Investigating A Rare Burnout 3 Beta Disc

September 25, 2026 by No comments

These days, it’s pretty easy to buy old retail console games just by hunting online auction sites. It’s much rarer to come across a disc holding a beta version that was only ever intended for internal us, and yet, that’s precisely what landed in [MattKC’s] hands—a copy of the Beta 3 release of Burnout 3 for the original Xbox. He thus set about the task of investigating the differences to the retail release and preserving the beta for the future.

The first task involved figuring out how to read the disc. Retail Xbox games show up as a DVD Video disc if you put them into a PC, which can complicate reading them. However, being a burnt beta disc for use in an Xbox devkit, this one was a little different. It was easy enough to read and dump with a regular DVD drive and some common tools for ripping Xbox ISOs.

From there, it was a matter of comparing the dumped disc to the retail PAL release. There wasn’t a lot of differences to find—with [MattKC] noting that the beta was dated just six days before the official retail release. Mostly, this beta had just a few localization differences in non-English languages compared to the final release. Still, [MattKC] nonetheless was able to preserve this curio for the future, and it now lives on the Internet Archive for future generations to enjoy. Perhaps the diehard Burnout 3 fans will one day decide that PAL Beta 3 is the ultimate version of the game.

It’s always interesting to get a look behind the scenes of big-time game development. We’ve taken a look at console devkits before, too—hardware that is never intended for the public to see.

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 388: RAM-Swapping On Raspberry Pi, Raindrops On Radar, And A Fine Mesh

September 25, 2026 by No comments

This week, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams had a lot to talk about. From advice for a young hacker to using a laser to break into a microcontroller, there was plenty to cover from the week in Hackaday.

From the “Point/Counter Point” department, there were dueling posts about how big a deal it is for Raspberry Pi to lock out RAM chip swapping. Ever want to do interactive debugging in MicroPython? For intellectual exercise, there’s the physics of raindrops becoming a radar antenna. If you are a history buff, there was even news about World War I codebreaking.

For the can’t-miss articles, the big news was the issues with LoRa mesh communities possibly clashing with the FCC rules and how to make your computer take dictation.

Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

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Did The BBC And Sir Clive Get It Right Twenty Years Ago?

September 25, 2026 by 2 Comments

Predictions of the future are often laughable when reviewed in the years for which they are made. For example, here in 2026 we neither live on the Moon, nor have flying cars. But sometimes they come closer to the reality than others, and in that the BBC Archive have an interesting offering. It’s a Newsnight feature from 2006 looking at the future of artificial intelligence, and since its main interviewee is none other than Sir Clive Sinclair, it’s worth a second look.

Watching the video it’s a shock to be reminded that 2006 was twenty years ago, as in so many ways it’s close enough to touch. Back then we had laptops with Windows or Linux, we had the Web, and HDTV, as we do today. But as we sat in our Ford Focus family car it would be on a Nokia that we rang home; while technically a smartphone it was nothing like the Apple and Android devices that would take the world by storm in the following years. Sir Clive is positive about the development of AI as he saw it then, seeing it as providing knowledge based services such as education or healthcare from your computer. The following interviewee from British Telecom perhaps puts his finger on the pulse the most, predicting a path “Over the next few years” that seems pretty familiar to us a couple of decades later.

So for once this is a future prediction that doesn’t seem too outlandish. Aside from Sir Clive’s appearance it’s packed with retro technology goodies, so it’s well worth a watch below.

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This Week In Security: FBI Gets Hacked, Muse Vulnerable To ClickFix, Popular Rust Developers At Risk, And New Attacks Against RSA

September 25, 2026 by 6 Comments

The prolific ShinyHunters group has announced it used a zero-day vulnerability in Oracle PeopleSoft to exploit the FBI jobs website and gain access to the AWS GovCloud instances and dump 2 TB of employee data. GovCloud being a special, locked-down version of the Amazon Web Services cloud for US government users.

ShinyHunters has previously been involved in dozens of high-profile hacks and ransomware incidents.  Some of the highest-profile incidents include Jaguar-Land Rover, causing a measurable impact on the UK GDP, Grubhub, Carnival Cruise Lines, Rockstar Games, and multiple universities and educational institutions, casinos, and other government agencies.  ShinyHunters has also been credited with the hack of the Canvas educational program in the spring of 2026 where data including test results and chat logs of hundreds of millions of students, teachers, and staff was stolen.  ShinyHunters has generally been identified as an international group of criminals, often teenagers, who will demand a BitCoin ransom of several million US dollars, with the threat of the stolen data being leaked if the victims do not pay.

On May 15, 2026 the FBI released a bulletin on the activities of ShinyHunters, focusing on the Canvas educational hack.  In the report, the FBI said that the group uses “harassment strategies, sending threatening text messages and phone calls to victims and their family members”.  ShinyHunters says that this is not accurate, and that they will release the FBI employee data, including information of employees and their family members, if the agency does not retract the statements, telling The Register “I have been doing my very best to combat these allegations, and this is the best way to do it”.

