We're selling an old Singer hand cranked sewing machine. I got it out to take some pictures for eBay. t's rather strange to come across a technology from the past which I know nothing about.
I can figure out what the screwdriver and the bobbins are for, but everything else leaves me baffled.
I was in the embedded labs last week and the conversation turned to computers. As it is wont to do. One chap mentioned a 7inch Windows tablet they'd just picked up from ebuyer for the princely sum of thirty five quid. I was intrigued. Of course I bought one. It came in the less than deluxe packaging you can see above, but it seems to be dead ringer for the Linx tablet that I got a while back for twice that. It has 1G of RAM And 32 G of internal storage, plus an SD card slot and an HDMI output.
For the price it is astonishing. Much is made of the amazing value offered by the Raspberry Pi, which gives you the internals of a computer for around 25 quid. This gives you the internals, plus a power supply, screen, WiFi connection and battery for only ten pounds more. It works very well too.
My plan is to use it on a robot and link it via Bluetooth to the motors and sensors. Should be fun. As I write this the tablet is happily downloading Windows 10 for its upgrade from Windows 8. If you are after an ultra-cheap but useful tablet you could do a lot worse.
Update: I apologise to anyone who doesn't use the proper coins of the realm and mistook the title of this post to refer to the weight of the tablet. Fear not. It isn't made of granite and can be lifted easily by one hand.
I don't know what you think Christmas is the season for, but I reckon it is 3D printing. Plenty of time at home to keep an eye on the printer, and maybe even useful things to print. This is a tape dispenser that I thought might be useful for wrapping presents.
It works quite well, as long as you remember that the nut that holds on the roll of tape is screwed on with a left hand thread. If you forget this, as I did, you'll actually destroy your first print by trying really, really hard to "loosen" the nut. I got it to work but then I discovered this little gadget from Sellotape.
You attach it to the knuckles of your left hand and you can just get tape as you wrap. It worked really well for me (I have slender and artistic hands - of course) although some of the reviews are less complimentary. Worth a look though I reckon.
...message delivered...
I've finally got my message printed. The kit I'm using is the mDrawbot. You get the parts and instructions for four different drawing machines. The one I was playing with yesterday was a drawing turtle. Today I've switched to a robot drawing arm, which works a lot more reliably. There is also an "eggbot" for drawing on eggs and a dangling string based one that lets you draw huge pictures on an easel.
The kit is part of the MakeBlock family which are based on sturdy aluminium parts which you bolt together. It reminds me of Meccano of old, but with much stronger elements that you could use as the basis of proper devices. You can even get a laser attachment for the plotter that you can use in place of a pen to perform laser engraving and cut thin paper.
To be continued.....
So I spent a very happy chunk of today making a drawing robot that very nearly works. I got the kit as my big Christmas present. This drawing robot needs a bit of calibration and I need to stop the paper wandering around the desk, But it was all lovely.
I hope you had as much fun as I did.
Baxter the robot came to see us today. He's an interesting fellow. Vaguely humanoid, with a flat screen display that can show a pair of peering eyes and resiliently driven arms that mean he can work alongside humans without inadvertently knocking off heads, poking out eyes etc.
We had a great demo of what he can do, which turns out to be rather a lot. We are looking at involving him in some future research, it would be great if we could get him on the staff at some point.
I'm thinking robot lecturer. Oh yes.
While I was in Seattle earlier this month I took the opportunity to pick up some mice and keyboards. I got a Bluetooth version of the Arc touch mouse which is really nicely designed . It lies flat and you turn it on by folding it into an arc. Hence the name. It's more comfortable than I expected and it works very well. There's no scroll wheel, but the touch area in its place is a usable replacement. The mouse contains a sounder that "clicks" as you scroll up and down providing good tactile feedback. It's a bit pricey, but it does have a nice premium feel and the way it snaps flat is very pleasing.
So, I was talking to Lilian from Microsoft last week, and explaining how I didn't think I needed to buy a Surface Book device because the only difference between it and my Surface Pro 3 is that it has a Graphical Processor Unit (GPU) in it. I reckoned I that I had no need for GPU support because I don't play games or do graphical things. She reminded me that lots of programs, including Adobe Lightroom - which I use a lot - make heavy use of GPU hardware to speed things up.
