Hasta La Gadget!

You know what they say — if you can’t buy it, mod it. Michael “Bibin” Moffitt’s backlighting job on this Game Boy Pocket is a case in point. Unwilling to shell out the dough for a Game Boy Light on eBay (but more than willing to destroy two old LCDs in pursuit of his mad dream), this guy removed the reflective layer and adhesive behind the handheld’s display (“almost as hard as reasoning with a rabid PlayStation 3 fan,” he writes) and built a backlight out of an LED, some perspex, and a diffusive layer. That’s it — now our man is playing Donkey Kong, in the dark, in all its monochromatic glory, and with no noticeable change in battery life. Hit the read link for plenty of naked GBP pics.

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Game Boy Pocket fitted with backlit screen, one man’s life now complete originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ever since the Dev-Team kinda sorta promised that they would have a neatly packaged iPhone 3G unlock ready for release by the year’s end, we’ve all been waiting on pins and needles, counting down the moments until freedom was in hand yet again. Now, a cryptic message on the crew’s blog has been followed up with a not-at-all secretive image (shown above), which shows that whatever magic they’ve got going on will work with the latest (v2.2) iPhone 3G firmware. According to a related writeup at yellowsn0w, we’re clearly told that the unlock tool will be made available by midnight PST at the latest, though we’re hoping those guys have their AM / PM mixed up — otherwise, you might be waiting until noontime tomorrow. At any rate, now you’ve more than a day off and black eyed peas to look forward to tomorrow, right?

[Via MobileCrunch]

Filed under: Cellphones

Dev-Team teases v2.2-compatible iPhone 3G unlock for the New Year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s an odd one for you. Tobias Engel of the Chaos Communication Congress has discovered a rather nasty exploit that’ll cause any Nokia S60 devices running versions 2.6, 2.8, 3.0 or 3.1 to stop receiving SMS and MMS messages. The “Curse of Silence,” which has been independently verified by F-Secure, is triggered by sending an SMS that begins with an email address that’s at least 32 characters long. The attacker must also change the protocol identifier to internet electronic mail before sending. Devices with versions 2.8 and 3.1 lock up after 11 such messages and still have some limited receiving capabilities, while 2.6 and 3.0 devices will go completely mum after just one attack. In both cases a factory reset is required to fix it, and he says there is no other known workaround for the user. We don’t imagine this being a pervasive issue, but if you’ve got any tech-savvy enemies or malevolent pranksters in your life, you’ve been warned. Video demonstration is after the break, or hit up the read link to see if your device is among those listed at risk.

[Via Hack a Day]

Read – Vulnerability Advisory
Read – F-Secure Verification

Continue reading ‘Curse of Silence’ exploit squelches inbound SMS/MMS to Nokia S60 devices

Filed under: Cellphones

‘Curse of Silence’ exploit squelches inbound SMS/MMS to Nokia S60 devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apparently impressed by the stunning success (and $157 winning bid) of his earlier Wii64, the modder who goes by the name n8bog is back with another brute-force console hybrid, this time shoving an entire Xbox 360 into a disused PS3 case. We wouldn’t say it’s a perfect fit, as there’s been a rather large hole cut into the front to allow access to the tray, and that HDD just laying on top of the DVD-ROM looks a bit precarious, but if you have a hankerin’ for something Microsoft but prefer the look of something Sony (or just really like gratuitous neon) all this can be yours at a starting bid of just $100. Any takers?

Filed under: Gaming

Xbox 360 + PS3 case + many Dremel bits = PS360 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Come to think of it, this mod wouldn’t even be necessary (though, we suppose it would still be useful) had HTC bothered to put a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack on the T-Mobile G1, but alas, we’re stuck with some random ExtUSB port. In order to make that output jack compatible with the litany of iPod peripherals (namely sound systems), the modders over at WebNetta figured out what pins linked to what in order to connect the G1 to Made for iPod gear. Best of all, the secrets of the connections are all spilled out in the read link should you care to try this yourself, but please, tidy things up a bit if you do.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Portable Audio

Inelegant hack connects T-Mobile G1 to iPod dock originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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