Kotaku: Hacks

Valve: It's 'Probable' That Hackers Obtained Old Steam Transaction Data

Jason Schreier — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:08:00 EST

Valve CEO Gabe Newell said today in a statement to Steam users that as a result of a hack last November, it is "probable" that hackers have obtained a backup file with information on Steam transactions performed between 2004 and 2008. The compromised material includes user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses, and encrypted credit card information. It does not include Steam passwords. More »

The Xbox 360 Has a Hidden Solution to Your Nintendo 3DS Screen Woes

Jen Schiller — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:20:00 EDT

If you own (and use) a Nintendo 3DS, you've probably noticed that the system's top screen can get marked up and scratched rather easily, just by closing and carrying it around for the sake of Street Passing. More »

Turns Out Kinect Can Read Sign Language

Owen Good — Wed, 18 May 2011 23:00:00 EDT

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Kinect's patent application said the device could recognize American Sign Language. Microsoft then backed off the claim, at least for the initial generation of the device, saying that sort of application would be supported in later models. Then people started developing open-source Kinect drivers and doing all sorts of cool things with them. And lo and behold, the commercially available Kinect recognizes sign language. More »

Can You Spot This Guy's Tell Playing Online Poker with Kinect?

Owen Good — Fri, 06 May 2011 20:30:00 EDT

If you can't spot the sucker in the first 30 seconds of this video, then you are the sucker. More »

Is Portal 2 Controlled with Kinect a Good Thing?

Owen Good — Sun, 01 May 2011 14:00:00 EDT

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I'm on the fence with this, but as Portal 2 has elements of a first-person shooter, and that genre is tricky to adapt for Kinect, it looks like a breakthrough to me. Here someone has hacked Kinect, using FAAST (the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit), to play Portal 2. Firing a portal is accomplished by extending one's arm 18 inches forward. Leaning and arm and leg gestures control movement and looking. More »

Microsoft's Official Kinect Dev Kit Makes You A Universal Remote Control

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:40:00 EDT

This spring, Microsoft will release an official software development kit for its Kinect camera, catching up to the open source community and giving fully sanctioned creative control of its motion sensing Xbox 360 controller. Here's Microsoft's pitch on what Kinect can do in the hands of, well, anyone. More »

Stand Up And Be Counted, Video Game Cheaters

Mike Fahey — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:40:00 EDT

In today's episode of Speak-Up on Kotaku, commenter Phantomlink wants to know all about your deeply buried video game cheating past. Were you a cheater? Are you a cheater? Don't be shy. More »

Modders Take Flight With This Kinect-Controlled Drone

Owen Good — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 17:00:00 EDT

Self-described hacker Tom Zickel serves up the latest Kinect mod - this time manipulating the flight of an AR Drone (this one a Parrot Quadricopter) using hand gestures recognized by Kinect. More »

Here's Kinect — Working on a PS3 (And Playing Killzone 3)

Owen Good — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:00:00 EDT

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This genie of Kinect modification is never going back in the bottle. Now a modder has figured out a way to get the Microsoft device to work with a PlayStation 3. More »

Kinect Makes You the Rampaging Controller

Owen Good — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:00:00 EDT

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Some folks, including the creator, describe this Kinect mod in Hulk-smash terms. It does tint the screen (and the skin of the players) green. But towering above puny buildings and smashing them into rubble, that sounds more like Rampage, to me. Either way, let's get this one into production, stat. More »

Kinect's Most Dangerous Hack Is 'The Evil Genius Simulator'

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:40:42 EDT

It may not be the most useful of creative Kinect hacks, but for underlining a point about your plans to conquer the world with a pair of Tesla coils, Bright Arcs' Evil Genius Simulator can't be beat. More »

Bam! Pow! Kinect Can Turn Your Life Into The Batman TV Show

Stephen Totilo — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:30:00 EST

When I punch a man in real life, no cartoon words pop up in front of my fist. But on the 1960s Batman TV show that kind of thing happened when heroes traded fists with villains. More »

