I hope you like plain HTML, because I'm too damn busy to produce anything else.
OwnYourStuff.com: a site dedicated towards helping you reclaim ownership over the material objects in your life.
OMFGI (only my friends get in): a framework for privacy on mobile networks.
The Parnissarie Handset: A handset designed to serve the voice function of a mobile device, exclusively.
WTFMTA?: A project to enable people with mobile phones to use them to get Service Advisories from the MTA site on their phone.
Hoodlum: A hoodie that pulses in tune to your music.
Fingernail Sensors - Work on defining grant opportunities for Steven Mascaro's Fingernail Sensors for use as an interface and rehabilitative/measurement device.
Sgrcndy.com: Groupware for your mobile phone; MySpace gone mobile.
A little application on the device that polls for another Bluetooth device (the tether) - when the device can't detect it anymore it either A) starts playing a sound at max volume, B) shuts down, with executing the app being hte first step for a reboot, or C) dials a preset number (automatic pocket dial). Or all of the above.
The idea is that you have a way to pass out devices for trying apps, etc., and don't have to worry so much about theft.
Here's a great little How-To file small claims court claims against those automated dialers where a machine calls you and reads off an automated message. Turns out you can not only sue them (completely legally - and in fact righteously as it's a violation of your privacy and phone bill) but also somewhat profitably.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/11/01/1316231.shtml
The idea is to make an Asterisk honeynet-equivalent. It would be nice to submit a number for calls (submit it as spambait) and then auto-record the caller's number, reverse-traced location info, and message for later review. Hell, we could even automate the small courts claim summons in semi-legal terms a la RIAA.
This would be a web proxy that made a link out of every word, providing either a definition OR (if a noun) a google image search, a la this link.
This is a simple script+web page; it gives you a long list of words that end with any of the available country-code suffix's. I.e., .es, .us, etc. It's use? To enable you to find clever word combinations for URLs! Domain names are scarce these days, and folks like del.icio.us aren't the only ones getting clever. I'm happy to remove unavailable suffixes as people report them, so please let me know!
Ethernet-cabled laptop hosting remotely launched SubEthaEdit session, puts it up and pulls it out at beginning/end of class
Like in Korea! Dan Albritton came up with this; if you're away or offline, it goes to your phone... if you're logged in, it goes to your IM client.
This is a group game for VXML; in a movie theatre everyone calls in and tries to get something to happen - an Asterisk server w/ Free SIP #'s handles the inbound calls - and the screen shows the effect.
Just what it sounds like. Send a message to a predefined addr. with a URL in the body of the message, and get a response that tells you if a URL is taken or not. Maybe the response could include alternates if it *is* taken?
SMS app that moves SMS' to email after a certain expery date.
SMS Errand Locator (my wife's Idea): Just had this idea and so I'm throwing it out there. It's a mobile application that's designed to let you know what places of interest are nearby you. i have the problem that when I walk around the city I have all kinds of errands I could be running if I knew the places that I could do these errands at were nearby. So let's say I'm in the east village and I have some time to kill, I open up my mobile device and it figures out triangulates on my possition or uses GPS or something to determine my location. Then it uses my address book, to do list and general interest searches (bookstore, coffee shop) to give me a map of places in 1 or half mile radius that I could run an errand at or have been meaning to visit or is a place I had dinner at and liked at some point.
IRCBot that takes messages prefaced with a certain header and sends them to the phone # of a (preregistered?) user. Could also send email, instead, and may have some Elizabot functionality to facilitate message sending.
Hack the Roomba (the latest version has an API) to track all the dirtiest parts of a room and provide you with a map. With this you could see over time what parts are typically dirtiest, and perhaps make an app that would let you monitor when/how your room arrangements and social events/weather affected your living space.
Get a graffiti writer to put obscure Perl "Hellow World" program on wall. I've already discussed documenting it with some folks at Eyebeam.
Make an app that takes any selection of photos are posts them to Hot or Not over time, checking the ranking of each. When done, it could take the "hottest" photo and post it to your Match.com (or whataever) account. In this way you could assure that your best photo was chosen to represent you, as determined by, well, the internet.
