Brookstone sells this "Ambient Orb Stock Market Monitor" which gets
market data via some sort of wireless network and the glows different
colors based on the status of the market(s). It's $150.

So I think this is really cool and the EE in me wants to know what
frequencies this thing uses. Does anyone know?

I'm wondering if I could use a simple receiver (like an old Radio
Shack scanner) to demodulate and decode the data sent in these
networks? Then, I could build my own Ambient Orb out of an old laptop.
I don't want to do this to save $150 (it would cost much more than
that in my time alone). I want to do it because I think it would be
cool and I wonder what other information is out there and easily
accessible.

Does anyone know anything about the Ambient Information Network? Is it
something simple like the pager network, or is it more complex like
the GPRS network? If it's simple, I think there's hope I could
demodulate it on a general purpose PC.

Thoughts? Advice?

What about Microsoft's SPOT technology. Anyone know what
frequencies/network it uses?

Thanks!
John

http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html

http://www.brookstone.com/shop/produ...=sub category

I read that Ambient uses the pager network.

John

(John) wrote in message . com...
Brookstone sells this "Ambient Orb Stock Market Monitor" which gets
market data via some sort of wireless network and the glows different
colors based on the status of the market(s). It's $150.

So I think this is really cool and the EE in me wants to know what
frequencies this thing uses. Does anyone know?

I'm wondering if I could use a simple receiver (like an old Radio
Shack scanner) to demodulate and decode the data sent in these
networks? Then, I could build my own Ambient Orb out of an old laptop.
I don't want to do this to save $150 (it would cost much more than
that in my time alone). I want to do it because I think it would be
cool and I wonder what other information is out there and easily
accessible.

Does anyone know anything about the Ambient Information Network? Is it
something simple like the pager network, or is it more complex like
the GPRS network? If it's simple, I think there's hope I could
demodulate it on a general purpose PC.

Thoughts? Advice?

What about Microsoft's SPOT technology. Anyone know what
frequencies/network it uses?

Thanks!
John

http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html

http://www.brookstone.com/shop/produ...=sub category