Sadly, not available as a rental car.

When I set out on my journey traveling the country doing signal testing with OpenSignal & TechHive, my aim was to travel light. Hitting 20 cities in five weeks is no mean feat, and the less to cart around with me the better. I managed to get a weeks worth of clothes into a spinner carry on. Once I got to San Francisco to pick up the tester phones and equipment it became apparent that I would need to check luggage anyway. I packed the electronics and my clothes and personal items separately, mostly because I didn’t want to let so many gadgets out of my sight (I was carrying four iPhone 4‘s, four Samsung Note II‘s, a laptop, a tablet, and all of the associated bits and bobs). This proved to be the right choice, because my checked luggage went to the Bahamas while I was in Miami and didn’t find its way back until three days and one emergency shopping spree later.

Here are some other tools and tips that I’ve come across in my travels.

Basics
A Hardshell Spinner Bag: by far the most convenient for frequent travel, at least until they have adult sized ride alongs. When deciding on new luggage, remember that it will be only as good as it’s zipper and handle. By Kansas City I had lost two zippers already and had to MacGyver them back on with pliers.

Come on Trunki, I’m waiting for the 5′ 5″ model…

Compression Bags: Its a small thing, but having this kind of order in my life helped me keep sane. I like the SpacePak set, because they are colorful for easy identification and have separate compartments for clean and dirty clothes. Though I did find them rather bulky and they do not have a valve that will prevent them from decompressing. But they do prevent your dirty underwear from spilling out when your zipper breaks (see #1) and keep things tidy when TSA rifles through your luggage.

A Good Shoulder Strap: People have different requirements for their laptop bags, but everyone ends up stuffing more than just their laptop in there. I went through three shoulder straps on this trip. The first one broke on the way to my first flight.

This happened every night.

Electronics
Power Strip: You cannot imagine the thankful glow on the faces of the two-hour-plus delayed airport passengers in Atlanta when I pulled out two six-outlet power strips. Everyone was sitting around the only available outlet, politely masking their vulture-like desire to lunge at the wall as soon as an outlet was free. When I plugged in the power strips and gestured that they could also have a go, they gazed at me with the disbelief of an orphan who has just been given an extra bowl of porridge. It definitely lightened the mood. I never would have traveled with something like that if it were not necessary equipment for the rest of the trip, but now I may bring one everywhere I go.

PowerGen Dual Port USB: These little doodads were magnificent. I had eight of them. They have one USB slot for Apple devices (A) and one for non-Apple devices (NA), which means I could charge one iPhone and one Note II on each plug. I could also have my Android phone and iPad plugged in to that one outlet that’s at the base of the bedside lamp in a lot of hotel rooms to make absolutely sure that my alarms were going to wake me up.

Anker External Battery

Anker Battery Pack: I had five Anker Astro External Battery Packs, which were absolutely fantastic. Both the Note II’s and iPhone 4′s did much better than expected at keeping their charge through a whole day of testing and geolocating, but on the days when an external battery pack was necessary, these did the trick. They each come with an adapter with the necessary cable attachments, or can just take the USB cord from the standard device charger. They also have slots for Apple and non-Apple devices. I was expecting a trickle charge with two devices going at once, but even in that situation, the Anker chargers seemed to get the job done fairly quickly. Confusingly, they did not come with a means of charging themselves. I had to switch the included adapter to attach to a usb wall charger to recharge after using them.

iPad Mini: Early on we realized that some kind of tablet would be necessary to monitor our internal testing dashboard on the go. We were initially going to go with the Asus Nexus 7 but could not find one available in any brick and mortar store in all of San Francisco. It probably would have done a perfectly good job of it, but the travel timeline required something I could get my grubby little hands on quickly, so we went for the iPad Mini instead, with an AT&T data plan. We went with AT&T not out of any real preference, but because I could tack it onto my existing phone bill if necessary.

To be totally honest, I was hesitant about the usefulness of an iPad Mini. We just needed to monitor a web-based, mostly text, data dashboard, so really any smartphone would do an adequate job. After five weeks on the road though, I am sold. It became home base for everything I needed on the go, from booking hotels and cars to distracting myself with Angry Birds during a mildly terrifying descent in a CRJ-200 into the Detroit Airport. It is small and light, which is overwhelmingly a plus. On the down side, the market has been slow to offer protective cases and covers, which means my only option was the Apple Mini Smart Cover, which I found akin to placing a magnetic handkerchief over the screen – psychologically calming, but otherwise useless. I’m sure the market will catch up soon.

