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Worldwide
shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets increased 92 percent in 2009, according to figures released this morning by Berg
Insight, as the technology has become a standard feature in smartphones and mid-range feature
phones. But GPS is also poised to become increasingly common on the kind of ultra-affordable
phones that many mainstream users carry. Which means the potential market for GPS-enabled apps is
about to get a lot bigger.
GPS is a key component in many of the location-aware smartphone apps that have become so popular
in recent months. Both Foursquare and Gowalla use GPS to determine a user’s location, and
lesser-known (but more practical)
navigation titles like Waze leverage it as well. Usage of GPS on feature phones has largely
been limited to carrier-branded navigation apps, however, by users whose handsets can’t
support app distributors like Apple’s App Store or Google’s Android Market.
That is sure to change, though, as GPS makes its way onto the kind of handsets that are often
given away free with a service contract in the U.S., or are available very cheaply without a
contract elsewhere the world. That opens the door for developers of location apps to build
offerings for cheaper phones and deliver them through distributors like GetJar, which provides
apps for a wide range of phones. What’s more, Berg Insight notes that GPS functionality
will begin to gradually improve starting next year as chip makers add support for the Russian
GLONASS satellite system and leverage location information from cell networks and Wi-Fi
connections. So while more users with cheap phones will soon be able to access the kind of
GPS-enabled apps that have gained dramatic traction lately, those with high-end devices will find
their location-based apps improving over the next few years, too.
Quoi de beau cette semaine sur le PlayStation Store européen cette semaine? Pas grand chose.
Essentiellement de l'add-on musical et des promos potentiellement intéressantes...
We’ve received lots of comments on yesterday’s story, “Apple bans protective
screen film from Apple Store,” and that’s not a huge surprise: film is one of the most
popular accessories in the entire iPod/iPhone ecosystem, and its
value—particularly for anti-glare purposes—has spread to
Macs, as well, with the same thing very likely to happen with iPads. In the absence of an official
explanation from Apple,...
An accurate drill press is an essential tool for making your own through-hole printed circuit
boards at home. Reader [Josh Ashby] offers up a solid design using scrap bin materials.
A major issue with PCB drilling is that even the slightest horizontal play will snap the delicate
carbide drill bit. Hobbyist-grade tools such as Dremel’s drill press attachment are usually
too sloppy for this task, while a more precise
instrument might set you back a couple hundred bucks.
[Josh’s] design uses a nylon “sled” moving vertically in an aluminum u-channel
track. Most of these materials were salvaged or were
acquired inexpensively from a local hardware store, and assembled in less than a
day. Surprisingly, this low-tech approach has proven sufficiently smooth that
he’s yet to break a bit while drilling. And the entire setup,
including the knockoff Harbor Freight rotary tool, cost less than the wobbly
name-brand accessory alone.
Despite industry-wide retail contractions last year, leading U.S. and international
video game specialty retailer GameStop says its just-ended fiscal 2009 brought the second-highest
earnings in its history. In its fourth quarter, which ended January 30th, 2010, it saw sales rise
0.9 percent year over year to $3.52 billion, although comparable store sales fell nearly 8
percent and profits dropped 7.1% to $215.9 million. GameStop's full-year view of 2009 also sees
comparable store sales -- which ...
Envie de vous détendre en écrabouillant la tête d'un idiot en bonnet
péruvien ? Alors Pocket Boxing, gratuit aujourd'hui, est fait pour vous. Dans le même
ordre d'idée, My Brute de nos camarades de BulkyPix est gratuit également.
Très sympa. Petit utilitaire intéressant, iPlaylist...
Les petits gars de Gizmodo se sont
“amusés” à compter le nombre d’applications basées sur la
Bible présentes au sein de l’AppStore. Et vous savez quoi ? Ils
se sont arrêtés, lassés, après avoir référencé la
mille et unième. Dans tous les cas, avec un nombre si élevé de versions
différentes, on imagine aisément à quel point doit être juteux le
marché des religions sur le store d’Apple…
The layout, design, and attention to detail in this camera app are among the best you'll find on
the App Store. Not only does Hipstamatic produce great-looking photos -- it's also engaging and fun
to use before you ever see the finished product.
