Reports are emerging that the PlayStation 3 has been hacked once again in the form of a successor to the original PSJailbreak, dubbed "JB2".

Similar to the first hack, JB2 apparently takes the form of a USB dongle that plugs directly into the PS3 and compromises the system on power-up. Videos released so far of the device in action appear to show an extended boot -up period before the XMB finally appears, featuring a number of options only available to developer consoles, allowing for the installation of unsigned code.

The hack is curious in that unlike the older Jailbreaks, newer games cannot be run from the hard drive: instead, burned Blu-ray discs are used instead with the PS3 appearing to recognise them as legitimate pressed games. Older titles that pre-date the 3.60 update that locked out current piracy methods allegedly work from the hard drive as normal. This opens up the unpalatable suggestion that not only will the makers of JB2 make money from selling the dongles, but a black market of burned software could also emerge. Alternatively, it may simply mean that a debug console - which can work with BD-R discs - was used to create a fabricated video.

According to sources, the dongle has undergone a small launch in Indonesia ahead of a global roll-out, with a small range of pirate games including titles like PES 2012, Driver: San Francisco, God of War Collection Volume II and FIFA 12 being made available. The notion of limited titles being available may suggest that the games are being reverse-engineered, and that only some games may work with the new hack. Alternatively, the makers may simply be releasing the latest games first in order to maximise revenues with the small window of opportunity available before Sony legal gets on the case.

Previous "custom firmwares" could allow for the modification of game code and assets, allowing for an unfair advantage for cheats accessing the PlayStation Network. Although it appears to run new games, JB2 is apparently based on the same 3.55 firmware as older hacks, so there's a very strong possibility that PSN access will remain off limits for those running pirate software.

It's still unconfirmed beyond all doubt whether JB2 is the real deal or not. However, the evidence piling up over the last 24 hours does suggest that Sony's successful anti-piracy measures - which kicked off with the release of Portal 2 and the 3.60 firmware just over six months ago - may have finally been overcome.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-playstation3-hacked-again

[Kekszumquadrat] wanted to use a classic controller to play emulator games on his Android tablet so he set out to convert an SNES gamepad to connect via USB. He found an old USB keyboard at a yard sale for about 3 Euros. He knew that the emulator he prefers has the option of remapping all the inputs to keyboard keys which means a USB keyboard has all of the electronics he would need to pull this off.

Once he had separated the keyboard circuitry from the case [Kekszumquadrat] plugged it into his Linux box and used Xev to establish how the keyboard matrix is set up. Xev is a common package that opens up an active window on the X desktop. When run from command line, any events that happen to the window will be echoed along with verbose data about that event. When it comes to keypresses, you’ll get the keycode you need. He simply shorted columns and rows until he found the desired mapping, then it was on to soldering.

The SNES controllers are very simple devices. As we’ve seen with previous projects, they use a serial-to-parallel shift register to gather button data and send it to the console. [Kekszumquadrat] simply soldered between button traces and keyboard matrix contacts. Once he finished, the keyboard parts were tucked inside of the controller case and he’s left with a USB controller that appears to be unaltered.

http://hackaday.com/2011/09/25/snes-gamepad-coversion-to-usb/

A security "noob" mistake has left the batteries in Apple's laptops open to hacking, which could result in a bricked battery or, in a worst case scenario, fire or explosion. This was revealed on Friday after Accuvant Labs security researcher Charlie Miller disclosed that he plans to detail the hack at the annual Black Hat security conference in early August.

We were curious as to how Miller, known for repeated hacks of Apple's Safari Web browser at the annual Pwn2Own hacking competition, stumbled upon this hack in the first place—after all, it is somewhat obscure and doesn't fall into what most people consider to be his typical focus area (browsers). Miller took time to answer our questions about what the hack is and how he found it, as well as what he plans to do when Black Hat rolls around.

The vulnerability

Laptop batteries include microcontrollers which constantly monitor charging voltage, current, and thermal characteristics, among other properties. These microcontrollers are part of a standardized system called the Smart Battery System, designed to improve the safety of Li-Ion and Li-Poly cells used in these batteries.

