Day: July 11, 2008

NVIDIA’s Problems Worse Than Expected?

July 11, 2008 by 7 Comments

According to the an article in the INQUIRER, it is very possible that all chips with the G84 and G86 architecture are faulty. The problem is said to be excessive heat cycling and when NVIDIA was questioned, they blamed their suppliers for the issue. Although NVIDIA is claiming that only a few chips that went to HP were affected, the INQUIRER points out that all the chips use the same ASIC across the board, which has not changed in the architecture’s lifetime. They also point out that Dell and ASUS are having the same issues.

The article then goes on to theorize why we have not seen more complaints. They say that failures of these type usually follow a bell curve distributed over the time domain and we are only on the initial up-slope. This is probably due to the different use patterns of the users. For example, people with laptops are turning their computers on and off more than desktop users, thus facilitating the heat cycling’s effect. They suggest the quick fix as more fanning, but eventually NVIDIA will have to do something about this.

[via Engadget]

Radiohead Makes Entire Video With Friggin’ Lasers

July 11, 2008 by 3 Comments


[Radiohead], being no strangers to out of the box delivery ideas, are preparing to release a new video that was created without the use of cameras. The entire video for the song House of Cards was “filmed” using lasers.

The system, known as Geometric Informatics and Velodyne Lidar, scanned the entire environment 900 times a minute to capture an entire party in real time.

The video was originally set to be released in mid July, but appears to have been moved back.

IPhone Dev Team Releases Jailbreak Video

July 11, 2008 by 2 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R63lKICiWfg&hl=en&fs=1]
The iPhone dev team, notorious for jailbreaking the iPhone has just released a video of the iPhone 3G hacked. Keep up to date with it and watch for a release on their blog. This is a major update to the PwnageTool which is already available for previous versions of the iPhone.

They have added a lot of new features such as: canned web searches, custom installer configuration, and custom root partitions. They promise to release it soon, but state that it will not be this weekend. You can get a the high resolution version of the video from our mirror.

Engadget Goes In Depth With The IPhone 3G

July 11, 2008 by 7 Comments


Over at Engadget, they’ve taken some time to completely review the iPhone 3G. Take a few moments to stop reading about all the trouble activating them and read about the phone itself.

In short, they hit the following points:

  • The case feels thinner than it is.
  • The shape of the case makes it wobble on a hard surface.
  • Call quality is greatly improved.
  • Speeds are greatly increased.
  • Battery life is underwhelming.

They seem positive in their conclusion, we’ll have to wait and see how they feel after a little more time with it.

Hacker Sentenced For Stalking Internet Celebrity

July 11, 2008 by 19 Comments


[Jeffrey Robert Weinberg] has been sentenced to 2 years in state prison for a single act of computer intrusion. He had already served time in federal prison for hacking into Lexis-Nexis. Weinberg was caught through his cyberstalking – he went after an Internet celebrity. [Amor Hilton] was a MySpace user with a popular show on Stickam. Hilton found herself locked out of her MySpace account, and her cellphone account disconnected. She alleged that he demanded phone sex and nude photos of her. [Hilton] worked with the police to identify the hacker using a photo that he sent. After [Weinberg] completes his sentence in state prison, he will have to face repercussions for violation of his federal probation, which came with severe restrictions on his computer usage.

Map Abstraction API In Javascript

July 11, 2008 by 1 Comment


Maybe you’ve tinkered a bit with the Google Maps API. Most of the software produced with it is not all that useful or entertaining, but a few gem have shone through. Still, wouldn’t it be better if applications produced with it could be easily ported to other online mapping services like Mapquest or Yahoo! Maps?

This is possible with Mapstraction, a Javascript API that works with nine mapping services and plans to incorporate more into the fold. Mapstraction has open-source features that normalize functions across the biggest services, which makes searching for map data a consistent, predictable experience no matter which service you use.

Some of Mapstraction’s current features are what you would expect: point, line, and polygon support, image overlay, GeoRSS and KML feed importing, and several others. We’re really looking forward to future versions with OpenStreetMap support. Currently Mapstraction works with only commercial mapping services, but OpenStreetMap combined with Mapstraction directly hits the sweet spot; a customizable, open source map.

[via Hackszine]

Breath Controlled LED Candles

July 11, 2008 by 3 Comments


Instructables user [cedtlab] has posted an interesting LED project that simulates birthday candles. The circuit runs on an AVR ATTiny45, and is powered by 4 AA or AAA batteries. By using a Charliplexing technique, they are able to drive all 20 LEDs with only 5 pins of the ATTiny. A thermistor is used for detecting breath by measuring temperature changes, and then blocks of LEDs turn off depending on the change detected. They have provided schematics and source code for everything. Make sure to check out the video of the “ficticious birthday party” after the break.

Continue reading “Breath Controlled LED Candles” →