NFC tags and Android smartphones

I recently brought from Banggood 3 NFC tags, for about 4 euros. Tags are adhesive and round shaped; the package also contains three colored stickers labeled please touch it to cover the tags: A NFC (Near Field Communication) tag is a passive device (it does not contain batteries or any other power sources) that, when located near to a reader,…

Arduino clones with CH340G IC

Recently, I received some Arduino clones, mostly from chinese webstores, that use the CH340G chip as USB-to-serial converter instead of the more common (and I suppose more expensive) FTDI chip: Windows natively does not support that chip, which is not automatically recognized: You must download the driver from the manufacturer’s website. Once unzipped, you can update the driver…

BeagleBone Green

Today I received from SeeedStudio a BeagleBone Green. Here’s the unboxing video: For those who may not know this board, it’s an embedded computer, that is a board that can run Linux O.S. (or Android). BeagleBone Green is the result of a collaboration between BeagleBoard.org and SeeedStudio: it’s based on the open design of the BeagleBone Black board – manufactured by BeagleBoard…