Getting Closer

Like many people, I sometimes would like to have a phone on my person.  And a camera. And a computer.  And a tricorder while I’m at it.

Nobody is yet offering this magic gizmo, but some people are putting pressure on manufacturers  to come up with these gizmos by hacking existing products to greater usefulness.  One of these folks is at www.cmw.me, and has a delightful hack of the Morotola Actv, a “fitness tracker” (i.e., a pedometer with some recording software) and MP3 player.  Like most of these devices, it is actually a small computer.  This one has pretty nice specs for a MP3 player:

• CPU: omap3 (3630) – 600Mhz
• Ram: 256MB
• Nand: 8GB
• Wifi: 802.11n
• BlueTooth: Yes
• Fm Radio: Yes
• GPS: Yes
• LCD: 1.6" QCIF+

Well, it doesn’t have a camera or a phone, but it is a wrist-mounted computer; it just doesn’t have a useful operating system to let it be more than just an exercise-time encumbrance.  He fixed that:

Follow the link above to get the details (he includes the little bits of code you need to do the hack).  I do like the GPS part; that’s something that lots of people find pretty handy.

Note: I should probably have a category for Star Trek, since the original series turns out to have been quite prescient with regards to technology.  However, going back over all my posts to find all the tech scattered through my writings which is Trek-like is way too much work for someone with as many interests and as little time as I have.  Go find it yourself.