Hey,
remember Taiyo's voice
controlled toy helicopter from last year? This is way cooler. Like, way cooler. It's
an autonomous quad-copter created by the Robust Robotics Group at MIT. It hovers and flies a bit like the AR.Drone that had us smitten at CES this past January,
but this one has a lot more brains. It response to natural (though slowly delivered) language voice
commands that look to be processed on an iPhone before being sent to the helo. In the video
embedded below you'll see it responding to the command "Fly past room 124 then face the windows and
go up." Sure enough, it does as instructed, and while we don't know how many takes that particular
feat of robotic subservience took to pull off, we're suitably impressed. Mind you, this is a
research project and not any product ever destined for retail, so after watching that video a few
more times we'll just go back to crashing our Picco Zs into the walls -- and each other.
Debout là-dedans, nous sommes jeudi et le Store ce met à jour Quoique, si c'est pour
râler pour nous dire qu'il n'y a pas grand chose cette semaine, vous pouvez vous rendormir,
parce que, effectiveme...
In a world where you can download films legally and rent DVDs by post, indie video shops may find
opportunities in becoming more specialised or responding to the needs of a local area
Video killed the radio star, but what's killing the video store? My local, Prime Time Video in
Blackheath, London, is the latest in a long line of video shops to close down. Round here, you
could plausibly screen the Onion's mock
historical tour of a Blockbuster store on the evening news. A search for "video and DVD
rental" in my postcode area turns up van hire and dentists.
Without video shops, Mos Def and Jack Black wouldn't have remade a stack of films in Be Kind Rewind, Will Smith
couldn't "hit on mannequins at the video store" in I Am Legend, and Jean-Pierre
Jeunet's body-popping clerk would be working somewhere else in new film Micmacs. With more and more video shops
closing, will there come a time when they only exist in movies (which you won't be able to rent
from a shop)?
"There's an insane number of guns pointed at the few remaining indie video shops," says film-maker Jon Spira, who owned Oxford's Videosyncratic. "I think their fate's been sealed
for a while. Rental copies are more expensive and only produced once, so you can't replace them.
And supermarkets sell DVDs below wholesale price, so why go to a video shop? Hooray for the free
market."
With Prime Time gone, I'll miss rummaging through actual shelves and renting films within minutes
of deciding I want to see them. The postman doesn't have time to help me identify forgotten
movies from lines of misquoted dialogue. Tony Gunnarsson, an analyst at Screen Digest tells me
DVD rental peaked in 2005 and has been declining ever since. "You can buy a film for a few pounds
more, so why rent it?" Depends how many shelves you've got, surely. Mine are already full.
So I phone Neil Snowdon of Exeter's Read and Return
Bookshop, who ran video shop Brazil until May 2008. Why did it close? "We just didn't make
enough money," he says. "I went a year without being paid. Location was a factor
– we were at the wrong end of town. But there's a generation of people now for
whom renting is not normal."
"Rental shops are an anachronism in a world where you can stream and download films legally, or
order DVDs by post without having to physically return to the shop," says Branwell Johnson of
Marketing Week, former editor of rental magazine View. "Where I see surviving stores, they're
specialists – usually arthouse and foreign language." Neil Snowdon agrees:
"Our regulars wanted something they wouldn't get anywhere else. But people weren't willing to
walk the distance."
The last indie rental shops left standing deserve a medal, says Jody Raynsford, who edited Home
Entertainment Week. "When was the last time you heard an advert that said 'Rent this on DVD from
... '?" But he reckons it's not all doom and gloom: "If stores can tailor their offerings to the
needs of a local area with little competition, there's no reason why they can't survive."
So long as people use them, that is. "If you like something and want it to survive, you have to
support it," says Jon Spira. "Use it or lose it. The temptation to spray-paint that across my
shop's window is immense."
Steve Riggio has signed off as CEO of
bookseller Barnes & Noble to become the
company’s Vice Chairman. Replacing him at the helm will be William Lynch, who has heaps of
experience in e-commerce under his belt and was previously President of B&N’s main
website (bn.com).
