Hasta La Gadget!

There have been no shortage of custom apps hitting the Pre already, including a number of old favorites, but all have required a little bit of roto-rooting ahead of time to lay the groundwork for such non-authorized code. That might change in the very near future thanks to the work of a trio of dedicated deviant coders going by the handles xorg, simplyflipflops, and Shaya Potter. Over the span of just a few days they managed to figure out how to package and sign custom apps in such a way that anything can be installed on a completely stock phone — the only catch is they’re waiting to see what Palm has to say about it before they release a full how-to. Since the company has its own plans of making most developers wait at least a few months before setting them free we can’t imagine the response is going to be: “This is totally awesome, please tell the world our secrets.” But, we’d be happy to be wrong.

[Thanks, Bo]

Filed under: Cellphones

Pre apps successfully installed on non-rooted phone, world waits for details originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Homebuilt motion controllers may be a fairly common occurrence these days — especially with the Wiimote simplifying things considerably — but this so-called “PC VR Game Gun” takes a slightly different approach than most, and has the added benefit of a pitchman firmly committed to selling it as the greatest thing since ShamWow. As you can see above, the rig consists of a toy gun with an LCD screen attached to it, but the real secret is a Gyration Air Mouse mounted on top, which allows for some full, seemingly responsive motion-tracking in any PC game. To really finish things off, our fearless modder also ripped apart a gamepad and wired it up to the trigger in the gun, which turns out to be just the thing for playing F.E.A.R…. on the highest difficulty setting. Must-see video after the break.

Update: As helpfully pointed out in comments, there’s now a wireless version of the Game Gun and, of course, a new video. Check it out after the break as well.

Continue reading DIY VR Game Gun packs built-in motion tracking, optional mullet

Filed under: Gaming

DIY VR Game Gun packs built-in motion tracking, optional mullet originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen a tremendous explosion in the webOS hacking scene ever since the Pre’s firmware image leaked out — between the easily-accessible restore more, Linux foundations and the directly-accessible HTML / CSS / Javascript application code, we’ve already seen everything from minor tweaks to full on NES emulation to Sprint activation hacks. In short, things are wide open at the moment, and people (including us) are excited by the possibilities — but that doesn’t mean Palm has to play along. In fact, two recent developments have us worried for the future of this happy little scene — first, Palm’s apparently forbidding the Pre Dev Wiki from posting any information about data tethering during the Sprint exclusivity period, and apparently threatening to have the site shut down if it happens:

We have been politely cautioned by Palm that any discussion of tethering during the Sprint exclusivity period (and perhaps beyond-we don’t know yet) will probably cause Sprint to complain to Palm, and if that happened then Palm would be forced to react against the people running the IRC channel and this wiki.

Yeah, that’s pretty aggro for a company that needs to court all the developer support it can. We’re not sure what’ll happen after Sprint’s exclusivity runs out, but we can’t imagine any other carriers are going to be thrilled about hacked tethering options either, so we’d say Palm’s going to keep the pressure on until unlocked GSM webOS devices hit the scene — and we can almost guarantee that tethering hacks are going to make it into the wild regardless of Palm’s actions.

Even worse for hackers, Palm’s taking an unusually aggressive approach to webOS system updates — they’re mandatory. According to the support docs, webOS updates are automatically downloaded in the background within two days of being available, and they’re required to be installed within a week of the download — after seven days and four install prompts, the phone will give you a ten-minute countdown and then automatically begin installing the update. Sure, we can understand why Palm would want all of its devices to be updated, and we know that a lot of webOS system foundations are in flux while the Mojo SDK is being finalized, but forced updates seem extremely heavy-handed to us — it’s one thing to try and maintain control over a platform, it’s another to keep it with an iron fist. Of course, it’s probable that we’ll see a hack to bypass all of this extremely soon, so maybe it’ll all work itself out, but we’d really like to see Palm develop an official policy friendly towards hacking and homebrew and stick to it — the Pre and webOS have attracted a lot of talent in the past two weeks, and it’d be a shame to lose it.

