NeuroSky Gamer Headset Reads Brain Waves

-from gizmodo

A US company has come up with a headset that reads your brainwaves – and they plan on marketing it to gamers. NeuroSky’s prototype measures a person’s baseline brain-wave activity, including signals that relate to concentration, relaxation and anxiety. So, if you’re playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour and you lose concentration, you could find your shot buried in the rough if you fail to keep your Zen-like concentration.

The company has already developed a version based on Star Wars. Don the Darth Vader helmet, which contains a sensor that reads the brain’s signals and, if you concentrate, your light saber remains illuminated. Start thinking about your girlfriend dressed as Princess Leia, with Danish Pastries over her – oops – and you lose the force, Luke. The headset is expected to go into production later this year and could cost as little as $20. – Ad Dugdale

New E-Passport Is Patriotic, High-Tech and Ugly

-from gizmodo

The NY Times reviews the new U.S. e-passport today (if you didn’t want one, apparently you’re too late). It mostly focuses on how ugly the pastiche of American iconography is, but it mentions the new embedded RFID chip holding all of your biographical info and “a digital image of the passport photograph, which will facilitate the use of face recognition technology at ports-of-entry,” according to the State Department’s website.

While the gold bars and circle marking your passport as a magical “e-passport” are on the front cover, the chip is embedded somewhere on the back page. To alleviate fears of skimming the chip’s info, it only works within four inches of a reader—the cover contains shielding material—and the passports use Basic Access Control, which requires a printed PIN to read the chip, which seems like a pretty good idea.

That said, no one can skim my plain paper passport, which is thankfully good for another seven years. – Matt Buchanan

aXXo Torrents Exploited by Malware Peddlers

-from Torrentfreak

When someone becomes a success by earning the admiration of their peers, there will always be the ‘hangers on’ who want to share the spoils of success. For aXXo, the most popular DVD ripper on BitTorrent, it’s about people using his name to further their own, sinister aim: to install malware on as many file-sharers machines as possible.

With an estimated one million people downloading aXXo rips every month, aXXo is very popular with BitTorrent fans all over the world. But as is so often the case, fame comes at a price and it’s almost inevitable that people will jump onto the back of other’s success and use it for their own aims.

Back in January, the MPAA were caught uploading fake torrents labeled up as proper aXXo releases with the goal to collect IP-addresses.

The last few months we have seen a new player enter the ‘give aXXo a bad name’ market, and pirates who have experienced the scenario detailed below will be only too aware of how unpleasant it is;

1. Download a .torrent file you think is a proper one from aXXo
2. Discover the movie is in not in the correct .avi format but a .rar archive
3. .rar file is passworded and the password can be found by installing software called BitGrabber.
4. Installing the software does not provide a password but instead installs malware.

According to an administrator on the BitComet forums, BitGrabber is the same software as BitRoll, which we reported on back in 2006. Instances of the swizzor aka lop malware can come from installing BitGrabber. Anyone whose PC is infected should follow these removal instructions.

Genuine aXXo releases are tracked by a well known tracker, and generally look like this;

1. Most aXXo releases are just under 700mb but no more than 900mb
2. All releases are labeled with these conventions:
name of movie[year]DvDrip[Eng]-aXXo.avi
name of movie[year]DvDrip.AC3[Eng]-aXXo.avi
3. The release will include two other files;
IMPORTANT.Read carefully before you enjoy this movie.txt
movienamehere-aXXo.nfo

Confirmed aXXo torrents can be found here and here, and it’s always helpful to read the user comments on the site where you downloaded the .torrent. Please be aware that most aXXo torrents are copyrighted, downloading these files is not allowed in some countries.

Maybe the_dwarfer could update the aXXo Prayer to include lines about fakes and malware.

Add RAID to your Apple laptop — for a price

-from engadget

Kind of an obvious hack, but if you can live life without your Apple laptop’s internal optical drive on the day to day, Macenstein demonstrates using an MCE OptiBay add-on kit to pull the optical drive out of your machine and swap it out for another hard drive. The hundies invested open such possibilities as software RAID 0/1, a dedicated Windows drive, or simply extra internal storage — but almost all of the above will take another hit on your battery, so be forewarned before you dare to crack open that fortress-like aluminum case.

3-D Chips: IBM Moves Moore’s Law Into The Third Dimension

-from Science Daily

Science Daily — IBM has announced a breakthrough chip-stacking technology in a manufacturing environment that paves the way for three-dimensional chips that will extend Moore’s Law beyond its expected limits. The technology – called “through-silicon vias” — allows different chip components to be packaged much closer together for faster, smaller, and lower-power systems.

