[PT] Anúncio Importante

Caríssimos,

Poucos sabem mas, há alguns meses atrás, candidatámos o nosso projecto EIS (Emergency Information System) ao concurso "Realize o Seu Sonho" da Associação Acredita Portugal. Hoje, ao fim de longos e trabalhosos meses, temos a anunciar que chegámos às finais! Entre 18702 projectos, um dos finalistas é nosso!

Assim sendo, gostaríamos de vos convidar a todos a estar presentes dia 5 de Junho, na Gala de Entrega dos Prémios. Será no Centro de Congressos de Lisboa pelas 20:30.

Para isso, deverão fazer o registo gratuito aqui:

Reserva de bilhetes da Gala

(Em "Outras Informações > Pertenço à claque do Projecto", deverão colocar "Emergency Information System")

Agradecíamos que quem estivesse interessado em ir que nos contactasse a alertar (para e endereço de E-Mail em http://www.ondatechnology.pt/contacts.html) e fizesse a reserva quanto antes. Para quem vier de fora de Lisboa, poderá ser interessante organizar uma logística de viagem conjunta.

A todos os que apoiaram e acompanharam, o nosso sentido muito obrigado

Vemo-nos lá!

Anouncement about OCL

The OCL project (Onda Class Library), is changing. As of 00:01 today, July 1st 2014, all former OCL modules were fused into a new project, now called JamLib, gaining the repository code J4. Only the drivers will continue on separate repositories. It is the perfect date for that as well. Today was OCLs 10th anniversary since it was first called as such.
Soon we will present to you OCL's new home in the Jamanta Universe site.

In 2002, the first line - of what was later to be called Onda Class Library - was written. At that time, was called SmartSQL and was to be only a SQL database abstraction library. Later, in July 1st 2004, already growing beyond being a simple SQL database abstraction library, it was finally named OCL, after a voting that opposed that name to Onda Class Framework. At that time, the source repositories were simple RSYNC repositories with no version control and it was only on January 10th 2006 that they were finally ported to Subversion.

Since then, OCL suffered several periods of rapid advancement and stagnation due to lack of human resources. Now, with this new injected energy and the new team members, all projects are advancing faster than before including, now, JamLib.

A special thanks to the original members of the OCL Team (José Cadete and Nuno Afonso - and, later, André Lamego and Pedro Ferreira), to the new team members and, last but definitely not least, the Team Mommy, for her superhuman patience and inspiration.

MISter: the Mini-ITX-cluSter

It's been one more busy week. Between teaching classes and working on the projects we finally managed to get our hands on something long coming: building a mini-cluster for our projects, more specifically, one that we know that will be a revolution and which we are close to revealing.

Well, we decided to call the mini-cluster MiSter (for Mini-ITX cluSter). We are also building an appropriate structure for holding it rack-style, including automated environmental control, a shared power-supply and slide-out board holders. And we will be sharing the evolution with you. Without further delay, here are the goodies.

The materials arrive

Here are the boards that Intel offered us. These are going to be the first "victims" of MISter.

Here is the base structure already put together. The rails are still missing.

Now we're setting up the rails and are going to start making the board shelves.

More soon.

News about the Pitbull Wallet

Hi everyone

No, the Pitbull Wallet is not dead. We did not manage to get the funding we aimed for through crowdfunding. However, the results we've had have proved one thing: there is a market for it. So, we spent the past two months putting together a business plan and, despite not being the option we hoped for the most, we are going to pursue funding from other sources. We have already established contact with a consortium of local business angels and are waiting for some news. So, stay tuned!

New Project - The Pitbull Wallet

One more post, and one more project! Today we launched the Pitbull Wallet. Have you ever felt the need to have your passwords organized and easily managed and none of the solutions you found seemed quite right? Or have you been trying to find a more secure way to store your digital wallets? Your Bitcoin, Litecoins, etc? Well, then this could be the device for you. The Pitbull Wallet is a credit-card sized solution to manage passwords and digital wallets. If you hurry, you can get it at a special early adopter price of $10. It's on pre-order on IndieGoGo, under crowdfunding stage. Now it's the right time to do so, if we get to the goal, you'll get your perk around August (we hope). If we don't, you automatically get your money back. Take a look!

