Author: Martin

I’m quite fascinated by Bitcoins and in a previous post I’ve started to tell what I have learned by taking theory into practice. In the second part I continue the story as there is still a bit to tell about Bitcoin exchanges, market volatility, limitations of the system and how bad guys might be using the system to their advantage. Read on for the details. Continue reading Bitcoin Experiences – Part 2

For me, Bitcoins are a fascinating phenomena. For one thing nobody really knows who created the Bitcoin system initially, it’s a big mystery. Regularly someone claiming to be the inventor of the system comes forward or is suggested by the media but so far nothing was ever proven. A major idea behind the Bitcoin system is to have a method of payment that is independent of state governments. The idea is great and more and more shops have started accepting Bitcoins as a method of payment. Unfortunately, Bitcoins are also used by criminals which receives quite some attention in the press as well. However, in this respect it is no different from any other currency.

While every now and then I’ve read about the theory of Bitcoins I never actually owned or used Bitcoins to pay for anything. With the time of the year coming up at which I make donations to a number of open source projects I decided to put theory into practice and donate to them using Bitcoins if it is offered as a payment method. So here’s the story of what I found out in the process, from practical payment experience to insight into how anonymous the system really is and and why and how crypto trojans can potentially misuse Bitcoins.

Continue reading Bitcoin Experiences – Part 1

Yesterday I was in the Netherlands for a day and by chance it was just the day when they had a trial run of their NL-Alert system at noon that broadcast a test message to all mobiles in the country. I was quite surprised I got the message with my non-Dutch CyanogenMod Android device so I had a quick look at the technical details to find out more.

Continue reading I Had An NL-Alert Yesterday – Some Technical Details

In part 4 of my mini-series about 3GPPs Internet of Things standardisation for cellular networks I’ve given an overview of the currents state of the NB-IoT standardization in 3GPP. Most of what I’ve written in there is based on a 3GPP Technical Report that summarizes the different options that were studied and RP-151621 which contains the Work Item Description for NB-IoT in which the resulting compromise was detailed. But where in the 3GPP Specs is NB-IoT now actually specified?

Continue reading Cellular IoT – How to find out more about NB-IoT in 3GPP – Part 5

In the three previous parts (here, here and here) on the Internet of Things and 3GPP, I’ve described Cat-1, Cat-0 and Cat-M1 devices. In this post we get down to the really interesting development in 3GPP on this topic: Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and Cat-NB1 devices (previously referred to as Cat M2 devices).

Continue reading Cellular IoT – The Dust Slowly Settles – Part 4 – Cat-NB1 Devices

After an overview in part 1 and and introduction to rather simple enhancements for the Internet of Things (IoT) with LTE Cat-1 and Cat-0 devices in part 2, this 3rd part in my mini-series on the cellular Internet of Things (IoT) takes a look at some of the more profound changes in the LTE specifications for IoT, Cat-M1 and Cat-M2 devices and network support for them.

Continue reading Cellular IoT – The Dust Slowly Settles – Part 3 – Cat-M1 Devices

A few days ago the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced a couple of cool new features for their desktop UI, one of them being the ability to clone a running Raspberry Pi system to a smaller SD card. The only condition for using a smaller SD-card is that it is big enough to hold all files stored on the original one. In other words only files are copied and empty blocks are never touched. Intrigued I did some background research on how this works as I see a couple of usage scenarios for me if I can replicate this from the command line.

Continue reading Clone a Raspberry Pi To A Smaller SD-Card And Make Incremental Backups

Back in 2013 I first heard of Fairphone and was immediately taken by the company’s plans to design and produce a smartphone that is ‘fair to the people producing it’ and ‘fair to the environment’. I gladly prepaid 325 euros to get one when it was finished. In early 2014 I was rewarded with the result of their efforts and I’ve since been a glowing supporter. Today the company reports 100.000 Fairphone owners and availability in stock so there are no waiting times anymore!

Continue reading 100.000 Fairphones Sold!

In part 1 on this topic I’ve been giving a quick overview of Machine Type Communication (MTC) and Internet of Things (IoT) from a cellular network operator and 3GPP point of view. In this post I’ll jump right to the first couple of enhancements made the 3GPP LTE specifications over the years to show which enhancement could be used for which kind of MTC and IoT usage scenario and devices.

Continue reading Cellular IoT – The Dust Slowly Settles – Part 2 – Cat-1 and Cat-0 Devices