Now here's something very cool: Scratch Input using any available surface to control devices via scratched gestures - even in different rooms!

From Chris Harrison and Scott Hudson:

This certainly looks like an interesting approach for device control and it'll be worth watching this!

More information on the project website...

Some disturbing news hit the wire this week: Violet SA, the French company who produce Nabaztag and maintain the servers required to enable communication to the device, have filed for bankruptcy and are seeking a buyer.

It seems that maybe their thrust towards RFID-enabled products may not have caught the imagination of consumers as well as expected, or well enough to keep the company afloat. According to the information I found on this site, their earnings have certainly dropped instead of climbing in the last year, despite the new products launched.

It's a sad time for talking Rabbits all over the World - and may be followed by a somewhat sadder time in September if a buyer or recovery plan of some sort cannot be secured.

Due to the fact that I have neither won the Lotto or been extremely careful with money all of my life to date, I am not able to raise the funds required to step in and help to rescue Nabaztag.

If anybody reading this is interested in backing the plans of a 100% convinced geek who knows he has an approach that may just work, then let me know! You'll need probably at least 2,000,000 € if estimates are anything to go by.

Otherwise, those wishing to help but only able to pledge smaller amounts can either contact me or go here and pledge your money. Anybody pledging funds will, of course, receive a share of the new business, should a bid be successful.

Also, check out and feel free to join the Facebook group here...

Let's save those bunnies from a fate of silence!

If you're developing Facebook applications using the AS3 API you'll eventually need to be able to create Facebook Events. That's where you'll need to be aware of another of Facebook's restrictions for application developers: You cannot completely define an Event and it's Invitees via the API.

Due to Facebook's antispam rules, you can create an Event with some basic information - name, location, timings, etc. Your application's user will then need to log into Facebook and complete the Event details and invite friends themselves. Great, I hear you say.

Well, being able to create the Event in the beginning and to automatically pass over information from your application to the new Event is going to be a big help to your application's users anyway.

So, how do you create the Event?

Firstly, you'll need to have established a valid Facebook session for your application and thereby have caused the user of your application to log into Facebook and grant your application access to their profile and information.

Here's a previous post with a working example and video tutorial link if you haven't gotten this far...

Then, you'll need to firstly create the Event data that is needed to set up the Event - of class CreateEventData:

Code:

OK, let's go through the above:

• name is clearly the name of the Event.
• host is usually the user who has created it.
• locn is the location of the event - this can be freeform, such as "my office".
• desc is a description for the event - not essential but it makes sense!
• city is going to have to be a valid town or city. If not, Facebook will try to guess what you meant and come up with the closest match - can be fun!
• UTCstart and UTCend are UTC versions of the start and end datetime values - both Date variables

Calculate values for these dates so:

Code:

• "OTHER" is the category for the Event. Facebook has numerous predefined categories and the one you use has to be valid.
• The " " empty String after "OTHER" is the sub-category.

See here for more about category and subcategory values...

I've found that " " works too for subcatgegories, should you not find a predefined one that fits your needs.

• The null values are those parameters which are not absolutely required to create an Event.
• privacy is an interesting one. When an Event is created in Facebook you have a choice of privacy settings - OPEN, CLOSED or SECRET. In my opinion there's not much point of specifying anything other than OPEN when creating an event via the API as there are no attendees at the point of creation anyway! Add to that the fact that only the user who created the Event will be able to see it and all is fine.

The user can then set the appropriate level once they have added attendees in Facebook.

Once you've created the CreateEventData you can call the API method to create the Event itself:

Code:

That's it!

in the eventCreated function you can detect the created Event's ID or dispatch events as needed. Don't forget to check that the call was successful as per this post.

For more information about the AS3 API CreateEventData class check the documentation here and the general Facebook API notes here.

One important note: If you don't want to waste hours of testing, wondering why this doesn't work, make sure that your application prompts the user to grant it extended "create event" permissions when they first use it. the easiest way to do this is to specify the following in the "Post-Authorize Redirect URL" of your applications settings in Facebook:

www. facebook.com/authorize.php?api_key=<your application key here>&v=1.0&ext_perm=create_event

As soon as they've given their approval for your application to create events, nothing else should prevent it. Just remember they can always change their minds!

Happy coding!

I found out today that I'm going to be one of the 20 people chosen to take part in the "3 Minute Wonders" elevator pitches at Flash on the Beach in September. I'm excited about this as it gives me the opportunity to share something which I hope will be really useful.

SQLite is a great little local database engine which implements a lot of the ANSI SQL92 specification and lends itself perfectly to use in AIR applications running on the desktop. When you're working on a project that is only partly focused on the desktop and also has a more "Enterprise" side to it, SQLite is not the only database engine you'll probably need to talk to.

"SQLite goes Heavyweight" will give an overview (in only 3 minutes!) of a project that I'm involved in to not only make SQLite easier to work with, but also to extend it's role in such projects.

Want to know more? See you in Brighton!

No, that's not a typo. I meant soldering.

You'll see this post is under a new category: Arduino.

Arduinos are great little programmable microcontrollers which allow quick and easy prototyping of electronics and physical computing projects. I've been playing around (correction: The technical term is "tinkering" ) with Arduinos for a while now but have taken the lazy approach of using solderless breadboards for my projects.

After getting fed up with having wires everywhere and wanting a neater solution, I decided to finally buy the Sparkfun Arduino ProtoShield (v2) and make a nice neat little prototyping "test bed". So, I have, for the first time in over twenty five years (WOW!), picked up a soldering iron and assembled the shield, then attached it to a shiny new red Arduino Duemilanove board:

Well, apart from leaking through a little too much solder on one resistor, not a bad job for the first bit of soldering since around 1983 or so!

Now I can tinker away to my heart's content and keep everything neat and tidy

P.S. Wondering why there's tape around the USB socket? Regardless of how careful and neat you are when soldering in the two push button switches, the contacts of one of them can short against the metal case of the USB socket. The tape stops this.