Embedded

Jan Jongboom (@janjongboom) of Mbed (@ArmMbed) joined us to talk about compilers, online hardware simulators, and inference on embedded devices. Find out more about Mbed on mbed.com. The board simulator is at labs.mbed.com(Mbed OS Simulator). The code for the simulator is on Jan’s Github. Mbed Labs also has the uTensor inference framework for using TensorFlow models on devices. You can see some of Jan’s talks and his blog on janjongboom.com. Jan will be running a workshop at SxSW called Changing the World with Open, Long-Range IoT on March 10 in Austin, TX. Additionally, he will be hosting an IoT Deep Dive Workshop on LoRA on March 14 (also in Austin, TX). For background on LoRA, check out the recent Amp Hour episode with Richard Ginus.

Roger Linn, founder of Roger Linn Design, is a trailblazer in musical instrument innovation, renowned for his work on digital drum machines. He shares insights on the expressive control of instruments like the LinnStrument and discusses the challenges of N-key rollover in button systems. The conversation dives into the importance of low latency for live performance and addresses accessibility through technology, making music-making inclusive for disabled musicians. Linn also highlights the role of open-source software in transforming musical creativity.

We spoke to author Robin Sloan (@robinsloan) about his books and near-future science fiction. Robin wrote Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore and Sourdough. Robin’s website is robinsloan.com. Go there for some short stories, sign up for his newsletter and check out his new ‘zine (also at wizard.limo). Oh! Don’t forget his blog, including a description of his neural net for audio generation and for writing. Some books Robin suggested: Home: A Short History of an Idea by Witold Rybczynshi Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Hild by Nicola Griffith

Dustin Franklin of NVIDIA (@NVIDIAEmbedded) spoke with us about the Jetson TX2, a board designed to bring AI into embedded systems. Dusty wrote Two Days to a Demo, both the original supervised learning version and the newer reinforcement learning version. In general, check out Dusty’s github repo to see what’s new. Also, The Redtail project is an autonomous navigation system for drones and land vehicles based on the TX2. The NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference is in San Jose, CA, March 26-29, 2018. Your coupon for 25% off: NVCYATO The Jetson TX1/TX2 ChallengeRocket contest ends February 18th. You can find Dusty on on the NVIDIA forums.

Chris and Elecia chatted about listener emails, and other stuff and things. Elecia wrote a book called Making Embedded Systems, if you want to see the chapter about interrupts and timers, hit the contact link on embedded.fm. We also recommend our blog, Chris Svec wrote about the MSP430 from a microprocessor point of view (ESE101) and Andrei Chichak wrote about an ST processor with a more pragmatic and C focused view (Embedded Wednesdays). You can support the podcast through Patreon. Kalman filter explanation video with Pokemon Ben Krasnow's Applied Science YouTube channel Usbourne's books for teaching kids electronics and programming (the free '80s ones are near the bottom) Formally verified microkernel: seL4 Microkernel The first Pokemon games used every programming trick there is for optimization STM bought Atollic and released TrueStudio Pro for free for STM parts

We spoke with Jackson Keating (@jacksonakeating) about Bluetooth Low Energy, going over GATTs layouts and the general BLE usage. While Jackson prefers the Bluetooth spec as the best reading explanation, Elecia liked the Adafruit BLE introduction. She wrote about some of her initial experiences with different chips and Chris Svec wrote about BLE roles. We all agreed that the examples and tutorials from your chip vendor is a good place to get experience. A random UUID generator is uuidgen on Mac or online on uuidgenerator.net. Elecia mentioned 108: Nebarious, an Embedded episode where we talked about how BLE lacks security. Jackson suggested looking at the Core Bluetooth API for IOS development as well as the Nordic and LightBlue apps for debugging.

Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) talks about economics, books, and the future. Check out Tim’s new book, WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us. And yes, this is Tim O’Reilly of  O’Reilly books. Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems has a great-eared nightjar, but she’s finally adjusted to a modern dinosaur on her cover.

Sunshine Jones (@Sunshine_Jones) spoke with us about synthesizers, electronics, and philosophy. Sunshine’s music is most easily found at TheUrgencyOfChange.com. His writing is at Sunshine-Jones.com. We talked about Sunshine’s User’s Guide to the Roland SE-02. That includes Ahmed, a track produced using only the SE-02. Sunshine also wrote about building a polysynth. The intro music is an excerpt from LELEK, released on Air Texture Vol. V. The exit music is Fall In Love Not In Line, released this year on vinyl only, TUOC01. See TheUrgencyOfChange.com for more. Sunshine was the host of SundaySoul.com, a live podcast about music and life.

Nick Kartsioukas (@ExplodingLemur) spoke with us about information security, melting down spectres, lemurs, and sensible resolutions. Nick recommends Aumasson’s Serious Cryptography (also available from NoStarch) as a good orientation. (Offline, he also recommended Shneier’s Secrets and Lies.)   When thinking about security, you need to develop your threat model (EFF) and not panic (Mickens). As a user of the internet, there are some getting started guides (Motherboard, EFF, Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy) along with Nick’s advice of using an antivirus program (comparison), an Adblocker (uBlock), a password manager, and 2-factor authentication. Data backups are also very useful (3-2-1 rule: 3 copies, 2 separate media, 1 offsite). For a professional infosec perspective, the CIS 20 are best practice guidelines for computer security. For Spectre and Meltdown, the best high-level explanation is in Twitter from @gsuberland though XKCD does its usual good job as well. For more detail, about speculative execution bugs, check out this github readme. For the history of the Stuxnet, check out Zetter’s Countdown to Zero Day and the Security Now podcast episode 291. Ham radio Field Days for 2018 are June 23-24 Last but not least: Depression lies so get help and if you want to know how to help someone else, look at MakeItOk.org

The Amp Hour and Embedded join up to send a holiday letter to listeners. Chris G is ever improving Contextual Electronics. Chris W has a new band: 12AX7. Elecia still has a book: Making Embedded Systems. Amp Hour episodes mentioned in this one: 372: Where Chris and Dave talk about 2017 304: Alexa jokes 281: The first Amp Hour / Embedded show, with call ins 256: The first time Chris W was on the Amp Hour 187: Elecia joined the Amp Hour for the first time Embedded episodes mentioned: 223: Where Chris talks about his new synth habit 227: Talking about Udacity and learning 203: EE Charlie talks about good design We talked about teaching which led to: Short mention of Dreyfus model of skill acquisition of which Chris G’s friend Mel did a great explanatory comic Daniel Spalding’s How to Teach Adults (pdf) Dan Luu’s Learning To Program post Udacity’s Self Driving Car courses Computer vision with Python OpenCV Article on how the difficulty is the point of teaching literature The new art and engineering Function Podcast Hilarious World of Depression podcast Books we are reading! Build Your Own Transistor Radio by Ron Quan The Hobbyist’s Guide to RTL-SDR by Carl Laufer Spineless by Juli Berwald about Jellyfish Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs by Tristan Gooley Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (terrifying mermaids) Catseye by Andre Norton Teach Beyond Your Reach by Robin Neidorf Mastery by Robert Greene Understanding By Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe Making Learning Whole by David Perkins Elecia got a JTrace Pro Cortex-M for herself for Christmas. Chris W got a Moog Werkstatt and an assortment of Teenage Engineering small synths. Chris G mostly got sweaters because Chicago is very cold. BMW now sends YouTube ads via snail mail