Want 21 megabytes more ram in your Nexus One? [Coolbho3000] worked out a way to tweak the kernel and remap memory usage to free up some resources. That means this comes as a custom kernel image requiring no hardware alteration. Try it out and share your experiences in the comments. But if you don’t need more ram you can just upgrade to the most recent kernel.
[Thanks Juan]
Today’s the day the Google announces this year’s participant organizations in the Google Summer of Code. If you’re not tied down to a job this summer we hope you’ll take advantage of this opportunity to learn by doing and contribute code to a great open source project all at the same time.
A lot of our favorite software has benefited from GSoC in the past. XBMC has participated before, as well as WordPress, Asterisk, MySQL, Bluez, Natural User Interface Group, and many more.
Student applications are accepted between March 29th and April 9th. If you’re accepted in the program and excel at your work with passing grades at mid-term and final project dates, you’ll see your pockets grow by $5000. Get out there and put your mad coding skills to good use while you have the chance.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKRH6uQwOgg]
Meet GåågleBot. GåågleBot is a modified roomba that will not only vacuum your home, but collect data while it does it. While it is carrying out its normal duties as a floor cleaner, it will take pictures, collecting and analyzing all the data for later searches. With built in OCR, you can actually search for things using text strings.
Aside from just carrying out its normal job, you can also remote control it via the web. You can even control theirs!
[via Boing Boing]
Google’s tentacles continue to wrap around every portion of our lives with the addition of an API for their PowerMeter software. The PowerMeter tool works with smart electricity meters to monitor and display power usage in the home. This will allow manufacturers (and hackers alike) to design new devices with the Google interface in mind.
We’ve got an old-fashioned power meter with a spinning dial and no blinking LED. This means we can’t monitor that blink to add our own PowerMeter interface. But if you do have an easy way to grab data from your meter you can design a home system that takes full advantage of Google’s tools.
Ok, who’s going to be the first to have their Google PowerMeter-compatible hack featured on Hackaday?
[Thanks Juan]
Many of the projects we post are so well thought out and engineered, they could hardly be called “hacks”. This one, however, falls neatly into the hack category. [Dave] wanted his very own exercise bike hooked to Google maps. Instead of setting up a control system and writing software to control Google maps, he simply hacked a USB game controller. He wired a magnetic switch directly into the board, where the “up” button is. Then he mounted the switch so that it would be triggered each time he rotated the pedal. Though he only has the forward movement done right now, it would be pretty easy to set up a couple more switches at the base of the handle bar for left and right.
While the experience may not be quite as nice as the more complicated one, aside from head tracking, it isn’t that far off.
You know it’s getting a bit ridiculous when hardware that hasn’t hit the streets is being rooted. That’s exactly what has happened, root access can now be achieved on the Nexus One. [Paul] found an exploit and packaged it nicely so that anyone can do it. We do wish he had shared the details of the exploit but we’re not complaining.
If you’re not in the know, the Nexus One is the fabled Google Phone now come to life. It’s slated for release in 2010 and some think that will be officially unveiled at a January 5th press conference. That’s right, unveiled. The device has been cracked yet it doesn’t officially exist. What it does do is join a growing number of rooted android phones.
[via Gizmodo]
While visiting family we noticed that their telephone had a dedicated GOOG-411 button. We’ve been using Google’s free 411 service for what seems like years but seeing this show up in the form of an auto-dial button is astonishing.
The question that pops to mind: how is this not an antitrust suit waiting to happen? Directory assistance is BIG MONEY that Google undercut when launching its free service. By shipping phones that have the number pre-programmed doesn’t that limit choice and competition in the same way that shipping Windows with Internet Explorer does? Perhaps the difference is that Microsoft has a near monopoly on the PC OS market while GE can’t say the same about cordless phones.
We’re not antitrust lawyers, and neither are you, but we’d still like to hear your opinions about this in the comments.