I tested this theory over the weekend, running Lightroom on my HP Sprout, that has a reasonable GPU in it. Turns out she's right. The GPU makes raw decoding of images much, much, faster. So now I want a Surface Book. The big one. With the GPU.
Thanks for that Lilian.
This had better keep working...
You should never try and do anything when you have jetlag. Especially print things. Today was the day I needed to print up all the materials for the Three Thing competition. Like I did for the last few years I fired up my printer and, like it did for the last few years, it promptly proceeded to jam up with paper.
Some things about the modern world confuse me. We can put men on the moon (although that was a long time ago). We can fathom out the deepest mysteries of science. We can create vast and powerful networks that span the globe. But we can't make a device that reliably feeds paper into itself.
Up until now I've just fixed all the paper jams and carried on, repeatedly printing until I get all the copies I need. But today I had jetlag, which reduced my tolerance of such foibles to avery bare minimum. So that, and the realisation that I'd have to do exactly the same thing next year, and the year after that, made me pick the printer up, throw it in the car and take it to the tip.
Then I went on to Staples and picked up a replacement printer. I think I may have annoyed the staff by the way that I went along the row, typing product numbers into Amazon and looking for a device with a set of good reviews. Turns out that there aren't that many in that situation. Which confuses me. (see above)
Anyhoo, the HP Envy device that I selected was well reviewed and comparatively cheap. It will cost a huge amount to keep going - of course - but I'm hoping that it will print reliably for a year or two.
They wouldn't let me take a picture of the HoloLens device...
It wasn't quite a "Golden Ticket" in the Willy Wonka style, but it did open up a rather interesting new world. On Sunday night, at the party, I was given a ticket to a session at the rather grandly named "Holographic Academy" on the Microsoft Campus. Today was the day that I got to try the new augmented reality.
From what I can tell, the academy is a large room with a bunch of powerful PCs, some tables and couches, and of course some HoloLens devices. I initially thought that the PCs were there to perform the rendering for the headsets. I was wrong. The headsets are completely self-contained. They are also very well made and looked "production quality" to me. They even fitted over my rather large glasses.
The 3D augmentation effect that they produce is totally believable. I placed a virtual "cat" on a table, walked the length of the room and then went back to it. The cat was still in exactly the same place. I looked up and down, let and right and the virtual objects in the scene all moved exactly as they should have done with no discernable lag or flicker. The sound experience is worth mentioning too. I could place objects in 3D space with my eyes closed, just by listening. And if I turned my head the objects moved as well.
The only real issue is that the region of filled with the virtual objects is only about a third of your field of view. This is a limitation of the display technology they are using. Perhaps over time the field of view will improve, but even now it is good enough to give a very impressive experience.
After a few minutes I took my headset off and was intrigued by the spectacle of a whole bunch of people wearing the headsets and moving round the room looking at things which just were not there. You could tell where they were looking, you just couldn't see what they were looking at.
A future with these devices in it is going to be a very interesting one indeed.
I watched the Microsoft Devices event on Tuesday expecting some nice stuff. And there was. The new Surface Pro 4 looks like a nice evolution, as does the Microsoft Band. I can't afford a HoloLens and I don't live in the USA, so I'm afraid that's the end of that dream for now.
And then came the Surface Book. I so want one of these. I'd even sell a camera to get one (and I probably will). The way I see it, you get a Surface Pro and a MacBook for the price of one. And the hinge and the docking stuff looks awesome. We've not got a delivery date for the Surface Book in the UK just yet (sad face) but we do have delivery dates for Surface Pro 4 and all of its accessories. So I've placed an order for a Surface Pro 4 keyboard. It will work with my Surface Pro 3, and might even help me convince people I've bought a Surface Pro 4. My blue keyboard still works OK, but the new version has a proper glass touchpad and the reviews all say that the new individual keys have better travel and separation, which is nice.
