Cell Bytes

One drop. Five minutes in a pocket with your keys. Three months of regular use. This is all it takes for an iPhone’s backplate to go from a mirror-like shine to a scratched-to-hell eyesore. Here’s how to fix it.

MacRumors forum member Shenaniganz08 salvaged an iPhone 3G from eBay, sanding, buffing and polishing it back from the brink of a life in a case, which would be dumb, because cases are dumb. (I mean, not really, but that’s kind of the premise of this whole process, right? Anyway.) Here’s what you need:

• Sandpaper 320(or 500),800,1000,1500,2000,2500,3000 grit
• 3M Rubbing compound
• Machine Polisher ( Power Drill or small buffer)
• Microfibers
• Sticky tack and or tape

What’s great about this is that you don’t need to buy almost anything. Half the stuff you need—the microfibers, the polishing disc and the rubbing compound—is included in a $15 3M headlight restoration kit , and you can use just about any crappy household drill for the buffing stage.

In any case, the results are stunning, and the documentation meticulous, so if you’ve got a few hours, a few bucks and an iPhone that looks like a piece of shitty sea glass, why not? [Macrumors via Gadget Lab]

Members of MIT’s Bits and Atoms lab visited Afghanistan some time ago. While there, they showed locals how to turn pieces of board, wire, a plastic tub and some cans into reflectors for a wireless network. The result? Fab Fi.

The project resulted in 25 simultaneous live nodes being up in the city of Jalalabad and residents being able to enjoy a stable connection all over the place. Locals are even expanding the network by adding more reflectors and routers. There are some difficulties in actually obtaining the routers though, but the MIT crew—now dubbed the Jalalabad Fab Lab—are helping resolve those by shipping routers over.

On the surface this is a tale of some clever University MacGyvers, a small place in Afghanistan, and a makeshift Wi-Fi network, but the greater idea is that people came together to provide a new method of communication to an area where Skype calls and quick Google searches weren’t a common luxury. Sure, now the area is exposed to time wasters and Internet porn, but it’s also been provided some new opportunities to learn and explore. [Free Range International via Futurismic via Boing Boing]