Hasta La Gadget!

In case you ever doubted his feat, or you simply wanted to recreate for sport, iPhone hacker extraordinaire George “Geohot” Hotz has released the exploit code he devised for properly hacking the PS3. This should give any aspiring minglers full memory access, and while he’s only tested it with firmware version 2.4.2, he “imagine[s] it works on all current versions.” A guide might follow sometime in the future, he says, but if you’re really antsy to get your coding kicks, we wouldn’t wait up.

Update: EuroGamer’s got a pretty thorough piece on what Geohot is claiming to have accomplished and what it means to the community — and as Joystiq points out, until we see some “Hello World” proof of concept program, we don’t quite know the extent of his claims. The guy’s got a helluva track record, at least with iPhone, so we presume that’s next on his and the community’s list of to-do’s.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

PlayStation 3 exploit released, hackers rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s probably not the clock you need to build if being punctual is your modus operandi, but it’s sufficiently nerdy nonetheless. One Nirav Patel — which may or may not be related to our own Mr. Patel — decided to hand craft his own “sleep remaining indicator,” which utilizes a slowly rotating servo, a laser beam and a timer in order to work its magic. Put simply, the beam gets shorter and shorter as one’s wake-up time draws near, but oddly enough, you’ll never be able to see its awesomeness if you’re actually sleeping. Quite the conundrum, no?

Laser-based ‘clock’ shortens beam as wake-up time draws closer originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In a post titled “Hello hypervisor, I’m geohot,” hacker George Hotz (already known in the iPhone community) has made a strong claim: that he has cracked the PS3. The system has remained (mostly) uncompromised for over three years now, with a few exceptions here and there. But, this one pledges full read/write access to the entire system memory and complete control over the processor — all without a mod chip. Has he really done it, if so how, and what comes next? That all remains to be seen. This exploit supposedly “isn’t really patchable, but [Sony] can make implementations much harder,” meaning he isn’t tipping his hat until he’s ready, because once he does the never-ending firmware update war begins, and as we’ve seen on the PSP, Sony can really knock out those updates.

[Thanks, Deepak]

PS3 finally properly hacked? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jan 2010 06:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, Andy, thanks for “considering” adding multitouch to the Nexus One — meanwhile, though, there are folks in the trenches actually making it happen, so we might not need your help anymore. The usual suspects over at xda-developers (the legendary Cyanogen, specifically) have mixed, baked, and cooled a delicious new Browser APK for Google’s so-called superphone that undoes the company’s poorly-made decision to leave out the hot-button feature on everyone’s mind. The dude says that you might lose your settings and bookmarks in the process, but we’d say that’s a small price to pay — especially considering that you’d normally have to flash the entire ROM anyhow. Seriously though, Andy, just check it out for a few days and see what you think, alright?

[Thanks, Owaeis]

Nexus One’s unitouch browser falls victim to Cyanogen originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wish you could start your car via your cell phone, but don’t feel like ponying up the $40k for a Chevrolet Volt or $499 (plus $29 a year) for an aftermarket system from Viper? This hack from a guy named Dave will set you back considerably less, relying on a cheap prepaid cellphone that has had its vibration motor surgically removed, replaced by a couple of leads triggering the car’s starter. Now, whenever the phone receives a call it starts up the car — a somewhat dodgy proposition if a telemarketer ever gets hold of your number, but an interesting solution nonetheless. Dave is also excited about the prospect of setting on timers and alarms on the handset to auto-start the car at regular intervals, while we’re excited about the total cost of the project: $71.03. Why, that’s barely enough to cover the gas our big blue Excursion burns while warming up in the morning.

The DIY $10 prepaid cellphone remote car starter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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