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I made a cell phone [video]
- xcopy 11y agonice
- sebastianavina 11y agoits the kind of project im going to play some day
- UnoriginalGuy 11y agoI wish the audience's audio wasn't much MUCH louder than the speaker. I had to turn the audio up to hear him, but the laughing was so loud I had to turn it down every few seconds. Also a fun video to watch, but he kind of skips over some of the most interesting technical details (like writing the software).
- nikmobi 11y agoAgreed, my neighbors probably hate me right now from the audio. On a serious note, though, I hope a write up with more details pops up.
- cellularmitosis 11y agoThis was bad enough that I bothered to figure out how to fix it. VLC -> Media -> Open Network Stream, paste in the youtube URL. VLC -> Tools -> Effects and Filters -> Audio Effects -> Compressor. Enable the compressor. Here's where I moved the sliders: http://i.imgur.com/fGlPM5R.png http://i.imgur.com/fGlPM5R.png I basically followed the advice given here: http://lifehacker.com/5920290/how-to-fix-movies-that-are-really-quiet-then-really-loud http://lifehacker.com/5920290/how-to-fix-movies-that-are-rea... The last 10 seconds of the video is the best way to verify it is working. Without compression, the clapping is ear-drum-splitting-loud compared to the speakers voice.
- karlshea 11y agoThank you, that made this super-interesting video actually watchable. Also, I learned VLC will just happily play a YouTube video right from the page's URL.
- cellularmitosis 11y agoYeah, that trick is also useful for older machines which are otherwise too slow to play stutter-free youtube video in a web browser. The VLC implementation appears to be significantly more CPU efficient.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoProbably pulls the h264 version instead of VP8/9.
- noobie 11y agoI was gonna say there's a Chrome extension (H264ify) that allows that, but then again I doubt the machine would even be capable of running chrome.
- ploxiln 11y agoThat's probably not why. h264 would indeed use less cpu time than vp8 if there was hardware acceleration from the graphics driver available and being used for h264 but not vp8 (which is plausible). But software decoding can be pretty efficient in dedicated video players, and browsers and flash can be pretty damn slow at just getting decoded frames to display. Back in 2010 I was using a computer I built in 2004, which had a single-core athlon64 3200. Watching standard definition video in Hulu was a blocky slideshow, totally unusable. But I could watch 720p h264 video at a decent bitrate, with mplayer, with no hardware acceleration. One of the bigger differences is that browsers/flash have to put the video output as a surface that they composite with the controls on top and the rest of the page behind. Old-style video players actually render to a different hardware "overlay" plane and don't mix anything with it in software, and it makes a huge difference. (My mplayer example is from linux, but I've also used MPC on windows a lot. You can change the renderer in the settings, and "overlay" doesn't support showing subtitles, but has noticeably faster/smoother performance. Well, back on windows XP.)
- revx 11y agoHi! I shot the video. We had some problems with the mic hookup on stage so I was using a mic all the way back at the camera that wasn't nearly as directional as I hoped. Apologies to everyone's eardrums !
- Radle 11y agoYou could have also run a noise filter over it I believe, the quality wasn't good even when the crowd was quit.
- noobie 11y agoWell, you have the video now, you can download it and run said noise filter over it yourself..
- noobie 11y agoYour effort is much appreciated, the talk was worth it. Thank you!
- byuu 11y agoThe worst part was that the jokes weren't even funny. It sounded more forced than a '90s sitcom laugh track. "As you can see, I got a G-" <HAHAHAHAH>, "that's like ... a good grade" <HAHAHAHAHAHAH>, "of course, an E is for excellent" <BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! ::standing ovation::> ... why am I so cynical? ;_; Agreed though, the actual concept was really cool! Maybe to the author, try subtitling the video given the bad audio? Then we could just watch the video muted, and the (minor) problem would be solved :) (and feel free to downvote this, I know I sound like a monster, complaining about laughter >_>;)
- aws_ls 11y agoI am not the one to complain often. But I really was very irritated, by the hysterical laughs, at regular frequency.
- trevmckendrick 11y agoHe (they?) are working on a new "luxury" phone it appears. More info here: https://keminglabs.com/phone https://keminglabs.com/phone
- chadzawistowski 11y agoSimilar project by Adafruit https://learn.adafruit.com/arduin-o-phone-arduino-powered-diy-cellphone/overview https://learn.adafruit.com/arduin-o-phone-arduino-powered-di...
- mkeeter 11y ago...and by Dave Mellis at the Media Lab: http://web.media.mit.edu/~mellis/cellphone/ http://web.media.mit.edu/~mellis/cellphone/
- elkhourygeorges 11y agoThis is so cool. This guy kept everybody laughing and listening while presenting how to make a cellphone :)
- cryowaffle 11y agoThe audience reactions were like being at a wedding, anything you say is hilarious.
