[nylug-talk] [ruben at mrbrklyn.com: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] What is exciting today with Free Software?]
Ruben Safir
ruben at mrbrklyn.com
Tue May 15 23:58:03 EDT 2007
A reprint since I had friends who missed this--
_________________________________________________________________
With the latest GNU software platforms quickly reaching a steady level
of maturity, it seems that a lot of the excitment of the early years
is waning. While there are new technologies making their way through
Free Software, much of the new stuff is just rehashed versions of the
older models. With the increasing complexity of applications and system,
it seems things are getting further and further out of reach of the
hobby hacker and novice.
That leaves an open question? What is the new and exciting stuff that
GNU users can look forward to today. My feeling is thatnew user to Free
Software is not acheving the romance that we all had in the early years.
But even still we have a few new areas of development which I believe
merit excitment. I'n a quick list of GNU technologies worthy of excitment
I submit the following list for your review and thoughts.
Ruben's most exicting top 5 Free Software initiatives 2007:
1: Robotic Programming:
http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2717739661.html What the
world needs now, according to a Japanese research group, is a
low-cost programmable robot.
To spur more development of robots at the hobbyist level,
Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology (AIST) is promoting a humanoid creature named HRP-2m
Choromet. One problem with current robots, AIST says, is that they
tend to be little more than remote-controlled devices. Another
is that getting beyond that evolutionary stage tends to take a
lot of cash. Choromet The robot Choromet. Credit: AIST
Choromet, which bears a striking resemblance to the Transformers
character Optimus Prime, comes with programmable software that
runs on Linux. It was developed by General Robotix, one of
two start-ups working under AIST together with Pirkus Robotix
and Dai Nippon Technical Research Institute. The controller,
which is driven in real time by AIST's ArtLinux, was developed
by Moving Eye, the other start-up in the group.
"This controller features some of the functions of the humanoid
robot software platform OpenHRP, which has helped give the
robot movements such as walking on two legs and getting up,"
AIST said in a statement.
The 14-inch-tall Choromet weighs about 3 pounds and uses
inexpensive servo motors.
The combination of Linux and the servo motors, according to AIST,
will help reduce the cost of creating robots for educational and
research applications. The group did not disclose any specific
pricing, however. A prototype of the robot first debuted in May
at a Japanese mechanical-engineering symposium.
Interest is growing in making robot building more accessible to
both academic researchers and the commercial market.
In June, Microsoft announced that it would be funding a new
research lab at Carnegie Mellon University, a robotics hot
spot. The company also launched Microsoft Robotics Studio, its
first robotics software, and made the Windows-based development
platform available for public preview.
Toy maker Lego has also been developing a programmable robot line
called Mindstorms NXT, still in an open-source community-testing
phase. The company has said it will release software, hardware
and Bluetooth developer kits to the public in August.
http://www.linuxpcrobot.org/ http://ai-depot.com/Robotics/920.html
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2001/03/21/pythonnews.html
http://microcontrollershop.com/product_info.php?products_id=1405 inux
Robotics: Programming Smarter Robots US$34.95 9780071444842 Linux
Robotics: Programming Smarter Robots
In Linux Robotics: Programming Smarter Robots, author and programmer/robot
enthusiast D. Jay Newman combines the most sophisticated parts of robotics
and programming to fill a real gap in available information. Most robotics
books today use microcontrollers as the brains of the robots. This
approach is fine for smaller, less expensive projects, but has serious
limitations. When attempting to build a robot with sophisticated
movements, navigation abilities, vision, and picture-capturing abilities,
it is better to use a single board computer (SBC) running Linux as
the controller.
Linux Robotics gives you step-by-step directions for "Zeppo," a
super-smart, single-board-powered robot that can be built by any
hobbyist. You also get complete instructions for incorporating Linux
single boards into your own unique robotic designs. No programming
experience is required. This book includes access to all the downloadable
programs you need, plus complete training in doing original programming.
Softcover, 350 pages Contents
* Chapter 1: Starting Out * Chapter 2: Electronics and Such * Chapter
3: Internal Communication: The Control Network * Chapter 4: Sensors *
Chapter 5: Behavioral Programming * Chapter 6: Audio: Speaking and
Listening * Chapter 7: Vision: Seeing the World * Chapter 8: Mapping
and Planning: Where
Is Here? How Do We Get There From Here?
* Chapter 9: Artificial Neural Networks * Chapter 10: Working Without
a Wire * Appendix A: ENerd Robotics Framework Code * Appendix B: Resources
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4356841803.html
2: Home Media Centers that access all over the home
http://www.mythtv.org/
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3446119016.html
http://linuxmce.com/
LinuxMCE is a free, open source add-on to Ubuntu including a 10'
UI, complete whole-house media solution with pvr + distributed
media, and the most advanced smarthome solution available. It
is stable, easy to use, and requires no knowledge of Linux and
only basic computer skills. Features Version 1.0
Media & Entertainment • 3D alpha-blended GUI optimized for
displaying on a TV and using a remote control • Media browser
presenting all content on all devices in the home on a 3D rotating
cube • Plug-and-play detection and aggregation of network
storage and DMA's • Built-in NAS providing centralized backup
and whole-house media server • "Follow Me" Media, each family
member's media follows him/her through the house • Automatically
controls all existing av devices, like TV's, Stereo's, etc.)
