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Sat, 31 Dec 2005So some good news...UAT will probably happen this weekend. I have a completed demo system. Following features:
MO-SMS will likely come after the SIP proxy is setup. One interesting this is, if you specify the full IP address with a number, you can send SIP Messages directly to other handsets. Stupid asterisk..can't handle SMS coming in from handsets :( Wanna call me? 360-382-2103 ... I might answer, and you can leave a voicemail if you want too! Fri, 30 Dec 2005After a lot of digging, I determined what "SIMPLE" messaging referred to. This is actually "SIP Message". Its supported by several handsets and pieces of software (like asterisk) to varying degrees. Currently, asterisk does not properly support reception of text messages, and can only transmit text messages to a handset during calls. This makes text messaging difficult to implement. My definition of "text messaging" is the ability to transparently send SMS-like messages of 160 characters or greater to other handsets, and ultimately, other providers. Which, BTW, can be done economically -- more on this later. Thankfully, there are several promising hacks to offer such a system on VoIP phones like the Senao SI-680H that offer both MO (Mobile Origination) and MT (Mobile Termination) features via SIP Message. As an added benefit, SIMPLE/SIP Message is supported during a call too on the handset. This is a very good thing. Also, I have not been able to get the voicemail indicator to light (MWI) to show up on the SI-680H. I suspect that it does not support it. But then again, even one particular GSM carrier went without this for years, and simply used SMS notifications. Sounds pretty reasonable. After I finish up a finalized asterisk configuration, which will include inbound/outbound dialing, voicemail, and activation system, it will be time for User Acceptance Testing (UAT). My hypothesis is that it will fail, but I plan on publishing some of the results...I suspect they will be interesting. People expect phone to work, cell phones are irrating, and i suspect that a VoIP phone with a UI designed by an engineer for an engineer will likely throw one heck of a wrench into the works. Maybe someone in Taiwan will read it and take a hint. Please give us good WiFi VoIP phones that end users like grandma can use!
There is nothing worse than an unregistered SIP phone. In this state, numerical dialing, as we know it, does not work. Dial 911 on an unregistered phone? HAH! sucker! Nothing happens. The entire concept of voice over IP is so abstract, there are many layers in the system (At Layer 7 or lower) that need to be put into place in order to permit voice traffic. VoIP is not circuit-switched. The piece that makes the call is not sitting at the bottom of the OSI like other conventional cellular systems. You can't just dial a random number from an unauthorized phone, and get routed to 911, activation, or told that you are not permitted to make calls. Combinding VoIP with WiFi also introduces a number of new problems. Lets go through the sequence of an average WiFi VoIP phone as it goes through all sorts of hoops to become a telephone. I will include basic flow and state machines in the same diagram. We will learn how complex the process is, what the breakdown points are, whats wrong with the state of WiFi VoIP today, and maybe some solutions to fix this problem. Look at this giant state machine, and you can see why a simple concept as WiFi VoIP can be a very challenging ordeal. Being able to properly identify where a breakdown is taking place is absolutely critical in a WiFi VoIP network. WiFi VoIP State Machine:
Here is more detail on all the processes involved:
Currently, on WiFi VoIP SIP phones today, dialing 911 (or any other emergency/activation/etc number) before State 7 results in no action. This probably goes for just about any other SIP phone out today. I propose the following framework or best practices for WiFi VoIP handling of emergency calls. Handset designers should probably consider incorporating some of these features. This will become more and more important as the FCC pushes E911 requirements on VoIP data networks. Quick Draft - Best Practices for handling Emergency Calls
If "911" is entered into a (WiFi) VoIP handset, and handset is not registered properly, the following attempts should be made:
Handset should originate useful information that would aid in the location of the particular handset in order to meet E911 standards. Location information would be items like:
Thu, 29 Dec 2005The Senao SI-680H is a WiFi VoIP handset which resembles a Nokia 3300/8200 in terms of design, functionality, and feature set. It has a candybar form factor, numeric key pad, and several soft keys.
I could write a lot more fluff about this phone, but frankly we don't really care. We all know how a phone is supposed to work, and we all know the intent of this product. What we are interested in is the user experience -- and more importantly -- if I put this next to a Nokia 8260, would the user experience be transparent. There are a few bugs in the current version of firmware:
displays And some bothersome UI/execution issues:
Conclusion A pretty good stab at WiFi VoIP, especially since a lot of fundamental issues have been addressed well in this handset compared to more unfavorable units *cough*Zyxel*cough*. Being able to roam seamlessly across a wireless network is absolutely important -- and it does it quite well. Better than most laptops on a WiFi network could. There was very little noticable drop out during handovers. This is with the G.711 codec! Audio quality was also outstanding. While G.711 on the 680 blows my $400 CDMA phone out of the water, G.723 still sounded remarkably clearer. After calling several other numbers with my VoIP phone -- both circuit and packet switched -- I was beginning to notice that there are certainly a lot of VoIP phones out there with absolutely awful audio quality. Some of them were just a little overmodulated or tin can sounding. BUT -- that aside -- A little bit of customization is desired in order to make this handset more "carrier grade" and "user friendly". If I could disable/lock the provisioning menu on the handset, customize the startup image, and make the #/* keys work, and got rid of all the VoIP/SIP techno clutter, i'd probably give it a higher rating. On the horizon is the SI-681H. This is a color version of the phone, with improved internals, and a more Nokia-like user interface. This phone also looks much more customizable. This phone has not been released from Senao yet, but as soon as it is, i might snag one.
Mon, 19 Dec 2005So after a 3 month ordeal waiting for my Azatel WIP VoIP phone, including lost packages in the mail, a UPS shipment that never arrived with no tracking number, my CC was mysteriously credited the full amount. The vendor, Innertree Communications has not offered any explaination for this. I am guessing they were not able to fulfill this order.
I have, instead, selected a US vendor by the name of Defacto Wireless. I ordered another
As a refresher, the AZA-WIP is a color java VoIP phone, and the SI-680H is a simple B/W VoIP phone with text messaging functions. I have found a couple other OEM VoIP phone outfits over the past few months, but they are all the same -- unresponsive and/or plauged with supply problems. Some handsets have been in "development" for over a year.
Wed, 14 Dec 2005I am happy to report the SeattleWireless fundraiser is complete. This is a significant milestone in SeattleWireless network deployment! While financing could potentially be our biggest hurdle for this project, there is a lot of other hard work ahead for some of the core SWN members on this project. I really believe in everybody on this project, and suspect that we will stay on target, meet deadlines, and finish this project as soon as possible. According to the project plan, the expected completion date of the fundraiser was 12/15/2005. Most certainly, the financing round is an important milestone in any project--otherwise it just would not get off the ground. This puts us on target so far, but I won't get too much ahead of myself. There is still a long ways to go. Expect the holiday season to put a damper on this project. While purchasing and provisioning of gear can work in parallel of aquiring a tower climber, expect no climbing until after the holiday season (aka, all the big stuff happens January). There is actually a pretty well-defined completion date. This will be announced after we officially secure a tower climber, and after we can schedule a climb date with the tower owner (which A-Toys simply leases space from).