- listic 11y agoI thought cell phone companies don't appear from nowhere because governments and/or organizations like FCC in the USA are not allowing just anyone to sell radio communication equipment (is that why cellular modems are never open sourced, right?) Is it because of the regulations that we don't see lots of cell phone manufacturers? If it wasn't for that, from this presentation I get the feeling that cellphones could be made to spec quite easily, say, by your regular hardware Kickstarter campaign: at least, the cellular modem shown in the presentation looks really self-contained.
- voltagex_ 11y agoFrom memory your phone OS just talks to the baseband through AT commands, they're separate.
- posborne 11y agoI work for a wireless design services company. There is a large divide between using a Cellular module (e.g. Telit LE910) versus doing a chip-down Cellular design (e.g. Qualcomm/Infineon). This design has a module at its core. Modules are based around the chipsets but they do the most expensive certification (both FCC and Carrier) work for you. As a purchaser of the module, you pay for this on each module. Certifying a cellular end device is usually <$50K (depending on number of bands, # of carriers, fallback, etc.). Certifying a new chip-down cellular design can easily exceed $1-2M in just certification and testing costs. Development costs and complexity will also be increased.
- nmrm2 11y ago> Certifying a cellular end device is usually <$50K Suppose the author wants to (completely legally) use the phone he just built. Does he have to go through this "end device" certification? Or does "end device" mean something else here? what if he wanted to sell the phone? I was wondering what the regulatory landscape looks like during the last portion of the talk -- it'd be a real shame if he put all this time into designing a beautiful phone and couldn't (legally) use it!
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- swampthinker 11y agoAre there any pictures of the finished product? I'm intrigued.
- ghostbrainalpha 11y agoThat guy is smarter than me, funnier than me, and most importantly works harder than me.... but I have an iPhone.
- lynaghk 11y agoI gave this talk. Slides are here: https://keminglabs.com/talks/#bangbangcon2015 https://keminglabs.com/talks/#bangbangcon2015 I'll post some photos of the current version and more details on my twitter (@lynaghk) tomorrow (in 10 hours). Software is all on an 8-bit Atmel microcontroller, written in C in the style of Harel Statecharts (http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/seoc/2005_2006/resources/statecharts.pdf http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/seoc/2005_2006/reso...).
- samlewis 11y agoSuper cool, any chance of some pictures or a video of the finished product?
- zaf 11y agoHey, great talk and thanks for the link to the paper.
- ubercow 11y agoWhat was that 3D/CAD software you were using?
- henrikeh 11y agoIt looked like Autodesk Inventor. It is a parametric CAD software like Creo or Solidworks. The parametric part is actually really neat. The lines are drawn and then certain constraints must be applied: These points must be coincident, these lines must be parallel, these must be perpendicular and several others. Dimensional constraints are then applied. The program informs the designer when the drawing is "fully constrained" meaning that the parametric solver can only find a single solution for the given set of constraints. For example to center a hole inside a brick: Guide lines are drawn to be along the center. At there intersection a point is constrained. The hole is then extruded (or made using the hole tool) at this point. This allows for making programmable drawings. For example one drawing can generate several pieces of documentation for different parts, but with different dimensions, thread types and so on.
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- geeklodhi 11y agohttp://googler700.blogspot.com/ http://googler700.blogspot.com/
- carlesfe 11y agoVery nice! I've been following these tutorials in the hope of building my own cell phone sometime soon. If you want a more step-by-step tutorial, Ben Heck's youtube channel is a very good source. He specifically has a DIY cellphone Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SlcVTfP4MA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SlcVTfP4MA Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAbppnXpfHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAbppnXpfHc
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- vvpan 11y agoAs a person who does not use a smart phone but feels that nobody puts thought into the dumb phones - this has crossed my mind many times. Very very interesting.
- amelius 11y agoOk, you made a working cell phone. But are you sure you know how to do it? What if, next time, something goes wrong, do you have the proper diagnostic skills to figure out the problem?
- Nexxxeh 11y ago>What if, next time, something goes wrong, do you have the proper diagnostic skills to figure out the problem? Well, he's probably nearly 4% expert by now. Presumably it depends on if the problem occurs with something within that 4% or not... ;) Two large bits of chippery, both of which will talk (relatively) directly to a PC if needed. If it's a software problem, he'll probably be ok. If it's an RF problem, maybe not. From what I hear, that's a nightmare.
