Please check out my new page on openCV tutorials.
openCv is used for image processing. First I tried to use MATLAB. But after research on the web I found an excellent tool named openCV. openCv is by INTEL. And it is open source. For GNU/Linux it lacks docs. So my help to openCV is my own page on openCV documents written by me.
My main idea is to use openCV in my robots.
Please check it out here http://jeffreyantony.wordpress.com/opencv-tutorials/
If you have any comments please post it.
The first protest in Indian history against Software Patents. Initiated by Free Software Users Group Bangalore and FOSS Community India. The Candle light vigil to “Say No To Software Patents” is a occasion to raise civil society voice against this back door Trojan to Indian patent system is on 23rd August 2008 in front of Town Hall near Corporation Circle, Bangalore.
In my opinion you should understand and learn. Byhearting tons of equation doesn’t make a good professional. Especially in engineering subjects there are a large number of equations. Even conrolling a robot’s path uses a large number of equations.Byhearting these wont be of any use. Try to understand and then learn.
I am sure that if students are given knowledge about the practicle side, they will have more interst to learn and also the will perform well.
One of our best example is of teaching computer languages ( c++ ) in our higher secondary schools. A “HELLO WORLD” program wont make a student happy. Just seeing the “HELLO WORLD” on the screen will just make him bored. Imagine of blinking an LED program .This can be easily done through parallel port interface.Seeing those the student will be more happy and he will try to learn more about that. Even for loops, if else condition, functions, pointers can be taugth using this same technique.For example using for loops, a LED can be made to blink.
These educational methods are used in our country. Its high time to change those old teaching methods. We have to adopt the new method of learn while playing . Western countries have adopted this and has gained a great success. Even MIT has implemented this. See this link .
I was inspired to write this small scrap while I read the book Interfacing with C++ Programming Real-World Applications by Jayantha Katupitiya and Kim Bentley.
I have completed reading a part of the book. I found it so intresting that I havent learned C++ this well even in my higher secondary class. I think it should be used by teacher for teaching C++. Even The Object-Oriented Approach has been well described through real life problems.
If I were a teacher I will use this book.

See a similar post here How To Teach Computer Science - The MIT Way!
I had never tought of having an CCD camera in my optical mouse.
But now after reading this site (http://spritesmods.com/) I was suprised.
Actually the optical mouse contains two chips inside: the optical sensor and a chip for the usb/ps2-interfacing. The optical sensor is a tiny 18×18 CCD. Using this sensor we can see small images. The author has written a small app to see the images on the screen through the parallel port.
See this link to find more about this here.
Check his site for more hacks http://spritesmods.com/
Multiplexing is the process in which several channels are combined n such a manner that they can be transmitted through a single channel.
But what’s Charlieplexing?
Charlieplexing has almost the same idea. But here it is for driving LED’s from less number of pins .
So whats the use of this technique?
You can drive a large number of LED’s from a less number of pins. You might be saying that it is possible using a multiplexer.The answer is not wrong. But it will be hard for a huge number of LED’s.
See this example http://home.wanadoo.nl/electro1/avr/kitt.htm
See the explanation in Wikipedia
” Charlieplexing is an electronics technique developed by Charlie Allen (hence the name) at Maxim in which relatively few I/O pins on a microcontroller are used to drive a large number of LEDs.
With Charlieplexing, n drive pins can be used to drive n digits with n-1 segments each; in other words, n drive pins can be used to control n2-n LEDs. Traditional multiplexed display technique would take 2n drive pins to control n2 LEDs.
Charlieplexing works by having the I/O pins alternate between driving digits and driving segments.”
See a sample circuit of controlling 56 LED’s through 8 pins

You can find more info fron the wiki page for Charlieplexing
Check these for more
http://www.instructables.com/id/Charlieplexing-LEDs–The-theory/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-drive-a-lot-of-LEDs-from-a-few-microcontrol/
http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes.cfm/appnote_number/1880
http://home.wanadoo.nl/electro1/avr/charlieplexing.htm