This quarter I’ll be covering 4 P’s, these are Phones, Presentation,  Processing, and Pi.  The posts this quarter will follow a different structure.  The subjects below will be the main entries.  As more work is done in each subject, entries will be made and included with the post.  At the end of the quarter, they will be divided evenly in time from each other, this will help offer a more cohesive flow of the content.

Phones really refers to smart phones.  Developing apps has never been easier.  Stanford offers online resources for apple with the SiTU site.  Meanwhile, MIT offers app building on Android devices using its App Inventor site.  These pervasive mobile devices are almost everywhere.  The infrastructure that supports these devices covers such a vast area, that it safe to assume that this will become a fundamental technology.  The apps that developers have created range from trivial to engaging.  It has been used and demonstrated many times as an extension to what can be done with dedicated devices.

Next, I’ll be covering the presentation of the data.  More specifically, this will be an introduction to the internet of things.  I’ll look into providers that offer this service like Xively and Thingspeak.  The future of this physical integration into the information domain will be a progression into the unknown.  It should be interesting to see what discoveries are made and skills gleaned from the effort over the next 3 months.

I’ll then continue on with Pi, which refers to the Raspberry Pi platform.  This extremely small and powerful computer is being used in ways I hadn’t envisioned when it was first released.  The natural progression of PIC, Basic Stamp, Arduino, on to Pi made this a requirement for research.

Finally, Processing is an application that will do some interesting tasks.  The development platform is similar to Arduino and was first demonstrated to me from Jeremy Blum’s tutorial blog.  I’ve seen it used in other uses and find it useful to know for future projects.

Dates to remember for the Spring 2014 Quarter

4/1/2014	Tuesday	Spring 2014 classes begin.
5/25/2014	Monday	Academic Holiday – Memorial Day. Campus closed.
6/13/2014	Friday	Last day of instruction

Some additional content may be included, but it must not interfere with the primary goal of the quarter.