The company also announced the promotion of COO Mitchell Klipper to chief executive of
the company’s retail group, which encompasses the Barnes & Noble retail business and
the Barnes & Noble College Booksellers business.
William Lynch joined Barnes & Noble in
February 2009 as President of Barnes & Noble.com and has been responsible for the
company’s core online business since then. Lynch launched the company’s digital
commerce platform as well as the nook, Barnes
& Nobles’ eBook Reader. You know, the device that won the Best New Gadget Award 2009 at the recent
Crunchies show (and boy, do they know how to
show off their pride properly).
Prior to Barnes & Noble, Lynch was Executive Vice President of Marketing and General Manager
of HSN.com. From 2004 to 2008, he was CEO of IAC subsidiary Gifts.com, which he co-founded.
From 2000 to 2004, he was VP and General Manager, E-Commerce, for Palm., where he oversaw all of
the company’s Web properties, including Palm.com, the Palm Online Store, the Palm Software
Connection and the Palm.Net wireless ISP.
Who are fashion's most successful husband and wife team?
Well fashion swots? Would you perhaps hazard a guess at print specialists Mark Eley and Wakako
Kishimoto of Eley Kishimoto? Or maybe you'd go for Inacio Ribeiro and Suzanne Clements of
Clements Ribiero?
Sorry, wrong answer. Take a detention and come back when you've done your homework properly.
The correct answer can only be Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada. Yes, the owners of a global
fashion conglomerate with $2.4 billion in sales are a very special couple indeed, as a recent
interview in the Wall Street Journal
revealed. But while Prada is one of the most influential designers in the world (not to mention
Fashion Statement's office, where we are rocking the Land Girls look from her Autumn/Winter 2010
show) it seems the real force (and we really do mean force) behind the business is her husband
Bertelli.
Creative genius though she may be, it seems Miuccia Prada would be ill-advised to get on the
wrong side of her husband: when overseeing the decor of a new Miu Miu store in 1997, he had a bit
of a problem with a mirror. But while your average business mogul might just have demanded a
refund from the manufacturer, not Bertelli. Oh no. He smashed it. "It made people look too fat,"
he said of the incident. And could there possibly be a worse fashion crime than that? His ire is
not just reserved for unflattering mirrors though - he famously broke the rear lights of several
cars parked in the wrong spaces of Prada's carpark. "I enjoyed that," he remarked afterwards.
Quite.
Getting the impression he might quite like letting loose now and then? Yes, us too. Prada,
though, seems to have taken those incidents in her stride: "I always tell Bertelli: You like this
reputation, or you'd change it," she says, while Bertelli maintains that his anger is only
triggered by things that are banal, or for people who just don't cut it. "My behavior is always
correct, and I always try to motivate people" he said. Strangest of all, in Fashion Statement's
book, is the the fact that Prada refers only to her husband by his surname. Just your average
couple, no?
So there you go fashion fans. Please ensure that, should you meet the power pair, your mirrors
are suitably flattering, your cars are correctly parked and - god forbid - your conversation is
not banal.
BANG ON TREND
Pick 'n' Mix prints
Not literally the sweet treats you get at the cinema you understand, rather the whole gamut of
prints that were seen on catwalks such as Jaeger, Dolce and Gabbana and Moschino. This season
it's okay to mix animal with floral, graphic with geometric - heck, you can get away with
practically anything, so make the most of it.
These
vintage-looking floral shorts from Miss Selfridge for £30 are a pretty purchase with a
flatteringly wide waistband. They'll be perfect worn with a plain white vest and and a pair of
sandals.
If shorts are going to be your thing this summer, then we've also seen these
See by Chloe ones (£110) with a cute blue bow-tie motif.
French Connection's ivy dress sports a gorgeous burst of rich colour, is a flattering shape
and has been reduced in the sale to a mere £29.50.
This
printed cami by Amana is made with organic silk, produced by fairly paid artisans and would
look rather fetching with boyfriend jeans. At £59.08, it's also a good bargain.
People Tree's Leilani
floral print dress (£65) is another ethical buy that will have you looking gorgeous for
spring. It has a retro print and we suggest styling it with the wide leather belt that they've
used for the model on People Tree's website.
