Category Archives: Newsworthy

What Is the Life Cycle of a Process in Linux?

Processes in Linux follow patterns similar to that of humans. Just like people, processes are born and do carry out regular tasks; taking rest, sleeping in between and finally, being killed or dying. Processes, being the most fundamental aspects in Linux, are necessary to carry out tasks in the system. You create a process by running binary program executable. The binary program executable comes from a piece of code, transitions to a process, while acquiring states during its lifetime and demise.

A process in a computer operating system is an executable program in action. The executable program has machine instructions necessary to carry out a specific task. A corresponding process is born when a program is executed for carrying out a task. A programmer writes a software program using a high-level programming language such as C. This is also called ‘code’ and the programmer compiles it to create an executable program. The compilation process converts the code into a set of machine-level instructions, and it becomes intelligible to the operating system. The compiler for Linux systems is GCC or Gnu C Compiler.

The executable program remains a passive entity, until it is instructed to run or execute by the user. Then it creates a new entity called a process, which is visible by the command ‘ps’. The process is associated with three identifiers – the Process ID or PID, the Parent Process ID or PPID and the Group ID or GID.

In a Linux system, the first process to start is the ‘init’ and it has a PID of 1. All subsequent processes are init’s children, grandchildren and so on. For active process in a Linux system, the command ‘pstree’ will bring up the entire hierarchy, while ‘top’ will show the dynamic view of processes. The Linux kernel uses a scheduler and it controls the execution sequence of all the processes. Linux processes can have one of four states at any given time: running, waiting or sleeping, stopped and zombie.

A process achieves a running state when it is actually executing (running) or waiting for execution in the queue of the scheduler, which means it is ready to run or execute. For this reason, the running state is also known as runnable and is represented by R.

A process is in a waiting or sleeping state if it must wait for an event to occur or some resource-specific operation needs to complete before the process can continue to run. Therefore, depending on the circumstances, the waiting state is further subcategorized into an interruptible or S state and an uninterruptible or D state.

If the scheduler sends a stop signal to a process, the process goes into a stopped state. This might happen, for example, when the process is being debugged or analyzed and this state is represented by T.

When a process has completed its execution, but is waiting to retrieve its exit state, the process is said to be in a zombie state, designated by Z. Once it crosses the zombie state or retrieves its exit status, the process dies or ceases to exist.

Simplifying Wireless Charging – In A Box

Among the many options available for wireless charging technologies, Humavox has added another, which they call the Eterna platform. They are using RF technology within a closed container and this is good for small devices such as smart watches, connected glasses and hearing aids. They are calling their closed container the Nest and it connects with Radio Frequency to the company’s charger.

When you want to charge your device, simply put it into the box called the Nest Power Station. The box is a Faraday Cage and it is zapped with RF signals. The electronics built into the charging device receives the signals and converts them into DC energy.

Other technologies available in the market usually require a close contact between the device and the charging mat. The inductive coupling that these technologies use, works best when devices and their charging mats are in a very close contact. In contrast, it is not very important how you place devices in the charging box of the Nest Power Station. The wireless power transfer within the Nest is highly efficient and is accurately pointed towards the device under charge.

The box, being a Faraday Cage, confines the RF radiations to the insides and therefore, keeps the users safe. Humavox will be licensing this technology to OEMs or Original Equipment Manufacturers, who will be able to use it in a variety of ways in their products. Contrary to popular belief, the main driver for the wireless charging market is not the Smartphones, but a wide array of devices that are part of the Internet of Things. The present market for wireless charging is not taking off since there are three technologies competing with one another.

The Wireless Power Consortium, established in 2008, is the largest industry association with more than 125 members. It is working towards standardizing the wireless charging technology. The standard that WPC is working towards promoting is called Qi (pronounced chee). Some of the significant players in the industry are backing the alternative approaches. A proprietary approach is being pursued by the A4WP or Alliance for Wireless Power and Intel, while Broadcom, Samsung, Qualcomm and others are backing the alternative approach.

