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Messages - uberspire

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1
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: June 28, 2011, 04:49:20 pm »
What do you intend the price on this to be and how will you get sales?
The plan is to be cheaper than the TI-nSpire CX, can't say for sure as of right now. The pricing will be more fair than anything else out on the market right now. As for sales, I'm hoping mainly that word of mouth will catch peoples attention. Other than that, I'm in talks right now to see if it would be possible to have some online stores stock the device.

ooh, that sounds fun. won't this all take a while to set up, though? what sort of time frame are you envisioning?
2-3 months after the design is finalized, I'm hoping we can start shipping out working units. This graphing calculator isn't as complicated as the UberGraphX. The main goals of this new design is low cost and hand assembly (outsourcing the manufacturing won't be mandatory unlike the UberGraphX).

2
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: June 27, 2011, 10:11:45 pm »
Hey everyone, sorry for not posting any updates the past month. Because I've been busy working on several projects and lack funding, I haven't really made much progress (was hoping to get some boards built by now). Hopefully, no one thought the project was dead. :)

I currently (as of now) don't have the capital to finance the UberGraphX project and some of you were disappointed that I wouldn't be working on the Cortex A8 design anymore, so I came up with this plan. The past couple of weeks, I've been working on a design of a graphing calculator that's comparable to the TI-nSpire CX and Casio Prizm (but with some cooler features :thumbsup:). I'm planning on releasing the first drafts of the schematics and CAD files for this design sometime this week. All the hardware and software will be open, so anyone can help along and provide suggestions. The plan is to use the profits from selling assembled versions of this graphing calculator to finance further development of the UberGraphX (Cortex A8 variant).

This new design is nowhere as powerful as the UberGraphX. Instead it's aimed as a cheaper and open source/hardware alternative to current mainstream calculators such as the TI-nSpire CX and Casio Prizm. The project will be formally announced sometime this week with more details.

3
Miscellaneous / Re: College Major Help
« on: June 06, 2011, 03:05:20 am »
I'm currently majoring in computer engineering so I might be biased, but here's my view of these degrees:

Computer Science (CS) - The geek's major. Focuses on the theory and math of computer science. You'll usually take courses that focus on algorithms (sorting, searching, P=NR, etc.), algorithm complexity analysis, algorithm running times/efficiency, data structures (linked lists, stacks, binary trees), object oriented programming and project development/management. If you worship Dijkstra and designing databases, web apps, games and compilers sound cool this is for you.

Computer Engineering/Computer Science & Electrical Engineering/Computer Systems Engineering (CE/CPE/CSEE/CSE) - The nerd's major. It's a blend of electrical engineering (without the analog and power stuff) and computer science (with less emphasize on theory and algorithms). You'll take courses that teach you the fundamentals of circuit design and then progress to digital circuits (multiplexers, arithmetic logic units, flip-flops, etc.) Your computer science courses will be more focused on C and assembly, since you're going to be programming hardware. People who have a degree in computer engineering usually are the ones who develop and build computing hardware such as the iPhone, iPad, PS3, Nintendo Wii or Intel Core i7's where knowledge of both hardware and software is appreciated.

Computer Information Systems (CIS) - From what I've heard, there's roughly two kinds of this major and it depends on what college you're going to. If the college you go to is more technical, CIS focuses on developing software that either needs to analyze information (business data, statistics, etc.) and exchange them. You'll take the usual computer science courses, but with more emphasize on networking, communication protocols, numerical analysis, etc. People with this degree usually go on to work for the government or company that needs someone to write software to analyze data. If the college you go to is more of a trades school, then you probably would take courses that focus on repairing, building and setting up computers. People with this degree go on to do consulting for businesses and help them choose what computers to buy according to their budgets. I recommend that you check with your college and check their curriculum to see which one they offer.

If you're concerned about money, usually computer engineers make the most out of the three since it seems that people want high end computing hardware jammed everywhere (in their phone, in their tablet, in their calculator - all of which are essentially embedded systems) and there are fewer computer engineers than what's in demand. I won't be surprised if in the future, there will be computers in toasters and in our clothes...  ;D Next would be computer science, but the concern for the past couple of years is outsourcing. There are people in other countries such as India or China who will write software for low wages. Then finally computer information systems, but then again, like other government jobs, you don't really get paid that much (unless you're a corrupt politician ;) ).