Komodo's Lola
dress (£67) is a sweet summery option suitable for strolling city streets in the
sunshine, and their tribal printed
tulip skirt (£45) with fierce black and red colours is good for those who like to stand
out from the crowd.
Liberty's designs for Target have some rather bargainous deals. We especially like this
sunflower print duffel bag for £22
For its beefed up animal print we've got to mention Topshop's
body-con skirt (£25). Yes, it's VERY 80s, but in a good way, honest.
FASHION GRAVEYARD
In case anyone doesn't remember, Matt Goss used to be in Bros, Mel B used to be in the Spice
Girls, and Leona Lewis used to have better friends. Leona's face says it all in this photo, and
we don't think it's necessary to explain to Fashion Statement followers (Mel B we assume you're
not a subscriber ...) that shaving half your head and wearing a neon blue dress do not a Rihanna
make.
FASHIONISTA OF THE WEEK
Maybe it's just the fact that this week spring seems finally to have sprung, but this picture of
Nicola Roberts in her picnic blanket-bright Vivienne Westwood dress just makes us feel happy. Not
only does she look great, she's also flying the flag for being pale and interesting (and her
hair's not quite as mumsy as usual).
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Q: What was the first designer piece you owned?
A; I remember because I used to go to school with my collection of Fendi bags - wallet, bag,
umbrella. Everything matching. It's never raining in my country - it's so hot! All the people in
my class used to make a joke about me, say, you know, "Where you going with umbrella?! No rain
outside?!" I said, "I know, but it's part of the look!" I was, I think, 12.
NYMag interviews notorious
clotheshorse Anna Dello Russo, the Italian-born fashion director of Vogue Nippon. What do you
mean your wardrobe wasn't full of Fendi when you were 12? Tsk, get with the programme, people.
OUT AND ABOUT
An exhbition by jewellery artist Jacqueline Ryan alongside works by metal work artists Junko Mori
opens in Cumbia at the end of the month. Beauty in Repetition: Metalwork and Jewellery is on show
from 27 March, at the Blackwell, The
Arts and Crafts House
SHOPPING NEWS
British brand Fullcircle have launched a brand new
shopping website and to celebrate are offering Fashion Statement's lucky readers a 10%
discount. Don't say we never treat you. Just enter the code Guardian10 at checkout. Snap up their
spring/summer collection now - we particularly like this splash print skirt. Wear
with a white T-shirt to play it down or if you're feeling daring, a contrasting print. The offer
is valid uintil the 17th April.
Desperate for a pair of Jimmy Choos or Louboutins but just can't justify the cost? Cinderella-me.co.uk is the site for you. You can hire a pair of
designer shoes from £40 a week. Each pair will be hired no more than eight times to ensure
they stay in tip top shape.
Urban brand specialist Republic has opened an eagerly awaited first store in Ireland, in
Belfast's Castle Court shopping centre on March 15th. Get there for your fix of Diesel, Firetrap,
Bench and other youthful favourites.
Apple n'aura pas attendu le printemps pour faire le ménage. Après avoir banni
quelques milliers d'applications à caractère érotique de l'App Store, le
groupe de Cupertino s'est attaqué à un ...
Japanese video gaming powerhouse Square Enix has
released a handful of hit titles for the iPhone already (including Final
Fantasy I and II), but the next one, an RPG named Chaos Rings, is poised to blow them all out
of the water. Officially announced [JP]
today, the game’s trailer shows absolutely amazing graphics.
There will be five scenarios in the game, a turn-based battle system, boss fights, and
“five 2-person teams that enter into a battle tournament to the death” (the
game’s main storyline revolves around said tournament). Square Enix says Chaos Rings will
be an original iPhone title with optimized touch controls. And it seems to have the best graphics
seen on the iPhone so far.
The company released the trailer for Chaos Rings just a few hours ago. It’s in Japanese,
but that doesn’t matter too much in this case. Expect the title to hit the App Store
“soon”, at the very least within this year (judging from the trailer, the game could
be pretty much finished).
Minneapolis maker Michael Krumpus, who also sells the EZ-Expander in the Maker's Market, created this lovely
mood lamp made out of
LEDs, an Arduino Duemilanove, and glass vials he bought from the Twin Cities' legendary Ax-Man
surplus store.
