Sure, you’re a hardcore superuser, but that doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy the finer things in life — like shiny squircles and getting every new app first. But, what’s an OS-indiscriminate person like yourself going to do when it comes time to purchase music? That’s where the recover_itunes tool shines, and if you’re a Linux user with an iPhone, it might just be your new best friend.
Continue reading “Ever Buy Music From Apple? Use Linux? You Need This Tool”
One of last year’s Hackaday Prize finalists was the DOLPi, [Dave Prutchi]’s polarimetric camera which used an LCD sheet from a welder’s mask placed in front of a Raspberry Pi camera. Multiple images were taken by the DOLPi at different polarizations and used to compute images designed to show the polarization of the light in each pixel and convey it to the viewer through color.
[Dave] wrote to tip us off about [Paul Wallace]’s take on the same idea, a DOLPi-inspired polarimetric camera using an iPhone with an ingenious solution to the problem of calibrating the device to the correct polarization angle for each image that does not require any electrical connection between phone and camera hardware. [Paul]’s camera is calibrated using the iPhone’s flash. The light coming from the flash through the LCD is measured by a phototransistor and Arduino Mini which sets the LCD to the correct polarization. The whole setup is taped to the back of the iPhone, though we suspect a 3D-printed holder could be made without too many problems. He provides full details as well as code for the iPhone app that controls the camera and computes the images on his blog post.
We covered the DOLPi in detail last year as part of our 2015 Hackaday Prize finalist coverage. You can also find its page on Hackaday.io, and [Dave]’s own write-up on his blog.
Today, Apple has announced their latest bit of hardware. Following in the tradition of the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, and the Intel Edison, Apple have released a single board computer meant for embedded and Internet of Things applications. It’s called the Apple Device, and is sure to be a game changer in the field of low-power, Internet-enabled computing.
First off, some specs. The Apple Device uses Apple’s own A8 chip, the same dual-core 64-bit CPU found in the iPhone 6. This CPU is clocked at 1.1 GHz, and comes equipped with 1GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 4GB of eMMC Flash. I/O includes a Mini DisplayPort capable of driving a 4k display, 802.11ac, Bluetooth, and USB. In a massive break from the Apple zeitgeist of the last decade or so, the Apple Device also includes a forty pin header for expansion, much like the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, and Edison.
Although Apple’s first foray into the embedded computing market is a shocker, in retrospect it should come as no surprise; the introduction of HomeKit in iOS 9 laid the groundwork for an Internet of Apple Devices, embedded into toasters, refrigerators, smart homes, and cars. The Apple Device lives up to all these expectations, but what is the hands-on experience like?
See our review of the Apple Device after the break.
Continue reading “Apple Introduces Their Answer To The Raspberry Pi”
By now you’ve doubtless heard that the FBI has broken the encryption on Syed Farook — the suicide terrorist who killed fourteen and then himself in San Bernardino. Consequently, they won’t be requiring Apple’s (compelled) services any more.
A number of people have written in and asked what we knew about the hack, and the frank answer is “not a heck of a lot”. And it’s not just us, because the FBI has classified the technique. What we do know is that they paid Cellebrite, an Israeli security firm, at least $218,004.85 to get the job done for them. Why would we want to know more? Because, broadly, it matters a lot if it was a hardware attack or a software attack.
Ski areas are setting formal policies for drones left and right, but what happens when your drone isn’t a drone but is instead a tethered iPhone with wings swinging around you like a ball-and-chain flail as you careen down a mountain? [nicvuignier] decided to explore the possibility of capturing bullet-time video of his ski runs by essentially swinging his phone around him on a tether. The phone is attached to a winged carrier of his own design, 3D printed in PLA.
One would think this would likely result in all kinds of disaster, but we haven’t seen the outtakes yet, and the making-of video has an interesting perspective on each of the challenges he encountered in perfecting the carrier, ranging from keeping it stable and upright, to reducing the motion sickness with the spinning perspective, and keeping it durable enough to withstand the harsh environment and protect the phone.
