The Web Page of Kristopher Linquist

There's no question that gaming on the Android platform has heretofore been relatively underwhelming -- but that looks like it's all about to change. It seems that Sony Ericsson -- a company that has yet to even introduce a Android 2.0 device -- is at work on a project to redefine gaming on Google's mobile platform. We now know (via a trusted source) that the company is actively and heavily developing a brand new gaming platform, ecosystem, and device (possibly alongside Google) which are already in the late stages of planning. And we've got the goods on it.

Continue reading Exclusive: Sony Ericsson to introduce Android 3.0 gaming platform and PSP Go-like handset

Exclusive: Sony Ericsson to introduce Android 3.0 gaming platform and PSP Go-like handset originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Based on our experience with the original zenPad -- one that we wouldn't wish upon our worst enemy's enemies -- we had a feeling that Enso's latest crop of wares wouldn't exactly be teeming with high quality components. One kindhearted tipster of ours managed to ignore our advice and order up a $199 zenPad 4, which is just another iPad KIRF for all intents and purposes. Loaded with Android 2.1 and doused in mediocrity, this 10.2-inch tablet actually ships in a knockoff iPad box... one that proudly sports a perfectly random Internet Explorer icon on the front. Trust us, the laughs don't end there. It was also said to be about half as responsive to key presses as the iPad, and when pressing down on the bezel, it actually leaves momentary indentations that require a tick to flatten back out. Classy. Head on past the break for a purely comedic video unboxing and preview -- if you've had a rough one, you owe it to yourself.

[Thanks, Michael]

Gallery: Enso zenPad 4 unboxing

Continue reading Enso's Android-based zenPad 4 ships, gets unboxed and politely berated on video

Enso's Android-based zenPad 4 ships, gets unboxed and politely berated on video originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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#weekendproject The engineering team at local search site Yelp enjoy an occasional brewed beverage, and at a recent Hackathon, decided to put smoosh together their love for technology and a good beer. The outcome: The iPad-powered Kegbot in the video above. More »

The Mozilla team just pushed a small update to Firefox 4 Beta with support for multi-touch in Windows 7 and an improvement to their JavaScript engine that aims to produce smoother, more streamlined graphics. If you're keeping up with the beta, you can download the latest here. [Firefox 4 Beta via The Mozilla Blog] More »

And that, folks, is our first in the wild look at Motorola's second generation Droid. It's not officially supposed to hit retail until tomorrow, but that obviously hasn't stopped a delivery truck from unloading a few at a nondescript Sam's Club. We're still waiting to hear back on whether or not they're actually being allowed out of the store today, but hey, tomorrow ain't too far away.

P.S. - Nice Sony Ericsson mat.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Motorola's Droid 2 in the wild, looking as blue as ever originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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#downloads Windows: Portable file copier FileSieve is a batch file copier that sports a huge number of toggles to help you copy files based on time stamp, file ownership, and more. More »

We have absolutely no idea what this means for iSpot owners' service plans if they go through with this -- for all we know, they'll detect un-iPad-like amounts of usage and threaten to up your monthly fee -- but if you're the risky type and you've got an iSpot lying around, its pesky MAC filtering can be a thing of the past with just a tiny bit of effort. There's a blog out there that now has concise instructions posted for gaining root access on the hotspot and tweaking config files to obliterate the MAC filter and enable USB tethering (by default it'll only do WiFi), but if that's too much effort for you, another site -- cheekily named "iSpot instant jailbreak" -- just hooks you up with a binary that you can upload to the iSpot to take care of the filtering in one fell swoop. Again, proceed with caution, because it's anyone's guess how Clear is going to take all this.

[Thanks, Travis]

Clear iSpot's device filtering falls to the hackers in near record time originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When TI released their Launchpad development board at the end of June it generated a lot of Buzz. Here’s a package that delivered a programmer, debugger, two microcontrollers, and some accessories for less than five bucks (including shipping). They even provided a choice of two software suites but only for users running Windows who don’t mind proprietary software. If you’re looking to go another way you should consider trying out the open source alternative MSPGCC. After the break we’ll take a look at getting the tool-chain up and running in a Linux environment.

We’ll be working with Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. When the Launchpad is connected to USB it is identified and mounted to /dev/ttyACM0. It’s not immediately apparent how to use the device but fortunately it can be done. To talk to the hardware for programming and debugging we’ll need to use MSPDebugger. For compiling our code we’ll be using the MSPGCC open source compiler package.

