HomePod is not large enough to hide Siri’s flaws

Apple released its smart speaker, HomePod, on Monday. Not a big surprise: We were expecting them to. I was surprised by the angle they used, though, to sell it during the keynote. They really made it about music: Access to Apple Music, great sound, and its ability to understand where it sits and optimize its…

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Trying Particle’s Photon

I was excited to receive four ESP8266 ESP-01 but I ran into a few issues. I anticipated a few power issues from Arduino to the ESP8266 so I ordered a 5V – 3.3V adapter. The ESP8266 is not very breadboard friendly, so that made it easier without having to worry about power. Well, it turned out that…

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First IoT steps

I have been building with Arduino for a while and one of my initial goals was to connect one to the Internet and experiment. Finally, I have decided to take the next step towards this goal. IoT hardware There are many ways to connect an Arduino (I use Uno for now but I might get a Mega soon—more…

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