More on the Apps I’m using are coming in the next post. Meanwhile, you can follow my travels on Facebook (OpenSignal Gabe), FourSquare (OpenSignal) where I’ll be checking in periodically. I’ll also be blogging some more about my epic road trip here on the OpenSignal Blog.

By the numbers:
9,908 users
37k app sessions
2.3 million data points

And some very kind articles on The Next Web, TechCrunch and New Scientist.

While that might sound fairly impressive, this is very early days. On a single good day OpenSignal is downloaded 8000 times, and on our best day ever it was over 15,000. We want WeatherSignal to be be that big, in fact we’d rather like it to be even bigger, as with OpenSignal: the more people using it the more useful it will become.

What’s the data like?

We’ve received
2,305,086 datapoints
contributed by
9,836 users

Numbers, boring numbers – show me some graphs
Here’s pressure from the weather station at Milan’s Malpensa Airport offering the ‘official’ view of pressure for the last week:

And here’s what we measured on phones with barometers surrounding that same airport:

Note how similar the pattern is, but our data is offset – this is because Milan is 121m above sea level and the weather station data corrects for this, this is something we’ll need to start doing.

How the light gets in
Ever wondered what the daily pattern of light intensity incident on your phone looks like? Here’s a week’s worth of Milanese sunshine:

Does your phone comply with Newtonian Physics
Here’s another fun thing to look at: at different latitudes your weight varies, it does, seriously. At the equator you are lighter. There are two reasons for this: at the equator you are further from the centre of the Earth so the gravitational force is weaker, the second reason is due to the spinning of the Earth which reduces the resultant acceleration. The acceleration should vary between about 9.78 metres per second squared at the equator and 9.83 at the poles.

Here’s what we’ve measured: the below graph shows the absolute latitude at a resolution of 1 degree – so each dot, except for the one at 0, represents all the readings from users in 2 latitude bands – one above and one below the equator. The size of the dot shows the number of readings. The acceleration is the average of all accelerations between 0 and 20 m/s2 in those latitude bands – we figured the phone gets moved in lots of directions and positive accelerations relative to gravity will cancel out negative ones and we’d end up with the “rest” acceleration – the pull the phone feels due to gravity and the Earth’s spinning. The blue line is the best fit, but because it’s late it’s not been properly weighted

So it’s a little messy, not nearly as smooth as the lovely (theoretical) illustration you’ll find here (thanks Berthold for sending me that), but as more sensor data comes in we should get good empirical confirmation of the wonderfully named “international gravity formula” (as if gravity could fail to be international!)

We’ve got our work cut out. In particular on cleaning up temperature readings – which we primarily get from reading battery temperature sensors – this deserves a blog post on its own. In the meantime, keep using the app – it’s not just for weather, you can use it to quantify yourself, conduct physics experiments or just to see what Atmos will do next.

That’s Atmos – the shoes mean he’s walking (i.e. you’re walking), the moon’s in its first quarter & he’s got a hat on because it’s cold.

1. Activity tracking
Starting with WeatherSignal 1.8 we’ve incorporated “Activity Recognition” into the app. Using some very cool new APIs from Google – it is possibly the first third party app to incorporate them – WeatherSignal attempts to distinguish between when the phone is still, when the user is walking with it, on a bicycle, or in a vehicle. The app does not need to be open to collect this information, by default it will scan for it about once an hour, but you can increase the frequency. When you want to see what you’ve been up to, export the data to CSV and look for the act_type and act_con fields.

2. Migraine prediction
Gabe has just trekked round 20 of the largest cities in the US with a portfolio of very expensive phones. He’s had a lot of coffee. It’s enough to give anyone a headache. But Gabe also pointed out to me that the weather often triggers migraines – and there are many theories about it being linked to any one of pressure, humidity and even magnetic flux. All of which can be tracked with WeatherSignal (depending on your phone type).

Suppose you feel a migraine coming on and you want to try to work out what could be causing it, do the following to make a record of all the sensor data on your phone:
- open WeatherSignal
- go to the Report tab
- Write “migraine” or any other note in the Note box
- select the appropriate options for indoors/outdoors and the precipitation slider
- Hit Submit … and you’ve saved it
You’ll be able to find that row and others in your CSV when you export it.

