And also NFC allows some of that stuff without having a dock. I assumed it was just for communicating with other phones and payment systems but I like having a NFC tag in the car/next to the bed for it to switch to certain profiles.

It can be stuck to the window, but I used the included sucker disc (yes technical term) and put it on the flat part of my dash just above the radio.

Samsung sells a 5 pack of the little things that can talk to NFC. You can program them to do certain things, so yeah, if I put one in my dock I could automate that process. I plan to at some point, but haven't gotten to it yet!

Hmm, where could I put NFC tags. One in the car. One by the bed. In my pocket, by my computer, in my wife's underwear (just vibrate mode) :D

One by the bed, for quiet/silent mode at night, and maybe to turn mobile network off too. One at work to do something similar. For women (and I suppose the odd few men) one in the handbag to turn the volume up loud.

 

I quite like all these new cheap toys coming out for playing with and encouraging creativity, the pi, these stickers, the ouya etc. technology in general is good at the moment.

I agree. And I somehow managed to get in on most of it!

I'm thinking it might just be easier to buy a Nexus 7 and put that in my dash instead now. Buying a touchscreen for the Pi just seems too expensive.

I just got a proper case for mine as my lovely son tried to eat it last month as my home made case looked like a toy he likes to chew on.

 

Other than making it a bit more baby proof I have been constantly upgrading and placing with XBMC, I finally have a build that I am happy with for watching tv shows and films BUT now I have a problem with the photo viewer as it hangs every time I try and open a directory.

 

It's still fun to play around with and the wife actually uses it.

OK, nice! And just hang everything off the ceiling - your son's not Spiderkid, right? Right??

He is trying to climb everything at the moment so you could be right!

I think the Nexus 7 would make an excellent car dash tablet. The GPS on it is flawless (unlike my last two Samsung Android devices) and the voice recognition / commands have got really rather good.

I'm going to give it a go in my car since I have a tablet mount. Still need to check the official cable with my chargers to make sure it charges.

 

I've recently been using my phone as a WiFi hotspot quite a bit and it's pretty much flawless so should be reasonable in the car.

Yup, I used it with a phone hotspot all the way down to Norwich from Bradford and streamed music all the way while using Google Navigation. Don't think I had the right power adapter as it didn't charge but possibly stopped it discharging too quickly. Battery life on this thing is immense though so not actually a huge issue.

There is now MPEG2 support. You can purchase a license for it for an additional £2.40.

Just seen that. Well happy. And H264 encoding is supported for free. Even happier.

Well I've finally used my first GPIO pins!

Powering and controlling a relay. Click! Click! Once I've bought a new soldering iron (can't find my old one :C ) I'll hook that up to my camera and I'll be able to turn it on and off on demand (hopefully). 

Well, it's more for turning the camera on when it crashes and turns off. Using a Canon Ixus 220 HS I got off eBay with a broken screen as a high quality webcam. Camera running CHDK, RPi talking to the camera with chdk-ptp.

I've also ordered a PIR sensor. Don't want to totally copy Mikee but it might end up on my balcony pointing at some bird seed :$

Woo, actually doing something with it. Mines still a XBMC, it does need an update though.

My other one is in a box with a webcam hanging off my balcony.

Local perv huh? (YJ)

I wish :(