While most smartphones do have USB connectors, they are usually designed for placing the phone as a device. One hacker by the name of Sven Killig, however, found a way to take your average Nexus One Phone and use a USB Host Hack to let you plug in flash drives, keyboards, and some other devices, mounting them to the phone rather than the other way around.
Most commonly, users use the hack to use the phone with USB devices like a keyboard, flash drive, or a webcam. As the article points you also have the option of hooking up an external monitor, although I’d probably find that last one only marginal useful. Going through with the hack probably isn’t as easy as you’d hope, particularly if you aren’t all that tech savvy and just want a real keyboard to use, To do it, you’ll need to do a lot of command line work and even patch the kernel manually. Still if you’re comfortable enough with the process it shouldn’t be all bad, and you get a whole lot more functionality in return.
The hack was done on a newer version of Android, 2.2 to be exact, but the author ntoes there isn’t anyr eason it shouldn’t work for 2.1 as well. Unfortunately if you’re looking for a similar fixfor say, your Droid or a Hero (two examples used in the original article) I’m sorry to say that the hack is phone specific, though I’m sure many future hackers will use the process for different purposes for their own Nexus One. You know, all 5 of them (I kid, my cell phone is a dinosaur and I’d love to have one). It isn’t quite as sneaky as jailbreaking your iPad, probably more along the lines of creating a touchscreen knob to your iPhone. It just adds one more piece of functionality to the list. Given the already lengthy list of functions your average smart phone boasts, it probably isn’t a necessity, but it will still be plenty of fun!
Via: Life hacker
