Really Rocket Science

Holding the new iPhone 4 can cause interference between the GSM and WiFi antennae, so naturally the Net is abuzz with this "problem." Hey, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Brilliant Scotchtape solution from Kit Eaton, and costs almost nothing, via Fast Company...

1. Get about an inch of scotch tape off the reel (that's Sellotape if you're in the U.K.).
2. Cut it carefully so that you make a rectangle something over a half-inch long and just tall enough to exceed the iPhone 4's height (about 0.4 inches should do it).
3. Align the piece of tape so that it's covering a section of the lower left metal side of the iPhone 4, some below the thin black plastic line and some above.
4. Stick it around the phone's metal edge, making sure that all of the back of the edge's metal strip is covered--you may even be able to leave the front uncovered, as it's the back where your hand will rest. The main thing is to ensure that it's unlikely that your palm will touch the metal on both sides of the black plastic line.

 
Result: Your iPhone 4's twin antennas are now insulated against skin short-circuiting in the "problem corner". You don't even have to use scotch tape--make a statement and do it in bright red electrician's tape, if you feel better for it. 

 It's about time the geniuses at 3M got some attention.

Oh, and the new iPhone? It's lovely; held one yesterday.

Bunnie's blog has the coolest 3G router you can make yourself with a Chumby...

There's an Easter Egg inside the chumby One (which is now on sale at Costco online for $99, cheaper than chumby.com's $119 price!) that enables it to work with certain 3G USB modems and function as a 3G router (similar to a MiFi). Use of the Easter Egg is documented on the chumby wiki, but it can be quite simple:

1. Plug in your 3G card.
2. Go to the Network Config screen by pressing the top button, going to Settings, then tapping on Network.
3. Select "create a new connection", press OK, and wait for the scan to time out.
4. Select "Other"
5. Enter 3G as the name of the access point. It must have a capital G for it to work.
6. Wait for the subsequent scan to time out.
7. Select "Manual".
8. Tap "OK" to select None as the encryption type.
9. Tap "OK" to select Automatic IP allocation.
10. Tap "OK" to confirm settings and connect to the network

To activate local wifi sharing, ssh into the device (or plug in a USB keyboard to activate the drop-down console) and use the command "touch /psp/start_ap" to flag the network setup scripts to configure your chumby One as an access point. Note that AP mode also works with other network sources, such as Ethernet-over-USB.

Cute.

 It was bound to happen: using an "app phone" in a combat zone. We've seen the DishPointer app in use in Aghanistan, and it probably won't be long before a "tough" unit is out for warfighters in the field. Sure, there must be some proprietary software to keep it secure, but does it have to be so complicated?

Now the U.S. Army is throwing its considerable weight behind it with their "Apps for the Army" program:

Ever since we launched Apps for Democracy for DC’s Office of the CTO back in September 2008 the world has been a-buzz with “Apps for” contests. We recently released a guide for how to create your ownin order to make this kind of innovation method more accessible to people around the world. There are now about a dozen of these innovation contests being run by cities, national governments and various non-profits.

Today I’m happy to announce a new Apps initiative – one which iStrategyLabs has been contracted to create with the Army’s CIO/G6. A special thank you goes out to Tim O’Reilly – who envisioned this program and served as an advisor/connector to make it happen. Below you’ll find full details from the Army’s official media advisory (download as .DOC), and a summary is as follows:

1. A media and bloggers’ roundtable will take place March 3 at 1:30 pm in the Pentagon, Room  1E462.  Lieutenant General Jeffery Sorenson (Army CIO) will discuss Apps for the Army and take questions. To attend the roundtable in person, or if you plan to call in, please contact: Ms. Ashley McCall-Washington at 703-614-1649 or ashley.mccall1@us.army.mil
2. The competition runs from March 1st to May 15st 2010
3. There are 40 employee cash awards totaling $30,000 for mobile and web apps
4. Only 100 initial teams can participate
5. Awards will be announced in June, with public demonstrations at LandWarNet
6. Registration forms and other details can be found on AKO: http://www.army.mil/ciog6/armyapps
7. Forge.mil will serve as a collaborative software repository
8. RACE – a cloud based development sandbox will be provided. Participants can access a Windows server, Linux server and mobile app emulation software for Android and Blackberry. iPhone apps will need to be developed outside of RACE.
9. MilBook’s Apps for the Army group will serve as the core collaboration space for all participants
10. If you’re on twitter, use the hashtag #apps4army to follow the conversation

Video summary...

Cool approach by reaching to developers with real cash prizes.

For more on what's happening out there, it's always a good idea to keep up with Wired's Danger Room:

In the military’s vision of future, the real trick will be getting information down to the individual soldier on the battlefield. Now the Army plans to test a smartphone for soldiers that will have mobile applications that could — in theory — access everything from technical manuals and maintenance records to maps and cultural intelligence.

In a discussion yesterday with reporters, Maj. Gen. Keith Walker, director of the Army’s Future Force Integration Directorate at Fort Bliss, Texas, said that around 200 soldiers would receive an “iPhone-like device” with digital apps installed.

