Put your mobile devices on a table and turn them into the windows of a huge display.
Source: HuddleLamp – Spatially-Aware Mobile Displays for Ad-hoc Around-the-Table Collaboration
The CRAYFIS project is a novel approach to observing cosmic ray particles at the highest energies.It uses the world-wide array of existing smartphones instead of building an expensive dedicated detector.
Modern smartphones contain high-resolution cameras with digital sensors which are sensitive to the particles in a cosmic ray shower. They know where they are (GPS) and can upload their data (wi-fi). Most importantly, there are 1.5 billion active smartphones spread across the planet. Essentially, this detector has already been deployed; all that is missing is the app to collect the data
The CRAYFIS app operates in a manner similar to a screensaver. When the phone is connected to a power source and the screen goes to sleep, the app begins data-taking. No active participation is required on the part of the user after the initial download and installation.
Source: Crayfis: The app that turns your phone into a cosmic ray detector.
Wonder how much battery it eats?
The new FCC rules are meant to limit interference and target third-party firmware because it allows users to modify their radio frequency parameters. While the FCC requirements don’t actually block third-party firmware, it’s much easier for a router manufacturer to comply with the ruling by blocking out custom firmware like OpenWRT or Tomato altogether than it is to test that firmware for compliance.
http://lifehacker.com/tp-link-blocks-open-source-router-firmware-in-complianc-1764335555
This is one of the major learning points for OSS – compliance is incredibly important for widespread adoption, even if it is boring to implement, like documentation