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Wed, 30 Nov 2005
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Tue, 29 Nov 2005
SeattleWireless Tower Fundraiser
SeattleWireless has been presented with the grand opportunity of collocating on top of a large radio tower on top of in the Seattle area at no cost! But we need your help to make this project a reality. One of the most difficult engineering obstacles when building a community wireless network is access to high locations. WiFi signals require line-of-sight between two locations in order to function properly. Building a network within a juggle of large, concrete apartment buildings and steel high rises, even over a couple blocks is a monumental task. This is especially true when noting that SeattleWireless projects are solely financed on a need-by-need basis by members. Our nodes are built with inexpensive, off-the-shelf hardware, and we even climb rooftops in the pouring Seattle rain. However, a radio tower is not your typical roof top. There is no elevator to the top of this structure! Skilled and insured tower climbers need to be hired, weather hardened gear needs to be purchased, and care needs to be taken on hardware selection so that we only need to hire a climber once. A tower location, such as this one located on Capitol Hill, not only helps expand our network in the Seattle area, but ultimately opens access from many other locations in the Puget Sound area. It will provide our community network with a high, central location to bring our network to a critical mass required to foster further growth. We have budgeted $2500 to purchase the required hardware, contract a climber to install the gear, and cover any additional hardware costs and future site maintenance. Due to the significant costs of this project, we need your help! We have been offered the unique opportunity of free tower space with no recurring costs. We have the technical skills, the facilities, all we need now is your generosity. Please visit http://www.seattlewireless.net/fundraiser/ to help out -- even if you just want to donate a couple bucks.
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Fri, 18 Nov 2005This project is really picking up a lot of steam. About one week ago, Surj Patel started asking a few peculiar questions about the GM862-PCS....the kind of questions one asks with intent to build their own homebrew cell phone from commodity parts.. The plans were similar -- gumstix, cheap surplus LCD, and GM862. These three components are the key ingredients to the "brains" inside such a device. If you have read any of my previous articles, the GM862 provides voice/data capabilities and is controlled via serial port. Word of such a crazy project has started to hit the mainstream already. CNet wrote an article earlier this week titled Build it yourself cell phones. With this article came more interested people out of hiding, and more help means this project is going to take off like crazy. A few things have changed since i first purchased the product. Telit announced availability of a Phython version of this product. This can make intial prototyping quite easy, along with providing the "glue" to either avoid the gumstix in the first place (less interesting; yet has applications) as well as provide a better abstraction layer for easier control of the GM862's interworkings. Such an "API" or abstraction layer would also be useful when supporting more than just the GM862 (yes, there are more modules out there than this...and they'll be even more soon). This might be a smart idea to avoid redundant efforts. Why build a cell phone? Good question. I have a hard time answering this question, myself. I think the biggest reason why I am so interested is that all cellular hardware platforms are very closed. Since the inception of the camera phone on the 1xRTT networks, I immedately invisioned how nice it would be to be able to write native code for my handset. Lets see...100Kbps symetrical throughput, camera on front of flip, along with 80x60 screen, full audio capabilities. Gee.. i could do video conferencing with this handset...oh wait..no i cant...platform is closed, and java cant talk to the camera or the outside screen. Well, then, I have a button on the side of this Sprint phone....i could deploy push to talk and just use a low bitrate vocoder (like the onboard QCELP encoder/decoder). But no, i cant. I'd have to write native code to run such a SIP app in the background. I had to wait 2 more years for Sprint to finally release such a beast. Since Java VM's are limited and slow, most phones cannot even run these apps in the background, it serverely limits a mobile developer. If we only had a hackable platform with direct access to the hardware, our mobile dreams would become our reality, and we would stop lusting over those Japanese and Korean handsets once and for all. Or maybe the fundimental answer is, I do it because I can.
I think the most unusual is lavender, but at least it taste like it
smells.
Thu, 17 Nov 2005I was given a VIP pass to see Stephen Hawking in person at the Paramount yesterday, so I had to attend. Unfortunately after I arrived, it was announced that due to some heath issues, he was not actually able to make it to Seattle. Stephen's lecture coorinator gave us this story: Stephen was pulled off the resporator he sleeps on last Monday, and flat-lined. He was resuscitated and everything turned out to be okay. Stephen still wanted to go to Seattle for the lecture, but his doctors and wife vetoed the idea. But fear not, there was a production crew of 8 Intel employees in two Satellite trucks to save the day. The LCD projector turns on, and a web browser at an Intel website pops up. It is some sort of web conference site, allowing you to view slides along with the cast. The video starts buffering and streaming at 2280kbps, and we watch a jumbo version of Stephen speaking for about an hour or so. The operator was flipping between slides and the video stream, and accidently closed the browser a couple times, but otherwise it worked out pretty well. At the end, it was question time. No, apparently we can't ask questions directly anymore. We were given a canned top ten list instead. Questions ranged from what Stephen's take was on the Simpsons episode he stared in, to stem cell research, the mars space program, and what his IQ was. Even though I did not get to see im in person on the stage of the paramount, it still was a great moment to see the man talk about the origins of the universe.
Fri, 11 Nov 2005
Hacking The Knows Your Name Elmo HOWTO
Intro People have been asking for a HOWTO on messing with Elmo. This is all a work in progress, but I will still share with you my findings so far. There are a couple of things that are unknown at the moment, so if you figure out something new, please be sure to contact me at the email address above. Elmo Overview
Elmo
Knows Your Name I have not dared to crack open this device (its tomorrow's present for god's sake!), so I do not know what exactly is on board. I would expect a very basic processor or programmable logic chip, coupled with some sort of memory, and of course, a USB controller. Getting Started After you install the software, I suggest you do the initial configuration. You will get an idea on how this device operates. Ultimately, you will use this to push out your tweaks. Files of Interest There are two directories, "names" contains samples of about 15,000 names. "sounds" contains elmo spoken phrases in audio files. The audio extension is "rbf". I have not been able to determine this file format. I have tried to import it as a raw format using a-Law, u-Law, etc. but no luck. There are strings of zeros in the audio files, so I suspect that if compression is actually used, its some sort of ADPCM variant. Without being able to convert these files from a usable format, we cannot create new files just yet -- but keep practicing those Elmo voices, i'm sure its format discovery is just around the corner. Another file of interest is temp.inf. This contains a sort of scripting file that defines what audio files are played in what order. It also has variables, various groupings to handle games and songs, and a memory map at the bottom of the file. There are also some files that appear that contain both a human-readable and numerical representation of the variables you configured in the software. These are not too interesting. doll_ext.bin contains something, but I am not sure what it is. Is it code? Is it a linked and binary version of temp.inf? Who knows. Tell me. Playing with temp.inf This cute, innocently named file has most of the guts. Its very easy to follow, but I will document the syntax as best as I currently understand it. The file starts with "doll_ext.bin". I don't know what this is yet. Subroutines are defined throughout most of this file, with a label, like PL_001:. There are GAME and STORY labels near the bottom that link to these labels. The PLAY function allows you to concatinate various audio files, delays, and variables which link to dynamic sounds (such as the child's name). Elements are delimited with +. Example Time Honestly, I found Elmo's cultural insensitivity a little insulting, especially with its very Westernized selection of foods. So for this example, Elmo needs to like to eat whale and seals too, since my daughter loves that stuff we keep in the freezer. PLAY ONE_DAY+[100MSEC]+ELMO+EAT+WHALE+AND+SEAL+[300MSEC]+MMMMMMMM+[200MSEC] Scripting Elements I have seen the following variable elements:
#CHILDSNAME -- child's name (as defined) #FRIEND1 -- friend 1 (as defined) #FRIEND2 -- friend 2 (as defined) #FRIEND3 -- friend 3 (as defined) #PAUSE -- This is a significant pause, enough for a child to respond #FAVCOLOR -- color (as defined) #FAVANIMAL -- animal (as defined) #FAVFOOD1 #FAVFOOD2 #FAVFOOD3 #AGE #FAVDRINK Other elements:
[nMSEC] -- n Delay in milliseconds <BIRTHDAYSONG> -- some sort of special routine, no references Linking it all together If you really want to start screwing around with Elmo, its best to modify a program or game. I suspect that, by comparing behavor and looking at the list of items, the device will select a random line or go in sequence down the list. Here's what I mean:
GAME3_LABEL:
PL_024,PL_136,PL_137,PL_138,PL_140,PL_084,PL_619
PL_124,PL_126,PL_128,PL_125,PL_127,PL_129
PL_097,PL_094,PL_134,PL_131,PL_133,PL_135,PL_131A,PL_133A,PL_135A
This plays a sequence of audio files. Now, I have not been daring enough to modify games or create new ones (not sure if it will run GAME9_LABEL just because its there), so let me know what you find out. Crazy memory table I don't understand why this device has a bunch of built-in sounds, especially when the software pushes out most of the phrases. This could be just stuff that was built in the demo mode, since the demo is part of this list too. It indicates the byte offset from memory location 0 where the audio exists. I am not certain how it detects "end of file".
