While hacking a wireless presenter doesn’t sound like something worthwhile or interesting, [Niels Teusink] demonstrates that these little devices often are a lot more powerful than we give them credit. With an Arduino, plenty of research, and some heavy sniffing of a wireless presenter’s SPI and then wireless interface [Niels] is able to emulate an [...]

[Andrew] certainly brings a bit of a James Bond feel to connecting to your WiMax base station. He built this antenna along with an auto-positioning system to get the strongest signal possible. The device, which appears a bit fragile, breaks down into a nice little case. When you get to your next checkpoint you can set it up and the stepper motor along with an ATtiny2313 will rescan to get you on with your mission as fast as possible. [...]

The folks at Australia's science and technology agency could reap a billion AU$ for the country's coffers: CSIRO, a government agency devoted to promoting and advancing research, patented some of the fundamental aspects of OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), which is used in all Wi-Fi flavors except 802.11b, as part of WiMax's OFDMA, and in other wireless networking technologies. An analyst expects the agency to collect AU$1 billion in royalties, based on recent settlements with computer hardware makers and current suits against mobile carriers in the U.S. I've read CSIRO's patent and its amended form that covers 802.11 specifications, and I would have thought it couldn't have survived a challenge. CSIRO has won battles in the East Texas district (a patentholder's venue of choice), but most firms have settled without testing the patent's strength in court and on appeal. CSIRO reportedly collects only pennies per adapter, and manufacturers may have simply decided to eat the cost instead of losing costly judgments. As a consumer tax, CSIRO's fees likely have taken a buck or two out of your pocket for all the Wi-Fi gear you own that's covered....