External GPS for iPod and iPhone

Ever wish your iPod touch or older generation iPhone had GPS capability? Now it can by using a Bluetooth GPS module along with the roqyGPS app.

In April we saw a pretty creative way to add GPS to an iPod by using a homebrew accessory. The new app is a better solution because it utilizes the larger screen and more functional UI of the iPod touch. We’re glad to see this come along because we’d rather not upgrade to the iPhone 3G just to get GPS support. roqyGPS has a fairly long supported hardware list, which should make it relatively inexpensive to pick up a GPS module either on sale or second-hand.

We’ve got a video of the release candidate after the break. As always, we’d like to hear from anyone already using this so please leave your thoughts in the comments.

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Linux (via iLoader) out for Nano 2G

[Linux4Nano] over at the [Gna! repositories] have just finalized a breakthrough for their bootloaderproject. Because the iPod Nano 2G has a hardware encryption chip, it could previously not be flashed with a custom firmware. By digging around in some assembly code (and working their magic) the team was able to get Linux onto the 2G, develop drivers for its peripherals (screen, clickwheel and serial interface are a few), and put all of that code into a package convenient to install by the end user. If you’ve ever considered installing uClinux (the ported distro) on your Nano, the [Linux4Nano] team have made the iLoader an easy place to start.

Update: Closer inspection yields that the iLoader is not yet able to load uClinux onto a 2G because it has not been ported. However, it can reload it with other custom firmware which is still a solid breakthrough.

Palm Pre iPod spoofing confirmed

The new Palm Pre cellphone has a “media sync” feature which lets the device sync with iTunes in a fashion identical to an iPod. Last week [Jon Lech Johansen] speculated that this was not done in cooperation with Apple and that Palm was spoofing the iPod’s USB controller. This was confirmed today when a tipster sent him a screenshot of what the device reports in both standard and media sync modes. The Palm Pre reports its Product ID as iPod and Vendor ID as Apple with a few other changes. [Jon] notes that it doesn’t change the root USB node, so Apple should be able to block this behavior with an iTunes update. With Palm already pulling tricks like this presumably through software we wonder if this will become a full-on arms race.

iPhone controlled TV lift

[William] sent in this project where he’s using his iPhone to control his TV lift. He’s made a custom PCB with a pic18f122 microprocessor to communicate with the lift. He says it connects to the lift controls via a serial port. You can see a video of it in action after the break. We really think the shadow turning into an arrow is cool. That was a lucky accident.

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Besmoke - fluid dynamics

Besmoke - Interactive Fluid Simulation with iPhone and Sound Reactivity from eric gradman on Vimeo.
Besmoke is a fluid dynamics engine. It is compatible with any multitouch system, as well as the accelerometer in an iPhone. It also accepts audio input. The audio input can turn it into a fancy music visualizer that would even work with live or acoustic music. Different frequencies cause fluid to be injected from different “emitters”. There’s great info on his page, including the papers that he based this off of. We’ve covered [Eric]’s work before with his election party light system.

Thursday Nano Hacks: Getting Power from your Nano

For this week’s Nano Hack we will cover how to get power off your iPod Nano’s battery. Power can be useful when you need to run other small low power devices in conjunction with the Nano. These devices can be small circuits, lights, etc. In next week’s installment we will use the power we draw to power a glowing sleeve for the iPod Nano.

What you will need:
- an iPod connector cable to cannibalize (we used a Dock Connector to USB 2.0 + FireWire)
- a multimeter
- a soldering iron
- some sort of thin knife or miniature flat head screwdriver to pry open the connector

PIC based iPod remote control

I’d found plenty of documentation on the iPod’s dock pinout and serial based remote interface, but never a decent explanation of how to actually implement it. Finally I found BigCookie’s iPod to T&A remote control adapter tucked away in the iPod Linux wiki. He built the controller to receive remote signals from his T&A audio receiver and then translate them to control the iPod. He’s got schematics and code for a a PIC16F628 microcontroller. I’m guessing the code could be adapted to support almost any input method the PIC supports.