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30Km isn't space, its only about 1/3 of the way there I think the definition of space starts at about 100Km you certainly couldnt achieve orbit at 30Km, you'd burn up

Here are some photos from approximately 30km up- . The curvature of the earth is evident, and the sky is pretty black at that height. It might still be inside the atmosphere, but it is outside most of the atmosphere. The air pressure at 30km is less than 3% of sea level. Good enough for everyone? No. But it is good enough for a lot of people, and at a far lower price.

... a group of Spanish high-schoolers, back in March. And a canadian a couple of years ago. And whatnot...

So, yeah. Not pretty much impressive (or a novelty) by now. Seems that verifying the roundness of Earth is routine.

These guys http://natrium42.com/halo/flight2/ made a video from 30 km altitude (100.000 feet) almost 2 years ago.

Some people provide better images too. The site I've linked even provides videos.

15km isn't that far out. You can still use oxygen-burning jets at that altitude if you design them right. The SR-71 went up to 24km. Amature high-altitude ballons can break 30km and might get out to 50km if they try hard enough.

If this thing can plausibly get out to 100-200km, they might have something, but 15km isn't very impressive for what it needs to do.

I'm still waiting for the GPS adapter. The DS could make a killer GPS system...

(yes I'm aware of this hack but it's not exactly ready for prime time and doesn't seem to have come to much beyond the first announcement)

$129 - Nintendo DS
$54 - Supercard-Lite-MicroSD
$15 - 1GB microSD
$49 - DSerial2
$99 - RoboDS
---
$350

Combine with the open source full linux wifi environment, and I don't know why you'd want to spend $350 on that controller (I'm lazy and haven't even read the specs on the thing, but seriously, I can't imagine there is anything the roboDS can't do that it could)

http://www.natrium42.com/shop/robods.php

-dmc/jdog

You can also order them from Natrium42(a well-known DS homebrewer and codeveloper of the original PassMe device) in Canada, to (I think!) pretty much anyplace the mail service will deliver. That's how I got mine.

Unfortunately, DS delivers only 3.3V to GBA slot and so an external 5V power supply is required. I used a 11.1V li-poly battery and a DC-DC converter to bring the voltage down to 5V.

Since he's using an external power supply, I guess that the HD doesn't drain that much from the DS battery..

Natrium42 made the exact same thing a year ago, and I don't recall this being mentioned on SlashDot before..

Natrium42 made the exact same thing a year ago, and I don't recall this being mentioned on SlashDot before..

The mod gods
Natrium42

Both got 802.11, the PSP got a TCP/IP-stack and a useless browser, the NDS doesn't. On the other hand there is Linux for the NDS (in the form of DSLinux.)

Does the DS really have fewer games? I thought it was around the same amount or maybe more. I've watched all the major gaming sites and there are much more games I feel I might play for the NDS. And also since you can play all 750+ GBA games the NDS must win that round.

Well it just might be .....

Some of the guys over at DSDev have some test code to show how presure sensitivity might work. According to the official doco from Texas Instruments on the touch screen it should support it. Something to do with the area over which the pressure is applied based on some special formula. It's all very technical but definitely possible.

Check it out at .....

http://www.natrium42.com/blog/?p=18

Enjoy!

And not only that, but with a GBA flash cart and appropriate wifi card or $20 dongle, you can actually program the thing yourself!