The world's first open source 32-bit RISC processor on ASIC

The world's first open source 32-bit RISC processor on ASIC supporting Linux (OpenRISC) | No royalties
http://orsoc.se/openrisc1200-platform-2/
http://opencores.org/donation

Interfacing FPGA to microcontrollers

An article going over high-level details of interfacing a microcontroller and FPGA: read here
[PLDesignLine]

FPGA-based hardware acceleration of C/C++ apps

link

Virtex 57 FPGAs break the PetaByte Clocking Barrier

In other words, it's April Fool's Day: Reach NEW Heights with Xilinx Virtex 57

Miuro - a multimedia droid

Miuro - a multimedia system equipped with camera and sensors that follows one around the house. Equipped with Wifi, it can play internet radio and mp3s from an iPod. The robot can be easily trained by tapping it with a hand and “showing” the motion path.

http://miuro.com/

Robotics and DIY Projects

1. Robotics projects from EDN:
Robotics Project (sound sensing, hardware, soft)
Platforms and development tools
CoroBot - fast robot prototyping (runs Windows) - fast but expensive too!

2. Dogoid - a diesel powered four legged robot that is made to carry load over a heavy terrain. Current application is mostly for military use. The really cool part about it is its very natural movement! The videos on the website show robot recovering from a push, ice slip, walking on snow downhill and other. A must see!
Dogoid on PLDesignline: link
BostonDynamics: link

3. The guys at Gostai.com (France) are working on a Universal Software Platform to allow the reuse of code from one robotic system to another. They've created a language (URBI) that brings together parallelism, and event-based programming, works on Windows, Linux and MacOS and is interfaced with C++, Python, Java, C#, others. There is a number of commercial robots that are now supported and can be easily programmed using the existing URBI code created by the URBI community, including Sony's Aibo doc, Create, Mindstorm, Bioloid, KHR2, etc.
Key innovations: link
URBI's innovations video, small tutorial showing how easily a robot like Aibo can be programmed: link
List of currently supported robots: link

A few DIY project ideas

An idea, DIY rool-up keyboard: http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/diy-project-create-your-own-roll-up-keyboard/

Installing a small camera into sunglasses: http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/prepare-spying-sunglasses-for-secret-recordings/

Bug Labs: "Legos meets Web services & APIs"

"Startup Bug Labs, which aims to turn the task of constructing smart devices into a non-technical, lego-like affair, will begin accepting orders for its Linux-powered electronic building blocks later this month for shipment starting Mar. 17."

"Open source-based platform for programmers to build not only the applications they want but the hardware to run it on"

[DeviceGuru's article]
[wiki]
[forum]

Using FPGAs for HDTV design

Tam Do's article from Altera on EDN. Read here.

Adding a Mic jack to iTouch phone - use with VoIP!

I just got a 16Gig iTouch as a gift and almost immediately went to search for hardware hacks for it. To my pleasant surprise, iTouch has a microphone circuitry inside allowing one to activate it! The guys at www.touchmods.net created an iTouch USB to mic converter and a software that can be installed on the jailbroken gadget to allow the happy owners to make VoIP calls.

VoIP call demo from touchmods
Freeappleipodtouch.com's tutorial link

There's another cool hack that allows using Motorola bluetooth headset with iTouch: link

These are the great hacks! I needed the voice recording capability and it looks as it's possible without the need for the second device!

Good job, the Touchmods team!

Reconfigurable ECAs - new platform for SDR?

Article by Chen Zhang, Virginia Tech. Chen implemented a simple ZigBee using an ECA (Element CXI's Elemental Computing Array). ECAs provide "higher computational density, lower power consumption and higher structural robustness" [1] compared to GPPs, FPGAs and DSPs. It looks like a great new platform for Software Defined Radio (SDR) projects!

[1] Dynamically-reconfigurable ECAs - Part 4 (Student Project #2), Programmable Logic, Jan 2, 2008

Related:
ECA Architecture
ECA Programming Model
ECA Project (FIR Filter)
ECA Project (Image Processing Algorithm, ECA vs FPGA)

New iPhone models by Fall 2008?

