Homemade EVDO/WiFi Mobile Access Point 172
Tamundson writes "Over the last few weeks I've built myself a mobile access point for my car. It's based on a Soekris net2421 embedded Linux box and uses Verizon's 1xRTT/EVDO network as its uplink, resharing it over 802.11b. Wherever my car goes, my Internet link goes! :)
I finally put some webpages together on how I built it. The components are pretty cheap and anybody with basic Linux skills can build their own just as easily. I've also got it interfacing with Google Maps to do live vehicle tracking via gpsd. It also uploads pictures from an on-board webcam every five minutes or so."
stop moving! (Score:5, Funny)
Expensive (Score:4, Funny)
Why is it... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Beats the method of calling my friends every half an hour when i'm on a trip and trying to describe the surrounding cities/streets/lamp posts in hope for some guidance to a hot cup of coffee.
--Beware of on the road browsing though
Slashdotted ... or? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Slashdotted ... or? (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot effect in acction (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Expensive (Score:3, Funny)
I can't even begin to tell you.... (Score:2, Funny)
And don't forget... (Score:5, Funny)
-matthew
Re:It'll crawl! (Score:5, Funny)
If the car crashes (Score:0, Funny)
This ain't yer bluetooth phone. (Score:5, Funny)
We've had the technology and the ability to do this, but the really cool applications are just too risky, too liability-prone, or too legally questionable to catch the attention of the developers. So while your luxocar has a bluetooth network that catches viruses, and a lot of handy value-added features go by the wayside.
I mean, here's the things that are useful for an in-car network:
A) Porn. Porn drives technology, period. I strongly recommend that the next development in this field be a means to stream internet porn onto a heads-up (hands-free) display, possibly via voice command. Since we're all being open-sourcy about it, there should also be a facility to transmit and add to the global wealth of internet porn.
B) Anti-theft. This is talked about in the article, although I find it difficult to imagine a thief wanting anything as ugly as a Honda Element. Maybe if he riced it up a bit, and camouflaged the solar panel as a big-ass aftermarket wing or something; that and one of those "battery life extender" stickers that says "R-Type" on it
C) Navigation: again, there are already factory-installed and aftermarket solutions for this, but we really could use some improvements that only proper geeks can provide:
1. The author mentions networking radar detectors, as well as other traffic indicators (speed, proximity). That's a good start.
2. Much more interesting would be to network a whole slew of sensors. Radar detectors are good; but why not slap in a cheap scanner that runs through a whole range of frequencies and plots spikes and intensities? With a few sensors around, you could provide real-time plots of a large amount of radio traffic, and even localize quite a few. Heck, many police and fire frequencies are already out there on the internet.
Of course, y'all would need some centralized support for that, and if done wrong, it'd probably be the target of some congressman's ire, and attempts to shut it down.
Then again, if you ran something like a series of IRC channels (one for each region, run through port 80 and otherwise made to look like web traffic), authenticated users and blocklists, that just echoed reports from rmeote users, and maybe queries ("anyone got a picture of the tollbooth?"), you'd have your geek comms paradise, and the guy riding shotgun would have plenty of tasks to perform to isolate and avoid the mundane threats of traffic jams, separate ATIS noise from highway patrols, keep a steady stream of porn going to the driver's HU/HDD, and try to avoid throwing up.
D) Don't forget the need to bridge with existing open WiFi access points. Starbucks offers their networks as a service to the community, after all.
Then again, it's just a car. Speeding is generally something best done away from other cars. VoIP won't work too well with 3G latency. Any nerd project that gets mainstream acceptance loses most of its utility as people figure out ways to nickle and dime the life out of it.
Re:stop moving! (Score:5, Funny)
Now we can hold competitions: one AP driving around, several contestants trying to break into a machine in that car while they have to be in a certain proximity to have a connection to it. Sweet!
Re:Slashdot effect in acction (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, that will help him. All Slashdotters double the effect, NOW!
/. effect (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It'll crawl! (Score:1, Funny)