IPhone Controlled R/C Car

October 17, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 22 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2EJ2kouK7U]

Is controlling an R/C car with its own remote too mundane for you? Do you feel the need to involve a web server and an iPhone in the process? This project might just be perfect for you. By connecting the R/C controller to a microcontroller board, and feeding it signals via a website from your iPhone, you can control the car as if you had the original controller in your hand. In case you missed it, he’s lugging a laptop, a circuit board, and the original controller along with him. They do make a few improvements though, such as speed control by using pulse width modulation. I guess that makes up for having to lug the computer around too.

[thanks Humberto]

Gizmodo’s Guide To Smartphone OSes

October 9, 2008 by Kimberly Lau 10 Comments

Gizmodo’s in-depth look at smartphone OSes provides you with the pros and cons of each, allowing you to make an educated decision, if you’re in the market for a phone that also has email, a web browser, a calendar, and a decent contacts manager. If you’re attracted to the open source Linux-based Android by Google, you’ll also have to keep in mind that there aren’t that many business features. Other contenders include the Blackberry by RIM, which is great for email, but is completely closed and proprietary. The Apple iPhone is very pretty but lacks some basic features. They cover Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Palm Garnet too. It’s certainly a handy guide since most people haven’t used all six.

IPhone OBD-II App

September 27, 2008 by Jason Rollette 61 Comments

Rev by DevToaster is an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows real-time monitoring of vehicle ECU data from the OBD-II port. Rev interfaces with a WiFi OBD-II dongle.

If your check engine light is on or flashing, REV is able to check the engine code, list all of the engine codes stored in the vehicle, and reset the stored codes or check engine light.

Rev is able to monitor real-time; vehicle speed, RPM, fuel consumption, engine coolant temp, fuel pressure, calculated engine load, throttle position, intake manifold pressure, air intake temp, timing advance, mass air flow, fuel level, barometric pressure, EVAP system vapor pressure, and fuel trim.

A brief video of REV in action is after the break.

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IPhone Forensics 101: Bypassing The Passcode

September 25, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 12 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaxSF9EOjxw]

Watch in wonder as forensics expert [Jonathan Zdziarski] takes you step by step through the process of bypassing the iPhone 3G’s passcode lock. Gasp in amazement as he creates a custom firmware bundle. [Jonathan], creator of NES.app a Nintendo emulator for the iPhone, is well respected for his work on opening the iPhone. In this presentation, he sheds some light on the forensics toolkit he helped develop for law enforcement agencies that we covered earlier.

GPS Alarm Clock

September 19, 2008 by Eliot 5 Comments

We spotted an interesting app in Gizmodo’s iPhone roundup for the week. iNap is designed for commuters that don’t want to miss their train stop. Just pick any location you can find on Google Maps, set the distance for the alert radius and the alarm tone, and it’s ready. It’s a great app and only costs $1.

The app actually reminds us of the first time we heard about Bug Labs. The modular gadget building system was described to us as a way to build unconventional consumer electronics. They specifically talked about one person that built an alarm clock with GPS because he kept falling the asleep on the train. Thanks to convergence we’re seeing a lot of devices expand from their initial intentions, whether it’s an iPhone GPS alarm clock or an N95 being used auto upload your bike ride to Flickr.

Apple Finally Fixes DNS Bug

September 15, 2008 by Eliot 4 Comments

With today’s release of Security Update 2008-006 Apple has finally addressed this summer’s DNS bug. In their previous update they fixed BIND, but that only affects people running servers. Now, they’ve updated mDNSResponder. Clients are no longer susceptible to DNS cache poisoning attacks thanks to the inclusion of source port randomization.

The Security Update addresses some other interesting bugs. Time Machine was saving sensitive logs without using the proper permissions, so any user could view them.

[photo: edans]

IPhone Screengrab Issues

September 13, 2008 by Eliot 8 Comments

This is unfortunately another story we missed out on while we were trying to keep things from burning down. We told you that [Jonathan Zdziarski] was going to demonstrate iPhone lock code bypassing in a webcast. The real surprise came when he pointed out that the iPhone takes a screenshot every time you use the home button. It does this so it can do the scaling animation. The image files are presumably deleted immediately, but as we’ve seen before it’s nearly impossible to guarantee deletion on a solid state device. There’s currently no way to disable this behavior. So, even privacy conscious people have no way to prevent their iPhone from filling up storage with screenshots of all their text message, email, and browsing activities. Hopefully Apple will address this problem just like they did with the previous secure erase issue. O’Reilly promises to publish the full webcast soon.

[via Gizmodo]