Well as promised, I got up early to head to the lab to test out the circuit and the news is…. we have success! …well sort of. Of course there was some problems. So the first thing was I made a dumb mistake in the code, the pwm write takes a float between 0.0f and 1.0f instead of a int so the first thing was the output from the MCU was always high. »
Well that was quick! Right after posting about the project this morning, I came home and found that all the parts had arrived. After double checking the voltages and connections with my simulation (seen below) I wired up the circuit on a breadboard and I was almost ready to go! I wrote a quick loop on the MBED to increment the value and wait. My plan is to check that all the LED light up and can be controlled before I proceed to writing anymore code. »
So I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a Rave Shirt™ which would basically flash LEDs to the beat of the music. The idea is to eventually have this built into a shirt of some kind. How I imagine this will work is I’ll attach a microphone to a microcontroller, use the ADC to get the data in then perform a FFT on the signal. Once that’s done I’ll run a quick loop over the results and find high amplitude signals then use those to drive the PWM output on the microcontroller. »
‘The Cloud’ really is just a buzzword, but it holds tremendous power. With the advent of always connected smartphone and tablets, which, by design have little onboard storage, the ability to store and retrieve documents and content from anywhere in the world has gone from a neat idea to a necessity. As more and more people buy smartphones ‘the cloud’ will become more and more ingrained in our lives. Whenever I talk about ‘the cloud’ to pretty much anyone who knows what that term means, they usually start telling me why it will never succeed. »
Recently (about 5 days before this writing) an author made a post detailing why responsive design is “not worth it”. After reading his article I had to agree that he made some good points however I feel like his overall conclusion was wrong. Here’s why It defeats users expectations (and that’s a good thing) The author makes the point that basically users want to see the same site they’re used to whether they’re on mobile or not. »
So I got a Nexus Q not too long ago, and after a few days of using it for its intended purpose, I got bored. Alright all it can really do is stream music from Google Play right now, so it’s easy to get bored, but after installing a launcher I realized that not only was it a normal android device, but the only thing stopping you from using it as a normal android device was the is no good way to control it. »
I just wrote up a big comment on G+ (which you should follow me on if you don’t) about why this is the last generation of portable handhelds. Even prior to the recent kickstarter success of the ‘OUYA’ gaming system I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of an Android powered gaming system. While I don’t think the OUYA is a great idea, I do think it will capitalize on the shift from console gaming to PC gaming. »
One thing that always impresses me about apple is how strong their product positioning and marketing are. One of the the things that apple does to ensure a premium customer experience from the get go is keep their product line simple so that the consumer doesn’t have to worry about the specs. For example, If I wanted to run Garageband on the go, all I have to do is go out to best buy and pick up the latest iPad and I know it will run it; I don’t have to google around and see what the spec requirements are for it. »
Quick dirty guide on how to get the Nexus Q unlocked and ready for hacking. First download and install the SDK and tools if you don’t have it already Pair the nexus q to a device so you can enable USB debugging. Open the Nexus Q app, goto your Q and select advanced, then turn on usb debugging. Plug the Q in via USB, then type adb reboot bootloader Once the ring turns red, type fastboot oem unlock, this will factory reset the Q, Once it has reconnected, repair it to a device, enable usb debugging again, and type adb reboot-bootloader. »