[Via PreThinking; thanks, Justin]

Read – Pre Dev Wiki tethering policy
Read – Palm webOS updates support doc

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm webOS system upgrades mandatory; hacking scene forbidden from tethering originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s begun. Although lacking a general release of the SDK, the first homebrew apps have emerged thanks to last night’s leaked WebOS root image. The first application puts a stake in the ground by displaying a simple “hello world” on the screen. Unfortunately, the code overwrote the pre-installed Sprint Nascar application… oh wait, that’s probably a good thing. Devs have also started tampering with existing code to disable the shutter sound on the camera while leaving the rest of the sounds enabled. Now why would somebody want to do that?

Update: New image from an excited developer that shows scm6079’s work over at PreCentral evolving with a 5-second photo timer and more. We’re being told that several members of the Pre hacking team consist of old-school PalmOS hackers from the Samsung i300 days. Now if Palm can just lure back the rest of its developers smitten by Android and the lure of App Store riches then they might just make something of this fledgling smartphone platform.

[Thanks, Scott M. and C.J.]

Continue reading WebOS homebrewers say ‘Hello World!’ to Palm Pre

Filed under: Cellphones

WebOS homebrewers say ‘Hello World!’ to Palm Pre originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Maker Faire, the largest festival for DIYers, crafters and hackers, happens Saturday and Sunday, May 30 and 31, in San Mateo, California. More than  80,000 people are expected to attend this year to check out what the 600 odd makers have to show, including robotics, music, crafts and food.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Steve Chamberlin’s 8-bit homebrewed CPU.  Nearly 1,253 pieces of wire were individually hand wrapped to create the connection and Chamberlin has built a functional computer based on it. The computer and the CPU will be on display in booth 296 at the main Expo Hall.
• A group of Disney Pixar’s Wall-E movie aficianados will also be showing their handmade Wall-E robots and other characters from the movie. The hobbyists have  created life-size, fully functional replicas from the scratch that are indistinguishable from their namesakes in the movie. The robots will be on display at booth 147 in the Expo Hall.
• There will also be interesting musical instruments on display such as the Yotam Mann’s multitouch musical pad. The musical pad has optical lasers, a webcam and some custom software rigged together to provide an inexpensive way to make some cool music. The contraption will be on display at booth 211 in the Expo Hallo.
• The Bay Area Lego Users Group (BayLUG), which has more than 100 members, will show an entire city constructed of Lego bricks. The exhibit, with individual members responsible for building a single city block, will measure about 2,000 square feet.
• Other cool exhibits include Daniel Fukuba’s DIY Segway. Fukuba, with some help from other Segway enthusiasts, has created a balancing scooter, first with a wooden frame and then an aluminum frame.  “I started with raw, plain PCB boards and soldered on all the components for the speed controller and the logic controller,” says Fukuba. The project took about two months and $4000. And at the Faire, he will be sharing his expertise on how to do it yourself. Fukuba’s DIY balancing scooter will be on display at A1 in the Bike Town pavilion.
• We are also eager to see the two-person self-propelled Ferris Wheel where riders use their arm muscles to shift their weight and turn the wheel. This Ferris Wheel is about 20 feet tall, made of plywood and will be in the Midway M2 area.
• Don’t forget to also check out the CandyFab Project that uses low-cost, open-source fabrication to create 3D sugary confections. A completely new CandyFab machine will be on display at booth number 293 in the Expo Hall cranking out some sweet goodies.

Know of some other cool exhibits or events at the Faire? Post them in the comments below.

And follow @gadgetlab on Twitter, where we’ll be tweeting throughout the weekend with tips on the most interesting, fun and wacky things to see. Stay.

For more on the event, check out O’Reilly’s Maker Faire website.

Photo: Wire wrapped 8-bit CPU/Steve Chamberlin