Compiling and Installing MSPGCC

The first thing we’ll need to do is satisfy our build dependencies.

sudo apt-get install subversion gcc-4.4 texinfo patch \ libncurses5-dev zlibc zlib1g-dev libx11-dev libusb-dev \ libreadline6-dev

Now we’ll checkout the source code from the subversion repository:

svn checkout https://mspgcc4.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/mspgcc4

Next we enter the directory and start compiling:

cd mspgcc4 sudo sh buildgcc.sh

This will take some time so go read some posts and come back in 20-45 minutes.

To add the tools we just installed to the path, we need to edit the /etc/profile file:

sudo nano /etc/profile

Add this line to the end of the file (CTRL-X to exit once you’re done):

export PATH=${PATH}:/opt/msp430-gcc-4.4.3/bin

Now reload the profile you just edited for this to take effect:

source /etc/profile

Great, now you have the tools necessary to compile your C code into an .elf file that the microprocessor will understand. Next we’ll need a way to get that file onto the chip.

Compiling MSPDebug

We’ll use the MSPDebug instructions for downloading and compiling. First you need to go to the download page and get the latest version. We downloaded version 0.9 and will use that in the filename for the following commands. Now go to the directory where you saved that download and unpack the archive, compile, and install the package using the following set of commands:

tar xvfz mspdebug-0.9.tar.gz cd mspdebug-0.9 make sudo make install

That should take just a few seconds and it’s the last of the tools that we need. Next we can use our new software to connect with the device.

The code

It’s best to try out some proven code the first time around. Download our simple code package to test out the compiler and use the debugger for programming. This is much simpler than the temperature demo found on Ramblings and Broken Code be we are using their Makefile and once you’re comfortable with the process there’s a lot of great code examples in that package.

Unpack the code, open a terminal window, and navigate to the directory where the files are located. Compile the file by typing:

make

If that went well, great. If you get an error like “msp430-gcc: command not found” there’s something wrong with your path to the MSPGCC tools.

Connecting to the chip

MSPDebug is what we use to connect to the chip. The following command will most likely NOT work for you:

mspdebug rf2500

Spitting out the error message:

Trying to open interface 1 on 033 rf2500: warning: can't detach kernel driver: Operation not permitted rf2500: can't claim interface: Operation not permitted rf2500: failed to open RF2500 device

This is most likely caused by a permission problem. This will work if you add ‘sudo’ to the beginning but that’s not ideal. Let’s add a UDEV rule to take care of the Launchpad every time we plug it in. We need to create a rule file that has this line of code in it:

ATTRS{idVendor}=="0451", ATTRS{idProduct}=="f432", MODE="0660", GROUP="plugdev"

Use nano to open and edit this file. Press CTRL-X to exit when you’re finished, then reload UDEV:

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/46-TI_launchpad.rules sudo restart udev

*** If you need more help with this, take a look at our guide to writing udev rules ***

Unplug the Launchpad and plug it back in. Make sure you’re in the same directory as the ‘main.elf’ file created by the compiler earlier. Now give MSPDebug another try:

mspdebug rf2500

Now you will be greeted with the (mspdebug) prompt. It’s just a matter of programming the chip and running that program:

prog main.elf run

Both LEDs will start blinking at about 1 Hz. Congratulations, you’ve compiled and loaded a program using open source tools.

A look into how the code works:

Let’s take a quick look into how this simple program works in an effort to get you comfortable with learning to code with MSPGCC. The keywords used in the code are defined in the include files from MSPGCC. You need to spend some time in the /opt/msp430-gcc-4.4.3/msp430/include/msp430 directory until you get used to the keywords. Once you get the hang of it you can probably guess new keywords based on what you read in the datasheets for the microprocessors.

Our code blinks two LEDs. Blinking means we need to use some method of tracking time. First let’s investigate the system clock:

Download a copy of the MSP430x2xx family datasheet (we’re using Rev. E) and follow along. This is a more useful document than the chip-specific datasheet as it lists the operating information for all of the peripherals.

