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Old 05-27-2017, 08:59 PM   #1
Ed the Coastie
 
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Default What can you do with a smartphone?

During the character creation portion of my recent campaign, one of the players came up with an interesting character concept -- a hacker/gadgeteer who specialized in cell phones peripherals and their corresponding apps. This led to a discussion as to what the PC could do with his device.

The limitations he has is that his kit needs to be able to fit into a standard-sized shoebox and that any peripherals need to be either currently existing or at least realistically feasible assuming a mature TL8. Now, a smartphone is easy enough to work up stats for...but what about the peripherals? Could the gadgeteer character cobble together an app that would allow, for example, him to use a laser pointer as a laser microphone, rangefinder, or lader? A handheld document scanner that will automatically translate words into English (assuming that the words are in the translation database)? Medical diagnostic peripherals?
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Old 05-27-2017, 09:43 PM   #2
Anthony
 
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Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie View Post
Could the gadgeteer character cobble together an app that would allow, for example, him to use a laser pointer as a laser microphone, rangefinder, or lader? A handheld document scanner that will automatically translate words into English (assuming that the words are in the translation database)? Medical diagnostic peripherals?
Realistically, all of the laser options require specialized hardware so no, the translation requires OCR+language translation and you could probably do it (poorly) by just spending some time browsing the app store, and it depends on what you want to diagnose.
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Old 05-27-2017, 10:35 PM   #3
Culture20
 
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Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

Anything computationally intensive could be handled by an encrypted cellular data connection to a super computer of some sort. A gadgeteer character could cobble together anything...
Translators already exist (with cloud assist). Same thing with rudimentary medical diagnostics.
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Old 05-27-2017, 10:42 PM   #4
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Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

Here is something I saw developed last year
http://www.fencedetective.com/
Fairly basic but it might help with calibrating what's possible.
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Old 05-27-2017, 10:50 PM   #5
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Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

If I can glom onto this topic, myself, for my upcoming Magic World game I'm going to allow the PCs, whom come from our world, to keep their magic-empowered cell phones. They'll be fueled by Magic, instead of electricity, and have some special features:

The ability to open a portal from Earth to the Magic World upon activation of an app.

Magic World maps like Google Maps, so that they can locate points of interest.

Ability to text and call within the Magic World.

Ability to use the flashlight on the phone, which rapidly drains the Magic used.

I'm sure there will be other effects that the PCs will think of in-game, which I look forward to, but if people have any additional thoughts for potential uses for a magic cellphone, or how a cellphone would be useful in a magical world, would be useful to hear. Actually, a general discussion of the function of cellphones in a gaming/setting context would be helpful, too.

If hijacking a threat is a faux pas, then please ignore.

To contribute to the original thread, a lot of cellphones, especially smartphones before 2017, have an IR Blaster which can be used to control TVs. A lot of stuff run off IR commands, but add in that cinematic hacking rules, bluetooth and radio communications, all of which are, to some degree, under the auspice of your typical cell phone, which would make your cellphone using gadgeteer a potential super-hacker.
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Old 05-28-2017, 12:59 AM   #6
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

On Amazon there are some smartphone sheaths that have multitool accessories .
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Old 05-28-2017, 02:00 AM   #7
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Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

Someone talented to pull off a lot of stuff with a smartphone probably isn't going to be limited to the phone itself. They might specialize in that as a development environment, though, and have a tendency to limit other advantages with Gadget, Can Be Stolen, etc.

Not quite sure how to simulate many powers being at the mercy of a single fragile and stealable phone.
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Old 05-28-2017, 02:50 AM   #8
johndallman
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Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

Current smartphones are not set up for doing software development on the device. You need a separate computer for that. A gadgeteer can overcome those limitations, but the small screen remains a nusiance.
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Old 05-28-2017, 02:55 AM   #9
(E)
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

object identifier.
e.g. Photograph a lock and it provides the make and model.

Inertial tracker
Records path taken based on accelerometer data.

Faux X-ray
Uses a well thought out interface to display (the best guess of from available data) the 3D internal make up whatever it is being pointed at.

Options that are in some phones, radio receiver, infrared remote output.

Weather recording
Barometer, hydrometer etc

Input, output adapters

Charging pack and solar charger

Wireless peripherals, watch, laptop etc, a pocket full of processors.

Super accurate GPS

Magnetometer/metal detector
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Last edited by (E); 05-28-2017 at 03:01 AM.
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Old 05-28-2017, 04:22 AM   #10
Icelander
 
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Default Re: What can you do with a smartphone?

What skills would a character use to do various intelligence- or security-related things with a smartphone?

Computer Operation?
Electronics Operation (Communications)?
Electronics Operation (EW)?
Expert Skill (Computer Security)?

Things like; establish a communications link between team-mates that would escape the notice of US government electronics surveillance experts*, know about the various methods that the phones can be tracked or tapped remotely, develop countermeasures to such tracking, clone a phone, find and uninstall any backdoors or surveillance programs installed on phones by the party which issued it and other such necessities.

*Probably by making it look innoucous, like by installing and using WhatsApp on everybody's phones.
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