The smaller, smarter Nomiku is making sous-vide cooking easier

In an attempt to make sous vide cooking more accessible to the home chef, the team behind the Nomiku Immersion Circulator recently turned to Kickstarter to unveil a new prototype that features Wi-Fi connectivity.

Its creators describe sous vide cooking as “cooking food in a low temperature water bath while your ingredients are under a vacuum seal in a plastic bag.” In fact, cooking food at a sustained temperature in a sealed environment allows for the most delicious and ideal chemical reactions to occur within food. Interestingly enough, sous vide cooking doesn’t fall in line with the “quick and easy” mantra of many modern meals. That said, even though it takes slightly longer than a microwave dinner, the end result is undeniably tasty.

Catering to the rapidly growing Internet of Things, the newest evolution of the Nomiku includes Wi-Fi connectivity, which enables the clip-on device to be controlled by a smartphone. To further streamline the product, the team developed a single knob for controlling temperature, in addition to a fully-functional touchscreen. Compared to its original design, the recently-unveiled Nomuku clips to the front of the pan rather than the back, and can work with as little as 1.5 inches of water depth, while heating with an impressive 1200W of power.

Embedded with an ATtiny88 MCU, the Nomiku is equipped to receive inputs from the accompanying Tender smartphone application. Tender — available on both the iOS and Android platforms — grants users the ability to share recipes throughout the sous vide cooking community. With a few clicks and the correct ingredients, a home chef could have a Gordon Ramsay-like recipe brewing on their stove in just a matter of minutes.

With all of these additional features, the second iteration of the Nomiku Immersion Circulator (unsurprisingly) reached its $200,000 Kickstarter goal in a matter of 12 hours, garnering just over $750,000 throughout its campaign. Previously, sous vide cooking has been reserved for high-class restaurants and foodie-centric reality shows. With the widespread adoption of the Atmel powered Nomiku, a true home food revolution could be at hand… or well, clipped to your pan.

“We wanted everyone to create restaurant quality food in their own kitchen.” CEO Lisa Fetterman explains. To further grow the home sous vide chef community, the Nomiku team plans to constantly release recipes on their blog and through their various social media accounts.

To learn more about or to pre-order the Nomiku, you can head over to their official page here.

Aquaponics and hydroponics sensor platforms for Makers

Cooking Hacks, the open hardware division of Libelium, has launched two new sensor platforms that automate control and maintenance tasks in aquariums and in gardens through wireless connectivity and using open-source APIs. Designed for Makers, the new IoT solutions are based on Arduino, and include specialized sensors to measure parameters vital to aquatic life in ponds and fish tanks, or for indoor and outdoor gardening.

Powered by an ATtiny84 microcontroller (MCU), the Arduino Uno-compatible Open Garden platform consists of three separate kits equipped with sensors to maintain healthy growth, despite whether plants are located indoors, outside or in water. A suite of sensors, ranging from humidity and temperature to light and soil moisture, monitor plants for optimal care wherever they are situated. The platform’s actuators can control irrigation, as well as activate lights and oxygen pumps. A hydroponics kit is also available, which includes both pH and conductivity probes.

Open Aquarium has been designed to help Makers care for their fish by automating the control and maintenance tasks that are typically required in tanks and ponds. This newly-unveiled platform monitors water factors such as temperature, pH and conductivity. In addition, the fully Arduino-compatible system has the ability to measure water levels and leakage, as well as deploy actuators that can feed the fish, regulate water heating / cooling, activate pumps to change water or administer medicine, and control light intensity to simulate day and night cycles. The sensors send information using wireless interfaces such as Wi-Fi, GPRS and 3G.

Each product comes with a complete open source API to easily control the board through an ATmega328 based Arduino, as well as a web application that allows users to easily access and visualize relevant information from a browser or iPhone/Android device.

“We design connected technology using open source code to help makers discover, improve, and scale new sensor-based solutions for the Internet of Things,” explained David Gascón, CTO at Libelium.

Interested in learning more? You can check out the official Open Garden page here. Readers may also want to browse through some of our previous articles on open source agriculture, including “Vertical Farming with Arduino,” “The Internet of Things, Stalk by Stalk,” “Smart Urban Aquaponics in West Oakland,” “DIY Farming with Atmel and Arduino,” “Open Source Aquaponics with APDuino,” “Agricultural Monitoring with Atmel AVR
,” “Arduino-Based Farming in Maine” and “Building a DIY Moisture Monitor.”

dizmo is the Interface of Things

dizmo can perhaps best be described as a new user interface (UI) that allows users to interact with a wide variety of devices, including [Atmel based] Arduino boards, in an intuitive fashion on any advanced smart display or digital surface. Following a successfully-funded Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, the platform is now open to the public.

