Breathe New Life Into An Old Smartphone This Weekend

4 responses to “Breathe New Life Into An Old Smartphone This Weekend”

1. 

   werdnanostaw

   March 9, 2013

   Use the GPS in the phone and an app like SpeedView to turn the phone into a digital speedometer in the car.

   In Spain, where I will be next week, most villages have radar activated traffic lights at the entrance: 50km/h and they let you pass; 51km/h and they turn red. The latest ones have number plate cameras to catch people who don’t stop. What’s more if you have triggered the light at the entrance they will punish you and the light in the middle of town will turn red even if you keep below 50km/h.

   This is a much better idea than what they do in a lot of villages in France. As a deliberate ploy to slow people down they don’t put stop or give way signs on the side roads. At least they, sometimes but not always, have “Vous n’avez pas la priorité” or “Attention. Priorité à Droite” or slashed yellow diamond signs at the entrance to the village. They don’t have a terminating road rule so you have to be on constant alert for a local in a battered Citroen 2CV charging out onto the main road from the right. This is the way that I learned, in a deluge, that ABS really works.

   You have priority:

   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Spain_traffic_signal_r3.svg/220px-Spain_traffic_signal_r3.svg.png

   You don’t have priority:

   http://www.abelard.org/france/general/nopriorite.png

   This is an example of the really sneaky signs that they have at the entrance to French towns. It means 50km/h speed limit but they usually don’t tell you that.

   http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/media/ALeqM5iqVLzbYXKbxn0WaKMpqkSpxz_WzA?size=s3

   They slash the sign at the exit to the town. They rarely tell you what the speed limit then is. You have to know that the open road speed limit on non-dual carriageway roads is 90km/h.

   Therefore, it is very important to know exactly how fast you are going. I find that the analog speedos in most cars are 5 or more km/h out so you can’t rely on them.

   The newly released Renault Clio 4 that I will pick up at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on Monday that we have leased for 5 months has a digital speedo but it will still be linked to the wheels so I don’t expect it to be any more accurate than the old style speedos. If it is out by a different amount at different speeds rather than a fixed amount, eg 5km/h out at 50km/h and 8km/h at 100km/h vs a fixed 5km/h difference at all speeds, I will put my old smartphone over the built in speedo as I have done in the past.

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   1. 

      alexschladetsch

      March 10, 2013

      That went off on a totally irrelevant tangent.

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      1. 

         simo

         March 12, 2013

         Really, I don’t think so. I want to know more about the intricacies of local law enforcement vis-a-vis their varying tricks and traps for foreign visitors who dare drive on their roads.

         More please.

         And while you’re at it, rename the title of this article…..

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2. 

   pb12in

   March 14, 2013

   Any thoughts on what I can do with a first gen iPhone? it’s currently software version 2.1 (jailbroken).

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