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The security system built into the 360’s motherboard has more layers than an onion, which is why previous hacks have generally focused on the optical drive instead. But a couple of circuit breakers named Gligli and Tiros claim to have finally freed up the console’s CPU, allowing all 360 variants to boot homebrew software while also making them invulnerable to patches sent out by Microsoft. The video after the break purports to show the fruits of their labor, including an N64 emulator running on a version of Linux. It doesn’t really prove anything, except perhaps the lengths these guys have gone to: they use various hardware tools to slow down the console’s CPU and then confuse it with so-called ‘glitch’ pulses in an effort to make it forget its normal boot-up checks. Certainly not a trick for the average F-Zero X racer, particularly when speed-boosting around copy protection like this may be shady in the eyes of the law. (One more thing: don’t be put off by the video’s soundtrack — starts out weird but gets better, baby.)

[Thanks, Rodolfo]

Continue reading Xbox 360 modders claim CPU hack, make it party like an N64 (video)

Xbox 360 modders claim CPU hack, make it party like an N64 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Cornell Machines Lab decided to see what happens when you let two chatbots have a conversation with each other. The result is more of what you’d expect from a fired Lucy and Desi sitcom writer: A lot of bickering. But unlike the great back-and-forth we get from The Lucy Show, the chatbots are just […]

Garmin is best known for its in-car navigation systems, but today delved deeper into the realm of personal navigation with a brand new iPhone app for the eternally lost. For a dollar, you’ll get standard walking, driving and public transportation directions, but go premium for $2.99 a month or $29.99 for the year, and you’ll cop more add-ons designed to transform your iPhone into a full-fledged PND. Like the standard iPhone mapping system or HopStop, the subscription-based version of this app lets you integrate public transportation into your journey — but the added feature here is the ability to view public transit schedules like you can in the Google Maps app for Android. It also has spoken turn-by-turn directions, Garmin’s traffic routing and Google search, making it a handy alternative to a clunky navigation system. Check out the full PR after the break.

Continue reading Garmin launches StreetPilot onDemand iPhone app, offers transit schedules

Garmin launches StreetPilot onDemand iPhone app, offers transit schedules originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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REDMOND, Washington — Deep inside Microsoft is the brain of a mad scientist.

You might not think so, given the banality of the company’s ubiquitous products: Windows, Office, Hotmail, Exchange Server, Active Directory. The days are long past when this kind of software could light up anyone’s imagination, except maybe an accountant’s.

But Microsoft has an innovative side that’s still capable of producing surprises. In fact, Microsoft spends more than $9 billion a year, and employs tens of thousands of people in research and development alone. While most of that goes toward coding the next versions of the company’s major products, a lot gets funneled into pure research and cutting-edge engineering.

Much of that work happens in Building 99 and Studio B here on Microsoft’s campus.

Building 99 is a think tank in the classic sense: It’s a beautifully-designed building packed to the gills with hundreds of scientists — about half of Microsoft’s researchers work here. In the middle is a tall, airy atrium designed by the architect to facilitate collaboration and the kind of chance meetings that can lead to serendipitous discoveries.

Many of the brainiacs who work in Building 99 are researching areas of computer science that may not have relevance to Microsoft’s bottom line for years, if ever. Heck, they may not have relevance to anything, ever, but the fundamental premise of basic research is that for every dozen, or hundred, or thousand off-the-wall projects, there’s one invention that turns out to be fabulously important and lucrative.

In fact, you only need one hit to make billions of dollars in research pay off, even if you waste the rest of the good ideas. As Malcolm Gladwell argued recently, Xerox, which is often derided for failing to take advantage of a series of amazing inventions at its Palo Alto Research Center, actually saw huge returns from just one invention: the laser printer. Against that, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that Xerox PARC was home to hundreds of useless research projects, or that Xerox never figured out what to do with some of its research, like the graphical user interface.

A few hundred yards away, in Hardware Studio B, the rubber gets a little closer to the road. An impressive, multistory curtain of LEDs hangs in the lobby, displaying some sort of interactive art that responds to movement and sounds in the space, while employees enjoy a game of pingpong. The rest of the building is more prosaic, with surplus computers stacked up in the unused back sections of long, windowless corridors.

It’s here that hardware engineers carve 3-D mock-ups, create prototypes, test and refine circuitry, and get products ready for the market. A high-concept idea that originates in the rarefied ideas of Building 99 (hey! wouldn’t it be cool if your computer were a giant touchscreen table?) may get turned into an actual product in the hardware studio (hello, Microsoft Surface).

Wired recently toured both buildings to see some of the work Microsoft scientists and engineers are doing to invent the computer interfaces of the future.