More specifically, dizmo is a multi-platform application (written in optimized C++ and compiled for 32 and 64 Bit systems) capable of running across multiple operating systems. The app is packaged with a separate installer for Windows 7 (or later) and Mac OS X 10.7 (or later) while a binary or package is available for Linux flavors Debian or Ubuntu.

Simply stated, gizmo hopes to make each of today’s connected devices and digital apps manageable from one extended work space, in what the company has dubbed an the dizmo space.

“In the dizmo space, users are able to [run] dizmos on any smart display, share content in an intuitive and immediate way and also visualize and control wireless devices such as lights, plant sensors, alarms, locks, webcams and dishwashers – interacting with the Internet of Things (IoT),” a dizmo rep explained on the project’s official Kickstarter page.

“dizmo space is the ideal environment for workgroup collaboration, smart home and office environments, entertainment, education and many more.”

On the software side, devs can write their own dizmos which are based on HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript – using WebKit as the rendering engine.

In addition to the initial set of dizmos, a special DIY iteration will include a specific set of dizmos to help Makers pair the UI with various development boards, such as Atmel powered Arduino boards.

“dizmo breaks down traditional boundaries between device, operating systems, apps and software, transforming the way users work, play and live. It supports orchestration and collaboration in an unparalleled way enabling any data to instantaneously be accessed on any surface, anywhere and made interactive,” the company said in a recent release.

As The Next Web notes, these new digital gizmos (or ‘dizmos’) are developed in the open community, more functions and data sources will be made readily available through the company’s online store. “Once created, they can be moved, rotated, resized, rescaled, overlaid, grouped, iconized, customized, shared live on other devices and with remote users.  Teams can even re-synchronize work done on projects they share.”

While aimed particularly at developers, those interested can obtain a standard license for $69, in addition to a number of other plans. Interested in learning more about dizmo? Check out the project’s official page here.

Atmel and IHR driving innovation in automotive electronics

Atmel has just announced a collaboration with IHR, a worldwide partner in the automotive industry, to further support the innovation of Local Interconnect Network (LIN) systems. This collaboration leverages IHR’s LIN configuration tools with Atmel’s industry-leading embedded solutions to improve application integration, time-to-market and to minimize licensing costs.

Atmel’s collaboration with IHR enables Atmel to provide manufacturers with a LIN-compliant evaluation environment to further streamline development, bringing the best of automotive engineering faster to market. IHR’s solutions support several Atmel technologies including the megaAVR, tinyAVR and XMega AVR families.

For those interested, a free demo version of the LIN drivers is now available for download via the IHR website and can be used for evaluation purposes. Upcoming new product series will be supported by IHR solutions as well.

“With nearly 30 years of experience working with the automotive industry, Atmel has spurred the pervasive growth of electronic features in cars,” explained Giovanni Fontana, Atmel Automotive Applications Director. “Our collaboration with IHR will help our customers continue to build innovative electronic products in a cost-effective manner with improved integration and intuitive configuration capabilities.”

Atmel combines a unique blend of IVN products and embedded MCUs. AVR MCUs deliver the power, performance and flexibility to support a wide range of automotive applications. These small, yet powerful, advanced 8- and 32-bit AVR MCUs deliver the technical features, advanced architecture and dependable design ideal for an array of applications.

In what has become the industry’s largest, the Atmel LIN product portfolio includes stand-alone transceivers, system basis chips (SBC) which integrate a transceiver, a voltage regulator and often other functions as well as AVR MCU-based system-in-package (SiP) and application-specific (ASSP) devices.

“IHR is recognized for our proven LIN tools used by designers to create applications that automotive manufactures rely on as competitive differentiators,” said Rüdiger Kewitz, COO at IHR GmbH. “Together with Atmel, we offer a very compelling proposition for manufacturers to not only design next-generation embedded systems, but also to bring high-end applications to market through an amplitude of makes and models.”

Interested in learning more about Atmel’s LIN solutions? Additional information is available here. You can also browse through the Bits & Pieces archive on the topic.