This is a mood lamp I build using 16 LEDs of different colors and small glass vials. The square
bottoms of the vials look a lot like glass block, and the glass diffuses and scatters the light in
beautiful ways. The software shows random patterns of light and the brightness of each LED can vary
-- they aren't simply "on" or "off". The Arduino code is pretty complex
because it implements PWM (pulse-width modulation) for all 16 LEDs. The Arduino board only has 5
PWM-capable pins, so providing PWM for all 16 pins is accomplished purely in the code. The lamp
randomly displays different lighting patterns and can be really mesmerizing.
Lorsque l'on évoque les différentes plates-formes de téléchargement, on
compare fréquemment l'étendue de leur catalogue respectif. Ainsi, l'App Store clame
avoir plus de 150 000 ...
The market for NAND flash memory, which is mainly used to store data in mobile handsets, portable
music players and other consumer electronic devices, will likely be ignited by demand from tablet
computing devices and low-capacity solid-state drives (SSD) designed for low-cost netbooks and
dual-drive desktop PCs, according to industry sources.
Comme annoncé, le PlayStation Store japonais accueille la version numérique de
Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, nouveauté marquante de cette MAJ hebdomadaire :Jeux
PSPDanteÂ’s Inferno -...
Avant hier
Ars Technica a publié que plus de 40% des possesseurs de Blackberry seraient
prêt à changer de de téléphone pour un iphone, un chiffre
énorme! Alors plutôt que de se baser sur des chiffres US pour en tirer des
conclusion sur l'avenir de RIM pourquoi ne pas vous demander si vous deviez changer de
téléphone cela serait pour quel type de smartphone?
Et comme plus il y aura de répondants plus on pourra dire des trucs intelligents,
n'hésitez pas à faire tourner et pourquoi pas intégrer ce formulaire sur
votre site ou blog. Le code pour intégrer le formulaire est là :
1 <iframe
src="https://spreadsheets.google.com/embeddedform?formkey=dFpveXl1S0EydjQ0QjQ2NmR4dVdGLVE6MA"
width="500" height="600" frameborder="0" marginheight="0"
marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe># Autres articles pour aller plus loin...
It's no
surprise that Best Buy is encouraging customers to pick up Samsung's 3DTV and Blu-ray player at the
same time, but smart buyers should doublecheck to make sure they're actually saving money before
they walk out of the store. Next week's advertisement does feature Best Buy's price on the
UN55C7000 that's $300 lower than the
MSRP, and grabbing the display and player all at once gets a free Starter
Pack throw in with two pairs of glasses and the Monsters vs. Aliens flick, but the
$3,419 package deal at the lower right and its "$780" savings?. That claimed price throws in a $150
Geek Squad install to set up the TV, connect WiFi and "sync your 3D glasses," while also including
the TVs price and $349 estimated Starter Kit value. While there might be some customers who don't
know their HDMI from their WEP key who can save that way, we're figuring most Engadget
readers can keep a few bucks in their pocket and hook things up themselves, and if you're looking
to grab another pair of glasses, it's probably important to save anywhere you can. The real insult
here however, can be found to the right, encouraging buyers to pick up The Blind Side
right away, instead of
waiting to rent from Redbox or Netflix.
SXSW Interactive is now over. While a clear winner in the “Location War”
has yet to be
determined, the truth is that many of the location-based services won, as all of them got a huge amount of exposure
over the past week. And look for that trend to continue in a big way, as Apple is now
highlighting several of them in the App Store.
As you can see in the images in this post, Apple is highlighting five of the key location players
both in the App Store on iTunes, as well as on the App Store on the iPhone itself. On the iTunes
version, the apps have their own area right below the “New & Noteworthy” area. On
the iPhone, the five apps takes up the top five slots of the “What’s Hot” area.
Simply put: This promotion is huge.
So what are the five apps? The names should be familiar to you because we’ve covered each
very recently. Foursquare (our
coverage), Gowalla (our
coverage), Loopt (our coverage),
Whrrl 3 (our coverage), and MyTown
(our coverage). I’d like to
think Apple picked these guys to feature after reading TechCrunch, but who knows what goes on
behind the doors of the secretive company.