According to Miller, these controllers can be hacked in a fairly straightforward manner. By reprogramming the microcontroller's firmware, a battery could report a much lower internal voltage or current, causing the charger to overcharge the battery. In Miller's testing, he was only successfully able to turn a series of seven $130 MacBook Pro batteries into expensive bricks, but he told Ars that it may be possible to cause fire or even an explosion.

"Lithium-ion batteries are potentially dangerous, and it's possible that futzing with the parameters could cause the battery to fail at best, or explode at worst," Miller said. "I know there are internal fuses and other safeguards to prevent that from happening, and I never did it myself, but there's certainly potential to get some malware to rewrite the smart battery firmware and cause some catastrophic failure."

As Miller noted, Smart Battery Systems include fuses which can disable cells if they reach dangerous internal voltages. But even these safeguards occasionally fail, resulting in toasted laptops.

Miller also told Ars that the battery firmware hack could be used to create a sort of "permanent" malware infection. Such malware, or a least a portion of it, could be installed in the microcontroller's flash memory. Even if an infected computer's drive were replaced and the operating system re-installed, it's possible that an exploit could allow the malware to be reloaded from a laptop's Smart Battery System firmware.

The discovery

While the threat of un-installable viruses that cause laptop batteries to explode is highly unlikely, the truth is that the vulnerability exists in the first place because of a blunder on Apple's part. While researching potential vulnerabilities in the MacBook Pro's power management system, Miller inadvertently discovered that Apple used default passwords described in publicly available documentation on the Smart Battery System, which allows rewriting the firmware itself.

Miller began by trying to determine if it was possible to manipulate or control the battery charging system. He downloaded a battery firmware update that Apple released a couple years ago, and dug through its code to see how the system communicates with the Smart Battery System. Inside the firmware updater, he found a password and a command to "unseal" the microcontroller, which allowed the firmware updater to change some of the battery's parameters.

This particular updater, according to Miller, merely told the battery to always keep a slightly higher minimum charge in order to keep the battery from becoming unable to hold a charge after being unused for an extended period of time. But searching for the unseal command led Miller to the Smart Battery Charger Specifications. Digging through the documentation, Miller learned that the password Apple used to unseal the microcontroller was the default used in the specifications.

On a whim, Miller tried the default password to switch the microcontroller into "full access mode," sort of like an administrator account on your Mac. "Unlike the unsealed mode, in full access mode, I could change anything: recalibrate the battery, access the controller at a really low level, including getting the firmware or changing it," Miller said.

Miller downloaded the firmware and reverse engineered the microcontroller's machine code, bricking several batteries in the process. Eventually he was able to change the firmware to "always lie, like to say it wasn't fully charged even when it was."

The fact that Apple never bothered to change the default password is disconcerting, especially considering the effort Apple has made to beef up security in Mac OS X Lion. Lion's implementation of address space layout randomization (ASLR) is now "complete," according to Miller, making it nearly impossible to know where the OS has loaded system functions into memory. Furthermore, Safari—Miller's preferred exploit vector—is now divided into two sandboxed processes, one for the GUI and one for rendering Web content.

"That second process is sandboxed; it can't access your files and other stuff," Miller explained. "Even if you have browser exploits, the only way to do anything [useful] is to get out of the sandbox." Miller said that would mean finding a bug in the kernel itself. "That's not impossible... but it's definitely much harder with a sandbox than without.

"It's certainly going to be a lot harder to own a Mac at Pwn2Own next year," Miller admitted.

Miller speculated that Apple assumed that the battery would never be a target for hackers, and so kept the default passwords described in the documentation as a convenience. Unfortunately, that convenience has resulted in a potential headache for Apple laptop users. If other vendors stuck with the default passwords, those machines could be vulnerable as well, though Miller did not verify a successful hack on non-Apple hardware.

