Linux Tablet Built Around A BeagleBoard

June 9, 2010 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

[Justin] shows us how to make a Linux tablet out of a BeagleBoard. You may remember [Justin’s] work at liquid cooling an Arduino. For this one he moved past the AVR hardware but took the idea of shields along for the ride. The device above is something of a Linux tablet, with a touchscreen shield on top of the BeagleBoard, and one below it for power. He’s selling these as kits which include the 480×272 OLED display as long as you can handle the fine-pitch soldering for those headers. We’re not sure our hands are steady enough for the challenge.

[Thanks Will]

Augmenting A Cheap Android MID

June 7, 2010 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

We’ve been on the prowl for a low-cost Android MID that, you know, works well. We were originally excited by the Eken M001 but early reports about poor battery life, coupled with the fact that it only runs Android 1.6 soured our interest. [Carnivore] didn’t let those things turn him away, instead he modified the M001 to meet his needs. He added a USB hub and flash drive inside as well as a few additional connectors for external devices. He’s also inserted a front-facing camera and improved battery life from a 1600 mAh capacity up to 5200 mAh. This means he can now depend on 7-12 hours of use depending on the power saving features he chooses. This does come at a cost, he had to add room inside the case so he annexed a project box for the back cover. As you can see above, he did a beautiful job of making it look right, but it’s lost that thin-sexiness it once had. See [Carnivore’s] feature walk through after the break.

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Ubuntu On The ClarionMIND MID

May 21, 2010 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

[DeadHP1] has been rolling and optimizing his own Ubuntu distributions for the ClarionMIND. He calls his work Mindbuntu and he’s squeezing out quite a bit of performance from the mobile Internet device. The video is running at 800×400, as well as wireless, sound, Google Earth with GPS support, and even compiz. Install the image using unetbootin to place it on a thumb drive and you’ll have Ubuntu 9.04 to go in no time.

[Thanks Bob]

[ClarionMIND Photo courtesy of Mobile Tech Review]

Mister Gloves, Gesture Input

May 19, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 8 Comments

This two handed glove input setup, by [Sean Chen] and [Evan Levine], is one step closer to achieving that [Tony Stark] like workstation; IE, interacting with software in 3D with simple hand gestures. Dubbed the Mister Gloves, the system incorporates accelerometer, push button, and flex sensor data over RF where an MCU converts it to a standard USB device, meaning no drivers are needed and a windows PC can recognize it as a standard keyboard and mouse. Catch a video of Mister Gloves playing portal after the jump.

While amazing, we’re left wondering if gesture setups are really viable options considering one’s arm(s) surly would get tired? Continue reading “Mister Gloves, Gesture Input” →

OpenGL On The Didj

May 13, 2010 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfXI0crLTBc]

[Losinggeneration] managed to get a homebrew OpenGL application working on the Didj. It’s nice to see the community driven work advance on this device but something else also caught our attention from the forum post. Another poster pointed out that [losinggeneration] has files in one of his directories called “glquake-didj” and “glquake-didj.dbg”. We hope that means a working version of Quake is on the way for the hackable handheld.

[Thanks JJ Dasher]

Nimbus, Portable N64

May 8, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 21 Comments

We love a beautiful and successful N64 portable mod, (In case that fact wasn’t already obvious). And today we would like to add [cndowning’s] Nimbus N64 to our list of favorites.

The base is made from vacuum formed plastic while the buttons come from a modified superpad and the screen is a Zenith 5inch. We couldn’t find word on battery life or weight, but for those that like a hunt, or have other questions, the build logs are available. Follow the jump for a video of the Nimbus in action.

[Thanks Fernando, and GaryC for our silly typo] Continue reading “Nimbus, Portable N64” →

Build Your Own Wikipedia Reader

May 6, 2010 by Mike Szczys 26 Comments

One part inexpensive uC, one part touch-screen, one part Internet knowledge-base all come together to make up this Wikipedia reader. It functions in a very similar way to commercial versions by parsing XML dumps from the popular website to an SD card for use on the device. This is not limited to Wikipedia, but could just as easily be an e-reader. [Rossum] developed the package using an NXP ARM Cortex M0 model LCP1114 microcontroller. They cost just a couple of bucks but pack a 50 MHz punch with 32 KB of program memory and 8 KB of SRAM. If the nanotouch and the A VR iPhone concept didn’t convince you that [Rossum] knows what he’s doing, the video after the break of this newest creation will seal the deal.

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