3. Mood tracking
You don’t need to be a hipsterrific Quantified Self-er to track your mood, but it helps, and with WeatherSignal it’s very easy to look for links between mood and weather.
The process is similar to that described above: report mood in the same way you’d report a migraine (write it into the Note box). I suggest using a number scale – 1:10 for terrible to fantastic. Once you’ve built up some data you can look for patterns.

4. Detailed and off-beat environment mapping
How does the lighting at your office compare to the lighting at your house, and what about thw magnetic field strength in those two places? These might seem like boring questions, but given that we probably spend 80% of our lives in these two places, perhaps we should be more interested in these differences. You’ll likely be surprised by how uniquely moments in space and time are defined by the pattern of sensor readings on your phone. There’s more to the world than meets the eye, and a little bit of that hidden surplus is caught by your phone’s sensors.

***
Technical Guide:

When does WeatherSignal take readings?
To understand how to get the most out of WeatherSignal, you need to know when it takes readings:
Defaults:
- In the foreground (when the app is open) every second
- In the background (when the app is closed) approximately every hour, but it will attempt to not wake the device in order to take a scan, so it may wait up to two hours.
These can both be configured in the settings.
By default WeatherSignal caches 10,000 rows in its internal database (or 1000 if you first downloaded before v1.8) you can alter this in settings. If you’re really serious about QS tracking, you don’t need to manually export to the SDCard, just check “Auto-save data to CSV file when DB reaches limit” and the files will magically save themselves.
To get the data from CSV file you can use an SD Card Explorer or File Manager App, or just plug it into your computer and open as a flash drive. My preferred method is to open Dropbox and select the “upload file here” option and then “other files”. If people are keen we could add Dropbox integration, or simply an option to email the file.

What’s the data structure of the CSV?
… See below:

1) TheCommunistAfter-Party – Denver, Colorado

Now this is what I’m talking about. They’re not only plotting to overthrow world capitalism but they’ve got some kind of awesome after party going on. I imagine the party itself was probably a nightmare to plan, nothing worse than calling up Karl Marx for advice and having him say: ‘The doctrine of Hegel, taken as a whole, left plenty of room for giving shelter to the most diverse practical party views.’ Great. Thanks Karl. Let’s just hope everyone brings a bottle – that’s a practical party view I’m sure we all share.

2) Foxtrotsky – Brooklyn, New York.

What dance do they do at the Communist party? The Foxtrotsky. I’m not sure how familiar I am with the steps but I imagine they lead gloriously forward to world revolution. I’m glad I’ve now got the Wi-Fi memo, it would have been pretty embarrassing to turn up unprepared and be forced to dance the Che Che by myself. (Side note: It turns out it really hard to come up with Marxist/Dance puns – anonymous Brooklynite, I raise my fist to you in salutation).

Hegel – Not a great party planner

3) Sexy Communist Network – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Not for nothing did Friedrich Engels describe Albuquerque as a place where ‘the shackles of oppression are thrown off as liberally as the clothes’*. I seriously hope these guys are coming to the after-party, they’ll add some much-needed glamour. Also, if they do manage to make it, talk to Sharon – apparently she’s bringing some opiate for the masses, just don’t say I told you.

 *(F. Engels, A guide to the party towns of the Midwest, 1846, page. 62)

4) The Proletariat Chariot – Seattle, Washington.

A chariot? I hear you ask. But surely the chariot is a symbol of oppression, a mark of elitist distinction? Think of chariots and you think of chains – Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, great civilizations founded on slavery. Why not the common car?  As usual, I’ll let Karl answer that one: ‘Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalist to quell the revolt of specialized labour.’ Got that? No machines, chariots for everyone. Still, I can’t help but hope that the Proletariat Chariot is an itinerant VW camper van, Hammer and Sickle on one side, Peace symbol on the other, traversing the land distributing hand-printed copies of the Communist Manifesto. Possibly dallying inappropriately long in Albuquerque.

5) boredmarxist – London, England

Come, come comrade. Boredom? Remember what Marx urged, remember what is promised in the socialist paradise – a chance ‘to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner’. If none of that appeals to you, then the Communist After-Party is probably still going on. I’ll call the chariot.