Kinect-Rigged Robot Could Help With Future Quake Recovery

Owen Good — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:30:00 EST

An earthquake fixed attention and sympathy this week on New Zealand, where more than 100 died and more than 200 still are missing. Authorities probing the rubble surrounding Christchurch find some buildings too unsafe to enter. A Kinect-enabled robot, developed by British researchers, could help in such situations. More »

Space Invaders, Played with Kinect

Owen Good — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EST

From France comes the latest Kinect mod - fully playable Space Invaders, whose control scheme turns the 1978 Taito classic into an exergaming ordeal. More »

Play "Human Tetris" with This Kinect Mod

Owen Good — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:40:00 EST

Here's another Kinect mod from the "Why haven't they thought of that already?" file. This is a take on "human tetris," one of the premises of Fuji TV game show Tonneruzu, albeit without boat horns, chortling audience, and a Japanese Chuck Barris as the host. More »

Sony Lays Down The Law On PlayStation 3 Hacking

Mike Fahey — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:30:00 EST

With the PlayStation 3 cracked wide open and alleged console hackers being taken to court, Sony Computer Entertainment America issues a statement today warning users that the use of "unauthorized circumvention devices" will be met with swift, meaningless justice. More »

Finally, We Can Play The Legend of Zelda On An Oscilloscope

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:40:00 EST

You finally have a purpose for all those oscilloscopes that have surely piled up in your basement, now that one man has hacked together a way to play your original Game Boy games using its monochromatic powers of display. More »

One Small Step For Kinect, One Giant Leap Toward A New Robotic Operating Buddy

Stephen Totilo — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:00:00 EST

Most Kinect hacks don't serve a societal good, right? Who needs the Xbox 360's wonder sensor to detect your breasts or make beautiful art? More »

Draw Your Own Controller With This Kinect Mod

Owen Good — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 14:00:00 EST

The march of mod progress has steadily delivered many cool things during the Kinect's short lifespan to date. We can add another breakthrough: The ability to recognize hand-drawn buttons. More »

Kinect Hack Shows Star Wars Holograms Not So Far, Far Away

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:30:00 EST

The tech behind the Xbox 360's new camera controller, Kinect, is now being used for an impressive—most impressive—new feat: to capture 3D images, stream them over the internet and display them in holographic form. More »

With Kinect, You Are The Epic Controller

Owen Good — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:00:00 EST

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The mods and uses developed for Kinect off open-source drivers keep outdoing one another. If I could, I would start every day this way. Except I'd substitute the roar of a sports crowd for the THX introduction. More »

Kinect For Minecraft Just Got More Impressive

Michael McWhertor — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:30:00 EST

Inserting yourself into the blocky world of Minecraft, via Microsoft's Kinect camera, has been taken to a new level. This impressive Kinect hack does more than just make statues, it now animates them. Here's cat versus laser pointer video proof. More »

Throw Hadoukens In Your Living Room With Street Fighter On Kinect

Owen Good — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:30:00 EST

The Kinect genie refuses to return to the bottle. Here an enterprising modder rigs up his PC to play Street Fighter IV with Kinect, including shoryukens and hadoukens (and Ken). The video features actual gameplay versus the CPU. More »

Modern Warfare Maker Says It Can't Fix Rampant Hacking On PS3

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 21:00:04 EST

That Call of Duty games are routinely exploited by cheaters and hackers, regardless of platform, is nothing new. But players of the PS3 version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 say the situation is worse than it's ever been. More »

The Super Smash Bros. Mod That Looks Backward

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:00:14 EST

Fans of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series of fighting games love to tinker, hacking new characters, stages and moves into the game. A soon-to-be-released demo for a Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod named "Project M" takes a different approach. More »

Kinect-Controlled Gundam Mech Stands On Its Own One Foot

Owen Good — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:00:00 EST

In the evolution of Kinect-controlled robotics, we've gone from a Roomba in November, to a robot moving its arms in December, now to one that may stand on one foot. We should be slaves to our robot overlords by May. More »

Kinect Powered Jiggle With Soulcalibur's Ivy Goes Too Far

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:40:00 EST

Ivy from Namco's Soulcalibur fighting game series is perhaps best known for her ample endowments and her unique sword. When combined with Kinect motion capture, Ivy's extreme anatomy doesn't hold up very well. More »

Kinect Hacked To Play World of Warcraft

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:00:00 EST

We've made it an important milestone in the increasingly long list of hacks that transform Microsoft's Kinect from Xbox 360 motion controller into something grander. World of Warcraft is now playable with Kinect hand-waving action. More »

Super Meat Boy Hacked Into Super Smash Bros.

