Youritronics highlights

This is the last post for 2009 and I promise there will be much more in 2010. In 2009 we had some interesting projects developed here at youritronics.com here is some of the highlights:

The analyzer is currently at v.2.0 and it has allot more features then it originally had. Kits are still being produced and the shop has a new look.

The idea behind this project was born when a friend asked me too take a look at he’s broken GPS unit (MyGuide 3000) to see if I can fix anything. After figuring out that the processor is the faulty part I decided to use the gps module for a stand alone gps module that you can just connect to a netbook.

I would like to wish my readers a Happy New Year and may all your wishes come true. As you may have experienced, during the holidays,  hobbyists get some free time and they like spending it building stuff. In this case the author, Infernoz, build this 8 LED POV display, which seems like a fun way of wishing a happy new year. The device is based on the Attiny26 from ATMEL and from the video we can see it works quite nice, but unfortunately I was unable to locate any source code posted on the project page, but this is not that bad as you can find POV source code from others projects(POV1 POV2 POV3) if you’re interested in building one.

That is an officer of the law holding a modified pin pad discovered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. You can barely see it in this image but among other mods the pin pad has a BlueSmirf module attached to it. This allows someone sitting within ~100 feet away to capture all of the information transmitted by the pin pad including credit card information and the PIN number. Now SparkFun commented on this issue , and I agree with Nate that all things can be used for good or evil including their products. I don’t believe SparkFun should be blamed in any way for this, it’s the companies that make the pin-pads that should take care more of the security of their devices.
Bad guys will always try to trick the systems but it’s the companies who make credit card processing devices that should be one step ahead of them. I’ve read the comments on SparkFun’s blog and someone who works in a company that makes this devices said that they have all kind of security features that will make the pin pad unusable once someone tried to open it without authorisation. Someone else said they even have an internal battery for monitoring even if the pin-pad is unplugged or has it’s main battery removed so I’m not sure how someone managed to mount the BlueSmirf inside the pin-pad.

Chumby One was just announced on bunnie’s blog. You can get it now for 99$ pre-order price but once they start shipping the price will go up to 119$. You can read here about the story behing Chumby One and how bunnie tried to keep the price low by using every feature of this new processor from Freescale the i.MX233.  It turns out the i.MX233 has 3 internal switching regulators and it uses only one inductor to do the job. Next to the switching regulators the i.MX233 has even more analog features integrated like : audio codec,  speaker amplifier, USB PHY, video DAC, battery charger and more. This played out an important role in the final price of the Chumby One. You can read more about it on bunnie’s blog.