• Many control options: mobile phone, webpad, pda, phone
Smart Home • Home Automation: Control lighting, climate,
security, camera surveillance, and more • Communication: Phone
system with auto-attendant, voice mail, call forwarding/routing
for VOIP and POTS lines • Security: Uses your existing home
alarm, surveillance cameras, lights, phones and tv's to notify
you on your mobile phone of any security alerts with the option
of reseting the alarm or broadcasting your voice in the house
over the tv's
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/06/19/1843205
Freevo is like a window manager -- an interface controlled by a
remote control or the keyboard -- that provides access to various
media. It is written mostly in the Python programming language,
which makes it hacking-friendly.
Everything you expect to find on a media center platform is
present in Freevo; you can listen to music, view pictures,
and watch TV and video. Freevo offers no internal player, but
relies exclusively on external programs like MPlayer and Xine
for playing media files and viewing TV. I use MPlayer for all
media formats except DVD video playback, since MPlayer currently
has no support for DVD menus. Xine fills that gap nicely.
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/a_media_center_based_on_gnu_linux
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9175
Use embedded Linux and open-source software to build a networked
audio appliance.
Like many media buffs these days, I have a media center computer
in my house. It is a small VIA M10000 Mini-ITX system in a
Casetronic C158 case running Freevo on top of Gentoo Linux.
It sits inside my media cabinet and serves music, video, photos
and various other bits of information to my TV. The small media
center gets all of its content from a much larger AMD64 Gentoo
Linux server that resides in a closet near the back of the house.
The two machines talk to each other over a wired network using NFS
(Network File System). I will be the first to tell you that it
is great to have all of my music, videos and photos in a digital
format and easily accessible.
In the same spirit of my media center computer, I wanted to have
a few small systems that could sit on a shelf or in a drawer that
would serve music to different parts of the house. Many products
on the market exist that will broadcast audio from a computer and
many others will play the resulting stream. The problem with most
of these, to me, is that only one stream is available. I wanted
the ability to play different music in each room at the same time
and control it with one device. A few newcomers to the market do
exactly what I wanted -- namely the Sonos Digital Music System,
which was reviewed in the March 2006 issue of Linux Journal.
However, I wanted to tackle this one myself.
3: Telephoe elimination and supplimentation software
Bayonne http://www.gnu.org/software/bayonne/faq.html
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Open+Source+VOIP+Software
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3574246
http://www.asterisk.org/
http://www.bertolinux.com/voip/english/VoIP-HOWTO.html
http://www.nseries.com/products/n800/index.html
4: Video and Music Production:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8589
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb04/articles/mirrorimage.htm
Mirror Image Studios Published in SOS February 2004
Printer-friendly version Printer-friendly version People :
Industry/Music Biz
An established studio in the USA is planning to rely on software
that can be freely downloaded from the Internet. Are they crazy,
or do Linux-based recording applications offer a real alternative
to the established Windows and Mac packages?
Daniel James
MirrorImageHeader.s Ron Parker (left) and Dana Bailey in the
control room at Mirror Image Studios.
Minneapolis, Minnesota is about 400 miles north-west of
Chicago. The young man who would become Bob Dylan came from around
there, but probably the best known musical resident these days
is Prince. Not far from the Great Lakes and the Canadian border,
it gets pretty cold in winter. It's also home to a commercial
recording studio which may not be as famous as Prince's Paisley
Park complex, but is probably the first anywhere to depend on
Linux-based software at every stage of the music production cycle.
Ron Parker started Mirror Image Recording Studios around 20
years ago with brothers Dana and Bill Bailey, after they moved
to the city with the bands they were in at the time. Dana Bailey
also worked with Prince and The New Power Generation as MIDI and
keyboard technician on two world tours. Later, NPG vocalist Rosie
Gaines partnered Dana as a songwriter, creating tunes including
the speed garage anthem 'Closer Than Close'. As is all too often
the case, selling hundreds of thousands of records around the
world did not produce proportional financial returns for the
artists involved — and years later, Dana and Rosie are still
waiting to be paid the royalties on that particular record.
5: X11R6
just because....
Ruben
-- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com -
Leadership Development in Free Software
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like
Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world -
RI Safir 1998
http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS -
RI Safir 2002
"Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"
"The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers
to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in
our own society."
"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be
damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and
technology have been attacted at the hip since the 1st dynasty in
Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one."
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