www.apertus.org: Google Summer of Code Completed - Result Report: Smart Switching Regulator

Coding Period completed This was our first time participating in Google’s Summer of Code program and it came to an end with our student’s final evaluation period across late August to mid-September 2017. As you may or may not remember we received around 30 applications/proposals (many of which were very good), narrowed this selection down to around 5, and gratefully received 3 slots from Google in the end. After some preliminary work the students got to grips with the camera’s operating processes and all three began the course enthusiastically. Unfortunately, however, one student failed his first evaluation and another failed his...

Obtaining the local IP address of an unbound UDP socket

Sometimes one is finding an interesting problem and is surprised that there is not a multitude of blog post, stackoverflow answers or the like about it.

A (I think) not so uncommon problem when working with datagram sockets is that you may want to know the local IP address that the OS/kernel chooses when sending a packet to a given destination.

In an unbound UDP socket, you basically send and receive packets with any number of peers from a single socket. When sending a packet to destination Y, you simply pass the destination address/port into the sendto() socket function, and the OS/kernel will figure out which of its local...

Invited keynote + TTCN-3 talk at netdevconf 2.2 in Seoul

It was a big surprise that I've recently been invited to give a keynote on netfilter history at netdevconf 2.2.

First of all, I wouldn't have expected netfilter to be that relevant next to all the other [core] networking topics at netdevconf. Secondly, I've not been doing any work on netfilter for about a decade now, so my memory is a bit rusty by now ;)

Speaking of Rusty: Timing wise there is apparently a nice coincidence that I'll be able to meet up with him in Berlin later this month, i.e. hopefully we can spend some time reminiscing about old times and see what kind of...

Ten years Openmoko Neo1973 release anniversary dinner

As I noted earlier this year, 2017 marks the tenth anniversary of shipping the first Openmoko phone, the Neo1973.

On this occasion, a number of the key people managed to gather for an anniversary dinner in Taipei. Thanks for everyone who could make it, it was very good to see them together again. Sadly, by far not everyone could attend. You have been missed!

The award for the most crazy attendee of the meeting goes out to my friend Milosch, who has actually flown from his home in the UK to Taiwan, only to meet up with old friends and attend the anniversary dinner.

You can some pictures in...

On Vacation

In case you're wondering about the lack of activity not only on this blog but also in git repositories, mailing lists and the like: I've been on vacation since September 13. It's my usual "one month in Taiwan" routine, during which I spend some time in Taipei, but also take several long motorbike tours around mostly rural Taiwan.

You can find the occasional snapshot in my twitter feed, such as the, pictures, here and there.

MQTT Broker on ESP8266

Running an MQTT broker to serve all devices for a house ( 20pcs) it requires at least a Raspberry Pi or an equivalent SOC.
SD card fails from time to time and requires some Linux skills to make it work and the final price is over USD 70. (Good power supply, case, HDMI cable, keyboard )
But how about running an MQTT broker on this USD 3.99 ESP8266 board ? It is possible ? Yes, it is ! Go to http://iotcentral.eu and with few clicks you will be able to flash your ESP8266 ( 4Mb) with the binary. 
No need to compile code,...

When all you have is a hammer…….

Last weekend I attended a retro-computing fair at the Centre of Computing History in Cambridge.  This was my first visit to this popuar museum and I was impressed by the range of exhibits that they had on show.

35 years ago – Cambridge was buzzing with computer activity – and it was home to at least two of the prominent home computer companies in the early 1980s – Acorn and Sinclair.  Machines of this era were on prominent display throughout the museum.

I got my first computer around this same time – a ZX81 which I built up from a kit –...

Arduino meets open FPGA

BlackIce Open FPGA – Includes an 80MHz “Arduino”

Arduino is the Marmite of embedded programming – you either love it or hate it.

Regardless of how you feel about it – Arduino in the last 12 years probably has introduced more people to embedded programming of microcontrollers than any other organisation. What started with the humble AVR ATmega8 in 2005 has grown to include a multitude of different microcontrollers. and devices.

Initially the Arduino IDE handled only Atmel AVR microcontrollers – but with the addition of the Arduino Due board, it has opened up to include ARM devices – including parts by...

www.apertus.org: AXIOM Team Talk Volume 13.1- SDI Module, SMT Workshop and Exhibition

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=efT7BhaubyM

We know a lot of people are waiting for news about hardware production and we are doing production and development in parallel. Our most recent article talked about progress with electronics manufacturing - in this article and Team Talk we want to share news about new ongoing developments though.
AXIOM Beta Dual 6G SDI module in development When choosing between HDMI and SDI we have so far given HDMI priority as, for developers working with the AXIOM Beta, it meant a larger and more affordable choice of monitors, recorders and accessories (even if doing so risked the Beta being wrongfully perceived...

Control any TV with your voice

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QIhID-GYiew/0.jpg

Few months ago I was writing about the Broadlink RM3 mini in this article.
The big news is that nows supports the  Amazon "Alexa" voice control.
So saying "Alexa, change to channel 77 on Television" will change your TV to channel 77.
You can also rename your favorite channel to a specific name and call it like this: "Alexa, change to channel Sport on Television" and the Broadcom RM3 mini will do that for you.
To have all this features you need to install this application from Google Play ( I don't know for iPhone) and make sure  you have the latest version of...