Added CHDK firmware. Could not tune motion detection

After a row with vendor of card reader from ebay, and after some hiccups, I was finally successful in loading the CHDK firmware into my canon S2IS camera. Loading the CHDK firmware is easy once you follow the instructions carefully. I tried to be smart by not reading the manual fully and guessing the remaining.

I realized lately that the memory card should be kept in locked state for the firmware to load. If the card is not put in locked state, the CHDK firmware would not load. The camera will continue to work with the default firmware(by canon). The interesting thing to note here is that the pictures can still be recorded in the memory card even if it is locked. Till now, I thought that the lock physically protects the card from writing. But now, I understand that it is just a logical protection. i.e., The software has to respect the lock on the reader. I can write a software that will not honor the lock and will write it into the memory card even if it is locked.

I experimented a little with the new firmware and enhanced capabilities. I liked the RGB histograms etc stuff. I still need to explore lot of new functionality. The most interesting thing that drove me to upgrade to CHDK firmware is the motion-triggered photography, especially the lightening photography. But I am not much successful with it. There are a bunch of scripts on motion detection and others that one can explore.

The problem with the motion triggered photography is that there are a bunch of parameters in each script, which needs to be tuned. I am not able to tune those parameters to quickly take a photograph after motion is detected. The camera takes a lot of time after the motion happened. Added those parameters, the camera settings also should be tuned well. I was able to improve somewhat by setting the manual focus mode, and continuous shooting mode. Another problem is that the picture is not taken even if there is motion. I guess we need to tune the "threshold" parameter properly.

I will write one more post if I am satisfied with my experiments on motion triggered photography.

Hack your canon powershot camera

Incidentally, this is my first post on gadget other than iphone. I will try to do more justice to my blogname "gadgetsandyou"(not "iphoneandyou") by trying to write more about other gadgets too. Technically, the following is not really hacking, but just upgrading the fimware in a twisted way.

Do you know that you can power up you canon powershot camera with enhanced capabilities. All you need to do is to install an add-on firmware to the existing firmware. The best part of this exercise is that the original firmware from canon does not get erased or overwritten.

This is the article that I first came across related to this topic. It finally lead me to the home page of the CHDK project. With this you can enhance your cameras which has DigicII/DigicIII processors. This is the list of supported cameras.

Some of the cool additional features that you would get are as follows
- Enhanced Image Capture
- Additional display information
- Additional Settings
- Support for custom scripts (I am exited about it)
- Continuous display of battery charge
- RGB Histograms
- Motion-detection triggered photography
- Additional applications like calendar and games.

The above is just a tip of the iceberg. There are lot of major and minor enhancements. I am going to try this out this weekend. I will post my experience.

Showtime: video recording for iphone

Showtime is a native application that can be installed on a jailbroken phone. It brings video recording capability to iphone which I think is one of the basic functionality of any high-end phone. Initially, I was surprized when apple did not offer video recording capability on iphone. I had to reconsider my decision of buying iphone. Finally, I bought iphone expecting that the future software updates will bring the capability.

On a jailbroken phone, in the installer, you can find "showtime" in the "multimedia" category. But there is a catch to this. The current free version records only 5 secs of video. You need to donate to get a license key which do not have any limitations. Currently, the software is just in its bare bones. There is no capability to delete the recorded videos, which I think is very odd. I am sure that they will add this capability in the future releases.

Update:
I am wrong in saying that there is no capability to delete recorded videos. If you swipe across the filename, it will give an option to delete the file. Also, the recorded videos are kept in /var/root/Media/PBFVideo/ (/var/mobile/Media/PBFVideo on 1.1.3 phones). You can use SSH/SFTP to transfer videos on and off the iPhone. Go here for more detailed information. It has information about the current features and the upcoming features.

Fring for iphone: Use VOIP

Fring, a software gives VOIP and chat functionality for mobile phones released an evaluation version of its software for iphone. It is a native application. Currently, you need to jailbreak your
iphone to install this application. For detailed procedure of installation on a jailbroken phone, visit this link from fring.

This software brings together different IM services like MSN, google talk, skype etc. First you need to register with fring and then subscribe for the services that you use. Fring maintains your other accounts. i.e. Fring automatically logs you into gtalk/skype once you provide your credentials. You can even do SkypeOut calls using fring. It supports SIP accounts also. In short, its a wonderful software that you cannot miss.

I learnt(from here) that you can use this VOIP functionality on ipod touch also if you have an addon hardware. ipod touch do not have a microphone by default and hence the limitation. You need to have touchmods doc connector microphone.

Apple is against VOIP applications on iphone. I think this is because it will loose the revenue share from its telecom partners if people start using VOIP services which are way cheaper than the telecom services.

Iphone firmware 1.1.4 released and also hacked

Iphone's lastest firmware, 1.1.4, is released a few days back. And the good news is that it is already hacked. Currently the hack is only for 3.9 bootloaders. So, all the people who dared to do hardware hacking has a reason to be proud. I am sure this hack will be available soon for the 4.6 bootlloader also. With 3.9 bootloader, currently you can activate + jailbreak + unlock your phone. There are more than one tutorials on how to hack the new firmware. Here you go. Tutorial1, Tutorial2, MacTutorial.

