Students at Dutch TU Delft university recently built a huge replica of the original NES controller (Google Translation), which is fully functional and can be used to play games on a large display screen they also installed. How big is it, you ask? It’s about 6 meters wide – over 30 times the size of the original NES game pad and requires participants to jump on the buttons to play.

Convert any image to G-code

Members of [Forskningsavdelningen], a Swedish hackerspace, are working on software that will allow users to vectorize bitmap images in order to convert them to G-code files for CNC milling. A good portion of the project is complete, but there is still a bit of work to do, so you won’t see it in action for a while. When it’s ready, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Convert your lame Dead Space plasma cutter into a bonafide laser weapon

If you forked out big bucks for the special edition of Dead Space 2, you know how lame the included plasma cutter replica is. Check out this video, that shows you how to convert your LED toy to a dual laser, fire starting, laser pistol. The process is pretty simple, so what are you waiting for?

Synchronized, LED-lit juggling balls

[Jonathan] wrote in to share a project he and some friends have just finished. He’s not sharing a ton of details at the moment, but he has put up a video showing off their wireless LED juggling balls. All we know is that they use bright RGB LEDS, Zigbees for communication, and that they are awesome. We can’t wait to hear more about them!

Water cooled PS3 Laptop

[Pirate] recently unveiled his latest work, a water-cooled Playstation 3 laptop. It looks pretty sharp, and can undoubtedly rival some of Ben Heck’s work, even if it does have an external PSU. Obviously having a separate power component isn’t necessarily ideal, but when you are cramming all of that water cooling goodness into such a small package, something has to give!

[Kenn] is working on building a quadrocopter from the ground up for a university project. Currently, his main focus is building an Inertial Measurement Unit, or rather re-purposing a PS3 Move controller as the IMU for his copter. He previously considered using a Wiimote Motion Plus, but the Move has a three-axis magnetometer, which the Wii controller does not.

The ultimate goal for this portion of his project is building custom firmware to run on the Move’s STM32-Cortex microcontroller, allowing him to obtain data from each of the controller’s sensors. Through the course of his research, he has thoroughly documented each sensor on his site, and dumped a full working firmware image from the Cortex chip as well. Recently, he was even able to run arbitrary code on the controller itself, which is a huge step forward.

[Kenn’s] project is coming along very nicely, and will undoubtedly be a great resource to others as he continues to dig through the inner workings of the Move. Be sure to swing by his site if you are looking for information, or if you have something to contribute.

[Austyn] is currently working on reverse engineering a PlayStation 3 SixAxis controller’s USB communications. You may be thinking that this has already been done but [Austyn] was unable to find useful source code so he’s started his own project called libopenaxis.

The process he used to sniff out USB communications makes for an interesting read. He utilized GlovePIE to get the USB request block for the controller. With that in hand he grabbed the Python script used in a DIY Kinect hacking tutorial to start dumping controller data. With each keypress the script reads out the full data packet, which is used to figure out how the data structures are organized.

The project has come as far as knowing all of the data types, but right now the purpose for the majority of those variables is unknown. Hopefully the blanks will be filled in over time. Two things are for sure; if you’re interested in writing Python code that can communicate with PS3 controllers this is a great source of info, and the Kinect hacking that was so fun to watch over the last few months is still bearing fruit.

[Lossfresnos65] must be planning to do a lot of travelling because he’s entombed his PlayStation 3 in a Pelican case. Inside you’ll find some diamond-plate bezel to cover the console itself and used to surround the 19-inch high-definition television that is mounted to the lid of the case. In the picture above you see the door that lifts to reveal foam cutouts for a TV remote and two six-axis controllers. There’s no battery and no wireless Internet, but connection for the power cord, Ethernet, component video, and HDMI have an external port on the base of the enclosure. There’s also two fans to keep everything cool, and on the front you’ll find two USB ports and a headphone jack. After the break he shows off the finished product but there’s no internal build photos to be found. We linked his forum post at the top as ask him and perhaps he’ll deliver the goods.

There’s now a method of using PIC microcontrollers to exploit the PlayStation 3. This is centered around a PIC 18F2550 which has been popular in past hacks because of its built-in USB serial port. This again makes use of the PSGroove open source exploit code and, like the TI calculator version, seeks to expand the selection of hardware the code runs on.

In addition to the chip and a PIC programmer you’ll need the CCS compiler as others cannot successfully compile this code. A licensed copy is necessary because the demo version of the CCS compiler doesn’t support this particular chip. Add to that the fact that because of the timing it may take several tries to achieve the exploit and you may find yourself disappointed by this development. But there’s always room for improvement and this is a proven first step on the new architecture.

[Thanks das_coach via PS3Hax via Elotrolado]

[Brandon Wilson] came up with a way to exploit the Play Station using a TI84 calculator. This uses the same PSGroove open source code that we looked at last week. That package was running on the Teensy, which is currently sold out (we’d guess because people want to run the exploit). There’s a video demonstration of this new trick after the break. The calculator connects via a USB A to USB mini-B cable which comes with the calculator and is also used to charge the PS3 controllers. Once the connection is made, launch the software on the calculator, power cycle the PS3, and turn it on with the familiar power-eject button presses. The only problem with the system is that the calculator needs to be connected every time you boot.

