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Archives: July 2007

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July 31, 2007

Make your own multitouch displays and software apps

Multitouch display technology has been gaining a lot of visibility recently, both with Microsoft's Surface interactive tabletop displays and the iPhone's slick gesture-based interface. Ignoring some of the particulars, the guts behind this technology is relatively simple, and you can make you own multitouch interactive display for little over the cost of a projector (the most expensive part of this setup).

An acrylic panel is edge lit with infrared leds. When your finger comes in contact with the acrylic, it scatters infrared light out the back where it is visible via infrared camera. As long as nothing is touching the acrylic, very little of the light escapes, instead just reflecting around inside. Image processing takes care of detecting tips of fingers and relaying their location to application software. Since the camera "reads" the whole display in parallel, it is easy to detect multiple fingertips at once, even those belonging to multiple users. All this sensing goes on in the infrared spectrum, leaving us free to utilize the visible spectrum to display interactive software.

So, a sheet of acrylic, some LEDs, a projector and a webcam and you're in business. Below is an example of this setup in action:

As you might imagine, there's a lot of software that translates the infrared fingerpresses that the webcam sees into a usable operating system or application interface. You're not entirely on your own with this. There's an image processing library called Touchlib which will handle passing your C++ app screen touch events. The community of Touchlib developers seem to be pretty active and have put together a number of open source, sample applications which can help you get started.

References:
DIY Multitouch Dsiplay @ Instructables - Link
Touchlib - Link
Natural User Interface Group (multitouch developer community) - Link

iPhone update!

Here's the first iPhone update - just plunk your iPhone in the dock, start iTunes and have it check for an update in the iPhone panel...

So far it says "bug fixes". No new apps, nothing. My guess is that it's the fix for the Safari security issue that was/is being revealed at BlackHat-Defcon.

Update: Safari stuff, that's it - Link.

Here are the screenshots...

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Excel Hacks, Second Edition is out!

The second edition of Excel Hacks is out now, and it's our biggest hacks books yet, with over 130 hacks covering many versions of Excel: Excel 2004 for the Mac, as well as Excel XP, 2003, and 2007. David and Raina Hawley's new edition provides a resourceful, roll-up-your-sleeves guide that gives you nonobvious solutions to a whole pile of interesting Excel problems.

It's available now from bookstores, and you can also find it in the Make store.

Resources

O'Reilly FYI: Have fun with Excel - Link
Sample Chapter - Link

July 30, 2007

iPhone tether: enable EDGE wireless on your laptop

Of all the applications you can upload to the iPhone thanks to the Jailbreak and iPhoneInterface hacks, a SOCKS proxy daemon is perhaps the most useful. It's also the best way to make full use of an unlimited data plan.

Recent developments have allowed iPhone hackers to compile background applications for the iPhone - among the most interesting so far is srelay, a SOCKS proxy server.

srelay running on your iPhone opens up a very exciting possibility - you can use your iPhone's EDGE connection with a laptop or other Wifi-enabled device.

This is about as essential as it gets for laptop users who regularly travel outside the range of reliable WiFi. When this is activated, you'll be able to browse the web on your laptop just about anywhere you can get a cell signal. Your laptop will connect to the iPhone over an adhoc WiFi network, and the SOCKS proxy will happly funnel your web requests over the iPhone's EDGE data connection.

I should also mention that this sort of functionality is a typical feature for just about every other phone on the market -- I've been doing this with my GPRS Windows Mobile phone for years -- so it's nice to see the iPhone finally get with the program.

Tether your iPhone: EDGE internet on your laptop - Link

July 29, 2007

Measure your 0-60 time with a Wiimote

Here's how you can use the Wiimote's built-in accelerometers to measure your ride's G forces and 0-60 time:

I got this idea after seeing some physics class use the wiimote in some kinda pendulum experiment.
Why not use the wiimote's built in 3-axis accelerometers to measue g-forces, acceleration and even calculate my own 0-60mph times!

So I did. I wrote a script to dump all the g-force readings from the wiimote to a comma separated value file, then did some post processing in MS Excel, and voila, I can see every bump, every curve, my acceleration and braking, and even calculated my current speed using high school physics (v=a*t)

I wonder how much weight you could strip off this thing to get it to its bare essentials. A LiPo battery a gumstix board and maybe this could be extended to model rocketry or autonomous helicopter applications.

