Innovation through Idiotic Ideas
Posts tagged Geek Toys
Building your own Custom Android Firmware for the Archos 7
91 year ago
The experts on the ArchosFans Forum are at it again, this time giving us a nice little tutorial on building your own custom Android firmware for the Archos 7. Forum users pmarin and knightdominion teamed up to write the tutorial which shows you step by step how to access and modify the filesystem image, allowing you to create a totally custom load for your needs.
Getting Started
In order to create your own firmware you will need a few things, a base firmware, MyDroidDevTool, and a Linux environment.
Base Firmware
You need to start somewhere and More >
Archos 7 vs the Augen GENTOUCH78
41 year ago
The Android world is buzzing tonight with news that the Augen 7″ tablet will be available this week at K-Mart stores nationwide for $149.99. At first I blew off the news being K-Mart and the price point, but after reading the story I must say I’m interested. Android 2.1, a faster processor, double the RAM — if the touchscreen works as well (or better) than my Archos we have a winner here. Since it comes More >
Increased Storage (and root!) on the Archos 7
41 year ago
Well, he’s at it again. Dom has released his newest Archos 7 Firmware version over at the ArchosFans forums. This time he’s managed to pull off root access on the device and give us extra storage space for applications. I’ve hit the application storage space limit multiple times while using the tablet, so this is a very welcome update for me. I plan on starting fresh and testing all new applications after this update and the extra storage space will help. Be sure to post in the thread to let Dom know you appreciate More >
Archos 7 Custom Firmware
21 year ago
Dom has recently updated the Operation Unbrickable firmware for the Archos 7 to version 3. This is the same firmware I used in my first Hacking the Archos 7 Home Tablet post except he has now corrected the issues with wifi setup by holding off on the Google setup wizard until you first launch one of the applications. The Google Contacts application provider has been hacked to work now, as well, but I have yet to fully test that personally. (At some point I will migrate my contacts, until then they are stored in my local More >
Archos 7 HT vs iPad
01 year ago
Last night at the Mashable Social Media Day in Detroit I had a chance to sit down with Adonis (wutwutman) and compare my Archos 7 HT and his iPad to see if I could confirm my thoughts on these two pieces of amazing technology. As suspected the iPad is a very slick device with smooth screen transitions and a beautiful display. The applications were very polished and pretty but much like my Archos many of them suffer from the “I’m running on a phone” assumption, making for some More >
Hacking the Archos 7 Home Tablet
81 year ago
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 More >
Rovio Automated Room Mapping
21 year ago
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 More >
Rovio Mobile WebCam
21 year ago
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 More >
Archos 7 Home Tablet
01 year ago
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 More >