YourITronics

This project teaches you how to build a lamp that can change color, and can be controlled by a computer. Simple Python and C programs for your PC or Mac are provided that let you program color patterns into the lamp. Implementing the weather forecast and other ideas are then up to you. Web scraping with wget is easy if you understand a scripting language. The whole project should cost under 100 euro, half of which is for the lamp (glass ball, LED module, microcontroller, and odds and ends), and the other half for the flash programmer if you don’t have one. So considering you already have a programmer, the project should not set you back too much.

Computer controlled RGB Lamp: [Link]

If your an Electronics geek, you probably want to tweak electronics related stuff in every place you spend time. For example in your car, you probably are not happy with the information displayed on the dashboard. Maybe you want to know fuel consumption at a given time, or the air conditioning temperature or you want a unit that can control all this. Here is a nice project for this: t uses AVR microcontroller that is equipped with various sensors and LCD display which shows quite a bunch of info like momentary fuel consumption, momentary speed, journey time, passed distance and many average indicators. First working project version can be found here. Probably there will be another with more improvements.

Carputer - AVR based car computer: [Via] - [Link]

Due to the holiday season up next the linux OS will get a great chance to become more popular than it is at Wal-Mart Stores. They were taking orders online Wednesday for a computer called the “Green gPC” that is made by Everex of Taiwan, costs $199 and runs Linux.

It will be available in about 600 stores, as well as online, Wal-Mart said. A comparable Everex PC preinstalled with Windows Vista Home Basic and more memory costs $298 partly because the manufacturer has to pay Microsoft Corp. for a software license, so I think people will like the new computer and discover the goods of linux.

Both computers come with keyboard, mouse, and speakers, but without a monitor. As you already may know Linux is developed and offered on a open-source basis by individuals and companies around the world.

It’s being used especially on servers because of its high stability on long term use. The variant of Linux on the gPC is called gOS and is derived from the popular Ubuntu variant. It’s mostly oriented toward Google’s Web sites and online applications, like YouTube, Gmail and the company’s word processing program, all of which can be used only when the computer is connected to a broadband line.

The PC comes with a dialup modem, but gOS doesn’t support it. So most users likely will get online using other ways. Google’s entrance to the OS market is relatively new and I think gOS will be a great chance for users who would like to move away from Microsoft and windows to something new and better.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said it is stocking the computer in about one in eight stores to test the demand for an open-source product. The gPC has a low-end processor from VIA Technologies, plus 512 megabytes of internal memory, an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a combination DVD drive and CD burner. Everex says the processor is very energy efficient, meriting the “Green” part of the name.

here is a screenshot of the gPC or you could call it a gOS screenshot:

Sources :

http://www.thinkgos.com

http://www.everex.com

http://www.walmart.com

Also if you would like to see more gOS screenshots you should check this article of mine.

    This basic computer its based on avr chip Atmega32. For your understanding this is a basic language programmable chip computer which can run basic programs or scripts with the ability of displaying results on a RGB TV screen. Unfortunately the author’s web page is in German, if you can understand German check the site