Have you ordered yours yet? What are you waiting for?

New projects comming

We're so sorry, we've been out of touch, but things have been crazy around here. We've had to deal with a lot of changes. We're all very excited because we'll soon be introducing you to a much needed facelift of our site and a new and awesome project. Stay tuned, it won't be long now.

Updates on the e-SUV

So, we've been behind on the updates. Let me tell you where we are, then. We found some good candidate vehicles for the project. The project has attracted a lot of interest and little funding so far. So we are going to take another route and try to secure sponsorship from companies. This will be quite hard, but no pain, no gain. Meanwhile we've been researching to have a really good plan and investigating everything from materials to software to be used on the project. We are going to try to gather funding from state sources. Meanwhile, the other projects are still quite active and, whenever possible, I'll post updates.

New projects

Some of you already know how we like to do everything big. We are a great team (or team of teams) and teams constantly generate ideas. In keeping up with that, we have two new projects to present to you. The first one is called Geodata. It will be a small, open API to access our database of generic and simple geographic data. You will have access to querying our server for country codes, mobile country codes, mobile network codes, country phone prefixes, a CSV to KML converter, cell tower locations by ID and eventually much more. We are publishing this information because while in the process of researching for other internal projects, we noticed that there was a frequent need to access such type of data and we realized it would be nice to have it centralized.

The second project is still under consideration - we haven't decided yet if it will go forward - but it is very interesting. It has been suggested the building of an opensource 3D printer for printing large formats, appropriately named "MegaFab". MegaFab is supposed to be able to build parts as large as a small desk. We are considering giving it the ability to switch between different types of fabrication (SLS, injection and Inkjet, probably switching heads with human interaction) to make it more versatile. This would also come in handy in several of our projects, including the e-SUV. As with the other projects, we have the human capital. We only lack the other resources.

So, stay tuned as we prepare to give you some more news.

OCL back under development

Fantastic: OCL is back under development and compiling flawlessly:

joao@Johnny-00:~/Onda/F1/trunk$ make
[   OK   ] Precompiling headers
[   OK   ] Compiling ADebugAssistant.cpp onto ADebugAssistant.o
[   OK   ] Compiling AInputStream.cpp onto AInputStream.o
[   OK   ] Compiling AOutputStream.cpp onto AOutputStream.o
[   OK   ] Compiling Boxing.cpp onto Boxing.o
[   OK   ] Compiling Class.cpp onto Class.o
[   OK   ] Compiling CLib.cpp onto CLib.o
[   OK   ] Compiling CStringBuilder.cpp onto CStringBuilder.o
[   OK   ] Compiling CTimer.cpp onto CTimer.o
[   OK   ] Compiling CVarArg.cpp onto CVarArg.o
[   OK   ] Compiling Exceptions.cpp onto Exceptions.o
[   OK   ] Compiling IStream.cpp onto IStream.o
[   OK   ] Compiling Locale.cpp onto Locale.o
[   OK   ] Compiling Operators.cpp onto Operators.o
[   OK   ] Compiling TString.cpp onto TString.o
[   OK   ] Compiling TStringComparisons.cpp onto TStringComparisons.o
[   OK   ] Compiling Type.cpp onto Type.o
[   OK   ] Linking files to build libOnda_F1.so.1
joao@Johnny-00:~/Onda/F1/trunk$

Check the OCL Page on our wiki for more details.

The Onda Technology Institute Wiki

We would like to present to you... (drumrolls)

our wiki.

Here you will find the most up to date documentation on our projects. It's still in it's very early stages, but if you pay attention, you'll see it grow every day a little more.

Sorry, only Onda Technology members are allowed to edit it, for now.

New website!

We have just launched our much needed new websites, after a long time in the forge, both in English (http://www.ondatechnology.org/) and Portuguese versions (http://www.ondatechnology.pt/). They have many new features and information. Please feel free to visit them and tell us what you think. They are fresh out of the oven, so they may still need some polishing.