If your phone is already on 1.1.3, need not rush for 1.1.4. Because the 1.1.4 firmware do not have any new features its just bug fixes. If your bootloader is 4.6, you need not really wait. There is method to downgrade you 4.6 bootloader to 3.9. Here is a tutorial on how to downgrade your 4.6 bootloader using ziphone.

Be careful about the fake versions of ziphone making rounds, which claim that they can unlock 1.1.4. I would download it only from ziphone.org. Zibri, the guy behind the ziphone, is yet to release the new version of ziphone which can hack 1.1.4. He is doing the testing. Keep looking at ziphone.org

Update: Ziphone 2.5 is released. It is one step solution to unlocking 1.1.4 . visit www.ziphone.org
I restored to 1.1.4 and unlocked mine.

How to share internet connection on PC with iphone

This is a tutorial on how to share the internet connection available on your ethernet port(LAN cable) or dial-up connection with your iphone, if you have a wireless network adapter in your PC/Laptop. This will be helpful for the people who do not have wireless modems in their home, but have other means of connecting to the internet like broadband, dial-up etc. However, the PC need to have wireless adapter which support 802.11 adhoc networking protocol. Most of today's network adapters support this. You can buy a USB based wireless network adapter which are widely available. This tutorial can also be used just to setup an adhoc network between a PC and the iphone. Enough of marketing, lets get started...

I am assuming that you are using windows XP or Vista. I am assuming that your ethernet is already configured properly for accessing internet. We first need to make your PC/laptop capable of talking to the iphone and viceversa. Follow the below steps to setup an adhoc network between the PC and the iphone.

1. Go to control panel -> network connections.
2. Right click on "Wireless network connection" and choose properties
3. Choose "Wireless Networks" tab.
4. Click the "Add" button, in "Preferred networks" section.
5. Give "iphone-net" as SSID (you can choose any other name)
6. Select "Open" for "network authentication"
7. Select "Disabled" for "data encryption"
8. Tick the checkbox saying "This is a computer-to-computer(ad hoc) network..."
9. You need not change anything else in the other two tabs.
10. Save your settings, by pressing OK in all the places.

If everything goes fine, in your iphone, you will be able to see "iphone-net" as one of the available wi-fi networks when you turn on the wi-fi in the iphone. Do not connect to it yet. The procedure ahead is very simple if you have DHCP available on your ethernet. i.e if you automatically get an IP when you connect the LAN cable. Most of the ADSL broadband modems have this functionality. They assign an IP to the PC, when the LAN cable is connected. If you are not a geek you mostly would use this feature to get an IP for your PC.

For now, let us assume that you have DHCP available on your ethernet, where you have internet connection. (If you do not have DHCP, you should follow some extra steps that I mentioned at the end of this tutorial). Follow the steps to create a network bridge.

1. You will have at-least have two entries in your network connections.
2. One will be of the ethernet, and another will be of the wireless network.
3. Select the two connections (by doing ctrl+left click).
4. While both the connections are selected, right click and select "bridge connections"
5. It will take a little while to bridge connections.
6. You will get one more entry in network connections with name "Network Bridge"

You are almost ready to go. Do your routine exercise whichever you follow to be able to access the internet on your PC. For e.g starting your ADSL modem, and/or connecting the LAN cable etc. Once you are able to access internet on your PC, do the following on your iphone.

1. Turn on the wifi
2. Select iphone-net that will be shown in the available networks.
3. Click the small blue round arrow on the right
4. It will give more details about the connection.
5. You should see the IP that is in the same range as that of your PC.
6. Open the safari browser, and open some website. It should work.
Enjoy!!

(I am bored now, I will write later on how to access internet if there is no DHCP on the ethernet. For the knowledgeable, its obvious that we need give static IP in both the PC and iphone in the same range. I will explain it later)

One big and irritating problem that I face is that, the network connection keeps dropping very frequently. It gets disconnected every 10 mins or so. The wifi signal indicator does not become grey, but internet access will cease. I do not know a permanent solution to this. If you know, please help me. The workaround is to turn-off the wifi and turn it on again.

See the following tutorial about network bridges for general idea. This network bridge is available only on windows XP and vista. This technique is very simple. I couldn't succeed to share the internet using the ICS(Internet connection sharing) feature. I did not try much. Also, I am not sure if we can create a bridge with a dail-up connection. I do not have first-hand experience but by quick googling it seems that it is possible.

Software unlock for 4.6 bootloader released

Geohot found a flaw in the new 4.6 bootloader. This a very good news for all the people having 1.1.2OOTB & 1.1.3OOTB phones and waiting for software unlock. This is also a good news for some people who bricked their 1.1.2 OOTB phones. They can upgrade to 1.1.3 version to unbrick their phone and unlock it. See the details about the exploit from geohot's blog.

Zibree developed a nice easy to use GUI based application that can unlock the phones. It is called ziphone. This application is a conglomerate of different tools one has to use to perform this software unlocks. So, one need not bothering about collecting all the needed files from different sites. This application performs other tasks also besides performing the unlock. It can jailbreak and activate the phones also. It also has the capability to downgrade or erase the bootloader.