| Dave: We’re really happy to announce a new project in partnership with British Astronaut Tim Peake, UK Space and the European Space Agency: we’re sending Raspberry Pis to the International Space Station! Read on to find out how to get your code running on them… Leading UK space organisations have joined forces with British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake and Raspberry Pi to offer students a chance to devise and code their own apps or experiment to run in space. Two Raspberry Pi computers are planned to be flown to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of Tim’s 6 month mission and both will be connected to a new “Astro Pi” board, loaded with a host of sensors and gadgets. Launched today at an event held by the UK Space Agency, the Astro Pi competition will be officially opened at the BETT conference (21-24 January) and will be open to all primary and secondary school aged children who are resident in the United Kingdom. During his mission to the ISS, Tim Peake plans to deploy the Astro Pi computers in a number of different locations on board the ISS. He will then load up the winning code whilst in orbit, set them running, collect the data generated and then download this to Earth where it will be distributed to the winning teams and ade freely available on the Astro Pi website. Universities, Science and Cities Minister Greg Clark said:
Tim Peake added:
 Major Tim Peake – photo provided by UK Space Agency under CC BY-ND To help students on their way in developing their code, five inspirational themes have been devised to stimulate creativity and scientific thinking. The themes are Spacecraft Sensors, Satellite Imaging, Space Measurements, Data Fusion and Space Radiation. In the primary school age category, teams will be asked to devise and describe an original idea for an experiment or application which can be conducted on the Astro Pi by Tim during his mission. The two best submissions will get the opportunity to work with the Astro Pi team to interpret their ideas and the crack team at the Raspberry Pi Foundation will then code them ready for flight on the ISS. In the secondary school age group, the competition will be run across three age categories, one for each of Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 (in England and Wales, and their equivalent ages in Scotland and Northern Ireland). In the first phase, competitors can submit their ideas for experiments and applications. At least the best 50 submissions in each age category will win a Raspberry Pi computer and an Astro Pi board on which to code their idea. In phase 2, all teams will develop code based on their original concept and two winning teams will be selected in each age category. The winning teams' code will be readied for flight by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and CGI. As well as having their code uploaded to the ISS, all winning teams will each receive a class set of Raspberry Pi and Astro Pi boards, meet the Astro Pi team and participate in a winners’ event during Tim’s flight.     In addition to the main prizes, each of the UKspace companies supporting the project have offered a prize. These prizes will be awarded to the best submission associated with each of the themes, across the age ranges. Launching the Astro Pi computers, and consequently the successful implementation and completion of this competition is subject to nominal progress through the ESA integration programme and operations on-board the ISS. The organisations involved in the Astro Pi competition include the UK Space Agency, UKspace, Raspberry Pi, ESERO and ESA. The UKspace team, led by SSTL, include Airbus DS, CGI, the Space KTN, National Nuclear Laboratory and National Physical Laboratory.
Dave: The Astro Pi board will be a Raspberry Pi HAT and will comprise of the following:
  Keep an eye on our blog, the Astro Pi website and @astro_pi on twitter for updates! More information will be made available after the competition launch at BETT in January. |
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Astro Pi: Your Code in Space
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Kindle Voyage – Hands on with Family Sharing and Wordwise
| In late November the Amazon Kindle Voyage e-reader received a massive firmware update. It brought new features like Kindle Family Sharing and Wordwise. What exactly are these new features all about? Today, we give you all a comprehensive hands on review of all of the new features found in the biggest Kindle update ever. Wordwise is basically a thesaurus of sorts that superimposes itself in the books you are reading. It gives alternative meanings to words such as “rampart” or “idiosyncrasy” right on the page that contains them. Family Sharing is a cool option, you can share any content purchased between Amazon accounts on the same e-reader. There is two adults and four children available to share eBooks, magazines or newspapers. One of the cool things is Kindle Unlimited, this a program that once opted in, will allow you to have your kid use the Kindle Voyage and download anything they want, at no extra cost. Parents basically establish a password and say GO! The store and all of the advanced features are locked out, so the child can only download new books and look at their reading achievements. Finally, I like about the Author. This is a cool function that shows you a picture of them, and other books they wrote. If a book you are reading is especially compelling, you can opt into being notified via email when a new title is available. In addition, you can mark the book as currently being read on GoodReads. There are a ton of other updates included, in this video we go over every single one of them. If you are sitting on the fence, not knowing if you should buy the Voyage, you might be swayed over with everything you will witness today.