The Nest station in the Humavox technology is an RF- resonator for charging devices by putting them inside it. There are no placement or orientation restrictions. The Nest prototype is a white, plastic ball. Opening the ball reveals a small charging bowl. Charging time is about equal to that taken by a charging cord. That shows a charging efficiency of more than 90%, signifying only one-tenth the power is lost in the wireless transfer.

Using a box to charge a small device is an intuitive action for the user. Most users keep their small devices inside a box when retiring for the night or for a rest. The Nest makes it as simple as dropping the items into a box that doubles as a charger as well. There is no longer a need for wires, precise placements, a flat surface or a mat for placing devices for charging.

Capacitive Proximity Sensing Optimizes Power Use in Gadgets

Tablets and mobile phones run on batteries and have stringent power requirements. These devices benefit from the multitude of ways designers use to optimize their power consumption and enhance their battery life. The usual method is to make applications running on these devices consume as little power as possible. Significant savings ensue if the different processes within these devices go to sleep when the device is not in use, turning on and starting to run only when the user activates them by using the device.

This implies the device has intelligence for detecting the start of its usage and starting the internal processes as required. One of the simplest ways usually followed by designers is to let only the User Interface (UI) run and let all other processes sleep until the UI senses an input from the user. This is usually in the form of a button press or touch, which makes the entire device wake up and start running all the necessary processes.

Advancements in the above method are the intelligence incorporated in the device to detect the approach of the user’s hand. Now, even the UI may be allowed to sleep, keeping awake only the sensor that detects the approach of the hand. Such proximity sensors can detect human hands or any conducting object coming near them without the need of any physical contact.

A device incorporated with such a proximity sensor operates in a low-power mode until the approach of a human hand. In the low-power mode, there is no other activity or process running in the gadget other than that scanning the sensor. Once the proximity sensor detects the human hand approaching, it wakes up the device, which enters an active mode. In this mode, the UI of the device is turned on. Proximity sensors that wake up the device from its low-power mode to an active mode are called wake-on-approach sensors.

Infrared and inductive proximity sensing techniques are commonly used in the industry. However, applications such as laptops, mobile handsets, white goods and home appliances that mostly sport touch panels for their user interface, use capacitive proximity sensing because of their greater reliability and aesthetics. As soon as the user’s hand approaches the interface panel, the proximity sensor wakes up the capacitive device from its low-power mode and it starts to scan all the buttons to detect a touch.

The panel of a modern TV or tablet PC may have buttons that are nearly invisible when the device is in low-power mode. The touch panels in use today have buttons that remain nearly hidden until they are highlighted by backlighting. However, backlighting requires LEDs that gobble up power very fast even when they are of the high-efficiency types. This reduces the battery life of portable devices such as PCs, tablets and mobiles.

Wake-on-approach proximity sensing and its level of control on the device is highly application dependent. Response time and power consumption are the two key parameters governing the optimization required, where response time is optimized by scanning the sensor repeatedly and in quick succession. However, optimization of power consumption requires the scanning to be slow to allow the device more time for sleeping.

Bicycle Speed Projection Using a Raspberry Pi

A bicycle is the in-thing today considering the large amounts of pollution caused by vehicles using fossil fuels. Since one needs to use muscle power to ride a bicycle, cycling has health benefits as well. Many cities now have special lanes reserved exclusively for cyclists, and touring with cycles is one of the favorite sports people of all ages enjoy all over the world.

Cycles have been around for quite some time, and people have invented many gadgets and attachments for improving the travails of the cyclist. Earlier, the gadgets were mostly mechanical, and then electronic, now there are apps on smartphones that help in planning the route, and keeping track of so many things a rider may need. Apart from convenience, safety is another important factor that a cyclist should consider.

People who like to cycle fast usually also want to know their speed. However, glancing at a speedometer on the handlebar of your bike is not a very safe idea if you are going at high speeds. Taking your eyes off the road, even for the brief moment it takes to read the speedometer, is asking for trouble; you might hit a pothole or are doored. Well, someone had a brainwave to project the speed on to the path ahead, so the rider knows how fast he is going, without inviting trouble.