Miller handed his research over to Apple a few weeks ago to give the company time to come up with its own workaround before he presents his findings at the Black Hat conference on August 4. Miller has also written a Mac OS X tool that will generate a random password and store it in a battery's firmware—preventing future hacks, but also preventing future firmware updates—which will be released when he gives his talk at Black Hat.

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For some reason this project makes us think of the Light Cycles in Tron. You know, the bike forms around the rider after they grab onto the wand that makes up its controls? Certainly you’re not going to see a car form out of thin air, but this driving controller let you grab onto nothing to control a racing game.

You can see that it uses a Kinect to map the body of the player and convert your movements into motion control. The demo video embedded below the fold shows the calibration step, followed by the available control options. Pushing the steering wheel forward turns on the nitrous, leaning forward or back accelerates and brakes, and a few arm signals let you navigate the game menus.

This works by mapping gestures to keystrokes. [Rajarshi Roy] tells us that there’s a very raw code package available in their repository but the plan is to clean it up this weekend. They will also work on a Wiki, documentation, and a tutorial on teaching the software new gestures.

We just don’t know what we like better, seeing the kinect extended as a gaming controller like this one, or using it in robotics like that quadcopter.



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As you know, Malaysia Gov is practising Internet Censorship on some File Sharing website and also P2P websites. Below are the 10 major sites that will be blocked:

1. http://warez-bb.org
2. http://thepiratebay.org
3. http://movie2k.to
4. http://megavideo.com
5. http://putlocker.com
6. http://depositfiles.com
7. http://duckload.com
8. http://fileserve.com
9. http://filestube.com
10. http://megaupload.com


So how to bypass them? You can view this Youtube video or I will teach u ppl some simple solution:



Also there are a lot of solution provided here.

Simple solution as in my case is using http://proxy69.eu/ or any proxy software of websites.

iOS Jailbreaker MuscleNerd has done it. He has managed to jailbreak the iOS 5 in less than 24 hours of its official unveiling. MuscleNerd of iPhone Dev Team posted some images of the Jailbreak from his official twitter account saying that he has successfully jailbroken Apple’s iOS 5 software using Limera1n.

According to him the jailbreak is tethered for now but there is nothing to worry about because this version of the jailbreak will never reach the iUsers. Anyhow according to the initial testing by MuscleNerd, the Cydia seems to be working all good on his jailbroken 4th generation iPod touch, he installed SSHing utility app called iSSH successfully on the device.

The Apple iOS 5 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch was announced yesterday at the WWDC conference, which brings over 200 new features. Key features of this update includes – a new notifications system called ‘Notification Center’, Twitter integration, Newsstand, Safari Reader, tabbed browsing for iPad, Camera updates, built-in dictionary, PC-free (no cables required), OTA software updates and much more. According to the MuscleNerd the exploit used to jailbreak the iOS 5 beta will work on the final release version, and iUsers can be happy to know that the iOS 5 will be jailbroken immediately as it release this fall.

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PSHax member - Pirate had finished his water-cooled notebook PS3 mod. He replace the heatsinks water-cooling. It had a built-in keyboard and speakers, a 500GB hard drive, and a 720p / 1080i screen. Pirate's put it on eBay for $1,500.

Well after 3 years of working on it, I am finally ready to unveil my second PS3 portable which I am titling “Pirate’s PS3 Water-cooled Portable/Laptop”. As the name suggests this is a water-cooled PS3 in a portable form, fully equipped with its own reservoir, pump and radiator.

Features in this portable include:

* Water cooled with easy accessible reservoir
* HD: 720p/1080i screen (via HDMI)
* 4x USB
* 500 gb HDD
* External PSU
* Built in keyboard
* Built in speakers with volume controls with 2.5mm headphone jack.
* The stock PS3 was a 40gb SKU (there was no PS3 slim when I started the project).
* Dimensions are 16.75”x13”x2.5” (16.75”x13”x3.5”with lid closed)
* Weighs ~15lbs.

The case was all constructed from scratch. It features an aluminum base plate, and the rest of the material used was sintra/komatex. The case was routed via CNC machines with designs created in Adobe Illustrator.

