Hasta La Gadget!

We have not modified the above picture in any way — Scout’s Honor. That’s a real baby, wearing a real IR necklace that interacts with a real Wiimote. What’s not real, of course, is the view of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. That is generated by Ryan Hoagland’s DIY virtual window, a brilliant pastiche of interior design, RED ONE footage and Johnny Chung Lee-style headtracking, all directed to your eyes by a Mac Pro feeding a pair of plasma screens. As the viewer moves around, dual 1080p images move the opposite direction, providing the convincing illusion of looking out a real pane of glass at the incredibly detailed scenery beyond. Exciting? Then you’ll be giggling like Jr. when you hear it’s for sale. After spending a year figuring out how to mount, drive and cool the whole shebang, Hoagland would like you to have one too; he plans to have basic kits ready by July for under $3000. Watch baby-powered plasma in motion after the break, as well as a sweet time-lapse video of the build process.

[Thanks, Andy, ArjanD]

Continue reading Winscape virtual window features Wiimote headtracking, absolutely made of win

Winscape virtual window features Wiimote headtracking, absolutely made of win originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Slashdot  |  RationalCraft  | Email this | Comments

Just a tad ahead of schedules — perhaps as a macabre assurance this isn’t some April 1st joke — firmware 3.21 for the PS3 is now being seeded to anyone who tries to log onto the PlayStation Network. As far as we can tell, all the update seems to do is remove the “install other OS” option and kill access to anyone who does have another platform dual-booted. Just a friendly reminder, if you fall into that category, be sure to either backup your partition or wait for Geohot to find a workaround.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

PS3 firmware 3.21 is out: say goodbye to ‘install other OS’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Not that we necessarily needed a report to tell us this, but the fewer privileges you afford yourself as a Windows user, the more secure your operating system becomes. Such is the conclusion of a new report from BeyondTrust, a company that — surprise, surprise — sells software for “privileged access management.” The only way we use Windows 7 is as admins and we’ve never had a moment’s bother, but some of you like stats, and others among you might be involved in business, which tends to make people a little more antsy about these things. So for your collective sake, let there be pie charts! The report looks into vulnerabilities disclosed by Microsoft during 2009 and concludes that all 55 reported Microsoft Office issues and 94 percent of the 33 listed for IE could be prevented by simply running a standard user account. Or using better software, presumably. Hit the PDF source for more info — go on, it’s not like you have anything better to do while waiting for the Large Hadron Collider to go boom.

Windows 7 is safer when the admin isn’t around originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  BeyondTrust (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

George Hotz, famously known as the first hacker to unlock the iPhone, says he’s done it again. The whiz kid on Thursday evening said he had cooked up a new hack for all iPhone OS devices, and he’s betting it will work on the iPad, too.

When the hack is released (Hotz won’t disclose a release date), it should be as simple to use as Blackra1n, Hotz’s one-click solution to jailbreak current iPhones, he said.

“It is completely untethered, works on all current tethered models (ipt2, 3gs, ipt3), and will probably work on iPad too,” Hotz said in his blog post.

It’s plausible to believe that an iPhone OS jailbreak will also work for the iPad. While the iPad will support apps that are exclusive to the device, its OS shares the same DNA as the iPhone’s.

Hackers use the term “jailbreaking” to describe the act of overriding the iPhone’s restrictions to install unauthorized software on the device. Jailbreaking is the first step an iPhone owner must take in order to later unlock the handset, enabling it to work with a SIM card from any carrier.

Wired.com in November 2009 profiled Hotz, along with the community of hackers persistently issuing jailbreaks and mods to fight against Apple’s tight control of its iPhone. The community also distributes unauthorized iPhone apps in a few underground app stores, the most popular of which is Cydia.

Hotz told Wired.com in a phone interview that he might release the hack when the iPad launches next week. But he said he would wait to see what the rest of the hacking community does first. He said he expects the Dev-Team, another group of iPhone hackers (that Hotz was formerly part of), to have figured out the same exploit.

“We’ll see what the rest of the scene does,” Hotz said. “Maybe I’ll release it [during the iPad launch].”

A video of the new iPhone jailbreak in action is below the jump.

Updated noon PT with a statement from Hotz.

See Also:

• Jailbreakers Battle Apple for Control of iPhone
• BlackRa1n Plus Blacksn0w: Unlock Any iPhone in Seconds
• iPhone Freed From AT&T; Some Soldering Required
• Geohot Trades Hacked iPhone for Crazy Expensive Sports Car
• Geohot Sneaks Out iPhone 3GS Jailbreak Early

Over the years, a number of optional technologies have allowed new auto buyers to remotely disable and / or recover their vehicles after purchase, but these devices aren’t always optional, and it might not even be the buyer who activates them. According to Threat Level, a man has been charged in Austin, Texas for allegedly hacking into the computer of his employer, Texas Auto Center, and activating WebTeck remote horn triggers and kill devices installed in over 100 cars owned by the company’s customers — all from the comfort of home. After Texas Auto Center reset the offending software’s passwords and figured out what’s what, the Austin High Tech Crime Unit quickly traced access back to one Omar Ramos-Lopez and made an arrest — but for many, the damage (in terms of missed work, school and tow-truck calls) had already been done. Care to form an opinion? Read more about the crime, and WebTeck, at our source links.

Disgruntled auto salesman bricks cars with remote kill-switch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Threat Level, Pay Technologies  | Email this | Comments