Author: Eliot

1332 Articles

Ambient Traffic Light

May 29, 2005 by 11 Comments

traffic lighttraffic light

Seems reader [Bucky] is just as annoyed with those ambient orbs as we are. I fully support unique ways to present information, but this executive toy stuff is nothing to look forward to. Bucky legally acquired a traffic light and then developed a parallel interface to the traffic light to display different types of information. This project does require switching 120 volt AC, so you should make sure your comfortable with electrocuting yourself before proceeding. I hope someday lots of extra interfaces show up.  Until then I guess we’ve got people like Bucky to keep us sane.

P.S. Don’t forget to give us feedback on the hackaday podcast.

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WEP Cracking Illustrated

May 28, 2005 by 13 Comments

whoppix crack

There’s a couple great WEP cracking walkthroughs that have appeared recently.  The first is included in the From the Shadows Box 3.0 episode. Humphrey Cheung, who wrote the WEP cracking article we covered earlier, explains how the process works and gives a demo of it in action. The camera work is shaky and out of focus so you should check out the Whoppix WEP Cracking Demo over at Hacking Defined. The demo is a little less verbose, but the command line commands and results are a lot clearer. I also had no idea what was so great about Unionfs till I saw this video. I hope you guys have a fun weekend with this info; I am still waiting for some antenna parts unfortunately.

[thanks jE]

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Nokia 770 SDK

May 27, 2005 by 16 Comments

nokia770hand770hand

Yes, this has been covered heavily. Not nearly enough noise has been made about how easy hacking this device is. Nokia has opened up almost everything even placing the graphics under a Creative Commons license. Nokia has also constructed a firm foundation to develop on. Underneath everything is a Debian based system with a 2.6.11 kernel. Debian is one of the largest binary distributions mainly because of its apt package management system. Apt will make it really easy to get new software and keep the installed software updated. A modern kernel means the device will be able to keep up with developing technologies like bluetooth and usb. The next layer is an Xserver. This is not a pda and Nokia has decided not to use technologies like Qtopia or Opie for  the application layer. This will make porting graphical apps much easier and with the addition of Gtk they will also have a consistent look. If you’re worried about the ARM processor support, just check out all of the programs that people ported for the Zaurus.

The best news for you is that Nokia has set up a comprehensive development site. It describes the underlying software layers and how to set up the development environment to emulate the device. It even has a walkthrough for how to port applications to the device. As an example they show how to port Gaim, which is funny because most places have reported that IM support won’t be released until 2006. If Nokia does a good job building in support for Microsoft htpcs, iTunes control, and Tivo control I think this device will be certain to take off. I’d like to see someone make an electronic programming guide that you could use to change the channels on the tv and schedule recordings instead of the intrusive on-screen-displays used by most cable boxes. If anything it will be nice to hang out on the couch reading news and ebooks without having to use my genital scorching Dell.

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Cat-5 Speaker Cables

May 26, 2005 by 58 Comments

cat5 speaker cable

Braiding 108 individual copper strands together is not my idea of fun, blistering my hands in the process isn’t a bonus either. If you’ve spent enough money on your audio system to even begin to think that the cables are the weak link in the chain, this is the project for you. Chris VenHaus starts with 14 lengths of Cat-5, strips off the jackets, and then braids the twisted pairs three at a time until the whole mess becomes one cable. That’s just one though, you’re going to have to do another one for the negative side. It does take some time, but it will get you out of paying the huge premium on audiophile quality cables and you’ll end up with very competitive sounding cables. I would try this, but my Aiwa shelf system with the masking tape across the changer tray probably wouldn’t benefit that much from an upgrade. Of course if someone makes a DIY braiding machine I’d be all over this.

[thanks sine~language]

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Abusing Amazon’s Dynamic Image Generator

May 25, 2005 by 6 Comments

amazon image

I’ve wondered about the crazy image URLs Amazon uses before, but not more than a few seconds. It seems a Peanuts fan decided to get to the bottom of it. Nat Gertler has deciphered the meanings  of most of the values that show up in Amazon URLs. It’s really simple to try out. Just pick out an image URL and start dropping in options: You can change the value and color of the percentage off bullet. Rotate the image to an arbitrary angle. Add “search inside” and “look inside” banners wherever you want. You can even view the original cover the book was submitted with.  Many of these options can be doubled up too. I can’t really think of what the “killer app” for this is, but it is fun to see the mechanisms behind web applications that have to serve thousands of people.

[via boingboing]

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Shadow’s Dexterous Hand

May 24, 2005 by 11 Comments

shadow hand

The Shadow Robot Company is now offering its Dexterous Hand for public sale. The joints are powered by the company’s Air Muscles, usually in pairs to provide a variable grip. The Air Muscle is a rubber tube encased in a “Chinese finger trap” style plastic webbing. When the muscle is inflated with compressed air it contracts. This simple system results in a 400:1 power to weight ratio. The bundle of muscles required to operate the hand makes for a very large Popeye-esque forearm so we probably won’t be seeing anything humanoid based on this anytime soon. They have GPL’d control code available though so anybody that wants to start developing for this will probably have a pretty easy time. You still have to justify paying an “arm and a leg” for a hand. The site has some good movement videos for you to check out. Just don’t mimic the movements; there’s a reason robots can’t feel pain.

[via Future Feeder]

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The Onion Router

May 23, 2005 by 14 Comments

onion router

Tor is an overlay network that lets you browse and use other TCP based services anonymously. Normally if you use a secure tunnel an observer can still see the destination and origin ip addresses; They may not be able to tell what the payload is, but they will be able to tell who is talking. Onion routing uses a series of encrypted hops to hide this information. The Tor client creates unique routes through a network of Tor nodes. First the client contacts a node and negotiates an encryption key with it. Once that link has been established the client instructs that node to contact another and get the next key. Once all of these keys have been collected the client can begin encrypting its information. The payload is encrypted by each key in route order. When the first node decrypts the payload it determines where to send it next. The encryption is removed one layer at a time as it travels along the route arriving at its destination fully decrypted.

Tor recently reached 100 verified nodes. If you’ve got some spare bandwidth why don’t you set up a node of your own. You can even use Tor to provide anonymous web services. Of course using Tor will make it more difficult for sites to show you “singles in your area”, so make sure you consider the consequences.

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