Review the various system clock features in Section 5.1 paying attention to LFXT1CLK, VLOCLK, and ACLK. Next read Section 5.2 on page 289 which tells us that after power-up the system clock will be running at 1.1 MHz. If we used the system clock for timing we’re going to have trouble counting high enough with a 16-bit timer for a meaningful delay. Be we can use the auxiliary clock instead. The same page of the datasheet tells us that the ACLK is sourced from LFXT1CLK (an external crystal or clock source) but let’s change that. The VLOCLK can be used as a source for the auxiliary clock and it runs at 12 kHz, so 1-second timing is well within the range of a 16-bit counter. Let’s set up the clock source. Section 5.2.2 clearly tells us “VLOCLK source is selected by setting LFXT1Sx = 10 when XTS = 0.”. Now we just check the register description until we find that LFXT1S is set on register BCSCTL3 and then write code to implement this setting:

BCSCTL3 |= LFXT1S_2;

Next we want to set up an interrupt based on the auxiliary clock. In Section 12 you can read about TimerA. We’ll configure it to run in UP mode. On page 410 the configuration of the timer control register TACTL is covered. We need TASSELx to be set to use ACLK and MCx configured for UP mode. Notice that the settings for each portion of the register are listed in binary next to the description. We can use these to select the proper bits. Setting the MC bits to 1 (binary 01) and TASSEL bits to 1 (binary 01) with the following code:

TACTL |= TASSEL_1 | MC_1;

Now we must enable the capture/compare interrupt for TimerA compare/capture register 0:

TACCTL0 = CCIE;

Now we can start the timer by writing a value to it. Because we are using the internal very low oscillator at 12 kHz, we can count up to 11999 to keep track of about 1 second passing (0 is counted and that’s why we set the compare match for one cycle less than the clock speed):

TACCR0 = 12000;

And finally we enable global interrupts:

eint();

Now we just need some code in an Interrupt Service Routine that will toggle the LEDs:

interrupt(TIMERA0_VECTOR) TIMERA0_ISR(void) { LED_OUT ^= (LED0 + LED1); //Toggle both LEDs }

We pulled all of this together to make the example file. Take some to trying to understand what the datasheet is telling you. Although they can be confusing, everything you need to know is there.

Resources:

• Our example code
• Using the TI MSP430 LaunchPad with Ubuntu 10.04
• Installing MPSGCC4 and MSPDEBUG on Kubuntu 10.04
• MSP430 Launchpad on Linux
• MSPGCC
• MSPDebug
• MSP430G2313 Datasheet (PDF)
• MSP430x2xx Family Datasheet (PDF)
• TI MSP430 Launchpad Wiki
• How to write udev rules

#linux Linux only: Sometimes you need quick access to view your calendar, and what better way to accomplish this than embedding your entire calendar or agenda right into your desktop? Here's how to embed Google Calendar into a Linux desktop. More »

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/Exclusive_Upcoming_Apple_TV_loses_1080p_playback_gains_app'; You might remember that we broke news of an updated Apple TV headed to market just a few months ago. If your brain isn't working right, let us jog it: a trusted Engadget source asserted that the gang in Cupertino would be releasing a $99 version of the set top box, similarly sized and packed with internals akin to that of the iPhone 4 (A4 CPU, 16GB of flash storage), and will introduce new iTunes streaming services the box could take advantage of. Well we've gotten a little more info on the project, and it's not all good. Apparently the box won't be capable of handling (or enabled to handle) 1080i or 1080p video. Instead it will only push out 720p clips. The word -- and cause for much internal debate, we're told -- is that this has something to do with the A4's inability to crank on higher resolution content, but we don't see how that's possible considering the iPhone 3GS could play back full HD video. Furthermore, the device will be getting apps and presumably an App Store entry, though it's unclear if there will be cross-pollination between iPad and iPhone / iPod touch offerings and new Apple TV applications.

Oh, and there's one more thing -- Apple will be officially changing the name of the device to iTV, abandoning the current moniker in favor of something a little more in line with its current iOfferings. Interestingly, that was the name of the Apple TV when it was originally announced by the company, so it appears Steve and friends aren't so much moving forward as going back to their innocent, untainted roots. Regardless of which direction the company is heading in name-wise, we can likely expect a full reveal sometime in the Fall... so hang tight.

Exclusive: Upcoming Apple TV loses 1080p playback, gains apps... and will be renamed iTV originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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#updates Apple's pushing out an iOS update that fixes the PDF exploit that both allowed users to jailbreak their devices in one click but also indicated potentially serious security. If you're not jailbroken, you should definitely update. If you are jailbroken and would like to stay that way for the time being, you can just protect yourself against the PDF exploit in other ways. The update doesn't bring any other new features. Plug in your device and click Check for Updates in iTunes to update. More »

Earlier today, Samsung pulled the curtain off (quite literally, might we add) its newest 3DTVs and the world's first portable 3D Blu-ray player at its New York City press conference. We were able to slap on a pair of the 3D specs and spend a bit of time staring at the (admittedly amazing) 65-inch LED 3DTV, the fairly mediocre sub-$1,000 720p 3DTV as well as form some early impressions of the Blu-ray player. We've got you covered with some pictures below, but mosey on past the break to check our two pennies on each of the new products.

