Both Schlage and Kwikset offer exterior-grade door locks that can report and update their statuses wirelessly via e-mail. So you can check, after you get to the office, if you remembered to lock the front door or not, and do so if you forgot. I want a kitchen stove that does the same thing.

Of course, to be fair, I'm not sure I want my house to be no more secure than my e-mail account, so I'll probably be waiting until the technology is well established, personally, to consider such an upgrade.

@brady mentions some of the noteworthy tech coming to this year's Burning Man festival in this article over at O'Reilly Radar. Items of interest include local SMS and Burning Man Earth online directory, API, and beta iPhone app.

Burning Man Gets an API (and a Whole Lot More)

Using a couple computers, a PhidgetInterfaceKit with RelayBoard, and a bevy of client/server software, Matthias Wagler and friends from Intuity Media Lab built a Rube Goldberg XMPP messaging system to frob a light using an Andorid-powered mobile device. Check out this behind-the-scenes video detailing set-up.

[via hackaday]

Speaking of 'Making Things Talk"...

Brad is building this pretty rad GPS/accelerometer tracking device to measure the performance of his model rockets. The telemetry data will also be used to help recover the rocket. His current version uses an ADXL330 accelerometer (also found in the Wii nunchuck), a long-range xBee transmitter, and a PIC 18F microcontroller.

I particularly like the way the surface-mount-only accelerometer chip is mounted.
Update: The chip is mounted in a slotted header, or alternately a DIP component carrier. Thanks!

its super simple (and CHEAP!). super nice thing is that you can block the signal with your hand (mirrors? lenses?) this is real cool for my project, as this means that you can jam musical data coming from one unit to another. jam as in trash / mash up. also one unit will interfere with another. yeah: data chaos!

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

Using a custom APK file you can root your Android phone with relative ease. Once rooted, you're free to install one of the latest custom Android ROMs on the phone and enjoy new features still in development or scratch that itch the standard SDK won't facilitate.

Android Rooting in 1-click [via RyeBrye & Hackaday]

Hayford Bempong, David Celestin and Michael Amankwanor from Accra Polytechnic set up a local Maker Faire Africa radio station. The group announced upcoming activities, broadcasting at 101.7 FM, and could be heard up to a couple thousand meters away using gear they designed and fabricated from scratch.

[via AfriGadget]

Mobile developer Steve Bull needed to do some signal testing to pass the certification process for an app he was writing, so he improvised this Hoffman box using pots and pans found in his kitchen. A Hoffman box is a Faraday cage without the opposing electrical field or ground.

Hoffman Box - DIY in the kitchen

Interested in using your Palm Pre as a WiFi router? Recent Pre convert Max Lee has written a tutorial that may get you closer to 3G tethering bliss.

[via Max Lee]

From AfriGadget:

Pascal Katana, a Fourth Year student at the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, developed an electronic device that 'automates' fishing. The trap employs amplification of the sound made by fish while feeding. The acoustic signals are radiated and attract other fish who head toward the direction of the source thinking there is food there.

Once a good catch is detected by a net weighing mechanism, it triggers a GPRS/GSM device attached to the system and the fisherman gets a call/sms informing him that his catch is ready. Pascal is in the process of developing a by-catch control system which will ensure that his contraption doesn't cause overfishing.

Fish 'call' the Fisherman

David Nichols made this lovely Asus Wireless Router WL-520-GU-based Twitter client. OpenWRT runs Python off of a USB thumb drive. The script fetches the 20 most recent tweets from his followers and displays them using a Sparkfun serial based LCD. The laser parts were fabbed at Ponoko.com.

Tweetser

@brady over at radar.oreilly.com has an excellent summary of what some folks are already doing to integrate Apple's new Find My iPhone service into their location aware applications. He speculates formalization of these techniques into a service and offers meaningful use cases, citing established applications, that would benefit from granular location data. People are building real world apps against this service and a community is forming around its use.

[via radar.oreilly.com]

Nature photographer and maker Marco Jetti wanted a device that would allow him to shoot pictures of animals from a distance. Using a pair of walkie-talkies and a custom circuit, Marco fashioned a long distance wireless shutter trigger capable of releasing the shutter from, reportedly, almost a kilometer away.

[via DIYPhotography]

Familiar with the concept of hardware keylogging? A hardware keylogger is a perfect solution for monitoring user activity, at very low risk of disclosure. A hardware keylogger is a purely electronic device, so no access to the operating system is required, no traces are left, and software has no possibility of detecting such a device. However, the hardware keylogger concept inherits one weakness: physical access to the keylogger is required for retrieving captured data. This problem has finally found it's solution: a Wireless Keylogger.

