It's hard to deny. Click boards are pretty cool! Having the ability to swap out just one element for an alternate part, or something else entirely, is a great way to rapidly prototype a design. But we also love our shields, and don't want to lose any of them just to start using Click boards. If only we could use both!

Well, we have exciting news for you. In partnership with Serbia-based MikroElektronika, we are proud to announce the release of the

We in the chipKIT programming dungeons have been slaving away for the past few weeks to bring you a new, long awaited, USB stack for your USB-based chipKIT boards.

Finally we can say the PIC32MZ based boards have full USB support!

The modular system, exclusive to the chipKIT environment, allows you to add different combinations of USB devices together at will to craft your perfect USB device. Couple a keyboard with a mouse, or a joystick with a MIDI interface. Add a few CDC/ACM serial interfaces. Whatever takes your fancy.

It's perfect for use with the chipKIT Lenny, or the Fubarino Mini or SD. You can even use it with the powerful chipKIT Wi-FIRE with its

Microchip is hosting another Get Launched event on June 8th in San Diego, California. The event is co-sponsored by Arduino and the Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD.

The general session starts at noon (admission is free) and includes a dozen presentations on startup topics, exhibit tables staffed by technical experts, and a networking/panel discussion at 6pm.

Ever have the need to display real-time data with custom hi-res graphics and text? Super-user Majenko recently built up a cool green OLED display to fit inside a standard hard drive bay on his PC.

The OLED display is backed by a chipKIT Lenny running the DisplayCore library. Take note of the hi-res scrolling graph along the bottom edge of the display. Not bad for a modest board like the Lenny running

The combination of the Arduino-compatible chipKIT Wi-FIRE board and Audeme's MOVI speech recognition shield lets users voice-control their Philips Hue bulbs without leaking private information into the cloud (i.e., voice recordings to Amazon or Google, Philips Hue hub data to Salesforce