INTERNAL_SPEECH_TABLE InternalVersion00 00077571 SP18918 00077597 YOURE_A_GREAT_PRETENDER 00087751 YOURE 00090681 YOUR_BIRTHDAY 00096185 YOUR 00097171 YEAH 00101307 YAY 00112121 WITH_ELMO ..... 00397170 COUNT 00400292 BREAKFAST 00404230 BEDTIME 00408366 AWAKE 00411872 AND 00415192 A1_ELMO_TRYME_8K 00518868 A I am hoping that A1_ELMO_TRYME_8K offers us a little glimpse into what kind of files we are dealing with. I am guessing that if one word (about a second) equals about 4-5kB, these samples are either operating at 4000Hz, or they are ADPCM (4 bits/sample) at 8KHz audio bandwidth. ... or maybe the demo is just a higher sample rate so it fools us all into thinking this thing is actually inteligible. Demonstration No hack would be complete without a demonstration video. The audio is a little raspy (cell phone mic sucks, along with the low Elmo sample rate), but enjoy its glory. Click the movie for the...your know...the movie!
To Do
Ideas Assuming that once this little file format issue is figured out, the hacker can actually remove the small, plastic device that goes inside Elmo, and "voice enable" just about any other stuff animal. I think your biggest issue is finding someone to do the vocals, but Dad or Mom could voice-enable a favorite teddy bear while he/she was away on business. I guess that would be cute.
Thu, 10 Nov 2005Knows Your Name Elmo Introducing the "Knows Your Name" Elmo doll! It features a USB interface and allows the parent to fully configure the doll with all sorts of parameters. Right now, the doll talks about her favorite foods, animals, and important people in her life (Its programmed to: Daddy, Mommy, Aaka right now). The crazy thing also knows what time it is, and starts talking about bed time when its..you know..time for bed! So a talking elmo doll with a USB jack in its back is begging to be hacked. While I just bought it tonight, it does show up as a HID (Human Interface Device) with no drivers needed. It has load a lot of audio files on your drive during CD installation (it actually installs all 15,000 names and phrases onto your freaking hard drive, making the install long and painful). The audio files are in "RBF" format, with the magic header of "WDMdM". Looking at the files with a binary editor, it is likely a raw format. Hacking Knows Your Name Elmo or ELMO_SAYS+[100MSEC]+I_AM_WATCHING_YOU+[20MSEC]+#CHILDSNAME There is another file in the base directory called "temp.inf". This file contains a script of various commands. Here's a snip:
or this silly number:
PL_246: From first glance, this script file is compiled into some sort of binary data file which links to a glob of audio. The unit has limited space, as i can only upload 3 songs...a bulk of this space is taken up by speech fragments. It looks like this Elmo is nothing more than an overgrown audio player in shuffle mode, along with a motorized mouth. It is very, very hackable. Maybe if I have more time alone with the thing, ill be able to get it to something really cool besides its default factory speech routines. I am going to have to work on my elmo voice though. ChatNow Move slightly over to the left Cybiko, make way for the ChatNow communication system. These 900MHz handsets feature 10 digit voice dialing, text messaging, digital camera, multiple ringers, push-to-talk button. You can even send pictures to other handset users, or assign them to entries in your phone book. 30 ringtones are available... Wow, thats gotta kick FRS's ass. I'm going to buy a pair.
*DAMN* After downloading Google Maps Mobile for my SprintPCS Sanyo MM7400, I immedately run this app. My screen goes completely blank, and suddenly, I have a full screen satellite view of north america. I can zoom in and out, go to vector map mode, with the same look, feel, and smoothness as google maps. The 1xRTT network makes it load as fast as it does on the desktop. After zooming in over my office building, I decide to start messing around with its local search functionality. I type in "Coffee", and 3 Google Map-isk dialog boxes pop up showing me where I can get coffee in Bellevue. It also tells me to hit 1-9. As I hit these numbers, the app quickly pans and centers over the item of interest -- even if they are on the screen or down 5 blocks. The dialog boxes even dynamically point and shape as they swish on and off the screen. Need directions? No problem. Click "Directions" and you get a nice green dot you can position on any city street. You then position the end dot. If you do not want to visually describe your start and stop locations, it also accepts addresses. After you place your start/stop points, it routes and gives you real-time directions. The only downside is that, since it is a third party application without a signed GPS API certificate, it cannot pull location data from Sprint. I am sure that once that is functional, this will be one killer LBS app.