The questions some of you may be asking why water-cool the PS3? The reason for water-cooling the system was to redesign the cooling to fit in a small case (which is significantly thinner than previous portable I made). Water-cooling the PS3 allowed me to get rid of the clunky heatsinks which was responsible for cooling stock PS3s. Only 4x40mm fans were used in cooling the entire system.

Another question I often get is why does a PS3 game/CD go backwards? That is because it was the only way to get the drive to fit inside the case without having to manually extend the PS3 bluray cable/ribbon.

I did not follow any tutorial when creating this, nor will I be providing one – it was done all for fun, and experimentation (why is why it took so long -.-). For those interested you can check out my work log of this project HERE. Also a shout out to the members at Overclock.net for helping me find many of the components, research and techniques I used to make this project possible. If you’re interested in tackling a project such as this feel free to ask on the forums and I will be more than glad to guide you in the right direction.

This PS3 Laptop/Portable is on sale at eBay, so if you’re interested, there’s a link below to the bidding. If you wish to buy it now, contact me through the forums (here) and we can talk from there :) . A percentage of the funds (minus costs) will proceed to relief efforts for the Joplin, Missouri tornado and rest will go to server/renovations to PS3Hax.net

Thanks for looking, let me know what you guys think

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[Rich] needed to come up with a senior design project and decided to combine two things he loved: his Android phone and Super Nintendo.

While touchscreen phones are great, he felt that nothing beats the tactile feedback of a physical controller when it comes to gaming. He figured out how the controller’s signaling works, then wired it up to an Arduino Pro Mini 328. The Arduino interprets the SNES controller’s signals, sending them to his Android phone via a BlueSMiRF Bluetooth module.

He originally had all of the components crammed in a cardboard box, but much like we pointed out yesterday, he realized that a project really comes together when housed in a proper enclosure. He managed to squeeze all of his components into the SNES controller’s shell aside from the battery pack he used to power the remote. After a little bit of Bondo and a few coats of paint were applied, the controller is looking quite sharp.

Stick around to see a quick demo video of his controller in action, and check out this tutorial he put together explaining some of the principles he used to construct it.



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Netflix recently released an Android app for smartphones. Unfortunately, the company limited the app to just five phones: the HTC Incredible with Android 2.2, the HTC Nexus One with Android 2.2 or Android 2.3, the HTC Evo 4G with Android 2.2, the HTC G2 with Android 2.2, and the Samsung Nexus S with Android 2.3. Hackers have circumvented this restriction by making the app think you are using one of the supported devices. There some unsupported devices which seem to work fine with the app, but others have serious problems, including crashes or no video/sound. A detailed guide has been posted on Reddit for those who want to give this a try (your Android device needs to be rooted) at their own risk, of course.

Explanation: Netflix officially realeased for 5 devices because those are the ones that the devs tested with. They knew there would be issues with untested devices (fcs, crashes, no video/sound, etc) so they coded the app to refuse to play on anything but the tested 5. All this hack does is circumvents that restriction by making the app think you are on one of the supported ones. There some devices which seem to work fine with the app but were never tested by the devs. Such devices as the nook color, the LG optimus S/V. These work perfectly after this while others still may have problems.

*0) Root is required. Make a Nandroid backup! (I accidentally deleted by build.prop file and bootlooped my phone)
*1) Download ES File Explorer (Or any other root file editor)
*2) In ES File Explorer, go into Setting > Root Settings and enable both check boxes
*3) Navigate to /system/ and copy/paste build.prop to /sdcard/ (just in case)
*4) Open & edit /system/build.prop
*5) Change the following lines to make your phone think it is a HTC G2:

ro.product.model=HTC Vision

ro.product.manufacturer=HTC

OR

ro.product.model=Nexus S

ro.product.manufacturer=samsung

*6) Reboot the phone
*7) Install the netflix apk (if you haven't already)
*8) Enjoy

I tested this on my LG Optimus V running AOSPCMod v20110427 (Android 2.3.3). Before this, it told me that my device is not supported, now I'm watching 30 Rock episodes over 3G. I did not come up with this, I stole it from some posts on xda and compiled a nice step by step guide. I take no responsibility for screwing up your phone.