Kindle Voyage – Hands on with Family Sharing and Wordwise is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Massive New Update Available for the Sony Digital Paper
| Sony has unveiled the first major firmware update for their 13.3 inch Digital Paper e-reader. It brings a number of notable enhancements such as the ability to lock your device with a password and encrypt it for total security. They have also changed the way the toolbar is presented, it used to be on the top, its now on the side. This small move makes the task manager work easier than before and makes navigating between multi-page documents much more intuitive. Whenever e-paper devices get firmware updates, its often difficult to get a sense of all the new features by just reading a list. Today, Good e-Reader has filmed a comprehensive hands on review, to give you a sense of all the new updates and how it affects your workflow.
Massive New Update Available for the Sony Digital Paper is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Italy and Malta Slash e-Book VAT
| Starting in early 2015 the VAT readers will pay will be dependent on the country they live in, rather than the originating country of the online bookstore. This will dramatically increase the amount of money people are spending to read eBooks. Italy and Malta though, are rising to the challenge and preemptively lowering the VAT before 2015. Italy has lowered the VAT on e-Books from the standard 22% to 4% so it matches the rate imposed on printed books. Meanwhile, Malta has decided to cut its VAT on e-books from 18% to 5%, also so it is in line with print. In both cases the changes come in on 1st January 2015. Italy and Malta now join Luxembourg and France, as having one of the lowest VAT rates in Europe, which charge 3% and 5% respectively. The United Kingdom on the other hand charges 20% VAT, which is making a number of digital readers angry, because they will have to pay more money for the same books in early 2015. Italy and Malta Slash e-Book VAT is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kindle Android App 4.8 Update Adds New Features
| Amazon updated the Kindle for Android app yesterday to version 4.8.0. The update brings some new features to Android that have been available on other Kindle devices and apps for years. The main change is the addition of X-Ray, an exclusive Kindle feature that displays additional information regarding characters, places, and terms mentioned in an […] |
Pilot a Chinook Rescue Helicopter in Dustoff Vietnam for Android
| There are plenty of war games available for Android, but none come immediately to mind that allow you to pilot a rescue helicopter. The developers of Dustoff Vietnam want you to know a little bit about how it feels to be a hero, saving the lives of soldiers in the field under fire. Built in voxel, cubic style (made famous by titles like Minecraft), Dustoff Vietnam is far from simplistic; utilize 3 rescue helicopters (each with different handling, strengths, and weaknesses) combined with 3 different weapons to guide your way through 16 unique missions set in a variety of weather conditions and times of day (consider the pixelated, animated beauty of storms and heavy rains during sunset in the jungles of Vietnam). Swamps, hidden caves, and mine systems add to the difficulty of the game –keeping you engaged long after your first extraction. Controlling your Chinook helicopter is one of those things that is very easy to learn but takes some time to master. The first few times I tried to rescue hostages from the prison of war camps, it began with success and ended with complete failure as I crashed into the ground. Not to worry though, this game is 100% kid friendly… nobody is ever really killed (even the enemies just run away). If you’re in the mood for a little mobile war gaming with a twist, download Dustoff Vietnam for your Android device and enjoy epic action with [what the developers accurately describe as] cinematic sound effects.