Google IO is a glorious field day for geeks. Last year saw the announcement of Google Glass and this year ActivityRecognition has emerged as the standout from a sea of other headlines. ActivityRecognition is a new set of APIs that has been made immediately available to developers, allowing them to listen to what the device user is doing without having to run complex pattern analysis on raw sensor data. In fact developers don’t need to deal with sensors at all, they just call the API, Google does some thinking and returns a notification that says something like “I think the device’s user is on foot, and I’m 80% confident about that”, except in code form. So far the activities recognised are “tilted”, “on foot”, “on bicycle” and “in vehicle”, but we can expect more to be added.

This is not just for joggers.

The ActivityRecognition APIs lower the barrier for anyone who wants to build a quantified self app, but the implications go far beyond life tracking. App behaviour can now vary depending on user activity. Suppose you have an app that recommends nearby restaurants which works by making a database call to bring back top rated places nearby when the app is opened. If the app knows the user is in a vehicle it could make the queried area larger than if they’re on foot. If your app has widgets you may want to change the update frequency based on user activity, if you run a navigation app you might want to alter the screen that is launched depending on user’s activity.

For anyone operating a sensor network – like WeatherSignal or OpenSignal - then this is a huge windfall. We’ll be able to compare the performance of signal in vehicles, to when the phone is still (most likely at home/work), and we’ll be able to filter our weather readings more precisely.

How can Google roll this out so quickly?

These new APIs are distributed through Google Play Services, an intriguing piece of software downloaded and (automatically) updated from Google Play. While it’s similar to an app, it’s not an app – it’s the thing the drives the latest versions of the Youtube app and the 3D maps in OpenSignal and WeatherSignal. Because of the way it’s distributed, and because it’s independent of the Android version, updates can happen quickly – unlike system updates. Also many Google Play Services, ActivityRecognition included, seem to work by sending data to Google’s servers, which means improvements to the ActivityReocgnition algorithms could happen in near real-time without being too heavy on your phone’s CPU. Update after some testing it seems that ActvityRecognition does work without a network connection.

Just to prove how quickly developers can move with this: we’ll be adding ActivityRecognition to the next version of WeatherSignal (which will be released tomorrow) and we’ll endeavour to get it logging data that you can output to CSV.

What doesn’t it do?

ActivityRecognition is not instantaneous, sensor data needs to be collected and analysed over a small time duration – typically I’m seeing a delay of 3s on my Galaxy Nexus before events are recognised. The number of activities recognised is rather small, I’m hoping another layer will be added to recognise whether the user is indoors or outdoors, I’d also like “on foot” to be broken down into walking/jogging/running/hopping/hobbling/skipping … but it’s a start.

How well does it work?

I’ve found it occasionally thinks I am in a vehicle when I’m walking (and I don’t walk that fast!), the 3s delay is a little annoying and I’m hoping that will be improved. Other than that, I’m impressed. Get WeatherSignal v1.8 to test it out for yourself (to be released 17th may).

ActivityRecognition in its current incarnation is interesting, but it’s indicative of something much bigger: Google is looking to help developers by using its processing power and data to provide them with better contextual information. Don’t be surprised if your phone soon recognises not just that your on foot, but that you’re out shopping or in the park.

Google’s Activity Recognition is so new it’s hard to find any documentation on it, although there are abundant news stories announcing it. I’ve put together a very quick guide on adding it into your app. You can find the official API docs here. It’s worth a read, it contains lines such as: “The device is on a bicycle”, which I find unreasonably funny.

You will need:
Make sure you have the latest versions of Google Play Services library – download/update using Android SDK Manager and also ADT (use Help>Check for updates). If you already have the Google Play Service library in your workspace I recommend running a Clean (Project>Clean…) after updating it, if you don’t have it import it as a library project, as described here.

Add the manifest permission:
<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.ACTIVITY_RECOGNITION"\>

Note, that in contrast to Android GoogleMaps no API key is needed, suggesting this service is unlikely to be rate limited, at least not for a while.