Nice surprise: Nokia N9 sources

Today, this came in the mail:

The sources for the Nokia N9 operating system (Harmattan). I'm quite sure they aren't complete, as most likely not every part of the OS was open source. Also, I haven't yet found any instructions on how to build a complete image of the OS. Some more digging required, I guess.

e-SUV updates 2: The candidate

So, we finally found the perfect canditate SUV for the project. We have already made a reservation and are awaiting all the paperwork to clear. A gorgeous black beast. Meanwhile, we have received a new OBD2 connector (supporting USB and Bluetooth) and I made available an Asus Transformer tablet just for the project. We haven't yet got any donations through IndieGoGo, but I have made available 3500€ from my own pocket towards the fund for this project. There will be photos soon.

Stay tuned.

e-SUV Updates 1: More details about the project

So, people have been asking us for more information about the e-SUV. Yes, I know we don't yet have a project webpage, but we'll get there. There's too much to do and not enough time. We've chosen the SUV, it'll be a 1999-200x Opel Frontera (aka Vauxhaull Frontera, Honda Passport, Holden Frontera, Chevrolet Frontera, Isuzu Cameo, Isuzu Vega, Isuzu Frontier and Chevrolet Rodeo...). Why? Because it's the cheapest around here with good looks, post 1997 (for the OBDII-compliant ECU), airbag and ABS equipped and the engine is not so bad. We've already received the OBDII cable and we've tested a few. One of them was in so bad shape the OBDII cable couldn't even detect it and the engine sounded like it was crying for a coffin.

So, what are we planning on doing?

• Removing the transmission, the clutch and everything directly attached to the belt;
• Attaching a better alternator to the engine to provide sufficient power;
• Replacing the wheels with hub electric wheels that can act both as motors and brakes (regenerative braking);
• Adding batteries for a resonable duration of city driving between recharges to reduce the need to resort to the fuel-engine, but not too much that it completely offsets the weight reduction from the removal of the other parts;
• Figuring out a mechanism so that the hydraulic brakes are used automatically as backup in case of failure of regenerative braking;
• Making sure the power-steering is electric instead of pneumatic;
• Adding a secondary ECU to regulate diesel engine acceleration based on several parameters to optimize fuel consumption (including slope, terrain type, proximity to curves - using data from navigation - etc.);
• Replacing the instrument panel with a screen with information more appropriately displayed and additional information that helps the driver enjoying a more economic and safe driving experience (including detection of traffic signs, speed limits, etc.)
• Adding a navigation/communication/multimedia console that fully integrates with the vehicle and controls everything else;
• Adding a windshield-projected HUD - this one we still have to investigate further as we suspect the glass will need some special coating or treatment;
• Adding more security features to prevent theft and safety features for emergencies (alarm, electronic engine locking, an Onstar-like emergency system, all sides parking sensors, camera based parking assistance, collision avoidance, road-radar, parking collison detection - so you know who and when someone ruined your car while you had it parked - etc).

This is what we intend to build... If we'll succeed, we don't know, it depends on the amount of funding we get.

Any more questions? Feel free to post them or send them by e-mail.

Cheers.

New Project: The e-SUV

We have a new project! We do not have a page for it yet, and we'll wait for the new website until we give it one. But we have already created an IndieGogo campaign for it. We plan to convert an SUV into an hybrid electric vehicle. It will be an electric range-extended SUV. Check the campaign page for more details.

Goodies

Thank you Intel for the lovely gift which will help us move forward with our R&D efforts on your platforms.

(On the picture: Two of the four Intel Xeon E5-26xx processors that arrived for us today.)

Package Doctor Search

Package Doctor now allows for searching packages on the package repository and displays the various alternatives. It was easy enough to create and it came as a pleasant birthday gift for me.

root@workstation:~$ pkd -f binutils
[ Package Doctor ] package management system
Copyright 2010-2012 Onda Technology Institute
* sys-devel/binutils ( 2.20.1, 2.22 )

Package Doctor First Success

Success! Package Doctor has now created its first binary package! This package management system is now able to fully create binary packages ready to install from the source and the corresponding ".pkd" file. This makes it closer to be ready for download for world-wide testing. The system is entirely built on BASH scripts and works quite well, making use of UnionFS-FUSE to keep everything isolated. The next step is to check the performance of the system while compiling over a FUSE-based mount, to determine if the performance loss over building directly over the real filesystem is significant. Stay tuned.

