Daily Cup of Tech

I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting tech toys. Now, that doesn’t make me a whole lot different from 99% of the men in the world. What does differentiate me from some of these other guys is the fact that my tech toys sometimes tend to be on the really geeky side.

Take, for example, my latest tech toy that I have decided to purchase. I just spend a little over $400 on something called Gumstix. Now, before you determine that I am out of my mind for paying $400 for gum, let me explain to you exactly what Gumstix is and why I think it is so cool!

From the Gumstix website:

Gumstix, inc. maker of the world’s smallest full function miniature computers (FFMC,) brings gum stick size, 20mm x 80mm x 8mm Linux motherboards to designers providing easy design flexibility and open source at nearly half the price of and a third the size of all other offerings.

Essentially, you have a full blown computer on a motherboard the size of a stick of gum! Everything is open source so you can share code and resources with other developers.

When I saw this, I just had to get my hands on some of this technology because the possibilities are endless. So I went to their company website and ordered some stuff. This is what I have coming:

• netMMC pack which consists of:
  • connex 400xm - main motherboard
  • netMMC - network capabilities
    
  • console-st - adds two serial ports and USB client
    
  • 512mb RS-MMC - 512 MB storage
• audiostix 2 - LCD in/out, audio in/out, USB client, 4 GPIO
  
• cfstix - Type II Compact Flash adapter
• thumbstix-gs - Power via USB
• tweener - Provides RS232 serial connection for audio or robotic configurations

The one module that I did not purchase (because it was out of stock) but I really want is the robostix. According to the website, here is what it does:

robostix runs code as a stand-alone microcontroller or attach it to a gumstix platform through the 60-pin connector for maximum programming capabilities. robostix also connects to your existing computer using a cable for In Systems Programming

This can be summed up in two words: robot brain! But, I am thinking that there are a lot of things that I will be able to do with my Gumstix computer with just what I have ordered.

I’ll keep everyone in the loop with this new technology so that you can see some of the (hopefully) cool things that I will be doing with it. Just as a sampler of some of the things that people are doing with it, here is a fish robot that is based off Gumstix that is being used in the London Aquarium:

This is an actual swimming robotic fish. It is completely autonomous and attempts to simulate the natural movements of fish as much as possible.

Gumstix Links

• Gumstix Corporate Site
• Projects
• FAQs
• Support
• Documentation
• Forum
• Sourceforge Site
• Tutorials
• Mailing List

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I have received a lot of publicity around the Lost USB Drive application. Daily Cup of Tech has been mentioned in Popular Science twice. The story of the lost and found child in Disneyland also gained a lot of attention.

But, there are those who do not believe it works or question how well it would work. I have to be honest, I have not actually tested to see if the application works in a real-world scenario. This is where you come in!

I am looking for one hundred loyal DCoT users who are willing to “lose” a USB drive for me. If you have an old USB drive lying around or you got one as a piece of swag from a conference, I would like you to put the Lost USB drive program on it, register it with DCoT, and then lose it. We will then see how well the program works!

All of the details about registering your drive and a special program that I wrote which will automatically configure your USB drive with the proper settings and also help you write that all important “Get me home!” message are on the official Lost USB Drive Experiment page.

I am very excited about this little experiment because I really do not know what the outcome will be.  Also, because we have such a wide audience that literally covers the globe, I am interested to see which country or city is the most honest/willing to put an unknown USB drive into their computer!

If you found this post useful, why don't you buy me a cup of coffee to show your gratitude?