Martin, at harizanov.com has been experimenting with voice recognition on the Raspberry Pi and parsing input intelligently using a variety of software including arecord, ffmpeg, Google Voice and WolframAlpha. He has included detailed instructions on how to get this working. So grab a microphone read more about it here.
Raspbmc – frustrations with live TV & success with PVR
Martin O’Hanlon has blogged about his failed attempts to watch live TV with RaspBMC. He has, however, achieved success recording live TV! Read more here
#RaspberryPi parking camera with distance sensor / @Raspberry_Pi
Jeremy Blythe has been busy building a parking sensor/camera with distance warning out of a Raspberry Pi, Sharp distance sensor, 2.2″ LCD screen and a Microsoft Lifecam Cinema camera. He has blogged about it and included all the code necessary to replicate the project. Extra kudos is awarded for using Meccano as the mounting structure! Read all about it here
Dave Akerman creates new lightweight #RaspberryPi balloon payload
Dave, who also has a pre-release camera module, has been busy building the next payload for his Raspberry Pi balloon flights. His previous Pi was given as a gift to Eben Upton of the Foundation just recently and Dave is now using a model A, together with the camera module, to create the payload. The model A has been stripped of the majority of it’s ports (such as the USB, composite video and HDMI) to lower the weight. Read more about it here.
First encoded video from my #RaspberryPi camera module / @Raspberry_Pi
After much messing around with both ffmpeg and avconv, I’ve finally found a combination that works to convert a raw H264 recording from the camera module to something usable. I converted it to an Ogg-format video. That means that it should display below. I haven’t figured out how to convert to MP4 yet, but if you’re using Chrome you shouldn’t have any problems.
You may be wondering why I chose such a dull thing to point the camera at – well, you don’t get trees blowing in the breeze anywhere, ya know!
The call to avconv I used was as follows:
avconv -i sample-video.h264 -b 1500k -vcodec libtheora -acodec libvorbis -ab 160000 -g 30 -s 800×600 out.ogv
Radio enthusiasts, use a #RaspberryPi as a WSPR transmitter
Southgate Amateur Radio News has reported that someone has worked out how to get the Raspberry Pi to operate a s a WSPR transmitter at HF and VHF. Read more here