Pilot a Chinook Rescue Helicopter in Dustoff Vietnam for Android is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Is Walmart Going to Buy B&N’s Nook Division?
| There’s an article over on TheStreet.com from last week about how Walmart should buy Barnes and Noble’s struggling Nook division. It’s no secret that Barnes and Noble’s Nook business has been on a steady decline since 2012, and so far B&N has been unable to find anyone willing to shell out enough cash to sell […] |
Entitle Partners with The Ellen DeGeneres Show for eBook Recommendations Club
| Entitle is among a growing group of ebook subscription services where customers get access to a library of ebooks for a monthly fee. Entitle just scored a big partnership with The Ellen DeGeneres Show for a new book club called "Ellen's Book Bar" that provides ebook recommendations. This month’s recommended ebook is Amy Poehler’s Yes […] |
Warner Bros. streaming video titles and cost-per-circ now available!
| The time has come! Feature films from Warner Bros. Digital Distribution in streaming video format are now available for library lending. Library partners in the OverDrive network in the U.S. and Canada can now offer their communities hundreds of Warner Bros. popular and award-winning movies in addition to the OverDrive digital video catalog of more than 13,000 quality, in-demand streaming videos. The streaming video titles are available to patrons at the same library website as eBooks and audiobooks, streamlining the user experience and maximizing the value of the library collection. Streaming Video titles now available from Warner Bros. include I Am Sam (Academy Award nomination for Sean Penn), Insomnia (Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank), Almost Heroes (Chris Farley, Matthew Perry), Death to Smoochy (Robin Williams, Edward Norton, Danny Devito), and Natural Born Killers (Woody Harrelson, Golden Globe nomination for director by Oliver Stone, and written by Quentin Tarantino). "Libraries and their patrons have requested award-winning feature films from the major Hollywood studios and we're extremely gratified to make this a reality," said Karen Estrovich, Director of Collection Development at OverDrive. "We've consistently found new ways to bring new customers to the library, and streaming video delivers – libraries that have added streaming video have experienced increases in circulation and new users." The Warner Bros. Digital Distribution streaming videos are available under a transactional, cost-per circ access model. This model enables simultaneous use and allows libraries to budget based on checkouts, which is a form of patron-driven acquisition. OverDrive library partners can browse or search for currently available titles in OverDrive Marketplace, and curate their collection to match the unique interests of their communities. As with other content and access models from OverDrive, libraries will set user lending policies for streaming videos to manage costs within their material budgets. Library patrons across the U.S. and Canada will be able to use PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones, Android tablets or nearly any connected device to borrow streaming videos from their library. To find a library and to search the OverDrive catalog, readers can visit www.overdrive.com. |
Christmas competition – win a B+ and help decorate Pi Towers!
| Our intrepid education team spends a lot of the year on the road. In the last six months, Clive, Ben, Carrie Anne, Dave and Rachel have attended more than fifty events on the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s behalf. And in the course of those six months, some of our equipment has started to get a bit tatty.  This is our stand at Maker Faire in New York a few months ago. The banners are getting bendy with overuse. We use banners, posters, project demonstrations, leaflets and models at events to show people what we do. In January, we’re going to start redesigning our usual show stand to make it more exciting – and this world-wide competition gives everybody under the age of 18 a chance to shape what that stand will look like. We’re looking for your designs for the things we use to decorate the stand and inform people about the Raspberry Pi and what it can do: we want you to send us your design for a banner or a poster, your blueprint for a project demonstration, a leaflet you’ve written about Raspberry Pi, or anything else associated with Raspberry Pi that you think we can use to make the stand look good. If you send in something that we really love, we’ll work it into a professional version we can use when we go and present. The people who send us the best 250 ideas (we won’t be able to use them all on our stand, but we’ll consider all of them!) will receive a Pimoroni Raspberry Pi B+ Starter Kit. We also have 100 runners-up prizes.  You could win a kit like this! All the entries will be displayed on the walls around Pi Towers, so if you see news footage from our offices or one of our own videos, you might spot your own work in the background!  Carrie did some promo photos for her book in front of last year’s posters…  …and here’s Eben on the news earlier this year, in front of the giant poster wall. To enter, have your parent or guardian print out this form and fill it in, and mail your design and the form to: Raspberry Pi Christmas Competition Please note that we cannot accept entries that do not have parent/guardian contact details and signature. We are not accepting electronic entries – we want your original work to display on our walls! The closing date is January 10. We’ll be sending out prizes at the end of January. All entrants must be under 18. |
