HARDWARE: What can you do with a $25 computer?

Sunday, February 12, 2012

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/raspberry-pi-how-a-25-computer-
could-spark-a-computing-revolution/123?tag=nl.e019

European Technology
Raspberry Pi: How a $25 computer could spark a computing revolution
By Nick Heath
February 9, 2012, 6:08 AM PST
Takeaway: Ultra-cheap computers like the Raspberry Pi could usher in a new wave of pervasive computing

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One of the machines at the vanguard of the low-cost computing revolution is the Raspberry Pi, a $25 Linux box that will go on sale before the end of February. Despite its budget price the Raspberry Pi still packs a punch, with the multi-media capabilities of an original Xbox console, 1080p video playback, and general processing power of a Pentium II/III. Specs-wise the credit card-sized computer is powered by a 700MHz ARM chip inside a Broadcom BCM2835 has a single USB port and 128MB of memory, with an additional $10 buying a souped-up version with two USB ports, 10/100 ethernet and 256MB of memory.

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At the very least, it’ll be back to the days of Byte Magazine and hardware hacking galore. At the very least, those kids with all the time in the world will be computing savants.

Hard to imagine what it will be capable of?

Kids will probably break into two camps — 90% being the ipad Users and the other 10% will be the next hacking generation.

I’m going to buy some just to play.

This is stuff that was a dream when I was in injineering school.

p.s., I still have my slide rules. In case I have to design a bridge in TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It)!

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HARDWARE: Wait for the IPAD3 until March 2012

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57329053-1/$4.23-a-day-on-the-timing-of-a-black-friday-ipad-2-purchase/

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$4.23 a day: On the timing of a Black Friday iPad 2 purchase | Crave – CNET

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It appears that waiting until March next year to buy an IPAD3 is a good idea.

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HARDWARE: Meet Wu and Kong

Sunday, November 20, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vkk8kMm08cA

Ping pong robots
Written by Lucy Black
Friday, 11 November 2011 13:00

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Meet Wu and Kong – the latest in ping pong playing robots. They may not achieve exciting matches at the moment, but the fact that they can do the job at all is an indication of how fast things are moving.

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Hmm, seems like their nerds are ahead of our nerds. Except that they have a nerd girl!

Guess one should NOT plan to specialize in anything a robot can do!

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HARDWARE: VERIZON DVR and EAS incompatible

Thursday, November 17, 2011

In a recent test of the Emergency Alert System, the Verizon DVR stupidly assumed that there was a new recording of a series. So I lost LMAD and VARNEY. The test was at 1053. SO I now have a few minutes of recording of each show. I only save one on the theory of if I don’t watch it within a day, I won’t get to it. Except for power failures and EASs. Argh!

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HARDWARE: IPAD and PROJECT GUTTENBURG

Thursday, October 27, 2011

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37800

GIVEN: There’s a lot of good old content for youngsters on PROJECT GUTTENBERG.

FIND: If it was on the IPAD, then maybe the child would read it.

SOLUTION: Overlooking the issue of content selection for the moment …

I found an appropriate text — at least appropriate to this fat old white guy injineer — so I fowarded the link to the appropriate Mommy for approval.

(Our Girl’s Rule #1 for dealing with children: “Everything must be mommy approved first!” Boy, I miss her.)

So while awaiting approval, and being the grumpy old techie skeptic, I sprung to my IPAD — okay, so “sprung” is an exaggeration — for a test.

Fired up the safari browser, punched the link for the “book”, and what to my wondering eyes do appear … an error message about “FRAMES interrupted”.

(Nothing is ever as easy as it should be when it come to technology.)

So remembering how I got my novel “CHURCH 10●19●62” on to my IPAD, before Amazon listed it for the Kindle, …

I downloaded the illustrated epud format file to my mac.

Created an email with and attachment and sent it to “fat old white guy injineers ipad @ reinke dot cc”. (That’s an email address defined on the iPad.)

Open the email on the iPad.

Double tap on the attachment.

Select open with iBooks.

Voila!!!

It is there like a “real book”.

As a follow up, I’m going to ping an apple fanboy that I know for his interpretation of this story. (I’m sure it’s something like “tap the bezel while temporarily suspending Angry Birds, then with your left thumb stuck … in your right ear, while humming any Sousa melody for Dragon, poke your right eye out with the stylus. And it’ll work perfectly. You shouldn’t have reset the yada yada yada. And, that’s why Steve Jobs should be canonized.)

