Netflix subscribers, if you’ve got an Xbox 360 and a Windows Vista PC, you don’t have to shell out $99 for Roku’s Netflix Player box to get your Watch Instantly library on your TV screen
—you already have everything you need. Using the free Windows Media Center plug-in, vmcNetflix, you can turn your Xbox 360 into a Netflix Watch Instantly box.
t’s high noon, Apple and AT&T — we really hate to break it to you, but the jig is up. Last night the impossible was made possible: right in front of our very eyes we witnessed a full SIM unlock of our iPhone with a small piece of software. It’s all over, guys.
read more | digg story
Yesterday during the MacWorld expo the Downtown San Francisco Apple Store was Goatse’d. At least 5 computers displayed goatse as wallpaper. For the full story and more pictures checkout the laughing squid story.
That guy leaning on the table: “oh god why”
I guess you can buy Tekken 5 for your Playstation 3 through the online storefront by creating a fresh account and saying you’re from Hong Kong. Then you have to add money to your account in low quantities so Sony doesn’t check up on your credit cards home address. For the full text, click more.
Let’s see. Penny Arcade’s Tycho talks a little about his (and probably many others’) perception of casual gamers as it relates to the new Wii Weather Channel. Excerpt below:
The Wii’s Forecast Channel just debuted, with the Internet Channel (i.e., Opera for Devices) arriving later this week - treats for that new or even lapsed gamer referenced by Nintendo marketing materials. I know instinctively that this person does exist, but that’s all I know. I don’t know if the Wii is a draw for that person long term, I don’t know if there’s a strong current of titles to maintain that person’s interest… To be honest, I don’t even know if a constant stream of content is as important to these shy, mysterious creatures as it is to us. I can tell you that the Forecast channel does have merit, even to the hardcore, but one must be creative in its application.
MGM is making a sequal to Wargames entitled Wargames 2: The Dead Code. It will be directed by Stewert Gillard, aka the guy who directed TMNT 3. In the movie a hacker breaks into a computer system that uses virtual reality to train terrorists. Meanwhile, MGM terrorizes the owner of wargames.com for ownership.
Finally, Ken Kutaragi of Sony is PROMISING an AV-centric PS3. Probably won’t play games, and will cost even more to purchase. Goodluck with that, Ken.
There is some Mac Fanboy buzz about a new apple UI to be unveiled with Apples OS X Leopard called “Illuminous”. I’ll believe it when I see it. Slashfoods has an awesome collection of Food Hacks including my favorite: how to counteract hot pepper (chili) burns. Square Enix announced this morning that Dragon Quest 9 will be released on DS and not PS3 or Wii as one would expect. It will include 4 person multiplayer and appears to be a little bit of an action RPG, according to Wired. Checkout how to encode divx for your Wii (you have a wii and watch divx, you probably already have your computer hooked up to your television) And the Wii is now selling on ebay for more than PS3s.
CNET is writing about what we all have known since quakeworld: video game matches can be big events! Holy shit, television coverage!? I can’t wait until people get used to this and there cease to be articles with the basic framework of “So I went to this big event, there’s lots of people watching players play a game, but ITS NOT A SPORT ITS VIDEO GAMES!! OMG!”
The World of Warcraft 2.0.1 patch has sucked me back in. I’ve ground out 99 AB tokens and I’m working on AV. It’s just so easy to get nice, high-warlord/warlord gear I can’t help myself. It’s so good that I’m actually playing as if they might take it away tomorrow.
Laternerdz is going to have a follow up to the Game Cube Titles for Waiting Wii Owners article covering impressions of the Wii after fully exploring it’s features and having time to let it soak in. Look for it sometime this week.
Finally, I really enjoyed this rant about DS Buttons from celialove (you should really read her profile) who says she is “married to Celia from Harvest Moon”. I wonder how many games of Harvest Moon and Kosplay conventions it takes to actually feel repulsed by the idea of social interaction.
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Bram Cohen, creator of the bit torrent protocol and Ludvig Strigeus, writer of uTorrent recently posted a letter to their community forums detailing a merger between the two companies. uTorrent, known as an extremely well-coded, lightweight bit torrent client, has been a favorite among the most savvy file traders.