The only piece of bad news is that the versions of the keyboard sold outside the USA will not have the rather useful fingerprint sensor, which is a bit sad. The new keyboard is the same price as the one it replaces, and I'm getting a bit tired of blue, so I've gone for the nice bright one you can see above.
One other thing, if you have a Surface Pro 3, the new Surface Dock is now also available for pre-order in the UK. This works with Surface Pro 3 and provides a really good selection of ports, including two monitor outputs which is really interesting. I've not ordered one yet though, I'm saving up for that Surface Book....
Amazon are one of those companies that divide opinion a bit. Every now and then they hit the headlines for something unseemly that they are doing, or planning to do. Seems to me that they behave like every other huge company with lots of shareholders and stuff and a desire to stay in business. Like Starbucks, Google, Apple and so on. And they are very useful when you have an urgent desire for a particular kind of cable and an adapter that will let you attach Canon lenses to your Fuji camera.
Anyhoo, I placed the order today and I was pleased to find that there are now some Amazon lockers on the university campus in the Student's Union. I can get them delivered there and pick up the bits and bobs tomorrow, which is nice.
Well, that was nice. Turns out that Microsoft can build operating systems and also organise great parties. We got there a couple of hours before the doors opened and got everything working just in time for the start. I was responsible for the "Lift Off" game and the LogoBlaster. The Lift Off game has one or two gameplay issues, but I was surprised (and pleased) to find that some folks worked out how the game worked and then got very competitive.....
The LogoBlaster worked incredibly well. This is my pairing of a Raspberry Pi running Windows 10 and a portable video projector. We ere using it to project Windows 10 logos on passers by.
It was interesting to notice that some folks didn't really get what it was doing until I showed them where the pictures were coming from. We managed to get the Raspberry Pi to load the LogoBlaster program on boot up, so that the unit became completely wire free. I was able to happily wander round adding logos to passing people.
Demonstrating the power of Logo Blaster
Adding cheese to the surroundings
Shameless self promotion - and a hexapod robot
The best moment came when we pointed the LogoBlaster at someone's head by mistake. And the results were awesome. He (I'm awfully sorry sir - I've forgotten your name) was even happy to pose for a while as we took some more pictures.
This came out really well. I've put a whole bunch more pictures on Flickr. You can find them here.
The event ran for four hours. By the end we were all thoroughly hoarse from talking to folks about what we had done. But it was wonderful. We packed up in double quick time and staggered back to the hotel. Thanks to Paul for inviting me and letting me be part of this event. Great fun.
I've just arrived at the hotel where we're staying for the Windows 10 celebration event. I've unpacked a few gadgets...
I'm helping out on the Internet of Things front, and on Sunday night I had a great idea for a device I could demonstrate. Which I've built. In 36 hours. Go me.
I call it the "Windows 10 Logo Blaster". It really can put "Windows 10 on everything". It's a Raspberry Pi coupled to my lovely little projector. It runs a Windows 10 application that lets you select logos and images to "blast" onto the surroundings.
These are the 3D printed components. A tray for the Raspberry Pi, a cover that supports the projector and a handle which contains the trigger buttons. I've learned a bit over the years, and I now make designs that are easy to construct. As opposed to ones which can contain the components, but you can't actually get them inside.....
You can see how it all fits together here. Its showing the Windows 10 boot screen on the wall. When the program is running it shows different logos that you can switch between by pressing the buttons on the handle.
It works a treat. Battery life isn't great, but it does work. And I really can put Windows 10 (or at least one of its logos, onto everything. Tonight we've been told to wear white shirts as part of the event dress code, which should make the images show up a treat........
I'll put the designs and the software up on Github when I get back to Hull. I'm amazed that we now have tools and software that will let me go from idea to product in such a short time.
I'm really looking forward to the event tonight. I just hope everything works.......
I don't have many vices really. I don't drink, smoke or gamble.. Number one wife says that I should start doing all these at once because it would be cheaper than what I do indulge in. And that is gadgets.
I got another one today. Something I've always fancied owning but not got round to. It's a tiny portable projector from Maplin. The picture above doesn't really give you a sense of scale, but it is around the size of a couple of packets of cigarettes. Really tiny.