IBM extends Moore’s Law to the third-dimension: An IBM scientist holds a thinned wafer of silicon computer circuits, which is ready for bonding to another circuit wafer, where IBM’s advanced “through-silicon via” process will connect the wafers together by etching thousands of holes through each layer and filling them with metal to create 3-D integrated stacked chips. The IBM breakthrough can shorten wire lengths inside chips up to 1000 times and allow for hundreds more pathways for data to flow among different functions on a chip. This technique will extend Moore’s Law beyond its expected limits, paving the way for a new breed of smaller, faster and lower power chips. (Credit: Image courtesy of IBM Research)

The IBM breakthrough enables the move from horizontal 2-D chip layouts to 3-D chip stacking, which takes chips and memory devices that traditionally sit side by side on a silicon wafer and stacks them together on top of one another. The result is a compact sandwich of components that dramatically reduces the size of the overall chip package and boosts the speed at which data flows among the functions on the chip.

“This breakthrough is a result of more than a decade of pioneering research at IBM,” said Lisa Su, vice president, Semiconductor Research and Development Center, IBM. “This allows us to move 3-D chips from the ‘lab to the fab’ across a range of applications.”

The new IBM method eliminates the need for long-metal wires that connect today’s 2-D chips together, instead relying on through-silicon vias, which are essentially vertical connections etched through the silicon wafer and filled with metal. These vias allow multiple chips to be stacked together, allowing greater amounts of information to be passed between the chips.

The technique shortens the distance information on a chip needs to travel by 1000 times, and allows for the addition of up to 100 times more channels, or pathways, for that information to flow compared to 2-D chips.

IBM is already running chips using the through-silicon via technology in its manufacturing line and will begin making sample chips using this method available to customers in the second half of 2007, with production in 2008. The first application of this through-silicon via technology will be in wireless communications chips that will go into power amplifiers for wireless LAN and cellular applications. 3-D technology will also be applied to a wide range of chips, including those running now in IBM’s high-performance server and supercomputing chips that power the world’s business, government and scientific efforts.

In particular, IBM is applying the new through-silicon-via technique in wireless communications chips, Power processors, Blue Gene supercomputer chips, and in high-bandwidth memory applications:

* 3-D for wireless communications technology: IBM is using through-silicon via technology to improve power efficiency in silicon-germanium based wireless products up to 40 percent, which leads to longer battery life. The through-silicon via technology replaces the wire bonds that are less efficient at transferring signals off of the chip.
* Power Processors explore 3-D for power grid stability: As we increase the number of processor cores on chips, one of the limitations in performance is uniform power delivery to all parts of the chip. This technique puts the power closer to the cores and allows each core to have ample access to that power, increasing processor speed while reducing power consumption up to 20 percent.
* Bringing 3-D stacking to Blue Gene supercomputing and memory arrays: The most advanced version of 3-D chip stacking will allow high-performance chips to be stacked on top of each other, for example processor-on-processor or memory-on-processor. IBM is developing this advanced technology by converting the chip that currently powers the fastest computer in the world, the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer, into a 3-D stacked chip. IBM is also using 3-D technology to fundamentally change the way memory communicates with a microprocessor, by significantly enhancing the data flow between microprocessor and memory. This capability will enable a new generation of supercomputers. A prototype SRAM design using 3-D stacking technology is being fabricated in IBM’s 300 mm production line using 65 nm- node technology.

3-D chip research at IBM

IBM has been researching 3-D stacking technology for more than a decade at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and now at its labs around the world. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has supported IBM in the development of tools and techniques for extending chips to the third dimension, with the aim of driving better performance and new applications of chip technologies.

IBM chip breakthroughs

This is the fifth major chip breakthrough in five months from IBM, as it leads the industry in its quest for new materials and architectures to extend Moore’s Law.

In December, IBM announced the first 45nm chips using immersion lithography and ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics.

In January, IBM announced “high-k metal gate,” which substitutes a new material into a critical portion of the transistor that controls its primary on/off switching function. The material provides superior electrical properties, while allowing the size of the transistor to be shrunk beyond limits being reached today.

In February, IBM revealed a first-of-its-kind, on-chip memory technology that features the fastest access times ever recorded in eDRAM (embedded dynamic random access memory).

Then in March, IBM unveiled a prototype optical transceiver chipset capable of reaching speeds at least eight-times faster than optical components available today.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by IBM Research.

