This week is the yearly Google I/O at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. It’s a meet and greet for lots of people and companies, a big dot-com over-the-top party, and most of all it’s geared towards “web, mobile, and enterprise developers building applications in the cloud with Google and open web technologies… Products and technologies to be featured at I/O include App Engine, Android, Google Web Toolkit, Google Chrome, HTML5, AJAX and Data APIs, Google TV, and more.” Maybe not so much Google TV or Google Wave this year 🙂 but for open hardware and mobile folks, this was one of the most important weeks in history.
In this week’s column, I’m going to talk about Google choosing the open source hardware platform (Arduino) for the “Android Open Accessory” kit, and why this matters. I’m also going to talk a little about how Google could make it better. And then, I’m going to do what I always do in many of my columns: make predictions (Why The Arduino Won And Why It’s Here To Stay). 1) Google will have a “Kinect-style” surge of creativity for the Android + Arduino; 2) Apple will start to abandon their restrictive “Made for iPod”(TM) program and adopt the Arduino in some way for accessory development, 3) Microsoft/Nokia/Skype are likely paying attention to all this, and they should look at the Netduino for their accessory development for Windows Phone 7.
If mobile companies want to see the phone market blossom with creativity, with accessories never imagined, this is how it can happen.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Open Hardware is In, New CircuitPython and Pi 5 16GB, and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
This changes everything. Somewhere there was a post saying Android needed a "dock". My response said "Why? Android uses mini-hdmi, standard audio, and usb – unlike the proprietary connector that is "defective by design" unless apple approves it".
Right now I have a chumby hacker board talking to my harley with a GPS and exporting an HTML5 website for a speedo/tach on any mobile device that supports it. I can switch this to any android phone now.
Android projects used to use bluetooth, which was limited and clunky. That is just a bit better than the equivalent of my chumby hacker board supporting iOS in the form of Safari and HTML5 via wifi.
Now android can go over USB, so the "dock" can be or do anything you can implement. Right now, I’m thinking of porting my comm analyzer/pulse measurement code, you can use the A/Ds to create an oscope or meter, control servos…
Windows phone 7 is dead because it has a desert like ecosystem – few phones, the zune isn’t part of it, no tablets, no hardware. iOS is a big greenhouse in a prison. A few types of devices, with limited hardware (non-jailbroken, the only app I paid for was to get GPS on my iPod touch). It can’t really be a front end unless you get the NDA/approval of Apple, jailbreak, or hack a connection. Android has laptops, tablets, media players, phones, with more apps than you could use, and now hardware. The ecosystem is now so much larger than iOS.
The Kinect is no longer a peripheral, it is an ecosystem, so sells a lot more.
The basic hardware prototyping platform for Android is the Arduino, but the API can be done with other AVRs, or even other microcontrollers. That is openness both ways. But with the Arduino, anyone with a few dollars can do something. It isn’t an expensive ugly, closed, captive SDK.
This changes everything. Somewhere there was a post saying Android needed a "dock". My response said "Why? Android uses mini-hdmi, standard audio, and usb – unlike the proprietary connector that is "defective by design" unless apple approves it".
Right now I have a chumby hacker board talking to my harley with a GPS and exporting an HTML5 website for a speedo/tach on any mobile device that supports it. I can switch this to any android phone now.
Android projects used to use bluetooth, which was limited and clunky. That is just a bit better than the equivalent of my chumby hacker board supporting iOS in the form of Safari and HTML5 via wifi.
Now android can go over USB, so the "dock" can be or do anything you can implement. Right now, I’m thinking of porting my comm analyzer/pulse measurement code, you can use the A/Ds to create an oscope or meter, control servos…
Windows phone 7 is dead because it has a desert like ecosystem – few phones, the zune isn’t part of it, no tablets, no hardware. iOS is a big greenhouse in a prison. A few types of devices, with limited hardware (non-jailbroken, the only app I paid for was to get GPS on my iPod touch). It can’t really be a front end unless you get the NDA/approval of Apple, jailbreak, or hack a connection. Android has laptops, tablets, media players, phones, with more apps than you could use, and now hardware. The ecosystem is now so much larger than iOS.
The Kinect is no longer a peripheral, it is an ecosystem, so sells a lot more.
The basic hardware prototyping platform for Android is the Arduino, but the API can be done with other AVRs, or even other microcontrollers. That is openness both ways. But with the Arduino, anyone with a few dollars can do something. It isn’t an expensive ugly, closed, captive SDK.