Cutting through the back and forth surrounding Windows Phone 7 tethering are two new hacks, with one being markedly easier than the other to implement. After discovering the option in Samsung’s Focus and Omnia 7 late last year, engineering minds over at xda-developers have now uncovered a method to allow USB internet tethering on HTC’s smattering of Windows Phone 7 handsets. Unfortunately, you’ll need to unlock your device before any of this will work, but the case is definitely different for Dell’s Venue Pro. For that one, you’ll simply need to modify the .INF file — no unlock required. Hit the links below for the devilish details, and try not to set up a P2P farm using your phone’s 3G connection. We hear carriers are none too fond of that foolhardiness.
When it comes to information security I think most of us expect that the government here in the US and governments abroad would take some significant precautions to be sure that the websites for various agencies and military branches were secure. That isn’t always the case though.
Financial Feed reports that late last week a security vendor called Imperva found that a hacker had gained access to the US Army Communications-Electronics Command website and was selling that access to other hackers for under $500. The hacker also claims to control other military, government and university websites.
The control would allow other nefarious types to get personal details about users that are stored in databases at the website. The security firm also states that it appeared the information on 300,000 people had already been stolen. Some of the government websites that are available include some from the states of Michigan and Utah as well of Italian government websites and a DoD website that works with the Department of Veterans Affairs to get prescription medications for vets.
One of the things I really don’t like about my Nikon D80 is that the lens that came with the kit has no image stabilization. All is fine and good if you are taking a photo where the shutter is fast, images have no blur at all in that case. If the setting is dark and the shutter takes a bit of time to get the light it needs to expose the pic things get blurry really fast for me.
I could just get a lens with image stabilization inside, but the blur isn’t a big enough deal for me to pay the money a new lens would cost. A geek on Hack A Day has shown off a system that he made that will add image stabilization to your camera even if the lens and body don’t support it.
The geek took an Arduino board, Bluetooth mode, 3-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, and a trigger for the camera and cobbled it all together. The hardware uses a software algorithm to remove the image blur from your pics so they are nice and clear. The downside is that the system is cumbersome and apparently, you lose a bit of resolution when using the system. The extra camera sticking off the side of the DSLR is apparently only there for tweaking the algorithm.
You’ve seen Windows Phone 7 and Android both ported to the stately HTC HD2, now how about having them on the same device at the same time? Well, not literally at the same time, that’d be all sorts of confusing, but the restless souls over at xda-developers have figured out multiple ways to install both WP7 and Android on the HD2 while using the same SD card. We’ve looked at them and none of the methods seem particularly trivial or, you know, easy, but then what would be the point of a dual-boot solution if everyone could just up and do it? Detailed instructions await at the source link.
We’re a little short-staffed on Qualcomm chipset engineers at the moment, so forgive us if we can’t immediately confirm this tale, but we’re hearing iPhone hacker Zibri has discovered proof of the Apple / Qualcomm collaboration in his very own build of iTunes. Zibri claims that by tearing apart the latest version, he found the chunk of code above, which contains files that are allegedly the exclusive “building blocks” of Qualcomm radio firmware. That doesn’t tell us anything about a supposed iPhone 5 or iPad 2, unfortunately, as it’s probably just referring to that CDMA chipset in the Verizon iPhone 4… but with the right building blocks, one can craft any number of wonders.
Evidence pointing toward an upcoming Qualcomm cellular baseband inside the code for Apple’s iTunes software has been found by a hacker by the name of Zibri. This evidence, if proven real, could mean incorporation of Qualcomm’s baseband into the next generation of Apple mobile devices such as iPad 2 and iPhone 5. Zibri claims the code he’s presented is a “definitive answer” to rumors that Qualcomm would be the baseband provider for iPhone 5, this also lending water to the idea that the company is already providing radios for the Verizon CDMA iPhone 4.
