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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. For past blog entries, check out the archive on the side or click here. |
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