Not so long ago, mapping WiFi required a laptop, GPS, a big antenna and Kismet/NetStumbler. Today’s smartphones have replaced even this task. For those of us running a GPS and WiFi equipped Windows Mobile phone, WiFiFoFum is an excellent and simple solution, as well as a great companion for installing an AP. Continue reading “WiFi Mapping With A Smartphone”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPHpMonoC8]
Yo dawg, we heard you liked accelerometers… Apparently people have been wanting this for a while. We’re not completely sure why, so we’ll wait and see what gets done with it. [Ubiq_01] has connected a WiiMote to his iPhone and is using it to control and OpenGL application. He has released a tutorial (which seems to be down currently) if you want to try to reproduce it yourself.
[via Makezine]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46s7nE72nvI]
[Chris] wrote in to tell us about this project he did while living in the dorms. He built a system to automate his dorm room door. It handles unlocking and opening/closing the door via iPhone, secret knock, and even the key. The lock/knob portion is handled by a servo while the opening/closing action is hydraulic. After living with it for a year, he says that it never gets old, but there were a few bugs. Apparently it would randomly open in the middle of the night sometimes. If you’re interested in doing something like this, but not damaging the door, maybe you should check out the RFID dorm door lock project.
The iPhone dev-team has released Ultrasn0w to SIM unlock the iPhone 3G running the 3.0 firmware. It’s available via Cydia, which installs when you use the recently released PwnageTool to unlock the 3.0 firmware. There doesn’t seem to be any caveats besides advising T-Mobile US users to turn off 3G before install.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG8khSe5gBQ&feature=player_embedded]
[Benjamin] submitted this slick project. It’s a gesture based control unit for the ipod and iphone. It plugs into the dock port and allows you to control the track and volume with simple gestures. While accellerometer equipped units can already “shake to shuffle”, they lack the ability to simply skip tracks forward or backward. He notes that with an accellerometer, simple gestures can be harder to decipher than with a gyro. The gyro gives the ability to tell which direction you are twisting it, so it’s easier to utilize. [Benjamin] was previously covered when he released the iPodGPS.
Already, both Rapid repair and ifixit have torn down the new iPhone 3G S, and phonewreck has provided some analysis. The new CPU runs twice as fast at 600 MHz and supports 720p video. They also found that the new 3 megapixel camera took better photos. Surprisingly, despite apple’s claims that the new phone has significantly better battery life, the battery itself has only 6% more capacity. Overall, not much has changed.
[Related iPhone 3G under the hood]
The iPhone dev-team has released an updated version of PwnageTool. It supports jailbreaking iPhones using the 3.0 firmware. This update does not include the much easier to use QuickPwn, but it should be coming soon. The release also doesn’t include the UltraSn0w unlock which will be coming via Cydia.
[photo: edans]