Walker said the devices would have “various apps for system maintenance, instruction manuals — that we can all remotely upgrade. Also, we’re working to allow soldiers to have a distributed way of getting feedback to us on the equipment, where they can do Wikipedia-style upgrades to tactics, techniques and procedures, and comments on performance of hardware and software.”

Further down the road, Walker said he could envision tactical applications, like an app with GPS capability that could pinpoint the user’s location, or a digital tool that would allow troops to analyze terrain.

“This initiative we are moving out on,” Walker said. “We will see this happen this year.”

It’s part of a larger project called Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications. While there is not yet a definite plan to procure and field a combat iPhone, troops at Fort Bliss will experiment with the handset to test ways that some of these new technologies might actually be integrated into the force.

It’s not the only experiment underway at Fort Bliss. Soldiers of the service’s 5th Brigade, 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss are testing and evaluating pieces of the Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization plan — a more streamlined successor to the service’s now-defunct Future Combat Systems program. Other items being tested include a common controller, a Nintendo-style control that can be used to maneuver both the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle robot and the Class I Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (affectionately known as the “flying beer keg”).

 Need some imagination? Check out these gadgets and robots...

TUAW's Steven Sande picked up on the "Newspad," envisioned by Sir Arthur Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship's information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit's short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.

Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination.

Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word "newspaper," of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automatically on every hour; even if one read only the English versions, one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorbing the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites.

It was hard to imagine how the system could be improved or made more convenient. But sooner or later, Floyd guessed, it would pass away, to be replaced by something as unimaginable as the Newspad itself would have been to Caxton or Gutenberg.

From 2001: A Space Odyssey , by Arthur C. Clarke.
Published by Del Rey in 1968

This video clip show the iPad-like device in action...

What can you do to help if you're too busy? Text "Haiti" to 90999, and you'll be billed $10 as a donation to the Red Cross.

GeoEye-1 spacecraft captured this image:

This half-meter resolution satellite image shows Port-au-Prince, Haiti after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the area on Jan. 12, 2010. The image clearly shows extensive damage, roads covered with debris from collapsed structures, and people crowded in the streets and public places such as sports fields and stadiums. The white-colored National Palace shows damage along the roof line. The image was taken by the GeoEye-1 satellite from 423 miles in space at 10:27 a.m. EST on Jan. 13, 2010 as it moved from north to south over the Caribbean at a speed of four miles per second.

Here's a little "Bible-thumping" effort in Haiti worth watching, if only to see how people live...

Real Hope For Haiti from Corrigan Clay on Vimeo.

Hey, got $11 to spare? Sure you do.

Students at MIT sent a weather balloon up with a camera. It reached 93,000 feet. That's cool.

It cost them less than $150. That's dope.

The summary, via Wired:

Meet the $150 (almost to) Space Camera.

Bespoke is old hat. Off-the-shelf is in. Even Google runs the world’s biggest and scariest server farms on computers home-made from commodity parts. DIY is cheaper and often better, as Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh found out when they decided to send a camera into space.

The two students (from MIT, of course) put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth. Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems, they filled a weather balloon with helium and hung a styrofoam beer cooler underneath to carry a cheap Canon A470 compact camera. Instant hand warmers kept things from freezing up and made sure the batteries stayed warm enough to work.

Of course, all this would be pointless if the guys couldn’t find the rig when it landed, so they dropped a prepaid GPS-equipped cellphone inside the box for tracking. Total cost, including duct tape? $148.

Great photos, too. Here's a video...

This is pretty awesome: a vortex cannon demonstration, seen on BBC One:

Can I make one myself? You bet: Instructables has it for you.

This one is so easy to make and gives great results. You will need a fog machine to generate the rings for both of these projects.

What You Need...

1. 32 Gallon Plastic Trash Can
2. Heavy Duty Trash Bag
3. Golf Ball
4. 2 Bunjee Cords
5. Tape
6. Box cutter

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Amnesty International is telling us the BBC's satellite feeds from Iran are being jammed. But they still got this report out:

I especially like this report. The Internet? Its a war zone:

More and more of Iran’s pro-government websites are under assault, as opposition forces launch web attacks on the Tehran regime’s online propaganda arms.

What started out as an attempt to overload a small set of official sites has now expanded, network security consultant Dancho Danchev notes. News outlets like Raja News are being attacked, too. The semi-official Fars News site is currently unavailable.

“We turned our collective power and outrage into a serious weapon that we could use at our will, without ever having to feel the consequences. We practiced distributed, citizen-based warfare,” writes Matthew Burton, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who joined in the online assaults, thanks to a “push-button tool that would, upon your click, immediately start bombarding 10 Web sites with requests.”

Yeah, the iPhone apps get all the attention. Here's one from Google for the Android:

We were able to play around with a T-Mobile G1 test device in the office and were intrigued by all of the sensors that were available. The GPS and clock allowed us to generate maps for the exact time and location, but the compass and accelerometer were what made Sky Map truly interesting. Using these two sensors, the app can determine the exact direction that your phone is facing and display the stars that are visible. If you want to identify that bright star in the west, all you have to do is point the device in that direction and you'll see "Venus" appear on your screen.

 Very cool.