RGBike POV

[Hazard] wanted a full color POV display for his bike wheel. and Adafruit’s SpokePOV is single color and Monkeylectric’s original version didn’t display images. He also balked at the cost and decided to manufacture his own version. It uses 16 RGB LEDs on a single layer board he manufactured himself. It’s an entirely through-hole design to make assembly easy. It uses a hall effect sensor to synchronize the image display. The two main components are an ATmega328p microcontroller, which should make it Arduino compatible, and a TLC5940 PWM LED driver. It’s a very well documented build and certainly a good looking effect.

[via adafruit]

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Live Android

Excited about google Chrome diamond bracelets ? Can’t wait? Why not play with google’s other OS, Android. You can now run Android from a live cd on any X86 computer. Just pop it in and go without any damage to your existing data. They’ve already gotten it working on the EEE_701, let’s see one with touch screen installed.

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1-Click Android rooting

In the last few days, rooting the T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G has become much easier. [Zinx] released FlashRec which lets you flash a new recovery image onto your Android phone. It takes advantage of Linux kernel vulnerability CVE-2009-2692. PC Gadgets The app lets you backup your current image and then flashes Cyanogen’s Recovery Image 1.4. Once that’s done, you can use any custom Android build you want. Android and Me has documented the entire process on their site and points out the ridiculously large number of custom ROMs that are out there. Embedded below is a video from [unknownkwita] showing the rooting process.

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Layar augmented reality launches

Layar brings augmented reality to your cellphone with the release of Layar Reality Browser 2.0. Partnering with Layar, Brightkite improves the experience by accessing their content, along with Wikipedia, Twitter, and other services; then by using the camera on your cellphone, maps friends and other users data on the screen, over top of the live feed. Simply aim your camera at a bar and find that two friends are inside, gizmodo and read a reminder to yourself that you didn’t like the live music. It’s interesting to see how much is already implemented, and with an additional 500 API keys released, what new things will come from Layar?

Related: AR flash library released, Location aware task tracking

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Android Developer Challenge 2 open for submissions

Google has opened up a new Android Developer Challenge for submissions.motorolaAbout $2,000,000 in prize money is available, with $250,000 going to the best overall app. Submissions are due by August 31, leaving about a week to get apps in for judging. Time is short, but the prizes are big. Hopefully we’ll see some exciting things come from the contestants now that the community has grown since the previous ADC in 2008.

[via Phandroid]

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XMPP and home automation

[Matthias] from Intuity Media Lab put together a nice bit on controlling office lights with XMPP from his Android phone. In the article, he explains the components involved in the project, why he chose XMPP & nokia e90, and lists everything you need to replicate it. The project makes use of a wide variety of tools and libraries, weaving together code from multiple languages to achieve its goal. Overall, his project is a welcome change in a world full of Twitter-based solutions.

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Linux (via iLoader) out for Nano 2G

[Linux4Nano] over at the [Gna! repositories] have just finalized a breakthrough for their bootloader project. Because the iPod Nano 2G has a hardware encryption chip, it could previously not be flashed with a custom firmware. By digging around in some assembly code (and working their magic) the team was able to get Linux onto the 2G, develop drivers for its peripherals (screen, clickwheel and serial interface are a few), and put all of that code into a package convenient to install by the end user. If you’ve ever considered installing uClinux (the ported distro) on your Nano, the [Linux4Nano] team have made the iLoader an easy place to start ipocket.

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