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WinSIXAXIS 1.1.0.192 is out

On the eve of hitting 200k hits on my blog, WinSIXAXIS 1.1.0.192 is out. This new release adds a monolithic installer that installs both Libusb-win32-filter and PPJoy during the WinSIXAXIS installation process. It also automates the creation and maintenance of the PPJoy Virtual Joystick and its axes mapping to work properly with WinSIXAXIS.

The new release is available on

The WinSIXAXIS homepage

Thoughts on the Casio EXILIM Pro EX-F1

It’s been about four months since Casio showed the prototype of its high speed digital camera last August at IFA in Berlin. Now Casio has announced they’re going to push this to production as the EXILIM Pro EX-F1. This is the most exciting amateur camera I’ve seen in a long time.

The camera is based on the Sony IMX017CQE 1/1.8” CMOS sensor announced back in February 2007. This sensor is kind of a “light” version of the Sony 12.5MP APS-C IMX021 sensor used in cameras like the Sony Alpha A700 and Nikon D300.

The design of the CMOS sensor used in the EX-F1 is very interesting. Not only is it a CMOS sensor, as opposed to CCD sensors used in most consumer cameras, but it also integrates some really nice features. Some of the sensor’s highlights include on die A/D converters, 12-bit column A/D converters (operating at 10-bit resolution at higher than 15fps), and a 432MHz LVDS interface. Worth noting here are the column A/D converters. This feature allows the sensor to output captured images at the full 6MP resolution at an amazing 60fps. That’s about 425MBs per second of raw pixel data!

Casio aren’t saying much about the image processing engine they’re using in the EX-F1. It sure is a smart design, but I doubt there’s any ground breaking technology here in terms of image processing speed. The mere fact that the EX-F1 is a consumer camera means the Casio engineers don’t have a large R&D budget (when compared to professional DLSRs) or designs that require expensive manufacturing processes.

To get an idea how much processing power is required to crunch through all the data the Sony sensor can cram out, take the Canon 1D Mark III as an example. With its 10fps 10.1MP sensor outputting around 170MBs per second, the camera needed TWO full fledged DIGIC III processors to be able to go through all that data in realtime. I don’t think that Casio was somehow able to design an ASIC that is several times more powerful than the Canon DIGIC III processor used in the $5,000 MarkIII yet cheap enough to make for them to be able to cram it in a sub $1,000 camera.

So, how did Casio manage to do it?

I think the answer lied in the mini site Casio had for the prototype. Unfortunately, now that the camera has been officially announced, that mini site has been pulled down.

Within that site was an image of the image processing board for the prototype of the EX-F1. On that board, one could clearly see the image processing ASIC surrounded by two other chips. I think those chips were DRAM chips. Most probably two 2Gbit (256MB) DDR DRAM chips.

My theory is that the Casio engineers used a large DRAM buffer to achieve the 60fps at 6MP capability. Using a large DRAM buffer is a very cost effective way of achieving the high performance of this camera. By Buffering the entire burst of images allows the processing engine to take its time to go through the buffered images, process each one into a JPG, and then store it on the SDHC card. My theory is further strengthened by the fact that Casio stated the camera can sustain the 60fps rate at full esolution for only 60 frames. A 1 second burst would fill around 425MBs of a 512MB buffer. Which if true, leaves some 87MBs available, which is plenty for processing each buffered image and the housekeeping functions of the camera firmware.

Funny enough, when capturing video (even high speed video) the image processing engine has to handle less data than when capturing images at its full resolution at 60fps. When capturing full HD video (1080p@60fps) the engine has to handle around 356MBs per second of pixel data. When capturing 512×384 video at 300fps it has to handle around 211MBs of data per second. When capturing 432×192 video at 600fps it handles around 178MB per second. And 138MBs per second when shooting 336×96 video at 1200fps. That’s 83.7%, 49.6%, 41.9%, and 32.8% respectively of what the image processing engine handles at 6MP resolution at 60fps.

However, when capturing video, the engine doesn’t have to go through the grueling debayering algorithms used when capturing still images. This is because the sensor is outputting at 2×2 or 3×3 line readout. So debayering becomes a trivial task. There’s still the task of compressing the video stream, but that’s not much of an R&D problem, as there already are quite a lot of HD video compression engine designs the engineers can choose from. And because of the reduced resolution the higher the frame rate goes in video, the actual workload on the image processing engine would actually be reduced the higher the frame rate goes.

I doubt we will be seeing a similar camera based around the Sony IMX017CQE sensor from any other major camera brands like Canon, Nikon, Pentax, or even Sony. Not because of any technical hurdles that would prohibit the development of such a camera, but because such a camera would be competing directly with those brands’ entry level DSLRs. Casio can afford to make such a camera simply because they don’t have to worry about eating away from the sales of any higher model they have.

I can’t wait until this camera hits the store shelves. And I’m positive that once the price goes down a little(estimated initial retail price is $999), this baby will be one hot seller.

First “non-staff” flight for the A380

This Friday morning, the Airbus A380 made its first “non-staff” flight from Toulouse in southern France with about 200 journalists and media members on board as passengers, and some 48 tonnes of fuel for the one hour tour.

Yesterday, I watched CNN’s Business Traveler with Richard Quest as he flew on board this awesome superjumbo.

According to Richard, the plane was fitted in a 3-class configuration which enabled the plane to carry “only 519 passengers”!!! This is already more than what the venerable Boeing 747-400 “jumbo jet” can carry. Considering that the A380 is certified to carry 800 passengers when fitted entirely with economy class seats, the plane on Friday had only 65% of its seats capacity and 25% of its passenger.