That someone is Matt Richardson, from Brooklyn and he has used a Raspberry Pi (RBPi) for making his bike speed projector as a do-it-yourself project. He has mounted the tiny Single Board Computer on his bicycle, where it reads the speed of the bike and projects it dynamically on to the ground in front of the rider, while still illuminating the way. The headlight also helps to make the rider more visible to other road users. Richard is calling his project the Raspberry Pi Dynamic Headlight.

At present, Richard’s prototype only shows the speed, but almost anything can be shown that a rider would find useful. For example, it could be used to show a turn direction or a map from a GPS program, weather info, estimated time to reach the destination, total distance covered and even proximity warnings if another vehicle approaches to close at the rear.

Although with more information displayed, chances of distraction will also increase. However, with the minimalistic data projected, this headlight is surely a great benefit to cyclists. Richardson has housed the RBPi and other electronics on a triangular piece of wood hung from the center frame of his bicycle. A pico projector clamped on the handlebar handles the projection. A HDMI cable connects the pico projector with the RBPi. A battery pack, meant to power mobiles, powers the entire electronics via a USB cable. The speed sensor is mounted, as it should be, on the wheel.

Richardson is keen to add to the next phase of his project. He wants more animations and visualizations in his Raspberry Pi Dynamic headlight project. Such DIY inventions such as this only goes to show what all is possible with a cheap Single Board Computer, some programming and some ingenuity.

HMI: How to Communicate With Machines

Accelerating quality, quantity, economic efficiencies and environmental protection are leading to an increasingly connected process flow and factory floor. In combination with decreased personnel, that has led to processing of increased amounts of information by fewer and less application-specific operators in the control center. It requires a well-designed HMI or Human Machine Interface system to decrease the gap between the production process and the operator via an intuitive visualization system, layers of detail that allow a bird’s eye view down to the minute details, and includes training material and documentation that the operator has on his fingertips.

A well-designed HMI system provides numerous benefits. Chief among them are increased safety, quantity, quality and economic efficiency. Apart from minimizing the risk of disruption in the production process, HMI systems also reduce the over downtime while allowing fewer operators to manage more information with less field-specific knowledge.

HMI provides a means of monitoring, controlling, managing and/or visualizing device processes. For example, an operator panel may allow the operator of an industrial machine to interact with the machine in a visual, graphical way. The operator can easily control the machine by using the touch screen or external buttons, as all readouts and controls readouts are graphically displayed on the screen.

HMIs can be located on the machine, in the form of simple segmented displays or LCD panels of high-resolution. They can be located in portable handheld devices that are battery operated or in centralized control rooms. Machines and process controls can use them to connect the operator with Programmable Logic Control application systems to control sensors, actuators and machines on the factory floor.

For communicating with industrial machines, the usability of the HMI system depends on the processing power of the system, its ability to render reality-like complex screens, quick responses to user inputs and the flexibility for handling several levels of operator interactions. Usually, effective communication requires the HMI to have dynamically changing graphics. This in turn, requires the system to be a high-performance type that supports various resolutions and displays of high refresh rates. For efficient communication between the operator, numerous machines and control systems, it is imperative that multiple connectivity and protocols must be supported.

Industrial automation thrives on real-time communication. Using industrial micro-controllers along with PRU-ICSS or programmable industrial communication subsystems makes it possible to support various popular, certified serial protocols, including those that are Ethernet-based. The PRU-ICSS allows HMI manufacturers easily support industrial communication protocols of multiple types on a single hardware platform. The most important advantage of this platform is that it does not require the support of external ASICs and FPGAs. This offers huge scaling in performance and the integration offers opportunities of software and design reuse.

Portable HMI solutions use several wireless connectivity solutions such as WLAN, Sub-1GHz, ZigBee and BlueTooth. This broad portfolio offers the maximum flexibility when designing for wireless. For example, the WiLink 8 solution provides high-performance BlueTooth and Wi-Fi in one module. The Sub-1GHz performance line is very popular and the most reliable in its range.

What Are NFC Tags And How Do You Use Them?

NFC stands for Near Field Communication. These are small tags, which can be programmed to talk to your phone. As you swipe your phone over an NFC tag, it triggers preset commands you have programmed into it. NFC tags are quite cheap, for example, you can pick up 10 of them on Amazon for about $13.

