Hacks

Make new iPods work with Linux

With the new Nano, iPod Classic and iPod Touch devices, Apple altered the iTunes database slightly to include a cryptographic checksum, which immediately broke all third party iPod management software. Since there’s no iTunes for Linux, this essentially meant that Linux users had to look for another solution for putting music on their devices. Great […]

Gameboy Advance GPS

Gameboy Advance GPS

Here’s one of my favorite portable gaming hacks, the GBA GPS. It’s a project that always comes to mind whenever I hear about some piece of homebrew development hardware falling under legal scrutiny. People are always creating amazing things when closed hardware is hacked open for amateur development. I own Magellan meridian GPS, many efforts […]

How a quantum computer can factor a large number

How a quantum computer can factor a large number

An article today in New Scientist discusses two quantum computers, independantly built by two different research teams, that are capable of running Shor’s quantum factorization algorithm. The current machines are only large enough to factor a small number–in this case, the number 15–but assuming the engineering challenges can be overcome and a larger quantum computer […]