For many this news is troubling because of BitTorrent Inc’s recent partnership with many major entertainment companies including 20th Century Fox, G4, Kadokawa Pictures USA, Lionsgate, MTV Networks. While the partnership only mentions the digital distribution of media including movies and television shows, many are wary that it may mean more such as DRM inclusion in their bit torrent client. Now that uTorrent is under the BitTorrent Inc name, some users are going back to Azureus, a free java-based bit torrent client. However, even Azureus has an eye for commercial gains, with the launch of their HD-quality video distribution site Zudeo.
Zudeo, a video sharing site similar to you tube, plans to capture the user-generated content market with bit torrent and HD video. As with you tube, video sharing sites require a large amount of legal cooperation with regard to copyright holders and the companies that represent them.
Many current uTorrent users are planning on sticking with version 1.6 until they find out what changes are made in the next version. However, many are eager for a mac or linux version, as well as regular expressions for RSS.
With all of these mainstream bit torrent clients going commercial, who is a low-life underground torrent kid to trust? I’m sure something will pop up on sourceforge if there isn’t already a viable, open source alternative. (that supports RSS?)
Even though no concrete evidence exists showing either uTorrent or Azureus in cahoots with the motion picture industry there’s no reason not to be alarmed with the crackdown on file sharing increasing it’s pressure on regular users. Better safe than sorry.
Click more for the full letter from Bit Torrent Inc and uTorrent.
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According to TivoLovers, a livejournal Tivo blog, the TiVoToGo DRM protection which halted users’ attempts to play their TiVo Recordings on multiple devices has been cracked. The SourceForge page for the crack has C source available for download. Running the command line program on a .tivo file will convert it into a DRM-stripped MPEG file. Additional documentation on the project, as well as information about the algorithm used are available on the project’s wiki.
This breakthrough comes on the heels of tensions between entertainment studios and TiVo with the release of TiVo’s TiVoToGo service. Despite networks concern over mobile viewing of their content, TiVo has been snuggling up to networks providing commercial ratings and forced commercial viewing despite TiVo’s previous blind-eye towards the modding and hacking community. I think we’ll see a lot more regarding this powder keg of content distribution in the future. Keep checking back to laternerdz for more coverage.
Update: according to the project page, “The conversion still requires the valid MAK of the TiVo which recorded the file, so it cannot be used to circumvent their protection, simply to provide the same level of access as is already available on Windows.”
A California bill outlawing the use of pretexting, or telling someone you’re someone else to obtain records and information about that person, has been stopped by lobbyists of the MPAA.
Written by state Sen. Debra Bowen, SB1666 would have prevented investigators or other enterprising persons from making “false, fictitious or fraudulent” statements in order to obtain otherwise private information about an individual. Under the bill, victims would have had the right to sue for damaged.
Goons from the MPAA, or the Motion Picture Association of America, stopped the bill after an initial vote of 30-0 in favor. After the MPAA intervened citing investigations into piracy that would be halted by such a bill, the vote changed to 33-27.
This vote occured 2 days before the HP board pretexting investigation.
After signing some legal boilerplate and “get out of jail free” paperwork, here’s what we agreed to: Pose as a vendor, enter the facility, plug into the network, sniff traffic, look for login and passwords, then try to become domain administrator of the network….
Within seconds I had a variety of logins and passwords, access to numerous shared folders, data, and administrative accounts.
Read this awesome story about how one network security provider gave their client an extra level of analysis from Dark Reading.
It appears this company Retrousb.com is taking preorders for adapters for your old NES and SNES controllers for use with your Wii Virtual Console.
Now if we could just get Super Mario Bros. released to the Wii virtual console in the USA!
Taking note from the large Roomba hacking community, iRobot plans to release the iRobot Create. The Create seems to be essentially a third gen Roomba without the vacuum, and a large “cargo bay” for you to stuff with modules til your heart’s content.
This has a lot of implications outside of the Roomba modding community, however. Now that this Roomba has essentially been “kitted” it can be combined with other kits such as the Sun Spot Project. I’ve already got plans for my automated camouflaged graffiti bot 2000. Watchout Walls!
Click for more photos. (more…)
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