Hack Correlation

Around three years ago I bought one of the first models of WP7 phones to appear - HTC Mozart 7 - which was very similar to the Android-based Nexus One. Wanted to see what's like to be an early adopter and early player in the app marketplace. I managed to get a free app registered on the app store: Fast Offline Translator EN-DE. http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/fast-translator/ccf24cce-d48e-e011-986b-78e7d1fa76f8 I did it mostly for myself as I knew very little German. Not much has changed since. This is the story of doing the development, deployment and update for that app.

I started preparing for doing short YouTube videos - lighting, cameras, display setup, sound. In this post I will deal with the software editing setup and a bit of hardware. Editing requirements: - synchronize videos from multiple cameras - DSLR, point & shoot, camcorder, mobile phones, capture - single video in a split-screen setup showing multiple streams - must be able to zoom in on a camera - subtitles and image overlays - speed boring portions of the video up - switch between microphones, adjust levels and compression The baseline video:  http://youtu.be/KTEGRSdxxxg  - what I expect to get out of the programs. Windows  Movie Maker Everyone's favorite:  unfortunately it's not multi-track and awkward to use. Most of the free / really cheap editing suites fall in this category. Adobe Premiere Too expensive, but the last time I used it (several years ago) was pretty ok. Kdenlive Really good, supports most of the stuff above. Unfortunately it...

There are several projects in which people seemed interested that have a pending follow-up: Txtr Begle alternate software I have managed to buy another one off eBay since one month or so. I've tried setting up the Python bluetooth suite but it's not working on Windows and there are no ready-made binaries. I do not want to force people on Windows to hunt around. I've tried setting up a Java program to communicate via Bluetooth SPP to the Beagle. However this proved extremely unreliable and highly dependent on your Bluetooth suite and hardware adapter. The best solution for now seems to go the txtr way: make a phone app. I will try to develop an Android app that is able to: send screenshots to the reader, send pre-rendered browser pages and perhaps pre-rendered pdf documents. It will probably take one afternoon of research and another afternoon of coding, source code will be made available upon completion. Toshiba TV firmware One week ago I have finally received t...

In this post I will describe a way to build a really cheap device that will allow you to measure USB power consumption and supply characteristics. It's ugly but it takes 15 minutes of your time and a broken USB hub. Then I will take a look at various USB chargers and see how they perform, hopefully not as bad as the one depicted below:

I've enrolled into the UT.6.01x Embedded Systems - Shape the World somewhere back in January/February but never got around to finishing all the exams, yet. It's a microcontroller development class focused on ARM architecture, using TI Stellaris LaunchPad as the platform. https://courses.edx.org/courses/UTAustinX/UT.6.01x/ It's been a mixed experience so far, let me explain why. The good: - using a widely available board, cheap, out-of-the-box. The class can theoretically be completed even without any hardware - awesome teachers - well-structured curricula with a relaxed and modern teaching style - free! (unless you want the certificate) - it touches on a lot of real-world topics, every theoretical experience is backed by practical examples - goes through all the major peripherals without too much detail - automatic grading system that's awesome in theory The bad: - the presentation is discontinuous, videos are interspersed with text, sometimes in a new c...

Got this pulse monitor from eBay, advertised as broken. When paired with a phone it always showed 100 bpm. Searching a bit on the Internet saw that quite a few people had this problem as well ("stuck at 100 bpm"). The front has three buttons, the middle one being pairing/on/off and the left and right ones supposedly change the tracks on your phone media player. Controls seem very similar to the bulk of bluetooth headphones. The backside has the sensor in the upper part - I suspect the pulse-oximeter type one - and two round pads for the charger dock. It's clear now why the bracelet does not give any readings: Due to bad engineering there is no proper strain relief for the wires between the sensor and the controller. I'm inserting a link break here since this post a lot of pictures.

This came out of a "box of things" that I regularly purchase on eBay. They consist of new items that are DOA (dead on arrival). It's a "Spy Pen" or "Spy Stick" - a USB stick with a 4GB capacity that also has a camera inside. The second line under the title makes absolutely no sense, it's like someone used OCR + Google Translate: The end cap was unglued, also the stick would not take a charge. With a bit of force the motherboard slides out, revealing a camera module that's literally plugged in: Great, I get a 4GB microSD for free: Also notice the reset button, I have no idea what's that for, I assume pressing it while plugging the stick in will allow uploading new firmware. Also, the battery is held in position with sticky tape. The other big chip is a 25Q80SCP , 8Mbit flash, probably holding the camcorder firmware. A clearer picture of the battery side with the camera connector. I don't know what this chip is b...