Really Rocket Science - Around the Blogs

DIY Friday: iPhone 4 Antenna Fix

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:00:19 -0700

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...

Get about an inch of scotch tape off the reel (that's Sellotape if you're in the U.K.).

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).

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.

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.

DIY Friday: Chumby 3G Router

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:14:10 -0700

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:

Plug in your 3G card.

Go to the Network Config screen by pressing the top button, going to Settings, then tapping on Network.

Select "create a new connection", press OK, and wait for the scan to time out.

Select "Other"

Enter 3G as the name of the access point. It must have a capital G for it to work.

Wait for the subsequent scan to time out.

Select "Manual".

Tap "OK" to select None as the encryption type.

Tap "OK" to select Automatic IP allocation.

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.

Technorati Tags: internet+radio mifi wifi diy+friday diy chumber

Apps for the Army

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:37:32 -0800

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:

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

The competition runs from March 1st to May 15st 2010

There are 40 employee cash awards totaling $30,000 for mobile and web apps

Only 100 initial teams can participate

Awards will be announced in June, with public demonstrations at LandWarNet

Registration forms and other details can be found on AKO: http://www.army.mil/ciog6/armyapps

Forge.mil will serve as a collaborative software repository

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.

MilBook’s Apps for the Army group will serve as the core collaboration space for all participants

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...

Technorati Tags: istrategy apps+for+the+army app+phone apps dishpointer iphone flying+beer+keg ffid

Sir Arthur's iPad

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:30:14 -0800

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...

Technorati Tags: ipad newspad space+odyssey sir+arthur arthur+clarke clarke+orbit 2001 apple

Helping Haiti

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:47:16 -0800

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.

;

Technorati Tags: haiti red+cross haitian+relief haiti+earthquake earthquake

11-11 Campaign

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:34:12 -0800

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

Technorati Tags: eleven+eleven 11+11 veterans+day

Near-Space Photos

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:22:30 -0700

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...

Technorati Tags: space+photo weather+balloon mit icarus

DIY Friday: Vortex Cannon

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:43:38 -0700

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?

Technorati Tags: diy do+it+yourself vortex+cannon bbc

Iran Satellite Jam

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:31:40 -0700

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.”

Technorati Tags: tehran iran bbc satellite+jamming internet

Mobile Planetarium

Wed, 13 May 2009 20:59:17 -0700

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.

Technorati Tags: sky+map android google mobile+app mobile+planetarium

DIY Friday: Old Dish Signal Booster

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:11:38 -0700

We've blogged about the "cantenna" and repurposing old parabolic dishes for boosting WiFi signals. With people switching from direct-broadcast satellite TV (DISH and DirecTV) to Verizon FiOS, AT&T Uverse, back to cable TV or just cutting all pay television services and using free over-the-air HDTV, you might want to consider using your old antenna for something else.

Birdbaths and Spartan shields are OK ideas, but using it to boost cell phone or WiFi signals might be more useful. We've got a place up in the mountains and finding a good cell signal can be tricky.

Via Instructables, here's the solution:
While working in my yard one afternoon I noticed an old satellite TV dish on top of a pole in my backyard. It had been left there by the previous residents. Suddenly a light bulb came on. I grabbed some wrenches, took down the dish and held my cell phone next to the antenna's horn. I was amazed to find that I instantly got full signal. I could not believe my eyes. I went from no signal to full signal and had not spent a dime or changed anything on my cell phone. Just to make sure I made a call using speaker phone and found that this thing truly did work.
The next test came when I took the assembly inside the house to try it. With aluminum siding on the house I have problems even getting a television signal using a rabbit ear antenna. To my surprise, I got two bars inside so long as I pointed the dish at a double window in my living room. I no longer miss calls and I don't have to leave home to talk on my cell phone. It isn't an ideal setup but it works and did not cost me anything. It is also a great way to recycle that old dish antenna that would have ended up in the trash otherwise.

I will try this myself, as I have the two main elements: weak cell signal and an old antenna.

Technorati Tags: cell+signal signal+booster wifi satellite+tv satellite+antenna antenna

DIY Friday: Solar Cell of Donuts and Tea

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:29:47 -0700

Excellent use of resources: powdered donuts and tea, via Register Hardware:

In a fast-paced video, the presenter runs through a process that essentially combines chemicals from tea and American-style sugared doughnuts to form a solar energy soaking film that can be applied to a sheet of glass.

The process isn’t easy and requires a fair amount of scientific kit, but he starts by extracting “titanium dioxide nanoparticles” from some powdered sugar doughnuts.