ActivityRecognitionScan
Create a new class that can kick off a scan for ActivityRecognition, I’ve called mine ActivityRecognitionScan.class. Here it is in full:


public class ActivityRecognitionScan implements GooglePlayServicesClient.ConnectionCallbacks, GooglePlayServicesClient.OnConnectionFailedListener{
private Context context;
private static final String TAG = "ActivityRecognition";
private static ActivityRecognitionClient mActivityRecognitionClient;
private static PendingIntent callbackIntent;

}

Not Confi.TESTER_VERSION is a global constant boolean (public static final boolean) which I’m using to control whether logs appear.
Now we need to set up the service that is called in the above class:

Create the service to receive updates from Google Play Services

package com.opensignal.weathersignal.datacollection;

/**
* When supplied with the integer representation of the activity returns the activity as friendly string
* @param type the DetectedActivity.getType()
* @return a friendly string of the
*/
private static String getFriendlyName(int detected_activity_type){
switch (detected_activity_type ) {
case DetectedActivity.IN_VEHICLE:
return "in vehicle";
case DetectedActivity.ON_BICYCLE:
return "on bike";
case DetectedActivity.ON_FOOT:
return "on foot";
case DetectedActivity.TILTING:
return "tilting";
case DetectedActivity.STILL:
return "still";
default:
return "unknown";
}
}
}

Declare the service in the manifest
Don’t forget to declare this service in the Manifest – doing so won’t throw any errors, but your code won’t work.

Now all you need to do is call new ActivityRecognitionScan(this).startActivityRecognitionScan() from an activity and you should start getting udpates if you have a network connection – though it may take a couple of seconds.

Make sure you don’t break compatibility
Note, you’ll likely want to check:

GooglePlayServicesUtil.isGooglePlayServicesAvailable(context)==ConnectionResult.SUCCESS

Before calling any services that depend on Google Play Services.

Have fun!

That’s me on the left.

He said “Selling some phones, eh?” I’ve come to expect this. As I’ve mentioned before, many people ask if I’m selling phones. I suppose it isn’t too far away of a concept when a strange looking man (my mother may disagree) pulls up in a sedan and opens a case featuring an assortment of very nice mobile devices that are neatly labeled “AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile.” However, a few things have crossed my mind about this phenomenon, some personal, some more wide reaching.

1. Do I look like a guy who sells stolen phones? I did forget to bring beard trimmers on this trip and I haven’t gotten a haircut since I left New York in late March, but I was hoping there was a “type” of person who fences stolen electronics.

This guy looks like he sells phones from the trunk of his car. But I don’t look like this guy… do I?

2. I thought you needed to “know people.” I’ll admit this is a vague concept in my head, but I was under the impression that if one wanted to acquire an “off-market” electronic device, someone in your social circle would pull you aside, maybe in a bar or at some secret-password dice game under a highway overpass and say something like “Look, don’t let this get around, but I know a guy…” Having literally flown in to town for the first time less than 24 hours ago, I most assuredly do not “know people.”

3. Should I request an armed escort for next years mobile carrier tests? I’m pretty sure that’s not in the budget. I do sometimes get the feeling that I was chosen for this job partially for my abilities, and partially for looking like someone who might not get mugged. I assure you that is an incorrect assumption based solely on general size and tattoo prevalence.

4. Just as not all “trunk based electronics resellers” look like Pat Healey, I’ve noticed that the people who are considering their options in buying phones are not a specific type. I’ve been asked about selling phones in nearly every city I’ve been in and I can tell you there is no type. They have truly been everywhere on the age, color and creed spectrum. I will say that I have not been asked by any little old ladies. In fact, women are underrepresented in the are-you-selling-phones phenomenon, but that could just be a statistical anomaly that means they have other venues available to them.

Back to Morgan Freeman. He shook my hand and went on to tell me about how he was just released from jail after 11 years. “Welcome to the outside,” I said. I was rather proud of myself for that. Who knew watching television cop dramas would be so linguistically useful? But then he went into detail. He told me that he was in there for murdering his sister in-law with a Louisville Slugger. He seemed proud that he was man enough to not resort to gun or knife violence and described the situation in detail. He was clearly gauging my reaction. I went on pressing buttons on the phones and pretended to be interested in the megabytes and kilobytes and downloads and uploads and not wanting to hide under the nearest available rock. From the corner of my eye, I saw him fish around in his pocket for something and then possibly decide I wasn’t worth the effort. He asked me for some change. I pretended to check my pockets and told him I didn’t have any. “I’m just out here on a job, I don’t even have my wallet with me, man,” I said. I went back to staring at the phones. I realized that I was a terrible lier and that he could easily see the outline of my wallet in my back pocket.