Wii Remote Accelerometer Measurements - [via] Link

July 28, 2007

AppleTV external USB media storage

A working patch was released today that will allow you to use an external USB device as the primary storage for your audio and video media.

Just a recap for those who are not familiar with this. A few months back, AppleTVHacks.net and FatWallet set up a bounty looking for a way to use an external USB drive as a primary storage for the Apple TV. The patch must still allow the Apple TV to boot from its internal hard drive but only use the external USB drive as its primary storage.
First of all, our team would like to thank Patrick Walton of University of Chicago for sending us the original entry. We certainly appreciate his effort; it was a quite an achievement. Unfortunately, syncing did not work. By the time we realized the problem, Patrick was already too busy to fix his code.

Fortunately, Tom Anthony, our resident geek, was able to pick up where Patrick left off and fixed the syncing problem that the original patch had.

This is known to work with version 1.0 for sure, but some folks are claiming it doesn't work with 1.1. So, for now, there's still room for some additional hacking on this one.

Get busy filling up your device with your terabyte-size video collection. Just make sure to back up your system before applying this patch.

References:
USB Patch Download and Instructions - Link
HOW TO - Back Up and Restore the AppleTV Hard Disk - Link
Enable SSH Access to Your AppleTV - Link

July 27, 2007

Open source astronomy: Stellarium and Celestia

Hackszine reader ozastro made a request for a southern hemisphere night sky guide. Instead of a specific southern sky guide, here are a couple of really nice open source astronomy packages that you can download. One will allow you to view the night sky from any point on Earth, and the other will let you change your perspective to any point in the universe.

Stellarium, is a planetarium package that will let you view the sky from any time or position on earth. Pictured above is the southern sky (with constellations outlines), as seen from Perth.

Celestia is a little like jumping in a virtual space ship which allows you view realistic models of the solar planets as well as travel throughout the universe. Curious what the universe looks like from Polaris? Want to to view Io up close and personal? Check it out. It's worth the download.

Both packages are available as binary downloads for OS X, Linux, and Windows.

Downloads:
Stellarium - Link
Celestia - Link

July 26, 2007

Microcontroller basics: using transistors to amplify current

To control a lot of components, especially motors, physical devices or bright LEDs, you typically need to accommodate more current than your typical microcontroller can provide. Eric Wolf wrote a nice introduction for using transistors as a current amplifier to solve this common scenario.

In regard to current capability, generally speaking, most microcontrollers will only source around 20 mA or less (usually less) of current before you start running into problems. This is less than the amount of current used to power a super bright LED at maximum intensity (the ones I use run around 30 mA, a lot can run less). There comes a time in every man and woman's life when they just need more power.
A Bipolar Junction Transistor has many different functions and applications in a circuit. It can be used in an amplifier configuration, a device to regulate the flow of current (think of a valve on a water pipe), or, in our case, a switch. For all intents and purposes, this "switch" can be referred to as a current amplifier.

If you want to control larger motors, you'll probably need to use a device called a Darlington Pair, which is actually a combination of two transistors. These can be purchased as a single package component which simplifies the wiring a bit.

If you're interested in controlling motors from a microprocessor, you might also want to check out an article I wrote about building an h-bridge circuit. An h-bridge is a simple circuit that you can build that will allow you to control a motor, both forwards and backwards, with the output on two IO pins. It uses a number of Darlington transistors in combination to both power the motor and to switch the direction of the current based on the input from the two IO pins. In my case, I used an h-bridge to control an RC car with a Basic Stamp microcontroller.

Resources:
Use a Transistor as a Current Amplifier - Link
Control a Motor with an H-Bridge - Link

July 25, 2007

HOWTO: spoof Windows TCP/IP stack and IIS server headers

Pavs sent in a link to a program for Windows XP called Security Cloak, which can be used to tweak your machine's TCP/IP fingerprint to look like something else:

Security Cloak is designed to protect against TCP/IP stack fingerprinting and computer identification/information leakage via timestamp and window options by modifying relevant registry keys. The settings used are based on the results of SYN packet analysis by p0f. While the OS reported by other OS detection scanners were not identical to those of p0f, testing against Nmap, xprobe2, queso and cheops showed that they were unable to identify the correct operating system/version after Security Cloak settings had been applied.

