Anyone who has ever hacked around in their PC will have been hit with an urge to take their tinkering to the next level and create a custom-built device, but few actually try – believing such things to be far too complicated. At least, until the Arduino appeared on the scene.

Originally developed in Italy in 2005 as a tool for students building interactive design projects, the Arduino is a microcontroller-based prototyping board – but one that pretty much removes the barriers to entry that previous electronic prototyping systems had.

The idea behind the Arduino is simple: to create a system that allows electronic circuits to be created, modified, and tested in minutes – complete with a programmable chip in the centre to take control of everything.

What are you still doing here? Go! GO!

In the case of my handset, a Motorola Milestone, app memory is at a premium: with just 196MiB of user-accessible storage on-board, larger apps can often mean having to remove something that’s already installed.  Thankfully, there’s a cheater’s way of freeing up some much-needed space: turn your optional apps into pre-installed versions.

First things first: you’re going to need a rooted handset.  If it’s not rooted, this tutorial will get you nowhere.  If you’re new to rooting, try the Easy Root Compatibility Test which offers certain ‘phones a one-stop solution.  If your handset isn’t supported, try one of the many guides on-line.

Once you’re rooted, you’re going to need a terminal emulator.  Install that, and you can get access to a shell – which is where the fun begins.

Step one – find out what’s mounted where with the command

 mount

You’ll see that we have a bunch of devices mounted in a bunch of locations, but the one we care about is /dev/mtdblock6, mounted as /system.  It’s in this special directory that Android stores all its internal gubbins – and to stop you from fiddling around with it, Google has very sensibly made it read-only.

Sadly, that also stops us from moving apps from the very limited user memory into the otherwise wasted system memory – and from deleting unwanted pre-installed apps, such as the Motorola-branded sat nav package that comes with the Milestone or the Facebook app that arrived unexpectedly as part of Android 2.1.

So, what can we do?  Easy: we re-mount the device as read-write.  You’ll need to become root using su, after which you can remount the block device.  Just type the following commands in to the terminal:

su -
mount -o remount,rw /dev/mdtblock6 /system

Now we have full read-write access to the /system file system. Bring up a directory listing of /system/app/ with:

ls -l /system/app/

You’ll notice that all the .apk files for the pre-installed apps are here.  Delete any .apk with rm and it’s gone for good – so for goodness’ sake be careful.

We can use the same command to take  a look at the .apk files for the apps we’ve got installed in user memory, too:

ls -l /data/app/

To move a package from user memory to system memory, making it ‘pre-installed’ and freeing up useful user memory, just do the following:

cp -f /data/app/com.publisher.packagename.apk

The file will be automatically removed from user memory and appear to vanish – but when you restart your ‘phone, it will re-appear as a pre-installed ‘system’ application.  Do this with a larger app, and you can free up a lot of valuable space.

A note about updating: because /system is mounted as read-only, the Android Market can’t write to it in order to update packages.  Instead, if an update for a pre-installed package is available, it will write the data back into user memory.  So, if you’ve saved 4MiB by moving Google Maps into /system, you’ll lose it all again the next time Google releases an update.

While it’s possible to get the space back – simply repeat the method of moving the file to /system again – it’s probably better to move applications that don’t get updated all that often.

That’s it: you can now enjoy significantly more space for apps!

• To Do: Support for larger LCDs
• To Improve: Better UTF-8 character handling
• To Do: Multiple RSS feed support

For now, however, it’s a pretty neat hack – and an alternative back-end allows it to display Twitter @ replies instead, with the person’s username on the top line of the display and the message below.

The aRSSduino relies on a USB connection between the Arduino and the host PC – it’s not a stand-alone project.  Currently, the Python back-end is written to run on a Linux-based host – although it should be relatively simple to port to Windows, I have no plans to do so at present.

You can download the project source code – both for the Arduino sketch and for the Python-based back-end here.  If you improve upon it, let me know!

This week culminates in the launch of Amazon’s latest Kindle eReader,which means that thousands of gadget fanciers and avid readers alike will be getting their hands on a pretty special piece of kit – only to find that the surprisingly cheap price belies an expensive habit: electronic books can cost.

You should read it. It’s good. Honest.

The Toshiba Libretto W100 was launched as part of the company’s 25th anniversary celebrations – its first laptop, the Toshiba T1100 was launched back in 1985 – with the company’s Phil Osaki quoted by VentureBeat as stating that the company is aiming for the back-to-school season in the US.

Demonstrated over on Tech-On, the displays are based around Shinodo’s Plasma Tube Array technology, which allows the display to be created in a smooth curve rather than the more traditional flat plane.