YMMV

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HARDWARE: SLINGBOX not recommended

Monday, October 24, 2011

SLINGBOX sucks.

I bought it with the intention that Our Girl would be able to watch her soap in the hospital.

Couldn’t get it to connect to the (at the time) Comcast router.

(At the time, I was working for Comcast and their official supprt reaction was “good”. No surprise there.)

SO, needless to say that was a waste and “Non returnable” to the Sling folks.

(Isn’t the first time I’ve gotten stuck with a “whte elephant” by a vendor. But like the elephant, I never forget. I have alist of “folk I’ll never buy from”. Hardware, software, carpet, windows, home improvement, cars, etc. etc. I get screwed a lot.)

Down the shore, I have a cable router that I can’t cancel for another year. So, let me see if I can get it working down there. Now it connects to the net, but when I go to register the website won’t give me anything other than “invalid password”. (How can any password be invalid?)

Go over to support, can’t get support on anything unless it’s within 90 days of purchase.

Argh!

(Maybe it’s time to annoy some Gooferment bureaucrats?)

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HARDWARE: IOS5 Wireless syncing

Saturday, October 15, 2011

http://www.macworld.com/article/163060/2011/10/up_close_with_ios_5_wireless_syncing_and_updating.html#lsrc.rss_main

Up close with iOS 5: Wireless syncing and updating | Mobile | Macworld

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The new wifi sync is a big benefit of doing the IOS5 update. but you have to turn it on. Who knew? Argh.

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HARDWARE: VERIZON FIOS TV grid empty

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The TV GRID is empty. Power glitch unlikely since nothing’s blinking. Reset by Verizon? Argh!

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Posted by reinkefj

HARDWARE: Smarter roads?

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/27/massapequa-park-to-use-sensors-to-detect-illegally-parked-vehicles/

Massapequa Park To Use Sensors To Detect Illegally Parked Vehicles
Mayor Insists Move Has Nothing To Do With Money, But Villagers Not Impressed
September 27, 2011 9:37 PM

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MASSAPEQUA PARK, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) – Be careful where you decide to park your car.

Massapequa Park will be the first Long Island municipality to use electronic sensors embedded in the street to detect illegally parked vehicles.

Police can quickly slap a $25 fine on the vehicle after the wireless discs notify them of the violation by transmitting a signal to the officers’ cellphones.

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Of course, it has everything to do with money.

But, this brings up an interesting opportunity.

Why can’t cars be instrumented to help the drivers. For example:

(1) Why couldn’t the sensors broadcast a priority message to the car’s radio informing the driver? As opposed to just facilitating a ticket.

(2) Why don’t we have a whole class of infrastructure that makes roads “smarter”? I seem to spend a lot of time sitting at red lights with no cross traffic. Maybe we need a “go on red at your own risk”?

(3) Why don’t roadways “broadcast” their parameters? For example, speed limits should be transmitted to a dashboard gadget; no speed limit signs would be needed. For example, “wrong way” should trigger a dashboard audible alert “stop”.

(4) Why don’t we have inter car communication?

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HARDWARE: Don’t trust driving directions

Sunday, September 25, 2011

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/09/24/2346222/IBM-Seeks-Patent-On-Retailer-Rigged-Driving-Routes

IBM Seeks Patent On Retailer-Rigged Driving Routes
Posted by timothy on Saturday September 24, @07:46PM
from the go-here-you’ll-like-it dept.

*** begin quote ***

theodp writes

“On IBM’s Smarter Planet, you may drive further than need be to get to your destination. Big Blue’s pending patent for Determining Travel Routes by Using Fee-Based Location Preferences calls for the likes of Walmart, Starbucks, and Best Buy pay a fee in return for having your route calculation service de-optimize driving instructions to make you do a drive-by of their stores, and an additional fee if GPS tracking of your car indicates you actually took the suboptimal route. The same IBM inventors also have a patent pending for Environmental Stewardship Based on Driving Behavior, which calls for yet another fee to be assessed when a retailer-friendly-but-suboptimal route causes your vehicle to enter a congested area and produce more pollution.”

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Wow, if it’s not ONSTAR selling your data, then it’s routing you the “wrong” way.

Seems like a FTC, FCC, DOJ, FBI, and SEC might take an interest in this one.

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