Comics Plus App Adds Current Slate of DC Titles
| Whether you are a seasoned comic-reading veteran, or you just like the idea of picking up a graphic novel or two… finding the perfect digital reader is always a challenge. Fortunately, Comics Plus offers you a full-featured app with access to over 7000 titles arranged on their virtual shelves (with over 100 available to download free to get you started). All of the biggest publishers are represented in Comics Plus, from Archie Comics straight to Zeta Comics –and thanks to a recent update, the DC Universe is represented as well! Adding heroes like Batman to the lineup wasn’t the only update this go-around, users of Comics Plus can also expect to enjoy an enhanced uView reading experience that promises to fit every title to your device’s screen without the need for spinning, flipping, or zooming! Comics Plus is full-featured besides these enhancements, with: high-end search functions (allowing for sorting by brand or publisher), graphic novel rentals (giving users the chance to give a new franchise a try before making a more significant investment), in-app parental controls (so you can hide adult content using a personal pincode)… and best of all, the ability to import your personal collection (in ePub, PDF, CBR, and CBZ formats)! Comics Plus is the kind of portal-style comic reader that makes it easy to use as your go-to app. Even diehard fans that like to read new releases as quickly as possible are taken care of here –new comics are available multiple times a week, with day and date digital releases available every Wednesday. If you are ready to spend some quality time with your favourite comic super heroes, download Comics Plus and settle in.
Comics Plus App Adds Current Slate of DC Titles is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The Restaurant Industry is Embracing Tablets in a Big Way
| The restaurant industry is starting to embrace tablets to not only to provide digital menus, but also entertainment, reading and the ability to pay your bills. Many start ups and established players are trying to take advantage of the billion dollar US industry. Silicon Valley-based E la Carte scored a big win last year when it signed an agreement with Applebees to provide 100,000 tableside tablets. Customers can use the Android-based devices to browse and add items to a cart, as if they were online shopping, and then pay their bill when the meal is over. In November the company negotiated a deal with 200 U.S. Johnny Rockets locations. One of the interesting things about this deal was not only can customers pay from the tablets, but replace the original tabletop jukeboxes with the new digital solution. During the pilot with Rockets, the restaurants saw an 11.2% improvement in table turn time – one of the key factors restaurants are looking at when considering a tablet investment. Chili's Grill & Bar have also embraced tablets provided by Dallas company called Ziosk. The restaurant chain was so happy with their trial at 180 locations last year that they have implemented 48,000 tablets at most of its 1,266 U.S. restaurants. Ziosk says that their terminals can boost impulse orders at the start of the meal by 20%—especially when photos of appetizers are streaming across monitors. They are also boosting dessert sales with vibrant pictures of molten chocolate cake and other sweets pop up while diners are still on the main course. Dessert sales are up about 20% at Chili’s and customers are ordering more coffee, too. Tablets in restaurants are going far beyond allowing people to order digitally and to get a visual indication on the menu items. They are starting to provide the ability to keep small children occupied with all of the games they want to play for .99 or keeping solitary individuals with reading solutions. One of the quintessential activities at a restaurant is to read the local paper. Keeping yourself abreast of the latest local news, is important, but many locations have suspended carrying the local paper due to the sheer amount of people bringing in their own e-readers, smartphones or tablets. Vancouver based PressReader has developed a two prong solution, one retro and one fairly modern. The one I really like is a print on demand service that will allow restaurants to order any of PressReaders 2,000+ newspapers and have them