TouchPico is prepping an Android 4.2 mini-PC that doubles as a pico-projector and approximates touch input via an infrared stylus and camera.

It’s not enough to offer just another straight-ahead pico projector these days. Sprint’s recent, ZTE-built LivePro, for example, doubles as a mobile hotspot and features an embedded display, and Promate’s LumiTab is also a tablet. Now a startup called TouchPico offers a similarly Android-based TouchPico device that adds touch input to projected images.

Judging from the latest global smartphone sales numbers, players like Mozilla who are focused on markets outside the U.S., including emerging markets, may have the wind at their backs. As just one example of why that's true, Samsung and Apple, dropped to their lowest shares of the worldwide smartphone market in years during the second quarter as Chinese smartphone vendors delivered strong growth, market research firm IDC reported.

Hardkernel launched a $30, 60 x 36mm Raspberry-Pi compatible “Odroid-W” wearables oriented SBC, adding eMMC, ADC, RTC, a fuel gauge, and step converters.

Hardkernel’s Odroid project developed the Odroid-W (Odroid-Wearable) for a partner’s Internet of Things prototyping platform, after first considering and dismissing its quad-core Odroid-U3 single board computer. The Odroid-U3, which was rated as the third most popular Linux hacker SBC in our recent survey, used too much power for use as an IoT and wearables platform. The Raspberry Pi was more power efficient, but too large. No doubt, RPi compatibility also had its attractions, as the project ended up building its own Raspberry Pi pseudo-clone implemented on a COM (computer-on-module) style form factor.

LittleBits launched a tiny $59 ARM9-based “CloudBit” SBC that adds Internet access to the company’s collection of 60+ electronics modules for DIY projects.

The tiny, 15 x 10 x 5mm CloudBit single board computer adds Internet connectivity and a modest ARM9 brain to LittleBits Electronics’s popular, Lego-like platform, which is billed as an easier, plug-and-play alternative to Arduino for electronics prototyping. The LittleBits modules are available in $99 (10 modules), $149 (14 modules), and $199 (18 modules) kits, and include actuators, sensors, buzzers, dimmers, LEDs, DC motors, and other gizmos. The devices connect to each other in serial-bus fashion via magnets, enabling rapid project brainstorming without the need for soldering, wiring, or programming.

With the Android L set to roll out in a couple of months times, only two companies are definitely supporting the latest Google OS update.

Google confirmed during I/O 2014 that the the will release the next Android update later this year, and that is is currently code named “Android L.”

I’m a begrudging Linux user, specifically Ubuntu. It’s the result of being too cheap to buy software like Photoshop and too ethical to just steal it like everybody else. As a result I get to enjoy all the benefits of free software, including the attempts to develop the “perfect” portable console, like the DragonBox Pyra.

Michael Mozrek gave a presentation recently about his work as the project lead on the DragonBox Pyra, the slated replacement to the Open Pandora handheld Linux game system.

Yes, some may argue that Android is molded from Linux Kernel, but the ability to be able to run bash scripts purely in a Linux environment that is not adulterated and polluted with non-Linux features is truly a tech Shangri-La for hardcore Linux lovers.

This helplessness in getting our wish fulfilled for a Linux tablet has many of us desperately digging for a solution that could satiate our thirst for Linux.

“In the last five to six years I began working with 3D printers and CNC machines. I started to build stuff, such as furniture and gadgets, and my first Raspberry Pi project was the Pi Snap Box. It’s the size of a mini-PC and is a box you put on the wall with one button on it. If you press the button, it takes three photos. It posts the first photo to a Facebook account for whoever the box belongs to. So for example, if you hang it up in a hairdresser’s salon and get your hair done all nicely, people could then see the good results on the hairdresser’s Facebook page.

An MIT spinoff has launched an Indiegogo campaign for a $499, Linux-based “Jibo” robot billed as a social, self-learning companion for families.

Like SoftBank’s Aldeberan-built Pepper, the Jibo bot runs on Linux and is designed to communicate and interact with people in a social, human-like manner. While the $1,930 Pepper is dubbed an “emotional” robot, Jibo is referred to as a “social” robot, and sells for a modest $499, via its $100,000 Indiegogo campaign. The device is expected to ship to funders Dec. 2015, followed by a commercial launch in 2016.

However, it's still believed to be Android at play here that has been tweaked enough to offer an iOS like UI, claims 9to5Mac.

IriTech has launched an Indiegogo project for an Android-based “Fidelys” smartwatch with iris recognition technology and a rotating-clicking bezel for I/O.

The main draw of the Fidelys is its “military grade” iris recognition technology, which avoids the need for vulnerable, inconvenient, hard to remember passwords, says IriTech. By visually verifying one’s iris, the technology can lock/unlock the Fidelys device itself, as well as encrypt/decrypt files and data, and control the launch of applications on Bluetooth connected mobile devices. It would also appear the Fidelys can talk directly to other smart devices such as door locks and various authentication devices.

So you have Android Wear! Maybe you have Google Glass! Want to check the football scores without having to go through the hassle of digging your phone out of your pocket? Well, know you can thanks to ‘Wearable Widgets’.

When Android itself first arrived, it took some time succeed as well, as I noted in a post on OStatic back in 2009. Then, almost no phones shown at Mobile World Congress ran the platform. Since then, Google has shown that it can create strong markets for open mobile platforms.

In all likelihood, we'll see Google offer incentives for developers to rally around Android Wear, and incentives for buyers. There, too, Google has prior experience, as it has incentivized users and developers surrounding both Android and Chrome OS.

Reaching out to the next billion connected users is a phrase that has been tossed around liberally.

Mozilla used it when they announced their $25 smartphone initiative. Nokia’s (now Microsoft’s) Stephen Elop used it when Nokia launched the revamped Nokia Asha line last year, and again when he announced the Nokia X. Last year Google used the same phrase as it launched Android 4.4 KitKat.

However, these companies’ efforts are still to leave a mark in the countries where the supposed next billion connected customers reside. Firefox’ $25 smartphones are yet to enter the market, neither Nokia’s Asha nor X line have turned out to be “hot items”, while affordable smartphones running KitKat are still few and far between.

Also: No Facebook, no iPhone, no problem: how I declared my digital independence

A “Spoken Tutorial” is a ten minute audio-video tutorial for K – 12 lessons and modules on “Aakash” (meaning Sky in Sanskrit), the world’s lowest cost device at $50. The spoken part of Tutorials is dubbed in all Indian languages, to help kids weak in English.

Long before people were talking about the Internet of Things, Linux-based home automation systems were available. Here are some of today's most interesting Linux-powered home gadgets.

Chumby, which sold Linux-based tabletop devices that ran Flash-based apps, is back in business under Blue Octy, with an overhauled website and 1,000 apps.

Chumby Industries went out of business a year ago, leaving Chumby owners and subscribers in the lurch. Blue Octy LLC, quickly snatched up the assets and revamped the website. As reported first by Engadget, the company has now reopened the Chumby service.

A robotic, mechanical reader of printed books that melds together the Raspberry Pi and Lego Mindstorms.

It's not just email either, though it tends to take the brunt of everybody's anger. There are dozens of apps sending us hundreds of notifications; managing all that incoming information is a genuine hassle. Looking at the notification center on our phones, it's hard not to imagine some harried, 1930s office worker. His tie is loosened, sleeves rolled up, sweat beading on his forehead underneath a green visor as he looks at the metal tray marked "INBOX" on his desk. It's piled high with a stack of paper, sent to him from people he doesn't know and doesn't love.