[Thanks Scott]

It’s been a long time coming, but the video above shows a modchip circumventing the PlayStation 3 security by running a game from a hard drive. The sites Ozmodchips.com which sells the modchip, and psx-scene.com which has confirmed them as working are both unstable right now due to heavy traffic. But here’s what we know. The device is called the PS Jailbreak and can be used to dump PS3 games to the hard drive of a PlayStation3 running the most current firmware (3.41). Dumped games can then be played from the hard drive by selecting them from a menu that the modchip spawns. It’ll cost you though. The current preorder price is $169.99 AUD or $147.47 US dollars with a projected delivery date of August 27th.

[Thanks Charlie via Slashdot]

[Matlo] posted a tutorial that will walk you through setting up a six-axis controller emulator. In April he developed a hardware solution using the Teensy but this version just needs a Linux computer with a Bluetooth adapter. If you don’t mind adding a computer to the mix you can use any peripheral controller that will talk to Linux and then adjust the six-axis PS3 controller mapping accordingly.

[Matlo] worked out a way to use a PS/2 Keyboard and USB mouse with a PlayStation3. The hard work is handled by a Teensy board, which is becoming a popular choice with controller hacks. It interfaces with the keyboard and mouse, translates their input, and sends joystick button commands to the PS3. He is limited to mapping the inputs from a PS3 controller but that is still enough options to work beautifully with first person shooters, especially if you’re used to gaming on a PC instead of a console. If you want to give this one a try, head over to the google code page to download the source code.

[I-Bot] has put together some libraries that make it easy to use gaming controllers with an Arduino. They interface through the USB host shield. This means that PS3 controllers connect via USB through a cable or a dongle. With the Wii remote things get a little more interesting. A Bluetooth dongle is used to make the connection wirelessly. What we have here is a cheap and easy way to add Bluetooth connectivity to your projects either through the USB Host shield, or by building your own hardware with the schematics and code that are available from Circuits@Home. There are several pages that walk you through the protocols using as well as a demonstration video you can see after the break.

You can now download the exploit package for the PlayStation 3. [Geohot] just posted the code you need to pull off the exploit we told you about on Sunday, making it available on a “silver platter” with just a bit of explanation on how it works. He’s located a critical portion of the memory to attack. By allocating it, pointing a whole bunch of code at those addresses, then deallocating it he causes many calls to invalid addresses. At the same time as those invalid calls he “glitches” the memory bus using a button on his FPGA board to hold it low for 40ns. This trips up the hypervisor security and somehow allows read/write access to that section of memory. Gentleman and Ladies, start your hacking. We wish you the best of luck!

[Thanks Phileas]

[Kyle McDonald] has kept himself busy working on 3D scanning in realtime. He’s posted a writeup that takes us through the concepts, tools, and assembly of a DIY 3d scanning camera. You should remember a preview of this method posted earlier this month, but now it’s time to build your own. You’ll need a camera, a projector, and some open source software to process the image data. Using these simple tools, [Kyle] turned out much better video than before. Take a look after the break to see his results from scanning at 60 fps using a PS3 Eye. The trick to this setup is getting the correct synchronization between the projector and the camera, something that could be improved with a bit of extra hacking.

Does [Kyle's] name sound familiar? It should, he’s got a long history of quality hacks that we’ve featured over the years. If you’re looking to use a scanner as a multitouch, add some music to tea time, or play with your skittles his work will give you a shove in the right direction.

[Technott's] at it again, this time extending the Playstation 3 with a wireless interface. This handheld isn’t actually a PS3. It provides a wireless connection to your PS3 to receive audio and video, as well as to manage controller data. Think of it as a wirelessly tethered handheld that allows you to play Playstation when your wife is watching the Real Housewives. This is similar in size to his Xbox 360 WVI but the case shape and appearance are a big step up (not that we disliked that one). We’ve embedded a video tour of the device after the break.

[Thanks Trina]

The EyeWriter is an open source eye tracking initiative. This is the mature version of the KanEye project we covered in April. Collaboratively developed by Free Art and Technology (FAT), OpenFrameworks, and the Graffiti Research Lab, they seek to aid a friend of theirs who suffers from the degenerative muscle disease ALS.

They’ve come a long way since we last looked in on the progress. The hardware used is pretty much the same: a set of sunglasses sans lenses with the CCD from a Sony PlayStation 3 Eye mounted in front of one eye. IR LEDs surround the CCD and point at the eye to increase the contrast between pupil and the rest of the eye. The major improvement comes with the software. Eye tracking appears to be extremely precise and they’ve written a custom drawing program to take advantage of their interface. Check in on their developer page for source code and a video walk-through of the software.

After the break you can see video of [Tempt1] using the system to create some tags. We’re thankful for the success this project has seen as this guy can do a lot better with his eye than we can with our hands.

[Thanks Jessee]

[Max] was happy to see that the PlayStation 3 Eye has support in the newer Linux kernels. Having sat in his closet for quite some time, this would give the camera another chance at usefulness. Unfortunately, the driver doesn’t include framerate selection and color correction so he set about writing a patch to control the color settings. As you can see above, his success greatly improves the image quality you get from the device.

We get the feeling that the camera peripherals for Sony’s gaming devices seem like a good idea but don’t have much staying power as a realistic gaming interface. With contributions like [Max's], they can be re-purposed. The PS2 had its own, the EyeToy, which has long enjoyed driver support for Linux. The NUI Group does a lot of work with multi-touch and recommends the PS3 Eye for use with their projects because they’re inexpensive with high frame rates and decent picture quality.

Great work [Max]. It looks like he’s sent this patch upstream to be considered for incorporation into the kernel’s webcam module.