Category Archives: Electronics
Dear PIPA and ACTA, I Hate You
Piracy is an enormous problem, without a doubt. So I’m just going to jump into things right off the bat and begin by stating something that I haven’t heard anyone say so far regarding PIPA and ACTA: There are numerous other problems that are exponentially worse. Sure, piracy is a crime, but if it gets “omitted,” will that change the world for the better? I can, off of the top of my head, dish out a list of better causes that drops to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
1. Solve world hunger
2. Shelter the homeless
3. Solve global warming issues
4. Stop aids
5. Stop breast cancer
6. Stop any disease
7. Increase literacy rates
8. Stop oil starvation
9. Population control
10. Solve poor/rich distribution of wealth
This, I will not deceive you, is a list conjured from a pile of rubbish I thought up in thirty seconds. Although all of the above can be debated widely, the point is nonetheless clear: THERE ARE NUMEROUS AMOUNTS OF GREATER PROBLEMS THAN PIRACY!
Now, let me begin with the comparisons. There is a vast array of countries that prohibit piracy, and America is one of them (obviously). Now, my question to you, the reader, is “what is the only major country that piracy is not frowned upon?” Allow me to give you a hint or two: It’s a world superpower, it’s located in Asia, and over 95% of the goods sold in America derive from there. That’s right, you’ve guessed it! China!
Amazingly, real copies of things are harder to find than burnt ones! If one were to walk into a video store and attempt to browse their selection, you could find any movie without a doubt. Why? Because everything is burned, my good friend! Every movie you could possibly imagine, burned on a previously blank DVD that is now titled with a sharpie. Same goes for video games, programs, and just about any other form of data. What’s more amazing is that if the price is put into equivalent of the United States economy, the average movie would only cost you a whopping fifty cents! That’s right, the latest and greatest for only half of a dollar. Prices vary depending on how big the file is and how difficult it was to burn; still, the most expensive piece of data (if applied to our economy, once again) would be no more than five dollars.
Now, could you even possibly imagine how excellent it would be if you were only asked to dish out fifty cents for the newest blockbuster hit? Well I’d say that you don’t need to pirate whatsoever, because data doesn’t cost ridiculous amounts. Doesn’t it chafe you at least the tiniest bit knowing that a Chinese citizen only spends eight minutes out of his minimum-wage paycheck to purchase the newest release while you work for three plus hours to buy the “original” copy of that same exact movie? I assume it does. And the list doesn’t end there! Xbox 360 games, PS3 games, PC games, all programs, operating systems, and just about anything else you can imagine, all for under five dollars.
China, considered to be one of the most communist and controlled countries on Earth, condones piracy while America, said to be one of the freest and most prosperous countries in the world, does not? My fellow reader, if there is one thing I ask of you it is that you at least consider the possibility of betrayal by the American system and that you will also consider making a stand for yourself.
Long live free-world.
Graphics Cards FTW
Not that I want to start a brand name war or anything but does anyone know whats the best single slot graphics card you can get. Currently my PC right now has 4GB ram a intel E6750 cpu and a NVIDIA 9800GT 1GB DDR3 graphics card. I bought my PC last year and so far it’s ran every game on max settings with a decent frame rate (60fps). Games I’ve got are COD6, Source Engine games (hl2), Bioshock 1 an 2 an few others.
Now your probably wondering why does this retard ask about a graphics card when he’s already got a decent frame rate. Well that reason is Crysis, after actually buying the game( so unlike the pirateer that I am) I’m still upset that I cant get it running at 60 fps on average. Boohooh, an yes I’ve overclocked my card to 750mhz on the core 1850mhz on the shaders and 935mhz on memory.
Crazy I know… so if you know anything please reply, those with the best reply’s, will have their dreams come true by me buying the graphics card they suggest and putting it in my PC. Ok, it won’t be your dreams… and yes I’ll post the pics of the new card.
Lockerz.com : The Free Prize Site! Get your Invite Here!!
If anyone is looking for an invite to this great site visit the link at the bottom of this post. It’ll link you to my google docs , which asks for your email, then I’ll send you an invite immediately. Join in on the fun at Lockerz to get Free prizes. See you on Lockerz.com!!
-Hail2King
What exactly is Lockerz all about?
Lockerz is the place to go to buy the coolest stuff , watch exclusive video, discover new music, play the hottest games, hang out with your friends – and get rewarded for just about EVERYTHING you do on the site. One other thing you’ll love about Lockerz are PTZ (or “points”). PTZ are Lockerz’ currency that you earn whenever you buy, watch, play, share, invite friends, or even just show up on Lockerz. Redeem PTZ at the PTZ Place for great prizes such as computers to video games and all other electronics goodies.
So how exactly do you get points?
Well to get points or “PTZ” as lockerz likes to call them all you need to do is log in everyday for your daily 2 points and answer a “Daily” question. These questions are usually simple yes or no answers such as do you have a tatoo, or do you like rock and roll or rap music. It’s really quite simple to build up points quickly. I’ve been a member for around a month now and already have over 100 points which I can redeem for a video game or something else but more on that below.