Here are some examples of using NFC tags –

• Tag No.1: On key chain. A simple trigger to take you to a specific website
• Tag No.2: On the kitchen counter. It triggers several commands – turn Wi-Fi on, turn Bluetooth off, turn Sync on, turn Brightness up and turn Volume up
• Tag No.3: Besides the bed. Turns volume to silent, turns brightness down
• Tag No.4: In the car. While entering the car, turns Wi-Fi off, turns Bluetooth on, opens Audible App, turns Synch off
• Tag No.5: In the car. While leaving the car, turns Bluetooth off, turns Sync on

Therefore, you can program these tags to make your phone do a bunch of things by simply passing it over the top of a tag. You do not need to open an app and individually change each setting; simply passing your phone over a pre-programmed tag will do the trick. To set up your Android phone, go to settings > More > Check off NFC. Unfortunately, Apple does not support NFC, so you cannot use the tags with iPads and iPhones.

You will need to download the Trigger App. If you have not downloaded this, your phone will take you there the first time when trying to use and NFC tag.

Technically, NFC has the ability for two devices to send data to each other simply by bringing one near the other. Here, the word device stands for a tag and a cell phone. NFC tags, also referred to as smart tags, have chips embedded into them and these can be programmed to transfer just about any instruction or data via NFC.

MOO.com offers business cards with NFC tags embedded within them. The idea is that when you hold your NFC enabled business card to an NFC enabled cell phone, your contact details are automatically added to the phone’s contact book. Therefore, you need to carry only a single card with you, which saves time and money. Moreover, no sensitive data is exchanged and there is virtually no security risk involved.

Advertisements have QR codes on them, allowing people to scan them to go to their blogs. That requires a barcode scanning app, the light has to be just right and the entire QR code has to be captured properly. With NFC tags, you only need to pass your cell phone over the advertisement to get the required information.

The NFC Task Launcher will allow you to program your NFC tags with your mobile phone. Once you have them programmed, the tags will help you to do almost anything from going to a website to enabling/disabling the Wi-Fi, adding contact details, setting an alarm, embedding information for a location and more.

Latest Trends in Sensors – Miniaturizations and Combinations

We see various sensors in smartphones and other gadgets. So far, most of the sensors were available only as discrete solutions – one sensor for one parameter. The latest trend is to combine several sensors into one package, cutting the overall cost of the sensors.

It is now commonplace to find several sensors in a package, for example, gyroscopes and accelerometers. In fact, now the majority of the market is for combo sensors of this type, and such combination sensors are a very important trend on the technology side.

Another trend catching on fast is miniaturization. As cell phones grow thinner and more goodies are increasingly packed within them, miniaturization of sensors is enabling some of innovative sensor packages and devices. Starting with the X-Box Contact, which brought in various sensors for delivering rich fidelity, we see them moving in into mobile devices as well.

Today, you can visualize fitness as seeing the key vital signs, and the visibility of biometrics is fast becoming a reality. Sensor miniaturization along with the enhanced fidelity of devices is allowing device manufacturers and service providers experiment with devices for offering and fulfilling compelling specific needs.

The MEMS sensor from Bosch has combined pressure, temperature and humidity measurement in a single component. This sensor, BME280, is meant for use in handsets and wearables. It provides greater control and is useful for people interested in fitness and sports. The humidity sensor senses and measures relative humidity ranging from 0-100%, between -40°C and +85°C and with a response time of less than one second. With an accuracy of plus or minus 3%, a hysteresis of 2% or more, the temperature reading of the sensor has an accuracy of 0.5% Celsius.

The pressure sensor of BME280 makes indoor navigation very simple. The device is sensitive to pressure changes of plus or minus one meter of altitude difference with a resolution of 1.5 cms and a relative accuracy of plus or minus 0.12 hPA. The 8-pin LGA packaging of BME280 measures 2.5×2.5 mm, a height of 0.93 mm and has I2C and SPI serial digital outputs. Bosch provides the BSH1.0 algorithm for developers to place a function for temperature compensation in the device.

