Innovation through Idiotic Ideas
Technology
Hacking the Archos 7 Home Tablet
8June 29, 2010
in Geek Life, Technology
One of the users on the ArchosFans Forums has been building a custom firmware image for the Archos 7 HT to bring full Google application support to the device. I decided tonight to go ahead and give his update a try and see if hacking the firmware would be something I’d bother digging into or if I should stick with pure application development. Flashing the firmware on the device means I will lose all data and installed applications, but since I had just documented the applications I use in a previous post on here I wasn’t too worried.
The first step in the update meant heading over to the Operation Unbrickable post by Dom on ArchosFans and grabbing the latest firmware image. He’s been pretty good about keeping the first post updated with the most recent information, so if you are going to update your tablet be sure to read the entire post, paying particular attention to the Instructions paragraph.
With the update downloaded to my PC I hooked up the tablet via USB (making sure More >
Rovio Automated Room Mapping
2June 27, 2010
Using my C# Rovio library I wrote an autonomous room mapping application that randomly sends one of my Rovio’s around the room plotting data as it goes. The application uses the Rovio’s Northstar data to fetch the current x/y/theta of the robot and it then plots any obstruction at that location. (I also went ahead and start plotting both the wifi and Northstar signal strengths on separate images that I can use as overlays.)
I currently sample the Rovio status every 100ms, and process movement commands once every 5 seconds. This gives me a sample size of 50 points per stop helping to eliminate any sensor errors. (It also helps correct errors caused by a curious cat.) The movement is rather silly right now and it simply rotates 2 degrees to the left if it sees an obstacle., but it works for a starter set of data. After taking a quick 10 minute run which included about 3 laps around my computer room I ended up with the following dataset.
This is a one to one visual display More >
Rovio Mobile WebCam
2June 26, 2010
in Geek Life, Technology
I had been eyeing the Rovio for quite some time now and almost jumped on them when I saw Toys R Us had them on sale for $250 a year ago. Luckly I held off because not too long ago we came across them for $99, and I quickly scored one. (As did TomTom and Bryan from the office.) Within a week Bryan realized he didn’t really need it, and I went ahead and took his off his hands. I figured if if it’s worth having one robot, it’s worth having two, right?
I really don’t have a plan for either one of these, but that’s how some of my best ideas happen — random tinkering. I had already written a custom sensor library for my home automation tests and with a little bit of code I had two working Rovio Sensors in my app each serving data back into the home intelligence library. Using OpenCV I was able to quickly knock out motion detection and face/object tracking and with a little more work the Rovio’s would track and follow moving objects. Next I am working on object recognition, More >
Archos 7 Home Tablet
0June 25, 2010
in Geek Life, Technology
When I came across the Archos 7 it was a dream come true. An inexpensive handheld tablet that runs Android? I simply couldn’t resist and made the purchase that week, opting for next day shipping to ensure I had the weekend to play with the new toy. I wasn’t looking for a replacement computer, what I was looking for was something to bridge the gap between my Blackberry and desktop PC. I needed something to browse the headlines, check the weather, read email and Facebook, and a few other little tasks here and there. If I needed to make a phone call, I’d use my phone. If I wanted to really browse the web for an extended period of time, I’d jump on the computer. And being able to develop for it in a language I’ve already used? Well that’s just a geeky little bonus…
When I first opened the package I did what any true geek does. I threw the instructions to the side, plugged it in for an initial charge and then promptly turned it on. I calibrated the screen very quickly, I didn’t have any of More >