Specifically, Zibri mentions the files “partition.mbn” and “AMSS.MBN,” both of which he’s located in the hacked iTunes code, both of which he says mean “only one thing: QUALCOMM. Those files are the building blocks of any Qualcomm baseband.” The version Zibri is hunting through is the same version that’s currently in the homes of computer owners the world over, pointing toward the idea that the devices on which this possible baseband is being used are already going through the testing process.
Take a peek back at the post by the title Apple “A8″ processor & Qualcomm baseband for iPhone 5? This post was made on the 14th of this month, and was sourced back to Apple Daily. Once we get several sources from seemingly completely different directions coming together to say the same thing, things start adding up. Perhaps Qualcomm it is?
Okay, so the WP7 hacking community may not be quite as active as that working tirelessly to keep every facet of Android devices splayed to the breeze, but that’s not to say there isn’t a skilled group of tinkerers doing their best on Microsoft’s best. ChevronWP7 is a clear example of that, and though it’s been officially pulled it is still quite certainly being used. Now its functionality has been extended with a second hack that enables you to use Zune to sync your HTC handset without it getting all locked up tight again. You can find all the details on the other end of the source link below, but we’ll go ahead and warn you that as soon as the next WP7 version drops this particular unlock will be disabled. Then it’ll be on to the next one.
Okay, so the WP7 hacking community may not be quite as active as that working tirelessly to keep every facet of Android devices splayed to the breeze, but that’s not to say there isn’t a skilled group of tinkerers doing their best on Microsoft’s best. ChevronWP7 is a clear example of that, and though it’s been officially pulled it is still quite certainly being used. Now its functionality has been extended with a second hack that enables you to use Zune to sync your HTC handset without it getting all locked up tight again. You can find all the details on the other end of the source link below, but we’ll go ahead and warn you that as soon as the next WP7 version drops this particular unlock will be disabled. Then it’ll be on to the next one.
I am all for hacking the Kinect to be used for things that it was never intended to be used for. Things like controlling my PC games or controlling a robot are one thing. Using the Kinect to control robotic surgery tools by doctors is something else entirely and makes me more than a little nervous.
Students at the University of Washington have done just that. They students took a Kinect and hacked it to operate robotic surgery tools. The upside to using the Kinect according to the developers is that it can give surgeons using robotic tools a sense of touch, which is lacking right now. Robotic systems right now will stop the camera or tools if the surgeon hits something solid inside the body, but the joystick used to control the tools keeps moving.
With the code, the students wrote for Kinect, the spatial feedback could be sent back to the user to control force feedback. Using the system the students can place electronic restrictions on where the surgical tools can go to protect vital organs or make the tools follow along bone with the joystick controller having the same movement limits as the tools.
“We could define basically a force field around, say, a liver,” said Howard Chizeck, UW professor of electrical engineering. “If the surgeon got too close, he would run into that force field and it would protect the object he didn’t want to cut.”
Ah, lunchtime. It’s that period of time during the week where you can stop working for a while and relax. Grab a little food, maybe catch up on some reading or surfing the net. Unfortunately it never seems to last long enough. One hacker decided to solve this problem by putting together a clock that speeds up just before noon, and slows down a little before 1.
This serves to give you 12 extra minutes of your lunch break each day, or a full hour over the course of a week. A clever hack, indeed. Unfortunately unless this is the clock sitting in your boss’s office (and you don’t have to punch out for your break) it’s pretty useless. You’ll just end up being that guy that spends too much time on lunch. If you feel like making your own, you can find out how over at Instructables.
Cutting through the back and forth surrounding Windows Phone 7 tethering are two new hacks, with one being markedly easier than the other to implement. After discovering the option in Samsung’s Focus and Omnia 7 late last year, engineering minds over at xda-developers have now uncovered a method to allow USB internet tethering on HTC’s smattering of Windows Phone 7 handsets. Unfortunately, you’ll need to unlock your device before any of this will work, but the case is definitely different for Dell’s Venue Pro. For that one, you’ll simply need to modify the .INF file — no unlock required. Hit the links below for the devilish details, and try not to set up a P2P farm using your phone’s 3G connection. We hear carriers are none too fond of that foolhardiness.