Miniaturization can be seen in the new generation of sensors for infrared sensing that are now entering the smartphone bandwagon for night vision and surveillance. At CES this year, people really welcomed the idea of scanning the environment at night. For example, walking out to the car at night feels much safer if the area can be seen beforehand.

FLIR Systems Inc., have fitted an infrared sensor to one of their smartphone jackets. It is a heat camera, and the jacket is suitable for thermal imaging attachment for the iPhone 5 and the 5S. The screen displays temperature in different colors. For example, the hottest temperatures are shown in yellow, while the colder ones have a more purple hue. This is a very useful attachment for detecting insulation or moisture leaks in the home and for spotting people or wildlife at night. You can record video of heat images or its photographs at low resolutions.

Raspberry Pi add ons

Accessories have been flooding the market ever since the release of the tiny Single Board Computer Raspberry Pi (RBPi). Some of them merit a closer look because they can take your RBPi to the next level.

MotorPiTX board

For people interested in projects that need to run motors such as in robotics, the MotorPiTX board is a great accessory. It fits on top of the SBC and comes packed with some interesting features such as its own power supply (four AA batteries). This is enough to run the RBPi along with attached motors and servos. Full ATX style power controls are available, such as two 5V outputs (for LEDs), two bi-directional DC motor connectors, two servo connectors, two 3.3V inputs, one I2C breakout board and a micro-USB port.

A Smart IO Expansion Card

You can stack this add-on device atop the RBPi. As this is a super IO port, you can connect just about anything to it. There are 13 inputs for analog, pulse and digital signals, two analog outputs, eight digital outputs capable of 1A and ports for AHRS, CAN, RS485 and RS232. Apart from using it as an electronic test platform, the card can also be used for home automation, machine control, UAVs and robotics navigation.

The Pi Crust

This breakout board sits on top of the RBPi like a crust, allowing users to connect a multitude of devices easily. Rising only a scant 2mm above the RBPi base, the crust does not interfere with any other device connected to the RBPi. Pins are clearly labeled together, grouped logically together and include power, UART, SPI, I2C and GPIO. Female headers allow ease of connection along with plenty of GND and 5V pins.

SweetBox, Heat Sinks and ScorPi

SweetBox is a minimalistic approach to an enclosure for the RBPi and the smallest one in the market. It comes with a removable, flexible GPIO cap, allowing access to plug-in components. The SweetBox also has a set of anodized aluminum heat sinks that aid in extra heat dissipation. ScorPi is a flexible mount allowing the user to mount an RBPi camera, with direct plugin into the RBPi’s RCA port.

Power Supply Ignition Switch

This attachment allows using the RBPi with vehicles. It allows powering the RBPi through the electrical system of the vehicle. As you engage the vehicle’s ignition or turn it off, the attachment senses and powers the RBPi on or off safely. The built-in converter takes in 12/14V from the vehicle and provides 5V to the RBPi. Its ignition sensing talks to the SBC through two of its GPIO pins. The attachment retains power for the RBPi for 20 minutes after switch off. That means frequent stops will not repeatedly boot your RBPi. Additionally, if you left the RBPi running in the vehicle, the automatic shutdown feature will shut it off after four-hours to no-user activity.

HDMIPi HD Screen Prototypes

These are 1290×800 displays, which are not too expensive, portable and only 9-inch in size. You can watch movies comfortably, or incorporate into whatever project that needs a display. The cost-to-size ratio is perfect, competing successfully with the other portable screens in the market.

Novena – an open source laptop computer

You may be aware of open-source software and you may already be using some. Now, an almost open-source laptop is available for sale. Sean “xobs” Cross and Andrew “bunnie” Huang have fashioned a laptop that users can trust.

These two engineers from Singapore have assembled a laptop that uses almost entirely open-source hardware; designs freely available to the world. They have named the project Novena and anyone can review the designs in theory, look for bugs and security flaws. Therefore, users can be confident of the total security of the machine, which has become more desirable than ever after some governments were exposed of snooping.

