Hacks Archive

  • EVO 4G gets 802.11n WiFi by changing two lines of code

    EVO 4G gets 802.11n WiFi by changing two lines of code

    Posted on June 23, 2010 | No Comments
    The EVO 4G has a lot of weight in the smartphone arena thanks to WiMAX and that 4.3-inch screen, but though its Broadcom BCM4329 silicon also technically supports 802.11n WiFi over 2.4GHz, the protocol was disabled for some reason. Thankfully it's just a matter of ten characters to enable greater throughput, as the fine folks at xda-developers recently discovered. Better yet, you don't even have to edit those characters yourself -- if your EVO's nice and rooted and the word "brick" doesn't inspire fear, you'll find instructions and flash-ready ZIP files at our source link.

    EVO 4G gets 802.11n WiFi by changing two lines of code originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Flash ported to the iPod Touch, in a manner of speaking

    Flash ported to the iPod Touch, in a manner of speaking

    Posted on June 14, 2010 | No Comments
    Sure it looks horrible and the video is awful, but believe us when we tell you that the same guys who created the Spirit jailbreak have ported Flash to the iPhone. The video, apparently taken through the pinhole camera truck the Bloodhound Gang built back in the 1980s to see where they were [...]

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  • And now your car can be hacked, so what are you gonna do?

    And now your car can be hacked, so what are you gonna do?

    Posted on May 17, 2010 | No Comments
    Looks like your car is one dumb "hacker" kid away from careening into a pole, or, more comically, into a big bale of hay. Researchers have demonstrated how to take control of a car's engine, brakes, and fiddle with the instruments. Is there anything you can do about this?

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  • webOS booted up on a PC, just for kicks (video)

    webOS booted up on a PC, just for kicks (video)

    Posted on May 16, 2010 | No Comments
    It's always been possible to run webOS on a PC using the emulator built into Palm's SDK, but it turns out that the OS image used for the emulator can actually be installed on an IDE hard drive and booted from -- which is exactly what one enterprising member of the PreCentral forums did with his Dell C600 laptop. It's not too surprising webOS can do this, since it's built on Linux, but don't get too excited yet; the OS runs in a funky aspect ratio in a small portion of the screen and the lack of a touchscreen means you're stuck using the keyboard to navigate. Still, it's hard not to watch this without visions of webOS running on all manner of HP hardware in the very near future -- a tablet, perhaps? Video after the break.

    Continue reading webOS booted up on a PC, just for kicks (video)

    webOS booted up on a PC, just for kicks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 May 2010 23:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Cellbots get Nexus One upgrade, ad-hoc motion control (video)

    Cellbots get Nexus One upgrade, ad-hoc motion control (video)

    Posted on May 12, 2010 | No Comments
    Sprint and Verizon may have shunned the Nexus One, but that doesn't mean the handsets can't be put to good use: these Android-controlled, Arduino-powered Cellbots now feature the one true Googlephone as the CPU. At Intel's 2010 International Engineering and Science Fair in San Jose, we got our hot little hands on the DIY truckbots for the first time, and found to our surprise they'd been imbued with accelerometer-based motion control. Grabbing a Nexus One off a nearby table, we simply tilted the handset forward, back, left and right to make the Cellbot wheel about accordingly, bumping playfully into neighbors and streaming live video the whole time. We were told the first handset wirelessly relayed instructions to the second using Google Chat, after which point a Python script determined the bot's compass facing and activated Arduino-rigged motors via Bluetooth, but the real takeaway here is that robots never fail to amuse. Watch our phone-skewing, bot-driving antics in a video after the break, and see what we mean.

    Continue reading Cellbots get Nexus One upgrade, ad-hoc motion control (video)

    Cellbots get Nexus One upgrade, ad-hoc motion control (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 17:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • La Terreur: Major Nelson’s Xbox Live account hacked

    La Terreur: Major Nelson’s Xbox Live account hacked

    Posted on March 30, 2010 | No Comments
    Old news, but worth mentioning for a hot minute. You know that Major Nelson's Xbox Live account was hacked at the weekend. Look, people are panicking in the streets!

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  • Disgruntled ex-garage employee exploits system to remotely disable more than 100 cars

    Disgruntled ex-garage employee exploits system to remotely disable more than 100 cars

    Posted on March 18, 2010 | No Comments
    Now here's a delightful story. A gentleman in Austin, Texas was laid off from his job as a car mechanic. The thing is, he was "pretty good with computers." So, in order to get petty revenge on his former employers, he used a system to remotely disable more than 100 cars. Fun!

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  • DIY gaming rig made from pipes

    DIY gaming rig made from pipes

    Posted on March 5, 2010 | No Comments
    Seems like every year at CES we see those fancy gaming desk setups and every year they still cost thousands of dollars. If you only have tens of dollars to spend on gaming desks, then get some aluminum pipes like this guy did.

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  • Use a Rock Band drum kit to play poker

    Use a Rock Band drum kit to play poker

    Posted on March 5, 2010 | No Comments
    Back in September, we learned how to use a Rock Band guitar controller to play poker. If you thought the magic would end there, buckle up. The man who brought you the previous how-to, Sean Lind, is back again and this time he’s using the Rock Band drum kit.

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  • LEGO synth has you build your sound

    LEGO synth has you build your sound

    Posted on March 4, 2010 | No Comments
    Japanese artist / designer Yoshi Akai has quite the repertoire of zany instruments and synthesizers. Not only do they have a wicked steampunk aesthetic, but the control formats range from credit cards to wireless signals. Cool stuff all around. This particular one is a 3 channel, 8 step synth that uses different colored LEGO blocks [...]

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  • Oh look, another hack attack that could have been prevented

    Oh look, another hack attack that could have been prevented

    Posted on February 18, 2010 | No Comments
    I could sit here and talk about the latest big “hack attack” to strike the civilized world, but these have become so tedious. The story is always the same: hackers from scary place (here, China and Eastern Europe) attack Western government/corporation (here, corporations) for unknown, shadowy reasons. Blah, blah, blah. Instead, I'll take this opportunity to remind you all of a very basic thing: please use the Internet with care. Don't go clicking things willy nilly.

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  • Wii laptop hack is about 2.5 inches thick

    Wii laptop hack is about 2.5 inches thick

    Posted on February 15, 2010 | No Comments
    Of all the consoles to stuff into a laptop form factor, the Wii’s minute size makes it as good a candidate as any. And while Wii laptop mods have been done before, this most recent one has the distinction of being relatively thin at just over 2.5 inches.

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  • Break free from the corporate Snuggie stranglehold by sewing your own

    Break free from the corporate Snuggie stranglehold by sewing your own

    Posted on January 26, 2010 | No Comments
    Are we still expected, in the year 2010, to pay $20 plus $8 shipping for a Snuggie? And another $8 shipping for a second bonus Snuggie? NO! Show the fat cats at the Snuggie conglomerate that you’re onto their little ruse. Take a big piece of fabric – any fabric you want! -- cut some arm holes, and sew some arms onto the arm holes.

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  • DIY remote car starter uses pre-paid phone, less than $75 worth of materials

    DIY remote car starter uses pre-paid phone, less than $75 worth of materials

    Posted on January 25, 2010 | No Comments
    A man named Dave has cobbled together a remote car starter that uses a pre-paid phone to start the car’s engine. The launch sequence is initiated when the phone gets a call or when a particular event in the phone’s calendar comes up (he uses the calendar to start the car at specific times in [...]

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