While a lot of the coverage of the MIT students getting images of the earth's curvature using only $150 worth of stuff talks about their ingenuity--and they have that--it also says a lot about how powerful technology is available to just anybody.
It would have been a lot more work to accomplish that task just 10 years ago. For example, I doubt they could have obtained the GPS receiver alone for less that $150. And it wouldn't have been feasible to track it with a cell phone. And the camera would have been either larger or produced much lower quality images. And so on... but you get the point.
This is just another small example of Moore's Law making technology ubiquitous.
The real point here is that clever or motivated people have very powerful tools at their disposal, if they just take the time and effort to use them. Which is not a comforting thought, since it means these guys do too.
But you already knew that. The real question is not what bloodthirsty regimes will do with it, but what will YOU and I do? If a balloon, hand warmers, and a Styrofoam cooler can be used to photograph the darkness of space, what can we do with everyday stuff we take for granted?
Here are some places to get started:
Cracked: 7 Items You Won't Believe Are Actually Legal
Make: Technology on your time
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