Gallery: Samsung BDC800 portable Blu-ray hands-on

Gallery: Samsung UN65C8000 and PN50C490 hands-on

Continue reading Samsung's 3D gala: 65-inch UN65C8000, 50-inch PN50C490, and BD-C8000 eyes-on

Samsung's 3D gala: 65-inch UN65C8000, 50-inch PN50C490, and BD-C8000 eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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#bittorrent While most popular torrent sites are trackers with a more minimalistic search engine, newcomer Take.fm takes a different approach, focusing on the searching, browsing, and community aspect of BitTorrent. More »

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/Jailbreakme_com_PDF_Exploit_is_Blocked_by_iOS_4_0_2_Update'; Bad news, jailbreakers: as promised, Apple's just released iOS 4.0.2 for the iPhone and 3.2.2 for the iPad, both of which close the PDF exploit used by JailbreakMe. That appears to be the only change -- it's definitely good news for anyone concerned about iOS security, although we're guessing the Dev Team is hard at work finding a new way to crack iOS open once again. We'll let you know if we find anything else -- won't you do the same?

Apple releases iOS 4.0.2 for iPhone and 3.2.2 for iPad, fixes PDF vulnerability originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[Birdman] has managed to push a custom recovery image to the DroidX. This previously impossible action opens the doors to all kinds of fun hacking. While you can’t just drop a custom Rom on the phone right now, this is the first step in making that happen. You can find the directions in the post, but they’ve got a while to go before they become as easy as something like a jailbreak.

[via phandroid]

#downloads Pandora is a pretty great music player, but it doesn't give the best possible experience in-browser. Free app PandoraJam integrates it with your Mac's desktop, providing Growl support, Last.fm integration, instant message status updates, Apple remote support, and even recording to iTunes. More »

The Gadget Gurus, the Subcontinent's answer to The Engadget Show, got a special hands-on with that $35 Tablet PC the world's been buzzing about -- delivered by none other than India's Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal himself. While constantly referring to "the $35 laptop" (we guess you could hold it in your lap) Mr. Sibal gave us the following info: it sports 2GB RAM, WiFI and 3G, microSD storage, and it runs the Android OS. Additionally, it rocks video out and a webcam -- in short, it's an Android tablet. Don't expect to see this bad boy hit retail channels soon: the government plans on making it available to students and universities in mid-2011, with no plans yet for sales to the general public. To watch the man himself (as well as some wild and wonderful Indian television) check out the video after the break -- fast-forward two and a half minutes to get to the main attraction.

Continue reading $35 Tablet makes an appearance on Indian TV (video)

$35 Tablet makes an appearance on Indian TV (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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#printables Next time you're hosting guests, print out and give them our handy home reference guide to help them get online, figure out your home entertainment setup, find good local eats, and more. More »

It was mentioned in the patent application, but it looks like Microsoft's Kinect won't be offering support for sign language after all. That's now been confirmed by Microsoft itself, which told Kotaku that it "files lots of patent applications to protect our intellectual property, not all of which are brought to market right away," before flatly stating that "Kinect that is shipping this holiday will not support sign language." The reason? It seems to be the result of Kinect's cameras, which Kotaku says were originally supposed to have a "much higher resolution," but were eventually downgraded to 320 x 240 in an apparent cost-saving move. If you parse Microsoft's, however, you'll noticed that it doesn't exactly rule out the possibility of Kinect ever support sign language, it simply says that the version launching this holiday season won't support it.

Microsoft says Kinect won't support sign language, downgraded cameras likely to blame originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[Kenneth Finnegan's] latest clock makes use of the TI Launchpad for programming and debugging MSP430 microprocessors. We took a look at the Launchpad when it was released and we’re glad to see some hacks resulting from availability of that tool. The clock reads out the time using a bi-color LED. Press the button and a series of flashes will tell you the time. A three-position toggle switch is used along with the push button for setting the time. The protocol he developed is outlined in his demo video after the break.

We like [Kenneth's] use of a plastic electrical box as a project box. They’re cheap and you can find them everywhere in many different sizes. He mentions the difficulty in drilling through the faceplate. We’ve had our share of shattered plastic trying to drill holes in the darn things. If you’ve got some tips on faceplate-modification we’d love to hear them.

This clock is sure the polar opposite from the TTL clock that [Kenneth] showed us back in March, trading jumper wires for lines of code. We’re going to give this one a try, hopefully fixing the button debounce along the way.