When I looked up again he was gone. My wallet was still there, all the equipment was still there and there was no Morgan Freeman coming at me from behind the car with a baseball bat. I finished up as quickly as possible and got the hell out of there. It was my last stop of the day and I was driving to Houston. I would be lying if I told you I did not check the back seat at least twelve times during that four hour drive because I was totally spooked.

I’m not sure why he decided I wasn’t worth messing with, but it probably was just a matter of chance. Thefts and assaults involving mobile phones are rising. This map of mobile phone thefts in San Francisco should give you an idea of what we are talking about (put together by the folks at InfoWorld and powered by Leaflet and OpenStreetMap using data from SFPD – yay open data!).

“In Washington, D.C., cellphone thefts account for 40 percent of robberies, while in New York City, they make up more than half of all street crime. There are no hard numbers on which phones are most popular, but those most in demand  by thieves appear to be those most in demand by users: iPhones.” -InfoWorld: A violent cellphone crime wave sweeps the US

Anecdotally I’ve also noticed more brand recognition for iPhones, over the Samsung Note II‘s that I’m carrying. For a while I had an apple sticker on the front of my carrying case, but took it off when I realized it might be making me a target. At the Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco, I saw a teenage boy sprint past a table in the foodcourt, swipe an older man’s iPhone off the table as he watched a movie, and run swiftly toward the exit. It happened in an instant. The kid was tackled by mall security before he reached the outer exit, the food court erupted in cheers and hopefully the mall cop got a raise.

Welcome to San Francisco, give me your iPhone!

There are a lot of ways to prevent theft, but none are perfect. Phones are made to be used, and be conveniently mobile, which are exactly the attributes that make them easy to steal. For my personal devices, I’m a big fan of Prey but there’s also Apple’s preinstalled version, “Find My iPhone.” Ben Boychuk (@benboychuk) at MacWorld has some tips for keeping phones and other devices safe.

And if you are considering buying a smartphone, please don’t ask me to sell you one. Also, it’s not a good idea to buy one in a parking lot, because it’s probably a block of wood.

You can follow my travels on Facebook (OpenSignal Gabe), FourSquare (OpenSignal) where I’ll be checking in periodically. I’ll also be blogging some more about my epic road trip here on the OpenSignal Blog.

We always think it’s cool when people use our services in unexpected ways and the thought of using the map to deliberately find places without signal had already occurred to us – although hearing about someone actually doing it was definitely a surprise. It does, however, cause us to ask ourselves one pretty serious question: has it really come to this?

In between the concluding question mark of that previous paragraph and the introductory preposition of this self-referential sentence, my concentration was momentarily broken. I flipped over my facedown phone to reveal its obverse and, as expected, the screen was completely devoid of new information. Nothing had changed but the time display, and that was probably to be expected, the effective digital record of time’s passage isn’t dependent on my constant clock-watching. The odds of someone having texted me without my having noticed the vibrations were slim to none and yet I did it anyway – breaking the flow of my words, fragmenting my thoughts.

Of course the seemingly obvious answer is to switch off, or at least airplane-mode off. The problem with this, of course, is that it requires willpower and concentration. The same willpower and concentration required for me not to flip my phone over and allow my paragraphs to be curtailed by that distraction. When I choose to switch off I’m always aware of that choice, aware of the possibility of its reversal – and that awareness can be almost as distracting as actually checking my phone. In short, switching it off is really only a more complicated way of turning the phone face down.

almost certainly signal-free

 1) Look at the acceleration pattern of your movement

Most smartphones these days have an accelerometer and so we included acceleration readings in the app. Because these readings aren’t strictly to do with the weather, you have to turn them on in settings to be able to see them. One cool thing you can do is hold the phone while walking, and see the way you accelerate while walking. It’s surprisingly addictive, I quickly found myself sprinting up and down the office while staring at my smartphone – needless to say I got some pretty weird looks. Also check out the resting acceleration which should be around 9.81m/s². This is because the Earth’s gravitational pull means that the accelerometer is constantly recording acceleration. If you’re interested in how much that acceleration is affected by where you are in in relation to the equator it changes based on latitude because of the shape of the earth) then take a look here.

