This isn't entirely a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely interested. A few weeks ago, I bought an electric screwdriver. One of the key selling points, for me, was that it charged via micro-USB. My last electric screwdriver had some weird proprietary connector which broke. I've hundreds of USB cables - of various lengths - and dozens of chargers - of various strengths. I will always be able…
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Here's a weird market gap. Most modern phones use USB-C to charge. Increasingly, they forego a headphone jack in favour of using Bluetooth. Peachy! But all of the Bluetooth headphones that I can find are charged via Micro USB. Which is bloody annoying! I want to charge my phone, laptop, camera, games console, and headphones from the same charger. Even looking at the wholesalers on Ali…
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The good folk at Ailipu Technology have sent me a fist-sized USB camera to review. This is a cheap and simple way to get external video into a home server like a Raspberry Pi. This is the, slightly cumbersomely named, elp-usb100w05mt-dl36. What's in the box? The USB cable is around 5 metres long, and is wired into the camera. Four screws and rawlplugs are also included. Why? Because there…
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The good folks at Ntonpower have sent me this utterly ridiculous, and fantastically over-powered USB charger. It has ten frickin' ports each one capable of delivering 2.4 amps. So, what's it like? Straight up, it looks like a plastic toast rack. It's a chunky beast, but surprisingly lightweight. You won't have trouble lifting it, but it stays firmly in place. Round the other side are 10 USB …
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My solar panels deliver pure Direct Current electricity into my house. All my house has Alternating Current circuits. Therefore, I need an inverter to change the DC to AC. This is inefficient. Most of the electronic devices I own are powered by DC. So I plug little wall-warts into the AC sockets to convert back to DC. This is also inefficient. One of the DC devices I'll be getting soon is…
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As much as I love my MacBook, 2 USB ports just isn't enough! Between phone charging, memory sticks and a keyboard and mouse, I'm sick of swapping cables in and out of ports. I wanted a USB hub which didn't have a trailing wire (one more thing to get tangled or lost) and would fit neatly onto a laptop. Enter the Sabrent 4-Port USB 2.0 Rotatable Hub a £6 hub available on Amazon. It's a tiny hub …
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I'm a big fan of the EU. For all its flaws, it has kept the peace for decades. Not only does it prevent physical wars - but it reduces the harm caused by companies warring against each other. Like most legislatures, it works on glacial timelines. Not only tackling the problems of the past, but also assuming the future is static. In the fast moving technology industry, this has been a mixed…
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What does the design of cables tell us about the men who invented them? Computer designers often strictly gender the components they create. The most obvious example is the motherboard - the central hub of the computer from which all electronic life descends. As well as circuit boards (often called daughter-boards) - cables are also subject to strict gender rules. The convention is that the…
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I recently got a MakeyMakey. It's a sort of ersatz USB keyboard that can be plugged into anything electrically conductive. I blogged about using it to control my Raspberry Pi using fruit and veg. I also blogged about controlling Android using a USB keyboard and mouse via a USB OTG cable. Hang on... the MakeyMakey is USB... Android can be controlled via USB... CAN I CONTROL MY ANDROID WITH…
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After posting about using the Galaxy Note II for a full day of work, someone asked me why I didn't just plug in a proper keyboard and mouse to it. To be honest, I'd never even considered that as a possibility! In order to plug in USB peripherals to an Android device, you'll need a USB-OTG adapter (OTG stands for On The Go). One end plugs into your Android's charging port, the other end is just …
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"This Is Not A Film" by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who is under house arrest in his country for alleged “propaganda against the regime,” will be screened under the Free Jafar Panahi Program of the 13th Cinemanila. The film was smuggled from Iran in a Flash-Drive hidden inside a cake to Cannes for screening a few months back. Manila Bulletin This is a microSD card. Currently on sale in the …
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This is a bit of a brain dump of how I got a 3G USB dongle working on the Raspberry Pi. Following on from getting the Raspberry Pi to send SMS. That's The Power Of Love The first thing to say is use a powered USB hub! I had lots of problems getting the modem working when it was plugged directly into the Pi. A 3G signal takes more power than the Pi's USB sockets can supply. In the above…
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