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Wednesday, December 5 2007

I like this king of BUG!

By Greg on Wednesday, December 5 2007, 17:35 - hardware

BUG_Logo_whiteBack_sm.jpg Do you know Buglabs? Because I can't wait to see their BUG!! To quote the site: "BUG is a collection of easy-to-use, open source hardware modules, each capable of producing one or more Web services. These modules snap together physically and the services connect together logically to enable users to easily build, program and share innovative devices and applications.". The first modules they'll release are the GPS, videocam, touch sensitive LCD screen and accelerometer/motion sensor. The SDK is based on Eclipse and will be freely available. It aims to be an entirely opensource project (like the Chumby which is based on a linux stack and freely distributes the electronic schematics): "We are using Linux 2.6.19. In addition, the hardware schematics, BOMs and so forth will be made freely available to encourage users in forums and so on to hack, extend and enhance it (from #165 LinuxJournal)."

I'll hope they'll succeed. Currently nothing is actually available but it seems they made some demos in SF and NY. Opensource hardware is a huge thing though not so novel. Remember the beginning of Apple and the Homebrew Computer Club. Back to the source! Back to the garage! :)

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Tuesday, November 6 2007

N9UF Twin Tact (Ep. 2)

By Greg on Tuesday, November 6 2007, 13:01 - hardware

Ce matin mon compte Neuf mobile était enfin créé pour de bon (j'ai l'impression que quand ils disent 2 jours après l'activation de la ligne/SIM c'est deux jours ouvrés). J'ai donc pu le rattacher à mon Neuf ID principal et me créer un Neuf ID mobile pour utiliser les services multimedia. Ce que j'ai fais dans la foulée en testant la TV en stream par le wifi.

Ca marche plutôt bien. Je n'ai pour l'instant testé que quelques minutes, mais c'est fluide. En revanche il manque la possibilité de tourner l'écran (au temps pour moi on peut le faire très simplement). Par défaut, la vidéo s'affiche en 4/3 en tenant le téléphone clavier en bas (position normale). En cliquant sur l'écran en cours de lecture, la vidéo tourne dans le sens anti-horaire. Un nouveau clic permet de revenir à la disposition initiale.

Pour l'instant j'ai relevé les defauts/bugs suivants :

  • Pas de réglage du volume sur le téléphone (avec une molette par exemple)
  • Problème d'incateur de charge. Là par exemple, le téléphone est connecté en USB à mon laptop et je ne vois pas l'état de la charge
  • Un seul port USB sert à tout faire : connexion avec le PC, kit main-libre, etc...
  • Bascule automatique vers le GPRS quand le signal wifi est très faible. Ce point est assez moche. Pour le décrire un peu plus précisément, je me suis connecté sur la Neufbox chez des proches via le hotspot Neuf Wifi. Le signal était très faible, il fallait qu'il traverse un plancher en béton ;). Et la je lance le navigateur et hop, je vois le petit g qui s'affiche, m'indiquant que je suis passé en GPRS sans me demander quoique ce soit !

En parlant du hotspot Neuf WiFi, je me demande comment se passe l'authentification. C'est un point à regarder.

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Thursday, November 1 2007

N9UF Twin Tact (Ep. 1)

By Greg on Thursday, November 1 2007, 11:37 - hardware

I have subscribed to the Neuf Mobile Twin offer. I took the Twin Tact phone. It's an e28 gsm/wifi phone rebranded by Neuf. It allows to use my voip phone subscription (free national and international calls) with my mobile when I get a wifi access. Neuf signed an agreement with FON to share their hotspots. Consequently you can connect your Twin to any neufbox or FON hotspot. As this offer is only provided in France, I'll switch in french language in the rest of this post. If some english-spoken readers - are they any? ;) - want a translation or to discuss about this, feel free to drop me an e-mail or add a comment.

Ok continuons donc en français. J'ai reçu le Twin Tact la semaine qui a suivi ma souscription à l'offre en ligne. J'avais demandé le portage de mon numéro de téléphone depuis le précédent opérateur. J'ai reçu un e-mail d'Orange et de Neufmobile m'indiquant que le numéro serait porté 15 jours après ma souscription. Vu que le minimum est de 10 jours, c'est plutôt satisfaisant.Je reçois donc mon Twin Tact et le déballe. Contenu classique, téléphone, carte SIM, kit oreillette, chargeur usb, micro SD 1 Go, CD d'install et la doc.

Continue reading...

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Wednesday, October 24 2007

Wired Test 2007, free PDF

By Greg on Wednesday, October 24 2007, 12:45 - hardware

here you can get the free PDF of Wired Test 2007. 125 pages of consumers electronics tests! As Steven Leckart says "porn for consumers" ;).

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Sunday, October 14 2007

Headphones?

By Greg on Sunday, October 14 2007, 13:04 - hardware

I'm looking for good headphones. If I follow my good design mood I'll probably buy the Skull Candy Hesh Black at 49 euros (yes, $49 USD is 49 euros when imported by a reseller...). I'm not an audio expert and I mainly know brands like sony, akg, korg, sennheiser and beyerdynamic. I have never heard about Skull Candy. Here are some technical details and a picture:

Max. Power Handling: 100 mW
Driver Unit Size: 50 mm
Frequency Response: 100 Hz - 18 kHz
Impedance: 32 ohm

hesh_black.jpg

If I follow my best quality mood I may choose the Beyerdynamic DT-440 Edition 2007 at 111 euros. Quality has a price :(.

[edit] I've finally bought the Skull Candy Hesh Black. Hope they are as good looking as they are in pictures and the quality confirms what I read in most of the reviews.

To understand how headphones work an how to evaluate them, I found these resources:

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Friday, October 12 2007

Turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM USB sound card

By Greg on Friday, October 12 2007, 12:39 - hardware

If you knew the early ages of the PC, Turtle Beach must remember you something! It seems they are yet manufacturing high quality sound cards. Please apologize if I ever thought Turtle Beach was dead :p.

Why am I writing about this brand? I was not sure audio ports of my MacBook were S/PDIF ones. Now I know this is the case and I can directly connect the audio S/PDIF output of the MacBook to a amplifier. The doubt led me to seek a good USB sound card. Why USB? Because a MacBook has no PCMCIA (PC Card II nor ExpressCard) port. After a quick search I found the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM and Amigo. There is a small comparative of the 3 USB sound card models produced by Turtle Beach. here is a review from overclockersclub.com.

Ok I can plug a S/PDIF cable between my MacBook and an amplifier. The problem is... I don't have an amplifier and don't plan to buy one soon. However, I want to listen to music with a decent quality on my laptop, and also to hear good audio when I watch a movie. That why I'm considering to buy a Turtle Beach AA SRM.Any feedback and experience are welcome! I hope it works fine with GNU/Linux and Mac OS X, Alsa natively supports it through snd-usb-audio module. I'd like to check that all features are supported because TT provides a proprietary win32 Control Panel and no linux tools :(.

Next step: find good headphones.

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