Octopus Paul on facebook
Octopus Paul
Octupus Paul is getting famous. A few days ago there was the iPhone application, now he’s answering questions on facebook. Give it a try at Ask Octupus Paul on facebook.
Paul predicted the winners of each of the seven 2010 FIFA World Cup matches that the German team played, against Australia, Serbia, Ghana, England, Argentina, Spain, and Uruguay. His prediction that Argentina would lose prompted Argentine chef Nicolas Bedorrou to post an octopus recipe on Facebook. Paul’s keeper, Oliver Walenciak, responded by saying “There are always people who want to eat our octopus but he is not shy and we are here to protect him as well. He will survive.”
Octopus Paul correctly predicted the outcome of the semi-final, by choosing the food in the box marked with the Spanish flag. German supporters drew hope from his incorrect choice for the Germany versus Spain match in the UEFA Euro 2008 but were disappointed. The prediction led to death threats as German fans called for Paul to be cooked and eaten. In response, Spanish prime minister Jose Zapatero jokingly offered to send Paul official state protection, and the Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian called for Paul to be given safe haven in Spain. Octopus Paul maintained a 100% accurate record during the tournament by correctly predicting Spain’s victory over the Netherlands in the final as well as Germany’s win over Uruguay in the third-place playoff, and subsequently went into retirement.
Source:Wikipedia
Why online rating polls and review sites should be manipulated
So you believe all the scores that users give to products on review websites and online stores? The more ratings the more reliable the outcome? You are wrong.
CiPhone C6 review
Today everybody is expecting more features, connectivity and smooth usability from their phones. In the case of the CiPhone C6 Cell Phone, we have a more elegant but useful mobile phone with all the features a decent smart-phone has. You can enjoy a lot of applications and features with this mobile phone like GPS and WIFI. The price? It seems to cheap to be true, but it’s true: only $173.00. Not much for an iPhone look-a-like with similar features.
But…oh no! It’s made in China. Don’t be frightened: in China they make reliable products as well.
Top 3 iPhone clones for less than $175
iPhones are expensive, for those who don’t want to spend way to much money on a fancy smart-phone there are some good looking iPhone alternatives. The iPhone clones listed on this post are all priced below $175. Although ‘made in china’ these iPhone clones are from average to good quality.
If fast look at the iPhone clones you might think they are nothing but some normal iPhones. Take a closer look, you’ll be surprised.
Home Automation over IP
It has been a while since I started with my home automation over IP project. There has been a lot of progress but also some changes in the original design.
Previous posts:
Home automation over ethernet
The home automation over IP controller
Software
Right now the micro controller board with the Atmega168 can read analog inputs, switch relays and dim LEDs using pulse width modulation. However no logical decisions are made by the micro controller.
To do the logics I made a client and server application with Java that’s able to run JavaScript files in a script engine. The Java application retrieves the values from the micro controllers, executes the JavaScript and sends the updated values back to the micro controllers. It acts like some kind of soft PLC, running on a simple language like JavaScript.
Because the JavaScript based soft PLC has no GUI I integrated an extra webserver in it. Now it’s possible to create fancy interfaces with Adobe Flash or any other development tool that’s able to get and send data over HTTP.
A complete cycle is as follows:
- retrieve IO status from micro controllers
- execute script
- retrieve modified IO status from script engine and put it in the IO buffer
- apply modifications received by the server in IO buffer
- flush the buffer to the micro controllers
- goto step 1…
To avoid to much load on the network a cycle is only ran once every 200ms. For industrial purposes this could be to slow but for switching on and of lights in your house this is fast enough. When pushing a button in a Flash movie the delay is barely noticed.
Hardware
Beside the point that the modules will not be build in to a housing that can be mounted on a DIN rail there are no changes on the hardware part.
Can I get the source and schematics from this project?
At the moment, no. It might get open source one day, it might be not.
Zelf je Telenet Digicorder maken
Since this article is about a typical Belgian product (and its problems) I will write it in dutch.
Het Digicorder probleem
Veel digitale kijkers die gebruik maken van de Digicorder van Telenet ondervinden na enkele jaren problemen. Deze gaan van af en toe een melding dat de stekker uitgetrokken moet worden om alle functionaliteiten te herstellen tot het continu herstarten van de Digicorder. De garantietermijn van de Digicorder bedraagt 2 jaar en die garantietermijn blijkt net iets korter te zijn dan de levenstermijn ervan. Wat weinig mensen weten is dat je voor nog geen 3 euro de Digicorder zelf kan herstellen.
De oorzaak van de problemen
Hoewel je zou kunnen denken dat de oorzaak aan de software ligt is dit veelal niet het geval. De eerste firmware versies van de Digicorder waren niet de beste maar tegenwoordig is de software behoorlijk stabiel. Waar het dan wel fout loopt bij de Digicorder is de hardware.
Na het openschroeven van de Digicorder wordt het probleem meteen duidelijk. Zeven condensatoren die bol staan of zelfs uitgelopen zijn.
Overzicht digicorder
Bolle en lekkende elco
De oplossing
Atmega bricked by watchdog
While programming a micro controller for the home automation over IP project there’s a lot of trial and error involved. To make it possible to reboot the micro controller remotely by software I was experimenting with an infinite loop without resetting the watchdog timer.
Custom screen resolution for 7″ touchpanel
As HMI for the home automation over IP project I’m using a 7″ touchscreen. To get the best result from the screen I want to use it on it’s hardware resolution. This is 800×480 px, not a standard supported resolution. To get around the problem I installed Powerstrip, a very useful program to create custom timings and resolutions. After experimenting for a few minutes I had the touchpanel going at 800×480 px. Another job well done… 
Home automation over IP: the controller
Finally some progress in the home automation over IP project. The controller is put into it’s housing, there is some firmware written and there’s also some progress on the computer software.
To make it possible to mount the controller in a common electric cabinet it will be housed in a DIN Rail mountable enclosure.
DIN Rail housing
To bring the micro controller outputs to the exterior I made a PCB using the toner transfer method.