Tesla Motors unveils “the D”

On what appeared to be just an average fall night in Los Angeles, Elon Musk revealed some not-so-average news around the “Tesla D,” the model he hinted about via Twitter last week. According to Musk, there will be three versions, and each will carry the “D,” to distinguish them from the rear-wheel-drive Model S.

While Tesla failed to announce the driverless car that many had expected, it did roll out a bunch of new driver-assistance and safety features, including things like the car being able to read speed-limit signs and adjust its velocity, signals that make the car change lanes, and lane-departure warnings. In addition, Musk even noted that additional features over time, combined with these recently announced ones, could serve almost like “auto-pilot on an airplane.”

(Source: Getty Images)

The new suite of safety and driver-aid features will now be equipped with a forward-mounted radar, a camera and 12 sensors, each of which will be able to “see” 16 feet to enable the safety tech. Now, Tesla drivers will be able to get out of their vehicle on private property — like a driveway —  and watch it park itself in the garage. When drivers are ready to leave, the car will able to drive itself up, with the car’s temperature and stereo system set to the driver’s preferences. It also connects to your digital calendar so it knows when it’s needed.

(Source: Associated Press)

“It will come to you wherever you are,” Musk tells USA Today‘s Chris Woodyard. “It will slowly make its way to you.”

During the briefing, Tesla shared that it will also have “hopped-up version” of its Model S that features all-wheel drive and goes 0 to 60 mph in just about three seconds. Despite not unveiled a self-driving car, Musk did, however, dub the system “a huge improvement that is taking the technology to the next level.”

Musk told USA TODAY in a recent interview that his favorite car is the super-fast McLaren, a high-price, low-volume production car with racing attributes. Musk believes the quickest Tesla will be able to go toe-to-toe with the McLaren’s 3.2-second sprint to 60 mph.

“It’s like having your own personal roller coaster,” the Tesla CEO says.

The P85D is expected to begin shipping to customers in December, with reports claiming the starting price will be around $120,000. Two additional all-wheel drive models, the 60D and 85D, are projected to arrive in February 2015.

Cars are getting smarter, becoming more electrical and autonomous with radar and sensing that can automatically intervene for performance and safety. No stranger to next-gen vehicles, watch the video below as Rob Valiton discusses the future of the automotive industry and how Atmel’s solutions are helping power this market.

 

Production is underway for the Makesmith CNC router

Over the summer, the Makesmith CNC desktop router successfully raised over $82,000 on Kickstarter, well exceeding its initial $10,000 goal.

 Designed by Bar Smith and Tom Beckett, Makesmith uses off-the-shelf parts to put viable CNC technology into the hands of engineers, DIY hobbyists and Makers.

“Our CNC router employs a two or three dimensional computer model of an object and very precisely mills, cuts, or shapes the object out of any soft material. This low-priced high-quality desktop CNC router cuts intricate and accurate pieces,” Smith explained.

According to its creators, the machine allows an individual to shape objects that would otherwise be too tedious, difficult, or impossible to complete by hand. The router is well-equipped to cut through wood, plastic, foam and a number of other soft materials.

Although the Makesmith does not cut metals, the machine is capable of easily carving basic red bricks.

Aside from Atmel’s ATmega328 MCU, key specs include:

• Custom closed loop controller
• 9.2in x 8.7in x 1.9in workspace (234mm x 221mm x 48mm) (cutting/working area)
• 12in x 14in x 14in machine size (dimensions of the entire machine)
• 0.00005in (.001mm) minimum step size (the minimum amount the machine can be instructed to move)
• 0.1mm – .5mm repeatability depending on feed rate and material (the ability to return to the same spot after a process; accuracy)
• 5in/min (127mm/min) maximum feed rate (the rate it can move in any one direction)

“The kit contains EVERYTHING you need to put together your own desktop CNC router except the dremel,” Smith added.

Those who pledged their support of the router “will receive a complete set of laser-cut parts to construct the frame and moving parts of the router, all the necessary metal hardware, an Arduino-compatible microcontroller, three continuous rotation servos and three magnetic encoder boards, and all of the requisite bolts and wires. To assemble your kit you will need a soldering iron (previous soldering experience is not necessary) and some glue. You should be able to put your kit together in just a few hours,” the Makers write.

Good news backers, production is well underway! Those wishing to follow along with the team’s latest updates can head here.

Video: Pat Sullivan talks ARM Cortex-M7 at ARM TechCon

As reported on Bits & Pieces, ARM recently unveiled a new 32-bit Cortex-M7 microcontroller (MCU) targeted at high-end, next-gen embedded applications.

