[Nottingham] Psst, kid... Wanna learn how to hack? - the RaspberryPi

Rich Lovely roadierich at googlemail.com
Wed Nov 30 11:56:02 UTC 2011


On 30 November 2011 11:06, Jason Irwin <jasonirwin73 at gmail.com> wrote:
> If it is true that this thing can decode HD streams, then it seems perfect
> for hacking a media browser into (e.g XBMC) and gluing to the back of the
> telly.  Why put up with the walled gardens of Sony et al when £25-ish gets
> you unrestricted access to your own network and the Internet.
>
> Heard a pertinent quote the other day "Choose choice, before there is no
> choice left", Leo Laporte I think.
>
> As for it taking off...in the hacker/maker communities; yes.  In
> schools...no; it does not run Windows and is not as trendy as an iPad.  The
> people with the budgets will buy what they know (MS, nice perks and big
> discounts) and the people who want to make a name for themselves, will by
> items with PR clout (Apple).  An actual innovative solution that could help
> the UK educate itself out of recession (the only viable option in my
> opinion) will get left in the gutter.  The UK has a proud history of great
> inventors and inventions - all of which had to be moved overseas due to the
> lack of interest at home.
>
> /rant
>
> J.
>
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One area where this sort of thing is getting a lot of interest is
among the UAV builders.  Normally, if they want serious processing
doing, they either record data to sd card to process offline, or
stream data to a base station.  With systems such as the raspberryPi
and another similar system (the name escapes me at the moment), all
the processing can be done on board.  This means navigation,
autopilot, and mission activity can all interrelate, without weighing
the aircraft down with batteries and processors.  It also means you
can use retail devices on standard USB connections, which will make
mission-adaptable craft so much easier.

One of my coursemates builds UAVs, and he is planing to make a system
to auto-stitch aerial photos together, and to plan its own course to
get better photos of interesting areas.  The eventual aim is to give
it a set of GPS coordinates, launch it, and have it come back with a
high quality 3d map (I think pointcloud was the term he uses) of the
enclosed area (well, high quality for the available camera and
rangefinder hardware, anyway).

-- 
Rich "Roadie Rich" Lovely

Just because you CAN do something, doesn't necessarily mean you SHOULD.
In fact, more often than not, you probably SHOULDN'T.  Especially if I
suggested it.

10 re-discover BASIC
20 ???
30 PRINT "Profit"
40 GOTO 10



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