Wed, 09 Nov 2005MindCamp was COOL. I am working on a post mortem for the issues we had with WiFi. In short, our social experiment involving mesh networking in the client space failed. I will explain more later. The backup plan was to use OLSR in the distribution layer, and use access points in the access layer. This allowed us to deploy a wifi network with *no* cable plant. AND NO WE DID NOT USE WDS FOR GOD'S SAKE. It was a success--although it could be greatly improved. Matt, Rob, and I will be putting some serious cycles into making this an even better solution. I would have to say the notable experience was a few hours spent offline with Michael Laine after his Space Elevator presentation. Michael is working on something great, and it should bring countless other, more "down to earth" (he he), innovations. An unlikely innovation in the DVD arena captured my imagination. Since I first set eyes on a DVD player (ultimately the menuing system, and the apparent extensive scripting capabilities), I thought it would be cool to have a movie that either had a different plot every time you watched it, or perhaps a plot that stopped at various decision points. As someone who has experience in the whole video scene, its difficult enough to write one plot, let alone 2^n plot deviations with just two choices alone. I have never had the time or the ability to make such a complex story line. Make My Day (DVD) does just this. Its a choose your own adventure DVD!! The viewer is given almost an endless amount of choices as the video progresses. The disc is a comedy, and naturally has a very indy film feel to it. I thought this DVD project was so amazing, that I am going to buy it for christmas. Near the end of the camp, I figured id show up to this one talk about "Cell phone programming". I almost didn't go...it sounded like someone explaining how to bypass phone subsidy lock codes so they could be provisioned to operate on other carriers. Thankfully, this was not the case! UIEvolution has just launched something quite amazing called UJML. UJML is a programming language done in XML. I have no idea why the hell anyone would want to use the XML framework in a programming language, but they pretty much just use them all as functions and ditched the brackets. UJML is a VM that rides on top of BREW or J2ME, and all code is platform independent and automatically scalable. While it is not multithreaded, it has an extensive system for handling events (like a VBL, etc) which makes its perfect for games. UJML has all the "meat" of J2ME in a very easy to understand format. Anybody can crank out some amazing software for mobile phones using this system. The best part: Everything is free. The IDE, the compiler, the emulator, even the system that does OTA installs of your software. Since UJML makes apps that are truly platform independent (unlike the slight variations seen with J2ME and BREW VM's), you can use the same code, graphics, and sounds from a java-enabled plasma TV, to a Treo, to even a low end 120x120 color cellular phone. UJML also has XML call systems, plugin library support, and even a method of retrieving UJML code on an external internet host and executing it after download. This allows the coder to create very large applications that work on even the smallest of memory restrictions. Overhead is there, but minimal. The system will handle multiple sprites and events without any issues. It sounds like I need to stop development on my WAP MMORPG and move this over to UJML. I might have one heck of a killer app on my hands.
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Sat, 15 Oct 2005
No Free Hotel WiFi? Now there is...Whoops..
I am in Boston this week for work. While the hotel I am staying at offers high speed internet access, it is only available on a 3 foot ethernet cable, and is over $10 a day for service. Well, after plugging in TrainNode, paying the lousy $10 service fee, and making a few modifications, I accidently lit up the entire wing of my hotel with free high speed wireless internet -- whoops. And i'm sure that an SSID of "FreeBroadbandInternetAccess" is a dead giveaway of the nifty new offering.
Thu, 13 Oct 2005Seattle Mind Camp is now open for public registration. Its limited to 150 people total, and will feature the best and brightest of the area. Visit Mind Camp's website for more details and registration information. I will be demonstrating mesh networking (olsr) with other SWN people, speaking about community wireless networks, WiFi VoIP, rural community wireless systems, VoIP, networking, to name a few topics, and perhaps how this can all play in disaster response. Unlike typical hypesters, I like to flavor any of my talks with grounded reality.
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Mon, 10 Oct 2005The AZA-WIP, or whatever you want to call this OEM, is on its way for QA and user acceptance testing. One of the biggest questions I currently have is how robust the Java VM is. Is it going to be like my sprint phone (single tasking), or can I run java apps in the background? If its single tasking, then I can at least support some sort of web browser. If its background, then this is going to be one killer handset -- visions of Push-to-Talk, MMS, and other "helper" applications buzz in my head. Its even has some sort of side button and a speaker phone function. Its J2ME...and the screen resolution is quite standard (176x220)...so support will be pretty much there without any serious modifications. I am also pushing hard to try to find an SDK, whether for the J2ME or for native binary. This is going to be even more important if the "Message" feature turns out to be some voicemail indicator, and not a SIMPLE-based XML IM application, like the rest of the handsets out there. Fri, 07 Oct 2005Motorola has a very interesting product that recently hit the market...it targets the business radio market and solves a very common problem: bad VHF/UHF radio coverage in high rises and campus environments. The solution: Motorola DTR digital radios. The product uses FHSS in the unlicensed 900MHz band, and boy are those radios sensitive. They shoot through about 20 vertical floors in our high rise, and even work in the elevator. I can walk around downtown Bellevue, and the things still function normally. The radios are very neat because they mimic the UI and functionality of Motorola's iDEN system -- complete with the same exact push to talk sounds we all hate hearing from those noisy Nextel phones. In addition to having various radio groups, the phones support text messaging, and sneaky features like remote deactivation (in case someone walks out with a radio), and remote mike key up functions (so you can spy on your employees). And the best part -- they are decentralized, and peer-to-peer. But the problem is, Motorola is so hot and bothered about how great these FHSS radios perform, that they refuse to sell repeaters and other systems -- there simply is no need for it, they say on their website. This is a problem. Our company is currently in the process of obtaining various spaces in the Bellevue area...in other adjacent high-rises...and its not working all that hot anymore. It seems that inter-highrise communication is very difficult and just about impossible. Not to mention they would like to extend this radio system into our remote offices around the United States. How cool would it be to key up an unlicensed radio in Bellevue to talk to someone in Boston? DTR radios have mic and speaker jacks, the mic activating via switch in series. This is very similar to my handheld ham radio....a ham radio I can interface with IRLP -- an amateur radio VoIP software package made especially for this task. The idea is simple -- grab two PC's, put them into whatever locations I wish to setup a point to point link with, and run IRLP. When audio comes in on VoIP, it will key up and transmit locally. When audio comes in on the radio, the PC will transmit VoIP audio to the remote endpoint(s). Why Motorola can't offer a VoIP linking or simple repeater facility is beyond me. Or at least a PC cable and API so I wouldn't have to hack this together. These radios have a lot of potential..and its too bad I have to hack this garbage together to get them to work. Over the last couple of months, for reasons id rather not disclose, I have been very interested in WiFi VoIP handsets -- in particular, handsets that offer 3G-like user experiences. 802.11b/g camera phones, java phones, with text messaging abilities are the most interesting to me. And no...these phones are not for use with hotspots...i need them to roam. There are a lot of these products on the market, but almost no information is available. Maybe people are simply not buying them?! The only product that I really see reviewed is the POS ZyXEL, and its OEM variants, like the UTStarcom (yes, even the ZyXEL is an OEM). The first version would lock onto a ONE BSSID and THATS IT (AKA, no roaming AT ALL) -- and now I am seeing reports that the new version of this handset does the same short sighted thing again. One solution is to configure each of your AP's into different SSIDs, and hope the thing hands off (which it doesnt without killing the voice) once it cant see its previous AP. This is very bad. I will not be looking at this product. So here I am, without really any information on the following products:
And probably little hope for the next players:
So now i am stepping out on a limb....i am buying every WiFI VoIP product there is. I will review them once I obtain them. First: AZA-WIP.