KeeLog has already released one open source PS/2 hardware keylogger design to the public. Now, we are doing it again with the DIY Wireless Keylogger. This design is fully free for private and commercial use...

Here're some instructions for tethering your Palm Pre. It works the same way as tetherbot for Android in that it's an SSH tunnel to the phone running as a SOCKS proxy. It'll only get you HTTP, but hey, it's something! Via BBG.

More:

Tetherbot - browse on your laptop through the T-Mobile G1

Most makers probably already know of Diana Eng. She was one of the contestants, the so-called "fashion nerd", on the second season of Project Runway. She's also been a guest blogger on CRAFT and is the author of the new book Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech. And Diana Eng is no poser nerd. To prove it, she's here to talk about... ham radio? That's right, Diana is a licensed ham! She loves the hobby and is excited about introducing a new generation of amateurs to it. She'll be contributing some posts here about ham, like this convention report, and doing some radio projects. We're thrilled to have her. Welcome, Diana! - Gareth Branwyn

SOTA, Summits on the Air, is an award program that encourages hams to make contacts in the mountainous outdoors. SOTA is not only for hikers, the program recognizes Activators, Chasers, and Short Wave Listeners. Activators hike up registered SOTA summits and activate the location by setting up a station and making a minimum of 4 contacts. Chasers can operate from home or other SOTA locations, and make contact with activators. Short Wave Listeners who are often unlicensed hear but do not contact activators. Activators and Chasers earn points towards awards.

SOTA began in the UK in March 2002 as the brain child of John Linford, G3WGV. Early on, most activity was on VHF and UHF FM frequencies (70 cm and 2 m) using lightweight handheld radios. Since activators and chasers were usually in the same country, there was no need for long range HF. The high elevation also helped the propagation, particularly of VHF. Now as the popularity of SOTA grows and technology gets smaller, activators and chasers are using HF to make contacts around the world. SOTA now has 28 active associations in locations ranging from France and Belgium to South Africa and Macedonia.

I recently hiked up Mt. Carmel in Connecticut with Tom Tumino, N2YTF and Dave Clausen, W2VV. Tom Tumino is SOTA Association Manager for the W1 call area and SOTA Regional Manager for New Jersey as well as President of the Hall of Science Amateur Radio Club, HOSARC. At the time, Tom had submitted Mt. Carmel to SOTA headquarters for formal inclusion in the SOTA program. As of June 1, 2009 Mt. Carmel is a part of the SOTA program with the designator W1/HH-002.

I asked Tom some questions about SOTA:
[Diana Eng] How did you get started with SOTA and what made you want to bring
it to the United States?
[Tom Tumino] I got started with SOTA when my friend, Tom Golero, KC2CBA wanted to try something new and suggested that we try activating a nearby summit in the SOTA program. I now have 8 expeditions to 6 different summits under my belt and am the leading activator in the US.

[DE] How do you feel SOTA compares to other ham activities?
[TT] The ham radio population is facing many of the same challenges with weight and fitness that the American population is general is facing. SOTA is a great way for hams to develop their field and emergency preparedness skills while also increasing their physical fitness level and enjoying some spectacular views and in this sense SOTA is almost completely unique in the Amateur Radio world. The SOTA program provides interested hams with a list of summits worthy of hiking for hams of all physical fitness levels. Also, the SOTA websites are a great repository of information for hams interested in facing the challenges of setting up a portable global HF setup on a summit with only battery power. All SOTA activations must take place in an environmentally friendly manor and the activating hams must get to the summit under human power with all of their gear.

I feel that the SOTA program is the most exciting and challenging award scheme in ham radio and holds many benefits for its participants unavailable in other popular award schemes. Participation in SOTA has taken me to heights and summits I never would have known about never mind hike up.

[DE] What type of radios and rigs are used most often by SOTA activators?
[TT] A nice collection of photos of activators and their gear can be found at:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sota_pics/

Many activators carry small, lightweight "dc to daylight" rigs such as the Yaesu FT-817. Such rigs can be used on voice and Morse code modes on HF, VHF, and UHF frequencies. Unfortunately, radios such as the FT-817 afford only 5w of output and are not optimized for low current drain meaning operators have to bring up more than 2 AH of battery power.

Some of the more physically fit operators are bringing up large, portable radios such as the Yaesu FT-897 & FT-857, or Icom -706MKIIG which allow an output of up to 100w on HF and 50w on VHF if activators can bring up batteries capable of sustaining current draws of 20 amps.

Recently there has been a move back to basics in SOTA, with some operators favoring light weight, CW only HF rigs with low current drain. Such radios are "no nonsense designs" that allow hikers to tackle the highest and most challenging summits with a minimum of extra weight. Many of these radios are built by the activators themselves from readily available kits.

