The PDA of tungsten

The great majority of the movable telephones that are sold nowadays incorporates connectivity bluetooth. And a great part of the users takes it activated of continuous taking advantage of the capacity to detect near telephones, to use the free hands of the car (something that does not need that bluetooth is visible after to have registered the apparatus for the first time), or by simple ignorance. It is not necessary more to seat in a cafeteria and to activate the detection of near apparatuses: they will appear tens and tens of them.

Detecting gadgets with bluetooth near

And she is that the functionality of the free hands and other accessories would not be decreased to have blueetooth activated but hidden, nevertheless much people it ignores it and it continues being a traveling radio transmitter (and exposed to receive a virus by bluetooth).

Safe configuration of bluetooth, activated but invisible

“ruido” would be interesting to take advantage of all this; bluetooth to analyze the people who happen around to ours, or of our house truth? Ésto is what geek of Apeldoorn thought, in Holland, when seeing what could do with the adapter bluetooth USB that finished installing in its PC:

In September of 2007 I connected an adapter bluetooth USB with reach of 100 meters, and began to appear in my PC the names of near teléfonos/aparatos with bluetooth. It was then when the idea was happened to me to mount a network of escáneres by my city to analyze people.

I placed adapters bluetooth in five sites with access to Internet: the houses of my friends and relatives. In order to maintain the budget under I use Capios (terminals Windows EC). Reprogramé the Disk module on Chip so that Linux ran (in concrete DSL) and my scripts. The gathered data are sent to a central data base (MySQL). The final result is what it is seen in these pages.

Scheme of the assembly

Thus it is, in Bluetoothtracking.org we can see the results of the carried out investigation. The number of equipment is impressive: it is enough to see the list of the last detected ones in the 24 hours nondetected previously. The results are very interesting, and open to everything a field of techniques of study of the population:

• The traffic of people near buildings of offices, with a tip to 8, and another one to 12 Fridays (much people have afternoon of free Friday):

Equipment detected during the week near the offices

• The same but in downtown, seeing itself the schedule in which department store opens:

Equipment detected during the week in the center

• The distribution of models of GPS TomTom with bluetooth activated, detected in the cars that circulated near the sensors:

Models of detected navigator GPS TomTom

• The distribution of the Nokia models, a perfect study of the popularity of each one of them:

Models of detected movable terminals Nokia

• Study of equipment detected in two locations located to 16 km of distance to each other, which a person who traveled between, whenappearing in both detected (it is possible to be known until how long took).

Trip interpreted from two consecutive sightings

As we see, the result stops being a curiosity, to have remarkable implications. Let us imagine the interest which this technique can have for the companies to the power to make studies of commercialization and uses of its totally real products (this is not surveys, is data of all the population that happens through the sensors), or for the police, to the power to know when a telephone by the way passed site, that route followed, etc.

Nevertheless, we do not have to be alarmed in excess, since although direction MAC of the telephone identifies univocally to the apparatus (like it happens with the card of network of our PC), is not possible univocally to be related the telephone to the person. Somebody can be using rendered it, or it to have robbed. In addition does not exist a data base that surely relates directions MAC to the proprietor of the equipment (? inasmuch as time).

In the page of the project we can see that the author has taken the measures necessary to maintain the privacy of the detected people:

• Only are the 6 first digits of the MAC (the corresponding ones to the manufacturer, the other 6 digits yes that they univocally identify to the apparatus).
• The names of equipment that are combination of full name, directions of mail, telephone numbers have been eliminated, etc.
• The detailed data more of the equipment have been eliminated.
• The option has been eliminated search

Of course, which this person has eliminated this information of her page, it does not mean that other that apply this same technique they are going to do it. It is more, crossing the data of this data base with which the operators have of their terminals, and the users of these terminals, the attack to our privacy that can suppose is really worrisome. So like conclusion, you do not put the power so easy to watch all your movements, and deactivate the visibility of bluetooth of your apparatuses, they are going to continue working equal but they will not be announcing that way your presence.

By: Tricks
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In order to begin with forces the year that shortly we began, the PDA of tungsten is going to take days of vacations. You also take advantage of stops to disconnect and to enjoy your families and friends, and of course, of your Palm.

In order to acclimate them to this time of the year, you can use this bottom of screen navideño that I have turned to the suitable size so that you directly use it in your Palm. You remember that you have many other bottoms to unload in the collection of bottoms of screen of the PDA of tungsten.

A screen bottom navideño for your PDA or smartphone

By: General
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Equipment as iPhone or the HTC Touch has introduced definitively in the world of the PDA and smartphones a new way of navigation with touch screen: to use the fingers to touch and “arrastrar” the elements. Without a doubt, a much more natural way to interact with the equipment, although has still its limitations (for example using a virtual keyboard with the finger to write messages is not nothing precise, compared with a physical qwerty keyboard ).

TouchFLO technology of HTC, to the style iPhone of Apple

We know that in Palm are not indeed going to be fast introducing these new features in its equipment (perhaps ALP…), but also it is certain that Handspans always are outstanding by the great level and implication of their users and third companies. And once again it is demonstrated with this program of management of contacts, 2coolû, development by Metaviewsoft, the creators of many other excellent programs (the viewfinder PalmPDF, Crimson Fields, versions for Handspans of Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, etc). An image is worth more than thousand words, and a video much more still:

Although still it is in first stage of development, this second version already incorporates improvements suggested by other users:

• Entrances great, easy to guess right with the finger.
• The Vista of entrances has been divided, a part to the left with great them for fast calls (using the first stored telephone number in the contact), and a part to the right with the smallest entrances, to see all the details: all the telephone numbers, direction of mail, Web, etc.
• Continuous sliding, that when arriving in the end returns to begin by the principle.
• Diverse options of arrangement: by name, last name, company, etc.
• Bar of state with information of the battery, power of signal of the wire net and bluetooth, present supplier and own telephone number.
• Reduced consumption of battery.
• And many corrections of errors.