- nmrm2 11y agoIndeed, it's important to note that the answer to everything software engineers do is something like this. "If it's a bug in my application I can probably fix it. If the origin of the bug is the OS kernel I might need some time. If something's wrong with hardware I'm probably screwed." Which is to say that, in some sense, the answer to the grandparent's question for a simple HTML page is quite obviously no, even for the most experienced web developer. Except of course that this guy is probably less screwed than the typical software engineer because he (at least physically) connected the hardware components.
- morb 11y agoThat's discouraging. He pretty much admits during the whole talk that he doesn't really know what he's doing. But he's doing it nevertheless. He's learning. And he's encouraging others to try and do stuff they don't know much about. And to celebrate small victories. Also, I never ever have proper diagnostic skills to figure out the problem when I'm doing something I've never done before.
- amelius 11y agoI didn't want to be discouraging. I was just phrasing what I would think if I just did something like he did.
- deutronium 11y agoVery impressive, I notice he's using a chip for GSM/GPRS - UC15EA. I'm wondering if anyone's used an SDR to make a cellphone, as I've seen GSM base stations implemented with SDR, but not cellphones before.
- sammermpc 11y agoIf folks are interested in this kind've thing, this is an interesting Arduino-based project: http://web.media.mit.edu/~mellis/cellphone/ http://web.media.mit.edu/~mellis/cellphone/
- owaislone 11y agoFeels like I'm watching some sitcom. Does anyone else feel the people are laughing too much?.. or probably the microphone is very near to the audience.
- shreyas056 11y agoYup, felt the same
- lucb1e 11y agoSame of course. Elsewhere in this thread (9 hours before your posts): > Hi! I shot the video. We had some problems with the mic hookup on stage so I was using a mic all the way back at the camera that wasn't nearly as directional as I hoped. Apologies to everyone's eardrums ! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10068086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10068086
- r3bl 11y agoYup, I do agree that some things were really funny, but it felt like the audience started laughing no matter what he said.
- sleepychu 11y ago"Don't tell the FCC kthx!"
- mkoryak 11y agoHe mentioned that he bought that cnc machine like it was no big deal. I looked them[1] up, the cheapest one was 6 grand!! Does there exist a sub 500$ cnc router that you can actually build interesting stuff with and interface with a computer? [1]http://www.shopbottools.com/mProducts/basicPRSsystems.htm http://www.shopbottools.com/mProducts/basicPRSsystems.htm
- barely_stubbell 11y agoThere exist plenty of "Desktop" CNC Routers -- these are generally cheaper but have a smaller workable space than what comes to mind when you think of a classic CNC Router.
- Ardren 11y agoThere are some cheap CNC routers. They often require a bit of setup (i.e. sold as kits) or have questionable quality (3020). I'm not sure you'll find a high quality solution under $500 though. Shapeoko 3[1] is $1000 USD X-Carve[2] kits are $800 (upgrade to the Shapeoko2) 3020 Clones[3] are around $500-800 (all over ebay) [1]http://www.shapeoko.com http://www.shapeoko.com [2]https://www.inventables.com/technologies/x-carve https://www.inventables.com/technologies/x-carve [3]http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=3020+cnc+router http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=3020+cnc+rout...
- TheHydroImpulse 11y agoAnd the ones that cost $6,000 aren't that good (although definitely good enough for hobbyists). Most of the milling machines have a really limiting range at that price point. You can only really mill out flat objects. Take a look at the X-Carve [0] for a cheaper alternative. There's also the Othermill [1]. [0]: https://www.inventables.com/technologies/x-carve https://www.inventables.com/technologies/x-carve [1]: https://othermachine.co/othermill/features/ https://othermachine.co/othermill/features/
- barronlroth 11y agoOn the speaker page for the conference this took place at, it says that Kevin is a hobbyist industrial designer. Likely a good purchase for him!
- JackWebbHeller 11y agoWhich conference is this? I tried Googling "!!Con" and obviously the exclamation marks don't count as part of the search term. Apparently Google doesn't know what I mean by "exclamation mark exclamation mark con" either. There's also no link in their YouTube channel...
- kparaju 11y agoIt's called BangBang Con
- Shed 11y agoKevin - what a wonderfully inspiring and HILARIOUS talk. You're fantastic! I create products myself (but with nowhere near your level of technical talent) - you can see some here if you want: http://bit.ly/shedcreations http://bit.ly/shedcreations). Loved your delivery, intelligence, wit and raw perseverance. All wonderful. Please connect with me on LinkedIn or Facebook and please also post up an image of your finished phone - it wasn't so clear to see the finished article on your video. "Showbiz: always leave them wanting something more!". Much love, Shed www.ShedSimove.com