If you're concerned about which major is more difficult, then it's the reverse. Computer information systems would probably be the easiest. Then between computer science and computer engineering, it's a bit more iffy. I believe that getting a degree in computer science would be easier than computer engineering, but a career in computer science will demand that you keep up with the latest trends in software development. For example, a kind of new trend that's gaining momentum is multi-threaded programming. In a couple of years, the model and techniques used in multi-threaded programming will most likely change, and if you want to keep your job you'll have to learn it and stay up to date so you won't become obsolete or outsourced to younger programmers.

Computer engineering requires more knowledge in different disciplines. You're not trying to just programming a system (like a computer scientist), you're creating the whole system. You'll likely take more mathematics (calculus, differential equations, discrete mathematics and linear algebra) and science courses (mostly physics) than the other two majors. As a computer engineer, you may need physics to build a robot or if you're designing a new Intel processor you need to understand the physics behind semiconductors.

That about wraps up what I have to say. In my opinion, it's best if you check out the curriculum at the college you're going to and see if the courses sound interesting to you. Then you want to check if the jobs that you can get with the degree sound like something you would enjoy doing. Then lastly, you check if you're okay with the salaries.

4
I don't need the rapture failure to disprove Christianity.  It's just absurd as it is, IMO.  I mean no offense to religious people, but it just blows my mind that so many people accept this crap as the highest form of truth there is.
If I may add in a word, insanity is not dependent on religion. Usually, people are crazy first, then they try to use religion to back up their insanity. In other words, religion does not make you insane. For example, a couple of years ago a group of the most stupidest atheists thought aliens were hiding behind a comet planning to destroy Earth. So they created their own UFO religion called Heaven's Gate to justify their insanity. To escape being being killed by aliens, they decided to all commit suicide. :o

Religion is often used as a scapegoat, because it's almost impossible to disprove many of what it claims because of our lack of ability to perceive anything beyond the Universe. There is no mathematical proof that denies or proves the existence of God (well, unless you use apply Gödel's incompleteness theorem on the Universe by using mathematical induction, in which case it suggests that the Universe is running within a Turing complete computer with perhaps God as the programmer? But then again, that's assuming that the Universe is a complete consistent system governed by rules that extend Peano arithmetic) However, religion is not the only scapegoat. Any man can use anything to justify ones insanity, "I'm out of money, I guess I have to rob someone" or "Oh, we're running out of oil, let's invade another country" or "Capitalism sucks, let's nuke them". Hopefully, this does convince you that you don't need religion to be insane.

Also, statistically, most Christians did not believe that judgement day was going to happen on May 21. Should the minority speak for the whole? If so, then if one atheist said aliens were going to destroy the world tomorrow, are all atheists insane (by logical induction)?

Quote
But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Mark 13:32
On a lighter note, taking the Bible literally to the ultra extreme discrete mathematical logic hardcore, if one were to predict the world would end tomorrow before going to bed at night, you would be preventing Judgement Day from happening, because if it were to end tomorrow then the prediction would become a true statement and thus make the Bible false by contraposition. I've been doing this every single day for the past 3 years. You're welcome. ;)

5
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: May 20, 2011, 12:35:58 am »
Hey, so it's been two weeks and here's what's happening. It's been troublesome to work on the ARM Cortex A8 design, being that I thought it would be possible to route the PCB within 4 layers. It turns out more layers are needed with all the hardware (WiFi, sound, etc.) and the costs of prototyping would be way too much to handle in the situation I'm in. I have a feeling that continuing on this path of design, would be a blunder, being that a calculator of this magnitude would only target a very small minority of the people who use graphing calculators.

So the decision is to revert back to my previous old design (ARM11, 600MHz) and have that set as the low-end range of the UGX line and as the debut product. I figured it would be better to start out with something that resembles a traditional graphing calculator, something that looks like it's useable in school, but still very powerful. Also, the hardware has already been proven to work and the good news is that the parts have gotten cheaper for this design. To those who wanted the 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 UGX, it will have to be shelved for now. Maybe sometime in the future, it'll fill in the mid range spot of the UGX line, hopefully if the 600MHz ARM11 UGX does well.

With the pricing going down for the parts in the low-end UGX, the plan is that the low-end UGX will sell cheaper than the TI-nSpire CX (~$140-$150), yet still be more powerful all around compared to the CX.