Fri, 30 Sep 2005
So apparently, part of Los Angeles is on fire. It smells like I am
I drove around Burbanks the other day and boy was the hill red with flames...I could see the smoke towering up into the sky during work today. Mon, 26 Sep 2005I am in LAX this week. You can cut the smog with a knife... Tue, 20 Sep 2005
Two Weeks of Meals - Some Assembly Required
How many times have you wanted dinner, but just didn't have anything in the fridge to eat? This happens a lot at my house. While I can follow directions, I simply cannot plan meals. Here is an example of my past meal plan:
Monday: Fettuccini Alfredo, Salad So there you have it. I needed help. Lately, there has been buzz about food preparation services. You visit a special kitchen every two weeks, mix ingredents together, use their kitchen to prepare your meals, bag them up, and freeze them. When it comes time to cook, pop it into the oven, wait for it to cook, and eat. The cost of a two week meal allocation? Depending on the business, it is the same or less than what I typically spend at the store each month on food. To put this into perspective, when I go to the store, i typically pay about $200 every two weeks for food for our family of 2 1/2. Sometimes, as much as $300 or $400. 12 complete dinners at MonthOfMeals.com was $135 after applying a 20% promotional discount. Delivery is also available, and at MonthOfMeals, the chef staff assemble things for you, another plus! You pick out what you want on the website, and it shows up to your door at the scheduled time and day. You can also pick up orders from the facility if you choose. Quality also comes into question. How good can frozen food really be? Are they like microwave meals, or the next best thing to your own personal chef? Thats what I set to find out. The New Meal Plan
I selected 2 servings per meal because that feeds my wife and I, with a little plate for the baby to eat. I suspect that an older child would also eat another portion. Doubling up on portions for two meals may be difficult due to the way food is presented. Make sure you make such arrangements with the vendor. For Monday night, I selected "Kicked-up Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin (Jasmine Rice Blend)". It tasted awesome...home cooked taste, without the grease one would expect from take out or dining out. Preparation was a bit of a surprise too. You are not just getting a cooked meal to "warm up" in the microwave. You get a container of a particular item, cooking instructions, etc. You *actually* cook this food...they are mostly raw ingredents packaged with everything you need to prepare. The pork dish required a pan to cook up the meat/fuit/veggie mix. A sauce was also provided. Follow the cooking instructions and moments later you have a meal. The rice just needed to be warmed up in the microwave. There are microwave instructions on a lot of these packages, but frankly, i would not recommend it. It would be like baking a pie in the microwave. :) The first night has saved me time and money. So I give MoM's and the entire concept an A+ for now. I am eating at home way better than before. For you seasoned cooks? Perhaps...its just like having a cook book with all the raw materials you need put together already. Update I wrote this article last week, and since then, tried quite a few of the dishes. We are close to restocking time. So far, all dishes have been very impressive -- resturant / cater quality. Right now i am baking the halibut (which came raw, along with a veggie/sauce mixture). Tomorrow night is Salmon. The biggest issue is trying to remember to prep your food the night before the day of the meal. This very slow thaw keeps frozen food as fresh tasting as possible, as quickly thawing food can not only be dangerous (bateria wise) but also lead to poor taste/flavor.
Floride in your water is good for you!
Today, everybody drinks bottled water...nonfluorinated bottled water that is! This has since caused a rapid increase in tooth decay, dentists report. So that gives me two choices: Continue to drink bottled water as my teeth rot out of my mouth, or drink water that tastes like it came out of a public pool. Hmmm...
Wed, 14 Sep 2005Some German inventor claims to have made bio diesel from old tires, weeds, and dead cats. One cat makes 2.5L of fuel (?!) I don't know whats more disturbing about this link - The fact he's using cats to power his car, or the illfully targeted Google ads at the bottom. Apparently, making bio-diesel out of cats is not uncommon Germany. The practice is already outlawed. For those of you who want the details this link describes the process...and yes..it also involves a catalytic converter. Tue, 13 Sep 2005I was looking around for some good DHTML how-to sites, and I ran across this freaky demo: It works in both IE and Firefox (although, IE seems to handle it better). It has a full OO API that looks exactly like a windows app -- except its DHTML and Javascript....and it talks to an XML backend. The GUI API is also XML based. Mon, 29 Aug 2005My daughter just loves Strawberry Shortcake DVD's. I can put that thing on all day, and she'll watch it nonstop. Today, after becoming a little tired of "Best Pet Yet", and learning all the songs by heart, I decided to buy her a new Stawberry Shortcake DVD. I opened the case for the first time, and POOF...a light strawberry scent fills the room. That has to be the most creative marketing i've seen inside a DVD package. Whats next? Burning rubber smell in the next Fast and Furious DVD? That would definately be hip!
I got really daring last weekend and took pictures with my "new" 3D film camera. It looks a little goofy, but i hope it will be well worth it. There was a lot of depth in the shots i took....mainly in a wine vineyard that I stayed at last weekend. Got some cool shots down the rows, as well as some eye popping shots of nearby Red Mountain. Me, an automatic digital camera guy, operating a 100% manual everything camera (even the shutter had to be spring loaded, taking a picture is a 3 step process), do not make a great mix. I really hope they turn out! Fri, 26 Aug 2005
Whats small, chalk full of sound effects and music, offers turn-based fighting, full motion mpeg video cut-scenes, and can be played by a very large number of players at once? Yes, its Casey's new cell phone MMORPG: "Maokhian Prophecies" I started work on this game a couple weeks ago, and its really coming along so far. It takes advantage of some cutting edge features with newer sprint phones, but it should be completely functional on lesser handsets. One of the most challenging pieces of this project is the map generation. I have to create all the map data by hand.
You may also notice that the tile graphics are a little crude. The game is completely skinable, so once I obtain a better
tile set (very likely from freeciv), i will be performing a little cleanup work on the graphics.
Wed, 03 Aug 2005After a flawless escape, one particular passenger was not too impressed with the entire operation. Here is an excerpt from this MSNBC article:
Passenger criticizes flight attendants Lets imagine...the plane has landed on the ground, rolling down a hill, and filling up with smoke. Typically, smoke indicates that there is some combustable reaction abound. I know! Lets totally violate FAA regulations, dump lots of pure oxygen into the cabin! Yeah, I know that its only intended for depressurization, BUT WHO CARES?! I'm so glad customers aren't allowed to fly the airplane. Congrats to the crew, a two minute evacuation is quite a feat! Fri, 22 Jul 2005TrainNode has been having issues over the last month or two. The thing will not start up while on the train, but it will work flawlessly at home, work, coffee shop, etc. I suspect that power is very dirty or is browning out on the train. I just hooked up the serial console while on the train, and noticed that the PCMCIA system errors out randomly on startup. Wed, 20 Jul 2005I just got yet ANOTHER antenna from someone, a good 24dBi parabolic grid (galvenized steel). If anyone has a need or project coming up where they need 3 24dBi parabolics, array of omis, sectors, coax, radio cards, soekrises, etc. just give me a call :) I may be reinventing the wheel, but I am pretty proud of myself tonight...I really don't have a clue on this entire subject -- not even basic understanding of OCR. I have basic shape recognition working in a couple lines of perl using no libraries -- it just reads the binary image directly. I am pretty close to reading special barcode data from a mere image. Due to the nature of the system, it will have significant tolerance towards rotated and distorted imagery. The system could also be expanded towards other things..but I wont get ahead of myself just yet. Wouldn't that be a cool perl module or what?! Mon, 11 Jul 2005In recent news, CNN mentions a new suffix has been approved by ICANN today. This suffix was surprisingly backed by several large telephone and software companies, including the GSM Association. Thanks guys, for a TLD that takes about 9 key presses on my cell phone. Wouldn't it be easier to type .com instead? You might as well have lobbied for ".aworldwidewebsiteforcellulartelephones" I