Less Radiation

End is in sight for Police use of Tetra Airwave service in the UK.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/08/airwave_tetra_switch_off_gov_services_onmishambles/

According to the article at The Register, the Police radio service will be replaced by 4G, but that won’t work well in rural locations. We think they need a new hybrid device with Tetra & 4G to have a system approaching anything workable  & more modern.

Any system that uses the newly available 700MHz spectrum in the UK will need new masts & control network, so would cost just as much as Tetra to run, but would at least work pretty well everywhere like Tetra.

Cheapest option, in our humble opinion, would be to make a secure Police Force app for Android & iPhone though with strong certificates & encryption & keep Tetra handsets for direct handset-to-handset secure communications (assuming they’ve been paid for & that doesn’t require a mast).

Live HD webcam feed from the International Space Station with 1 metre resolution

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2547567/Watch-Earth-space-REAL-TIME-Astronauts-finally-fit-International-Space-Station-HD-webcams-beam-live-footage.html

Sign up for a beta program of a HD webcam

http://www.urthecast.com/

Watch a free live feed from the ISS now

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream

http://johnjpowers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/citi-bike-latest-nyc-surveillance.html#!/2013/07/citi-bike-latest-nyc-surveillance.html?m=1

From today’s Guardian newspaper:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/30/car-hacking-ignition-injunction

According to the BBC, a female peregrine falcon has nested in a faulty cellphone tower and engineers aren’t allowed access until the chicks have fledged. The chicks might not fledge until June. There are less than 1500 pairs breeding in the UK & anyone disturbing them risks a prison sentence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-22144488

Decoding 433MHz keyfobs with RTL-SDR, RFCat, Audacity and a Texas Instruments Chronos Watch.

Interested in understanding how your 433MHz keyfobs work? Want to record the 433MHz data & play it back?

Read this great blog post from Adam Laurie of Aperture Labs:

 
http://adamsblog.aperturelabs.com/2013/03/you-can-ring-my-bell-adventures-in-sub.html

Raspberry Pi MAME Arcade Emulator SD Card Image Released.

Sick of trying to package your own working SD card image for MAME? Use this one instead:

http://blog.sheasilverman.com/pimame-raspberry-pi-os-download/

One sample ROM is included. If you can’t find your favourite game ROM, just search for ‘MAME arcade DVD’ on eBay.

Game files go in the /home/pi/roms/ directory.

Article in the New Scientist today – 1 September 2012 on page 18.

‘Joined-up power people’ advocates using the latent power of smartphones to power cluster computing tasks, but then points out that the combined processing power is piss-poor compared to a regular desktop PC. The problem with this superb hypothesis is that processor cycles used on a phone eat battery power, and idle time doesn’t. DUH!

They do mention that all the phones in a train carriage could combine over WiFi to perform a useful task. Presumably this useful task is to annoy an electro-sensitive person?

If you’re going to use your phone/laptop over free WiFi on a train, make sure you also use a secure proxy (hidemyass) or use a 3G Modem dongle instead – that way your Facebook account won’t get vandalised!

Apple 1 motherboard sells for almost a quarter of a million pounds at Sothebys

Only 200 were ever made. Only 50 are known to remain. Only 6 are known to still work.

A rare functioning Apple 1 computer – the company’s first product – has been sold at an auction for $374,500 (£240,929)

BBC online story is here.

Geohot was the first to Jailbreak the iPhone & the first to break into a PS3.

Read all about his exploits, highs & lows in this New Yorker article:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/07/120507fa_fact_kushner?currentPage=all

Geohot loves electronics, but hates the 9-5 grind, just like us.