I couldn’t dredge up much information about this project, but this Arduino-based Facebook “Like” button by Mario Klingemann will be on display at the Ultra Social exhibition, a part of the UAMO Festival in Munich. I wish I could be there so that I can push it myself, since I definitely want to be counted among those who like this project.
More:
Guys at [bildr] wrote a nice tutorial on how to control & use a thermal printer with Arduino.
Outputting data can be extremely useful, and typically when we look at doing this, it is either to the Arduino’s serial terminal, or to some sort of display. But what about making physical copies of the data? (…) If you dont know about thermal printers, they are most often the printers your store’s receipts are printed on. The reason for this is that they dont use ink, or use a cartridge of any sort. The paper it prints on turns black when heated. So this printer simply applies heat where another printer would apply ink.
via [bildr]
@ Dangerous Prototypes Ian has a fantastic article “Editorial: Our friend Microchip and open source”…
It’s great that Microchip invested in the Arduino open source IDE. Unfortunately the contributions seem to stop with support for their product. Parts of chipKIT toolchain are still closed-source, and Microchip isn’t contributing open source drivers for the highly-advertised USB and Ethernet features of the chipKIT Mega.
We buttressed this editorial by saying we’re huge fans of Microchip stuff. It’s their time-honored right to deal in closed source software – most companies do! With the chipKIT, however, Microchip wants to tap the Arduino buzz. They want promote products using the work of an open source community, but they’re not participating in the spirit of that community. It’s not illegal, it’s being a bad neighbor.
We urge Microchip to give something significant back to the community they’re tapping. Open source drivers for the chipKIT shield would be a great first step.
I have a much larger article on this topic coming out later, but I wanted to say I think it’s great to see Microchip coming in to the open-source hardware world and I’m really looking forward to them addressing some of the issues Ian outlined. Disclosure, I’m fairly certain Micrchip has sponsored MAKE in the past, present and future – at this time Maker Shed does not sell the chipKit(TM) Uno32(TM).
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Why the Arduino Won and Why It’s Here to Stay.
