Our friends at Adafruit Industries in New York have just released glowing Mac-inspired cufflinks in time for Father’s Day this weekend.
The $128 iCufflinks pulse with the same “breathing” pattern on Apple’s Macs, MacBooks and iMacs. In fact, Adafruit’s Philip Torrone and his crew reverse engineered Apple’s LED pulse pattern.
Here’s some video:
“I co-designed these little cufflinks that subtlety pulsate like a Mac,” said Torrone in an email. “I wanted something that was futuristic but still classy enough to wear for special events when I need to get dressed up. There will be a necklace version too of course.”
The iCufflinks are similar in construction to Apple’s aluminum keyboards and Magic Trackpad. CNC Machined from the “finest” aluminum, they have a screw in backing that contains the circuit board, pulsating LED and battery.
The iCufflinks are completely open source — and can be reprogrammed to any pattern you choose. The source code, circuit board files, schematics and CAD files are posted on GitHub. “Mod & Hack away!” says Adafruit.
iCufflinks by Adafruit from adafruit industries on Vimeo.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
14 responses to “Stuck For Father’s Day? These iCufflinks Pulsate Just Like Daddy’s Mac”
“Classy and futuristic” ? $130 ? What is he a drunken monkey ??
$128 for made in usa/canada metal cufflinks that have electronics is a pretty good deal, besides we open sourced the project and files, you’re free to try to make them cheaper or better if you can :)
so … when you’re wearing these things (or the necklace), that means you’re sleeping?
“Here’s some video?” No, that’s a picture. You can tell, because it doesn’t move. And if it IS a video, it doesn’t work on my iPad. In that case, you’re an Apple blog, get with the HTML5 video.
See that ” iCufflinks by Adafruit from adafruit industries on Vimeo.” at the bottom. That’s the video………….
If you are going to critique Cultofmac’s blog, read and examine the entire post before commenting.
#JustASuggestion.
They should be careful, I’m pretty sure Apple patented that sleep light.
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