How To Use A Mouse And Keyboard On A Console FPS

The XIM is a really coll device that lets you play with a Keyboard and mouse control interface on your console (360 or PS3). Obviously the immediate benefit is that you can pown everybody by having a way better control interface. The only problem is that it is made by a small group of guys who can't keepup with demand. Still if you have a look at the videos page the advertised experience is very impressive.

OpenLase

Hector Martin is a laser hacker and has created an open source laser engine. He did a presentation at last year's Chaos Communication Congress about his engine, but he did it with lasers!



There is more information and demos on His Blog

Got My 360 Back

So I go my 360 back and as well as a new motherboard, has had it's DVD drive replaced. Now I have the BENQ DVD Drive (see llamma.com's Xbox 360 DVD Drive Comparison Page).

Supposedly the BENQ DVD Drive is quicker than the others and after running a few tests I have found that it is faster than my old Samsung. The way I know this is by racing a fast car around the motorway on Saints Row which would normally cause the road to start popping in infront of me because the DVD drive couldn't load the levels into memory quick enough, (I once even managed to fall through the level by driving over a bit of road that hadn't had it's geometry loaded in before I attempted to drive over it) but with the BENQ I can't even make even a hint of this problem occur, which probably means that load times will be better in general on all titles.

MIT Triforce Hack

Kotaku has information on an MIT Triforce Hack. If you want to know more about MIT Hacks then checkout This Presentation on the MIT World site which runs you thought when they started and a few of the cool ones.

The videos on the MIT World site requires Real Player, so I suggest you download Real Alternative instead.

PS3 Disassembly

Firstly if you haven't seen an XBox360 disassembled then you should have a look Here First.

Some Japanese folks took it upon themselves to quickly disassemble a PS3 and post the video on YouTube:
Part1

Part2

Part3

Part4


From watching these something becomes very obvious. The PS3 is a very difficult console to put together. There are a few silver cables that look like they need to be connected by hand and the whole thing has so many parts that it looks like production must take many hands.
Obviously the 120mm fan is why it cools so efficiently and quietly, it is a shame that the 360 doesn't have one too, but when you look at the 360's design you can clearly see that it has been designed for mass production with the arrangement seems to require little more than the motherboard to be fitted and it's case to be screwed on.
Sony said the PS3 was a complex system and that was an understatement.

Apethetic

Don't really feel like doing much right now (can't get a job depression related), but I thought these two bits where interesting.

Microsoft has released a closed survey (a copy can be found Here) asking people if they would pay for an Premium 360 Controller with rubber grip pads, a better D-pad and LED lights under the ABXY buttons. If I filled out that survey I would have ticked the "Hell yes, who have I got to sleep with to get one" box.

And Princeton has A Demonstration of Voting Machine Hacking which is presented very well. And even John Steward Has a Jab at the whole issue.

Hacking Democracy

There is a HBO documentary called Hacking Democracy which documents the crusade of Beverly Harris and associates to expose the issues with the American electronic voting system. And I just finished watching it on Google Video, but is also available as a Torrent.

There are several brands and type of electronic voting machine in the US. In the UK we still use hand counting and paper based voting because it is a known proven technology, but the electronic systems in the US are essentially black boxes. The voter approaches the machine, puts in their vote and then nobody knows what happens until the central tabulator declares a winner. It is even illegal to have a look into how the system works. To me this stinks because I don't understand how something that is unnecessarily secret, can be trusted. The voter's vote should be secret, but certainly not the counting process.

Anyway the documentary exposes several critical flaws in the electronic voting systems that would allow real-world vote tampering without detection and yet nobody in control seems to be concerned by this. To me voting systems should always be in a regular state of review, but this documentary shows officials actually showing distrust towards an open discussion of the process.

And another thing. Don't be put off by the opening line of the documentary "America, the world's greatest democracy" everybody knows that America isn't a true democracy so that statement is like saying that a Double Decker Bus is the greatest Car ever made.

Happy Bonfire Night

I missed Halloween so I guess I can at least wish everybody a happy Bonfire Night, not that I am letting off any fireworks off or anything. Still Carl Franklin did an Amazing Halloween trick to greet Haloweeners coming to his house this year and he has a link to a video of his setup on his Blog Intellectual Hedonism. Essentially he used a projector and a clear projector screen attached to his door to achieve a very cool effect.

I went to the National Exhibition Centre yesterday to the graduates fair and talked to a few PR people. Nothing much to report on the job front, but I will do a big job hunting post when I find a job because there is a lot of boring stuff to talk about and I don't want to drag that crusade across these pages too much.

As Much JPOP Music as You can Afford

JPOP or Japanese Pop Music is difficult to get in the west. You might try inporting CDs or illegally download it using evil P2P programs like eDonkey, but it isn't easy to get hold of.

Apple has an iTunes service running in Japan with loads of JPOP music on, but you can only download from that if you have a Japanese account and to get registered in a region you need a credit card and no Japanese bank is going to give you a credit card if you don't live n Japan. But it turns out that iTunes Music Cards are region specific. So you might be able to top-up a US iTunes account with a UK iTunes music card, but by using a Japanese iTunes Music Card you can register a Japanese account and download as much JPOP as you like from anywhere in the world.

And it just so turns out that jBox sells them. WOW so that's at least one of life's frustrations sorted then.

Musical Tesla Coil

This is a YouTube video of something that could only be dreamt up by an evil genius. It is also one of the best videos I have seen on the internet, right up there with Mentoes & Cola, Tony Hawks 900 and anything featuring Rodney Mullen or Karl Pilkington.