There's only one "officially" cool thing today, yep... HoloLens!

I'm sure every news outlet and tech writer/blogger is blogging about today's Windows 10 event and about the surprise of the event, the Microsoft HoloLens.

If this thing really works as shown, in the real world, this really could be a new day for computer interaction. Yeah, yeah, we've heard that before and while I love the Kinect, it's just not fulfilled its promise. The HoloLens is the Kinect and so, so, so much more. Or well, could be...

First, check out these videos. IF this thing works about 50% as good as shown here, then it will be officially awesome.

Here's the device page (which is kind of a cool page all by itself).

Microsoft HoloLens

Transform your world with holograms.

We envisioned a world where technology could become more personal—where it could adapt to the natural ways we communicate, learn, and create. Where our digital lives would seamlessly connect with real life.

The result is the world’s most advanced holographic computing platform, enabled by Windows 10. For the first time ever, Microsoft HoloLens brings high-definition holograms to life in your world, where they integrate with your physical places, spaces, and things.

Holograms will improve the way you do things every day, and enable you to do things you’ve never done before.

..."

Can you guess what my guess is for the Build 2015 give-away is? :)

Remember, Build 2015 registration is tomorrow at 9am PST.

Connect the IoT Dot's with help from ConnectTheDots.io (Connect your tiny IoT devices to Azure...)

MSOpenTech/connectthedots

ConnectTheDots.io is an open source project by Microsoft Open Technologies created to help you get tiny devices connected to Microsoft Azure and implement great IoT solutions taking advantage of Microsoft Azure services such as Azure Stream Analytics, Machine Learning or HD Insight.

As part of the project you will find code samples, configuration scripts and guides that will help you set up tiny devices and configure Microsoft Azure services to make the most out of the data produced by your devices.

Starting with a basic scenario, the intent is to make the project grow with more devices types, more scripts to provision and configure Azure services and more "Getting Started" guides to help you implement full end to end solutions yourself.

As a first sample, we have created a simple end to end solution, from device all the way to a Website, that consists in displaying in real time on a web page raw temperature and humidity data generated from an Arduino board equipped with a weather Shield as well as alerts and processed data generated by Microsoft Azure Stream analytics based on the raw data from the device. We are using a Raspberry Pi, acting as a gateway, to send the data from the sensor up to Microsoft Azure Event Hub service. Azure Stream Analytics

Check out the Wiki to try out your first project!

Connect The Dots - Quick Start

The MS Open Tech ConnectTheDots.io project illustrates how to connect sensors and devices to the Microsoft Azure Cloud, and use Microsoft Azure to analyze and visualize the resulting data streams.

In a typical topology, sensors (here several Arduino Uno R3 boards with Arduino Weather Shields) connect to one or more local IoT Gateways (here Raspberry PI devices), which relay the data to Microsoft Azure Event Hubs. Once in the cloud, the data streams are fed into a web dashboard and to near real-time analytics engines (here Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics, in this case to generate averages and alerts across all devices). The real-time data streams, average, and alerts are then visualized in a Microsoft Azure Website, which can be viewed with any HTML5-capable browser. The high level architecture for the ConnectTheDots.IO project is shown in the figure below

...

I've only been doing my Coding4Fun Hardware Friday posts for how long (Hint: I start my 5th year next month) and this is the first I've seen this project. Oh sure, it's only been out a few months, but still this is a space I watch out for and I'm just now seeing this? You know what this says? Says we need more IoT blogs and shows! Funny that Channel 9 is doing just that, with the Internet of Things Show :)

 

[Found via Secret Microsoft Communications - IOT: Connect the dots by MS Open Tech, gets your UNO connected to the cloud!]

[Hardware Review] MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K [Gold] Unboxing and Day 1

The Backstory

About four months ago, I had one of "those days." At work, PC on one side, personal notebook (Alienware m11 r3, with upgrade RAM, HD replaced with SSD, etc.) on the other, large cup of coffee (even with a lid on) in the middle. I bet you already know what happens next. Like a bullet time scene, I turn toward my notebook, arm hits to coffee, tipping it toward the notebook.

"No....." I reach out to grab it. Grab it I did, with just a little to much force. Yeah... In slow motion, the cup tilted over, the top popped off and the entire cup literally poured on, and into, my notebook (which of course was on at the time). After picking up the notebook and pouring the coffee out, well, it was never the same, to say the least. It never booted again.

