1/29/09

[08:39:22] Apparently imgtec is short for Imagination Technologies. Imagination Technologies (formerly known as VideoLogic) has a branch called PowerVR that creates both hardware and software intellectual property for 2D and 3D rendering.

It also creates these intellectual property for video encoding, decoding, and associated image processing. PowerVR SGX is a pixel, vertex, and geometry shader hardware.

1/26/09

[05:22:10] GPIO is an acroynym that stands for General Purpose Input/ Output.

GPIOs are often placed into groups of 8 pins. In some cases, GPIOs may use Direct Memory Access in order to move large amounts of data in an efficient manner.

[05:31:29] PCI stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect and is a commonly used interface. Typical PCI cards used in PCs include: sound cards, USB/Serial ports, and other such hardware. The PCI Local Bus (often referred to as PCI), is used for attaching hardware devices in a computer such as a planar device (an Integrated Circuit that is mounted onto the motherboard), or an expansion card.

BeagleBoard Contest

The first ever BeagleBoard design contest has ended. The top 2 winners recieved a BeagleBoard Rev C1 as their prize. The BeagleBoard revision C1 has a working USB HOST and the newest OMAP3 silicon revision. The winners are recieving their boards 2 month before it is made publically available by DigiKey, in March of 2009.

The winning design was the BeagleBot, which essentially dodged walls and obstacles. The projects entered into the contest can be found at http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard/contest. This cite also provides information on the contest, judging criteria, and judging results.

The second contest's dates have not yet been decided on, but it is said that the deadline will be no earlier than February 12th, 2009. We encourage everybody to enter a project in the next contest. I look forward to seeing all of your creative and innovative designs.