Without a doubt a program to prove, that demonstrates the effort that the lovers of the Handspans are making maintain to the height this dear operating system. You can unload it here. In order to be to as much of the new versions we have blog of the creators.

Published: the unloading no longer is available. Nevertheless, Stevenson Ramirez has been so amiable to send it to me by email, and I have placed it to unload from here.

By: New features
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Many we are those that we have fascination by the electronic devices, and want to know how they are done on the inside. The bad thing to want to see the guts of the apparatuses is that perhaps when returning it to mount pieces exceed… or rather that the apparatus does not return to work.

Luckyly other more capable palmeros have made the work by us, and we can find photographies of the circuitry and the components of our apparatuses. It is the case of the page Peter’s Pilot Pages, where we will find reviews of PDAs Palm decorated with many photographies of the internal components. The analysis of the same ones very concientious and is detailed, so it supposes a very recommendable reading to learn more on our small toys. The models are classic but for that reason they do not stop being very interesting.

The analyzed models are:

• Palm IIIx, with an analysis of the power and consumption of the processor, very advanced at its time.

Disposition of the Chips of memory in the Palm IIIx

• Palm V and Palm Vx, with its flaming and novel lithium ion battery.

Palm Vx with the at sight circuitry

• Palm IIIc, the first Palm with screen to color. Peter even analyzes with an oscilloscope the signal of control of the illumination of the screen, and much more compares the speed of refreshment of the IIIc comparing it with the IIIx, being to be fast the one of the monochrome screen.
• The expansion board TRGPro, an expansion of very popular memory in these first PDA, that an audio amplifier included in addition to improving the quality of the same one.
• The cleared Palm m100.

Views of the motherboard of the Palm m100

• Palm m500 and m505 (first with expansion by cards SD).
• Cassiopea E-10, an equipment of the dark side, that of all ways did not please too much to Peter, and in addition ended a cruel and rough end (care, image hard in the end).
• Pretty Sony Clié 760, the first PDA of Sony.

Clié 760 without housing

• Spectacular Clié NR70V, peculiarly executing the emulator of calculating HP 48G Power48, one of the first programs that took advantage of the great screen this PDA (first with HiRes resolution 480×320), and also one of the first programs of which they have appeared in the PDA of tungsten.
• The following model of Clié was Clié NX70V.

Clié N70 before and after opening it

• Palm Tungsten T like representative of “nueva” hornada of PDAs de Palm. With a good joke referring to Handspans 6,0, you watch the last paragraph and the button that appears.
• And, to finish, the BT3021, a joining point bluetooth that will make think us about how these apparatuses have been reduced until the present size of practically naked connector USB.

In this page also useful tutorials for manitas can be found, like the converter to port series for cradle USB of a Sony Clié, or a Palm m500, and even some quite interesting information with respect to the hardware of some equipment. That yes, as it says in this warning, to only make these modifications if we already have something of skill with the soldering iron.

In short, a page with very many interesting information to include/understand better how the hardware of our Palm works.

By: General
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The thrower of applications (to launcher in English) is the program of our Palm that load nothing else to generally begin it, in that they appear the icons of all the installed programs, to the style writing-desk of any PC. The thrower of Palm OS always has been very discreet, following the style of the operating system. When we want to give him to a change to the appearance of our PDA an option is to change this to launcher by defect, by showier other. Many of these throwers exist: ZLauncher, MegaLauncher, Propel, WinLauncher, iSpin Launcher, and thus a long list of others. Nevertheless, one of the throwers who by their aspect and low consumption of memory have surprised to me more, is AppShelf.

Appshelf running in my Tungsten E2

AppShelf is a veteran program, but that still is continued updating, with a released beta version at beginnings of 2007. It supports Handspans 5 and navigating of 5 directions, reason why it will not give any problem with the Palm most recent. And simultaneously, since it were developed for the Clié, it is when using it in these equipment when some specific options for them can be taken advantage of (small sources, advanced handling of JPG).

But what it called to me more the attention was the aspect that can be gotten to give to him the interface of the Palm. The image of above is a capture of my Tungsten E2 with AppShelf like launcher: More captures can be seen than they show his degree of personalización, in the page Web of AppShelf, review that Lithium did in its Web, or even in the group of the PDA of tungsten of Flickr (Rianvanu thanks).

Nevertheless, one of its disadvantages is that his author, H. Imazeki (also author of DBCacheTool, the powerful tool to avoid you hang in the Palm with NVFS) is Japanese, and the version translated to the English was little clear, until the point to sadly make the comprención difficult of the different options from the program, leaving us only with the option of the habitual method of test and error.

Thus it is as we arrived after as much roundup at the reason for this post: the announcement of a new translation to the English of AppShelf. This translation is made correctly, reason why it will be possible to be understood finally what means. In addition, small aids have been added to explain the options that with the original description were clear little: they are the texts with one “i” of information ahead.

Finally an English translation to intelligible

As it offers, to extend the functionality of AppShelf, additional modules exist to which the program brings integrated of factory: a button of fast connection to the network, a personalizeable clock, bioritmos, calendar, etc.

By: New features
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