# pkd -b binutils01
[ Package Doctor ] package management system
Copyright 2010-2012 Onda Technology Institute
[ OK ] Downloading binutils-2.20.1.tar.bz2
[ OK ] Preparing build environment for package "binutils" (binutils)
[ OK ] Unpacking binutils 2.20.1
[ OK ] Preparing to compile binutils
[ OK ] Compiling binutils
[ OK ] Installing binutils
[ OK ] Building binary package /System/Data/L0/default.profile/packages/binutils-2.20.1.pkb.tar.bz2
[ OK ] Cleaning up.

Monthly Updates: August 2011

It is time for an update on our activities. I think we'll be doing this every month, from now on, so you know we're alive and as well as possible. So, let's start:

1. We're still figthing local bureaucracy. We had a tough time trying to make everything official as even official documentation is either wrong or seriously outdated.
2. We now have a bank account for donations and to manage our funds without relying solely on our Paypal account.
3. There has been progress regarding the agreements we are trying to establish. We are looking for alliances with several entities so we can provide better conditions for our associates and contributors. However, unfortunately, all of the ongoing agreements have been arranjed with local businesses, which means that, for now, only our fellow countrymen are elligible. But we didn't forget everyone else and we are going to attempt to reach international agreements also.
4. We've been updating regularly our website, adding new details, new information, correcting every mistake we find.
5. We are going to attempt to get recognition as a technical training institution which will allow us to go much further than we've been able so far.
6. Our first book has already seen some sales, but still very shy so far. It could become a very important source of funding for our projects.

On other news, the debate on patents is heating up again. With a strong war going on between Apple and Samsung, and patent trolling stories emerging like mushrooms everyday, it seems that our IP Protection Fund initiative came right on time but its success depends on how it is received and perceived.

We wish you well and you're always welcome here.

Cheers.

Launched new initiative, the IP Protection Fund

Today we launched our new initiative, the IP Protection Fund, that we like to call the Anti-Patent-Troll. We hope that, with this new activity we may be able to fight that plague that has been preventing significant advances and casting a shadow over several open projects that have merit. It is made to protect both the owners of IP and the users of that IP, presenting a fair model for everyone. Please take a look at the site for more details.

Looking for a new home

Our current home is, at best, temporary. Onda Technology Institute needs a new headquarters. We are currently in the process of selecting potential sites (we don't need much more than a small office space in a location with good road access and appropriate telecommunications infrastructure). We need to take into account the cost, since we, as a non-profit, have severe limitations on our budget. We would also like to hear from all of you about suggestions of features and things to implement on the new headquarters, as well as specific characteristics we should look for or potential location sites.

Best regards

Officially a non-profit NGO

Today, Onda Technology has been finally registered as a non profit, non governmental organization, a process that took a long time due to some unforeseen circumstances which included personal loss and poorly written, incomplete and outdated information from the official state-run websites.

What does this mean? It means that we are finally able to proceed with our goals and to seek the necessary funding to support our projects. It means we are now a recognized entity and we'll be able to write you a receipt for tax purposes for deduction of your donations. And it also means we'll finally have access to a whole lot of very important benefits that will greatly improve productivity by adding to our available tools and resources. So, stay tuned as we do our best to make this institution grow and provide the world with innovative solutions and technologies.

Welcome

Welcome to Onda Technology Report. Here you'll be able to find a lot of information regarding technology in general such as articles, editorials, news, reviews and much more. It will also be one of the primary means to know more about the evolution of Onda Technology Institute. We'll do our best to provide you with up to date and accurate news and to make this an important tool to stay informed. You are welcome to visit us anytime you want.

We hope you enjoy.

Best regards