An Asterisk app that lets you call in and explain why you're calling before choosing one of several pre-recorded messages to play. Once you've made your selection you can turn on speakerphone and blast the insensitive idiot chattering away on their cell phone inappropriately. The recorded messages might make for some entertaining listening, too.
Little boxes w/ Bluetooth beacons put in several bars throughout the city. Users could get SMS clues and hop from bar to bar searching for the treasure (the bluetooth box with the "treasure.") Bars would get increased revenue and could put up promotions, so players would get cheap drinks in addition to the thrill of winning.
using this technology (involving daily temperature readings, cervical fluid readings, and menstrual cycle tracking) it is possible to obtain an extremely reliable estimation of a woman's fertility. I'd like to use the mathematics designed to provide an estimation based on temperature to achieve two goals (either of which could provide the basis for a useful project):
1: a glowing blob that changed color according to a woman's fertility. Or a rabbit that changed posture. Or something likable like that.
2: an implantable temperature sensor (must get body core temp) w/ wireless reading device.
The MTA has a new emailing system for notifying users *weekly* about service changes. The MTA couldn't find its own asshole if you gave it a flashlight and a diagram, and similarly their service changes occur much more frequently than weekly. Fortunately they have a search function on their website which allows you to search for service changes as-needed (IS THIS TRUE???).
The project idea is to allow users to send an SMS to an email addr including the name of the subway line they are interested in. A perl script then wget's the service advisory web page for that line, culls out the actual notice data, and sends it back to the user.
Xerox Park produce research decades ago which indicates that you can read text flashed at you one word at a time much more quickly than you can read a sentence through traditional scanning. Cellular phones are increasingly web connected (and can concurrently display increasingly more text data), but suffer from extremely small screen real estate and poor resolutions.
The idea for this project is to make an application that takes any text string and display it with one word at a time in focus (much larger) in the middle of the screen. The text you've already read scrolls upwards above the word, and the text you have yet to read scrolls up towards it from below, thereby providing context. Speed and direction is controlled by the user by left and right arrow buttons equivalents (standard to most phones these days), and the words only scroll as the user holds down the primary toggle button.
Eventually it would be good to integrate this into an application such as a e-book reader and/or an RSS reader, but for now keeping an open API and including a function button (to activate linked words) ought to demonstrate the concept and enable future collaboration. More importantly, it'll enable us to determine if the concept has value, and if people can adapt to reading this way enough to realize the value of increased readability and speed.
It's damned stupid that a URL doesn't allow you to VOIP call it. This protocol would recognize characteristics in each packet header to allow it to actively NAT the packet stream through an appropriate authentication process (if any) and then on to the correct service port for that form of connectivity.
In this way web browsers hitting my URL would get my web page. VOIP packets would initiate a voice call. IM messages would connect to my IM service. Email would land in my IMAP inbox. More importantly, while all these services might be located elsewhere (mail, for example) the remapping process would enable my to retain control despite service changes. I.e., I could switch service providers for my email, but nobody need know - the URL in the email header would remain the same.
Note that this project pretty much requires the next project listed below.
Projects such as Knoppix, MythTV, and NetCat have adequately illustrated the ease with which an ignorant user can set up a service-specific machine. As long as a user buys hardware that meets the compatibility requirements listed on the project pages, they can be reasonably assured that they can then insert the project disk, hit enter a few times, and end up with a working desktop machine, or a WLAN portal, or a media center. This project would do the same, but would create a central URL identity box.
To explain; right now people host their websites on a providers, run their IM through a different provider, get their email through a different provider, and receive their VOIP, SMS, videoconferencing, and all these other services through different providers. Why? This distribution would allow the user to create a box that ran their mail services (or connected to one central service), web hosting, VOIP service, and IM connectivity. The idea is that a user gets the distro, buys some hardware (from standardized parts), does an install, and tells their Internet provider to act as a secondary DNS for their IP. Dynamic DNS assures that even with changing IPs the user can always be connected to at their domain name, be it for IM, mail, (VOIP) phone, or any other modality.
This is a device that sets a standard tripwire light beam at the entrance to each subway tunnel and resets a timer whenever a train passes through it. This way you know how long it's been since the last train passed through, and thereby attempt to estimate how much longer you have to wait.
Make a cell phone program that:
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Many thanks to Neil Van Dyke for the inspiration; http://www.neilvandyke.org/legal/