Using the pre-curved display panels, the pair were able to come up with a single display – made from a pair of 1m x 1m panels – which fit around a pillar of 1m diameter, capable of showing full-colour full-motion video.

The companies admit that the the displays are still in the early stages of production – with the demonstration models, showcased at the Fujitsu Forum early last week, being produced merely to gauge market response prior to mass-production – but explain that “we expect that [the displays] will be used at railroad stations and public facilities” to provide advertising and informational displays around pre-existing support pillars.

The kitbag – designed as a one-grab container for everything I’m likely to need if I have to cover a story, excluding pen and paper which I always have on or about my person anyway – contains:

• A: Pentax K100D Digital SLR with 18-55mm kit lens. It’s crap – and just 6MP – but it does the job.  Just about.
• B: Wind filter for F
• C: 75-200mm telephoto lens for A. It’s slow, but when you just can’t get close enough for the 55mm lens it suffices.
• D: Desk stand for E/F.
• E: Medion 720p h.264 solid-state camcorder in 5m-waterproof case.  Fixed focus, but works in the rain.
• F: Zoom H2 audio recorder.  Uses four mics to record four-channel surround sound in 96KHz WAV format to SD.
• G: Hand grip for E/F.
• H: Batteries galore.

All the above is wrapped up nice and securely in an aluminium flight case with foam lining from Maplin.

The bag isn’t finished quite yet – I’ve got a replacement flash unit for the K100D arriving next week, after I carelessly broke mine, but once complete it’ll do quite nicely for covering events.

The idea is both simple and more or less selfless, and revolves around a single core concept: getting things for free is awesome.  While I have no control over whether I get stuff for free – short of taking up shoplifting as a hobby, and even then the only freebie I get is likely to be a lift in a shiny police car – I can control whether other people receive free gifts.

So I do.  Every so often, I log on to Amazon and type a name into the Wish List search.  I scroll down the list and pick someone at random – before buying them an item that they’ve been wanting but never got around to buying.

While it sounds a little stalkerish, it’s pretty safe for all concerned: I never see the person’s address – beyond a rough idea of where in the country they are – and unless I choose to identify myself in the gift message options they never know who I am either.  Somebody, somewhere, receives a book, CD, DVD, or game randomly and without cost to themselves – guaranteed to put a smile on their face for the day.

I never spend much – no more than £5 or £10 – and despite the fact that I’ll never see the person’s face as they open the parcel I get a surprising amount of enjoyment from the simple act of altruism.

Which is why I’ve written this blog post: starting now, each Wish List gift I send out will have a short URL in the gift message – http://wp.me/pkhQL-85 – which points them towards this page.  When a person receives the gift, hopefully they’ll be curious enough to visit and read about why they’ve received a parcel out of the blue – and I hope that a non-zero percentage of those will consider brightening someone else’s day with a purchase of their own, pointing that person to this page and starting the free-gift-happiness-ball rolling.

So, if you’ve received a parcel with an unexpected present in it pointing you towards this site – and if it brightened up your day at all – think about doing the same for another lucky soul.  If you do, include the URL of this page in the gift message just as it was included in yours – and if not, never mind.  Enjoy your gift, and know that somebody somewhere wanted to make a stranger’s day that little bit happier.

DISCLAIMER: This post is in no way affiliated, sponsored, or endorsed by Amazon or its subsidiaries.  No links on this page containing tracking identifiers or affiliate codes, and no money or other consideration makes its way from Amazon to me.  Amazon has no idea I do this.  Feel free to use any site with a wish-list option – I just find Amazon the easiest.  Your mileage may vary.  May contain traces of nuts.  Void where prohibited.

Described as still “in development” over on Sony’s official blog, the un-named device will feature interchangeable lenses just like its still variant cousins – with promised support for both the Sony E-mount lenses used by the NEX 3 and NEX 5 and the A-mount lenses used by Sony’s range of Alpha digital SLR cameras, albeit via an adaptor.

Full details of the device are still held closely under wraps by Sony, but using the specifications of the NEX series as a base it can be expected that the camera will record to MemoryStick or SDHC card in the AVHCD format in – most likely – a full 1080p high-definition resolution at an expected 30 frames per second.

The use of interchangeable lenses will offer videographers a wealth of options for changing the capabilities of the camera, with options including macro, wide-angle, and telephoto lenses – and with the pre-existing A-mount lenses as options, the camera will enjoy a wide selection from launch.

Sadly, Sony has yet to announce a firm release date – or, indeed, pricing – for the camera, beyond a vague commitment to an official launch some time in Autumn.