am going to stack this one up with other useless TLD's, such as .coop, .biz, .pro, .name, and .museum. Wed, 29 Jun 2005If you ever looked at an Alaska road map, you may have noticed a very strange road that stretches from about Fairbanks to Deadhorse on the Arctic Ocean coast. The Dalton Highway is a supply road for Prudhoe Bay, a major oil field that pumps crude directly into the Alaskan pipeline. This pipeline runs from top to bottom of the state, and along side the dalton in this particular case. People build roads so you can DRIVE on them, right? Well, apparently no one thought so. After asking several Alaskan friends and family of mine about this road, i was told that "it was closed to the public", "oh, no, you can't drive on that road", and "thats not a real road". As you may already know, I do not like answers like these. Thats like someone saying "Oh, no, i NEVER been in my backyard. I hear you are not allowed to go back there." Yea, so, I got myself a nice rental car. It was a nice Ford Escape -- until i was finished with it. After winding and twisting through the hills towards this crazy highway, we finally made it. A big sign said "DALTON HIGHWAY", along with some pretty funny signs telling you to keep your headlights on for the next 414 miles. And then the pavement ended. Oh crap, apparently its a 400+ mile dirt road. Up some crazy hill i climb, lose gravel flying. It was barely wide enough for two people, let alone enough room for me and a large semi. I pulled off the side of the road, scared shittless of what I got myself into. Yea, this road is too rough. My wife noted that we already bought the "Drove to the Arctic Cricle" bumper sticker, and we couldn't stop now. She was right, the Arctic circle seemed pretty close on the map. I expected it to take us about two hours tops. We hit the Dalton at about 5pm. The Dalton is a crazy road. Not only do the big rigs take up most of the road, but they drive FAST. I clocked one guy at over 100 miles per hour....while I was doing 70. Yes, 70 miles per hour on a dirt road with potholes. Eventually you just sort of glide over them. The highway was not all dirt, there were a couple mile sections that were paved. I have no idea what possessed anyone to pave these roads, but they were pretty steep hill climbs. It just seems funny to stumble on pavement in the middle of nowhere. I was shocked to find most bridges over streams were not cement, but WOOD. Yes, rotten wood bridges with deep pit marks. Thats ok, you just drive really fast over these and close your eyes. After hours of driving, we approched the Yukon River. The river was pretty large and spectacular. The bridge was made out of, you guessed it, rotten wood. After crossing this crazy, sloping bridge, we finally reached a fuel point. Oh, and in case you haven't realized yet, there are a whole two gas stations on this 400 mile road. I needed gas, the tank was getting pretty low. I was making very bad time, and the loose gravel really killed my SUV's gas mileage. I go up to an old analog pump, put it up to the vehicle, and turn the lever. Nothing happened. Weird...I flipped the lever over and over, still nothing. I figured it was broken. Suddently, a lady walks from the collection of gift shop shacks across the dirt driveway. "Hold on, I have to turn it on." "Oh, ok," i said, noting the extensive apparatus connected to the gas pump. She flips on a large Honda generator, which has several jury-riged, partially exposed wires running directly to the old fashioned pump. On the pump hangs a sign "No Smoking, Stop vehicle before fueling". Right. Ok. I feel safe. I top off the tank, pay her in cash, and go on my way. Driving further down the road, I noted an odd rail-road crossing. Well, it was actually said "STOP - AIR TRAFFIC". apparently, if someone wants to fly onto the Dalton highway, the plane radios a small control shack, the gates drop, and the plane lands on the highway. Very creative use of space. After more endless driving, we finally reach the arctic circle. There was a cute sign to take your picture next to, along with a campground. A head was another endless dirt road -- but i decided to turn around at this point. I did not want to spend my entire weekend on a road to the arctic. On my way back, the rental car started to make noises. Loud rubbing sounds, squeels, etc. I picked up the cell phone to call my rental company, but noticed that there was no signal....for about 200 miles. It would not have been a good thing anyway because apparently my rental contract forbids me to drive on this road. I explained these noises later in great detail to my dad, and apparently I really dicked up the thing. But who knows if I actually was the cause .. it was a Ford. Next time, I am going to have to get a proper vehicle and drive the entire road... Tue, 28 Jun 2005
I am in Barrow this week. I'll start with the technical/business/etc
Not much has changed since last time we were up, but there are a couple new things in town. Polar Bear PC opened up on the first of June. This is located on Boxer street in the "UIC Business Park", which is just a collection of various buildings over on the Browerville side of Barrow owned by the local native corporation (UIC). This is the first Internet center in Barrow, and features a entire slew of computers filling the entire space. Rates are at $5 per half hour. Proprietor Mike Stotts got a pretty amazing deal on a T1 through ASTAC. Keep in mind that Barrow is served only by satellite, so T1s in Barrow are (nearly) impossible to obtain, even if you could actually afford one. Naturally, latencies can be a bit high, but it makes up for it in speed. He has big plans for this place. If you are in the mood for coffee while you surf, take caution. "Coffee Shop", next door, sells latte's for over $6 for a 16 ounce and the service was a little bit questionable. Not the best or cheapest place in town! Take the extra walk down the block to Stuaqpak (AC Value Center) for some much better java. Still no sign of CDMA or GSM .... its still AMPS/TDMA. ACS and ASTAC both have cell towers in good operation up here, but apparently SprintPCS was a little too cheap to extend the ACS roaming agreement to include the Barrow market. I have been living off some AT&T calling card instead -- just so i don't rack up everyone's bills. I saw some guys in town before i left with some Erricson gear....looked like cell hardware. Maybe someone is doing some upgrades. Also: Barrow public transit will be no more in a short couple of weeks. GCI bought out Barrow cable (which was owned by the biggest ANC of them all, ASRC) promising "high speed cable internet". And locally/natively owned telephone co-op ASTAC, threatened by GCI's internet offering plans, now offers DSL service in Barrow! I was also told that no one has planned to bring fiber into Barrow yet, and the nearest fiber optic line is on the pipeline...so maybe someday. Everyone back at home has been asking me what I have been up to lately in Alaska. Well, here is one particular day's journal entry:
All the tourists in town have taken up all the rental cars. I keep calling every morning, and none are available. So I got to take out my wife's cousin's vehicle for half a day. I went for a drive with a couple in-laws.....now where to go? Naturally, someone wanted to go to shooting station (furthest east part of town) and one wanted to go to fresh water lake (furthest west part of town). I think we were all half way joking, because there is nowhere to really drive around here. For those who don't know, this place is only a couple miles across. Nalukataq was a blast, as always. Lots of food...lots of people....tons of family. Kids run everywhere, which is good because I can let my baby loose and let her play on her own. They all dig on the dirt, play with the blanket, etc. and cause lots of general trouble. I have been trying so hard to get my daughter to eat real food. Its always "uh-nuh" this, "dado" that, her words for "milk" and "popcicle". She eats spuratically, but not really enough to sustain herself. So its milk, mainly. She won't eat any Western/American fare, but she will stuff her mouth full of maktak (half blubber/skin cut of whale; raw), miqiuq (firmented whale meat in whale blood; raw), quaq (raw whale meat), eskimo doughnuts (fried bread doughnut with no frosting/etc), eskimo icecream (whipped animal fats, meat chunks, berries), whale tounge, etc. like its freaking candy. Good thing I have a big stock full of this stuff. Me? Well, I decided to eat as much native food as I can while I am up here since there is a plentiful supply around this time of year. I think I have grown a new taste towards eskimo food....its now just delicious as opposed to interesting and new. I am really eating maktak, miqiuq, quaq, etc. like its candy. The one I really like right now is Miqiuq. It tastes like roast beef, soaked in a sparkling red wine...and it does amazing stuff to the tip of your tounge. It tingles like champaign, but I can't quite explain the sensation. I am also told its extremely good this year... What happened when I went from vegetarian fare to a diet that would make Dr. Atkin's proud? Nothing.