The New iPhone 3.0. Update – Unlock and Jailbreak…Windows…2G/3G/3GS
Its been a really long time since I last posted here. But I feel it’s my duty to keep the ‘Underground Community’ informed about the information I have access to. Personally, I feel that the ‘Underground’ has lost its true meaning, its sense of presence – after 3 WordPress bans and removing of ‘Objectionable’ Content on the blog. I still believe that V1 i.e. this blog is a better way to communicate with the community rather than V2 as this blog is better known. Also, I feel that this ‘ban’ has limited my potential in terms of a writer here.
iPhone 3.0 Explained
Now to move on to the topic for which this post was actually written. I’m sure that most of you have heard of the new 3.0 update from Apple to the iPhone; and the subsequent release 3.0.1. If you have not, then let me give you a brief expansion:
The iPhone 3.0 update came out with the iPhone 3GS on June 17, 2009. It can be compared to the Windows 7 release: much awaited features were added which increased stability and enchanced user experiece. Apple finally incorporated many of the features we asked for 🙂 Among them, some are:
- Copy and Paste Text
- Copy and Paste Photos
- Search Spotlight – Search your iPhone for anything
- Search in mail, Calendar and iPod
- Landscape Keyboard in SMS, Mail and Notes
- Multimedia Messaging or MMS
- Support for new Calendar types
- Improved Stocks Application
- Connect iPhones/iTouches with bluetooth
- Notes syncing with iTunes
Update on yesterday’s post — More info on the battle of smart phones
When the concept ‘mobile phone,’ and the actual device were introduced around 30 years ago, people were amazed by the idea that one could build audio communication with others without the limitations and boundaries of location. (Quote THE STANDARD, an acclaimed English newspaper in Hong Kong.)
Nowadays mobile phones go far beyond; from video conferencing, word processing to online banking, this little device can do it all. It is a market that anyone would want a piece of, and different venders have been very active in providing new platforms, functions and devices to gain advantage in this enormous battleground.
One of the hottest topics in the mobile world lately must be the bang Apple iPhone brought to the market, and it continued to heat up in the past two years. From iPhone 2G to the latest iPhone 3GS, each launch has created huge expectations, and in reality its market is still expanding rapidly. According to the latest data from Gartner, Apple’s share of worldwide smart phone sales grew from 5.3% in the first quarter of 2008 to 10.8% in the first quarter of 2009. Gaining over 10% of the global market within two years is indeed very impressive, but what’s more significant is that in some sense this figure is created by one product only (if we consider all versions of iPhone as one). The 50000+ applications available for download also suggest the new market trend Apple has set.
Another smart phone that the market has showed great interest in is Sprint’s Palm Pre. Even though there are concerns about lacking in applications in the App Catalog, and no access to the webOS SDK(software development kit) by developers, Palm Pre still sold out fast when available in the US recently. Some critics believe the impressive sales of Palm Pre were largely related to current Sprint customers looking for an upgrade, rather than a flow of new Sprint subscribers, but the solid selling number shows its first stage of success, and there are huge noises of interest from countries and markets including Hong Kong, which are yet to have a scheduled launch date.
RIM
Another leading smart phone platform, Research In Motion’s Blackberry, also has a fruitful year. In the previous fiscal quarter, RIM’s $3.42 billion revenue increased 53% from $2.24 billion in the same quarter of last year, and shipped approximately 7.8 million devices After promoting ‘consumer models’ Blackberry curve 8900 and Blackberry Storm, RIM turned their focus back to business users, and launched Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0 recently. BES 5.0 is a push-based server software, focusing on enhancing the connection link between BlackBerry smart phones and enterprise systems, applications, corporate phone environments and wireless networks. It integrates with IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange, and Novell GroupWise, providing highly secured access to email, organizer data, instant messaging, browser and other enterprise applications.
President Obama’s insistence on keeping his BlackBerry device is a great example (especially for RiM) showing how tightly BlackBerry could merge into one’s life and BES 5.0 plus future launches would definitely stick to this angle.
All these platforms have their own advantages and supporters; along with the Android ‘Google’ phone, Windows mobile 7.0 platform, Nok ia’s partnership with 1nte, the haule of smart phones has probably lust began.
Youtube — Only has name?
The American Times magazine elected the ten worse new tech ideas in the past ten years recently. For those on the list, some of them are quite familiar to most people, such as Vista, Zune, Palm, HD-DVD, Gateway,etc. However, even Youtube is on the list. Why?!
Actually, although Youtube is the largest video sharing site on the planet (now, there are 99 million people in the US that have visited Youtube before, and the total number of videos on the site is 5.9 billion), but Youtube has not yet found it’s regular income source! Google earlier claimed that Youtube, until now, still hasn’t a “real” profit.
Because the Youtube videos generally have bad quality, not much people are willing to advertise on Youtube. Albait the fact that, according to a company in Switzerland, Youtube has a profit of US$240 million, but their total profit was US$-470 million! They will have to triple the profit in order to make the balance! ARGHHH!
