Ja! A gentleman known to the Internet as Nitrogen has put together a type of Kinect do-it-yourself project that’s certainly worth a moment of your time. The “hack” uses the libfreenect library to turn the Kinect into a home automation sensor. So, you walk into your room, the Kinect camera sees you enter, then libfreenect turns on your lights. Leave the room, out go the lights. → Read More
Not too quick on the draw when it comes to fabricating excuses as to why you missed that meeting? Install this little guy next to your phone and you’ll be fooling The Man with solid gold automatically generated content in no time. Wait a second, “My bike ran out of coolant”? That won’t do.
Ah, here’s a good one. “The CEO tried to drown me.” Much more likely in a fast-paced startup environment. → Read More
It was only just released, but the Motorola Xoom has already been made moddable by Seattle hacker @koush, who installed his ClockworkMod Recovery ROM manager on the device with no problems. Kind of a 180 after all that hullaballoo about the Droid series having highly protected bootloaders. → Read More
Little Magic Stories from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo. Chris O’Shea makes great stuff using a hacked Kinect. This latest experiment is a performance system called Little Magic Stories. It uses a Kinect sensor and a glass screen to create a “Pepper’s Ghost” illusion. Kids can create and animate their own little characters and then interact with them, catching eggs, smacking… → Read More
First, check out this video by Moullinex. Pretty wild, right? They made it using a hacked Kinect and a 3D capture script. They “shot” each scene with the Kinect and stored the related 3D files in a flat text format. After a bit of clean-up, including occluding the background, they moved the files into Cinema 4D.
The resulting images use moving data points on a field – along with a few… → Read More
Sony is apparently going after more hackers than just George Hotz and fail0verflow. Sony is looking to get DMCA suits against all PS3 jailbreakers who share Sony’s source code on Github. Well-known PS3 hackers Waninkoko, KaKaRoTo, Hermes, Kmeaw and Graf_Chokolo have been named in documents to Github requesting all docs and posts from the users, as well as all contact information. → Read More
Making a powered arm to paint rainbows for you? Nice work if you can get it. → Read More
Although the latest firmware for the PS3 (with reports of a possible secret rootkit) is just hitting today, it looks like it’s only going to be a matter of days before an easy crack is made available for it, if early indications pan out. Not that we support piracy here at CrunchGear, but the constant battle between hacker and hacked is always interesting. Sony just tries so hard! Too hard, I… → Read More
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) just recently got its first SDK release, and it looks like the enterprising hackers in the Android community have already ported it to the Nook Color hardware. Well, partially. It’s a “zombie” made by mixing the SDK with the Nook’s kernel, and it runs like a dog. Getting hardware acceleration (a major part of the UI snappiness in Honeycomb) working… → Read More
By now you surely must know that Sony has released PS3 firmware 3.56, which applies a “minor security patch” to the system. Of course it does, and of course it prevents people from hacking their PS3. What happens hereafter will be most telling. → Read More
Remember that large-scale iPad data breach from a few months ago? Good, because it turns out that criminal charges have been filed. → Read More
Sony’s trying its hardest to erase the PS3 Jailbreak hack from the Internet, but we all know that’s folly. Two seconds on YouTube turns up not only links to all the necessary files, but detailed, how-to videos describing how to hack the system. The scary thing for Sony is that we’re long past the point where hacking a video game console requires soldering knowledge and a hard-to-find modchip. → Read More
Are you a Dungeon Master? Do you think you’re a Dungeon Master? Do your literalist parents forbid you from having dice because they are witchery and won’t let you be a Dungeon Master? Why not build your own 20 and 100 sided die simulator.
