Announced at the 2014 Maker Faire in New York, the latest Arduino WiFi shield is finally available. This shield replaces the old Arduino WiFi shield, while providing a few neat features that will come in very handy for the yet-to-be-developed Internet of Things.

While the WiFi Shield 101 was announced a year ago, the feature set was interesting. The new WiFi shield supports 802.11n, and thanks to a few of Atmel’s crypto chip offerings, this shield is the first official Arduino offering to support SSL.

The new Arduino WiFi Shield 101 features an Atmel ATWINC1500 module for 802.11 b/g/n WiFi connectivity. This module, like a dozen or so other WiFi modules, handles the heavy lifting of the WiFi protocol, including TCP and UDP protocols, leaving the rest of the Arduino free to do the actual work. While the addition of 802.11n  will be increasingly appreciated as these networks become more commonplace, the speed offered by ~n isn’t really applicable; you’re not going to be pushing bits out of an Arduino at 300 Mbps.

Also included on the WiFi shield is an ATECC508A CryptoAuthentication chip. This is perhaps the most interesting improvement over the old Arduino WiFi shield, and allows for greater security for the upcoming Internet of Things. WiFi modules already in the space have their own support for SSL, including TI’s CC3200 series of modules, Particle‘s Internet of Things modules, and some support for the ESP8266.

We recently posted on Intel Makers Community the first of a series of educational tutorial focused on Intel Galileo Gen 2. Our team worked on  a smart Christmas star able to receive sms and change pattern according to it. The bill of materials contains also an Arduino GSM Shield, a Proto Shield and some flexible  LED  strips:

To kick off a festive mood, we decided to adapt a typical Scandinavian tradition. In December, many people will decorate their homes by hanging large paper stars inside their windows. The stars usually have a single bulb inside that casts a warm, welcoming glow.

We thought we’d try to make this tradition a bit more merry by making it interactive. By sending text messages, we will change the blink pattern and color of the star.

This project is a fun and easy introduction on how to use the Intel Galileo Gen 2 board and the Arduino GSM shield. After making this tutorial, try modifying the code to change the patterns or taking the functions to insert GSM connectivity into your own projects.

Happy Holidays!

Follow the link and make it as well!

For his most ambitious build to date, [Param] thought it would be a cool idea to have a LED matrix display spitting tweets out via a WiFi connection. The build is now done, and we’ve got to hand it to him for a very nice build.

The build is based on an Arduino with a Sparkfun WiFi shield providing the network connection. The Arduino pings a Javascript app that pulls down tweets from The Verge and displays them on an 8×8 LED matrix display.

What makes [Param]‘s build so cool is its portable nature; the entire device is completely wireless, getting its power from a Sparkfun LiPower shield  and an apparently extremely capacious LiPoly battery.

With a rat’s nest of wires hanging out the back of the LED display, [Param]‘s build is crying out for a proper enclosure, but even given that it remains a quality project. You can see a video of the WiFi’d Twitter display after the break.