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Build Your Own Solar Powered Hotspot
hode writes "Popular Science has a how-to article up on turning a backpack into a portable, solar-powered Wi-Fi hotspot. Possible uses include providing Wi-Fi access for a road-trip caravan." From the article: "Its secret ingredient: the Junxion Box. Plug a cellular-network card into the book-size open-source-based device, and voil--instant Wi-Fi hotspot, with speeds averaging around 700 kilobits per second. To power the box, I wired it to a 1.2-amp-hour battery and dropped both into the Voltaic Systems backpack, which has a built-in solar charger."
I can't help but wonder how well this would work if it rained during your whole weekend camping trip? Since that would seem like the time you'd want to use it. ;)
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
1) This thing costs over $1000
2) EV-DO cellular internet service for the internet connection is $80/mo
Maybe it would be better just to deal with being away from the internet when you're camping...
"Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
That's what Bluetooth was for, I thought. Why do we need this (hideously expensive) box to be a PAN when we have the (slightly less expensive and not needing an additional box) Bluetooth to di it already?
All very nice expensive electronic gadgets to make you a good target for a mugger...
"Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
voila. Viola is a musical instrument.
Too bad that if you opened the backpack in public, someone would probably shout "bomb!".
How about wrapping the whole package in solar cells, mounting it in the middle of a 1m diameter fishing net, and throwing it up into the trees? Do that with enough to put 3 APs in every 300' radius, all through the woods. Set a server connected to the network (maybe via a remote Pringles can) to ping each one, notifying when one has dropped off the network. Then go find it on the ground, and fling it up again.
Now you've got a rural area with a truly wireless network. It's easy to maintain the mesh. And these apps are cheap enough that a community can afford to do it, without a big cost per person.
--
make install -not war
hardly offtopic, even from me, the loser in the duel.
That's not obvious. With all the miles of dark fiber in this country and "all you can eat" cell phone plans, you would hope that per byte charges would be a thing of the past. Indeed, only one of Verizon's plans are pay as you go, and Verizon sucks life. So, with a flat fee, what's the point of not letting other people use your bandwith? So you can have your $1,000 goodies to yourself? Those goodies are only valuable when they are attached to a network and the network is only valuable because other people are there.
As more devices we carry around become wifi equipped imagine if your iPod, phone, psp and camera are all enabled & communicating with each other, having them all on a common network and working to each of their strengths
I don't own any devices that don't talk to my laptop so wifi won't offer me anything new. USB and pcmcia card readers work just fine and take much less power than wifi. Still, the are all relatively useless without network access. What's the point of pictures that I can't share with my family? Even the largest music collections go stale. My laptop runs free software because that's the easiest way for me to share things with myself and my friends.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If you have an air card and are by some miracle in range of a cell tower, why would you plug it into a $1000 box requiring another $100 battery instead of just directy into your laptop?