delivered every day. This is a cost effective solution if they want to carry international editions such as the Washington Post, Business Traveler, South China Morning Post and Le Monde. The more modern service is hooking locations up with a wireless hotspot, giving customers access to thousands of newspapers that they can access on their own devices. One of the exciting things about the PressReader solution is that people who love reading the paper on their lunch break don’t actually have to subscribe to the print or digital edition. As long as they are visiting a restaurant with an active PressReader subscription, it adds extra value. The Restaurant Industry is Embracing Tablets in a Big Way is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Monday, December 8, 2014
Microsoft Adds Value with Updates to Next Lock Screen Launcher
| For those of us who have been in the tech game a while, trying to figure out how Microsoft is going to survive long term has become a bit of a party game. They seemed to miss the boat on mobile hardware (despite their desperate attempts to the contrary), and the latest version of Windows was pretty much a flop, and the face of console gaming seems to be changing… but yet, trying to imagine a world without Microsoft seems almost impossible. With this in mind, they seem to be carving out a bit of a niche with productivity and business apps for a variety of platforms: not the least of which is Next Lock Screen for Android. Designed under the Microsoft Garage project label, Next Lock Screen is a replacement launcher and home screen for your Android-powered devices. Key features include: a view of your calendar (letting you scroll through upcoming meetings and their locations), swipe to dial (letting you effortlessly join a conference call, complete with PIN), quick app launch (giving you access to your most-used apps based on your current location), all while being able to customize the look and feel with a location-driven, dynamic background. New updates to the app have improved performance, added weather information for your location, increased compatibility with devices and Android versions, and added the ability to hide the system status bar. What it adds up to, is an alternative launcher that is feature-rich without sacrificing performance. Thankfully Microsoft Next Launch Screen remains free to download, so grab it while you can (and before they realize it has value).
Microsoft Adds Value with Updates to Next Lock Screen Launcher is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Google Lessens Android Appeal, Piracy Apps Gone From Play Store
| There isn’t an iOS user out there who hasn’t been attacked by an Android fanatic. It is unrestricted, they say. It is free, they say. It is so open, they say. It doesn’t come with the same strict (and unreasonable) rules that iOS does, they say. As it turns out, rising popularity has changed the game significantly… with an Android device now in novice hands more often than not. This reality has forced Google to realize that a little control over their operating system isn’t a bad thing, beginning with a tighter rein on the Play Store (making it look an awful lot more like Apple’s App Store). Some of the recent changes are fairly harmless, like adding a page for your account that lists every app you have ever bought. Other are slightly more intrusive, like removing a selection of piracy-related apps (including: The Pirate Bay Premium, The Pirate Bay Proxy, The Pirate Bay Mirror, and the PirateApp) from the Play Store by citing violations of their content policy for intellectual property provisions. It gets worse: the developers responsible for those apps also received a policy strike that readies their accounts for suspension if there are repeated violations. Of course, this attack against piracy shouldn’t really be much of a surprise. Earlier this year, Google added a content suggestion box to their search functionality that lets users easily buy or rent content found in their results. Around the same time, Google also made some adjustments that saw piracy sites losing rank –a move that hurt popular sites, but benefited those that were lesser-known. Die-hards will still scream from the mountain-tops about how these changes aren’t a big deal if you are willing to jailbreak your device (or side load apps)… but many of the same things could be said for hacked iOS devices too. If you ask me, the real news is more about Google’s changing philosophy than it is about operating system capabilities. What you won’t hear from those same people, is how Google pretty much rules the targeted ad game: selling your private information to make a little money (some of which goes to pay for patent licenses and other technologies that are required by their ‘free’ operating system). So what bothers Android evangelists more: seeing Google implement screening processes for apps in their store, or realizing that Google being a little bit more like Apple is a necessary (and functional) evil?