The front part of this UGX casing has been printed and is being to used to help guide and layout the internal hardware:


(Size comparison)


(LCD inserted into case)


So as you can see from the casing, the low-end UGX looks school friendly. The LCD being used in this prototype has a resolution of 320x480 pixels, just like the iPhone 3G. In fact, the plan is to use surplus iPhone replacement LCDs to help lower the cost of the design while at the same time give the UGX the highest resolution LCD of any graphing calculator made. So if you hate that I'm temporarily ditching the current UGX design, hopefully you'll be pleased with this. :)

The hardware, right now, is being retrofitted for this case and I should be able to get a working unit sometime by next month along with the buttons/keys.

6
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: May 01, 2011, 06:34:04 pm »
Hey everyone, sorry, I haven't been posting much lately. Development is still continuing on the UGX.

First of all, thanks for the sub-forum. :) I guess we don't have to keep all the discussion in one thread now and everyone can now ask their questions by starting a new thread.

Second, you know the innovations contest I've been telling you guys, I didn't win. I'm kind of disappointed, but then again, I'm not really surprised. I didn't really expect the judges to understand the importance of a high end graphing calculator. This has, however, caused me to worry whether the UberGraphX could do well in the market. Therefore, some big changes are coming to the UberGraphX. You can pretty much forget everything I mentioned about the UberGraphX; they don't apply anymore. New strategy, new plan, complete redesign. I still plan to stay on track with getting something released by this summer. Within two weeks I plan to you show you what I've been working on (which is why I haven't been able to post much lately). I'm certain, you'll be very (hopefully pleasantly) surprised at the new UberGraphX.

7
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: April 20, 2011, 08:24:33 pm »
So I remember filling out a survey, but will you have a page where we say "yes, we want one", and be able to list things like "not just yet, but I do want one" or whatever?  You can see how many pre-orders you'll have then.
Yeah, but I want to take note of the people who may have not taken the survey. I got about a little over 30 response, with about 16 of them saying they would preorder.

I don't think this can replace a computer, but it can definitely replace every calculator available so far!
It could definably replace a computer, it basically is a computer on it's own. It can't replace the speed an hardware of some of the better computers out there, but it could do the job for the main tasks people do on it everyday :P
It depends on what you define is a computer. The UberGraphX is comparable to netbooks (which are computers). You can do more computer like tasks on the UberGraphX such as run browse the web, instant messaging, write documents, create power points, watch movies and edit spreadsheets. For some people, this is all they use the computer for and thus an UberGraphX could replace a computer. An UberGraphX won't be a replacement for a today's desktop computer. The UberGraphX 2 (if the UberGraphX ever gets on market) would do that. :)

8
Miscellaneous / Re: Latin 1
« on: April 20, 2011, 08:06:47 pm »
Ego dico linguam latinam! :) Well kind of...

I tried teaching myself classical Latin back when I was in high school. The book I bought was Wheelock's Latin, because it seemed to be the standard textbook for teaching Latin. Looking in retrospect, the Lingua Latina series is probably the better buy since the whole book is written in Latin (even the directions), thus forcing you to develop your own intuition of how to read Latin.

I've now forgotten how to decline nouns and conjugate verbs. I kind of still remember some vocabulary. If I took the time to review, I could probably pick up it quickly.

I think studying Latin would be more fun if you learning it as a hobby. It's practically impossible to find someone who you can speak Latin with and taking a course would just probably wane your interest. Some stuff written in Latin is pretty cool. The Aeneid is probably the coolest story ever that doesn't have an ending (the guy died before he could write the ending to the epic, but it's still cool).

9
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: April 17, 2011, 04:37:45 pm »
These are my estimates from what I'm seeing so far, so don't take them to heart:

Assuming we're building the Professional Edition,

Building them individually:~$500 to build each unit
Quantities from 5-10: ~$350-400 per unit
10-50: ~$300
50-100: ~$225
>100: ~$200
>200: ~$150

From this point on, it's probably impossible to get a batch of preorders this large, but if you were curious:
>500: ~$125
>1000: ~$110
>5000: ~$105
>10000: ~$95
>50000: ~$90

Just to reiterate what I wrote on the blog, there's a somewhat flat fee that's associated with the human labor put into programming the robotic machinery and setting up the tools that will manufacture the boards. That's why building one at a time costs a lot, but having a ton built in a batch splits that costs onto each unit. Same thing with the parts. There's a cost for the human labor put into programming the machinery to package up the parts, so buying them in bulk quantity saves money.

