Turns out the AtMega8 IC microcontroller is working properly. The non-standard USB cable that we used had all the colors wrong. Therefore the prototype is up and running.
Here is a picture of the prototype without the encasing:

VEETS prototype

For those who want to experiment with USB cables, here is a useful link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usb

Next step: re-adjusting the satellite software and field tests… stay tuned

For all those who did not have a chance to visit our old site (we did not transfer yet our old posts, since we used an in-house bilingual blog application), VEETS (in a nutshell) is a project Software Solutions is doing in conjunction with the West Palm Beach Police Department to track evidence via GPS in high-speed auto pursuits.

We received a AtMega8 IC microcontroller to connect the buttons via USB to the patrol laptop. Unfortunately, for some reason is not working, either for the non-standard USB cable we used, or the chip came defective, which means… another 2 weeks of delay for this project (it’s not an IC that we can get at RadioShack).