I would say the most popular antennas are simple wire antennas for HF and simple home made Yagi type antennas for VHF/UHF.

[DE] What is your SOTA setup?
[TT] Lately I have been bringing a Kenwood TH-D7AG APRS hand held radio with me to the summits along with an Elecraft K3 (a small desktop radio). Together these radios give me all mode HF, and FM VHF and UHF capability along the ability to relay my position in real time to the global chaser community via APRS.

[DE] Which do you think is the most interesting SOTA award, and why?
[TT] As the Association Manager for the W1 area I have to say I am a bit biased to some of the unique awards we have in W1. The Master of the Black Dog Certificate which is particularly interesting for its connection to local legend. To be eligible for the Master of the Black Dog Certificate, an activator must have completed valid activations from all of the three summits in the Hanging Hills Region.

The Black Dog of the Hanging Hills is a supernatural hound that appears in Hanging Hills folklore. Folklore holds that the spirit has haunted the region since the early 1800s and manifests itself as a small black dog, often gregarious in nature, who leaves no footprints and makes no sound. According to legend, to see the Black Dog the first time results in joy while a second sighting results in misfortune. Seeing the Black Dog a third time is said to be a death omen.

One of the earliest accounts of the Black Dog was published in the Connecticut Quarterly, (April-June, 1898) by New York geologist W.H.C. Pynchon. According to Pynchon, in February 1891 he and geologist Herbert Marshall of the United States Geological Survey were conducting geologic research in the Hanging Hills when they saw The Dog. Pynchon had seen The Dog once before. Marshall, who had seen The Dog twice, scoffed at the legend. Shortly after the two of them saw The Dog, Marshall slipped on the ice atop one of the cliffs and plunged to his death. His body was later recovered by authorities.

For the record I have yet to see The Dog...

[DE] How does a mountain become a SOTA Summit?
[TT] To qualify as a SOTA summit, a summit must in general have a prominence of more than 500 feet .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prominence Once an individual identifies a summit with a prominence of more then 500 feet, he/she can submit the summit to the Association Manager that handles the geographic area that encompasses the prospective summit. In the north east states that would be me. If I can verify the prominence of the summit, I can submit the peak to SOTA headquarters for formal inclusion in the SOTA program.

[Makezine] How can people get started with SOTA?
[Tom]Regardless of your interest (Activator, Chaser, or Short Wave Listener (SWL)), the first step is to register so that you may upload logs of your contacts to the SOTA system. There are no fees for participation in the SOTA system.

If you can't get out/have no desire to go hiking, you can get a list of upcoming activations and activations heard live on the air (spots) and tune your rig accordingly.

If you are interested in activating a summit, SOTA maintains an excellent repository of information submitted by its members to make hikes easier. From this website you can find a summit near your location and perhaps a little about where to park and find proper hiking maps for the summit. You may also find links to pictures and video of past activations on the summit you are interested in. The Yahoo SOTA group "Summits" also has a helpful file titled summits.kml for Google Earth. You can find summits.kml in the file section of the Yahoo SOTA groupl.

You can check out the general rules for SOTA and the specific Association Reference Manuals.

Of course prospective participants should feel free to email the Association Manager of their region with any questions they may have and we will be happy to help them.

Google recently released the Android Scripting Environment, which allows an Android user the ability to access the myriad APIs available directly from the device itself. Initially Python, Lua, and BeanShell are supported, but Ruby and JavaScript are on the way. Some folks will definitely find this very useful for prototyping in the field.

The Android Scripting Environment (ASE) brings scripting languages to Android by allowing you to edit and execute scripts and interactive interpreters directly on the Android device. These scripts have access to many of the APIs available to full-fledged Android applications, but with a greatly simplified interface that makes it easy to:

• Handle intents
• Start activities
• Make phone calls
• Send text messages
• Scan bar codes
• Poll location and sensor data
• Use text-to-speech (TTS)
• And more

Scripts can be run interactively in a terminal, started as a long running service, or started via Locale.

Gatito Cam

P.R.M.M Sebastrón 1

Botes beliceños en Cholula

Un día antes de la Maker Faire

Ever feel that the web configuration interface for your wireless access point didn't give you the control you desired? Why not just connect a keyboard and monitor directly to the router and bypass having to access it from another device? That's what Sven Killig has done with this clever hack using a DisplayLink device and some open source know-how.

Plug a monitor into your Linux based router [via reddit]

Looking to extend the range and flexibility of his netbook, maker Larry Pesce from PaulDotCom modified his Asus EEE 4G Surf with an external RP-TNC antenna connector. His detailed instructions document the process of adding the connector and the last minute ingenuity that delivered a rather clean looking result.

Modding the Asus EEE 4G Surf for an external antenna