EasternPA | # 31 | 2009-02-03, 20:18 | Report

So, for the sake of discussion, what functionality do you want out of your NIT? Since its not a traditional cellphone, is your goal just to make it "everything but a cellphone?" Are you anxiously awaiting Fring or some sort of full-blown, widely supported SIP client? Do you want the multimedia capabilities of Canola2 under Maemo?

As for me, I can go through long periods of time where I travel a lot for work. I carry a Blackberry Bold for work. I'm at home for now, but if I start traveling again (and we end up with working Bluetooth) I will most likely swap out the cellular video on my Bold for tethering, and see what value I can get out of carrying the NIT. The Bold gives me free access to AT&T hotspots worldwide (including tethering), so I could send 3G or WiFI connectivity to my NIT anywhere I have 3G service or hotspot access.

First and foremost, I want my Google apps! I want Maps and GMail badly. With 0.4.2, the error message for installing Maps changed from a generic "-11" to actually stating that a shared library was missing. The other apps still show "-11". I would also like to play YouTube videos, but they currently play fine on my Bold, so I'm in no hurry.

What I would really like to do in the long run, however, is to make my NIT a key part of my ham radio setup. Some of the biggest developments in recent years amateur radio came in the form of data transmission methods created using soundcards and DSPs. There are data transmission modes for short distance communications as well as longer distances. The most popular use of short-range digital transmissions has to do with mapping. We can put ourselves on a map, see where other people are located, and exchange short messages with them. The range can be extended worldwide with Internet-connected helpers along the way. And when nothing is blocking our view of the sky, we can even send our signals through satellites in orbit, including the ISS! Pretty good for "short distance" signals.

The long distance digital modes are typically just for live keyboard-to-keyboard chats, similar to IM. We can also send digital pictures over shortwave -- takes about 2 minutes per image. There is also a global network that exchanges emails between the Internet and shortwave radio. Its mainly used by volunteers working in large scale disaster areas (think Katrina) and people at sea who don't have satellite email. Finally, separate from digital data, we hams have had digital audio technology for years similar to "HD Radio" gaining in popularity in the US. Hearing digital FM quality sound on shortwave radio without any static or interference is quite amazing.

All of these functions can be enabled just by linking a laptop or PC with a soundcard to a radio through custom audio wiring. Even that has been made easier than ever with the development of USB soundcards. I can add all of that functionality to any reasonable PC or laptop with a USB port and OS support for the basic soundcard built into the external device. Out of the box, the interface I use is recognized as /dev/dsp1 by Ubuntu so who knows, it may not take much to get Android to recognize it. It may even be less complex than the DSP in our NITs! The question is if Android will recognize USB devices connected through a USB hub.

Next step, of course, is to start poking around for ham radio software for Android.

To see some examples of how ham radio has become so much more than just Morse Code, search YouTube for sstv, psk31, rtty, aprs, and search Google for Winlink 2000. All of that can be done with just a little CPU horsepower, DSP audio, and of course good radios and antennas. And yes, there's still plenty of Morse Code to go around (and software for sending and receiving it)

sixaxis | # 32 | 2009-02-03, 22:20 | Report

Hi!

I just recently bought my N810 just for the purpose of testing interoperability with some Android applications I am developing for my company.

I would like to thank all people who contribute to this, for me NITDroid works fine for this purpose, I test my applications in Google ADP1 and Nokia N810 BTW.

I just have some questions:

1. Why Android is different in the ADP1 than in N810? I can't find a newer release for ADP1 so this means that NITDroid is not the released 1.0 Android?

2. Maps API doesn't work, any ideas why?

3. Does Bluetooth and GPS support is planned?

Thanks for all the information you can share.

solca | # 33 | 2009-02-03, 22:57 | Report

NITdroid 0.4 is based on the current master branch of the Android source code tree which is synced from their cupcake branch so there are many differences to the Android 1.0 source code release. App development should not be affected AFAICS they are preserving backwards compatibility in the master branch for their SDK.

Sorry, there is no source code for Maps and Google Login Service, currently Google packs in the tree their API in binary form, it seems in recent versions they make it incompatible to the Maps app as shipped in the G1 if that was your question. Probably their cupcake update for G1 will make it work again with the current API. But honestly I'm not so sure as I haven't used apps from the G1. Probably someone here that run that apps could expand on this...

Doesn't work in latest kernels (currently).

Please share any incompatibility in your apps between NITdroid and Android 1.0 on your ADP1.

EasternPA | # 34 | 2009-02-03, 23:12 | Report

Welcome. I am not one of the developers, just a frequent tester.

1. I believe the version we are using has the open source Cupcake updates integrated. The soft keyboard is from Cupcake, for instance.

2. It appears Google hasn't released a version of Maps that works outside the emulator or the G1. It worked here for a very short time, but not for long.

3. We hope Bluetooth and GPS will eventually work! We are a very small group of people centered around one primary developer, Solca (who welcomes all help, btw). I know I'm personally looking forward to Bluetooth networking so that I may tether from my 3G cellphone.

sixaxis | # 35 | 2009-02-04, 03:05 | Report

Thanks to both of you for the quick responses, the port works fine and I'm very impressed with it, I love the N810 screen size and is helping me to check if other apps works fine independently of the screen.

By the way the other developers in the office will be getting all a new N810 (now they are cheap) for this purpose too.

We'll report back any problem, again thank you!

yxyxx | # 36 | 2009-02-04, 05:08 | Report

will any chance be infrastructure mode in wifi be supported?

solca | # 37 | 2009-02-05, 01:39 | Report

Infrastructure mode (AP mode) and monitor mode both are supported in the stlc45xx WiFi driver shipped in NITdroid 0.4.2.

You would need to provide hostapd though for AP mode.

yxyxx | # 38 | 2009-02-06, 06:30 | Report

so....how do i go about doing that? =)

yxyxx | # 39 | 2009-02-06, 06:31 | Report

sorry about asking cuz im not very good in coding stuffs, haha

yxyxx | # 40 | 2009-02-06, 07:11 | Report

how about Ad-hoc mode? not possible right?