Android Hacks

417 Articles

Driving A Salvaged LCD

February 10, 2011 by 21 Comments

[bill2009] wanted to reuse some common seven segment LCDs, but the question was how to drive them. Armed with a couple application notes from [Microchip] and [Atmel], an oscilloscope and an Arduino, he has made a proof of concept which shows its not super hard to drive those little reflective LCDs that so many devices have.

First finding out that these things are indeed multiplexed, he went on to what is needed to drive them, which is about +-2 volts difference from the backplane, next up was to find a donor, which he found readily at Staples, in the form of a “clocky” style run away alarm clock.

After poking around watching what signals do to the different segments on the LCD he whipped up a little circuit to control the display from the Arduino. The positive and negative voltages the segments require are made possible by the use of a set of pull down resistors, and switching pin modes on the micro controller.

These small type segmented LCDs are everywhere, and being able to use them is a big bonus.

FareBot – Android NFC Proof Of Concept

February 8, 2011 by 12 Comments

farebot_logo

Upon learning that the Nexus S smartphone was equipped with a Near Field Communications NFC) radio, [Eric Butler] decided he would put the newly released Gingerbread SDK to good use.  Focusing initially on ORCA fare cards used by several Washington state transit systems, he built an open-source application he calls FareBot, which can read data from any MIFARE DESFire branded cards.  Utilizing the NFC radio in the Nexus S, he was able to dump all of the unprotected information from the fare cards, including  the remaining card balance and the last 10 locations where the card was used.

The author hopes that his proof of concept application encourages other developers to expand on his project and to explore the data stored on transit cards around the world. While it is in its early stages, [Eric] would ultimately like to see this project expanded to allow the use of NFC-enabled smartphones as transit cards themselves via downloadable apps.  He suggests that helping people understand the amount of data which can be freely obtained from these cards will eventually force the manufacturers to better inform consumers of the existing system’s shortcomings, which in turn might spur on smartphone-based transit initiatives.

Nook Color Gets Honeycomb

February 1, 2011 by 18 Comments

[Deeper-blue] has released all the files necessary to get Android honeycomb working on your nook color. We had a chance to play with the nook color for a bit, but ours was only on Android version 2.1. It seems like they’ve come a long way with the capabilities of this simple e-reader since then.  While he’s built out the majority of the features, it is still lacking some fundamentals, like sound. As you can see in the video after the break, the scrolling is a tiny bit choppy but the applications themselves see to be fairly snappy. We can’t wait to see how this works after a little improvement.

 

Continue reading “Nook Color Gets Honeycomb” →

Plug And Prey: Malicious USB Devices

January 27, 2011 by 21 Comments

This very informative talk given at Shmoocon 2011 has been posted over at IronGeek. Covering all kinds of angles that a person could attack someones computer through the USB port, this should be read by anyone who is security minded at all. No matter which side of the port you tend to be on, this article has great information. They cover some common attack methods such as keyloggers and fake keyboards as well as some common methods of securing your system against them. We’ve actually seen this in the news a bit lately as people have been using the keyboard emulation method in conjunction with android phones to hack into systems.

[thanks Adrian]

Amarino Makes Android Controlled Robots A Snap

January 24, 2011 by 5 Comments

[Lucas Fragomeni] is controlling this robot using the accelerometer on his Android phone (translated). He could have gone through our Android tutorials and developed a custom application but he took the shorter route and used Amarino, an ‘Android meets Arduino’ toolkit, to do it for him. [Lucas] combined an Arduino, a BlueSMiRF Bluetooth modem, and two servo motors to build his robot. Amarino lets him connect to that Bluetooth modem and send sensor data over the connection. In this case it’s only the accelerometer that he chose to use, but he could have gone with the touchscreen, or any other sensor the handheld has to offer. Using this code package got him up and running quickly, only requiring that he writes his own code to turn the received signals into servo motor control routines. See it in action after the break.

Continue reading “Amarino Makes Android Controlled Robots A Snap” →

Nook Color Rooted: Hands On

December 12, 2010 by 72 Comments

Nookdevs have released information on how to root your nook color. So naturally, I had to run out and get one.  Who doesn’t want a multitouch android tablet for $250?  The instructions for rooting are extremely simple. You really only need microSD card and a Linux/Windows/Mac computer to connect to.  After rooting, your nook will work exactly as it did before, but you can now install android applications on it.  Many applications are built for a phone that has more physical buttons, so I have run into some issues, but over all, the applications that work tend to work well.

Join me after the break for more thoughts, a video of it in action, and a few pictures.

Continue reading “Nook Color Rooted: Hands On” →

Permanent Root Exploit Found For G2

November 10, 2010 by 9 Comments

The g2 has finally been rooted. Even though a temporary root exploit was found shortly after the phones release, a NAND lock prevented modifying the non-volatile RAM for a permanent root. Some controversy surrounded the g2 when it was erroneously thought to have a rootkit protecting the OS.  Supposedly the rootkit would watch for changes to the file system and then reset the phone to default settings when any unauthorized changes were made.  On the other hand a NAND lock functions by fooling the operating system into thinking there isn’t any memory available, essentially “locking” the memory in key areas.  Once it was discovered to have the NAND lock it was only a matter of time before the g2 was permanently rooted.  NAND locks have become a popular (and unsuccessful) deterrent employed by device makers to stop the jailbreaking comunity.  While this exploit is nothing groundbreaking it is another notch in the belt for the jailbreaking community and a welcome benefit to g2 users.