Playstation 3 Boomerang Controller

September 12, 2008 by Eliot 11 Comments

Reader [HotDog-Cart] is an active member of the benheck forums and recently completed this Playstation 3 boomerang controller. The boomerang was originally shown with the Playstation 3 prototype and was severely panned by the press. [Josh] started with a cheap 3rd party controller that was approximately boomerang shaped. He enlarged the controller body ~20% using bondo. The internals were replaced with gear from an official Sony controller. It was finished with a coat of black paint. It’s definitely a nice build and the new internals mean it probably feels as good as any factory controller.

Hack A Day Fail Contest Winner

September 12, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

We had a lot of entries for our Fail contest; there can only be one winner though. We liked [Gordon LaPlante]’s entry pictured above most of all. It’s big, it’s broken, and it’s black and white; that certainly sounds like us. [Gordon] wins $100 worth of No Starch Press merchandise.

There were plenty of other honorable entries. You can view them in the Hack a Day Flickr photo pool. We saw a couple themes emerge during the contest and have highlighted some of them after the break. Continue reading “Hack A Day Fail Contest Winner” →

ToorCon Preregistration Ends Today

September 12, 2008 by Eliot 1 Comment

Preregistration for ToorCon San Diego ends today. The current price is $100 and it will be $140. This is the 10th year for the San Diego hacker convention which will happen September 26th – 28th. The schedule for ToorCon X has already been posted. We highly recommend this convention. We’ve attended the last four years and it’s always been a favorite.

Voting Insecurities

September 12, 2008 by Kimberly Lau 13 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWDEZqqqBHE]

UCSB researchers demonstrated how disturbingly easy it is to hack into Sequoia’s e-voting systems and delete or add votes with little more than a USB key. Given the fact that recent elections have been very close, and this upcoming national one looks also to be decided by a close margin, it’s absolutely inexcusable that our voting systems could be so easily rigged. Not only that, Sequoia has fought hard against having its equipment tested and verified independently. Can we really afford to be using such insecure machines in democratic elections, when the risk of abuse is so great?

Continue reading “Voting Insecurities” →

A Console For Retro Games

September 12, 2008 by Kimberly Lau 4 Comments

Like many nerds, we have our share of retro video games and nonworking consoles lying around. Every so often we feel like dragging one out and hoping it works.. Luckily for us, the Super Genintari is available to fulfill our fantasies of beating Ghosts ‘N Goblins. The Super Genintari is an Atari 2600, NES, SNES and Sega Genesis all rolled into one; you can even put in four cartridges at once and hook it up to your television with a simple AV cable.

[via DVICE]

EFiX USB Dongle Off To A Rocky Start

September 12, 2008 by Joey Celis 2 Comments

According to InsanelyMac forum member [qbattersby] the EFiX USB dongle he just received doesn’t seem to live up to expectations. We covered the EFiX when it was announced back in June. It’s designed to let you install OSX unmodified on commodity hardware. While using a MSI G965M motherboard, instead of installing OSX [qbattersby] was greeted with a flashing cursor with no option to continue onward.

A quick glance at the EFiX hardware compatibility chart does not list the MSI G965M as a board verified to work with the dongle and could explain [qbattersby] results. To his defense, he does explain that he will be testing it on a supported motherboard along with a retail copy of Leopard in the future. Hopefully, he will be able to post back that it works and his experience with the installation of Leopard.

While the EFiX seems to be shipping in some countries, enthusiasts in the US will have to wait a bit longer till distribution channels can be worked out.

One thing is for sure, if you do plan on going the EFiX route, make sure that the hardware you plan on using is listed on their site.

[via Engadget]