this hands-free Lazy Susan for the dinner table that rotates with just a wave of the hand:

In this project, we'll use at lazy Susan (also called a turntable or thrust bearing) to create a rotating platform. To make things interesting, we'll use an infrared LED and phototransistor to make the table rotate with just a wave of your hand. You can use this as a table to magically serve food to dinner guests, or to make a fun interactive centerpiece for the next wedding you plan.

Dustyn will receive one of two $100 gift certificates redeemable at the Maker Shed. Congratulations, Dustyn!

Third Prize: Magic 8 ball mod

Mariano Alvira replaced the message die in a standard "Magic 8-Ball" toy with a blue OLED display that can be wirelessly programmed from outside the ball:

The steps outlined here will show you how to modify a standard Magic 8 Ball to replace the normal message icosahedron with a OLED screen, and how to add wireless microcontroller, and accelerometer. The screen is submersed in the normal Magic 8 Ball goo so that all the original aesthetics are preserved. The messages can be reprogrammed wirelessly without having to open the 8 Ball. The accelerometer detects when the 8 Ball is in use (e.g. tipped from resting to looking through the Magic Hole) and signals the microcontroller to turn on screen and fade in the messages.

Mariano, as our other third-place winner, will receive one of two $100 Maker Shed gift certificates! Congratulations, Mariano!

Thanks again to everyone who entered!

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this!