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:00:00 EST

The Wii release of Super Meat Boy is looking grim, but resourceful Super Smash Bros. Brawl hackers find a way to get the blocky man of meat into Nintendo's beat 'em up. More »

Is This Kinect's First 'Sex' Game, Or Is It Just The Creepiest?

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:40:00 EST

Microsoft's Xbox 360 camera-controller Kinect has been hacked for dozens of fascinating purposes. Now we have its sleaziest, a working demo of a virtual girl groping "game" that lets you rub down polygonal boobs with your own hands. More »

See The Incredible Autonomous Kinect Flying Machine

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:40:00 EST

Now that Microsoft's Kinect camera sensor has been hacked from mere video game controller to homebrew developer's plaything, we've seen some amazing new applications. This flying machine that uses the Xbox 360 camera's "eyes" to see is (perhaps) the coolest. More »

Kinect Hacked To Play Super Mario Bros.

Owen Good — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 18:00:00 EST

This unholy marriage of Microsoft technology and Nintendo software comes from Yankeyan, who probably just gave Shigeru Miyamoto an inspiration for the Wii's next exergaming title. More »

Kinect Can Also Turn You Into A Bloated Mutant

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:30:00 EST

We've seen some fun and sometimes funky homebrewed uses of Kinect for the Xbox 360, thanks to the release of open source drivers for Microsoft's camera sensor, but how many of those apps support house cats? This one does. More »

Blizzard Prepares To Ban StarCraft II Cheaters

Mike Fahey — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 14:30:00 EDT

StarCraft II players using unauthorized hacks and modifications to get a leg up on the competition might want to give fair play a try, as a Blizzard statement indicates the end of the line is in sight for cheaters. More »

Working PlayStation 3 Modchip Is 'Not A Hoax,' Australian Retailer Says

Stephen Totilo — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:40:00 EDT

An Australian seller of Wii, PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 modchips has posted video showing the famously impregnable PlayStation 3 running "back-up" copies of disc games saved in the hacked console. It's the real deal, they tell Kotaku. More »

Brilliant 'Sonic 2 XL' Hack Adds Onion Rings, Morbid Obesity

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:20:00 EDT

You know what the Sonic the Hedgehog series has been missing? Dangerous levels of obesity resulting in adult onset diabetes and eventually death, a glaring omission corrected in the Sega Genesis hack Sonic 2 XL. It makes Sonic a fat-ass. More »

From Final Fantasy V to Mother 3, A Brief History Of ROM Hacking

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:00:00 EDT

What to do when your Japanese role-playing games take months, years or forever to get an English translation? Rip the ROM and hack-translate it yourself. 1UP takes a look at the origins and current state of the brute-force, fan-made localization. More »

Is That A Cracked Version Of Max Payne 2 On Steam?

Mike Fahey — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:20:00 EDT

The Steam executable for Rockstar's Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne bears a striking resemblance to a no-CD hack released by now defunct piracy group Myth. Could it just be a coincidence? More »

Hacker Claims To Have Linux Working (Again) On PS3

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:40:00 EDT

On April 1, Sony removed one of the PlayStation 3's original features, the option to install an alternate operating system such as Linux, with its latest firmware (version 3.21). Today, one man claims to have reinstated that feature. More »

Jailbreak Hacker Releases His PS3 Exploit To The Public

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:00:00 EST

George Hotz, the man responsible for "jailbreaking" the iPhone platform, has released the "coveted" PlayStation 3 exploit he announced last week, the one that means the console is essentially "hacked." More »