After being named one of the early lead licensees of the processor, we announced a new family of Atmel | SMART ARM Cortex-M7-based MCUs, which are well positioned between our existing ARM Cortex-M-based MCUs and Cortex-A-based MPUs. The new devices will address high-growth markets including the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearables, as well as automotive and industrial applications that require both high performance and power efficiency.

During ARM TechCon 2014, Atmel’s Pat Sullivan had the chance to catch up with Dominic Pajak of ARM to discuss the company’s newly-introduced Atmel | SMART ARM Cortex-M7-based processor.

“We are proud to be a lead partner in the Cortex-M7 product. We think it’s a great device and really like the performance of it. It actually sits really well between the M4 and A5/A7 portfolios, ” Sullivan told Pajak. “I see this as a really nice filler for us. It allows our customers working in both areas to have a bridge product and a really nice roadmap moving forward.”

As to which IoT segments the Atmel Cortex-M7 processors will be used, “We see it in mid-range wearable applications, as well as healthcare devices in that area,” Sullivan notes.

Shortly thereafter, Sullivan joined fellow industry heavyweights (ST Micro and Freescale) for a standing-room only panel on the microcontroller. During the session, Sullivan said he sees the Cortex-M7 also succeeding in networking and gateway arenas.

“We see it addressing a lot of the system integration, performance issues, and power issues that we have. We also see it working in networking, Internet of Things and smart energy. We think this particular core is well suited for the areas where we see the highest growth rate.”

“Consistent architecture with high-performance is one of the most important things we see in ARM Cortex-M7.” He later added, “Huge data is driving a connected home and it’s coming sooner than we think.”

Sullivan concluded, “We’re all going to be in a more connected world in the future, good and bad. We may not even recognize it.”

While sampling to select customers is currently underway, general availability of the Xplained kit is expected in early 2015. Stay tuned!

Video: Atmel talks about the newly-announced SAMA5D4 series

During the week of ARM TechCon, Atmel expanded its Atmel | SMART portfolio with the debut of the SAMA5D4, a new series of high-performance microprocessors (MPUs) based on the ARM Cortex-A5 processor. The SAMA5D4 offers OEMs seamless technology for Internet of Things (IoT), consumer and industrial applications including control panels, communication gateways, imaging terminals and more.

Atmel’s SAMA5D4 series expands upon the existing SAMA5 family by offering H264, VP8 and MPEG4 720p video playback capability at 30fps for an enhanced user interface experience, bringing significant increases in processing and system performance. Additionally, the series also provides higher security leveraging ARM TrustZone technology to protect the system against counterfeiting, remote firmware updates and allow safe storage of critical data.

At ARM TechCon 2014, Atmel Product Marketing Manager Laurence Barberis talked with the folks at ARM about the newly-announced expansion of Atmel’s ARM Cortex-A5 based MPUs.

Barberis also showed off a recent demo of the SAMA5D4 MPU running a treadmill application built with Crank Software’s Storyboard Suite. The application features video playback and a touchscreen with multiple controls that can be used to interact with a treadmill to adjust things such as speed and incline, as well as display data like heart rate, distance, and accomplishments.

 

Cosino Enigma is an SAMA5D3 based CPU module

Powered by the Atmel | SMART ARM Cortex-A5 based SAMA5D3, HCE Engineering has introduced the latest development in its Cosino Project: the Cosino Enigma CPU module.

As previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, the Cosino Project is an embedded prototyping system that combines the functionality of a mini-computer with those of a professional automation system. Cosino includes a comprehensive lineup of CPU boards, carrier boards and multiple peripherals that support industrial applications, as well as countless DIY projects by Makers.

With the recent launch of the Cosino Enigma, the team will now enrich their offering of Atmel based MPU modules. This new CPU module supports secure boot, which allows a user to store all of their software in an encrypted form on the system’s mass memory, therefore making it inaccessible to unauthorized intrusions!

How the secure boot works

Enigma’s CPU has two way of functioning: normal mode and secure mode. In the former mode, the CPU is no different than all other CPUs; however, once the secure mode is activated, it will execute ONLY encrypted code.

In normal mode, the boot stages consist of:

1. The on-chip ROM bootloader loads the pre-bootloader from an external mass storage into the internal RAM, then
2. The pre-bootloader sets up the external RAM and loads the bootloader from an external mass storage into external RAM, then
3. The bootloader can setup some peripherals in order to prepare the system for the kernel and loads the kernel from an external mass storage into external RAM, then
4. The kernel activates all system’s peripherals and mounts the rootfs from an external mass storage and starts the user’s processes executions.