He has open sourced the design, which works for either iPhone or GoPro models, or it is available for preorder if you are worried about catastrophic delamination of your 3D printed model resulting in much more bullet-like projectile motion.
Continue reading “Bullet-time Video Effect By Throwing Your Phone Around”
On December 2, 2015, [Syed Rizwan Farook] and [Tashfeen Malik] opened fire at a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event, killing 14 and injuring 22. This was the third deadliest mass shooting in the United States in recent memory, and began a large investigation by local, state, and federal agencies. One piece of evidence recovered by the FBI was an iPhone 5C belonging to one of the shooters. In the days and months after the shooting, the FBI turned to Apple to extract data from this phone.
A few days ago in an open letter to customers, [Tim Cook], CEO of Apple, stated they will not comply with FBI’s request to build a backdoor for the iPhone. While the issue at hand is extracting data from an iPhone recovered from the San Bernardino shooting, [Cook] says building a new version of iOS to extract this data would allow the FBI to unlock any iPhone. Needless to say, there are obvious security implications of this request.
Apple does not publish open letters to its customers often. Having one of the largest companies on the planet come out in support of privacy and encryption is nearly unprecedented. There is well-founded speculation this open letter to the public will be exhibit A in a supreme court case. Needless to say, the Internet has gone a little crazy after this letter was published, and rightly so: just imagine how better off we would be if AT&T said no to the NSA in 2002 – [Snowden] might just be another IT geek working for a government contractor.
There is a peculiar aspect of public discourse that doesn’t make any sense. In the absence of being able to say anything interesting, some people have just decided to add a contrary viewpoint. Being right, having a valid argument, or even having evidence to support assertions doesn’t matter; being contrary is far more interesting. Look at any comment thread on the Internet, and you’ll find the longest comment chain is the one refuting the parent article. Look up the ratings for a cable news channel. You’ll find the highest rated show is the one with the most bickering. When is the last time you saw something from the New York Times, Washington Post, or LA Times on Facebook or your favorite news aggregator? Chances are, it wasn’t news. It was an op-ed, most likely one that was espousing a view contrary to either public opinion or public policy.
As with any headline event on the Internet, the contrarians have come out of the woodwork. These contrarians are technically correct and exceedingly myopic.
Continue reading “The Contrarian Response To Apple’s Need For Encryption”
Smartphones are the opium of the people. If you need proof, just watch the average person’s reaction when they break “their precious”. Repairing smartphones has become a huge business. The most often broken item on phones is of course the front glass. In most cases, the screen itself doesn’t break. On newer smartphones, even the touchscreen is safe. The front glass is only a protective lens.
The easiest way to repair a broken front glass is to swap the entire LCD assembly. For an iPhone 6 plus, this will run upwards of $120 USD. However, the glass lens alone is just $10. The problem is that the LCD, digitizer and front glass are a laminated package. Removing them without breaking the wafer thin LCD glass requires great care. The hardest part is breaking down the optical glue securing the glass to the LCD. In the past that has been done with heat. More recently, companies from China have been selling liquid-nitrogen-based machines that cool the assembly. Now immersing a phone screen in -196° C liquid nitrogen would probably destroy the LCD. However, these machines use a temperature controller to keep a surface at -140° C. Just enough to cause the glue to become brittle, but not kill the LCD.
[JerryRigEverything] doesn’t have several thousand dollars for a liquid nitrogen machine, but he does have a $5 block of dry ice. Dry ice runs at -78.5°C. Balmy compared to liquid nitrogen, but still plenty cold. After laying the phone screens down on the ice for a few minutes, [Jerry] was able to chip away the glass. It definitely takes more work than the nitrogen method. Still, if you’re not opening your own phone repair shop, we think this is the way to go.
Broken phones are a cheap and easy way to get high-resolution LCD screens for your projects. The problem is driving them. [Twl] has an awesome project on Hackaday.io for driving phone screens using an FPGA. We haven’t seen it done with iPhone 6 yet though. Anyone up for the challenge?
Continue reading “Dry Ice Is Nice For Separating Broken Phone Screens”