How-To: play DivX and Xvid on your Apple TV

-from engadget thanks guys for this awesome how to

The two biggest Apple TV limitations are the lack of codec support (like XviD, DivX, etc.) and not even having the ability to do basic surround sound like Dolby Digital 5.1. These issues were resolved almost immediately after the Apple TV was released, although the hacks were somewhat less than practical. Something as simple as getting your Apple TV to, say, sync and recognize your XviD movies as playable was no simple feat. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case, and we want to show you how to get the most out of your Apple TV. Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it, too?

Before we get started we would like to applaud the entire crew from AwkwardTV, if it wasn’t for their great Wiki, we may not have figured all this out.

Warning: you’re about to engage in some serious, potentially warranty-voiding hacking. Just the way you like it, right? Ready to get your hands dirty? We need to download a few files first.

Download – ATVFiles plugin.
Download – Perian, the swiss army knife of QuickTime codecs.
Download – A52Codec, an AC3 codec.
Download – Custom ssh.plist file to start sshd automatically.

Optional
Download – Fugu, a nice OS X GUI to transfer files to the Apple TV.
Download – WinSCP to a nice Windows GUI to transfer files to the Apple TV.
Download – If you don’t have an Intel Mac, you will need this Intel version of sshd.

Materials needed
A Mac of some sort – Sorry, you’ve got to be able to read the Apple TV’s drive to at least get sshd going.
other stuff here.

We are going to do this in two steps. For those who do and do not already have SSH enabled. So if you’ve got SSH running on your Apple TV, skip ahead to the next section.

Enable SSH on the Apple TV (requires a Mac)

Remove the drive the same way we did to expand the drive and plug it into a Mac, then launch Terminal. Our first command is going to copy the Intel version of ssh daemon from our Mac to the ATV drive. If you are on a Intel Mac copy it from your sbin directory to the ATV’s OSBoot/usr/sbin/ directory. If your browser causes the line to wrap be sure to enter it on one line in the Terminal.

sudo cp /usr/sbin/sshd /Volumes/OSBoot/usr/sbin/

You can also copy it from your downloads directory:

cp /Users/Engadget/Downloads/sshd /Volumes/OSBoot/usr/sbin/

Backup the original ssh.plist to our home directory:

cp /Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist ~

Now copy the new one from our downloads directory to the Apple TV drive:

cp /Users/Engadget/Downloads/ssh.plist /Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/

Before we dismount the drive to reinstall into the Apple TV, let us see if we need to clean up after Spotlight again.
Perform these command and check if the .Spotlight files are on the partitions by typing:

ls -a /Volumes/Media

and

ls -a /Volumes/OSBoot

Now, if you do see those .Spotlight files, use the following command to remove them. But be careful, this is the dreaded rm -rf command, which has the potential to ruin everything.

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/OSBoot/.Spotlight-V100

or

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/Media/.Spotlight-V100

Now dismount the drive and install it in your Apple TV. If you need to give your friend’s Mac back, feel free. From here on out you can fly PC on this op, if you so choose.

Test it by signing in via terminal. (The password is frontrow.)

ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local

That should get you in. So let’s start installing the good stuff, shall we?

Adding additional QuickTime components.

Before we can start copying files we need to ssh into the Apple TV and mark the volume as read / write. A few times we will use sudo (as in sudo make me a sandwich) and a password will be requested; it’s also frontrow. From the terminal, ssh to the Apple TV:

ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local

Now remount root as read / write. (Enter frontrow for the password.)

sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/disk0s3 /

At this point you can use Fugu (our scp file transfer frontend) if you prefer. Otherwise, use the commandline scp to copy the following files to the Apple TV. But before you can preform this step you need to mount all the DMGs you downloaded and uncompress ATFiles so you can have the necessary files handy.

Now, copy the ATVFiles plugin, Perian and AC3 QuickTime components to the Apple TV. (As always, depending on the location of these files your command will differ.)

scp -1 -r /Users/Engadget/Downloads/ATVFiles-0.2.1/ATVFiles.frappliance/ frontrow@AppleTV.local:~
scp -1 -r /Volumes/Perian\ 0.5/Perian.component frontrow@AppleTV.local:~
scp -1 -r /Volumes/A52Codec\ 1.7.2/A52Codec.component frontrow@AppleTV.local:~

If you have the MPEG-2 QuickTime component then you can copy that too, but otherwise it’s probably not worth the $20.

scp -1 -r /System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeMPEG2.component/ frontrow@AppleTV.local:~

Now we need to use ssh to move the files to the proper directory so QuickTime can find them.

ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local
sudo mv ATVFiles.frappliance/ /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns
sudo mv Perian.component/ /Library/QuickTime/
sudo mv A52Codec.component/ /Library/QuickTime/
sudo mv QuickTimeMPEG2.component/ /System/Library/QuickTime/

Now we need to restart Finder so it will load the plugin, you could pull the power (easy way) or you could run a couple commands (slightly less easy way). Here those are, if you’re paranoid about unplugging your unit; find the pid to kill:

ps ax | grep Finder

This will return a line with the pid for finder.

Finders Pid
Now kill Finder’s pid. (Ours was 512 when we wrote this.)

kill 512

After Finder restarts we will see a new menu item named Files, which allows us to play movies stored in /Users/frontrow/Movies on the Apple TV. So we’ll copy a movie there, shall we? (Again you can use scp, or Fugu if you prefer.)

scp -1 ~/Movies/Gothika_480p_XviD.avi frontrow@AppleTV.local:~/Movies/

All you have to do is select the clip to play from the files menu.

Voila! Your Apple TV just got a whole helluva lot more useful.

Of course there are many more codecs that work by using the same basic method of installing QuickTime plugins into the ATV’s directory structure. And don’t even get us started on all the other plugins being developed for this bad boy. Hell, you can even mount AFP or NFS shares and stream videos instead of copying them. The possibilities are kind of endless for this little Unix box, but hopefully this guide well get you on your way. Good luck!

School

School is a bitch needless to say. Sorry about the lack of posts, I’ll try to post some more news later tonight and this week. After finals it’ll be easier to keep up with things.

NASA’s PILOT project could autonomously extract oxygen from lunar soil

-from engadget
We’ve got means to extract oxygen from water, a portable bar, and even ways to deprive entire server farms of the sustenance, but a new project being tackled by Lockheed Martin is hoping to create O2 on the moon. A critical part of NASA’s PILOT (Precursor In-situ Lunar Oxygen Testbed) initiative, this digger bot will work hand-in-hand with a “processing plant that will add hydrogen to moon soil, heat it to 1,652-degrees Fahrenheit, condense the steam, and finally extract the oxygen.” Additionally, the blue LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) box atop the three-foot-long machine can assist it in locating “oxygen-rich lunar soil and autonomously carry it to a processing plant.” The overriding goal is to use the newly extracted O2 for air, or moreover, to combine it with hydrogen and produce water for the four astronauts that the lunar base could support. Unfortunately, there’s no timetable as to when we’ll actually see the PILOT roll into action, but we’re most interested in porting this bad boy over to Mars along with half the traffic in LA
[Via The Raw Feed]

Ja Jah brings VoIP to PSP

via engadget:

Despite chatter of impending PSP voice functionality from players such as Vonage, Xten, and of course Sony itself, VoIP is one area in which the DS has been trumping its Japanese rival — until now, that is. That’s right, Skype-rival JAJAH has just announced that its free or low-cost service is available immediately to PSP users, and instead of having to download a standalone application, everything is handled through the web broswer: contacts appear as links, and simply clicking one or typing in a phone number initiates the call. What’s more, the company is promising impending compatibility with all three current-gen living room consoles, along with the older-but-still-kicking PlayStation 2. Alright Sony, now that someone’s given you a kick in the pants, you finally gonna bring that hot VoIP action over here from Japan?

How does it work?

And as always, we made it really simple. First make sure you’re a registered user on www.jajah.com. Registration is fast, free and easy.

Then on your PSP, access the web with a WiFi connection. Open the browser and type in mobile.jajah.com in the address bar. It will prompt you to log in and your personal JAJAH web page will launch. Your saved address book contacts will appear as links, which when clicked, initiate the call. Or enter in a new number to place a call. With JAJAH on PSP, you can connect your phone (landline or mobile) to any other phone in the world for free or at extremely low cost!

And stay tuned: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii are being tested for JAJAH compatibility as we speak.

Free your voice! Talk JAJAH!

Future Zunes to be Free with Subscription?

Microsoft might be taking a page from the mobile phone playbook, offering cheap or free Zunes for customers willing to sign up for a long-term service contract. Zune marketing director Jason Reindorp stated that they were looking at using the all-you-can-eat Zune Pass subscription like a phone contract.

This is a really interesting idea, and it could be the thing that finally makes the Zune stand out when compared with the iPod (besides the pretty useless “social” WiFi features). The idea of being able to download as much music as you want and getting a free or cheap player out of the deal makes a subscription service seem pretty sweet.

If given the option between spending $250 on a 30GB iPod that you need to fill yourself, or a free Zune that you’re locked into paying what would work out to $360 for over two years (at current rates) that you get a subscription service with, what would you choose? –Adam Frucci

Zune for free with a phone-like plan? [Zune Online]