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Bug Labs has just released the pricing for their initial release of BUG modules. As an added incentive, the “first wave” of customers will receive a BUG Early Adopters Discount:

• BUGbase $349 ($299 w/discount)
• LCD module $119 ($99 w/discount)
• GPS module $99 ($79 w/discount)
• Camera module $79 ($69 w/discount)
• Motion detector / Accelerometer $59 ($49 w/discount)

So jump, don’t walk, to the BUG store and get in line to order your modules beginning January 21. Then you’ll be fully prepared to enter the PopSci Build-a-BUG Challenge.—Dave Prochnow

(Image: Bug Labs)

Earthlink failed. Google's effort didn't work out. But now a startup called Meraki Networks—a company we've been following for some time—hopes to construct a city-wide Wi-Fi network in San Francisco within the next year. To make it work, the company will have to persuade thousands of San Francisco residents to set up radio repeaters in their homes and on rooftops (including versions like the coming-soon solar-powered version pictured here).

While this sounds like a monumental task, it may prove easier than Earthlink's plan, which called for setting up transmitters on public property and, as a result, became bogged down in bureaucracy. In all, Meraki will need to set up more than 10,000 repeaters, according to the company's CEO. Right now, Meraki has installed enough of the devices to give 40,000 people in the city free access. But this isn't just about San Francisco. Meraki will offer the service free there, but it has much bigger plans. The company hopes that the San Francisco project will prove the viability of its technology, which it then hopes to sell to other countries to generate revenue.

In December, PopSci gave Meraki a Grand Award in our annual Best of What's New issue; we're happy to see them as ambitious as ever.—Gregory Mone

Via Yahoo News

One of the winner's of this year's PopSci Invention Awards, a sensor-laden glove that shows people how to correctly perform CPR in emergency situations, just won the top prize from the Collegiate Inventors Competition at CalTech.

The two inventors, Corey Centen and Nilesh Patel, who struck on the idea after reading a few frightening statistics about failed CPR, have also launched a startup, Atreo Medical Inc., to move their life-saving glove from the engineering lab and into the real world.

Read more about their big idea here.—Gregory Mone

PopSci's booth at Maker Faire was a crowd favorite (and we're not just saying that)—mainly because the projects displayed by contributors John Carnett and Theo Gray were both ingenious and superfun.

Want to make ice cream in 30 seconds, using liquid nitrogen? No problem.

How about an automatic beer-making, storing, and pouring machine? You can make one.

Video games your thing? Build a beautiful arcade table for your home.

Think watching movies in the backyard would be fun? We do, too! All the projects definitely struck a chord with the Austin audience. Next year we'll bring some scantily clad punk-rock fire dancers and a bike modded out with LED lights, and we'll be a total shoo-in. —Megan Miller

PopSci is is back at the now twice-annual travelling DIY circus that is Maker Faire. The Bay Area iteration was a blast earlier this year (see our coverage here) but this time, not only is the sweet smell of BBQ mingling with the solder fumes here in Austin, TX, we've also brought along some of PopSci's finest makers—staff photographer John Carnett, who has brought along his amazing all-in-one beer-brewing Device as well as the welded-steel vintage Arcade Table, and Theodore Gray, author of our PopSci-meets-Mr. Wizard "Gray Matter" column (check out his latest work here). We'll also be raffling off some original creations from our main project man Dave Prochnow.

Stay tuned right here for the best of Maker Faire Austin, starting Saturday, October 20. —John Mahoney

Screen resolution is so early-2007. At the CEATEC show in Japan this year, the big TV news is contrast—the difference in brightness between the lightest and darkest parts of the screen. The higher that difference, the easier details are to see and the more images “pop” off the screen. Nearly every TV maker is trying to push contrast higher, and they are doing it in many different ways.