Good luck and Enjoy :D

EDIT: updated for less line changes

EDIT2: I guess this is kinda hit or miss, but it does seem like it is working on multiple people's Optimus V's and Nook Colors.

EDIT3: Added the Nexus S settings that worked better for some

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The PSN is down, all accounts got dumped by an anonymous hacker and the community is cryin' for answers. 77 million accounts with password and sometimes CC info are worth a lot in several hack chans. This is a very huge case.

Now SONY engaged an external security company to discover the holes in SONY's system and find answers. As I was wondering if there may be some information about the actual case we can find out publically, I researched a bit myself.

One interesting point I found is a not secured access log of a PSN environment.
You will quickly notice the IP 214.1.211.251, which sends requests like a vulnerability scanner.
The IP points to the DoD Network Information Center, based in Ohio USA.

The first log entry of this IP is [03/Mar/2011:07:10:38 -0800]. As the DoD is knows as beeing easy to hack, the anonymous hacker could have used this as proxy.

Maybe SONY might want to take a look at this IP, I hope soon we get some news and details about the case...

- SKFU

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Sony Computer Entertainment and George Hotz have settled their hacking legal dispute, according to a joint statement.
Sony had been taking legal action against Hotz for publishing and distributing security circumvention for the PlayStation 3.
Hotz has now consented to a permanent injunction and said that "it was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier. I'm happy to have the litigation behind me." He added that he is not involved in any of the recent attacks on Sony websites and services.
Those attacks are from a loose collective of hackers linked to Anonymous - the settlement between Hotz and Sony was agreed in principle on March 31, days before Anonymous threatened Sony for its legal actions against Hotz and other notorious hackers.
Said Riley Russell, general counsel for SCEA: "Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal."
Despite a press release focused on cooperation, Hotz has now said he is boycotting all Sony products in the future.
Sony has not revealed any details of its pursuit of hacking group fail0verflow, which it was also taking legal action against at the same time as George Hotz.

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The war on Sony by 'hacktivist' collective Anonymous has turned personal. For off-shoot group SonyRecon, successful DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks on the PlayStation website and PlayStation Store were not enough, reports PlayStationLifestyle.

SonyRecon plans to take matters a step further and carry out 'Dox' attacks on Sony employees. Dox refers to stealing a person's identity - their name, telephone number, pictures, home address, email, IP, family details and so on - and maliciously using that information against them

SonyRecon provided examples of how the stolen information could be used. One example was sending STD postcards - e-postcards - to the target to tell them that one of their previous partners had a sexually transmitted disease.

SonyRecon is still a fledgling operation, but already claims to have brought down Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton's website - the legal firm handling the George "Geohot" Hotz case.

Yesterday, Anonymous declared war on Sony for its "wholly unforgivable" legal pursuit of George "Geohot" Hotz - aka the man credited with jailbreaking PS3.

"Now you will experience the wrath of Anonymous. You saw a hornets nest, and stuck your penises in it. You must face the consequences of your actions, Anonymous style," a threat read.

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Been having trouble with the PlayStation Network or any Sony website today? You're not alone. A widespread outage that started in Europe last night has now spread to North America, and none other than hacktivist group Anonymous is claiming responsibility for the attacks. As you can see above, however, Sony is singing a slightly different tune, and says simply that "sporadic maintenance" may cause PSN service to be interrupted throughout the day. Because, really, you can never do too much "sporadic" maintenance.

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A group of hackers known simply as Anonymous has claimed to be planning and perpetrating a series of hacking attacks on Sony in support of two of the hackers implicated in the PS3 jalibreaking furore.
Action, the group says, will be taken in response to the company's continued legal pursuit of George 'Geohot' Hotz and Alexander Egorenkov, or Graf_Chokolo.

Anonymous is a collection of hackers with an anti-corporate agenda and a track-record of successfully disruptive tactics. Previously, the group has claimed responsibility for denial of service (DOS) attacks on Mastercard and Amazon for their compliance with US government demands to stop doing business with Wikileaks.

