Sonntag, 31. Juli 2011

All Titles feature for Voice Recognition

I developed a solution to play all titles on the SD-Card by simply saying "All Titles" in Voice Recognition. Until now you had to go to the menu, select SD-Card, select Titles and select any title. Now you just push the Voice Recognition button and say "All Titles".
Working for german and english, all non-supported languages will default to english.
Users willing to implement their own language may download the strings.xml file and send me a localized copy as PM.
The SD-Scanning requires you to remove and plug in the SD-Card until now. Hope to find a solution to this soon.


Have fun,
Jonas

Forum Post

Donnerstag, 28. Juli 2011

Superuser modified for ASTEROID

I modified the original Superuser.apk to fit the Asteroids screensize and input possibilities. See the modified App in the forums at:

http://www.gforums.de/asteroid/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14


Have fun,

Jonas

Official Firmwareupdates (V 1.1.0) now available in all main languages

Parrot updated the firmware of its Asteroid some days ago. Now, also updates in german and spanish language are finally availbale.

You can find the update files here:
http://www.parrot.com/uk/support/onlinehelpguides/parrot_asteroid/software-update

changelog for the newest version will be allways at:
http://www.parrot.com/documents/en/support/asteroid_notes.txt

I'll install it later and let you know, if rooting is still possible and if something important has changed with that new version.

Edit: All user installed apps and root will be deleted after the upgrade. Still, root is possible after the firmware update.

-christian

Testing ASTEROIDS debugging feature

Yesterday my Trendnet TU2-ET100 arrived. Usage-Experiance couldn't be better, plug-in, go to Parrots SysInfo App, enable Ethernet and plug-in network cable. I used a crossover cable just to connect my laptop to the ASTEROID for testing. On the laptop just type "adb connect " and you're done (DHCP required, if you don't have a DHCP server installed to provide the ASTEROID with an IP you have to specify a static one as I did.) The Asteroid seems to support only CClass-C Networks when you type in a manual IP (there is no Subnet Mask field) maybe the "10.0.0.10/24" notation is allowed.
Debugging in Eclipse just works as usual. I used the connection to view some LogCat messages and test out a small Service i wrote...Remember the sentence "For the time being, only the native applications have access to the Parrot media player."? My service Broadcasts an Intent containing Artist, Album and Title of the current Song or Name and RDS-Text of the current Radio station played in the native Media Player...first step to scrobbling (my primary target for now...)

Have fun debugging (13€ for the Trendnet Adapter is well spent money),

Jonas

Mittwoch, 27. Juli 2011

Finally - how to root the Parrot Asteroid permanently !!

Here we go! Finally I managed to obtain FULL root access on the Parrot Asteroid, meaning a working SuperUser App and permissions for all apps requesting Super User access.

We are using the rageagainstthecage exploit to get access to the radio.

Serious Warning:
Whith rooting the radio you obtain full access to all system files. This way it's easy to harm the radio and possibly brick it. Take care when performing root actions!
I don't take any responsibility should you harm your car stereo in any way.

But now....happy rooting!

What you need:
SD-Card formatted in FAT containing the following files:
- rageagainstthecage exploit (Warning: Will be recognized as virus/trojan, as it indeed acts as such on your android device.)
- Superuser.apk
- su binary
- A terminal emulator app (I prefer Terminal Emulator Pro) which is not free of charge but a great tool.
- USB Keyboard to attach to the car streo

How to obtain root access:
- Copy all the files from above onto the SD-Card.
- Plug it into your Parrot Asteroid and also plug in your usb keyboard
- Turn the radio on, choose "Installer" and install your terminal app.
- Start it
- Now enter the following lines in the terminal app, step by step. Press enter after each line:

cd /sdcard [Enter]
cp rageagainstthecage.bin /tmp
[Enter]
cd /tmp [Enter]
chmod 0755 rageagainstthecage.bin [Enter]
./rageagainstthecage.bin [Enter]

Now be patient some seconds. You will see some text displayed and after ~20 seconds, you can see a message "[+] forked xxxx childs".

Press [Enter] and exit your terminal app. Terminal Emulator Pro can be closed by pressing the Asteroid's [menu]-key and choosing "exit" from the menu. Note: It is important to really quit the app, not just leaving it (as it will remain running in the background).

Having quit the terminal emulator, you need to restart it. On first try, it might crash, so just try it a second time.

Now, you should see a "#" sign instead of a "$" within the terminal emulator. If not so, you probably did something wrong.