Since then I've been using one of my Haswell review units ([Hardware Review] It's been a Haswell Summer... Haswell/Harris Beach Intel SDS Ultrabook Review - Part 3) while I shopped for a replacement.

I needed a system that would travel with me on the train, could game, was a good dev box and would last me for a couple years. It needed an SSD, large storage, and over 8GB of RAM.

This is on my dime, so I kept going back and forth as I shopped for a system. High-end Surface Pro 3? Light and travels great, but a little under powered. MSI GT72 Dominator Pro? Uber machine that made me drool, not a bad price for the features, but heavy. Ultrabook? Not enough dev juice. Another Alienware or Dell? Nothing there really stood out for me. Choices, choices, choices...

In the end, I took a middle of the road approach. A good gaming machine (if it games good, it dev's good. of course ;) yet not a boat anchor.

The Hardware

MSI GS Series GS60 Ghost Pro 3K-451 Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz) 16GB Memory 1TB HDD 256GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M 3 GB GDDR5 15.6" Windows 8.1 64-Bit

 

(I'm not going to copy the spec's here, you can seem them well enough on the site....)

The Purchase

I hate to lose the geek cred, but I've not bought much (cough... anything) from newegg before. Why? I don't know, Amazon is just my default etailer. What a fool I've been... lol

This limited newegg only edition of the GS60 Ghost Pro seemed to be just what I needed. Friday I finally pulled the trigger, the credit card out of the wallet and hit submit order. The purchase process was fast, smooth and easy. Picking the free three business day shipping, I looked forward to getting my new toy the following week.

Yet luck was on my side. Newegg is located in the Greater Los Angeles area, the same area I am. The notebook was not only in stock, but actually shipped on Friday and was delivered... wait for it... Saturday afternoon! Yep, next day, on a Saturday. Now that's awesome!

The Unboxing

Look, it's a box! In a box!

And more boxes!

With stuff! Besides a limited edition case color, the package came with a mouse, mouse pad, headphones and best of all, a keyboard cover (aka. Greg Coffee Protector ;)

Finally, the notebook itself...

Day 0

Needless to say the next few hours was spent doing the notebook setup boogie. Updates, upgrade to Win Pro, uninstalling included trial antivirus, installing Office, Blogging stuff, Visual Studio, Windows Updates (again)...

Crapware? No. The notebook was nicely clean of nearly all crapware. There's some MSI utilities, but those look okay and again, all-in-all it's pretty clean. As I said, I removed the included trial antivirus, which went smooth and easy too. Oh sure there's a "Register" nag-app that I'm going to have to kill (since the "I've already registered it" checkbox doesn't seem to make it go away), but even with that, I'm pretty darn happy.

One thing I'm not really too happy about is the C Drive space. It's fast as heck, two 128 SSD, RAID 0 (i.e. 256 GB). I really wish the C drive was 512 GB. The D drive is a 7200 RPM 1TB HD, which is also pretty fast, but something I think I'm going to replace with a SSD in the future. 7200 is fast, but once you SSD you never go back...

Day 1

The day continues with final setup, but that goes quick. A couple reboots, which are blindingly fast. Like I said, you HAVE to love SSDs!

How's fit and finish? Nice! The screen is great, no pixel problems and the resolution is great. 2880x1620 on a 15.3 is pretty darn sharp.

The keyboard is nice (even with the Greg Protector) and it's great having a 10 key.

Fan noise and heat is reasonable.

Performance is great. The performance, even when doing simple stuff like reading my news feeds it much faster and smoother. Visual Studio runs like a champ...

Summary

If you're looking for a high-mid end gaming notebook, the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K is one that should be on your short list...

Sign up for the "Windows Developer Program for IoT"

Windows on Devices

The next big thing is small

We’re bringing Windows to a whole new class of small devices. Build a smart coffee mug, build a talking bear, build a robot, or build something else entirely. All this using a platform and tools you already know and love.

What will you create?

Development hardware like the Intel Galileo board allows you to read temperature sensors, power robot servos, check for intruders, blink a bunch of LED lights, or even make a little music. Whether you are an experienced Windows developer looking to jump into the Internet of Things or you are new to Windows development and want to build the next big thing—we’re excited to see what you can do.

Early and often

Our first SDK release in the spring of 2014 will give you a chance to look at our new software, including an incomplete prerelease of our software and API surface. We’ll provide samples and documentation and we’ll show you how to create your own fun projects such as the life-size piano we demonstrated at Build 2014. And we’ll continue to release software updates throughout 2014 including a more complete API surface and integrated cloud services.

