Hasta La Gadget!

The last time we featured Bunnie Huang and Sean “xobs” Cross, they revealed that SD cards are computers too. If you look closely at one of the slides in their presentation (pdf), you can see that they used something called “Novena” to crack the firmware of the SD cards they tested. It turns out that Novena is a custom laptop that the two programmers built. It’s a work in progress that they hope will eventually be made of 100% open source hardware.

As with many hacking projects, Bunnie and xobs started working on Novena partly for kicks. Given that they’re also running Sutajio Ko-usagi, a company that specializes in open source hardware products, it’s not surprising that Bunnie and xobs also want to use Novena to promote open source hardware.

The current Novena laptop has an ARM-based Freescale iMX6 CPU, 4GB RAM, a 13” 2560×1700 LED-backlit panel, two USB ports, an Ethernet port, an HDMI port an SD card reader and a microphone and speaker port. But the Novena isn’t just a netbook with a high-res screen.

In a recent blog post, Bunnie enumerated a number of requirements for Novena, the first and foremost being, “All the components should have a reasonably complete set of NDA-free documentation.” Bunnie said that first commandment alone significantly narrowed their choices. They also decided that the laptop should be a viable hardware and security hacking platform, which meant it had to have parts not available in most consumer laptops, such as an FPGA circuit and two Ethernet interfaces. True to its concept the Novena’s internal components can be accessed by removing just two screws.

Still, as Wired notes, the current Novena’s “screen, keyboard, hard drive, power supply, and processor were all purchased off the shelf, and it’s powered by a hacked RC car battery pack.” In other words, it’s not fully open source yet.

As you can see Bunnie and xobs had a bit of fun with the laptop’s exterior. Aside from its aluminum enclosure, the laptop is wrapped in leather and has a paper laminate lining as well as 3D printed decorative parts.

Head to the Novena wiki page for more on the laptop’s specs, including its firmware and software.

[via Wired & Bunnie Huang via tech spotlight]

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When I first saw OpenEmu, it was already able to play games from different previous gen systems, but it had this experimental streak to it. Four years later, it has put its wild days behind. The new OpenEmu is a suave and streamlined application that looks and behaves like a native OS X program.

OpenEmu uses open source emulators for the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, NeoGeo Pocket, Nintendo DS, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega 32X, Sega Master System, TurboGrafx-16 and the Virtual Boy. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to switch between emulators to play digital copies of games that you legally own (henceforth known as DCOGTYLO). Simply load DCOGTYLO into OpenEmu and it will figure out what emulator each one runs on, similar to how your computer automatically opens your other files in their respective programs (well, most of the time anyway).

Another great feature of OpenEmu is that it downloads game covers for your DCOGTYLO over the Internet, then presents it in interfaces that OS X users will be familiar with, such as Cover Flow. Those two features combine to give you an elegant way to organize and view your DCOGTYLO collection.

But OpenEmu really shines if you take the time to get to know its more technical features. For starters, it supports a wide variety of gamepads, from generic USB controllers to the DualShock 4. It also has a variety of video filters that can make you fell like you’re back in third grade, looking up at a 15″ CRT TV, when you’re actually playing a DCOGTYLO on your MacBook Air. At work. Here’s a great preview of OpenEmu by Lon Seidman:

You can download OpenEmu for free. The emulator’s developers also bundled a pack of homebrew games for those that don’t have a DCOGTYLO to play.

[via OS X Daily]

A small group of DMCA activists and device accessibility advocates are raising funds to reward anyone who comes up with an free, open source and untethered iOS 7 jailbreak. In case you’re not familiar with the term, jailbreaking iOS devices opens it up to software modifications that Apple would never officially allow. They can be as big as file managers, new gesture commands and even shortcut settings (which Apple clearly copied in iOS 7).

The prize was the idea of Chris Maury, an entrepreneur who believes that iOS devices will be more useful to disabled people if combined with jailbreak apps. The other proponents of the fundraiser are Boing Boing editor and author Cory Doctorow, iFixit co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens and professor and author Biella Coleman.  Head to the fundraiser’s website if you want to donate or check out the criteria for submissions.

[via Boing Boing]