Hasta La Gadget!

Master modder Ben Heck has always dazzled with his hacks that transform the Xbox 360, PS3 and other video game consoles into the devices, the likes of which you have never seen before.

Now Heck is back with a mod that stuffs the Xbox 360 into what he calls a ’slim’ laptop like casing. The device has internal power supply and is pretty quiet, he says.

The machine is 16 inches x 10.5 inches in size and has all the regular features of an Xbox 360 including Wi-Fi and online connectivity. The system has touch power and eject buttons and is connected to a 17-inch Gateway LCD capable of 720p display.

And if you are wondering if the Xbox 360 laptop can act as a regular laptop too, the answer is no. Heck says in the video below that the device doesn’t have dual-boot functionality.

Heck, who has made three of these Xbox 360 laptops, is giving away one on his show. The other two will be available for purchase.

See Also:

• Hanging With Ben Heck at World Maker Faire
• Ben Heck Goes Back to the 1980s with Commodore 64 Laptop
• Ben Heck Unveils One-Handed Xbox 360 Controller
• Ben Heck is back, and this time it’s portable

Photo: Ben Heck

[via Engadget]

As always in the world of handmade portable consoles, the word “slim” is a very, very relative term. Appropriately you wouldn’t call Ben Heck‘s latest creation svelte by any means, but it is considerably smaller than his 2009 version, 1.5-inches skinnier and an inch shorter. Despite that it now has an internal power supply and is even quieter than before. The system’s touch power and eject buttons work as expected here, and up top is a 17-inch Gateway LCD that manages a full 720p’s worth of pixels. Want one? The model pictured above is being given away as part of a contest on The Ben Heck Show, but he’s making two others that are available to, you know, purchase if you have the means.

Continue reading Ben Heck makes Xbox 360 ‘Slim’ portable, still won’t make a briefcase feel fat (video)

Ben Heck makes Xbox 360 ‘Slim’ portable, still won’t make a briefcase feel fat (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looking for a jailbreak for your iPod touch or iPhone running iOS 4.1? Your chariot is named limera1n — assuming you’re willing to risk your device on a software developer showdown. The infamous Geohot just upstaged the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team by releasing a reportedly buggy beta exploit of his own, which you can find at our download link immediately below. It only works on Windows at the moment, hacks only official releases and iPhone 3GS isn’t supported right now, and it claims to be an unpatchable, untethered release for those of you who appreciate what those terms mean.

As you can imagine, rival developers aren’t terribly happy that Geohot’s back in the limelight. MuscleNerd (of the iPhone Dev Team) claims that limera1n will re-lock iPhones that were unlocked by his team’s ultrasn0w software, and recommends you skip limera1n, but the main reason the iOS hacking community is angry at Geohot is because if more than one exploit is released simultaneously, Apple can fix them both in one fell swoop. By releasing first, Geohot has allegedly forced other teams to decide between the good of iPhone users over the short term (by releasing a different, more stable exploit) or over the long term (by saving their exploit for future use) and so far it looks like both teams have chosen to prolong the fight — the iPhone Dev Team is asking folks to withhold its Shatter exploit, and Chronic Dev Team says it will modify its greenpois0n jailbreak to use Geohot’s hack instead. What a weird, wild world we live in.

Update: How might this work on an iPad, given that beta versions of iOS (like 4.2) aren’t currently supported? Good question. We’ve struck all references to iPad accordingly, until the powers that be figure it out.

Update 2: Video after the break! Also, we’re hearing that some folks have jailbroken their iPads successfully with limera1n, and we personally got it working quickly on a pair of iPhones with iOS 4.1… but one of the two was missing icons upon restart and didn’t regain App Store, Maps, Game Center and Calendar even after a restore. Be careful, now!

Sam Sheffer contributed to this report.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Limera1n jailbreaks the iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 4.1, angers dev community and neuters one of our phones (video)

Limera1n jailbreaks the iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 4.1, angers dev community and neuters one of our phones (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When we heard that the Motorola Droid 2 was the latest Android handset to nab the ancient magic of frequency modulated audio using Droid X files, we just had to give it a try, and sure enough, if you’ve got root, the FM Radio app can be yours with a quick download and just a few lines of code. Before you run off to void your warranty, however, you should know it’s got a fairly desirable feature missing — it only plays audio out of the right earphone. But hey, if we’re going old school, we might as well go all the way, right? Excuse us while we go listen to some glorious monoaural sound. Files and instructions at our source links, immediately below.

Confirmed: Droid 2 hack brings FM radio, in one ear and out the other originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Digg It’s been well over three years since we saw OS X hacked onto Sony’s VAIO UX, meaning that it’s just about time for yet another of yesteryear’s best tablets to receive the OS that Apple refuses to place on its own tablet. Thanks to dedicated code junkies over at xda developers, HTC’s ill-fated Shift is getting a new lease on life by proving its ability to run OS X 10.5.6. Sadly, it looks as if an upgrade to Snow Leopard is out of the question due to some file changes between 10.5 and 10.6, but the biggest killer is the current build’s inability to provide WiFi and Bluetooth support. The instructions to follow suit are right there in the source link, but good luck making good use of this without cordless access to the world wide web.

Mac OS X Leopard installed on HTC Shift, just a WiFi shy of awesomeness originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Sep 2010 10:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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