Planet Arduino

If you are an Android user and a big fan of Super Mario beware: there is no Android version! There has been no official news on the Android version yet, let alone a version of the game. There is, however, a version circulating outside of Google Play market that will steal your bank account.

Right now attackers are taking advantage of the game’s popularity and Android users despair to spread malware posing as an Android version of Super Mario Run as they did in the past for Pokemon GO. The trojan is called Android Marcher and has been around since 2013, mostly targeting mobile users financial information. After installation, the application attempts to trick users with fake finance apps and a credit card page in an effort to capture banking details. The malware also locks out Google Play until the user supplies their credit card information.

In this new variant of Marcher, it can monitor the device and steal login data of regular apps, not just banking and payment apps, and send the stolen data back to command and control (C&C) servers. Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, Gmail, the Google Play store are all vulnerable. Criminals can exploit these stolen accounts to carry out additional fraud.

Zscaler researchers advice is:

To avoid becoming a victim of such malware, it is a good practice to download apps only from trusted app stores such as Google Play. This practice can be enforced by unchecking the “Unknown Sources” option under the “Security” settings of your device.

We may add to turn on “App Verification”. Verify Apps regularly checks activity on your device and prevents or warns you about potential harm. Verify Apps is on by default, as is Unknown Sources turned off. Verify Apps also checks apps when you install them from sources other than Google Play. Of course, there is a privacy trade-off. Some information has to be sent about the apps you install back to Google.

The main advice is: use common sense. It’s common practice for companies to release official apps versions through Google Play and highly unlikely to do it via any other way.

Unlike many cars today, Aykut Celik’s 2014 Volkswagen Polo didn’t have Bluetooth connectivity or an elaborate touchscreen navigation system. So, the Maker decided to take matters into his own hands and swapped out his “useless” radio for a Samsung tablet, putting Google Maps, Spotify and other apps right in his vehicle’s dashboard.

In order to accomplish this, Celik needed an amplifier (to replace the one attached to the prior radio), a CAN bus shield from Seeed (so he could use the steering wheel’s volume buttons), a Bluetooth module, and an Arduino Mega 2560 (for parsing data and sending it over to the Android device).

A CAN-BUS shield is necessary to be able to read CAN-BUS commands from the CAN bus line… I used this shield for detecting wheel button commands like volume up, mute and volume down. Behind the car radio there are two CAN bus cables. One of them is CAN bus – HIGH and the other is CAN bus – LOW. These cables must be connected to green sockets on the shield.

Using the SeeedCAN bus shield, you can sniff you car’s CAN bus data.

The info which is gathered from CAN bus is transferred to the Android tablet via Bluetooth. There is a little app which is responsible, for example, reducing volume whenever the wheel volume button is clicked. And a menu activity to open other apps.

You can watch the elaborate project below, and read more about it on Celik’s blog. The Maker has also made the software and other information available on GitHub.

Thinkers and makers at Handsome created an automated Foosball Scoreboard using an Android tablet and Arduino Mega 2560:

the Arduino is responsible only for detecting a) a goal scored and b) the gate in which it was scored. After a goal is detected the Arduino sends this data to Android tablet.

You can explore the details of the project on this blog, the sketch on Github, and watch the video below:

App development is not fun for everyone, and sometimes you just want to control a device from your phone with minimal work. Blynk appears to be a fairly put-together library for not only hooking up any Arduino or esp8266 to a phone through WiFi, but also through the net if desired.

Install the app onto your iPhone or Android device. Install the libraries on your computer. Next, modify your Arduino source to either pass direct control of a pin to Blynk, or connect Blynk to a virtual pin inside your code for more advanced control. If you want to go the easy route, create an account, log into the app, and drag and drop the interface you’d like. If the idea of letting some corporation host your Arduino project sends shivers down your spine, there is also an option to host your own server. (Editorial snark: Yes, it requires a server. That’s the cost of “simplicity”.)

There have been a few times where we’ve wished we could add app control to our projects, but installing all the libraries and learning a new language just to see a button on a screen didn’t seem worth it. This is a great solution. Have any of you had experience using it?

Ever wish you could synchronize your brainwaves with an otherworldly luminescent plant from the comfort of your own room?

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The post This Trippy Arduino-Powered “Plant” Trains Your Brain appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Learn how a team of students created the first Google Android-based autonomous R/C car, able to detect lanes, avoid obstacles, self-park, and more.

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The post Build Your Own Android-Powered Self Driving R/C Car appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Using a combination of Lego bricks and other electronics, Danny built a robot that is controlled wirelessly by a wearable Lego "exosuit."

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The post Controlling a Robot with a Wearable Lego Exosuit appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Dimitri Platis is a software engineer who’s been working with his team on an Android-based self-driving vehicle which uses machine vision algorithms and techniques as well as data from the on-board sensors, in order to follow street lanes, perform parking manoeuvres and overtake obstacles blocking its path:

The innovational aspect of this project, is first and foremost the use of an Android phone as the unit which realizes the image processing and decision making. It is responsible for wirelessly transmitting instructions to an Arduino Mega, that controls the physical aspects of the vehicle. Secondly, the various hardware components (i.e. sensors, motors etc) are programmatically handled in an object oriented way, using a custom made Arduino library, which enables developers without background in embedded systems to trivially accomplish their tasks, not caring about lower level implementation details.

[...]

On the software dimension of the physical layer, an Arduino library was created (based on a previous work of mine [1], [2]) which encapsulated the usage of the various sensors and permits us to handle them in an object oriented manner. The API, sports a high abstraction level, targeting primarily novice users who “just want to get the job done”. The components exposed, should however also be enough for more intricate user goals. The library is not yet 100% ready to be deployed out of the box in different hardware platforms, as it was built for an in house system after all, however with minor modifications that should not be a difficult task. This library was developed to be used with the following components in mind: an ESC, a servo motor for steering, HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensors, SHARP GP2D120 infrared distance sensors, an L3G4200D gyroscope, a speed encoder, a Razor IMU. Finally, you can find the sketch running on the actual vehicle here. Keep in mind that all decision making is done in the mobile device, therefore the microcontroller’s responsibility is just to fetch commands, encoded as Netstrings and execute them, while fetching sensor data and transmitting them.

 

Check the Arduino library on Github, explore the circuit below and enjoy the car in the video:

Here’s the essential bill of materials:

• Electronic Speed Controller (ESC)
• Servo motor (Steering wheel)
• Speed encoder
• Ultrasonic sensors (HC-SR04, SRF05)
• Infrared distance sensors (SHARP GP2D120)
• Gyroscope (L3G4200D)
• 9DOF IMU (Razor IMU)

Self-driving cars are in the news almost daily, but they are not exactly in my automotive budget for this decade. Today, that has changed. While this car might be smaller and not capable of giving me a ride, it’s still autonomous and, best of all, it is a project that I […]

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The post Self-Driving R/C Car Parks Itself Just Like a Lexus appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Blynk is a new platform that allows you to build interfaces for controlling and monitoring your projects from your iOS and Android device.

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The post Control an Arduino with Your Smartphone via Blynk appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.