It seems like a better reaction to the situation of people hacking their boxes would have been to simply charge more for them (so they maybe made a little money) if you didn't buy the service contract, versus outright banning of hacking, etc.
After all - this would be just like the 'free cell phone' business model: not buying the service contract means you pay $300 for the phone. I think there are a lot of people that would pay $400-$500 for an iOpener.
There's a serial port on the palm, so hooking it to a GPS is trivial. StreetAtlas even comes with the software to do the GPS tracking and also lets you download maps onto the Palm.
I have installed the ADXL202 in my Palm Pilot. It works reasonably well (especially for something like MULG, which I also never mastered). The modification isn't too difficult if you're electroniclly savvy, but if you've never soldered before, don't even try. Soldering SMT components is a bit tricky. An external module would be nice, but I can't imagine that it would sell particularly well (but then again, who thought people would pay money for a TaleLight). To answer a few questions: 1) The device is useful for things other than MULG - The fact that the ADXL202 is an accelerometer means that you can do cool things like use it as a pedometer, etc. Carry it on roller coasters with you to look like a real gadget-head. I've tried to use mine to measure rock angles (strike & dip). 2) The chip (ADXL202) is a MEMS (I think that's Micro Electrical-Mechanical Something) chip. From what I understand, each accelerometer is effectively two plates separated by a tiny spring (and i mean *tiny*), and it looks at the capacitance as the spring is compressed/decompressed with accelerations. That sounds fragile, but since it's so tiny, the chip specs at a max of 1000g (thats survivability, not measurement range). 3) Accuracy - Mine isn't all that accurate, because I didn't quite follow all the instructions on the mod page. I've got lots of noise/ripple in the signal. It resets its value(s) to zero when you first turn the Palm on, so if you turn it on upside down, all values will be relative to that.
If you attend, make sure to stop by the MIT Coop and pick up some pocket protectors. They have some that say: MIT Nerd Pride Which are very very very cool.
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After all - this would be just like the 'free cell phone' business model: not buying the service contract means you pay $300 for the phone. I think there are a lot of people that would pay $400-$500 for an iOpener.
There's a serial port on the palm, so hooking it to a GPS is trivial. StreetAtlas even comes with the software to do the GPS tracking and also lets you download maps onto the Palm.
The Palm Navigator is a compass that plugs into the serial port of your Palm.
I have installed the ADXL202 in my Palm Pilot. It works reasonably well (especially for something like MULG, which I also never mastered). The modification isn't too difficult if you're electroniclly savvy, but if you've never soldered before, don't even try. Soldering SMT components is a bit tricky. An external module would be nice, but I can't imagine that it would sell particularly well (but then again, who thought people would pay money for a TaleLight). To answer a few questions: 1) The device is useful for things other than MULG - The fact that the ADXL202 is an accelerometer means that you can do cool things like use it as a pedometer, etc. Carry it on roller coasters with you to look like a real gadget-head. I've tried to use mine to measure rock angles (strike & dip). 2) The chip (ADXL202) is a MEMS (I think that's Micro Electrical-Mechanical Something) chip. From what I understand, each accelerometer is effectively two plates separated by a tiny spring (and i mean *tiny*), and it looks at the capacitance as the spring is compressed/decompressed with accelerations. That sounds fragile, but since it's so tiny, the chip specs at a max of 1000g (thats survivability, not measurement range). 3) Accuracy - Mine isn't all that accurate, because I didn't quite follow all the instructions on the mod page. I've got lots of noise/ripple in the signal. It resets its value(s) to zero when you first turn the Palm on, so if you turn it on upside down, all values will be relative to that.
If you attend, make sure to stop by the MIT Coop and pick up some pocket protectors. They have some that say: MIT Nerd Pride Which are very very very cool.