Follow neurostech on twitter, retweet a message about the free stuff within 24 hours and we'll select a random winner (via random.org) from the list (the 3rd retweet system was too easy to game). We'll DM you that you won and get your address and mail it to you.

No whining, complaining if it doesn't work, is scuffed, sucks, whatever. All this stuff is randomly collected around the office, most is used, some is broken, but all of it is completely free, use them as doorstops if they don't work, we're sorry.

That's really it.

In another flash of genius in the it-seemed-like-a-fabulous-publicity-stunt-to-me category, I have come up with an idea that is guaranteed to accomplish virtually nothing for Neuros other than waste time and energy and of course provide another source of grave disappointment, contributing to a further sense of gloom and despair. But hey, at least I'm going into it with a good attitude!

Ok, here's the deal. I'm sick of eBaying off this worthless junk (but we've still got a considerable amount of it) so I had quite a conundrum. It's clogging up the place, it's perfectly good stuff, so you shouldn't throw it out, but its just miserable sticking this stuff up on eBay only to end up sell a perfectly good smartphone for $5. So here's my idea:

We randomly post notices for free junk on twitter, no elaborate description, just tell you what it is, and the 3rd person to retweet the notice gets the free junk mailed to them for... free. In theory, these retweets will spread the word of Neuros in a "viral fashion" far and wide, and millions will follow neurostech on twitter (aka Mr. Happy Pants) thus increasing our exposure and allowing us to actually sell the wonderful stuff that we actually... sell In practice, you can be sure, no one will pay any attention whatsoever and we'll end up throwing out the stuff anyway since it's more or less just throwing good money after bad to pay for postage to send this stuff to my brother in law, the only one paying enough attention to bother to play this game. But, hey at least I'll be a bit more bitter and disenchanted about this whole viral thing that's all the rage with you kids.

This is an update that's almost impossible to really appreciate if you haven't been a part of Neuros for a while. After years of teeth gnashing about the read only file system and and lack a package manager fully implemented, a new community member bmc has released software that solves these issues called OSDng.

More good news from TI. From the open platforms principal architect:

"TI is continuing to make our devices more and more open. In addition to the low-cost C64x+ DSP tools, open source DSP Link, and open source Codec Engine, plus configuration tool, the DM6446 VICP is now usable by everyone via the VICP Signal Processing Library

The VICP is a collection of loosely coupled accelerators attached to the C64x+ DSP within the DM6446. The VICP signal processing library provides a simple way of programming these accelerators to provide additional DSP performance within your system. "

If you are wondering why this is big news, its because these tools allow outside developers unprecedented access to the power of TI's DSP, essentially unlocking the power of a chip that's has a price performance ratio that few others can match. The Davinci 6446 chip is about the size of a dime, can do real time high definition video encoding, has such low power consumption it can operate without even a heat sink and using battery power. These chips essentially are bringing laptop type performance to handhelds (or silent set-top devices). For more information, see my youtube intro of the OSD2 dev kit.

For discussion, see the mailing list thread and TI's community site

If you're like me, your first reaction to hearing that the web is available on your TV is "why?" The answer is quite a bit different than you might think. The answer is not that you want you want your TV to go out to the web to browse content, which is by and large not the most inspiring concept. The answer is that you want web content brought to your TV. In other words, the Web and all the interactive web 2.0 tools are tools that are well suited to bring rich content to your TV.

Ravenexus Summer of Code project is a great example. Check out this video capture of it in action and you'll quickly understand that the point of the web browser is not "browsing the web" per se, but as a tool that allows all kinds of participation in an integrated TV experience that hasn't existed before. Wiki information populating information about shows and artists is just the beginning. Links to shared favorities, community feedback, etc are all vastly more realistic when the tools to bring them are webtools rather than the typically embedded morass.

I just got my first glimpse of Ravenexus's Web Browser on the OSD and it's pretty exciting. The web browser is particularly interesting component for other programs to draw upon and it will really be neat to see it tied in with the Xi Menus, imagine wikipedia populating "more information about" menu items that would link to wiki pages about the movie, tv show, artist or album you were listening to! This one certainly warrants a future of TV video when done. BTW, the above screen capture was done using the Bagster's VNC Server. More to come!

OSD 3.33-y.72  (July 2, 2008)

http://open.neurostechnology.com/files/releases/az/daily/osd-3.33-y.72.upk

OSD 3.33-y.71  (July 1, 2008)

http://open.neurostechnology.com/files/releases/az/daily/osd-3.33-y.71.upk