 2) Measure the Magnetic field

Ok. To be perfectly honest we’re not 100% sure what the best thing to do with the Magnetometer is. We’re using it to try and map the Earth’s magnetic field, but it’s also pretty cool to hold it near electrical devices and watch the magnetic field go up. Also, it can be used to steer robots – although getting magnetic positioning is probably the easy part of robot building. If you find a cool use for the Magnetometer then let us know!

The Earth’s Magnetic Field

 3) Maximise your sunlight

We’re constantly reading about how the glare of fluorescent office lighting is detrimental to our health, especially as the English weather doesn’t give much of an opportunity for sun-exposure at the best of times. If you want to help maximise your body’s serotonin production then maybe the WeatherSignal app can help, especially if you’re in a position to choose where you sit in the office. Simply use the WeatherSignal app’s Lux Meter to see where in the office gets the most sunlight and then immediately shotgun it before anyone else can. The app might not help win you many friends, but who needs friends when you’re bathing in the weak glow of the English sun all day?

1) !!!DEADLY VIRUS!!! – Miami, Florida

OH MY GOD. GET DOWN. HE’S GOT A VIRUS. See, this Wi-Fi name is clever because it plays upon the fact that a virus can be both digital and biological. This name fundamentally succeeds because it exploits the fear we feel at living in a world where governments cultivate both smallpox and stuxnet side-by-side. It’s also buttressed by a really pleasingly enthusiastic number of exclamation marks. From now on six is the new standard. Four just doesn’t feel like trying any more.

 2) Hide Yo Kids Hide Yo Wifi – Detroit, Michigan

This is actually pretty good. I don’t even have to be nasty about this one – I can just be relaxed, smile appreciatively and pat myself on the back for a Friday well spent. This guy’s original, he’s funny, he’s referenced a popular meme. Frankly, I’d say he’s done pretty damn well. If anyone’s keeping score (which, let’s face it, I definitely am) I’d have to rate this Wi-Fi name pretty highly. Well done anonymous human on the outskirts of Detroit.

But… Wait. Where has that tiny voice of doubt come from? It is a rising whisper carried through my brain on a susurration of cynicism, scudding along my synapses until it roars into my inner ear, throwing my naivety and optimism off balance.  What if this isn’t original? What if it’s just a tired re-telling of the same joke reposted online a thousand times?  I sigh and query the Wi-Fi database. There are 797 Wi-Fi networks called ‘Hide Yo Kids Hide Yo Wifi’, of which this is the most recently named. Originality is a pre-modern conceit. I make another cup of tea.

yet another iteration

 3) “The Pantry ” – Santa Ana, California

Why is the pantry winking? Why is a pantry even being referenced? What on earth happened to the age of refrigeration? –  These are all questions that a superficial trawl through the list of newly collected Wi-Fi names cannot answer. Like an Old Street Hercule Poirot, I must work entirely with the clues in front of me. Like a Shoreditch Colin Powell I must consider both the known knowns and the unknown knowns.  And it is with the quiet-voiced confidence of a Hoxton Walter Cronkite that I now present the most plausible theory to you:

What we have stumbled upon is but one piece in a wider game. A game of flirtation and seduction – nuanced and influenced by the imprint of an antique sexual mores, enacted against the backdrop of an aristocratic domesticity. A game inspired by the excitement and tribulations shared with West Coast America through the medium of Julian Fellowes’ dark masterpiece Downtown Abbey. Meet me in the pantry, wink, announces the Wi-Fi name, and for one brief moment we are at Highclere – free of modern distractions, locked in an erotic game with the pantry at its epicentre.

Next Week: Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca as told through a series of Epson printer error messages.

4) No Free Internet 4 Chowz – Detroit, Michigan

Yeah, that sounds fair enough. Get your own damn internet Chowz! Or at the very least pay for it.  Is that really so much to ask? As far as Wi-Fi name manifestos go, I’ve got to say that this one is considerably more relatable than noted classics e947g_Wifi or hotspot_guest13. You can defend e947g_Wifi as much as you like, but I’m just not convinced it strikes the right note with voters.

 5) I’m Batman – San Jose, California

I grow tired of this. No, you’re not Batman. Besides, Batman would obviously have delegated Wi-Fi installation to Alfred who would quite clearly have called it something boring and non-revelatory like ‘Wayne Manor Wi-Fi’. However, I approve of this Wi-Fi name as it reminded me of this. Again, just to be clear to whoever named this Wi-Fi, you are not the Batman.