You have victimised your customers merely for possessing and sharing information, and continue to target every person who seeks this information.


The group also claims to have brought down the website of the right wing fundamentalist Christian group the Westboro Baptist Church and infiltrated the email system of security firm HBGary.
A statement issued as a press release on the group's website announces the group's intentions to make Sony the next target.

"Congratulations, Sony," reads the announcement. "You have now received the undivided attention of Anonymous. Your recent legal action against our fellow hackers, GeoHot and Graf_Chokolo, has not only alarmed us, it has been deemed wholly unforgivable.
"You have abused the judicial system in an attempt to censor information on how your products work. You have victimised your customers merely for possessing and sharing information, and continue to target every person who seeks this information.

"In doing so, you have violated the privacy of thousands. This is the information they were willing to teach to the world for free. The very same information which you wish to suppress for the sake of corporate greed and the complete control of users."

As damning as the group's statement is, there also appears to be some unrest in its ranks in respect to the correct course of action. Last month, a splinter group claiming to be made up of former Anonymous members contacted Forbes and Gawker, calling themselves Backtrace Security.

That group claims that the current members of Anonymous have lost sight of the original mission statement for the group, being sidelined into 'hactivism' instead of playful mischief. As a result, Backtrace Security has threatened to release the details of several anonymous members.

The group also handed over logs from a private IRC channel known as #HQ which belongs to Anonymous, showing the group's plans to infiltrate HBGary as well as other evidence of criminal activities, information certain to be of interest to US authorities.

"The bastards are becoming arrogant sociopaths," Backtrace Security member A5h3r4 told Gawker. "Acting first, not thinking of the consequences. They're recruiting children. I am a pretty far left person - I believe in privacy and free expression, but Anonymous is a vigilante group now. A mob without conscience. And I worry they will radicalise even more. In short, I believe they're on their way to becoming a genuine threat."
Whether the group's efforts will have any bearing on the Sony case remains to be seen, but the platform holder is already heavily invested in the case, which Hotz is contesting. No public evidence of a successful attack on Sony has yet to come to light.

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Awesome hack job by Shantanu. He gather all open source kinect related project and make used of the available DIY PS3 Controller with recent PS3 Hacks. Even it still early work, still awesome work to make kinect cross over the various platform.

This post describes my first attempt at making Kinect work with a PS3. Microsoft’s new XBOX 360 accessory, kinect has made a powerful entry into the market, becoming the fastest selling gadget of all time. Looks like their “You are the controller” tagline is working. Of course, Sony’s “similar” accessory Move is selling well too but is far behind kinect adoption probably because nothing beats the lure of making something work with just “The Force” ;) .

Now, of course, kinect doesn’t work with PS3 obviously but then if we can’t break the rules, we can at least bend them a little towards our way. I’ve created a mashup that allows you to use kinect as an input controller for the PS3.

Please note that this is pre-alpha quality software currently. I haven’t updated to a lot of recent code for the below libraries and also haven’t done most of the performance/feature improvements yet. The axis performance specially needs lot of tweaking and it works well only while sitting. Putting this out purely as a proof of concept. For the things that I plan to add soon, please see the Todo section below. Follow me at @shantanugoel for latest updates.

Demo Video:


The program makes use of several other programs in order to provide this functionality. To compile/use it, you also need the following programs:

1. OpenNI Libraries – To get data from kinect

2. NITE Libraries (Choose “Middleware” on the page) – Builds on top of OpenNI to provide gesture detection etc

3. PrimeSense Libraries for kinect – Kinect drivers to get raw data

4. DIYPS3Controller – The main component for PS3 connection and also known as sixaxis emulator. This emulates a DS3 on the PC and send the inputs to PS3 through bluetooth.

Installation/Compilation/Usage

1. Make sure that the above 4 things are installed on your machine and working fine.

2. Download the source of this project to the NITE Samples directory. You can even place it anywhere else but you would need to tweak the makefile to account for the changed paths.

