Who knew when Steve aka “polymythic” posted his ioBridge project using iTurn to pour a real beer that it would get over 100k hits on YouTube and make it into print. Well, if you check out the April 2009 issue of Popular Science you will find Steve’s Serv O’Beer is the “Build of the Month” in the How 2.0 section of the magazine. There’s a photo of the latest version of the system with a sturdier frame made of Contrux and an ioBridge IO-204 to link the iPhone to a web application to drive a servo. You can read all about on Popular Science and learn how to build your own Servo O’Beer at Instructables.
Stephen Myers, the original ioBridge hacker, has created a really interesting project. As part of his research and projects at University of Florida, Stephen thinks of ways to enable technology for the elderly and stroke patients that have trouble with tremors which results in the difficulty of dialing a simple telephone. He developed an RFID enabled system that allows a user to swipe an RFID badge with a person’s picture. The system decodes the information on the RFID and relays the data through the ioBridge IO-204 to a web application that links the phone to GrandCentral (Google Voice). This process setups the call causing the phone to ring, on pickup the telephone connects to the other party. In Stephen’s demonstration he uses his iPhone, but it’s not limited to mobile devices. Ingenious! Good luck pushing this idea further in your research.
ioBridge has been shipping the IO-204 all over the world. We recently found a number of projects going on in Japan. Shingo created a project that tweets his temperature every hour and announces the sunrise with a message to Twitter. You can follow his temperature on Twitter.com/ioBridge_JP. On his blog you can read all about the project (in Japanese). You can figure out how he created his Twitter API interface with a very easy ColdFusion script (source code included). Take a look at his ioBridge photo-stream on Flickr and find stunning photos of the IO-204 module in action. I noticed that he has a new project involving his refrigerator. Looks like he has sensor detecting the door opening or closing. Can’t wait to see what Shingo thinks of next.
The inventor known only as “hacklife” created an iPhone-controlled dog feeder. He converted some household parts into a stable, servo-controlled food dispenser. At the heart of the system is the IO-204 from ioBridge that allows the iPhone to direct servo positions over the Internet with no programming involved. His YouTube video, ioBridge Forum post, and MAKE post explain the system in more detail. Well done, hacklife.
