Logan International Airport Thinks This Might Be A Bomb
Comment by: GymMasterAlex
Nominated by: Shak_0
Is a man not entitled to handsome figurines without them being strapped to a bomb?
No, says the TSA, it still might be dangerous.
No, says the terrorists, they belong to us.
No, says CATS, someone set up us the bomb.I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...
Kotaku.
A site where the suspected "terrorist" would not fear the masses,
where amusement would not be bound by petty legalities,
where manliness would not be constrained by the color of his DSi.And with the your thoughts of this story, Kotaku can become your site, as well.
PS3 Loses Linux Support
Comment by: coolbho3000
Nominated by: rfriaz
You guys want to know the real reason Sony included the ability to install Linux with the original PS3?
There was an interesting slide in a presentation at 25c3 a few years ago done by Team Twiizers (the authors of the original Twilight Hack for the Wii, plus many subsequent Wii homebrew applications) that showed multiple devices and the "motivation" behind hacking each one of them, as well as additional ramifications of the hacks themselves.
Turns out very few devices have been hacked purely to pirate games or content. Most were hacked in order to run homebrew and install things like Linux (if the hardware is powerful enough). Piracy tools came only after they were hacked (in the chart, "piracy" was a very common additional consequence).
Most of the "smart" hackers, the hackers that write the exploits, the hackers that crack open the hardware and dump the memory, the hackers that actually have the knowledge to find a method to execute arbitrary code on a closed platform, simply don't care about piracy. They just want to run their own software on a closed platform and share their method with the world. Once a method to execute arbitrary code is found, however, it usually becomes much easier to enable piracy on a particular platform - and less experienced coders who are motivated by piracy jump in. I won't go into specific examples, but I'll just say that the Wii softmodding scene was a great example of this.
You know what Sony did when they enabled OtherOS support? They closed the "smart hacker" hole. There was not enough motivation to do hardcore hardware hacking on the level that Team Twiizers went to to exploit the Wii. You could already run Linux. You could already execute your own code. Sure, you didn't have access to the GPU, but that wasn't a tremendously huge deal anyway. This, combined with a strong security architecture, helped the PS3 remain unexploited for over three years.
The Wii fell, and the 360 fell, but to this day it is still impossible to run a pirated game on the PS3. I believe that this is, at least in part, because of the PS3's OtherOS support.
Finally, however, someone is trying. Geohot is a genius when it comes to hardware exploits, and he went to great extents to find the exploit that finally broke the PS3 (to a certain extent). I don't know if anyone that experienced has "tried" to break the PS3 with that much effort before. His motivation wasn't piracy, he simply wanted more access to the hardware than what Sony provided with OtherOS and their hypervisor. You can't run pirated games or install a custom firmware yet, but it's only a matter of time, and Sony knows it's only a matter of time.
So they closed it. This was a very risky move for Sony. They promoted the PS3's OtherOS support extensively. After geohot revealed his exploit, they sat down and decided that the benefits of disabling OtherOS were worth the risks (prevention of mass piracy versus some community backlash). That means they knew that the hole that geohot discovered could easily lead to piracy. Who knows what will happen now? I think this could very well lead to a "custom firmware" battle once more refined, software-only exploits are found with the help of this exploit, perhaps exploits that do not require the use of OtherOS.
In that case, Sony should prepare for hell.
Week in Games: Stimulus Response
Comment by: Michael Dukakis
Nominated by: The Forgetful Brain
Players of Modern Warfare 2 have scheduled a Teabag protest. While not the same as the actual teabaggers its slightly more mature.
#speakup
Comment by: staySICK
Nominated by: puresewas1de
In honor of the PSP's birthday, I shared a portion of my PSP story with Playstation's twitter. I got some interest from other people, so I thought I'd share the tale of gaming, love, and marriage in further detail with my kotakuites.
I had been dating my girlfriend for 3 years when around Valentine's Day of 2006 she tells me she's getting me a PSP. I tell her she doesn't have to and that's a lot of money, but she insists, takes me to BB, and allows me to pick out a game with it. So she gets me a PSP, Death Jr, and the extended warranty (which would come in handy as it would stop reading discs about a year and a half later).
I had been contemplating proposing, and figured, okay, its do or die. I found a ring, and on the last day of February we were meeting a friends house for a D&D game. I hid the ring in the pencil pocket of my bag, and asked her to get me a pencil when she got there.
She found and brought me a pencil.
Dumbfounded I stammered, "Uh... this one's not working, can you find me another one please?"
She says now at that point she knew something was up. She went to get another pencil, found the ring box and held it out to me with a confused look on her face. "Is this for me?"
"Of course."
"..."
"Well, will you?"
We have been married since October 2006.
The Time Is Right For A Lightsaber Video Game
Comment by: 8thR
Nominated by: GOD
What is it?
Your father's PlayStation Move. This is the weapon of a motion gaming Sony fanboy. Not as clumsy or random as a Wii; an elegant controller for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, Movers were the guardians of peace and justice in motion gaming. Before the dark times... before Natal.
Project Natal "World Premiere" Starts This Year's E3 On A Sunday
Comment by: Amazing_Spiderham
Nominated by: R0bster
Microsoft should bundle Natal with Halo Reach and call it, "The Reach Around".
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