3. Make any changes to the source that you need.

4. Change the included ps3 controller config xml file and place it in one of the locations where diyps3controller can find it.

5. Run make -f kinect-ps3.mak

6. The executable will be available in Samples/Bin directory of NITE.

7. Run kinect-ps3 (without any arguments)

8. Run emuclient (from ps3 controller software) and choose the new xml config file

9. “Become the controller” :)
Default Config:

Menu Profile – This is the default profile that kinect-ps3 starts with and allows to operate the PS3 menus. Moving hand in any direction will move the ps3 menus as if you were using the DPAD with those directions keys pressed. If you run out of the kinect’s watched space, then just do a backward push with your hand, bring your hand to center and then again do the backward push and continue scrolling. This is like you lift your finger up and then start dragging from edges of a laptop’s touchpad.For selecting any item, make two successive push movements with your hand without changing any x-y direction.
Game Profile – This profile can be switched to by doing 3 successive backward movements of the hand while in Menu profile. Right now I’ve implemented only directional controls in game profile because I’m still struggling with multiple hands detections and skeletal tracking. A full profile will be activated soon enough. Currently, the your hand’s x/y movements and directly translated to right stick x/y movements (e.g. this is looking in different directions in various FPS games). Moving the hand towards or away from kinect (z-axis) translate to left stick y movements (e.g. this is moving fowards or backwards in most FPS games).
Issues/Queries/Suggestions

Please direct them to me by commenting here or emailing me at shantanu AT shantanugoel DOT com

Coming Soon/ToDo

-Full Menu and Game profiles

- Skeletal tracking for better game profiles

- Switching back to menu profiles from game profiles

- Easier way to specify user custom profiles instead of changing code for the same

- Performance improvement for game profiles

Full source code of the project has been released at https://github.com/shantanugoel/Kinect-PS3 under GNU GPL v2.

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Just over a week ago PlayStation 3 hacker Mathieulh confirmed finding a PS3 3.56 Exploit, and today drizzthacks tweeted part of an IRC chat log where Mathieulh stated the following regarding PS3 Firmware 3.60 running homebrew code, as follows:

"[03:15] while you are insulting me like morons, I already have code running on 3.60, and I am laughing, and guess what ? I am happy I stopped sharing, you can hate me for it, I don't care."

On IRC, Mathieulh also posted a video of his own but then privatized it currently rendering it unavailable:

Mathieulh: actually you want video proof, let's share one for the lol
Mathieulh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nknwBz-2v8c

Shortly following, another PS3 3.60 JailBreak video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZfES89eZwM) was posted followed by the user removing it and reposting it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qohuq0Vvm6M) with another account.

From IRC on the alleged PS3 3.60 JailBreak video:

mastag23: just fyi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZfES89eZwM&feature=player_embedded
mastag23: that is fake
mastag23: it would look legit if he hadn't of ran the debugging station launcher
mastag23: You fail "Connected from 192.168.0.2 on port 1000" (port might be wrong pretty blurry.
mastag23: This is a debug unit. That can't be done on a retail unit. Run the Debugging Station Launcher on a retail and the debug tools won't connect to it, yours obviously does
mastag23: debugging station launcher cant be connected to on retail
mastag23: if he hadnt of posted debugging station launcher
mastag23: he would be believable



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Interesting job being done bythis guy. He's trying to reverse engineering the old original PSP. I'm not sure what he try to accomplish. Recreate his own PSP hardware maybe :)

The original PSP may be old news but there is an interesting relic of a website (translated) dedicated to the reverse engineering of a PSP (and exploring Saturn?). To determine the true capabilities of the PSP they desoldered most of the ball grid array chips and then hand soldered 157 jumper wires to allow for direct memory access. In later pictures it shows the PSP hooked up to external hardware for on the fly memory modification. Unfortunately the details are sparse and it doesn’t appear as if they will be updated anytime soon because the website has been “deleted and freezed because of spam. may ineffaceable curse prevail on the spammers.” Still this doesn’t detract too much some very impressive soldering.