Roughly ten layers of these nanoparticles applied to a sheet of glass is, according to the video’s presenter, “pretty much a solar cell”.

But because this set-up on its own won’t work with “regular sunlight", the presenter next extracts organic dyes from a cup of sweet tea that enables the solar cell to “absorb light we can see”.

Finally, to prove that his invention works, the solar scientist hooks the cell up to a multimeter that appears to show an electrical current being generated from the DIY solar cell.

Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?

Technorati Tags: diy solar+cells solar solar+energy nanotech solar+power

Satellite News Bits

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:36:38 -0700

For the week ending 13 March 2009, courtesy of Bill McDonald:

Inmarsat reports 20% jump in revenue, representative of strong earnings being reported by the world's largest satellite-services companies, apparently unaffected by current economic climate. [Wall Street Journal - 03/13/2009]

North Korea notifies international agencies that it plans to launch a satellite between April 4 and April 8; U.S. and south Korea say there are signs North Korea may test a missile capable of reaching Alaska. [Bloomberg - 03/12/2009]

Japan warns North Korea, saying it can legally shoot down any threatening object if it falls toward its territory. [New York Times - 03/13/2009]

Five years since last its reboot, Odyssey's backup systems are restored by a restart, and other systems may also be restored. [SatNews - 03/13/2009]

Arianespace and European Space Agency elect to postpone launch of Herschel and Planck satellites to perform additional ground segment checks. [SatNews - 03/13/2009]

Astronauts evacuate International Space Station as a piece of space debris is expected to pass close to the station. [SatNews - 03/12/2009]

The U.S. Air Force will launch the second Wideband Global Satellite Communications satellite aboard an Atlas V rocket on March 14. [Patrick AFB News - 03/12/2009]

Iridium places backup satellite in service for satellite lost in collision with Russian satellite over Siberia in February. [msnbc - 03/12/2009]

W3C satellite commissioned by Eutelsat, to be built by Thales Alenia Space, a rapid satellite order following the decision in January not to integrate W2M into its fleet due to a major anomaly which occurred during its transfer to its operating orbit position. [SatNews - 03/12/2009]

Networkfleet, Inc. uses high-resolution satellite and hybrid maps to observe vehicles in a real-world setting with 3-D Earth imagery. [SatNews - 03/12/2009]

SpaceX completes full mission firing of Merlin vacuum engine. [Satellite today - 03/12/2009]

Financially struggling Sirius XM Radio plans to stream its subscription radio service to the iPhone and iPod Touch devices from Apple this spring. [CED Magazine - 03/12/2009]

AsiaSat will deregister from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and terminate its reporting obligations. [Satellite Today - 03/12/2009]

The Society of Satellite Professionals International will induct five new members into its Satellite Hall of Fame on March 25. [SatNews - 03/11/2009]

SES Astra will move Astra 2C satellite from 28.2 degrees East to 31.5 degrees East to take over mission of Astra 5A, which is no longer in service. [Satellite Today - 03/11/2009]

France's Orange Business Services deploys customized satellite communications system for Bourbon marine services group vessels. [Businesswire - 03/11/2009]

Thales Alenia Space gets contract with JSC "Iss - Reshetnev Company" to build payload for Telkom-3 communications satellite for Indonesian operator PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia TdK. [SatNews - 03/11/2009]

International Launch Services gets contract to launch the ViaSat-1 satellite, to be highest capacity North American satellite with 10 times capacity of other Ka band satellites, under construction by Space Systems Loral, on an ILS Proton in the first half of 2011. [SatNews - 03/11/2009]

SWE-DISH and Saab announce new on-the-move satellite solution designed for both land and marine applications with close to world-wide coverage using Ku band for up to 10 Mbps broadband communications. [Satellite TMCnet - 03/10/2009]

The European Defence Agency announces plan to set up procurement cell to coordinate EU member states' orders of commercial satellite communications services to improve access at competitive prices. [DefenseNews - 03/09/2009]

NASA's planet-hunting telescope, Kepler, was launched into space Friday night, March 6, on a mission to search for planets similar to Earth in the far reaches of the Milky Way. [R&D - 03/09/2009]

Satellite and cable TV providers seek to increase profit margins by promoting pay-per-view pornography. [AdvertisingAge - 03/09/2009]

Connecticut satellite and cable TV providers pursue customers who may lose signal as switch from analog to digital TV broadcasting takes place there. [Harford Courant - 03/08/2009]

Technorati Tags: satellite+news space+news satcom+news satnews

Hello, Chief?

