BBC Offers Job To PS3 iPlayer Hacker
The hacker that managed to port the BBC’s iPlayer onto the PS3 console has been unofficially offered a job by the BBC’s Head of Digital Media Technology, Future Media & Technology.
Anthony Rose, who was speaking about what the BBC was hoping to do with iPlayer on the PS3 and other consoles, jokingly [but maybe for real] offered the hacker a job on his BBC blog:
“By the way, if the person who created the ps3iplayer port is looking for a job at the BBC, (s)he’s welcome to contact me 
â€
The ps3iplayer port, according to said hacker, took less than day to create and allows PS3 users to access iPlayer by fooling the BBC servers into thinking your PS3 is a Wii – which the BBC has just started supporting. The hacker wrote on his site:
“It’s mainly a demonstration of how easily the BBC could support the PS3 with their Wii version. This does nothing more than mask your PS3′s user-agent string and makes half a dozen changes to make the JavaScript and CSS function correctly on the PS3. It only took a day to produce, so come on BBC – how about implementing this properly?â€
Rose said:
“I was interested to read that someone has managed to make BBC iPlayer work on the PS3 by pretending that it’s a Wii. As you know, our aim is to make BBC iPlayer available on a broad range of devices. We’d love to be on every popular device tomorrow, including the PS3, and it was on our roadmap. However, the reality is that we only have finite developer resources, and we need to divide our development time between expanding the platforms iPlayer is available on versus all the other cool things that we’re working on (better video quality, personalisation, new site features, etc).â€
So, give that hacker a job then and let’s speed things up.-Martin Lynch
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UK’s First Shoe Vending Machine Hits London
Next time you’re in London at 3am and wake to find yourself mysteriously shoeless, just point your feet towards Carnaby St., to what is being billed as the UK’s first sports trainer vending machine.
Those wacky Japanese will sell pretty much anything in a vending machine and it’s high time we got some of that 24-hour shopping experience over here.
Japanese sports brand, Onitsuka Tiger, which has a store off Carnaby St., has just launched a vending machine containing 24 pair of trainers in 6 different sizes.
The machine is available for use right now, at least until tomorrow, after which it tours the country in other shopping hotspots. No news on prices though but you can be sure they won’t be too cheap.
There’s even a chance you can win a pair, apparently. Sadly, my local Asbos would have this machine in the back of a nicked van before you could say: “Arigatou gozaimasu’.-Martin Lynch
Lego MP3 Player Targets The Kid Inside
As kids toys go, Lego gets around more than most and with a new Lego Mp3 player on the block it looks likely that Lego will remain one of the most modified objects available.
This is the Homade MP3 i-Player which looks like a Lego brick, weighs a featherweight 26g and joins a growing family of eclectic gadgets inspired by Lego, like the LaCie Lego Hard Disk Drives, the battling Lego Robots and the, quite frankly insane, Lego Flamethrower. Here are the key features:
Support MP3 and WMA playback
Plug and play
Supports up to 2GB microSD card
Build-in rechargeable battery
Support Windows 2000/XP/Vista
5 colours are available. Blue, Yellow, Red, White & Green
Size: 28 x 58 x 17mm (approx.)
Weight: 26g
It’s cute as hell and if you can get over the lack of an LCD display, you’ll have yourself one of the more iconic little players around. It costs roughly £23 here. –Martin Lynch
Kalashnikov Burglar Alarm: Possibly Illegal
You have to give it to elderly Afghan inventor, Hanif Molavizadeh, because when the local Asbos come to rob him of the very few things he owns, they’re going home filled with lead.
Hanif has built a very rough and ready Kalashnikov Burglar Alarm, designed to take a routine robbery to DEFCON 1 in a matter of seconds. The rifle is attached to a sensor, alarm and a speaker phone, which alerts him to a burglary in process on his mobile.
Hanif can then call the speaker phone and ask said burglars if they really think his threadbare carpet is really worth being shot for. If he doesn’t like the answers, he can open up remotely with the Kalashnikov.
Apparently, he’s working on something just as friendly to protect his car.-Martin Lynch
[Gizmag]
NapTV: The Lazy Way To Watch Telly
I thought watching TV in bed was the ultimate in slacker living but, apparently not. Meet the NapTV, a TV designed to be watched while you’re lying flat on your back.