As any app developer will tell you, having your app featured can make or break it. Even the two
most-hyped players, Foursquare and Gowalla (the two key players in the most recent Location War),
stand to benefit from Apple’s ability to reach all kinds of different audiences with the
App Store. Foursquare announced earlier that it had gained 100,000 new users in just the past
10 days — that type of growth may actually continue as long as Apple keeps
featuring the app.
As I was walking by the Hugo Boss store in Frankfurt Airport, I saw a tall man with long grey
hair holding up a pair of jeans. I immediately said to myself "boy this guy looks like James
Cameron!". I wasn't sure and I'm not the type to intrude in other people's private lives, so I
moved on.
This morning I checked out recent pictures taken at the Oscars and confirmed that he has indeed
been letting his hair grow long. The clincher was a Twitter search which revealed that he arrived
in India yesterday. FRA Airport is the primary transfer point for Westerners going to the
subcontinent.
Before we get into the how-to, we felt it would be appropriate to explain a little bit about how
this came to be. As many of you may remember, a couple of months ago we attended CES 2010. While there, we also
attended the It Won’t Stay in Vegas Blogger
party and ended up meeting the guys from
Woot. After all of us spent a little bit of time appreciating the open bar, a group of us
stood ended up standing around and talking shop for a while. All of a sudden, a member of our
group, Jeremy Grosser, proposed the idea that Hackaday
and Woot form a partnership. Basically, they would give us a heads up on what they are going to
sell and we would write up a how-to on how to do something cool or useful with that product.
Then, when the day came for Woot to sell the product, we would post our how-to. What you are
reading right now just so happens to be that idea in action, the
first official partnership between Hackaday and Woot. In this how-to, we’ll be taking
apart the Wowwee Rovio mobile webcam robot, adding some super-bright LEDs for better
see-in-the-dark action, and see how some software called RoboRealm can give it a little bit of artificial intelligence.
If don’t have a Rovio yet, you should probably head over to Woot and pick one up so you can follow along. Also, be sure to pick up
a copy of RoboRealm at deals.woot while you’re at it.
It is important to note that while writing this how-to, we used a modified design of the Rovio
Head-Mounted LED hack, posted to RoboCommunity by [Rudolph].
Parts
- 6 super-bright white LEDs (Ours were rated for 3.3v with an intensity of 7000mcd.)
- 1 2N2907 PNP Transistor (We found ours in a 15 transistor combo pack from RadioShack.)
- 1 10ohm resistor
- 1 2.2k ohm resistor
- 22g solid hookup wire
- RadioShack
3×2x1″ Project Enclosure (We used the plastic back panel as a place to mount our
LEDs.)
- 5mm LED holders (Optional. We ended up using them to mount our LEDs in their poorly drilled
holes.)
- Heat-shrink tubing (Optional, but recommended.)
- A small strip of perfboard
We picked up most of our parts from RadioShack, but these parts are so common that you should be
able to pick them up from any electronics components store.
Disassembly
The first step towards giving our Rovio some much needed extra light is, of course, to
disassemble it. After turning the Rovio upside down, remove the six phillips-head screws and
carefully remove the top shell to gain access to the Rovio’s internals. While you
won’t be able to fully detach the top shell, you should be able to lay it next to the
bottom part of the Rovio as seen above.
Inside of the Rovio, there are two main PCBs, the control board and the power supply board. For
the purposes of this how-to, we will only need to modify the power supply board. To gain access
to the power supply board, simply remove the two phillips-head screws that secure the board
vertically. After you gain access to the board, you will then need to identify the ground and
positive pads on the PCB. We will be tapping into these pads later to power our array of LEDs.
One other item of interest to us is the white wire leading from the control board to the LED
headlight board. This wire will allow us to control our new headlights through the Rovio’s
web interface.
