Parents leery of privacy invasion have little to fear from Barbie, whose language skills mainly reside in the cloud. There’s been a lot of discussion in the media about privacy and home appliances that listen to conversations. The Hello Barbie doll is a voice-enabled toy that has been part of the controversy. It uses Wi-Fi […]
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RF cable and RF wireless transmission
What is RF? RF stands for “Radio Frequency” and has become a catch-all term for certain wired communications and a large (spectral) range of wirelessly transmitted waves. It’s easy to find wireless RF modules for microcontroller development kits and other design-ready products, but where does RF cable fit in? What does Ethernet have to do […]
Modulating 5G
The IoT will make heavy use of fifth-generation mobile networks that use a yet-to-be-determined modulation scheme. Here are the major contenders. LEE TESCHLER | EXECUTIVE EDITOR Fifth-generation mobile networks, abbreviated 5G, will form the telecommunications standards for the internet of things. Planners say 5G will have a higher capacity than the current 4G equipment partly […]
The case for multiprotocol, multiband connectivity in the IoT
Wireless protocols that are widely used in the IoT have a lot of common attributes. Multiprotocol SoCs able to run them all can simplify many kinds of wireless designs. TOM PANNELL, Senior Marketing Director, IoT Products| SILICON LABS We have many innate expectations for controlling the myriad devices and systems in our lives. When I enter […]
Thwarting hackers on the IoT
A few best practices can drastically improve the security of IoT devices and help maximize the benefits they provide. CHRISTOPHE TREMLET, SCOTT JONES MAXIM INTEGRATED The news back in March was certainly alarming – WikiLeaks announced it had internal CIA documents revealing that the spy agency had found a way to access Android and Apple […]
Supervisory IC vs. RC circuit: delaying MCU start-up until supply voltage is good
Engineers use external microcontroller (MCU) supervisory circuits as a fail-safe to ensure that their systems operate in a safe manner when unforeseen, unpredictable events occur when their systems are sent out “into the wild,” that is, when their systems are no longer in a controlled environment. (Here, we will consider microprocessors and central processing units […]
Top microcontroller threads on EDAboard.com — March
(editor’s note: Intrigued by the problem? Have a similar challenge? Have a question or another solution? Then click the “Read more” link and follow the conversation on EDAboard.com or log in to EDAboard and participate in the microcontroller forum thread.) SCR bridge control – I am using a PIC18F4520 to control an SCR bridge. I […]
Pardon the interruption: speeding up responsiveness
Many of the abilities that modern digital electronics enable rely on the fact that common processors can perform millions or billions of operations every second. This blindingly fast speed can make it appear that a device is handling many operations at once when in fact, it is rapidly following a sequential set of instructions, often […]
Overview of embedded systems
An embedded system is much more than a computer, because they often must have a real time response and several constraints to work within a given system that is tailored by industry and function. Real-time operation requires a response to input within microseconds. Delays in responding, termed latency, are often unacceptable, especially in real-time systems. […]
Teardown: Inside the
Anki Overdrive racecar set
Robotic race cars make clever use of software and infrared optics to follow lines slyly hidden on the track. Leland Teschler, Executive Editor The Overdrive starter kit we analyzed contains sections of track that can go together in various ways and can even include jumps. An interesting feature of the track is that its sections […]