Connections are everything

Your Windows device can connect to the cloud to enable interesting new scenarios. Use Azure data services, build a new mashup, analyze your data, connect your devices together, or update your devices remotely. Once your device is in the cloud, the sky’s the limit.

More on:

• Intel® Quark and Galileo
• Visual Studio Express
• Microsoft Internet of Things

..."

One report on this stated they are not only providing the software SDK but also a hardware too, Microsoft is Giving Away Intel Galileo Arduino Compatible Boards to Developers. Looking at the site and and the emails I got when signing up (where are different than what Jean-Luc reports), it's a little unclear, to me at least...

My emails;

First:

Hello Greg Duncan,
We want to thank you for your interest on windowsondevices.com, and we are super excited to have you participate in the Windows Developer Program for IoT.

We would like to share our SDK and a hardware development kit with you. In order to consider you for the program and mail you the kit, please click on the link below to provide your address and a bit more information.

[Confirmation URL Removed]

We’re happy to be able to share this early preview with you, and can’t wait to see what you can make with it!

Thank you,
The Microsoft IoT Team

Second:

Hello Greg Duncan,

Thank you for signing up for the Windows Developer Program for IoT.  We’ll let you know when we have more to share.

Thank you,
The Microsoft IoT Team

So I guess we'll see...

[Kickstarter of the Day]Making your paper airplane smart (and powered) - "PowerUp 3.0 - Smartphone Controlled Paper Airplane"

Kickstarter - PowerUp 3.0 - Smartphone Controlled Paper Airplane

PowerUp 3.0 turns your self-made paper airplane into a smartphone-controlled flying machine

1. Fold It: Simply fold a piece of copier paper into a paper airplane
2. Attach It: Attach the Smart Module to your paper plane with the patented clips underneath the Smart Module.
3. Connect It: Start the app to connect to the Smart Module with your iPhone.
4. Fly It: Push throttle to full and launch the paper airplane high up into the sky. Tilt your smartphone to the left or to the right to steer your plane, increase or reduce throttle to go up or down.

...

...

Now if there was a Windows Phone or Windows Store App I'd be all over this. Even without it's pretty darn cool...

(via DIY Drones - PowerUp 3.0 - Smartphone Controlled Paper Airplane)

Having your Amiga and Pi to... Using Raspberry Pi to Emulate an Amiga 500 Floppy Drive

Hack A Day - Raspberry Pi Emulates an Amiga 500 Floppy Drive

[Maurizio] loves using his Amiga 500. His classic piece of hardware has been serving him well for years, except for the floppy drive, which recently gave out on him. No problem for [Maurizio], he just cracked his case open and added a Raspberry Pi as a real-time floppy emulator. [Maurizio] didn’t want to make any permanent changes to his A500 case, and more importantly he wanted to use the Amiga’s original floppy drive interface. The latter placed some rather stringent timing requirements on his design.

The interface hardware is relatively simple. Most of the circuit is dedicated to level shifting from the 5v Amiga 500 to the 3.3V Raspberry Pi. A 74LS06 Hex inverter converts the signals to the open collector outputs the A500 requires. [Maurizio] powered his Raspberry Pi from the floppy power connector of the Amiga. His model A Raspberry Pi works fine, but a model B would pull a bit more power (700ma) than the Amiga floppy power supply is capable of providing (550ma). The user interface side of the equation is simple: Two buttons, one used to switch disks, and one to “Write to SD”. Live disk images are stored in the Raspberry Pi’s ram, so the user needs to hit the “Write to SD” button to store any changes to disk before swapping floppies.

The software is perhaps the most interesting portion of this build. ...

My week is not complete unless I hunt down that off the wall Amiga news item, post or project. This is the top for the month. :)

Surface Pro / Pro 2 Battery Life Extension Tip... Turn the Processor down to 8[0]

Kurt Shintaku's Blog - INFO: Extending Surface Pro (or Pro 2) battery life by adjusting the Power Plan “Maximum Processor State”

This has been floating around the Internet for years so it’s nothing new but for anyone that puts a premium on battery life on their Surface Pro (original or Pro 2) like I do (I specifically need to extend the battery because 90% of what I do with it is take handwritten notes using the stylus & OneNote) then this might interest you.

