Turning A Phone Into A Media Center Remote

May 20, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 32 Comments

[Kees] wanted a remote for an XBMC audio system. He had a classic T65 Dutch telephone in one of his project boxes and thought this phone with the addition of a Raspberry Pi he could have a functional media remote with classic lines and 70s styling.

Each of the digits on the phone were wired up to a small solderless breadboard. With a handful of resistors, [Kees] set up a simple pull up/pull down circuit feeding in to his Raspi’s GPIO input.

With a short Python script, [Kees] managed to map the buttons to XMBC’s play/pause, volume up/down, next, and previous commands. There were a few buttons left over, so those were mapped to online radio stations, playlists, and a strange setting known only as ‘moo’. We’re not sure what that button does, but you can see the other functions of this XMBC phone remote in action in the video below.

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Controlling A Terminal With Google Voice

May 19, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 17 Comments

sms

For how awesome Google Voice is, we’re surprised we haven’t seen this before. [Steve] is using Google Voice to run commands on just about any Linux box.

Google Voice doesn’t have an official API, and existing unofficial APIs weren’t up to snuff for [Steve]’s project. He ended up writing his own that checks his unread message inbox every minute and looks for new text messages beginning with the phrase, ‘Cmd’. If a series of checks pass – the text coming from a known phone number and a proper terminal command – the command runs and sends the a text back indicating success or failure.

While [Steve] probably won’t be playing nethack or Zork via SMS anytime soon, we can see this being very useful for a Raspi home automation task. Just send a text message and a properly configured Linux box can open your garage door, turn on the lights, or even start a webcam.

Reading Game Boy Carts With I2C

May 17, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 18 Comments

rasgame

After seeing a Game Boy emulator for the first time, [Thijs] was amazed. A small box with just a handful of electronics that turns a Game Boy cartridge into a file able to be run on an emulator is simply magical. [Thijs] has learned a lot about GB and GBC cartridges in the mean time, but still thinks the only way to really learn something is to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Thus was born [Thijs]’ Game Boy cartridge dumper, powered by a pair of I2C port expanders and a Raspberry Pi.

Inspired by a build to dump ROMs off Super Nintendo games with the help of a Raspberry Pi, [Thijs] grabbed all the hardware necessary to create his own GB cart dumper. A DS Lite cartridge adapter provided the physical connection and a pair of MCP23017 I/O expanders – one soldered to a Slice of PI/O board – provided the electrical connections.

In the end, [Thijs] managed to dump the ROMs off the Japanese editions of Pokemon Yellow and Gold in about 13 minutes. This is a much slower transfer rate of 26 minutes per SNES cart in the post that gave [Thijs] the inspiration for this build. Still, [Thijs] will probably be the first to say he’s learned a lot from this build, especially after some problems with dumping the right banks from the cartridge.

Homebrew GPS Gets ±1 Meter Resolution With A Raspberry Pi

May 17, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 50 Comments

GPS

We’ve been following the work of [Andrew Holme] and his homebrew GPS receiver for a while now. A few years ago, [Andrew] built a four-channel GPS receiver from scratch, but apparently that wasn’t enough for him. He expanded his build last year to track up to eight satellites, and this month added a Raspberry Pi for a 12-channel, battery-powered homebrew GPS receiver that has an accuracy of about 3 feet.

The Raspi is attached to an FPGA board that handles the local oscillator, real-time events, and tracks satellites automatically. The Pi handles the difficult but not time-critical math through an SPI interface. Because the Pi is attached to the FPGA through an SPI interface, it can also load up the FPGA with even more custom code, potentially turning this 12-channel receiver into a 16- or 18-channel one.

An LCD display attached to the FPGA board shows the current latitude, longitude, and other miscellaneous data like the number of satellites received. With a large Li-ion battery, the entire system can be powered for about 5 hours; an impressively portable GPS system that rivals the best commercial options out there.

Rogue Pi: A RPi Pentesting Dropbox

March 24, 2013 by Eric Evenchick 4 Comments

A pentesting dropbox is used to allow a pentester to remotely access and audit a network. The device is dropped onto a network, and then sets up a connection which allows remote access. As a final project, [Kalen] built the Rogue Pi, a pentesting dropbox based on the Raspberry Pi.

The Rogue Pi has a few features that make it helpful for pentesting. First off, it has a power on test that verifies that the installation onto the target network was successful. Since the install of a dropbox needs to be inconspicuous, this helps with getting the device setup without being detected. A LCD allows the user to see if the installation was successful without an additional computer or external display.

Once powered on, the device creates a reverse SSH tunnel, which provides remote access to the device. Using a reverse tunnel allows the device to get around the network’s firewall. Aircrack-ng has been included on the device to allow for wireless attacks, and a hidden SSID allows for wireless access if the wired network has issues. There is a long list of pentesting tools that have been built to run on the Pi.

Check out a video demonstration of the dropbox after the break.

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Hacked Interactive R2D2 Controlled By Raspberry Pi

March 23, 2013 by Ryan Fitzpatrick 2 Comments

hacked-R2D2-controlled-by-raspberry-pi

Ah R2D2. Probably one of the most recognized little robots on the planet. There have to be a hundred different toys of R2 out there, but one of the more impressive is the 30th Anniversary Interactive edition. Complete with all kinds of bells and whistles, it’s about as realistic as they come. One Star Wars fan found himself in possession of a broken Interactive R2, and with his girlfriend’s birthday coming up, decided to do a little droid surgery to create the ultimate gift.

Giving Anakin a run for his money, all the controls for this R2 unit were custom built. A Raspberry Pi running Rasbian acts as the brain. Facial recognition was implemented using OpenCV. Voice commands in either English or Chinese were made possible by PocketSphinx. Some of the other features he included are: message recording and playback, ultrasonic distance detection, motion detection, wifi, and a rechargeable battery. Many of those features were included in the original toy, but since this unit was broken, had to be rebuilt from scratch.

In the end, it must have impressed his girlfriend – she’s now his wife. Good work Jedi. Check out some build photos and a video demonstration after the break.

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Hackaday Links: March 12, 2013

March 12, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 28 Comments

Thankfully saved from steampunkers

meter

[Chris] found a really cool pocket watch-style multimeter in a box of junk that was passed down from father to son. There aren’t any markings on it, so he’s looking for any information he can get on it. It’s a cool piece of vintage tech in any occasion; check out the pics he sent in below:

Here’s a fix for your illegal stuff

[Don] ‘acquired’ one of those China-only Raspberry Pis, but after plugging it in, only the power light would stay on. The fix, apparently, is putting these three files in the /boot folder of a Red Pi SD card.

Not a pocket watch

meter

[Tom] picked up an old DC volt meter in an antiques shop. He quickly gutted it to make an analog meter display for his Raspberry Pi. There’s a few status lights to remind [Tom] of something he hasn’t figured out yet. Bonus points for a cheap buck boost converter, though.

Smashing monitors? Really?

NESIT Hackerspace

The Meriden, CT hackerspace, the New England Society of Information and Technology, was vandalized last week. They’re dealing with some real punks here; their computers weren’t stolen, they were just smashed. NESIT is looking for donations (both money and equipment), so if you have a few monitors or old boxxen and live around there, consider donating them.

Help a guy out here.

survey

[Jonathan] is a real cool dude that’s working on his master’s thesis on ways to build a sustainable company through the development of open source hardware. He wants you to take a survey. How do we know he’s cool? He had something posted on HaD back when we had the old black and white and scotch tape images.