And it works a treat.
My reason for purchase is that I wanted to attach it to a Raspberry Pi. It works really well. In fact it is even better than you might think (if you think about these things). The projector contains a battery which lets it run for around 2 hours or so. But the battery can also be used to recharge connected devices. So you can power the Raspberry Pi from the projector. Most interesting.
The resolution is fine and the picture is bright enough to see even in a lit room.
I'm not saying you need one of these. But if you fancy one, it is a good one to get.
These are all the bits that you get
I was up town visiting the Red5 gadget shop today (who'd have thought it) when I noticed they had robot kit at substantially less than half price. Of course I bought it. And I've already got plans for spending the money that I saved. Go me.
The robot is big version of the Hexbug tiny ones. It is remote controlled and is able to act intelligently. Sort of. A bit like me.
It's supposed to be suitable for 8 years and upwards, but I reckon you'd really need to be a few years than older than that or have a grown up assistant. There were a few stages where I could have used some help myself. Some of the parts are very similar to each other and their alignment is very important, something you only find out when you've built it and it doesn't work properly. Also the instructions can be hard to decipher, my advice would be use the ones you can find on the web site and zoom in on them a lot.
Reviews online are mixed, and I can see where the bad ones are coming from, but the robot is certainly impressive once it gets going. It has a definite preference for tiled floors, carpets cause it to get a bit stuck because its feet dig into the pile and make turning difficult. However, for the price I paid I reckon it is good value and building it was not a bad way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.
Tonight I thought I'd build my Vetinari clock. It's a silly thing, but great fun.
Lord Vetinari is a character in the Discworld series of books by the now sadly deceased Sir Terry Pratchett. Vetinari, a powerful ruler of the largest city on the Discworld, has a clock in his waiting room which is designed to unnerve people by ticking irregularly. However, it still keeps accurate time.
You can get a kit of parts to convert any quartz controlled clock into a Vetinari clock. It uses a PIC microcontroller to generate a sequence of 32 pulses of different lengths which give the appearance of randomness. But the clock still keeps time accurately.
I ordered mine a way back and, after my expensive trip to Ikea on Sunday, I finally got a clock mechanism I thought worthy of the conversion. Tonight I put it together and carefully connected the outputs from the circuit to the driver coil in the clock mechanism. It works a treat. If you are a fan of Discworld who likes soldering you might have some fun with this.
Hmm. Perhaps a video of the clock would make more sense....
So, I bought at Hatten table at Ikea yesterday and today I popped a 32x32 LED array into it. I'm quite pleased with the result. I think I'll have to make some proper mountings for this and put a Raspberry Pi in there too. Oooh. Project.
Today we had the other half of our "Busy Weekend", driving off down to the NEC for the Gadget Show Live event. We've been to these a few times and they are always worth the trip.
And so it was this time.
This stand prompted one of the first of several "Want One" moments. The gadget in question is the HP Sprout. This is a re-imagining of the PC which brings novel user interfaces and 3D scanning to the fore. In front of you sits a touch sensitive workspace onto which the computer projects a display. The workspace is also viewed by a number of cameras, including ones that can measure depth. The upshot of this is that you can scan objects in 3D and colour and manipulate them in all kinds of interesting ways. It's a bit pricey, at around 2 grand, but you do get a high-spec PC with an i7 processor and big hard drive for your cash.
There wee lots of 3D printers for sale, with some extremely tempting prices.
This brought out the second "want one" of the day. It's the Dyson robot vacuum cleaner. It looks really interesting. It uses SLAM (Simultaneous Location and Mapping) technology to build a map of its environment to make sure that it cleans everything. If its battery gets low it will go and pick up some charge and then return to cleaning where it left off. I had a Roomba robot vacuum a while back which was basically a "bumper car" toy that just bounced off the furniture for a while. This looks a whole lot more advanced. It's due for release next year, so perhaps I should start saving now..
They even had a whole bunch of BBC micros. The urge to go down there and type
10 GOTO 10
- was pretty hard to resist.
And of course there were lots of, er, gadgets for sale too.
This is completely awesome. I'm so going to build one:
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
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