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Submission + - Adafruit to Teach Electronics Through Puppets in New Kids' Show (wired.com)

Submitted by
coop0030
coop0030 writes: "Wired has an article up about how Adafruit, the kit-based electronics retailer and promoter of hobbyist engineering, is aiming to teach electronics to a younger demographic. So young that they’re enlisting the help of puppets. Their new online show, titled Circuit Playground, will teach the essentials of electronics and circuitry to children through kid-friendly dolls with names like Cappy the Capacitor and Hans the 555 Timer Chip. Limor “Ladyada” Fried, Adafruit’s founder and chief engineer (and 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year), will host the episodes, with her team assisting with onscreen and puppeteering duties. Episodes will premiere this March, and Fried holds hope for them to help inspire the next generation of designers and builders."
Open Source

Submission + - Open-source hardware hacker Ladyada awarded Entrepreneur of the Year (entrepreneur.com)

Submitted by
ptorrone
ptorrone writes: "Limor "Ladyada" Fried of open-source hardware company Adafruit Industries was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year by Entrepreneur Magazine. From the article — "Recognizable by her signature vivid-pink locks, Fried (or Ladyada, as she is known on the internet) is one of the dominant forces behind the maker movement--a legion of do-it-yourself-minded folks who create cool things by tweaking everyday technology. Last year New York City-based Adafruit did a booming $10 million trade in sales of DIY open-source electronic hardware kits"."

Submission + - Raspberry Pi Model A, First Photos and Video (adafruit.com)

Submitted by
coop0030
coop0030 writes: "The first photos and videos of the Model A production samples are now available. The Raspberry Pi Model A is the newest low-cost computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Compared to the popular Model B, the Model A forgoes the Ethernet Controller, has 256MB of RAM, and has a single USB port. A benefit of the missing Ethernet controller is that power consumption is reduced. This allowed them to reach their goals of a low-cost $25 computer. The release date is for sometime early in 2013."

Submission + - USB NeXT Keyboard with an Arduino Micro (adafruit.com)

Submitted by
coop0030
coop0030 writes: "Ladyada and pt had an old NeXT keyboard with a strong desire to get it running on a modern computer. These keyboards are durable, super clicky, and very satisfying to use! However, they are very old designs, specifically made for NeXT hardware:, pre PS/2 and definately pre-USB. That means you can't just plug the keyboard into a PS/2 port (even though it looks similar). There is no existing adapter for sale, and no code out there for getting these working, so we spent a few days and with a little research we got it working perfectly using an Arduino Micro as the go between."

Comment Re:This was stupid the first time... (Score 4, Interesting) 26

by coop0030 (#41564117) Attached to: Open Source Raspberry Pi WebIDE Alpha Released

This kind of response was certainly expected, thank you for the feedback though!

We built this because we thought that we could help people start quickly to get up and running with programs to blink LED's with their Raspberry Pi, or read temperatures with sensors attached to the GPIO pins (oh, and learn a little python, ruby or what have you, in the process!). We want it to be the easiest editing environment to use and setup on the Raspberry PI (low barrier to entry). We haven't built the guided experience yet, but you can kind of see which area of programming we're focusing on by looking at the following github repository:
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code

Also, you have to start somewhere with someone just starting out in this quite complex, and layered environment. What better way than to have an editor that is pre-loaded with some basic scripts that will blink an LED, or read temperature and humidity off a sensor breakout, on their Raspberry Pi with little effort in an environment they're already comfortable with (a browser)?

Sure, they could start by first learning basic unix command line, then their editor of choice, and git, and python, and then interfacing with the RPi's GPIO pins, and on and on. We're just trying to remove some of these barriers.

An expert developer with loads of experience may not need this editor (but it is pretty convenient to just plug the pi into an ethernet port, and start hacking away in your browser...). But for someone that isn't sure how to navigate directories in a command line environment...well, this might help them out a bit (we even include a pretty powerful terminal emulator that may help them learn this!).

We're hoping to keep adding more advanced features as we go. We're releasing quite early in order to gather feedback to make it better suited for more people earlier in the process.
Open Source

Open Source Raspberry Pi WebIDE Alpha Released 26

Posted by Soulskill from the because-why-not dept.
ptorrone writes "Adafruit, the NYC based open-source hardware company led by Ladyada released their open-source Raspberry Pi WebIDE alpha today. Its goal is to be 'The easiest way to develop code on your Raspberry Pi.' To get up and running head on over to learn.adafruit.com/webide and follow the installation and setup instructions. It uses Bitbucket, and any code changes you make will be synced to your Bitbucket account. Adafruit chose Bitbucket over GitHub because they offer free secure accounts, which is very important for a Web-based IDE."

