Helion Microsystems has a quick and simple USB interface board designed for any home project or development project.  The PCB features the HU-320 USB interface IC chipset, and exposes all functions to the 30pin connector of the board.  The PCB also features a software switchable adjustable linier power supply for powering attached circuitry.

Feature List includes:

All USB interface requirements

• 20 Digitial IO pins
• USB-SPI Master / Slave Interface
• TTL UART
• USB-I2C Master Interface
• PWM Source
• HD44780 LCD interface
• 8MHz buffered clock source
• 5V USB Power supply
• 3.3V Power supply
• Software switchable adjustable power supply
• Indicator LED
• PCB measuring 58x45mm
• Robust USB-B Connector

The HU-320 is $39.  Visit the factory website for more details.  USB Interface board, HU-320.

Microsoft is looking to make their OS more portable.  With Windows8 one of the features the Redmond Washington company is featuring is a bootable OS.  True, we’ve seen both Windows and Linux distro’s bootable off a flash drive, but what makes this a bit different is 1)  being legal and 2)  officially supported.  This seems a very smart move to keep Microsoft positioned to as an option as virtual desktop and thin client systems continue to rise in popularity. Many power users already run virtual laptops off of USB drives enabling them to work on a single consistent environment at both home and work without fussing with a laptop/briefcase. This should cement the concept and help keep MS moving towards more secure OS options comparable to VPMs.

With an official version of bootable Windows OS, IT managers could now use a USB Duplicator to mass produce their installation and/or restore media in a much faster time frame then using an old school optical duplicator.

An additional caveat of the portable Windows system is the speed of the environment.  Granted, there is nothing like running off a hard disk, but running of NAND flash will be almost as smooth…and with memory performance getting better with USB 3.0 flashdrive devices, it will become two of the same.

Video of Windows8 running on a MacBook Pro after the jump

If you guess Apple, you are correct. The US Treasury released their cash savings numbers yesterday and it appears US has about 73.7billion in cash. Compare that to Apple’s cash in the back at 76.4billion and it’s clear who’s got more green.

Just 9 years ago, Apple had several hundred million in the bank. This just goes to show you what a decade of strong sales can do for a retail product line such as Apple’s.

Just last quarter Apple sold 20.3 million devices and with the minimum price of a couple hundred bucks per unit, that’s a big number.

For several years we’ve seen many Linux guys post about bootable USB flash drives into portable operating systems like Ubuntu or simplified versions of the OS for children, like Strawberry from SugarLabs
via donated USB flash drives.

In the spirit of ultra portable operating systems – over the weekend – we learned of Raspberry Pi.  The Raspberry is not only an operating system from a flash drive, but it includes the processor too!  This means the Linux OS is not high jacking the hardware of the host computer, but rather using it’s own processing power to boot into Linux.

The developer, David Braben, are shooting for a target price of the Raspberry USB computer to be around $25.  The above prototype isn’t pretty, but hey – what prototype is?  David and his team started this project in the effort to bring ultra low cost computers to less fortunate kids who need and want computer access.

A long long time ago, the One Laptop per Child was a program to get $100 computers into the hands of kids who’d otherwise never get a computer.

To give you an idea of what this mini USB computer can do, here are the specifications of the prototype:

• 700MHz ARM11
• 128MB of SDRAM
• OpenGL ES 2.0
• 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
• Composite and HDMI video output
• USB 2.0
• SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
• General-purpose I/O
• Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)

If you are looking for video to spoon feed you this information, check out the video after the jump:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last 7 days, we all know Osama bin Laden was killed on May 1, 2011 by US Special Forces. Reading through many articles that week, it’s interesting to learn the al Qaeda leader kept quite and under the radar for nearly 5 years by living in a solid wall compound and without direct cable access, TV access, internet access. The only direct access bin Laden had was a radio.

That said, Osama bin Laden kept current with the outside world by use of flash drives. It was reported his trusted courier would shuffle USB flash drives between his compound and the outside world to communicate, send message and negotiate with the al Queda terrorist group.

During the attack on Monday May 2nd the Special Forces recovered nearly 1000 thumb drives which contained all sorts of information about bin Laden and his relationship with al Qaeda organization.

What is also interesting is the level of hypocrisy bin Laden had. Along with the report of flash drives – which you can only assume many of them where made by US companies – bin Laden also had Coca Cola brought to his compound as well. It seems extremely hypocritical for a terrorist who’s sworn his life to avenge all American’s, yet indulges in US products during his day-to-day existence.

With the hundreds of USB flash drives now in the hands of the Special Forces we should learn a lot more about the habits, plans and leaders of the al Qaeda network.

Glad bin Laden is gone from our world.

A leaked version of Windows 8 has surfaced and there look to be some promising features for the USB lovers out there.  First and formost, check out this screen shot of Windows 8 asking if you’d like to run from a USB flash drive.

Is it possible Microsoft figured out the best possible solution for longevity is letting users run their OS from a flash drive, then plug it into any PC they see fit to run their computer?  Some storage problesm with that, but never-the-less, a good starting point.

Here are some other things we think might be bundled with Windows 8:

• Run from an ARM processor
• Multi touch gesture interface
• USB portability
• Ribbon user interface
• Easy access to cloud storage

But who knows exactly what will be included until Microsoft makes the official beta version available.

The Eggbot is an open-source art robot that can draw on spherical or egg-shaped objects from the size of a ping pong ball to that of a small grapefruit.

The Eggbot is super adjustable, and is designed to draw on all kinds of things that are normally “impossible” to print on. Not just eggs but ping pong balls, light bulbs, mini pumpkins, and even things like wine glasses. The egg-bot is ideal for Easter and a fun way for kids to make elaborate designs on their eggs.  The egg-bot is recommended for ages 10 and up with parent supervision at 13 and under.  In the photos, you can see just a few of the things you can do with eggs.

The Eggbot chassis is made of tough fiberglass, with integrated heat sinks for the included motors. The pen and egg motors are high-torque precision stepping motors, and the pen lift mechanism is a quiet and reliable servo motor.

The Eggbot kit is easy to assemble in a couple of hours, and only requires a couple of basic tools like miniature Phillips-head and flathead screwdrivers. You’ll also need a computer with an available USB port (Mac, Windows or Linux).

The EBB allows your computer to directly control the stepper and servo motors. The onboard 16X microstepping driver chips along with the 200 step/revolution stepper motors give a combined resolution of