As for pre-released prototypes, I wouldn,t mind getting one, providing that it's compatible with the official version and isn't ultra expensive like an iPad or something.
They should be completely compatible, I don't plan on changing the hardware. These pre-production models are the check functionality, power consumption and to do certification. They should just be exactly the same as the one meant for consumers, they just lack the proper certification.

10
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: April 17, 2011, 01:20:19 am »
Well, I was originally googling around to find out what was the release date for the TI-nspire CX (since they're being overly cryptic about it), when I happened to stumble upon one of your posts. This is everything I could want and more, and there's no way I'm getting a TI now. If there's any official way to "sign up" for the preorders before you actually start taking preorders, I'd love to do so soon.
Actually, you can post a comment below: http://www.uberspire.com/?p=69. I'm trying to get a rough number of how many people would like to preorder an UberGraphX.

There's been some confusion as to which version of the UberGraphX has what. Here's the solidified specs (the minimum guaranteed): http://www.uberspire.com/?page_id=53

Regarding the development, I've been pretty lazy lately. :-[ I've still yet to go over and do one last check over the design and casings. Meanwhile, there's been some good discussion on some other forums regarding the keypad. If you guys have any suggestions for the keypad layout, now would be a good time to say them. I plan to, by the very latest, at the end of this month to finish checking over the designs. By sometime next month, the first plastic prototypes of the casing should arrive and I'll post some pictures of them.

As for getting out units by June as stated in my last post, we're gonna need to build some pre-production models to 1) check the manufacturing process and 2) have some models to undergo FCC and CE certification. So if there is anyone who is really wants one soon or wants something that may be a rare collectors item in the future, there might be a possibility that some pre-production models may go for sale.

EDIT:
As for the host I think you should switch hosting. I would even be willing to give you space on my old 1and1 space if you wanted to, although I'M unsure if I would be able to setup the domain name for it. Everytime I check your site it's down or takes several minutes to load. :(
Thanks for offering your help, I appreciate it, but it may be more trouble than what it's worth. The hosting has been quite erratic, but it's been because my host been trying to transition to another server. It should be get better within the following weeks. It kind of sucks though, that around the time I revamp the site they have to do this.

By the way personally I think you might want to change your nickname at one point on your site, because TI might go insane if this is successful and accuse you of using the spire part of Nspire in it and forces you to remove anything that looks like the Nspire name from your site. You might win, but TI is just like that, sometimes (seeing what happened with the key factoring 2 years ago).
On my site, I go under "GoodStuff", unless you're referring to the domain name. I'm not a trained legal expert, but I would assume that they would have trouble having a good case against me. Googling "spire" leads to many other sites, companies, products, text and images that include "spire". If trouble does happen, we'll just have to change the name.

11
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: April 06, 2011, 07:23:17 pm »
Do you think we'll have issues with the name at some point?
I don't think so. Doing a search through USPTO, no company has a name that sounds like "Uberspire." A problem could rise when someone else tries to trademark the name in the future. I've been dedicating my own money to developing this project and don't really have spare funds to file in an application trademark. If someone else registers the trademark, I'd think they would have a hard time using it have been making use of that name for a while online (type Uberspire into the search engine, all the records of the name Uberspire relate to this project) and I own the commercial domain (so they'd have to buy it from me? That might be a good thing actually, since this project does need funding).

You also are missing an essential button: ? !
joking ;D (not that I would be angry if you add it ;) )
We could add it to the pi key (Shift + pi). ;)

Woah the Nspire has no Sin/Cos/Tan buttons? I sure hope it has such features, though... all scientific calcs, even the cheapest ones, got them X.x
Well, the TI-nSpire CX and the Touchpad doesn't have them. You have to go through the Trig button or type it on their ABC keypad. Kind of really inefficient for those who want to crank out the trig. I also noticed that TI has ditched the TI/HP American arithmetic convention (all the arithmetic operators in a single column) and adopted the Casio/Sharp Asian convention (arithmetic operators arranged in square formation) for reduction in hand movement. However, I think TI's new keypad is still inefficient as it forces the user to type/remember commands or dig through menus. I favor key combos, but that's just how I feel. I feel I can get things done faster that way.

But yeah I am so impatient in seeing that calc prototype in action at one point. XD It just looks so great and I wish you the best of luck in reaching your goal.
Heh, trust me, there's no one is more excited to get this out than me and it would be a big relief. I can hardly imagine what the people in the community will be able to develop and achieve when they get their hands on this. I'll bring the hardware and you guys write the awesome software, deal? ;D I strongly feel that this device can have a strong positive impact.