Fri, 24 Jun 2005
Back From the Top of the World
I would have made an audio blog update, or maybe even an internet update, but no luck with that. I found an internet "cafe" (sans coffee), but I could not manage to get SSH to function over the satellite link I was using. I have a pretty good article written up about my "adventures", but I currently have no method of posting it. Stay tuned.. I am in Fairbanks for the rest of the weekend. For some reason, this seems like a very big place. I now have to wear my seatbelt, watch for cops, and I can't really walk anywhere. Its busy here and HOT. 65F currently. If you want a sneak peak at some pictures, check out the June 2005 section of my photo album. Lots of good stuff there...I also have some pretty interesting videos on my phone waiting for upload as soon as I enter SprintLand. And no, I completely forgot to get some videos of the blanket toss and people flying in the air :/ More soon! Fri, 17 Jun 2005Looks like the flights are pretty packed this weekend, so I am highly considering leaving tonight. It will be a red-eye, but it may be our only way into Barrow for almost a week. Looks like everyone is trying to go up for Nalukataq... I am going to try to blog and update pictures while I am up there, or at least Audio Blog. Bandwidth is limited, so I may have to wait to use my sister-in-law's cable modem in Fairbanks before I put up all my photos. Stay tuned, and check my Audio Blog from time to time. Fri, 10 Jun 2005So....I am now storing data on the internet. No, I do not mean an ftp server, a web server or using GMail as a file system. I am actually storing data ON THE WIRE. During a spanning tree change last night for work, I was thinking about loops. You know, the kind of packet forwarding loops that can bring any network to its knees, retransmitting the same data in a circle. This could be a nifty way to store data! But how could I do this on the public internet? There are two solutions to this: Write custom software to loop packets between a list of various hosts (and running it on all these hosts) OR make use of existing loopback systems (such as ICMP ECHO) to echo data back to my self. Instead of discarding the data, I would simply foward it again back to the host with the same data. I am currently using some prototype software to store over a hundred bytes of data on the public internet. As the echo reply's come back in, i send the payload back again. The very interesting thing I have found is that the hosts with the highest latencies can hold more data. Yes, this means that international connections and satellite links are prime real estate for this venture. The data lives on forever...well...until a packet is lost. I need to probably come up with a solution for this one. How do I store data? This is done by a simple injection. Each ICMP Echo packet is marked with a 4 byte unique identifier and contains 12 bytes of data payload. This gives me a bit of address space to play with, so currently, I can store about 786Kb. Once these packets are sent off to a host, my software see's the reply and re-transmits it. Now how about getting the data off the network into my hands? I have a piece of software which collects all of these bits of information over a short period of time, organizes the address numbers, and prints out the entire payload. I am sure a file allocation table may allow me to store multiple pieces of data, as well as maybe interfacing to the unix file system, but this is all for later development. A proof of concept is all I need right now :) I admit, I am not really the first, second, or even third person to think of this idea. A lot of old cyberpunk books told tales of storing data in "cyberspace" using packet loops...I just brought it to reality. Tue, 31 May 2005They are still alive! They seem to have some sort of sleeping pattern, as I usually have to "wake them up" in the morning. I typically do this by holding them in my hands for a couple minutes....this warms them up enough to get them jumping. I expected them to die off pretty quickly, but this is going on a month today of Jumping Bean ownership. Sun, 22 May 2005My GSM/GPRS/Camera phone module came today. I also added the eval breakout board, triband antenna, pcb antenna, and antenna connectors to the order. Its *SMALL*, pictures will come shortly. Its about the size of a Nokia 8260 or T68 battery. And for those who don't know, that is very small. Makes my GPS unit look like a brick now ;( A guy I know also bought one, so perhaps we might share notes. It will be a fun item to prototype. Update Here are some pictures of the nifty device. Once I get a working SIM, things will be much more entertaining for me. It showed up as a USB serial device on COM7, and I have been messing around with the AT command set in the device. However, I cannot get the camera to work yet. It does not recognize that one is installed :/ Luckily, there are some people in the forums that have been helping me out. One of the biggest issues right now is a GSM SIM. Since I am a CDMA guy, I do not have an activated SIM laying around. If anybody knows where I can get a lousy pre-paid SIM card in the USA, let me know. This seems to be a difficult thing to find around here. The kiosks in the mall don't sell them that way....they want me to buy the phone. Cool features of this device:
While I could make a cool remote web cam or tracking device, my goal is to make a fully functional cellular phone--geek style. Perhaps it will even have an attractive case! But for now, it will be a mess of breadboards. Once i get a little bit more comfortable with the device, i will probably hook up a gumstix or PIC to control the device. I will also probably pick up an LCD module from EarthLCD. I found a couple of (cheap) cell phone displays, along with a fancy 2.5" color touchscreen with graphics processor...we'll see.
GSM device, Eval breakout board, quarter, camera, PCB antenna, etc. (Not shown: larger tri-band antenna)
GSM module
Closeup of camera module, breakouts to left for audio, GPIO, etc.
Fri, 13 May 2005They are magic! I figured everybody had these when they were a kid, but thats not the case.