After firing up your soldering iron, you’ll need to solder two wires onto the power supply
board. As you can see above, there are two areas with tiny little holes, allowing for easy access
to both GND and VCC. After you have soldered both of these wires, screw the board back in and
then turn your attention towards the white wire mentioned previously. After cutting the white
wire, solder a length of hookup wire to the end of it and insulate it with appropriately sized
heat-shrink tubing. Also, it’s probably a good idea to remove the LED headlight board
entirely. This gives you three openings to run your wires out of from the Rovio to our new
headlight panel. After you’ve removed the board, you can cut the wires leading to both the
infrared LED and receiver. These function as a forward facing “radar” to alert the
user if there are any obstacles ahead. We decided to salvage ours by placing them both in the new
panel that we will soon be creating. If you choose to salvage your infrared “radar”
as well, then remember to solder extension wires between the appropriate leads and the LED and
receiver. We actually used some telephone tap connectors (from RadioShack) to extend the three
wires leading to the infrared receiver, but soldering should work just fine. Now that
you’re finished with all of the internal modifications to the Rovio, we can move on to the
circuitry behind this hack.
The Circuit
In order to make sure that we can control our replacement LED headlights through Rovio’s
web interface, we need to build a circuit that will detect when the headlights are triggered via
the web interface and activate our headlights accordingly. To do this, we’ll use a PNP
transistor to switch the ground of our headlight circuit. As you can see from the schematic
above, the white wire that we mentioned earlier will be connected to the base of the transistor
via a 2.2k resistor, the ground from the power supply board will be connected to the collector of
the transistor, and the emitter of the transistor will be connected to the ground of the parallel
array of LEDs. If you want to, you could probably add a few more LEDs to this design. Just
remember, if you change the number or type of the LEDs, you will have to recalculate the value of
the current-limiting resistor between VCC and the positive pin of the parallel LED array. After
we’ve reviewed our schematic and we’re comfortable with it, we should be ready to
breadboard.
As you can see, there really isn’t that much to our circuit as far as components go. The
black and red wires come directly from the power supply board. Our voltage reading was right
around 6.5v. Please note that your voltage may vary depending on the charge of your Rovio’s
NiMH battery. The green wire was soldered to the white wire inside of the Rovio, and controls
whether the transistor lets the ground flow to the LEDs. We found that the best way to test this
circuit while breadboarding was to turn on the Rovio and turn on and off the headlights using the
web interface. After confirming that the circuit works consistently, you can go ahead and solder
the circuit onto some perfboard and connect to the Rovio.
The circuit really doesn’t take up much space on the perfboard. We decided to use the extra
space on our board as a makeshift terminal block to extend the infrared LED. While soldering the
circuit onto the perfboard, be sure to remember the orientation of your transistor. If you
accidentally put it in backwards, you could switch the collector and emitter, burning out the
transistor. We mention this only because we actually did it the first time we assembled our
board, and we ended up having to swap in a new transistor before reassembling the board. After
you’ve assembled and verified that your circuit works, we can move on to assembling our
headlight panel.
Drilling and Wiring
On your blank panel, carefully drill 8 holes in any configuration you would like. When drilling
your holes, be sure to use a 3/16″ drill bit. While it is actually slightly smaller than a
5mm LED, you can rotate the drill once or twice around to widen the hole. The main thing is that
you don’t want to make the holes too large for the LEDs, which, incidentally, we ended up
doing. One of them was so wide that we had to change the placement of our LEDs to make sure that
they all more or less fit.
I don’t think that I need to get into too much detail here, but the major thing to remember
is that the LEDs need to be wired in parallel. Also, be sure that you are connecting cathode to
cathode and anode to anode, otherwise the whole circuit just won’t work. After you’ve
completely assembled the panel, attach the wires the ground from your perfboard and the VCC from
the power supply board to the circuit, and use the web interface to test that the LEDs get
switched on when they’re supposed to be. If you decided to salvage the infrared
“radar”, don’t forget to attach the infrared LED and receiver to the board in
the two holes left over.
After you’ve finished with the drilling and wiring, you should be ready to attach the panel
to the Rovio. While it was a little tricky for us, we were able to epoxy the panel to the
underside of the front of the Rovio so that it looked like it was vertically mounted.
Now that your Rovio can see better in darker situations, lets take a look at RoboRealm.
RoboRealm
While investigating all of the different things that we could do with our Rovio, we
stumbled upon a piece of software called RoboRealm.