Originally, the duo wanted simply to encourage others to build their own laptops at home. However, the project is now moving further. Anyone wanting their pre-built Novena laptop can place orders through the crowd-funding site of Crowd Supply, with the product shipping out in the coming months. This is very much like Kickstarter, and Crowd Supply also allows you to put up your money to help fund a company; only, you get a product in the process.

Just as open-source software is very popular across users, businesses and countries, so is open-source hardware now beginning to be a larger project, of which project Novena is a part. Not only is this helping to improve security among hobbyists, it is spurring innovation within large companies such as Facebook. The idea is to share your design and allow others to make them better. Of course, you cannot expect each part to be open-source, for example, the processor, but Cross and Huang try to minimize that as far as possible.

Novena is available either with a handcrafted wooden bezel or with an aluminum case. Kurt Mottweiler, an Oregon-based designer from Portland, has handcrafted the “heirloom” wood bezel. Both designs are capable of readily expanding the internal hardware, since the machine is half-empty. Moreover, the shipment comes with extra bezels as it is expected that you will break one when you add to the hardware. The system does not need any special bending tools when you modify it.

Although the heirloom version of Novena is a whopping $5,000, the aluminum case version comes with a motherboard and a high-definition display for $1,195. For another $800, you can add a battery and a 240GB solid-state hard drive. Alternately, just buy the motherboard for $500 and house it in your own case.

You may find the aluminum version of the machine to be unusual since the display sits on its outside. As you lift the lid of the case, you can see the innards of the machine instead of the keyboard. Attaching an external keyboard is simple, as is adding new components. Although that does make it harder for the laptop to be used on the lap, most people usually prefer not to.

Powered by an ARM processor, all versions of Novena run the open-source operating system – Linux. Although that does make the laptop somewhat more expensive and underpowered compared to an Apple MacBook Pro, this project is more about open-source, security, privacy and the ability for explore.

Different uses for USB flash drives

Almost everyone uses USB flash drives nowadays and the amount of data that these drives can store has increased tremendously. Typically, they can hold millions of pictures, thousands of songs and several HD movies. Although data storage is the primary function, flash drives have more to do beyond that. You may find the roles to be quite unusual:

Expanding SBC Storage

There are several Single Board Computers on the market today, with Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone being the most popular. Most come with limited amounts of storage in the form of SD, MMC and SDIO cards. Large capacity flash drives are a good substitute for expanding the memory.

A Secure Wallet for Holding Bitcoins

Nowadays, people financially endeavor to mine for Bitcoins and similar coins. Unless the data is securely held, this digital currency can be easily lost or stolen. If you are trading every day, an online wallet is fine, but if it is a savings account, it is preferable to secure the data offline in a flash drive, set up as a secure digital wallet.

Data Collection from an Embedded Host Controller

Nowadays, micro-controllers are available with host controllers that can use USB flash drives. Therefore, data logging and recording with such micro-controller based embedded host systems becomes simple as USB flash drives can be used to store data instead of a PC. That makes data recorders portable and simple.

Run a Website from A Flash Drive

Using automated templates and software, it is very simple to set up a website or a server running on a PC. However, if you want the site to be portable while allowing for changes and updates to it, put it on a USB flash drive. Of course, you may need some additional packages such as Server2Go, WAMPP and PHP 5.x.

Enhancing a PCs Virtual Memory

That one can boost the capabilities of aging PC systems by adding more RAM, is common knowledge. However, in most cases, RAM has already been added to the maximum possible capacity and no further addition is possible. Adding a USB flash drive and using it as extra virtual RAM is very simple for Windows users.

Carry Your OS and Apps with You

With the dramatic increase in the capacity of flash drives, you can conveniently carry your OS of choice and your apps wherever you travel. Along with the OS, you can carry diagnostic tools, virus scanners and different games for testing and repairing computers without installing anything on them.

Lock and Unlock A PC

If you have sensitive data on your networked PC, there are many ways perpetrators can access the system physically and bypass the system password. However, security software such as USB secure or Predator combined with a USB flash drive can keep your system from being hacked into.

Users need to attach the USB flash drive and enter the password when starting the system. The PC checks the presence of the drive every 30-seconds, and if it does not find the drive, it simply goes into lockdown.