21–30 of 132 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll start freaking out when radios start appearing in places like this.
The real problem I see is when IoT crap starts getting 4/5g modems with their own network plans so they can spy on you even while not connected to wifi
I was looking at a sensor package (light, temp, humidity, particulates) earlier and it comes with a cellular modem and a free SIM with a modest data allowance for 2 years to send readings to the cloud.
Reading this makes me wonder whether there is a case of non-open hardware and software but forced open up Api. Using modular hardware the effort turned into various other components including Hp etc. Can private market survived with this. But at that same time if a few firm controlling all these can we be slave to these firms and countries. No good answer.
I think the only thing to do is require open implementations and open standards.
Once again i'm amazed what ALSO has a processor in it. I'm wondering if at some point I'll just see it as normal that nearly every device, no matter how static it may seem, has more processing power than my first computer.
Almost everything has at least an 8-bit MCU now. 32-bit MCUs are also extremely common now, and even simple ones like the ARM Cortex-M0 are competitive with a 286/386 (albeit with less memory / no MMU). A rather surprising number of devices run very powerful application processors. An amusing example is Apple's Lightning to HDMI adapter, which has an ARM SoC with 256MB of RAM and boots a Darwin kernel in order to dec…
Once again i'm amazed what ALSO has a processor in it. I'm wondering if at some point I'll just see it as normal that nearly every device, no matter how static it may seem, has more processing power than my first computer.
A couple of examples that I've noticed :
There's a sports good store near here where they attach some form of RFID tag to each item (including individual protein bars), to automate the scanning. That means these are RFID tags intended to be scanned exactly once.
There's also the case of "digital" pregnancy tests, which consist of a regular paper pregnancy test, a processor to read out the results, and an e-ink display to show the results. All of this is included in the single-use disposable predictor stick.
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Pretty much every microSD card has had an ARM cpu core in it since forever A lot of them use 8051, presumably because it's cheaper and smaller: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554
I've worked with TI BLE chips which were 8051 variants. Took me back to original CS classes as it is a very simple core with limited registers but can still be used to perform all the bluetooth functions.
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You still need to provide the cpu with a clock signal though.
No, not really. The STM32s I use (I mainly work with Cortex-M4) have internal resonators that are enough for just about anything unless you need precise timing. Certainly good enough for toothbrush.
Isn't this sort of reinventing USB on top of USB?
Once again i'm amazed what ALSO has a processor in it. I'm wondering if at some point I'll just see it as normal that nearly every device, no matter how static it may seem, has more processing power than my first computer.
Almost everything has at least an 8-bit MCU now. 32-bit MCUs are also extremely common now, and even simple ones like the ARM Cortex-M0 are competitive with a 286/386 (albeit with less memory / no MMU). A rather surprising number of devices run very powerful application processors. An amusing example is Apple's Lightning to HDMI adapter, which has an ARM SoC with 256MB of RAM and boots a Darwin kernel in order to dec…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost everything has at least an 8-bit MCU now. 32-bit MCUs are also extremely common now, and even simple ones like the ARM Cortex-M0 are competitive with a 286/386 (albeit with less memory / no MMU). A rather surprising number of devices run very powerful application processors. An amusing example is Apple's Lightning to HDMI adapter, which has an ARM SoC with 256MB of RAM and boots a Darwin kernel in order to dec…
Has anyone tried to run Linux on that Apple adapter?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty much every microSD card has had an ARM cpu core in it since forever. The Bluetooth radio chip in your phone and the RF chip in your car's key fob already have multicore CPUs inside. Even your optical mouse has a multicore CPU in it to handle image processing and translate the optical feed into motion packaged into USB HID frames. Your fast phone charger has a CPU in it to monitor and negociate power delivery t…
I am right now making backlight with RGB LEDs for my monitors. It is going to have Cortex-M4 ARM in it. I put into just about everything I build these days regardless of how small it is.