With Apple's goals to ship 50 million iPhones by the end of 2009, the author of this blog suggests that several new models should come out by Fall 2008 the latest. There are rumors that there'll be a lower end model without the touch screen capability and a higher end one. Read the post here.

I've been thinking about getting iPhone or even iTouch for myself for a while now. Without flash memory, the 16 gig limit for the top of the line $450+ iTouch does not attract me that much. The phone part can justify itself. However, the iTouch has to have something more to justify my investment.

What I need in a PDA device:

• Internet access (free wifi is great)
  
• Storage (I like photography and it would have been nice to be able to show pictures to friends without the need to erase the old ones to free up space for new; with 1-3 Mb Mp3s, it might be harder to manage. Hence, the bigger the better)
  
• Organizational software
  

Hence, a few points against iTouch (for me):

• Vancouver, BC is not a wireless city (yet), especially if you go outside of downtown area
• There is no expandable memory. SD slot would have been nice.
  
• There is no todo or calendar software. It's ok when you are online as many online tools can take care of that. However, if you are not connected half of the time, what's the point? Reminders can be easily missed. This will be fixed with time with the new software add-ons coming out.
  

and a few Pros:

• Controlling computer and other devices at home will be really easy with the new iTouch - much better than with a cell phone. Hacking iTouch or iPhone must be a pleasure
  
• Touch screen is awesome. It beats the lack of memory. I am really tempted.
  

Just these two points above are enough to convince me to buy the "i". I do not care about YouTube or iTunes. The first one most of the time is for time wasting. And the second one can be done from your home computer just as easy. But the hacking and remote control parts can open up the new horizons. More on this later.

FPGA Optimized Soft Core Processors

Based on Programmable Logic Design Line article titled "Actel and ARM announce the Cortex-M1 soft processor core" (March 19, 2007)

ARM processors are widely used in the industry with applications ranging from automotive systems to wireless networking. The recent addition to their family, the 3-state pipeline Von Neumann Cortex-M1 processor, is developed with FPGA implementation in mind. It can execute Thumb code from previous generations of ARM processors (ARM7, ARM9 and ARM11), as well as compatible with the newer members of ARM's processor family - Cortex-M3, Cortex-A8, etc that support 32-bit Thumb-2 system instructions. Fast, and optimized for various FPGA devices (including Xilinx, Altera, Actel and QuickLogic), it is designed to take less FPGA fabric and produce less power.

Short history:
ARM7 - 1993, 3-stage pipeline (supports both, 32 and 16-bit ARM and Thumb instruction sets)
ARM9 - 1997, 5-stage Harvard memory architecture (32-bit RISC)
ARM11 - 2002, 8-stage Hardware memory architecture (32-bit RISC)
Cortex-M3 - 2004, 3-stage, high-performance, low cost (32-bit RISC)
Cortex-A8, 2005
Cortex-R4, 2006, 8-stage

Fix your iPod, Mac, iPhone yourself!

If your iPod is broken and run out of warranty, do not worry yet. Some problems can be fixed yourself fairly easy. The following website provides parts and tutorials how to change screens, batteries, hard drives, cases and sensors.

Replacement parts for Macs, iPods and iPhone: http://www.ifixit.com/

Hardware projects

Dev/Project related
Dev board with a microcontroller

Gadgets, ideas, DIY electronics links
OpenSource gift guide
The Time Fountain (really cool fountain project, which uses strobe light to "freeze" or slowdown and reverse the motion of fluorescent drops).
Lucid Dreaming Mask (by the author of The Time Fountain. He claims his inexpensive hardware triggers lucid dreams... thought I might add this here since I've spent some time reading the experiment).
Hacking Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner

Configurable Processors

In this article, Steven Leibson from Tensilica shows some tricks used to hardware-optimize DSP computations with the help of SoC, FGPA, or ASIC. He emphasizes that the use of hardware acceleration is crucial for many DSP applications. Adding special instruction extensions supported by configurable hardware has advantage over assembly-code optimization of a critical path of an algorithm.

There are a few examples (MPEG4, Viterbi and FFT).

http://www.dspdesignline.com/howto/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=193302782&pgno=1