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:38:52 -0800

Yo, Rocco's back. Lots of interesting stories since I last blogged here. Last week's item almost had me blogging. Now that RRS has a new editor, I'm back as the lead blogger.

First, there was the working bluetooth shoe. Now we've elevated the technology to a working shoe phone:

The entire world has been waiting for decades with baited breath for the arrival of real, working shoe phone technology. You find that hard to believe? Would you believe that someone, somewhere, has been occassionally thinking about shoe phones? Well, the shoe phone finally lives, as you will discover below, and as you can hear for your self, here or here, or listen to an ABC interview which gets interrupted by the shoe phone ringing.

Listen to a radio interview conducted by shoe-phone!
The attention the shoe phone has generated has been quite flattering, including the production of shoe phones by others, resulting in an instructibles article and the first shoe phone on ebay. Perhaps what is most surprising is that noone had actually made a working shoe phone before. But now that cat has been let out of the bag ...

Remote Patient Care: The Serious Side Of Shoe Phones
A significant part of the shoe phone project is the potential medical applications, as summarised in this television report:

Technorati Tags: shoephone shoe+phone

Spitzer Spots Spock's Planet

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:51:10 -0700

Star Trek fans may remember Spock's home star, Epsilon Eridani. Now, with the help of the Spitzer Space Telescope, the discovery of asteroid belts within the nearby system (10.5 light years away) is prompting new comparisons to our own system -- and perhaps a planet Vulcan:

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected two asteroid belts around Epsilon Eridani, the planetary system closest to ours and home to Star Trek's fictitious First Officer Spock, the space agency reported yesterday.
A planet near the inner asteroid belt was identified eight years ago. The newly spotted planet is in the vicinity of the outer belt.
Epsilon Eridani is around 10 light-years, or 62 trillion miles (98 trillion kilometers), away from Earth's solar system and, at a mere 850 million years old, is considered a younger, similar version of our own 4.5- billion-year-old system. Star Trek creators made it the home of Vulcan, and it's possible that there are as-yet-unseen Earth-like planets between the star system and its inner ring, astronomer Massimo Marengo of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told McClatchy Newspapers.
"We certainly haven't seen it yet, but if its solar system is anything like ours, then there should be planets like ours," Marengo told USA Today.

Naturally, this prompted an active discussion on Slashdot, with several citations to literary fiction. More serious discussions abound.

The update from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics doesn't mention Mr. Spock or Vulcans, just what it means to scientists:

Epsilon Eridani and its planetary system show remarkable similarities to our solar system at a comparable age.
"Studying Epsilon Eridani is like having a time machine to look at our solar system when it was young," said Smithsonian astronomer Massimo Marengo (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). Marengo is a co-author of the discovery paper, which will appear in the Jan. 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
Lead author Dana Backman (SETI Institute) agreed, saying, "This system probably looks a lot like ours did when life first took root on Earth."
Our solar system has a rocky asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, about 3 astronomical units from the Sun. (An astronomical unit equals the average Earth-Sun distance of 93 million miles.) In total, it contains about 1/20 the mass of Earth's Moon. Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the team of astronomers found an identical asteroid belt orbiting Epsilon Eridani at a similar distance of 3 astronomical units.
They also discovered a second asteroid belt 20 astronomical units from Epsilon Eridani (about where Uranus is located in our solar system). The second asteroid belt contains about as much mass as Earth's Moon.
A third, icy ring of material seen previously extends about 35 to 100 astronomical units from Epsilon Eridani. A similar icy reservoir in our solar system is called the Kuiper Belt. However, Epsilon Eridani's outer ring holds about 100 times more material than ours.
When the Sun was 850 million years old, theorists calculate that our Kuiper Belt looked about the same as that of Epsilon Eridani. Since then, much of the Kuiper Belt material was swept away, some hurled out of the solar system and some sent plunging into the inner planets in an event called the Late Heavy Bombardment. (The Moon shows evidence of the Late Heavy Bombardment - giant craters that formed the lunar seas of lava called mare.) It is possible that Epsilon Eridani will undergo a similar dramatic clearing in the future.

Some of us would like to believe another planet like ours exists, which recalls the power of the Vulcan Mind Meld in convincing people to think otherwise.

Here's one of my favorite clips from the original TV series:

Technorati Tags: spock spitzer nasa jpl star+trek vulcan planet+vulcan epsilon+eridani asteroid+belts