The kit uses an Arduino board and a single switch to select the dice size. It’s not amazingly complex, obviously, but it’s a noble effort and looks very… → Read More
Just a little update on the Sony/George Hotz lawsuit. You know, the one where Sony tries to put the cat back in the bag. Well it turns out that their reason for filing suit in California is that YouTube, Twitter, and Paypal are all based on California. Wait, what? → Read More
Whatever happened to the idea of “you bought it, you can do whatever you want with it”? You buy a car and want to add all sorts of silly aftermarket modifications like it’s 2004 and Pimp My Ride is still relevant? Feel free! But no, you buy a video game console, explore its inner workings, maybe discover and exploit or security vulnerability and The Man wants you silenced. In this case, The… → Read More
If you’re a Flash developer who’s been dying to get a little Kinect love, raise your hand! Yes! Look at all those hands. You guys are awesome.
We’ve seen a lot of Kinect hacks, but so far (they tell me) they’ve all been pretty much put together in C, and while we do talk trash about Flash a lot, I can see it working as a great rapid-prototyping option for a UI designer looking to put together… → Read More
The Logitech Revue has been out for a few months now and it’s already been cracked wide open. The new hack allows “root” access, thereby allowing anyone to load their own apps into the box and have access to the full filesystem. The bad news? You need a soldering iron. → Read More
Just a few days after the PS3′s security was deemed an “epic fail” at a hackers’ convention, famed system breaker GeoHot has published what is described as the “root key” for the PS3, a hex sequence that identifies code as legitimate. I’m no hacker so I don’t want to overstep my expertise here, but this seems to be a pretty serious breach. But can Sony put the cat back in the bag? → Read More
Seriously, how long will it take before we have Robot Jox happening for real? Except in real life the robots will be tele-operated by guys with Kinects. Seriously. This will happen. Watch this video and tell me it won’t. → Read More
Seriously, how long will it take before we have Robot Jox happening for real? Except in real life the robots will be tele-operated by guys with Kinects. Seriously. This will happen. Watch this video and tell me it won’t. → Read More
Just when we thought the NookColor was just a B&N reading device, hackers have rooted the devices and ported the Kindle reading app to the platform, ensuring plenty of migraines around Barnes & Noble HQ this week. → Read More
Have you ever wanted to see yourself from above? Behind? Ever wanted to see yourself as other see you? Try this Instructable that creates a 3rd person view of your own person by attaching a camera to a head mounted display. You’ll see yourself – and only yourself – as you walk across the darkling plain. → Read More
Oh, dear. Microsoft has revealed a new security flaw in Internet Explorer that, if taken advantage of, could let evildoers take over your computer. That’s nice. The good news is that Microsoft hasn’t heard of any consumer attacks brought about as a result of the glitch, so there’s no reason to freak out just yet. → Read More
If you can’t wait until January to add custom ringtones to your new Windows Phone 7 handset, and aren’t afraid of a little hackery (and warranty-void-ery), then listen up: the same folks behind the WP7 unlock and side-load tool have just released their custom ringtone manager for WP7.
Now, this isn’t as simple as loading up a ringtone Android stylee, so check out the caveats after the jump. → Read More
If you were hoping to run a custom ROM on your shiny new WinPho7 device, then you should probably take a seat; I have some bad news for you.
Ex-WinMo hacker guru, Conflipper, told WP Central today that Windows Phone 7 ships with a “Genuine Software” checker, much like Windows 7 or Office. → Read More
Using all of the homebrew tools at his disposal, Yankeyan created this Kinect trick that adds a light saber to your flailing, uncoordinated image on the screen. What did Arthur C. Clarke say about magic? → Read More
Today in the Department of Kinect Hacks, we’ve got an official-looking hack showing off how you can use the Kinect (and its open-source drivers, of course) to turn any flat surface into a multi-touch trackpad or projected Surface. → Read More
Today in the Department of Kinect Hacks, we’ve got an official-looking hack showing off how you can use the Kinect (and its open-source drivers, of course) to turn any flat surface into a multi-touch trackpad or projected Surface. → Read More
The Kinect may be divisive as a gaming peripheral, but I think we can all agree that a $150 off-the-shelf depth-aware camera system is a good thing. And just in the week since the device launched, people have already come up with some crazy applications for it. This video is absolutely nuts. → Read More
It is finished. Hector Martin just posted full driver for the Kinect that can support RGB input as well as depth sensing. The audio features still don’t work. → Read More
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