HiJacking the iPhone's Headset Port 96
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Michigan describe how to hijack the iPhone's headset port to power peripherals, establish bi-directional communications with them, and interface various sensors, all without jailbreaking your iPhone or having to pay thousands to access to the Apple Dock Connector. This makes it possible for students, hackers, and DIYers to extend the phone's functionality to the physical world. The team is giving away 20 HiJack modules/programmers to enable new apps."
This is a modem (Score:4, Interesting)
These guys have rediscovered the modem, circa 1982.
I've done something similar using a Bluetooth headset. Open up the headset and remove the microphone. Use a PWM output of an embedded microprocessor to read the sensor and drive the microphone input. Send data to the host with FSK modulation.
With the Bluetooth headset, your sensor is wireless as well.
Re:How does Square do it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably. This is called a modem.