Stephen Myers has a dog, an iPhone and not much time. As a University of Florida Ph. D student, he's rarely home. So he did what any engineer would do: he created a way to give his dog a treat remotely, through his iPhone. Okay, maybe he has too much time.
Myers posted a video (embedded above) of the gizmo in action and wrote up a how-to. He used a beta version of an ioBridge module, hardware that can connect to both the internet and the physical world.
Viewing a simple webpage on his iPhone, Myers can click a treat button to activate a spindle. The prototype is a little rough, but it achieves its objective, spitting out a dog treat to the floor. Myers also has a webcam fixed on his dog's bed, so he can see when the morsel has been successfully dispensed.
Myers claims that no programming was required, but that's coming from an engineering grad student. Still, hardware hacking like this is bringing a whole new suite of options to the layperson with enough gumption to figure out the controls.
We've come a long way from the Netscape fish cam.