Again, according to Richard, the plane was very quiet. One could barely hear the engine noise in the mics during the show, which while not an accurate measure of noise, is somewhat of a statement to how quiet the plane is.

I look forward to seeing this majestic monster enter service later this year. Heck, I’m even thinking of going on to Singapore for a weekend (Singapore Airlines the launch partner for the A380) just to see how it feels to be on board such a huge monster of a plane on a long haul trip.

Proxy upgrade

Last Friday, whiteFyre released the long awaited version 0.5 for his PHProxy script. As I noted in a previous post, I spent some time over the weekend adding logging and filtering capabilities to the new release. Today, after re-styling whiteFyre’s script and adding the code for Google’s AdSense, the new version is available at the same old home for my proxy at http://proxy.iraqigeek.com.

As usual, I will not hesitate to ban any users who try to surf pornographic or gambling websites. So remember: If you abuse it, you loose it!

Modded PHProxy 0.5b2

Ok, after about a year and a half of waiting, whiteFyre finally released a much awaited update to his popular PHProxy script. It was more like a major rewrite than an upgrade, but it fixed quite a few issues that PHProxy 0.4 suffered from.

However, the new version still lacked descent filtering capabilities, and had no logging capabilities, which is vital to catch offending users and keep the filtering capabilities up-to-date. So, I took it to myself to add those two functions during the past two days, though I’m not much of a PHP programmer.

Without further ado, here is my modified logging and filtering version of PHProxy.

iPhone: Another proprietary device from Apple

Four days ago, I commented on the iPhone announcement and had some doubts about what Apple’s plans were about allowing third party developers to write applications for the iPhone.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long to answer that one. It looks like the iPhone will indeed be a closed environment. As iTWire reported yesterday quoting his Jobbiness from an article in The New York Times saying “We define everything that is on the phone,” and “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.” Is there anything more they need to say?

Those statements are fundamentally fundamentally wrong. First, Mr. Jobs seems to think that developers aren’t capable, not on their own, to write good applications for the iPhone. Second, somehow he thinks he has the right to control what the users of the iPhone can and can’t run on their devices. And third, he seems to think those users aren’t smart enough to distinguish between good and crappy applications written for their devices.

In any case, Apple has no right to control what users can and can’t run on their devices. Once a user has paid for a device, any device, he/she owns this device and should be able to run anything they see fit on it, and it doesn’t matter if what the user wants to run happens to be a crappy application that will somehow ruin the device. Whether his Jobbiness likes it or not, people have the right to be stupid.

For me, this closed environment around the iPhone simply ruins the deal for me. When I buy an electronic device, I want to be able to run anything I see fit on it, without regard to how that may affect the operation of my device, cause its MY device.

ما مرتاح

I heard this poem sometime back in high school in an interview with the Iraqi folk poet Arian il-Sayed Khalaf on Iraqi TV. For some reason, it stuck in my mind. The other day, I googled those parts I remembered, and found the entire poem. Here it is:

“The new way forward”

Was just watching the Rise-Gates-Pace press conference at the white house where the trio announced the details of the new US plan in Iraq for the next six months or so.

I know we heard that things were going to improve in Iraq for so many times over the past four years, and of course I could be totally wrong about this, but I think this is the first time that the US government and military has an actual plan on how to do things on the ground.

Sure, a lot will now reside on the shoulders of the Iraqi government, but as an Iraqi, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The Iraqi government needs to receive more responsibilities from the US. Iraqi politicians need to stand up to the promises they made to the people during the elections. Most notably, the government needs to gain control of the Iraqi security forces, which until now have been under direct US command.

If both the US army and the Iraqi government manage to at least secure Baghdad, it will be a HUGE step towards fixing the whole country. Having a secure capital is vital for having a secure central government, and lets not forget that Baghdad is home to over 20% of the country’s population.

Without securing Baghdad, there can never be a strong Iraq. Period.

Will 20,000 additional troops, on the back of the 141,000 troops already in Iraq be enough to fix the security situation there? or at least fix things in Baghdad? I don’t know. I guess we will have to wait, cross our fingers, and hope for the best.

iPhone Announcement

First of all, I’m not a big fan of Apple. Nonetheless, I was quite impressed by their new iPhone. But despite its sleek, ultra cool looks, and the rather impressive spec sheet, there are still quite a few things that I want to know about this new cool toy before making my mind on whether I would want one.

Sure, on the paper all looks good, but there still are some of the things I want to know about the iPhone are: What kind of processor is it using? and how fast is it? How much RAM does it have? How much of a smudge magnet will the screen be? Equally important are things like how good will this “multi-touch” interface work? How good will the on screen keyboard be in the real world? how easy/hard will it be to develop 3rd party applications for it? when (if?) will Apple release the proper SDKs and development tools for this new toy, and how easy (hard?) will it be for developers to obtain those SDKs and tools?

Another thing that really concerns me, is whether Apple will follow on the same trend of offering the iPhone exclusively with a few select operators when the it is released in Europe and later in Asia. Tying customers to one specific carrier can be a major let down for many customers, most notably business customers who are the main users of smartphones.

Finally, there is the letigation Apple has with Cisco now about their ownership of the iPhone trademark. Unless this litigation is settled quickly, we will have to wait and see what Apple plans to do. Will they rename the iPhone? or will the launch be delayed until some sort of agreement is worked out? For better or worse, Cisco seems to have the upper hand in this trademark conflict.

I guess many of those questions will be answered when the iPhone makes it to the FCC for approval, most notably we will know quite a few more details about the hardware platform, and probably we will get a glimpse of the guts of the iPhone. For the other stuff, such as the details of the software platform and development tools, we will have to just sit back and wait for Apple to give us more details.