Starting from stage 2, all the software that is not coded in ROM can be potentially subjected to attempts to replace the original firmware with a malicious one, simply by altering the code images stored into the system’s mass storage memory.

In industry applications this can lead to several issues related to system security. For instance, let’s consider a biomedical application where the system MUST not work continuously for more than 2 hours. The manufacturer can program the software in order to respect this directive; however, a malicious user may gain access to the system’s mass storage, copy it and then modify it in such a way that the machine can now work for more than 2 hours!

How can the manufacturer protect itself? It can simply use the secure mode!

Once the secure mode is activated, the Enigma’s CPU will execute ONLY encrypted code. In fact, when in secure mode, the internal ROM boot loader (during stage 1), will load the pre-bootloader image and it will then decrypt it by using the AES algorithm with the secret key deeply stored into the CPU.

Note that the AES key is not readable by using any CPU instruction nor the JTAG which is disabled too!

It’s obvious that without knowing the secret key is quite difficult to alter the pre-bootloader code! While, we have just shown that the second stage is secure, by using the same trick for both stage 3 and 4, all the booting chain is secure as well.

But, what about the root file system? Several solutions may be used; however, the SAMA5D3 based Cosino Enigma solution is used as an embedded file system into the kernel, and in the event that large data storage is needed, to mount an encrypted partition.

What the secure boot cannot do

Despite the secure mode, your system is not protected against backdoors and programming bugs, but these issues are NOT due the secure mode but due weak programmers! The secure mode can assure that your code cannot be altered and/or read so, if your code is well-written, the system is strongly protected against malicious attacks.

The secure boot and the Libre Software

Since Cosino Enigma runs a complete GNU/Linux system, how can it fit within the open source/free software licences? The answer: the unlock track.

By damaging this track on the board, the user can unlock the system; that is, even in secure mode the CPU can run unencrypted code, so every open source/free software licence is respected! Of course, the manufacturer can release the open source/free software code but NOT its protected code.

In addition, the integrity of the unlock track can be used to assert the warranty integrity; once damaged, the unlock path can assert that the warranty is now void. The open source/free software licence is saved and the manufacturer can decline all responsibility against any software modifications.

Hardware overview

The newly-unveiled board features a vast range of I/O peripherals and communication ports. Along with the TFT touchscreen LCD panels driver capable of resolutions up to 1024×768 pixels, it makes the Cosino Engima quite suitable for human/machine interfaces, gateways, and industrial controllers.

Aside from the ARM Cortex-A5 based SAMA5D3, other key specs include:

• Internal hardware floating-point unit
• 256MB (optional 512) SDRAM DDR2
• 256MB NAND
• 1x Ethernet 10/100 (optional 1000)
• 2x USB Host 2.0
• 1x USB Host/Device 2.0
• 2x microSD
• 7x UART
• 1x LCD
• 1x real-time clock1
• 1x I2C
• 2x SPI
• 1x crypto engine
• 1x true number generator

Interested in learning more? You can check out Cosino’s official page here.

Atmel based smartwatch shines at Maker Faire Rome

Jonathan Cook’s Atmel based BLE smart watch has now not only been named the official winner of MAKE‘s Arduino Challenge, but has collected a “Maker of Merit” ribbon at Maker Faire — The European Edition recently held in Rome.

Powered by an ATmega644PA Microduino Core and an ATmega1284P microcontroller (MCU), the device features Bluetooth LE connectivity and in true Maker style, a 3D-printed case. As Cook notes, “The core of the watch consists of three small boards: A Microduino Core +, a Bluegiga BLE112 chip, and a voltage regulator.”

“The watch is the latest iteration of an ongoing BLE watch endeavor Cook has been exploring for the past nine months,” MAKE Magazine’s Mike Senese explained in a recent article.

In addition to the typical time and date functionality as seen in any watch, the Maker has sought out to develop an interface that any smartwatch wearer would want — email access, Facebook notification, Twitter updates, etc.

When he first started his project, Cook claimed that he had a series of goals in mind, such as building 100% Arduino-compatible hardware, insuring sufficient program memory, featuring at least one day’s worth of battery life, including BLE as both central and peripheral, and keeping it in a compact, convenient size.

Those interested in learning more about the 3D-printed smartwatch can access a detailed step-by-step breakdown of the build here.