Can You Control Your Car With an iPod?

I subscribe to a lot of IPTV shows through my Tivo. I love them! They are so informative, and you learn about things you wouldn’t otherwise have heard of through standard media channels. I suppose that is why you all visit me on Bauer-Power right?

Tonight I was watching one of those IPTV shows (GeekBrief.tv) and they mentioned a guy who hooked up a Linux powered operating system to his Mazda RX-8, and can now control many aspects of his car with his mutha friggin’ iPhone!

Here are some of the features of his geeky car mod:

• OBD-II interface
• 3G mobile broadband
• Ignition manager
• Wifi
• GPS
• RFID reader
• iPod Touch / iPhone / 3G cellphone control

Check out the video from this geeked out RX-8’s owner:

 

You can read more details about this geeky RX-8 project here: (Jon’s RX-8 Project)

If you want to try doing something cool like this with your ride, check out the Wiki over at GeekMyRide.org for more projects like this one, and how to get started on geeking out your ride!

Technorati Tags: geek,cars,linux,modify,control,ipod

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Linux + iPod = Friggin Awesome!

Some may say that there are two very distinctive geeks in this world. The iPod geeks, and the Linux geeks. Now the two have merged ceremonially in a really awesome way!

What if I told you that there is a Linux operating system that you can install on your iPod? Don't laugh, I am dead serious. I just found out about it today. This open source bad boy is called Podzilla and is a part of the iPod Linux project.

Fom the iPod Linux Project:

iPodLinux is an open source venture into porting Linux onto the iPod (http://www.apple.com/ipod/). So far, we have successfully ported a customized uClinux (http://www.uclinux.org) kernel to the iPod, and written a simple user interface for it dubbed podzilla. Additional applications and modules have been written, adding many capabilities not found in Apple's firmware.

Here is a video I found on Youtube to give you an example of what Podzilla looks like on an iPod nano:




Don't run off and get your double geek on just yet. Not all versions of the iPod are supported yet. To find out if yours is supported click here: (Supported iPods)

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Ripping DVD's to iPod or PSP

Well, last night I finally removed my self from the no iPodder's club at my company Christmas party. That is right, I won an 80GB iPod classic. In honor of such an event, I thought I would bring this post back to the top:


I want to revisit a post I wrote about copying DVD’s. Since the new Pirate’s movie is out, of course there is increasing interest in the world of pirating again. In fact, about 15% of my blogs' traffic comes from people looking for pictures of Jolly Rogers. Anyway, that is not the point of this post, or of this blog, but software, movie, and maybe even music piracy occasionally is. (Please let me re-iterate that I do not condone such behavior, and I have no control over what people do with the information I provide).

Anyway, in my post about copying DVD’s, I did not touch on the subject of mini portable movie players such as iPod’s or PSP’s. What if you purchased your new DVD and want to be able to watch it on your lunch break at work on your iPod? I have a solution for you.

There is a DVD ripping software that will convert your standard DVD into iPod or PSP format. Like everything else I suggest it is free. This little miracle is called Handbrake, and there is a version for MAC, Windows, and Linux. It will shrink the DVD down to an Mpeg-4 or H.264 format for use with PSP, iPod or similar device. It now even has support for AppleTV and PS3.

So don’t just “back-up” your movies for use on your DVD player, ‘back them up” and take them with you on your iPod or PSP.

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Power in a Pinch: The Onion Gatorade Trick

There is an extremely popular video going around the interweb from someone called the Household Hacker showing you how you can charge your iPod using only an Onion that has been soaked in Gatorade for for 30 minutes.

The idea behind it is that the onion's cells are filled with electrolytes from the Gatorade that can give a charge to the iPod, and keep it charging for up to 20 minutes.

Here are the materials you will need to try this experiment:

1. 1 onion
2. 2 cups of Gatorade (or other electrolyte sports drink)
3. Screwdriver
4. iPod and USB cable

Once you have your materials, poke a deep hole on either side of the onion using your screwdriver. This will allow the liquid to fill the onion quicker.

After the holes are poked in the onion, you now want to submerge it in your Gatorade for 30 minutes. Make sure the holes are completely submerged.

After 30 minutes, take the onion out of the gatorade bath, and dry off the excess liquid from the outside. Once the outside is dry, place it on a steady surface, and plug your iPod USB cable in. After a few seconds the screen should light up and the iPod should start charging. If everything was done correctly, you should be able to charge it for 20 minutes.

Here is the video from The Household Hacker:



It is important to note that I haven't tried this out for myself. I do have a classmate in College though that swears that he tried this last Saturday and it worked. I did find this article on about.com that says this is a hoax: (Onion Power Hoax).

Have you tried it? Let me know if it works or not. Hit me up in the comments.

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The iPod Is Almost Obselete

The iPod, in all its aliases such as nano, and the shuffle are practically antiques. Functionally, it's really just a personal stereo, which was originally patented by Srirekam Jayram Purushotam in 1974. It first reached true commercial success with the electronics giant Sony in 1979 when they sold their first Walkman model called the Soundabout. The iPod is still filling the same need, but using newer technology to do it better. Many of today's generation of clones marching around with white ear buds growing out of their ears, have probably never heard of a Walkman. Much in the same way the next batch will have no idea what the heck an iPod is.

There is technology just waiting in the wings which will replace the iPod as we know it. The iPod (and most mp3 players) markets, and differentiates its line of products by capacity. All the models really do the same thing, with the same set of controls. The biggest difference between them and the biggest factor determining price, is the capacity of the drives inside them. The second differentiating factor is of course the color. Kind of hard to charge more for blue or pink though. Anyway, there will come a time, when actually having a drive in your mp3 player or iPod will not be necessary. It really doesn't make sense. It makes the unit bigger, and drives the price up. Those little drives are far more expensive than comparable drives for bigger machines. Carrying your entire song collection on your person is kind of risky as well. What happens when Uncle Bob thinks its funny to pick you up and throw you into his new pool? Ooops, is that your 80Gb iPod with 20,000 of your favorite being sucked towards the pool drain? You've got that thing backed up right? Ha!

The answer is of course to store your entire song/picture collection on a server somewhere with proper data protection and backup facilities. Then all you need is a network ready receiver about half the size of a iPod nano with the ability to access your music off that protected server wherever you are. Capacity becomes meaningless. Running out of disk space on a current iPod / mp3 player means either deleting songs (are you nuts!) or buying a new player. Great for the manufacturer, but not so much for the consumer. The different pieces of technologies are there, it's just a question of someone putting it all together, and marketing it to the masses.

I think, maybe I'll just hold on to my old cassette Walkman, for a little longer. The next really great personal stereo for me is just around the next corner.

By: Chris Campbell

If you enjoyed this article and want to learn more about iPod Nanos procedures visit audiomp3players.info or simply read other articles about iPod Nanos and other topics by this author at foolishmumbles.com

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