RoboRealm allows you to take video input from any webcam, including the Rovio, and run it through
any number of different modules to process the images. After the images are processed, the
software can even see if any pre-defined conditions are met, and if they are it will instruct the
robot to act accordingly. Combine that visual input with the audio input/output on the Rovio, and
you can do some pretty cool stuff. The interesting part about this software is that it officially supports the Rovio out of the
box. We’ve had a chance to mess around with it a little bit, and as far as we can tell, it
seems like pretty powerful software.
We already know all of the cool things that we want to do with this software and our Rovio, but
we’re curious, what would you do with it? Leave us your answer in the comments, and if we
see something that we find truly inspiring, we’ll do some research, write it up, and post a
how-to explaining how to do it. Who knows, there might even be a brand new Rovio and a free copy
of RoboRealm in it for the winner too…
Universal
Music Group has debuted a new Guitar Hero-like music simulation game for the iPhone. Priced at $4.99 and available in the App Store
right now, it’s called Six String
[iTunes link].
The emphasis is on a more realistic and deeper guitar-playing experience than you get in other
music games, though it’s still not quite like the real thing. The game comes with licensed
UMG songs by artists like Bon Jovi and Tom Petty. It even includes a song by The Scorpions
(“Raised on a Rock”) from an album that won’t hit shelves digital or otherwise
until March 23.
There are two game modes: Practice Mode and Studio Mode. Practice mode gives you feedback on how
accurate you are in hitting notes. Studio Mode turns off those hints and replaces them with
status bars that measure your progress. If you make too many mistakes, you’re kicked out of
the song.
We played the game for a while today, and our impressions are that it’s one of the better
music games for the iPhone. It won’t be as fun as playing Rock Band on the
Nintendo Wii with your entire family, but
it’s a worthy distraction, and that’s what mobile games are supposed to be.
How You Play
I played electric guitar in a Blues band professionally for two years. Thanks to that experience,
I can tell you that while Six String is not too much like the real thing, it feels like
a closer approximation than Guitar Hero. That’s despite the lack of a guitar
peripheral — not that I’m complaining that there’s not one (you
wouldn’t want to carry around a peripheral with your phone, obviously!).
Six String feels more like a real guitar because the mistakes you make are similar to
the ones you’d make on a real guitar — with one hand, anyway. The game
simulates the strumming and picking hand and has you using the touchscreen to either strum, tap,
or hold each individual string (or a group if strings) in correct time as the notes come up. It
works well and it feels a little bit like you’re actually playing music when you’re
getting it right.
The game also prompts you with chord changes on harder difficulty levels, but you perform them by
tapping with the same fingers you use to play the strings. If you miss notes or chord changes,
the music is digitally altered to sound a bit off. It doesn’t sound very realistic, but you
can tell what you’re doing wrong. As with Guitar Hero, the skills of real guitar
players won’t translate here or vice versa. But that’s not really the point, because
it’s a fun game to play.
When you complete a song, you’re given detailed stats and feedback. You can share them with
friends through the online service described below.
Online Features
The game comes with six songs: Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name,” Tom
Petty’s “Runnin’ Down A Dream,” Fall Out Boy’s “Thnks Fr Th
Mmrs,” Peter Frampton’s “Show Me The Way” and Orianthi’s
“According To You.” If you tire of those, you can buy more in the included music
store. Each new track costs $0.99. If you’d like, you can buy the same songs on iTunes from
within the app. You can also watch music videos or download ring tones.
Six String connects to a social gaming service called Plus+. You can share your top scores,
compete for a spot on the leader boards, and check on any friend’s status. UMG put some
Twitter and Facebook integration in the mix, too. It’s
similar to the Feint network that’s used by several other iPhone games out there.
Do you have a favorite music game for the iPhone? Head down to the comments below to fill us and
the other readers in!
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percent and profits dropped 7.1% to $215.9 million. GameStop's full-year view of 2009 also sees
comparable store sales -- which ...
It's no
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UN55C7000 that's $300 lower than the 
SXSW Interactive is now over. While a clear winner in the “Location War”
has 
Universal
Music Group has debuted a new Guitar Hero-like music simulation game for the 
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