Aside from the keyboard, are there any other input methods (like something analog) or extension ports (USB) planned?
On both Editions, I plan to have an external USB standard port where you could connect USB devices such as hard drives or mice. For something like a gamepad, it kind of depends if the driver exists for Linux, because certain gamepads require certain drivers corresponding to its own unique controls, whereas with a mouse, most have 2 or 3 buttons, so most mouses can be covered by a generic mouse driver. But it's totally possible. Most likely, more of the popular controllers (like a Logitech Dual Action), would work on Linux without much trouble.

I have a little question: Will you stick with that Armstrong gui, or will you switch to another one?
It's up to the community. Angstrom provides other alternatives like Qt or icewm. The one I used was X11 with GTK and GTK is theme-able. Porting Android actually wouldn't be much trouble to port to the UberGraphX, but who would want a cellphone/online dedicated operating system on their calculator? Of course, the decisions and choices in software will most likely change once you guys really see what the hardware is capable of. More reason for me to get this thing out so we can hit the floor with developing software. Hopefully by summer, people will have free time to help out with the software.

This weekend is when I plan to go over and double check the hardware (haven't looked over it in a while), so it'll be a busy time for me. I'm thinking that by early June, I might be able to start shipping out the first UberGraphX units. I'll elaborate and explain what I'm talking about later. I need to think this out a bit more.

12
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: April 03, 2011, 11:13:43 pm »
Has the price estimates changed at all?
No, they still have stayed the same. Changes in the pricing might change however when manufacturing actually does start to happen. Either the pricing for the parts (I haven't actually stocked the parts yet) will decrease from now till summer, or there turns out to be a huge demand in pre-orders which will lower down the manufacturing costs (that reminds me, does anyone live in Ontario, Canada? The company that will assemble the PCBs resides there. It might be cool having someone who could go over there and check out what's happening when the boards get manufactured). I will promise however that the whatever the price turns out to be, it'll be more fair than anything else on the market (compare a $150 TI-nSpire CX to the $150 UberGraphX). I've been doing fine on my own financially before I started this project and making huge profits would be unrealistic and is not my goal. In fact, I'm quite disgusted that TI makes over a half billion US dollars each year in revenue selling calculators by ripping off students and cheating them of functionality (like programming capabilities or math features such as 3D graphing and especially the fact the the TI-nSpire CX and Touchpad lack dedicated sin, cos and tan buttons, which is highly essential in educational courses for trigonometry and calculus). All I ask is enough profit to cover the costs spent into prototyping, developing, filing the trademark, patenting and FCC/CE certification costs for the product.

Edit: Also, if you're using Octave or Maple, or somethin similar for math, consider writing a GUI around it so that it is easier for a newbie to use. Sure, their commands are simple once you know them, and fairly easy to use, but people want the newbie-common-sense input to just work.
I don't really use Octave (I actually use Mathematica), so does a GUI frontend exists for Octave? Would it be possible to modify it for our use?

What do you think the battery life will be? And when using the 3d accelerator?
I'm expecting to use a 4400mAh polymer lithium ion battery, which I estimate would give around 15-20 hours of typical usage. The hours would vary depending on what you're doing on the calculator, it might last longer. It's expected to give at least 10 hours of usage on full load with every peripheral turned on, which should be enough to last through the whole school day and go back home to charge it using your PC through USB.

EDIT: Btw despite the new forum on your site, are you still planning to post updates here too in the future?
Yeah, I'll still post updates here. :) I actually do read the forums frequently, but I'm coy in posting. I don't really like to write a lot of posts without having something to show, because I'm afraid it would make people impatient or lose interest for those who are waiting for the this calculator to come out. The next couple of months should be pretty exciting though. Just need to double check the designs for the board and sign it off for manufacturing. When that happens, I'll notify you guys and tell you how the board comes out. Also, I need to go over and check the geometry of the casing (at least the framing part), then get it prototyped via 3D printing. I'll post pictures of the frame when it comes out as soon as I can.

EDIT:
Crossposting this, because it may end confusion and is important:
Quote
Uberspire is the planned name of the startup to manufacture the UberGraphX under. I was kind of hesitant in announcing this, because we haven't actually trademarked the name yet. :oops: So, we can't get in trouble with Texas Instrument's, since they use "spire" with a product, whereas we use it as a company name. However, the name was indirectly influenced in that TI named their product TI-nSpire to con-notate that it's inspiring, where in reality it absolutely isn't (lack of programming, overpriced hardware, etc.) But if TI gets to claim that their product is "inspiring", then our product is way "above inspiring", hence the name Uberspire. If you were wondering where I got the name, that's how it came to be.

