Wi-Fi light bulb

Unless they have some really really sharp IPR legal help you'll find one or the other version of this on the shelf as soon as those over the pond can get them into a shipping container. BTDT

That said come April 1 I going to have some fun with this.

They already ship by the 40' container load and don't require an iPhone to "tune".

Seriously, they couldn't put Apache in the unit. Why does everything need a freakin' app. Every app is a potential security breech. I spend my life updating apps.

I'm convinced Apple keeps Safari a piece of shit so that they can sell more apps. Facebook dumped their HTML5 interface strictly because of Apple's shitty html5 implementation.

Yeah but why would they? There are surely leaner, faster web servers for embedded use.

Becase we can!

"If there's a little more convenience to be had, or some free stuff, then screw security" would appear to be how things work nowadays!

Ummm... I can see it now.... Could you login to the smartbulb and turn it off? Great web page. 4 buttons... on/off/bright/dim. Maybe add some energy managment features, including a graph of operating costs. Integration with Smartmeter Zigbee? There are embeded web servers that will do that.

Why use wi-fi when they have the power lines available for HomePlug connectivity?

Because I can make a few bucks on the apps.

[Mom yelling] Junior. Turn off the light! [Junior] I can't. The app crashed.

You're worried that someone might turn the lights on and off in your house? The lights were on when I came home... must be a hacker.

Turn on background updates. I have that on my Droid X. Maybe some day IOS will add the feature. But probably not, since Apple can't claim that they invented it.

Is there a problem using Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Dolphin, Atomic, etc? I don't think HTML5 will be needed to turn a light bulb on and off.

[Q] How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? [A] Dunno... we're still getting funding.

Great for alt.home.repair!

Yep, spyware. There's an app for that:

I played with Cyanogenmod 7 on several old Droid A855. Lots of small bugs, but nothing fatal. I haven't tried 10 yet on later devices.

If you don't like it, roll your own OS:

or check if someone else has already done it.

In the video, he lost me when he talked about the white light from CFL's and how "we all hate that", as compared to the golden yellow of an incandescent. An informal poll at my house showed unanimous support for the white light. In fact, the thing we like best is the white light, not the energy savings. The thing we like least about incandescent bulbs is their yellow light, well ahead of their low purchase cost.

I stayed with the video to the end, however. Unfortunately, I see no merit in the product being advertised, so I won't be a contributor.

Off the top of my head, I don't see those "trace" programs really stopping spyware. That is, legit apps needs to use the internet too.

Your best bet is not to load app for the sake of loading apps. Then if you do load an app, deny it as much access as possible.

I put some wifi finder app on my android phone. Yeah, fancy graphics and all, but the site survey built into the blackberry works just as well, and I don't have to worry who is sniffing my phone. The blackbery app has a tone so you can DF the wifi if need be.

I have loaded some trusted apps, such as the BBC. But the funny thing is BBC news mobile website works better than the android app.

Unless you need to access something in the phone (GPS for instance), the mobile web makes more sense. In my case, I needed an android device for "bluetoothing" to another device. I could have use a tablet or for that matter an ipod/iphone/ipad/android tablet. But I wanted something portable and refuse to screw around with itunes. Worse comes to worse, I have a spare phone.

The yellow light as you know is just a throwback to glowing tungsten. There is nothing sacred about yellow light. If anything, matching the color temperature of Sol would make more sense.

My main use is to find which apps are accessing my address book. Some of them are justified, but most are not. I have a few that will not run if they can't steal my address book, which I've replaced with similar apps that don't. I have noticed a change in the type of spam I'm receiving and an increase in the quanity since I switched from an iPhone 3G to a Droid X. I've also salted my address book with semi-bogus email address to see if they propagate. Unfortunately, the do, indicating that my address book has been leaked to the spammers. I have a bad guess as to which app is responsible, but haven't done anything about it. Bummer.

That's no fun. I would stuff my Droid X full of every conceivable app I might use were it not for an irritating deficiency in the Google Play Store. You can easily add apps to the "My Apps" list, but you can't remove them. This has been on the planned improvements for ummm... about a year. Right now, the "My Apps" list has about 3 times the number of apps I actually have installed. Keeping them organized is no fun.

I suggest you switch to WiFi Analyzer. It has a tone and a nifty analog meter display. However, the feature I like is that it will show multiple access points that are hiding under a single SSID. A small [+] appears to the left of the SSID, which when pressed, shows individual access points.

Seperate server with limited bandwidth for Android? I'm too lazy to check the IP addresses.

I carry an old VX8300 cell phone for talking and use the Droid X like a PDA. The phone section of the Droid X is functional as it helps with getting locations indoors and might be usefull if I need to make a 911 call. I don't do cellular data as Wi-Fi is good enough.

Want my location?

So much for "privacy".

Chuckle. Your eyes tend to lie about colors. Cameras don't lie. Here's an LED light bulb showing the characteristic yellow color.

Well, it's possible to overdo it. I bought three LED lights with no diffuser and a clear plastic "bulb". Harsh would be a good description. See endless discussions on chromaticity, CRI (color rendering index), and color temperature.

Use your imagination. Once you have light bulbs under computer control, you can do all kinds of useful things. Energy management, occupancy detection, alerts (ringing phone replacement), ambient light controlled dimming, RFID control, audio controlled light show, etc. Personally, I find it more interesting and hopefully more economical than Z-wave, which does much the same thing at 900MHz.

Praise the lord...an app I can sideload. Side loading was the default for Blackberry since they predate the existence of app stores. Back in the day, apps actually worked well. They were either labors of love or cost a pile of money. Now apps are designed to stuff your phone full of ads.

I loaded it. However, I don't see how it tracks anyone. It sends your location, but I assume you need to track users via the web.

Cute how they used the word "fine" instead of "find". I will cut the programmers a break since they may be ESL.

It doesn't. It sends your GPS position to an APRS-IS server somewhere on the internet, which then forwards it to other APSR servers. It also receives other users position reports. Hit "options" and select "show map".

However, you can beacon your position via the RF APRS network (on

144.390MHz) with an audio cable to a radio, or a BlueGoof connected TNC (terminal node controller).

You can also see me at:

under my callsign at AE6KS-5. I'll be driving around Ben Lomond at bit later this afternoon (after I deal with a load of firewood).

So, bug report it. Feedback is always welcome. I plan to use it regularly, so I went for the paid version ($5.00). Note that the code is open source. I also plan to setup a receive only APRS-IS node at my house on 144.390.

Hmm. I have a Dirty Ol' iPod 2 (jailbroke) that I use for my highly regarded and professional "site surveys" using something called "StumblerPlus" which happily shows duplicate SSIDs - it just lists them twice. On the other hand, I'm the only guy in my neighbo(u)rhood with that kind of setup.

Usually stumbler code isn't passive. Hard to say what is used on the ipod.

If it is showing a duplicate SSID, it is probably making that determination by checking the MAC. Kismet (and correct me if I'm wrong) goes a step further. The program scan detect a wap with clone mac, probably by the signal strength between the true and clone being different.

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Yep, they all are thieves trying to steal from Jeff