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New NDS game: Dolphin Park
[Note: This post was written by Adrian, the Freeware Elite. Visit his tech blog at: Freeware Elite.com]
Nowadays, there are a lot of games on the market about raising cats and dogs, so using this genre of game to get a large audience is very impractical. Starfish-SD is marketing a new game “Welcome to DolphinPark”. The screenshots clearly show that the aim of the game is to rear dolphins and train them to do stunning tricks and stunts.
When your dolphin performs, it gets coins (money), and those can be used to buy food, equipment and newer, more advanced courses for your dolphin, so that it can perform better.
Also, you can use the self-cam in the NDSi to take a picture of your face, and subsitute the dolphin’s face with yours. The official selling date is not yet defined, but the price will be around 5040 Japanese yen.
Sound like a game you or your children will play? Leave a comment and let us know how it is!
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Overclocking NVidia Cards
Seeing as it is Exploitation Week, I guess I’d better do something. Considering that all my posts have been about tech, I guess I’m going to write for it and about something ‘techy’ for Expo Week. I’m going to write about overclocking your hardware. Today, I’m only going to talk about NVIDIA cards though, seeing as I don’t have much time.
I guess I’ll talk about and try teach the beginners how to overclock your graphics processor card (GPU).
Before I get fully into it, I must warn you that not all GPUs are good for overclocking. Some just simply aren’t powerful enough. If you want my advice on overclocking, you’d try get something in the NVIDIA GeForce 8000 series, 9000 series or any GTX. If you’re an ATI user, you can always just match up something close to NVIDIA’s with Google.
However, most cards under the 8000 series can overclock. But chances are you’ll screw the card up. The other problem is that you’re going to need a good cooling system.
iPhone 2.0 update unlocked (even 3G!)
Hello guys! I just wanted to confess how busy I have been and how I have not been able to complete my Monday’s on the underground blog. I have a request for Versatile and Volatire. Can I please post updates about things which I can keep track of like Games, Phones, hacks and movies? Can I publish those posts at the time of their release? Please consider this and mail me. Thanks.
Well the main reason of me writing this post is that the iPhone 3G hack is here! The DEV team as always, have provided this hack for free. I took 2 weeks but it was worth the wait (all other softwares brick your phone!) Well for now, this software is only for MAC users (bad for us windows users 😦 ) but nevertheless, we can use a friends comp! Here is a picture of the Software, nice GUI huh??:
iPhone 3G
Now, for all those have MAC’s here’s a tip: The Mail 2.0 in the iPhone 2.0 update isn’t working, so dont upgrade your iPhone now… let the Dev Team make some fixes and I will notify you when this program is glitch free. But if you still want to risk your iPhone, here is the guide:
1. Get The Pwnage Tool Here (The Better v2.0.1)
2. Get the BootLoader Files Here
3.Follow this Guide:
Step 1: If you are at 1.1.4 or lower, restore a fresh 2.0. If you are already at 2.0 this is not necessary. You can follow the restore guide for help on restoring in iTunes.
Note: you may see “Preparing iPhone software for restore” for a very long time. Could be 10 minutes. This is normal. Don’t panic and stick with it.
Note 2: If you get error 1600 you may try restore mode instead of DFU mode. It can be finicky. Try going back and forth from restore to DFU mode.
Step 2: Extract the zip file. Extract the rar file for the bootloaders and put that in your Documents folder. Load up the pwnage tool. You will see this screen so click away the warning. Note: some folks having problems loading the pwnage tool and the icon just sits there bouncing. You may try clearing your cache by deleting the {your name}/Library/Caches folder and/or /Library/Caches and reboot. You may also try booting into safe mode.
Step 3: At the top, select “Simple Mode” and click the phone or iPod that matches your device.
Step 4: Select the 2.0 firmware you used to restore your phone in step 1 and click the blue next arrow.
Step 5: Select your bootloaders that you downloaded from step #1. You will be presented a screen asking you if you wish to search the web for the bootloaders. Select NO.
Laptop Batteries Extended 10 Times
So, guys at Standford are gonna be rich. “Stanford researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to reinvent the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, iPods, video cameras, cell phones, and countless other devices.”
I had to look up “nanowire” in Wikipedia to understand what it is exactly: “A nanowire is a wire of diameter of the order of a nanometer (10−9 meters). Alternatively, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a lateral size constrained to tens of nanometers or less and an unconstrained longitudinal size. At these scales, quantum mechanical effects are important — hence such wires are also known as “quantum wires“. Many different types of nanowires exist, including metallic (e.g., Ni, Pt, Au), semiconducting (e.g., Si, InP, GaN, etc.), and insulating (e.g., SiO2,TiO2). Molecular nanowires are composed of repeating molecular units either organic (e.g. DNA) or inorganic (e.g. Mo6S9-xIx).”
Some sick shit huh?
The research team at Stanford is led by Yi Cui. Hail to asians.
Complete source article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071219103105.htm
Note: Versatile has this weird thing with pictures, but since I have very limited time, I think he’ll understand and be nice and put some in for moi. Hail Versatile.
Welcome to the Underground. 