13
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: April 02, 2011, 05:45:37 pm »
Ok, so I was aware that after I wrote my last post, a couple of hours later the site went down. :-[ My host provider is switching servers and they hadn't copied over the files with rsync. So I waited a while to see if they would get around to transferring the files, but it started taking a while and they judges for the innovation's contest might look at the site since I referenced it back in the application form. That wouldn't look good, so I just uploaded my copy of the site back up. Hopefully, everything should be working fine now. When they do get around to copying the files, there shouldn't be any harm since the files would be exactly the same.

is the "posts must be approved by a moderator" requirement going to be permanent?
That should be gone now. I forgot to turn it off.

One thing I'm still wondering about: Is UberGraphX (awesome name btw) going to be able to run Java/JLWGL-based programs? I'm pretty sure some of you know why I'm asking this question. :P
Java: absolutely. As for JLWGL, I know for sure that OpenGL works on the device, but the rendering is done through software (as of right now). It might take some work getting a working X11 OpenGL driver for the PowerVR SGX 540 to take advantage of hardware graphics acceleration. When the first batches of the device get released, it should be a priority to work on the OpenGL driver. Drivers already exists for this device for video acceleration (720p @ 30fps) though.

Honestly, there is no way to describe how epic these images look...
so just fill the following space whit the praise of your dreams ;)
...
Btw. whats the Alt key for? Because I don't see any keys which aren't covered by Shift or Alpha.
Thanks for your comment. I wanted the Alt key because it may be useful in certain instances where you don't have a touchscreen and it increases compatibility/versatility. On Linux or Windows, pressing the Alt key gives you access to the menu of a program (like Alt+F to get to the File menu). Say you had the Standard Edition which has no touchscreen or you lost your stylus, you would use Alt to navigate through the menus. Also, the Alt key might come in handy when you want to emulate a system/software (like running Microsoft Windows on the UberGraphX) that needs an Alt key. Since the UberGraphX is also powerful enough to emulate any other calculator on the market, the Alt key could also be used to create key combos for keys that the UberGraphX lacks on it's keypad.

Is the U in UberGraphX supposed to be pronounced like the English letter U, or is it supposed to be more like the Ü in über?
I can't seem to tell the difference from the German and the American English pronunciation. They both sound fine to me. Almost everyone I know pronounces uber as "oooo-ber". However, I know that in English the letter U could phonetically sound like "oooo" (like in uber), "uhhhh" (like in umbrella) or "you" (as in U-boat) with the choice of sound depending on the origin of the word. Uber originated from German (über), so it should sound like "oooo-ber".

14
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: March 31, 2011, 09:42:54 pm »
Yeah, that and also I think it has something to do with my host provider. They're doing some upgrades. Next week it should be a lot better.

15
UberGraphX / Re: UberGraphX - Ubercalculator
« on: March 31, 2011, 09:38:39 pm »
No, I'm still working on it. :) Sorry, about not posting back the updates here. The deadline of the application for the innovation's contest I was talking about is tomorrow (April 1st), so I'm filling out the form right now. Someone suggested I should redesign the site to make it more professional and business looking, so here it is: http://www.uberspire.com. Also, the contest form asks for the name of the product, so I've decided UberGraphX (UGX) which I hope you guys can live with. :) The name is a play on sound, it's pronounced "uber graphics." Plus, a couple of nominations for the name from the survey suggested the word "uber" be included in the name.

I've also updated the renderings of the casing (hopefully, everyone has >1000 pixel resolution monitors):

Rendering 1:


Rendering 2:


Rendering 3:


Right now, I'm going over and double checking the circuitry, before the next prototype get made and gets sent off to undergo FCC and CE testing certification. Depending on what happens in the future, what I would like to get done in the next couple of months before summer:
  • Develop molds for the casing, button and parts
  • Develop more pre-production models for testing
  • Stock up parts and prepare manufacturing for first batch of pre orders
  • Make sure there is enough pre-orders secured to develop the first batch, before stocking up on parts

Again, all of that will depend on what happens in the future. I can't guarantee 100%, but I think we're on track for a summer release. FCC testing should take only about 8 weeks.

That's it for now. I'll come back here and post updates as soon as I can. :D

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