And, when you do actually manage to dredge up enough energy to get out of bed for another beer and nachos run, you can use it as a chair to help you get over all that exertion. Just before you lie down again.
Designed by Sung-kyu Nam, this ingenious device is the next logical evolutionary step, following on from the important Couch Potato and Bed Potato stages.
I’m sure though that there’s a whole lot of health reasons why having a TV that close to your eyeballs is bad for you and, lastly, why the hell is there a remote control?-Martin Lynch
[Bornrich]
Penguin To Launch New Books As ebooks Too
Penguin has long been a supporter of the fledgling ebook market but it’s now upping the ante by announcing plans to launch ebook versions of new books at the same time as print editions.
According to Pearson, which owns Penguin and others, ebooks from Penguin, Dorling Kindersley and its travel division will be available for download from September in the .epub format, in order to meet rising demand. Penguin is already working on creating ebook versions of its 5,000 book back catalogue.
The first print/ebook titles to be published will include……
….Zoe Heller’s new novel The Believers, and the paperbacks of Elizabeth Noble’s Things I Want My Daughter to Know and Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence.
Genevieve Shore, digital director at Penguin said: “We have seen in other markets that the digital best-sellers are the same books making it to the top of the best-seller lists and we know our readers expect both editions to be available at the same time.”
Don’t be expecting any deals for saving all those trees though since the ebooks will cost the same as their pulp cousins. Hardly sounds fair.-Martin Lynch
Star Wars Gets Steampunk’d
We like our Steampunk gadgets here at Gizmodo and one of the model maestros, Sillof, has turned his hand to reinventing the Star Wars cast, with some interesting takes.
Purists will no doubt be drawing on the power of The Force for emotional equilibrium but you can’t argue that the guy has some skill. Steampunk tends to meld Victorian looks and antiquated technologies like valves, gears and clunky bits to create something both new and old in the same go.
Check out the very cool – and fully functional – Steampunk PC and an even weirder Steampunklaptop.
Here we get the key Stars Wars cast looking all old-new in one go. Sillof should get credit alone for making wimpy protocol droid, C-3PO, look dangerous.
I really like his take on Lord Vader although I’m pretty sure if you tried to put him in those thigh-high boots, you’d quickly find yourself floating a few feet off the ground wondering where the air’s gone.
Watch Darth doing a twirl for the cameras below and see the rest of the re-imagined cast here.-Martin Lynch
Penguin To Launch New Books As ebooks Too
Penguin has long been a supporter of the fledgling ebook market but it’s now upping the ante by announcing plans to launch ebook versions of new books at the same time as print editions.
According to Pearson, which owns Penguin and others, ebooks from Penguin, Dorling Kindersley and its travel division will be available for download from September in the .epub format, in order to meet rising demand. Penguin is already working on creating ebook versions of its 5,000 book back catalogue.
The first print/ebook titles to be published will include……
….Zoe Heller’s new novel The Believers, and the paperbacks of Elizabeth Noble’s Things I Want My Daughter to Know and Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence.
Genevieve Shore, digital director at Penguin said: “We have seen in other markets that the digital best-sellers are the same books making it to the top of the best-seller lists and we know our readers expect both editions to be available at the same time.”
Don’t be expecting any deals for saving all those trees though since the ebooks will cost the same as their pulp cousins. Hardly sounds fair.-Martin Lynch
Star Wars Gets Steampunk’d
We like our Steampunk gadgets here at Gizmodo and one of the model maestros, Sillof, has turned his hand to reinventing the Star Wars cast, with some interesting takes.
Purists will no doubt be drawing on the power of The Force for emotional equilibrium but you can’t argue that the guy has some skill. Steampunk tends to meld Victorian looks and antiquated technologies like valves, gears and clunky bits to create something both new and old in the same go.
Check out the very cool – and fully functional – Steampunk PC and an even weirder Steampunklaptop.
Here we get the key Stars Wars cast looking all old-new in one go. Sillof should get credit alone for making wimpy protocol droid, C-3PO, look dangerous.
I really like his take on Lord Vader although I’m pretty sure if you tried to put him in those thigh-high boots, you’d quickly find yourself floating a few feet off the ground wondering where the air’s gone.
Watch Darth doing a twirl for the cameras below and see the rest of the re-imagined cast here.-Martin Lynch