See the #? Let's continue:
We now need to install the modified su binary and the Superuser app.
Therefore, type the following lines in your terminal app:

mount -o rw,remount /system /system [Enter]
rm /system/xbin/su [Enter]
rm /system/bin/su [Enter]
cp /sdcard/su /system/xbin/su [Enter]
chown root.root /system/xbin/su [Enter]
chmod 6755 /system/xbin/su [Enter]
cp /sdcard/Superuser.apk /system/app/Superuser.apk [Enter]
chown root.root /system/app/Superuser.apk [Enter]
chmod 644 /system/app/Superuser.apk [Enter]
ln -s /system/xbin/su /system/bin/su [Enter]
mount -o ro,remount /system /system [Enter]


Finished! Exit your terminal emulator app and check wheter Superuser.apk is installed. You should see the icon when scrolling trough the radio menu.

Further restart your car stereo [Ctrl + Alt + Del] to see wether the root access is fully working. After a restart, open the terminal emulator again and only type

su [Enter]

When everything works as expected, a window should pop up, asking for su permissions. To grant them, use the volume knob to scroll down once. You can't see this, but clicking then will choose the option to grant access and you are in.

Let me know if this has worked for you.

-gforums

Credits:
http://www.techgeekguy.com/2010/12/how-root-motorola-backflip-1-5-rageagainstthecage-method/
http://c-skills.blogspot.com/


Update (07/29): Modified Superuser.apk to fit better the Asteroid's screen - thx to Jonas.

Dienstag, 26. Juli 2011

USB Hub Working

Just tested an USB-Hub today: Works as expected.
See Forum Post

Parrot DEVZONE Online

Parrot just opened up the Parrot DEVZONE and seems to have released the ASTEROID SDK.
Registered, downloaded, read everything...except debugging feature nothing that we didn't know of.
Just ordered my USB2LAN adapter...should arrive in about 1 to 2 days.
Looking forward to read some LogCat ;)

How to temporary root the Asteroid (sorry - no full root yet!)

okay I didn't get a full root working yet.

But here's what to do to temporary root the device. I hope I'll find a way for permanent root soon.

What you need:
- usb attached keyboard
-sd card containing (rageagainstthecage.bin) and any Terminal App .apk (Spezialized version coming soon).

ATTENTION: rageagainstthecage.bin is recognized as Virus/Trojan. This is because it acts like a trojan as it opens a backdoor on android. It won't harm your computer. Be sure to turn virus software of, should it interrupt the download of the file

Let's start:
1. Insert the sdcard with both files in the car stereo and attacht the keyboard to one of the usb hosts.
2. Power your car stereo on.
3. Choose "Installer" and the install Your Terminal App.
4. Start it.
5. Now type the following (press Enter after each line)
5a. "cd /sdcard"
5b. "cp rageagainstthecage.bin /tmp"
5c. "cd /tmp"
5d. "chmod 0755 rageagainstthecage.bin"
5e. "./rageagainstthecage.bin"
6. There appears some text. The exploit starts.
7. Wait until you see a line "[+] Forked xxxx childs." (xxxx is a number). This can take about 20 seconds.
8. When you see that line, press "Enter" once.
9. Then press the car stereos "Menu" button (the small black one with lines on it on the left from the display).
10. choose "Exit" from the upcoming menu.
------
11. Start the Terminal Emulator again. On first try it will crash. So do it again.

12. If all has worked well, you'll see a "#" instead a "$" at the prompt. That means, you have root access now.

That's where we are for now.
Next step will be getting a (modified) su and Superuser.apk to work. But that's not working yet - at least for me.

I'll keep you updated.
-gforums

Montag, 25. Juli 2011

Forum and Rooting guide online very soon!

Hi guys,

I'm participating in this blog together with Jonas now.
You can reach our global start page at asteroid.gforums.de.

The forum will follow very soon - it is currently offline.

I will also post a rooting guide very soon.

Stay tuned,
-gforums

Donnerstag, 7. Juli 2011

ASTEROIDs KeyCodes

I took some time and a small selfmade app to determine the KeyCodes sent by ASTEROIDs hardware keys.
Turned out that two of them don't return one of the well known ones. Attached is an overview of the KeyCodes I received (Click here for bigger version).

Samstag, 2. Juli 2011

Playing with my ASTEROID

Owning my ASTEROID for 4 days now i thoght it was time to try some development. After analyzing the preinstalled apps (which will be given to you by the "Save" function of the ASTEROID directly on a SD-Card) I started to put some code together. I quickly realized that the ASTEROID is just an Android device as any other. The only thing parrot could release as an sdk could be proprietary stuff like controlling connected bluetooth phones, tts or stt....looking forward to get this sdk anyways....started my slow development of turn-by-turn navigation, but will need some ideas to do in parallel to keep my mood up...