Tag Archives: Wireless

The Bluetooth Gun

Bluetooth in the line of fire? New Scientist reports of a police gun invention that when fired will automatically send its position to fellow officers who can then, presumably, provide backup. The idea is that when a police officer is holding his gun correctly — both hands on the weapon — he or she can’t easily reach… Read More »

Your Watch Is Ringing

Jiji Press of Japan is reporting (can’t find any link for this) that Seiko Instruments “has developed a prototype of a wristwatch that alerts the wearer to mobile phone calls.” The watch uses Bluetooth to monitor a cell phone and vibrates or sounds an alarm when a call comes in. Useful, I guess, if you… Read More »

Cracking RFID With Your Phone

RFID tags and their security implications are returning to centre stage again. Adi Shamir, professor of computer science at the Weizmann Institute, has shown that it’s possible to crack passwords on RFID tags using a cellphone. In theory this could mean anyone with a cellphone could monitor traffic between a tag and a reader and… Read More »

The Poor Get Their Motorolas

I’m intrigued by this program to offer cheap handsets for the poor (from The Register), but I have my doubts. The Register says Motorola has been selected by the GSM Association (GSMA) to supply the handsets for its programme to provide mobile telephony to people in developing countries. Motorola will commence delivery of these phones in… Read More »

The Prepaid GPRS Rip-off

I’ve grumbled before about how hard it is to do GPRS on prepaid cards. For those who haven’t done this, it’s simply a way to turn your smartphone into an Internet ready machine when you’re on the road (removing you from some of the pain of roaming GPRS charges, in the rare times they’re available.… Read More »