Google Translated:

Stepping stone to explore Saturn, the moon base was set-up. PSP全体の理解に向け、実質的に何も分からない状況で行った、最初のハードウエア的解析。 PSP for understanding the overall situation we know practically nothing, the first analysis of the hardware. メインボードのチップを取り外し、メモリチップらしいものに配線を強行、157本のワイヤーを手作業でハンダ付けする。 Remove the tip of the main board, memory Chippurashii forced those wires, and wires soldered by hand 157. 端子は0.8mmピッチ。 0.8mm pin pitch. 内蔵されたNAND flashメモリからデータを読み出すための試み。 NAND flash built in an attempt to read data from memory.

* 本来であれば、専用基板を作成しBGAパッケージをリボールして実装するのが順当。 If true, create a special board to implement the orderly BGA package Riboru. その方法とここで採用した方法を比較した結果、ダメ元で後者を採用。 Comparing the method and the method adopted here is adopted under the latter can not.
* パッケージ内には、NAND flashとDDR-DRAMが内蔵されているとされており、まずは各端子が何に接続されているかを推測することから始まる。 In the package, NAND flash and DDR-DRAM that has been built, begins to guess what that is connected to each terminal first.
* 続いてNAND flashのピン配置を決定する必要がある。 NAND flash then you need to determine the placement of the pin. 容量的・ピン数的に似た品種を参考に、ブルートフォースにより各ピンの意味を理解、アクセスのプロトコルを同定する。 Referring to the variety and capacity similar to a number of pins, each pin understand the meaning of the brute force to identify the access protocol.
* それら結果に基づき、フラッシュメモリの内容を読み出した後、各領域の使用目的やフォーマットを推測。 Based on these results, after reading the contents of flash memory, format and purpose of the estimate for each region. ファイルとして取り出して、ソフトウエア的解析に移行する。 Remove the file as a transition to software analysis.
* これにより得られた結果は、初の自作ソフトの作成に大きく貢献している。 This results has contributed significantly to the creation of the first homebrew.

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For those that may or may not know, Geohot (real name George Hotz) has made a name for himself by jailbreaking the Playstation 3. So much so, that he is currently being sued by Sony. In retaliation, he has now said that he wants to be first in line when the Xperia Play is released, so that he can use it to its full potential.

In a blog post, he asked for support for his legal battles as well as saying that he was itching to get his hands “on the Next GEOHOT Project.” This can only be good news for users if he manages to somehow crack the infamously tough Sony Ericsson bootloader. We’ll be following his efforts with great interest.

Combining a cheap netbook and an iRobot Create, you can create your own video chat robot for around $500 that lets you move around distant places as if you were walking around. These are sometimes known as telepresence robots and cost several thousand dollars.

[Johnny Chung Lee], having recently moved from Seattle to Mountain View, wanted a way to keep in touch with his fiancé who would not be relocating for several more months. While most of us would likely consider purchasing a pair of web cams to keep in touch, he decided to do things his own way. Using an iRobot Create and a netbook, both about $250 apiece, he constructed a remote-controlled video chat robot that he can steer around his former abode from 1,000 miles away. While $500 might seem expensive at first, [Johnny] reminds us that commercial versions likely run into the thousands of dollars.


http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2011/02/low-cost-video-chat-robot.html

The whole setup is controlled using custom software to manage the movement of the robot, which can be used in conjunction with freely available videoconferencing applications, such as Skype. He also modified the iRobot’s charging station to charge both the robot and the netbook simultaneously – a process he explains, but precedes with several disclaimers. Like some of his previous projects we have covered, he has made the C# source used in this project available for download on his site, along with documentation for both the control software and dock modifications.

Check out video of the robot in action after the jump.



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This latest Kinect hack demo is something of a mixed bag: Some aspects of playing Dead Space 2 using Kinect and a Wiimote don't work so well. Others work really, really well -- like stomping. If there's a more satisfying-looking gesture in gaming for the rest of the year, we'll eat our hats.



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