Google Lessens Android Appeal, Piracy Apps Gone From Play Store is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Bookbaby Discontinues Free & Standard eBook Publishing Package
| BookBaby is a company that specializes in digital publishing and allows their authors to distribute their content to Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Copia, Kobo, and Scribd. The have built a large following partly because of their inexpensive and free account options. They also provide ease of use for your own e-Book files. Starting December 9th, Bookbaby will be suspending all of their free options. Right now Bookbaby offers a free option for self-publishers if they already have their e-Book available in EPUB and MOBI formats.They will distribute it to major bookstores and take a 15% royalty. The lowest paid option they have is $99 and they will convert your digital book from a Microsoft Word document and optimize it. They also provide proofs to insure that the final product is flawless. We have it on good authority that Bookbaby is suspending the free and $99 tier on December 9th. They are reworking their packages and likely the entry level cost will be $299. This will allow authors to keep 100% of the royalties and be able to tap into the support network Bookbaby has established and they also give discounts on cover art. Bookbaby Discontinues Free & Standard eBook Publishing Package is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kobo Starts Selling e-Readers and e-Books in Saudi Arabia
| Kobo has opened up a digital bookstore with over 4.2 million titles and started to sell their latest generation e-readers in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Kobo is selling the Kobo Touch, Kobo Aura and Kobo H2o in 34 stores in the G.C.C. region in the Dubai Duty Free Stores, Virgin Megastores and Xcite. If you feel like forgoing the holiday crowds you can opt into purchasing them online at Modvito, Souq.com and Jado Pado. "Digital reading continues to rise across the globe and we're thrilled to be entering G.C.C. countries to offer readers with best in class E Ink eReaders and eBookstore," said Jean-Marc Dupuis, Managing Director of EMEA, Kobo. "The Kobo Touch, Kobo Aura and Kobo Aura H2O offer different capabilities and price points, so there is definitely something for every reader. G.C.C. countries are still in the early adoption stages of reading digitally and we are pleased to lead the transformation of this market." Kobo Starts Selling e-Readers and e-Books in Saudi Arabia is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Airlines Start Adopting eBooks, Magazines and Newspapers
| North American and European airlines have adopted the gate to gate use of e-readers, smartphones and tablets. One of the big problems is that your devices have to be put in airplane mode and the vast majority of of vessels do not have wireless internet access. This has prompted a number of notable companies to offer eBooks, magazines and newspapers as part of the in-flight entertainment system to fill the void. Jetblue has partnered up HarperCollins will be providing excerpts from a selection of bestselling eBooks, and each digital sample will include buy buttons to a variety of retailers. Excerpted titles include Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell, Yes Please by Amy Poehler, Endgame: The Calling by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton, and Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses by James Dean. Jetblue has also established a relationship with Time Inc, and passengers will have the option to buy digital editions of a number of magazines, including InStyle, Real Simple, Southern Living, Essence, Health, Travel + Leisure, People en Español and Golf when they use JetBlue's free WiFi. China Southern is the largest airline in Asia by fleet size and the fifth largest airline in the world by number of passengers. They have adopted a new Android platform that allows customers to buy and read e-Books right in the in-flight entertainment system. Virgin also offers an eBook delivery service in the form of Virgin Red. e-Books are not the only digital content to be embraced on airplanes and the airports themselves. Newspaper and Magazine company PressReader offers their content in Virgin Australia lounges, which allows guests to access over 2,000 publications. They have also ironed out an agreement with flyDubai to have about a hundred papers available in the in-flight entertainment system to read in the air. Prior to takeoff guests can use their own devices to download thousands of issues for free and can read them whenever they want. Some airlines have been forgoing extensive in-flight entertainment systems altogether and making digital versions for Android or iOS. Some of the most notable ones include; BoardConnect (Lufthansa Systems on Virgin Australia, Lufthansa, Condor and El Al), eXW (Panasonic on Air Canada Rouge) and AVA (Thales on LAN). One of the big trends that has been occurring is airlines developing their own apps to facilitate digital reading. Air France has released ‘Press’ Air France 'Press' which lets passengers download 13 newspapers and 12 magazines up to 12 hours before departure. On a similar note, passengers on Air France's new regional carrier HOP! are able to download the digital version of their local daily newspaper, as well as the local newspaper of another city of their choice. Finally, All Nippon Airlines (ANA) in early 2013 introduced its 'ANA Lounge Digital Service' in its domestic lounges at 14 airports across Japan. Passengers who download the 'ANA Lounge eBook Viewer' can connect their device to access digital content ranging from magazines to manga comics, information on Japanese culture and inside tips from ANA cabin crews. Most of the content can be accessed for 3 hours after being downloaded and can only be accessed inside the ANA lounge, although select titles can be viewed outside the lounge as well. Airlines Start Adopting eBooks, Magazines and Newspapers is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Sales and Deals on Tablets and eReaders – 12/8/2014
| Cyber Monday was one week ago today, but there weren’t many tablets and ereaders on sale this year. Today is Green Monday (apparently that’s a thing now too) and there’s some better deals than Cyber Monday. Tablets LG G Pad 8.3 Tablet – On sale for $179 on eBay via Newegg. Probably the best deal […] |
PiWars – Cambridge Jam. With robots.