Another way to detect a server type is to look at the HTTP "Server:" header, which will report the type and version of the OS and web server software that is running. MS has a support article about using a tool called URLScan to change your system's server header. You could change this to something completely bogus, or maybe impersonate the header from another system. Presumably, you'd want to match the OS fingerprint that you tweaked with Security Cloak.

The exact utility of all this? It could be slightly useful for deterring some types of automated cracking tools, namely those that use OS fingerprinting to guess the possible ways to compromize a machine. It might also be a nice way to trick your Linux hacker buddies so they stop teasing you about those Windows boxes that corporate is forcing you to keep running.

Security Cloak (overview and instructions) - Link
Download Security Cloak - Link
Mask IIS Version Information - Link

July 24, 2007

HOWTO: ssh daemon on the iPhone

Erica Sadun at TUAW posted a slick reference for getting the Dropbear SSH server running on the iPhone:

Over at the #iphone channel at irc.osx86.hu, the thoroughly awesome NerveGas has figured out how to enable ssh on the iPhone without using restore mode. The secret lies in overwriting an existing binary and plist to trick the iPhone into calling chmod on the Dropbear ssh server and making it executable.
At this time, NerveGas has used Nightwatch's compiler to create iPhone-compatible versions of curl and ps as well as a number of other useful Unix utilities. (He's working on grep, as I write).

This hack will let you use scp to transfer files to your device, as well as allow you to access the unix shell from another machine. There's a working build toolchain now for the iPhone, so this is probably the most convenient way to upload and execute custom files on your iPhone from this point forward.

One other thing -- when you've finished installing, make sure to change the password from the default "dottie". From NerveGas' SSH guide:

If you don't like 'dottie', you can generate a new encrypted password by running:
perl -e 'print crypt("MYPASSWORD", "XU");'

Where MYPASSWORD is the new password you want, and XU is a random two-letter salt. Copy the encrypted output and replace the existing one in /etc/master.passwd on the phone.

You'll want to do this for the two enabled accounts 'root' and 'mobile'. Don't forget -- failure to change the default password is essentially giving everyone open access to your device.

References
TUAW's iPhone SSH Overview - Link
NerveGas' Instructions for Installing SSH - Link

July 23, 2007

Learn to navigate by the night sky

Can you spot Ursa Major, Polaris, Cassiopeia, Betelgeuse, and Orion in the photo above? Know which way is North? If not, here's a quick 15 minute drill that will teach you how to recognize a few constellations and navigate at night (assuming you live in the northern hemisphere).

For you city folk, this could come in handy if:

you're trying to get to a late night party
you become disoriented
the battery dies in that Google Maps enabled iPhone we've been blabbering about for the last couple weeks

Identify constellations and navigate at night - Link

July 22, 2007

iPhone buffer overflow exploit

Whoops. Looks like somone's found a buffer overflow exploit on the iPhone which allows arbitrary code to be executed as root. Details won't be released until the Blackhat convention in Vegas on August 2nd, but it looks like Safari is the culprit - [via] Link.

The exploit's authors suggest that you not use unfamilar WiFi networks, browse sites you don't trust, or open web links from emails until Apple releases a patch. So, basically, all the normal internet hygiene rules still apply -- people just aren't used to thinking that way about their phones yet. Add the risk of having your phone lost or stolen, and maybe you'll agree that it's just generally best not to keep too much sensitive/private data on portable devices.

Sharing lists of podcasts for the iPhone, iPod, iTunes... OPML, .pcasts and more...

I was talking with a friend who has an iPhone and was sharing some of the videos and audio (podcasts) I have. It's a pretty good mix of current news, updated videos, science audio shows and best of all, free... The audio shows are good for running and the video shows are good for commuting (subway/bus). Since I don't have a TV this is a nice commercial free way to get a lot of great content. Not many people know you can share your Podcasts fairly easily (by share I mean the list of them).

First, the not so easy ways... You can't make an iMix since that's just for things you can buy (see image below).

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Here's a screen shot of the ones I have...

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In iTunes you can see the XML feed, but you can't copy and paste it.

