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This remote control tank now takes its orders from a Raspberry Pi board. Well, actually it�s taking orders from commands pushed to the RPi board via SSH. The control scheme works out quite well. Using a low-profile WiFi dongle the RPi automatically connects to the wireless network when it is powered on. This makes it a snap to SSH into the device, and a more user-friendly controller will put a nice front-end into play at some time in the future.
But the real meat and potatoes of the hack comes in getting the RPi to talk to the tank�s circuitry. Just getting the Heng Long Tiger I remote control tank apart proved to be a ton of work as the treads need to be removed to do so and there�s a lot of screws holding it together. Instead of just replacing all of the control circuitry [Ian] wanted to patch into the original controller. To do so he spent a bit of time analyzing the signals with an oscilloscope and discovered that commands were coming in a Manchester encoded format. He established what various packets were doing, used a transistor to protect the GPIO pin on his board, and now has full control of the Tank. The final part of the hardware alteration was to power the RPi from the Tank�s battery.
After the break you can catch a demo of the reassembled tank sporting its new wireless controller.

http://hackaday.com/2012/06/30/raspb...u-might-think/ ...

After the injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 earlier in the week, A U.S. district court judge has now also granted aninjunction against the sale of Google's flagship ICS phone, the Galaxy Nexus. Is Steve Jobs laughing in the great beyond? Is this the beginning of the end for Android?"Two blows to Samsung in one week, and now the FTC is investigating Google for misuse of Motorola Mobility patents in relation toRAND standards.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/06/...nned-in-the-us ...

Microsoft will support full upgrades to Windows 8 only from the three-year old Windows 7, according to a report Thursday by ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley. Citing unnamed sources, Foley said that Microsoft has informed select partners of the upgrade paths to Windows 8. While Microsoft may be revealing upgrade paths to some partners, it has been much more reticent to keep customers informed than three years ago when it rolled out Windows 7. Among the details the company has not disclosed are the on-sale date and the pricing of the two retail editions. By this time in 2009, Microsoft had revealed both: On June 2 that year, it pegged a launch date for Windows 7, and by June 25 had not only posted prices for the operating system but had also kicked off a pre-sale that discounted upgrades by as much as 58%. The increased secrecy from the company was demonstrated best last week, when it unveiled its first-ever tablet, the Surface, but left many questions unanswered, including the price, sales date, and even the hardware's battery life.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06...from-windows-7 ...

Apple will begin transitioning the leadership role within its hardware engineering department, now that Bob Mansfield, who led the engineering of many of Apple's most successful products since 2005, has decided to retire. Apple was quick to name Dan Riccio � currently the VP of hardware engineering for the iPad � as Mansfield's successor, mentioning that Riccio will learn the new role over several months. During that time, the hardware engineering team will continue to report to Mansfield."

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...are-leadership ...

Let's pretend for a moment that your name is Google. You want to have lots of developers working with your stuff. So you hold aGoogle Input|Output 2012 event. You have Sergey Brin showing off Google Glass, but most of your show consists of talks with titles like Integrate Web Intents into Your Web Application Today and What's New in Android?... which is all great fun, but also a tadboring. Luckily, somebody at Google piped up and said, "I know! We need Android-controlled fighting robots!" And they contacted the Stupid Fun Club, and Lo! There were Android-controlled robots fighting on the show floor, and all was right with the world.

http://slashdot.org/story/12/06/30/2...o-to-war-video ...

'The problems with Japan games are simple, most of them aren't very good games' claims Platinum Games writer

Japan studios cannot compete with the investment and manpower used by many Western game developers, claims Platinum Games writer Jean Pierre Kellams.
Kellams, who has worked on games such as Vanquish, said he felt developers in the country didn�t create �exceptional� titles, and struggled to find a way to compete with its North America and Europe-based rivals. particularly in the triple-A sector

�The problems with Japanese games aren�t that they are Japan games or that they are Westernised games,� he said on Twitter, as reported by Siliconera.
�The problems with Japan games are simple: Most of them aren�t very good games. People don�t buy those. Most games from anywhere aren�t good. That�s why exceptional means exceptional.
�Most Japanese publishers/developers can�t invest money/manpower enough to compete with exceptional Western productions. Risk is too high. It costs money and sweat to make things stand out, but it also raises the risk. Then marketing is crazy expensive after that.�
http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...-with-the-West

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Gears of war Judgment 'will not include Kinect support'

The potential of Microsoft�s motion sensing peripheral Kinect has yet to be fully realised, says Epic�s Cliff Bleszinski.
Speaking to GamesTM, the Gears of War creator said that whilst he was a fan of the device, he was curious how core games would work on it.

He added that only a few features from Epic�s recently cancelled Kinect-based Gears of War: Exile title had made it into the upcoming prequel, and that Judgment would not feature Kinect support.
�There are not a lot of things that wound up in there,� said Bleszinski.
�There�s one thing actually that you just reminded me of though, is that we are not supporting Kinect in Gears Judgment. I like Kinect, I�ve been a fan of it, but I don�t think it has been fully realised as far as the potential of the device.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...fully-realised
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Adobe has stated that its Flash plug-in would not be supported in the latest Android OS update, Jelly Bean.
The company has announce that is will discontinue developing Flash Player for mobile browsers, and as of August 15th, the player will be taken down from Google Play.
This will mean that pages, banners and games written in Flash could run into trouble when trying to load on a device running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
�Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th,� said Adobe in a statement.
Apple has never supported Flash, and one of the big attractions with Android devices was that they did.
Adobe will focus on its continued work with Flash on PC browsing and mobile apps packaged with Adobe AIR.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...ly-bean/028598 ...

A new report by O2 has revealed that making calls is only the fifth-most frequent use of a smartphone.
The average user spends just 12.13 minutes a day making phone calls, yet almost 24 minutes a day browsing the internet, according to O2.
Listening to music, playing games and checking social networks all ranked higher in the report than making calls � the original intention of the mobile phone.
Here�s O2�s rundown of the activities, and the average amount of time in minutes, that smartphones are most used for:
Browsing the internet - 24.81
Checking social networks - 17.49
Playing games - 14.44
?Listening to music - 15.64
Making calls - 12.13
Checking/writing emails - 11.1
Text messaging - 10.2
Watching TV/films - 9.39
Reading books - 9.3
Taking photographs - 3.42
The average amount of time a user spends on their smartphone a day is 128 minutes.
�Smartphones are now being used like a digital �Swiss Army Knife�, replacing possessions like watches, cameras, books and even laptops,� says David Johnson, general manager Devices for O2 in the UK.
�While we�re seeing no let-up in the number of calls customers make or the amount of time they spend speaking on their phones, their phone now plays a far greater role in all aspects of their lives.�

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...orts-o2/028599

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