I’ve recently come across an interesting and amusing story entitled “Boost Your WiFi Signal Using Only a Beer Can” on discovery channel website. I’ve said to myself that I’ve got to try with my WiFi router. The interesting part is that my WiFi router (TP-LINK TL-WR940N) has 3 antennas, so I had to diligently drink three beer cans (LEO brand, the best local beer in Thailand). Once this was done, I had all that I needed, besides a pair of scissors, a utility knife and some double faced tape. The next step was to clean the beer cans, let them dry and cut the bottom and top of the beer cans as described on discover channel blog post. There is no dotted red line on LEO beer cans, but there are yellow horizontal lines that make this can perfect for the job. After less than 5 minutes of hard work, […]
Meet the Wifi SD Card: Toshiba FlashAir
Toshiba is currently showcasing the Toshiba AirFlash – a new Wifi-Enabled SDHC card – at IFA 2011 in Berlin (2-7 September 2011) The card features an embedded wireless LAN chip that allows it to both transmit and receive files wirelessly. The FlashAir is reportedly the world’s first SDHC memory card with embedded wireless LAN functionality to meet the SD Memory Card Standard. Previously other SD cards such as Eye-Fi allowed Wi-fi connectivity, but the Eye-Fi could only transmit files from a camera directly to another Wifi device, the FlashAir can receive and transfer by using point to point connection and a router is not needed. The FlashAir can be fully configured thanks to a configuration file located in the SD Card, so that you can select the IP of the SD Card, the wifi security settings such as WEP, WPA, WPA2… and more. The Toshiba FlashAir will be sampled starting […]
List of Wireless Standards for Local and Personal Area Networks
While designing your embedded system, you may have to choose between different wireless standards to match your needs. I’ll provide a list a short and mid-range wireless standards, their description and links to open source software stacks (when available) to help you better understand the different options available. Wide Area Network wireless network such as LTE, Wimax, etc.. won’t be discussed in this blog entry. Mesh and IP Networks: Wifi (IEEE 802.11): Wifi is probably the most used wireless standard in consumer electronics devices today as it allows users to connect their device to their LAN wirelessly. An access point has a typical range of about 20 meters indoors and up to 100m outdoors. There are 4 standards 802.11a 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n. The latest has a theoretical throughput of 300 Mbps. Check out Wikipedia Wifi page for details. The Wi-Fi stack is part of the Linux kernel but you […]
IPAD Killer – Allgo Android Tablet
Ok, the title is a bit over the top but the Allgo tablet reference design running android would only cost around 35 USD to manufacture (15 dollars for the board, 15 dollars for the touch screen display and 5 dollars for the battery). So you’d be able to browse the web, read e-books, flicker through your pictures and access a wide range of applications through Google app store for less than 100 USD (retail) compared to the IPAD retail price of 499 USD that would seem like a bargain even though the performance is not as good as the IPAD (but still acceptable) as you can see in the video below. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com