Let the reverse-engineering begin! Adafruit Industries is offering a thousand smackers for whoever can come up with an open-source driver for the Kinect hardware. They think that a non-Microsoft interface will help create interesting applications for the device, and I agree. We’ll have our impressions of the final hardware and launch games tomorrow, but we already know that whatever the future of… → Read More
At face value, the HTC G2 for T-Mobile seemed no harder for the Android modding community to crack into than any of the handsets that came before it. Once the hackers really had a chance to tear into it, however, something strange started happening: it… repaired itself. Hacks could be made, but they’d disappear as soon as the handset was reset. Understandably, these temporary hacks… → Read More
Got Google TV? Well now you can get root. This isn’t a full root access, mind you, but it’s a start. AndroidForums user Apeman shows us how to access the GoogleTV’s recovery menu and there is a tempting entry in the menu allowing for USB uploads. This means, in short, that eventually someone will be able to figure out how to add homebrew apps to Google TV.
The folks at the forums are digging… → Read More
Recently hacked your PS3? If you want to keep on playing those indie games, be aware that the next update will probably block you from doing that. This new update targets users who are using PSJailbreak and/or PSGroove. Sony’s severe actions against hacked consoles received mixed responses from the players; most of them of course hate the fact that Sony puts enormous effort in fighting hackers… → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13835359&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=ff9933&fullscreen=1 If you’ve ever tried to charge your iPhone using “odd” USB dongles, you’ll find there is some secret sauce preventing the device from even accepting a charge. The folks at Adafruit Industries and the lovely… → Read More
This is pretty great. Resetting your car’s keychain fob is something that has to happen from time to time — when a fob’s battery runs out, for instance, or you pick up an extra one. The process of pairing it is one of these rituals that I have always loved, like the special way you had to blow on your NES cartridges to get them to play. The process is different on all the… → Read More
Sure it looks horrible and the video is awful, but believe us when we tell you that the same guys who created the Spirit jailbreak have ported Flash to the iPhone. The video, apparently taken through the pinhole camera truck the Bloodhound Gang built back in the 1980s to see where they were being taken after a kidnapping, shows a Strongbad clip. This is obviously a proof of concept in its purest… → Read More
Looks like your car is one dumb “hacker” kid away from careening into a pole, or, more comically, into a big bale of hay. Researchers have demonstrated how to take control of a car’s engine, brakes, and fiddle with the instruments. Is there anything you can do about this? → Read More
You guys probably remember the Game Gun, a projector-or-tiny-LCD-equipped gun-shaped controller packed with accelerometers, essentially making a sort of home virtual reality experience. At CES I found that the dogs were nipping at the Redneck Techie’s heels, in the form of Microvision’s ShowWX gun prototype. And now you can just make your own! Well, you’ll need a Wii Zapper, Wiimote, nunchuk, and… → Read More
Greatest thing of all time? It’s at least in the running. Some very dedicated Canon lover (and DIYer) has put the guts from a modern Canon digital into the a hollowed-out AE-1, one of the wonderful old metal bodies from the early 80s. I learned to shoot on its elder sibling, the FTb, and I still love to just hold it my hands as a reminder of how things were once built. If only I could have… → Read More
Look, we all know Wii Music was nonsense. And it wasn’t that playing music on a Wii is a bad idea, it’s that you just pretend to play music. If they had given it the attention it deserved, they might have put something together like this Carnegie Mellon student Shu did. Using a few flex sensors and the buttons and accelerometer in a Nunchuk, he’s made a functioning air guitar that even a baby… → Read More
According to some commenters, this hack has been around since the ’40s. It’s older than that, in fact — I imagine since the dawn of domesticated grass-eating animals, the old stake-and-rope trick has worked wonders. Goats never did it quite so neatly, though. It looks like a UFO landed there. Bonus: no goat poop. [via Hack a Day] → Read More
There’s a trend that’s been disturbing me lately. When the topic of modding or jailbreaking comes up — say, in the wake of the iPad announcement, or Sony’s restrictive PS3 update — there is an outcry. Who am I to tell Apple what’s best for their devices? How can I in good conscience urge others to void their warranties or break license agreements? And why should… → Read More
It was only last week, on the 1st, when Sony announced it’d be removing the Install Other OS option from the PS3 — an option already missing on the PS3 Slim. Predictably, there was outrage, and now, a hack.