Adjusting Max Processor State in Windows 8
In order to extend the battery life a bit, all you have to do is change the the maximum processing power percentage assigned to the Power Options profile on your device from 100% to 80%.  This provides a noticeable difference in battery life – some have reported up to 1-2 hours, & for most purposes like inking in OneNote or browsing, you’ll probably won’t see any change in performance.

To accomplish this:

...

Makes sense and it's easy enough to tweak too. Going to have to give this a try on my Pro...

No need to fake it 'till you make it when you have this book, "Zero to Maker"

Make: - New to This Whole “Maker” Thing? Great!

As much as the headlines like to focus on 3D printing, robots, and new manufacturing companies, there’s actually a more important trend happening in the maker movement: accessibility. Even (and especially) if you don’t consider yourself a maker or tinkerer.

The tools and services are evolving at a breakneck pace, becoming both cheaper and easier to use. It’s an arms race to see who can create the most accessible, affordable ways to help you build whatever you can imagine! The big winner in this fierce competition is you, the new maker.

Getting involved has never been easier. And a lot can happen in just a few years. For instance, here’s my first Zero to Maker post from two years ago. Fast forward to next week at World Maker Faire where we’ll be demoing the newest version of OpenROV, an underwater robot I helped build with hundreds of other citizen ocean explorers.

...

Zero to Maker

Are you possessed by the urge to invent, design, and make something that others enjoy, but don’t know how to plug into the maker movement?

In Zero to Maker, David Lang explains how he became a pro maker after losing his job, and how the experience helped him start OpenROV—a community and product line focused on open source undersea exploration. It all happened once he became an active member of the maker culture.

Ready to take the plunge into the next Industrial Revolution? This guide provides a clear and inspiring roadmap.

I love that "Just enough" subtitle. I think that's one of the things that's going to be on my cryogenic case... :)

Available on Amazon, and other sources..

Pre-order the paper...

... or today start reading the Kindle today...

Seeding your hardware hacking with the Seeed Open Parts Library (think "Little Old School Radio Shack in a $75.00 box of component goodies")

Seeed - Seeed brings you Open Parts Library

Do you remember the last time you designed a board? Was it a hassle sourcing your components from multiple vendors? Were you frustrated paying multiple shipping costs?

We’re familiar with those issues and other PCB design headaches, so we created OPL v1, an Open Parts Library that includes more than 100 commonly used components. Besides being an economical master toolbox filled with all of your essential building blocks, there are several other compelling reasons to use the Open Parts Library for your next design

• Accelerated Design Time

Ø Not only are the components offered at a great price, but when combined with our express PCB printing service, your design time is greatly accelerated. We accept small batch PCB orders of 2-10 pieces.  And we offer to help you solder those OPL components to your board. We charge $0.05 per pin for SMD and $0.04 per pin for DIP.

     Ø We also created the OPL Eagle library, making it easy to include these items in your design. In addition, datasheets and 3-D modules will be available for each of the components.

Ø Another goal of OPL is to shorten the lead time to bring your product to market. In other words, we will always have the components adequately stocked, so that no matter what stage you are in the design process, like prototyping or bulk production, the components will always be available and manufacturing can begin at any moment.

...

Open parts library (wiki)

OPL eagle library for download

Notice: In eagle library, please pay more attention on layer 46 of footprint, you will find hints for such components.

A package containing the components from the Open Parts Library can be purchased at http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/open-parts-library-p-1560.html

Contents

• 1 Capacitor
• 2 Resistor
• 3 IC
• 4 Connector
• 5 Diode
• 6 Inductor
• 7 Transistor
• 8 Crystal Oscillator
• 9 Fuse

Open Parts Library (Purchase)

• $75.00

OPL v1（Open Parts Library v1) is a package of 100+ kinds of components. Such components are commonly-used, quality reliable, DFM friendly and have sufficient stock. Also, their eagle library is free to download. This little package can greatly increase the efficiency for design reference and supply chain optimization.

Here is the Parts List of OPL v1.

Here are the features of OPL v1.

Commonly-used

Including IC, resistor, capacitor, inductor, diode, transistor, crystal oscillator, connector and fuse, etc., components in OPL (Open Parts Library) are selected according to their popularity, practicality and compatibility in open source community. For example, Atmega 328p, 16M Crystal Oscillator and mini USB are all collected to provide more convenience in product design and save you some time in component sourcing.

We also collect wishes from you and then update the components in OPL every 6 months.

...

I really wish I was better at hardware. And even though the thought of firing up my soldering iron gives butterflies, I still think this kit is pretty darn cool and think a bunch of you might find it useful.