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Screenshot of the survey webpage, saying "Invitation to participate in a new fun hardware discussion in the PINE64 Community Pine Store may have stopped production on Linux hardware, but that doesn't mean all production has stopped. Hardware like the Pinecil, PineTime and PineVoice that use MCUs will continue production as normal. This is a great opportunity to come up with new ideas for MCU powered hardware. Now that the PinePhone has stopped production, there is a gap in the hardware lineup for a "fun" device. This definition of "fun" boils down to whether a device can have multiple use cases or purposes. The PineTime, PinePhone and PineNote can be considered "fun" as they can be used for multiple purposes and multiple projects can naturally form around them. An example of the opposite would be devices like the Pinecil and PineBuds which serve a single purpose and build less of a community around them as a result (but both are still great). OKAY, SO! We'd like to share some initial ideas on what a cheap fun tinkerers device could be. 1.What hardware do you prefer?Required Please drag these items from most (1) to least (5) preferred. ?Alarm clock ?PinePhone-esque device but MCU powered (attachments possible?) ?Handy multi-tool with screen, fido hardware key, nfc, etc ?Other (next question) ?MP3 player"

What Should Pine64 Build With Microcontrollers?

September 25, 2026 by 15 Comments

Pine64 is an open-source-community-centered project of mostly-open hardware, known for such hits as the PinePhone, the Pinecil soldering iron, and the PineTime. Now, the Pine64 project wants to know what kind of MCU-powered device you’d want to see built next, and there’s an online form you can fill out to let them know about any fun ideas they could bring to reality, as we all recover from the second round of Hardware Horrors Of 2020s.

In the age of RAM and storage shortage, it’s evident we’re not about to see a new Pine64 Linux SBC – but there’s plenty that can be done with regular microcontrollers, especially seeing how far modern microcontrollers have come in capabilities. On their Discord server and other linked platforms, you can see the announcement post giving you more details, as well as examples of devices that would fit the bill. An MP3 player? An alarm clock? Some sort of electronics multi-tool? PinePhone-esque device but based on an MCU? Digital camera? Whether you have full-on device ideas or specific feature requests for the aforementioned, check out the form and let them know.

Of course, any suggestions will ultimately have to be considered for viability by the Pine Store, the Pine64 hemisphere that actually decides on what to manufacture, so no promises can be made, but we consider this more than promising enough that you ought to have a say. Pine64 has come incredibly far in the 10 years it’s been around, and despite the troubles, we hope they’re here to stay, doing their thing releasing hardware that so often runs circles around the competition, and dropping by hacker cons all over the globe.

Commodore 128 Becomes Marine Vessel Tracker

September 25, 2026 by 3 Comments

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is a maritime radio communications tool used to allow different vessels to identify each other and communicate their movements and other telemetry. You can readily view a variety of AIS trackers online. Alternatively, you could build your own, and display the data on a retrocomputer from 40-plus years ago.

The concept is straightforward enough—it’s a Commodore 128 displaying vessel tracks from AIS data. The team behind AIS4CBM implemented this with assembly code to receive data over serial, parse and decode the AIS reports, and manage vessel data. Meanwhile, the front end is coded in BASIC 8, which provides useful graphic routines for plotting vessels on a map. There’s also a BASIC 7 text interface if you prefer to view the vessel data that way.

It’s worth noting that you can’t just run this on a barebones C128. AIS4CBM requires a 512 KiB REU RAM expansion, as well as 64 KiB VDC memory. You also need a SwiftLink compatible serial interface to get the data into the machine in the first place from your AIS receiver or other source. The project website notes that an Ultimate-II+ unit is a great way to fulfill most of these requirements with a single piece of hardware.

If you dig the project, you can check out a live stream from the C128 doing its thing below. We wouldn’t recommend a Commodore 128 if you’re a harbor master or otherwise commanding ships on the water. Still, it’s a fun project, and much like the NES that was set up to track planes with ADS-B data. Video after the break.

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A small orange car with a bold horizontal white stripe and the text "XP 512E" emblazoned on the side. The footprint of the vehicle barely exceeds the size of the seats, almost like an Isetta, but the top canopy opens upward and the lower front fascia contains a side opening door. If it were green, it would probably be what an LLM would generate with the prompt, "Make a car that looks like a frog."

GM’s Experimental EV From 1969

September 24, 2026 by 25 Comments

Electricity is the once and future drivetrain for automobiles, but until the advent of lithium batteries their capabilities were somewhat modest. One EV blip on the automotive timeline is the XP-512E commuter prototype by GM.

The 60s saw a wide variety of interesting experiments in the automobile space, and both GM and AMC were evaluating the possibilities of a return to electric cars for short journeys. GM wasn’t set on a particular drivetrain for their new experimental commuter cars, so the XP 512 became a trio with conventional, hybrid, and electric variants. Each car was a two seater with a fiberglass body and steel chassis. The canopy could lift and a small door in the front swung to the side for access to the cockpit. Some images from the time show the car without the canopy and just the rollbar, giving you a very small convertible (83″/2108 mm long).

Lead acid was the only viable traction battery until the 1990s, so the 1,250 lb vehicle was limited to a top speed of 30 mph and a range of 50 miles. GM was exploring a number of alternatives at the time including another blast from the automotive past, steam power, in an effort to reduce the issues of smog and air pollution that plagued cities beset by droves of V-8 powered sedans. While the XP-512E and the AMC Amitron never made it to production, they’re an interesting reminder that technologies that seem infeasible today may just need to bake a bit longer.

We have some thoughts about the opportunities afforded by electric cars, but it’s probably a good thing we didn’t get nuclear powered automobiles.

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