Renowned hackster Geohot has shown that by a simple restore trick, you can get 3.21 to let you install another OS — but if you’ve already updated and lost the ability, there’s… → Read More
Old news, but worth mentioning for a hot minute. You know that Major Nelson’s Xbox Live account was hacked at the weekend. Look, people are panicking in the streets! → Read More
Now here’s a delightful story. A gentleman in Austin, Texas was laid off from his job as a car mechanic. The thing is, he was “pretty good with computers.” So, in order to get petty revenge on his former employers, he used a system to remotely disable more than 100 cars. Fun! → Read More
Seems like every year at CES we see those fancy gaming desk setups and every year they still cost thousands of dollars. If you only have tens of dollars to spend on gaming desks, then get some aluminum pipes like this guy did. → Read More
Back in September, we learned how to use a Rock Band guitar controller to play poker. If you thought the magic would end there, buckle up. The man who brought you the previous how-to, Sean Lind, is back again and this time he’s using the Rock Band drum kit. → Read More
Japanese artist / designer Yoshi Akai has quite the repertoire of zany instruments and synthesizers. Not only do they have a wicked steampunk aesthetic, but the control formats range from credit cards to wireless signals. Cool stuff all around. This particular one is a 3 channel, 8 step synth that uses different colored LEGO blocks as triggers. You can even create 3D shapes to get really crazy. → Read More
There’s an excellent how-to over in the MacRumors forums that details how an enterprising individual purchased a scratched up iPhone with a broken screen off of eBay and restored it to its former glory without sinking too much money into the project. → Read More
If you really, truly are a Doom fanatic, you likely can’t get enough even though it has pretty much been ported to every single phone, handheld, and platform. You can even play it in your seat-back system on Virgin America. But like I said, some need it all day every day, and maybe this little hack is for them. Doesn’t really look like the best Doom experience you can have, but there’s something … → Read More
I could sit here and talk about the latest big “hack attack” to strike the civilized world, but these have become so tedious. The story is always the same: hackers from scary place (here, China and Eastern Europe) attack Western government/corporation (here, corporations) for unknown, shadowy reasons. Blah, blah, blah. Instead, I’ll take this opportunity to remind you all of a very basic… → Read More
Of all the consoles to stuff into a laptop form factor, the Wii’s minute size makes it as good a candidate as any. And while Wii laptop mods have been done before, this most recent one has the distinction of being relatively thin at just over 2.5 inches. → Read More
It’s one thing to hack your cable modem for your own personal edification, but it’s another matter to turn around and sell hacked cable modems to people. I mean, that’s just common sense, right? Smoke all the dope you want, just don’t sell it to kids on the street. (You’ll note I used the word “dope” like a 70-year-old man.) Some guy in Massachusetts found out the hard way, and he now faces up to… → Read More
Are we still expected, in the year 2010, to pay $20 plus $8 shipping for a Snuggie? And another $8 shipping for a second bonus Snuggie? NO! Show the fat cats at the Snuggie conglomerate that you’re onto their little ruse. Take a big piece of fabric – any fabric you want! — cut some arm holes, and sew some arms onto the arm holes. → Read More
A man named Dave has cobbled together a remote car starter that uses a pre-paid phone to start the car’s engine. The launch sequence is initiated when the phone gets a call or when a particular event in the phone’s calendar comes up (he uses the calendar to start the car at specific times in the morning and at the end of the day so as not to waste minutes. Dave, I like the cut of your jib. → Read More
Team CrunchGear, with a 1-1 record with one no-contest (accidental headbutt in the first round), used one or more MiFi units at CESthis year. The MiFi is a cute little portable Wi-Fi access point that you can use wherever you can get a cellphone signal. It takes the mobile data connection, then outputs it as plain ol’Wi-Fi, which you can then connect to from any computer. It’s also pretty… → Read More
Bloops. Researchers have figured out how to crack 128-but UMTS 3G technology, thereby putting almost all modern phones in danger. The paper, found here basically describes a 2-hour process and is more a proof-of-concept than anything else. However, it could be used to listen to conversations after the fact. → Read More
Karsten Nohl, a PhD from the University of Virginia, looking dreamy above, has broken A5/1, an algorithm to encrypt G.S.M. cellphone conversation. The hack follows a few steps including the use of a distributed key-gathering sytem to capture and decoding of a number of G.S.M. 64-bit encryption keys, the kind of keys that most cellular operators still use. → Read More
A hacker, Labba, and his buddies have cracked the Kindle’s ebook DRM, essentially allowing folks to extract the text of Amazon’s AZW files into a PDF for viewing on any reader. The hackers have reverse engineered the ebook code and very close to a formal, software-based solution. → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
