My Car PC – Alpha Build

From the first day I got my I wanted to build up a Car PC. But the problem was finding the parts I want to put in the build. While entry level components like Intel 945GCLF and later 945GCLF2 was available in the local marked I couldn’t convince myself to settle for anything that does not have a ION chipset. And neither I could find an easy way to get that kind of board from offshore.
So I just ordered only an OBD-II cable from eBay for some 17$ and was using with laptop to read out OBD parameters that I noticed it also have Windows CE drivers as well. Well after all while I don’t like to waste my on an Intel board I could certainly try out hooking up eBox 2300 I had on my i-Robot Sumo which I won at Imagine Cup 2009 Finals if I just had a suitable screen.
Well I thought why don’t I try out buying a cheap VGA to AVI converter and a Small screen used for Car reversing cameras. It won’t be a waste since I can certainly use those for either robot itself or for the Car PC it self as a secondary display in a later stage when I got the proper hardware. And anyway total cost for both will be just under 40$
So again off to the eBay and got both ordered. While VGA converter was fast to come the screen got a considerable time to get delivered which almost annoyed me but fortunately it was finally delivered.
So I just wired in everything together and stuffed the CE PC inside the empty DIN slot below the Car Audio/CD player.

But the problem was that I noticed after a while eBox was really hot and worried about it’s long running health. So I just moved it to the slot over the cubby hole and stuffed all wires and the VGA converter in the DIN slot.

For the software part I actually didn’t had much of a requirement at this stage. After all it is just a Windows CE 6 PC with just 200MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM with 256 MB Flash storage.
It even showed that not just adequate to even run a Full screen video at VGA resolutions so no use of trying it as a video player. But after all I was just after the onboard diagnostics so I just wrote out a crude application that collect all those fancy data from the OBD-II protocol and log them.

Car PC–Build 1

Later I wrote a simple program that let me to analyze the captured data on a PC. Following is a sample data set from that tool.

[Posted with Windows Live Writer™ 2011 on Windows 7 64bit]

Academics, Enthusiasts to Get Kinect SDK

Ever since the Kinect for Xbox 360 was announced I wanted it to have support for PC. But unfortunately at that time Microsoft did not thought in the same line as we computer enthusiasts.

However it was fortunate that community was really keen to get the Kinect to work with PC one way or other . And numerous hacking attempts began to surface. http://www.pcworld.com/article/210494/kinect_hacked_to_work_on_pcs.html

And finally it seems Microsoft has listened to the community and decided to  release community release of SDK of Kinect for PC.

And it’s interesting to learn that the mastermind behind AdaFruit Industries' Kinect hacking contest was former core member Johnny Lee from the Kinect team.

"Back in the late Summer of 2010, trying to argue for the most basic level of PC support for Kinect from within Microsoft, to my immense disappointment, turned out to be really grinding against the corporate grain at the time (for many reasons I won't enumerate here)," Johnny Lee had said. "When my frustration peaked, I decided to approach AdaFruit to put on the Open Kinect contest. For obvious reasons, I couldn't run the contest myself. Besides, Phil and Limor did a phenomenal job, much better than I could have done. Without a doubt, the contest had a significant impact in raising awareness about the potential for the Kinect outside of Xbox gaming both inside and outside the company."

References:

http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2011/02/windows-drivers-for-kinect.html

[Posted with Windows Live Writer™ 2011 on Windows 7 64bit]

Windows Live™ Writer 2011

I had been using the Windows Live™ Writer for blogging ever since it was introduced. Since it did not had emoticon support out of the box in first versions I had been using a 3rd party plugin for the requirement. (Can’t remember which I did used but think it was Insert MSN, Yahoo and Custom Smileys)

But during last months I happened to find that it had broken the compatibility with Live Writer™. Just today I realized why Microsoft had released new versions of Windows Live Writer™ 2011 which of course has the emoticon support out of the box. (It even has the ability to auto format emoticon phrases to relevant emoticon automatically)

Among other features are ability to insert Bing Map locations, Post tags and more Windows 7 like user interface layout.

Only problem I found to be is no longer I can change the size of the emoticons which I can accept for the time being.

[Posted with Windows Live Writer™ 2011 on Windows 7 64bit]

Nao Developer Program

:-)

Aldebaran Robotics, a start-up headquartered in Paris has released it’s medium-sized humanoid robot for the developer preview. It’s invitation based only accepting 200 developers worldwide.

It seems however there is a price tag for the participation since the package also includes the humanoid robot itself. One-time entry fee is 3,600€ (including taxes). While Nao probably won’t get any cheaper soon even with a public release for which it is not ready yet it is still bit steep price for me without a sponsor. :(

More details and invitation requests at. http://www.aldebaran-robotics.com/en/node/1674

[Posted with Windows Live Writer on Windows 7]

Microsoft KINECT

:-)

While there is lot of research going on to the way we react with the computers we see very little getting their way into the consumer market.

When it comes to the Kinect for Xbox 360 it is more than a simple gimmick. With this device all the commands carried out by gestures and your whole body can be used for the game.

This is a really good feature and sometimes very intuitive way to play specially considering games like athletic sports. You have to really run and jump! (More fun way to burn few kg of body weight rather than a boring run on a treadmill) All in all you really have to play!

It’s sad that it seems only be for the Xbox and not for the PCs.

More details:http://www.xbox.com/en-US/kinect

[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7]

Microsoft Announces Windows Embedded Compact 7 and Windows Embedded Handheld 7.

:-)

Microsoft has announced the Windows Embedded Compact 7 next generation of Windows Embedded CE platform, the Microsoft developed operating system for embedded systems. The new version is expected to add rich User experience functionalities, Connected experience, Dual Core CPU supports as well as many other facilities. A CTP is already available to download from Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/windowsce/compact7.mspx

Windows Embedded Handheld, a new software platform specially catered for ruggedized enterprise handheld devices. According to the roadmap published by Microsoft during the 2010 Q2, Windows Embedded Handheld will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5. It is expected to release the next generation, Windows Embedded Handheld 7 which will be based on Windows Embedded Compact 7 to be release during 2011 Q2.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/handheld/future-version.mspx

[Published using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7]

Day 4,5 – Visit to pyramids and World festival

:-)
On day 4 of the Imagine Cup 2009 an excursion to pyramids and Sphincs were arranged. it was a great opportunity to visit and see the giant ancient structures.
On the way we could see the suburban of Cairo. In our terms the houses are really funny shaped. And you may noticed that most of the houses are left uncompleted. We got to learn that if you completely buit the house you have to pay extra tax. Very funny.

Great Pyramids of Giza.
Day 5 was the memorable day. The world festival. The event was organized as a truly amazing way on the panorama of the great pyramids. It was really a memorable day.

For more details on winners please refer to Imagine Cup blog at,
Official Press Release- 2009 Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals Winners
[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows Vista]