| On Saturday, something rather special happened in Cambridge. Tim Richardson and Mike Horne, who run the regular CamJam, were holding a special event: a robotics Raspberry Jam, with competitions for attending teams who had built their Pis into a robot. Eben and I were judging. Someone had parked some reindeer outside. The Raspberry Pi robots in attendance varied from the minuscule: To the terrifyingly large and whizzy. Two hundred competitors and spectators turned up. I was a bit busy running around tweeting from my phone and asking penetrating judgey questions with a clipboard to take any video, but happily Matthew Manning from Raspberry Pi IV Beginners was there to cover the whole day. If you’ve ever wanted to watch a Raspberry Pi robot navigate an obstacle course full of polished pebbles and see-saws, now’s your chance. One of the best things about working at Raspberry Pi is being able to get to know the amazing community that’s grown up around the device. The number of kids attending as competitors and as viewers on Saturday made us incredibly proud: and it was good to see some of the young people’s teams winning in the individual categories. (Big congrats especially to Team Vector, a school group who made my favourite robot in the Most Innovative section, with its modular 3d-printed case which could be altered to maximise the robot’s chances in each event; and to eight-year-old Amy, whose soldering is neater than the soldering of some people I know with much bigger hands.) Here’s MrUkTechReviews’ video of the day’s events: I know that more video and a podcast are on their way from the event, so this post will be updated with more as the week goes on. Mike’s also working on a complete table of times and winners, which will likely go live on Wednesday; we’ll add a link when it’s up. Enormous thanks to Mike, Tim and all the team of Jam Makers for making this event go off with a real bang. If you’re looking to take part in something like this yourself, check out the Raspberry Jam page, where you’ll find details on upcoming Jams across the world (there are usually fewer in December than there are in other months because of that thing with the tree and the turkey that happens at the end of the month), and information on how to set up your own. We hope to see you at one soon! |
How Kobo Leverages their Biggest Fans to Make Firmware Better
| Kobo is an anomaly in the e-reader world because they perfectly blend ease of use, for the general public and super advanced options for the hardcore readers. The Toronto based company simply did not get to this point overnight and unlike their competition, they frequently speak with the general public, programmers and beta testers. If you have ever used a Kobo e-reader, likely you are familiar with the ability to change the type of font you want your e-Book to use. Advanced users know that if you are not happy with the stock fronts that the e-readers employ, there is a special directory where you can upload your own. Its these types of options that makes the Kobo brand especially appealing to a broad audience. The first Kobo e-reader came out in March 2010 and by September their lead programming team had established themselves on the MobileRead forums. If you have never heard of this website before, it is basically an online community where folks from all over the world congregate to talk about the latest news and share tips with each other. The Kobo team has been leveraging this community in order to solicit feedback on ideas they have for future firmware updates. Hardcore users can also talk directly to some of the senior programmers to give their take on new coding conventions or to present comprehensive analysis on problems they see with existing firmware, or just to give advice on how to make the software better. The Kobo team also uses the people who contribute great ideas to test the functionality of the firmware, as its been developed, so all of the bugs can be worked out. Kobo has an ulterior motive with crowd-sourcing ideas and suggestions to improve their product. Their programming team is smaller than Amazon and Barnes and Noble and they rely less on focus groups, saving them money. This assists them in lowering company costs in this specific department so they can focus more on promoting the product and international expansion. The global e-Book market is big business and has recently been valued at $14.5 billion dollars and is expected to reach more than $22 billion by 2017. Amazon controls roughly 70% of the North American and European digital book sales, while Kobo is sitting pretty in second place. How Kobo Leverages their Biggest Fans to Make Firmware Better is a post from: Good e-Reader |