Click Here to watch the video! I work at a technology company with various engineers and mathematicians...and while you'd expect a very simple answer why these beans jump, thats not the case either. So far, several engineers have narrowed down the potential cause of these beans' jumping habit:
Observations:
I currently loaned out a case of beans so he can show his wife/friends/etc. Do YOU know why these beans jump? I do, and I can't keep from laughing. Wed, 04 May 2005As much as I do not like to admit, Bluetooth is pretty neat. Its painfully slow FHSS physical layer is shadowed by its nearly universal vendor support, object exchange, serial cable replacement and digital voice capability. While Bluetooth was great for GPRS, and perhaps 1xRTT and EDGE, its turning into a bottleneck. Currently, WCDMA/UMTS and EVDO speeds far exceed the maximum symmetrical serial rate Bluetooth can deliver. What does this mean? Break out your USB cables again folks! Bluetooth is now useless. But why did the Bluetooth SIG let an aging physical layer linger for so long? Especially when standards-based technologies like 802.11/WiFi have seen profound increases in physical layer speeds. While there are many political reasons, the adoption of a non-standards based unscalable FHSS technology did not help the issue. What was the Bluetooth SIG thinking? The Bluetooth vision was an application, not a set of physical and electrical specifications. Yet, development went in to create a completely proprietary radio interface and protocol that barely plays friendly with other spectrum users. This likely reminds readers of the HomeRF days, yet another proprietary wireless LAN protocol competing with an open standards based specification. HomeRF is dead; Bluetooth is dying. But wait a minute, Bluetooth is useful! What about the cool headsets, ease of swapping contact information, and multiplayer java games? Why can't we take Bluetooth to the higher OSI layers, like any other real application, and use a mass produced, well supported, nearly universal physical and MAC layer like 802.11/WiFi? Blueooth over WiFi?? Now guys, I'm not on drugs. I am talking about the Bluetooth application suite on top of WiFi instead of its old FHSS counterpart. Some advocates say Bluetooth's advantages are in footprint, cost, and power consumption; I believe that this can be changed. Specific on-chip integration of a bluetooth-like stack, mass production, and reduced power output can all mitigate these factors. While it would be great to see Bluetooth riding on IP/UDP, making it routable, it may not be very possible. Issues such as IP addressing, security, and implementation complexity will arise. I could see Bluetooth existing as its own lightweight layer 3 protocol. Both peer-to-peer and infrastructure modes are well supported in 802.11. Concepts such as piconets and pairing could be implemented with ease. Devices could easily attach to WiFi networks and packetized voice services would operate nicely. Bluetooth would not rely on functions such as WEP, as better encryption facilities could be built into the higher layers. As WiFi advances, Bluetooth over WiFi could advance. Much like the original 802.11 DSSS cards operating in concert with 802.11g radios. It will be a long time before even the 802.11b MAC becomes too slow to be usable. Will we ever see Bluetooth over WiFi? Most likely not. I suspect the Bluetooth SIG has the same amount of intellectual property interest in the MAC as they do the actual bluetooth application. Besides, if you could do it over WiFi, you really wouldn't need a Bluetooth chip anymore. And that means less property control and royalties. Will we see Bluetooth Turbo? Wireless USB? UWB? The Bluetooth SIG can sit on this topic forever. The wireless industry will not. Micro WiFi access points are already being considered to correct the bottleneck in next generation EVDO/UMTS phones. If somebody invents a Bluetooth-like application protocol, the party is over for old 10th century Danish King Harald Blatand; old Bluetooth himself. Mon, 02 May 2005This module came in the mail today, along with my active antenna. The active antenna has a cellular antenna built-in, which could make 1900MHz reception much more ideal than the Merlin C201's internal horizontally polarized antenna...which might i add, kinda bites. The OEM device is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It measures in at 1.65" x 2.83" x 0.35" (41.91 x 71.88 x 8.76 mm for you metric types) and weighs only 0.7 oz (19.84g). You can see how it is dwarfed by my key chain and makes this tiny dime look like a quarter.
While this GPS unit will provide location data to our hotspot, its size and ability to log over 5000 data points independent of a host device has my mind running with possibilities:
And combined with that neat (very small) GPRS/GSM/Camera OEM module at Sparkfun, or that $0.10 a message satcom board:
This really beats the Garmin brick I have carried around for various location projects. I have some neat gadgets on the way:
The GPS device i bought for $20 off ebay, and yes, there are plenty more. Not only does the unit spit out location information, but it features a 1Hz strobe and also has extensive logging capabilities inside the unit. Its a Sandpiper II with a TTL to RS232 level converter chip on board. Requires 5VDC. It outputs 4800 bps NMEA by default, but I suspect this is configurble. SiRF output can be configured... This will ultimately be intergrated into the hotspot. GPS is very difficult on the train, but I am hoping this external antenna will help out. Thu, 14 Apr 2005I noticed this evening that we handed out 12 leases...there is also a growing congregation of laptops on the 5:10 train. Also, I wrote this one program. When users view our content page, they will notice a little surprise:
If you haven't guessed by the image, the portal knows all the people who sign on via instant messenger (AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) and displays the buddy name in a list. Now you can talk to fellow riders using WiFi on the train. Don't worry, it does not log or watch conversations. The user list is also saved on RAM disk and is lost when the device is powered down each day. Thanks to Michael )again) for the HTML web design and imagery to really make this gadget appealing to the eye. Otherwise it would be pretty boring. Wed, 13 Apr 2005I think Voelpel did a great job at writing up this article about the project, so I will link to this one. There was also a short blurb in the Seattle Times a couple weeks ago. Sounder Rider Brings Internet to the Rails And, with the exception of the 5:50 typo (should have been the 5:10 train), it did attract a lot more users. We are now averaging about 5-8 on the evening train, and its really getting hammered by one or two particular "power users". Please guys, lets not play MMORPG's such as "World of Warcraft" on this thing. I know its cool to cast spells (or whatever you do in that game) while on a train, but it really eats up bandwidth. I *really* really want Verizon or SprintPCS to hurry up and deploy CDMA2000 EVDO in Seattle. This would really help out our contention issues. Thu, 07 Apr 2005Michael and I completed the software and web design for the portal last night. Our current RSS feeds include: The News Tribune, King 5, KOMO, Slashdot, Phonescoop, various northwest stocks, and live view of Seattle 911 emergency calls. I have been pretty lazy, but maybe i'll finish my weather XML soon :) Michael has been doing a great job on the web design. It really helps keep a semi-professional image in our project full of hacks. Peter really helped us out on the train yesterday. Apparently there were some crazy out-of-control supervised processes running on pebble. The box was always at a 1.60 load average, it was slow. I thought the 133MHz CPU was just a POS. After killing these insane tasks, I dropped the load average down to 0.00-0.06, which is nothing. Everything is much snappier. The CPU, which was always running extremely hot, is not even warm to the touch. Now that the software and system are stablizing, Peter has also suggested that we work towards logging and statistical gathering. No, we are not going to spy on what people do -- but just gather the number of people who actually use the device on a routine basis. It will be better to automate it instead of randomly showing arp tables and looking at the NoCat status page. If we time stamp it, it will even tell us how many people were using it on the Everett sounder that evening -- before our train pulled out and cut their internet off ;)
Tue, 05 Apr 2005The software is just about complete. While I do have a couple of nifty items working today, such as RSS news feeds, there will be more and more additions in the near future. RSS feeds such as local news, stocks, weather, slashdot, daily wireless, NPR, etc. are updated every 5 minutes. I hope our users this morning liked it as much as we did. Here is TrainNode in action, along with some photos of Peter, Mike, and myself on the train. (Click on the image for a larger version)
Mon, 04 Apr 2005Over the weekend, I was able to get a little bit more work done on my mobile hotspot. Michael was able to get NoCatAuth working with his cool splash web pages and Peter has also helped me a great deal getting around Linux. While I can get around a shell and do basic things, this project has really tought me a great deal about the actual interworkings of the operating system. Operation: After the device is plugged in, it automatically connects to Sprint and shares the internet connection. It looks like a typical wireless access point...but there's more to it than that... When the user opens a web browser and attempts to hit a web page, they are redirected to a "splash page". This splash page indicates that public access is encouraged, and indicates terms of use. Once the user clicks "I Agree", they are then sent to our mobile portal. From here, they can surf to any website they like, or make use of our portal. Why force people to view the portal after connecting? While this can offload a bulk of traffic off our fragle 144Kbps link, it also serves as a communication hub for our small mobile community. The portal also pulls data from various XML sources to show weather, news, and other relevant travel information. Once the portal designs are pleasing to the eye, I will try to post some screen shots. For those interested, here is our new mobile hotspot. And yes, its just a bare circuit board right now:
Fri, 01 Apr 2005For those inter |
The feature set is very basic. It provides voice dialing and text
messaging functionality. It also supports vibrate, several ringer
presets, and various profiles similar to the 8200 line.
Kumquat, lavender, lemongrass, or rhubarb soda, anyone? I picked up all
four flavors from my local Metropolitan Market. They are unsweetened,
hence the name 
is a semi-interactive audio player with several user
inputs and audio output. It features a USB port for programming, and shows up as a HID (Human Interface Device).