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One thing that is possible is to drag the podcast title from iTunes on to the desktop, it creates a .pcast file (Podcast subscription file) which contains the feed location.

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It's possible to cut and paste from a .pcast file once you open it in a text editor - and you can paste the url in to iTunes... (*Note, you can also drag RSS/XML feeds in to iTunes from a browser). If you like the shows listed here - download my .pcast files linked below or all of them in the zip file - Link.

That said, the easiest way for folks really in to this is to just use an OPML file. iTunes can export and import OPML files (a list of locations / feeds of the podcasts, audio, video and PDF). Here's how...

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In iTunes click podcasts in the main window.

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In the menu choose File > Export.

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In the pull down list choose OPML. That's your OPML file, you can now send this to someone, post it online and import it... Here's how -

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In iTunes go to the menu, choose File > Import and select the OPML file.

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You'll get this dialog and you're all set!

Here's my iTunes OPML file - Link.

That's it - go fill up those devices! It's what all those gigs are for.

Bonus tip: If you have your own podcast you can make a one-click subscption link. Just replace https:// with itpc://

For MAKE ours is: itpc://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/make_podcast/index.xml

This opens up iTunes and subscribes.

Or, you can use a link to the show within iTunes - here's ours again...
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=74069835&s;=143441

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To get a URL location of any podcast just right click (or on Mac ctrl - click).

I'm pretty sure this works on both Macs and PCs, if it doesn't post up in the comments.

July 21, 2007

Use Adsense on password protected sites

In order to display relevant advertisements, Adsense has its own web crawler which scans Adsense enabled URLs for page content. This helps Adsense get a clue of what the particular page is all about, and enables it to display ads with purchased keywords that match your content.

For forums and other password protected sites, however, the Adsense crawler is usually able to see only an error or login request page. With little information to go on, ads cannot be placed correctly, so Adsense on password protected sites was a bit of an impossibility. Until Google added the "Site Authentication" feature, that is.

If you go into Adsense setup, there's a new tab called "Site Authentication". On that tab, you can configure Adsense with the login and password information that it needs to authenticate with your site before indexing your pages for content. You'll need to know a little about how your login form is configured for your particular site, but it's fairly simple to figure out from looking at the source. Here's an example:

Locate Form URL and Variables
The login form on a Drupal website that I run looks like this. I've stripped out everything but the form anf input fields, and your site may differ, but you can use this as an example:

<form action="user/login?destination=node" method="post">
<input type="text" maxlength="64" class="form-text" name="edit[name]" id="edit-name" size="15" value="" />
<input type="password" class="form-password" maxlength="64" name="edit[pass]" id="edit-pass" size="15" value="" />
<input type="submit" class="form-submit" name="op" value="Log in"  />

So from this I know that the form method is "POST", the URL for the login page is https://examplesite.com/user/login?destination=node and the're are two user input fields for the username and password: "edit[name]" and "edit[pass]". There is also the submit button, with the name "op" and the value of "Log in". The submit button value may or may not be important for the log in script, but we'll use it just in case.

Give Adsense Authentication Information

Now you can jump over to the "Site Authentication" page and add the necessary information. First, make a speical username and password on your site for Adsense to use. Adsense will be using this account to log in and browse your site's content, so make sure it has the neccessary permissions to see everything that you want ads to appear on. For the purposes of this example, let's say the new user is "adsenseuser" and the password is "123abc".

In the restricted directory or url field, put the portion of your site's URL that restricted content is under. This might be https://www.restrictedsite.com/ or https://www.testsite.com/membersonly or something like that.
For the authentication url field, enter in the url that you discovered earlier which the normal log in form is posting to. In the above example, this was https://examplesite.com/user/login?destination=node
Select the correct authentication method. This will be "POST" in most scenarios.
Enter the login form field names and values. Our example has three fields: "edit[name]", "edit[pass]", and "op". The values in this case would be "adsenseuser", "123abc", and "Log in", respectively.

When you've finished, save your settings and you'll be directed to Google's webmaster tools to "claim your site". This is the same tool used by Sitemaps, and all you'll need to do is upload a small file to your site. This proves to Google that you are the owner of the site.

After your site is verified, and Adsense has had some time to index your site, you should notice more targeted ads start appearing on your restricted pages.