IPhone 3G Unlock Video

musclenerd

To appease people waiting for the iPhone 3G unlock, iphone-dev team member [MuscleNerd] did a live video demo this afternoon. The video shows him removing the AT&T SIM and putting in a T-Mobile SIM. After the switch, the phone shows no connectivity. He then runs “yellosn0w” in an SSH session with the phone. The phone then unlocks without needing to be rebooted and the signal bars appear. The final test shows the phone receiving a call.

The target for this release is New Year’s Eve and it doesn’t support the most recent baseband. Well be attending the 25C3 talk hosted by [MuscleNerd] and other team members. The VNC screen you see in the video is thanks to [saurik]’s Veency.

Bug Labs Releases BUGvonHippel Universal Module

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Bug Labs makes hardware modules that can be combined to create your own custom gadgets. They’ve just released what we consider the most useful module: BUGvonHippel. Unlike the previous single purpose modules, the BUGvoHippel is a universal interface. The bus features USB, power/ground, DAC/ADC, I2C, GPIO, SPI, serial, and more. BUG applications are written in Java using a custom IDE.

The $79 module is named after MIT professor Eric von Hippel, who wrote Democratizing Innovation. You can find an interview with him below.

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Tor Hardware Privacy Adapter

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The Janus team have published a preview of their new Privacy Adapter. It’s a small two port router. You just plug it in-line between your computer/switch and your internet connection. It will then anonymize all of you traffic via the Tor network. You can also use it with OpenVPN. The hardware appears to be a Gumstix computer mounted to a daughtercard with two ethernet ports. It will have a web configuration just like a standard router. This looks like a great plug-n-play privacy device. The only improvement we would suggest is adding auto-detect so a crossover cable isn’t required.

Janus is responsible for JanusVM, a virtual machine designed to protect your privacy with technologies like Tor and OpenVPN.

[via @hdmoore]

Removing Fisheye Distortion

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Reader [alex] had a commercial plugin for fisheye lens correction and wondered exactly what kind of magic was behind it. Was it actually doing line detection? He dropped in a square grid to see what it spit out. The warped result indicated that the transformation was completely independent of the photo’s content. Using this result as a guide he was able to create a similar transform using Warp and save it as a script. The script generates almost identical results and now he knows exactly how little magic is involved.

Gas Powered Blender

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We aren’t sure what [stubman] needs to blend, but whatever it is, it must require some serious power. [stubman] put together this industrial looking gas powered blender. While gas powered blenders certainly aren’t a new thing, he did add a nice touch with an electric starter. While maybe not as cool looking as some we’ve previously covered, this one would look good in any shop. Why are gas powered blenders so popular? Why not gas powered pencil sharpeners or gas powered can openers? We’ve seen a gas powered vacuum!

Pen Based Input Improvements

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcE3XBytN-U]

Lately we’ve been focusing on multitouch technologies, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t interesting research going on in other areas of human-computer interaction. [Johnny Lee] posted a roundup of some the work that [Gonzalo Ramos] and others have done with pen based input. The video embedded above shows how pressure can be used to increase control precision. Have a look at his post to see how pen gestures can be used for seamless workspace sharing and how pen rolling can give additional control.

Scratch Built Air Muscles

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We first talked about air muscles in 2005 while lusting after Shadow Robotic’s dexterous hand. The pneumatic devices are known for being lightweight and compliant. They’re designed to be used in robot arms and legs. [jelengar] stumbled across this guide to building your own air muscles. We’re not exactly sure what the original source is since it reads like a machine translation. The core is a piece of silicone tubing used in aquariums. It’s sealed at one end with a bolt. Braided electrical sheathing is slid over the tube and secured using multiple wraps of 24gauge wire. They say to test it using 20psi, but there’s no mention of what the limits are.