Comment Re:The cliche practically coined for this occasion (Score 2, Insightful) 271

by coop0030 (#37469444) Attached to: Samsung May Try To Block Next iPhone In Europe Too
And yet Apple's competitors are having a difficult time matching the price of the iPad, and the Macbook Air (with comparable quality). Maybe they're just a much more efficient company? Maybe it's a better run business to generate higher profits than their competitors? Nah, has to be 'fanbois' giving away their money...
Networking

Comcast Launches Broadband Meter 199

Posted by kdawson from the cap-and-do-not-trade dept.
nlawalker writes "Beginning on Tuesday, January 12, Comcast high-speed internet users in Washington state will have access to an online tool that displays their bandwidth usage for the most recent three calendar (not billing) months of usage, including the current month. Washington is the second market to receive access to the tool, following its introduction in Portland. 'For the fraction of less than 1 percent of our customers who are concerned about exceeding our excessive use threshold, we believe this meter will help them monitor and calibrate their usage,' said spokesman Steve Kipp. Perhaps those who aren't using 250GB a month should take it as a challenge."

Submission + - Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by coop0030
coop0030 writes: President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, ScienceInsider has learned. The president chose the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft.

Comment Re:Automatically or automagically? (Score 1) 1089

by coop0030 (#28623039) Attached to: Google Announces Chrome OS, For Release Mid-2010

Depends on your definition of "automatically". From what I hear, there is this little prerequisite called "internet access".

If I had to take a guess, I'd imagine Google has already thought of this obvious issue. In fact, I bet Google Gears would fit in quite nicely in the Chrome OS. It seems to work well enough for offline access for a few of their apps already.

Software

Without Jobs, Will Open Source Suffer? 275

Posted by kdawson from the worth-asking dept.
darthcamaro writes in with an interview with Markus Rex, Novell's top Linux exec and the former CTO of the Linux Foundation. While some open source vendors see the current economy as a boon to open source, the interview concludes with Rex's speculation on the contrary possibility. "The other thing is in both Europe and the US the rise of the unemployment rate is something that is rather unprecedented... The open source community to a certain degree is dependent on the willingness of people to contribute. We see no indication that anything might change there, but who knows? People need something to live off." Have you thought about scaling back open source work as the economy continues to contract?

Comment Re:Money (Score 1) 287

by coop0030 (#25477709) Attached to: A Look At Successful Game Mods

Let's further assume slashdot drove 2 million unique's to the article.

Ha! You forget that we pride ourselves in not reading the articles.

I even prefer using a simple greasemonkey script to remove the links in the summary to prevent clicking temptation.

The Courts

LANCOR v. OLPC Case Continues In Nigerian Court 281

Posted by timothy from the get-your-passport-and-account-numbers dept.
drewmoney writes "According to an article on Groklaw: It's begun in a Nigerian court. LANCOR has actually done it. Guess what the Nigerian keyboard makers want from the One Laptop Per Child charitable organization trying to make the world a better place? $20 million dollars in 'damages,' and an injunction blocking OLPC from distribution in Nigeria."
Data Storage

27 Billion Gigabytes to be Archived by 2010 178

Posted by timothy from the if-not-sooner dept.
Lucas123 writes "According to a Computerworld survey of IT managers, data storage projects are the No. 2 project priority for corporations in 2008, up from No. 4 in 2007. IT teams are looking into clustered architectures and centralized storage-area networks as one way to control capacity growth, shifting away from big-iron storage and custom applications. The reason for the data avalanche? Archive data. In the private sector alone electronic archives will take up 27,000 petabytes (27 billion gigabytes) by 2010. E-mail growth accounts for much of that figure."
Power

Submission + - Musicians campaign to end US 'stealth nuke effort' (cnn.com)

Submitted by
coop0030
coop0030 writes: "A group of musicians have launched a campaign to stop the stealth nuke effort that the atomic energy industry is bringing to congress. "In 1979, we helped organize five nights of concerts at Madison Square Garden and an anti-nuke rally that drew 200,000 people. These efforts and the ongoing work of many grassroots and national safe energy groups have helped to hold off the building of new nuclear reactors ever since. ... But three decades later, we're facing the same nuclear issues. And to counter this threat, we are organizing once again.""

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