Articles:

• Ball Physics: The science behind the swerve
• 100,000 years old: Tooth gives up oldest human DNA
• 06/06/06: The Nick of time , 666 day inspires demonic releases

Clips:

• Multi-Touch Interaction Research 
• Intro to Mackbook Pro
• Just for fun

Others:

• The Press Photographer's Year 2006
• Mango How To
• Download Firefox extensions 

“A website titled Windows XP on Mac has been collecting a pool of donations for anyone who could successfully boot Windows XP on an unmodified Intel Mac. The pool grew slowly at first, but as the news of the contest spread, it passed the US$13,000 mark. The first hint that “narf” may have figured it out came in the form of a set of photos on Flickr that seemed to show Windows XP on an iMac of some sort. Next came the videos and an acknowledgement from the contest administrators that a solution had been submitted. And finally, this morning, onmac.net announced that a proposed solution had been found and had been tested successfully. The contest had been won, and it looks like “narf” is about to almost US$14,000 richer.

The WindowsXP on Mac website has now posted the solution developed by Narf. It is fairly complicated and will probably be a little difficult for novice users to get a handle on, but I’m certain that an easier, more accessible way to deploy this will become available in a relatively short amount of time. The only downfall that I can see is that you’ll need a PC to complete the process, which defeats the purpose of this exercise for a portion of the people who’ve been anticipating this solution.”

Credits: arstechnica.com

They had cracked the first of the three German WWII cipher last month. I had written about it and it worths reading for an introduction about these group of amateurs code crackers involved in an online project called “Project M4″. [ Read about it here ]

Well now they have cracked the second one.

The cipher was..

“TMKF NWZX FFII YXUT IHWM DHXI FZEQ VKDV MQSW BQND YOZF TIWM JHXH YRPA CZUG RREM VPAN WXGT KTHN RLVH KZPG MNMV SECV CKHO INPL HHPV PXKM BHOK CCPD PEVX VVHO ZZQB IYIE OUSE ZNHJ KWHY DAGT XDJD JKJP KCSD SUZT QCXJ DVLP AMGQ KKSH PHVK SVPC BUWZ FIZP FUUP”

and the solution is…

Found nothing on convoy’s course 55°, [I am] moving to the ordered [naval] square. Position naval square AJ 3995. [wind] south-east [force] 4, sea [state] 3, 10/10 cloudy, [barometer] [10]28 mb [and] rising, fog, visibility 1 nautical mile

Only the third cipher remains unsolved so far and it is something like this.

“HCEY ZTCS OPUP PZDI UQRD LWXX FACT TJMB HDVC JJMM ZRPY IKHZ AWGL YXWT MJPQ UEFS ZBCT VRLA LZXW VXTS LFFF AUDQ FBWR RYAP SBOW JMKL DUYU PFUQ DOWV HAHC DWAU ARSW TXCF VOYF PUFH VZFD GGPO OVGR MBPX XZCA NKMO NFHX PCKH JZBU MXJW XKAU OD?Z UCVC XPFT”

soon this will also get cracked.

• runs a “variant” of Windows XP (and can run other x86-compatible operating systems)
• 7-inch screen
• Price? “Under a $1,000.”

See Also:
Origami Update
Microsoft Alexandria? Origami?
Origami Project (Official Site)

Click on the below picture of origami (not confirmed) and you will notice an icon labelled “Alexandria” on the top right of the device’s desktop, also on the right side of the current window title bar.

Is it another secretive Microsoft product or something related to Windows Media Video subscription system used in Vongo?

See also: Origami Update

Gaining root access to a Mac is “easy pickings,” according to an individual who won an OS X hacking challenge last month by gaining root control of a machine using an unpublished security vulnerability.

On Feb. 22, the Sweden-based Mac enthusiast set up his Mac Mini as a server and invited hackers to break through the computer’s security and gain root control, which would allow the attacker to take charge of the computer and delete files and folders or install applications.

Participants were given local client access to the target computer and invited to try their luck.

Within hours of going live, the “rm-my-mac” competition was over. The challenger posted this message on his Web site: “This sucks. Six hours later, this poor little Mac was owned, and this page got defaced.”

The hacker who won the challenge, who asked ZDNet Australia to identify him only as “Gwerdna,” said he gained root control of the Mac in less than 30 minutes. [ Read More ]

Adventures of Fatman: An excellent and well-produced adventure game, in the style of the old Lucasarts ones. Recently released as freeware.

Beneath a Steel Sky: Created by Revolution Software back in 1994 for the Amiga and the PC and based on Dave Gibbons’ artistic vision, this is a perfect free download. A cult classic nonetheless.

Room War: A very small first person flyer-shooter, that (in my case at least) proved to be extremely addictive. Decent 3d graphics and a lot of Alienware-advertising textures.

Porrasturvat: Throw people off a stair. A production that is considered an absolute classic, as long as you know what scene, the demoscene is.

Grand Theft Auto: Yes, the same that spawned the GTA: San Andreas smash hit. It is offered for free, along with GTA2 and Wild Metal, by the beautiful, magnificent, generous and over-all good guys of Rockstar!

Cedric and the Revolution: An adventure. Follow the link, read the review and (if interested) download it. Simple as that.

Halo Zero: HALO in 2d? Yes. HALO in 2d. Oldschool gaming with a French contemporary touch…

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The best and funniest text adventure ever created, was written by the late and much beloved Douglas Adams, and is offered in an enhanced and free version by the BBC.

The Ur-Quan Masters: This is basically the classic Star Control 2, only enhanced and with much better graphics (and deeper storyline etc). The name-change was due to legal reasons. Of course.

Dofus is a MMO. Almost a MMORPG, but more tactical, thus a MMOTRPG. Still, it looks great, plays better and it’s free.

Air Hockey: Obvious. Air Hockey.

Cirque de Zale: A 2d, 3rd person point-and-click adventure. Very good humor, nice graphics and quite easy. Very easy actually. Still a weird, funny little game.

Heroquest: The old (classic some might argue) MB and Games Workshop board game on PC. Quite entertaining and doesn’t cost a thing.

FreeCiv: Remember Civilization 4? Well, FreeCiv isn’t nearly as good, looks dated and simple, but it’s free. And it is Civ (FreeCiv, but still…)

War Rock: Shoot people in the head.

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory: Shoot more people in the head.

Bloom: Be a flower! Or something like that, in a beautiful and innovative game.

Dink Smallwood: The well known freeware, zelda-like RPG. Formerly a commercial game.

Hacker: Be a Hacker in a (I believe, I guess, I don’t really know) rather realistic game.

Star Wraith 2: A space shooter created in Dark Basic. Rather basic, but good fun. They actually used to sell this game(!). Apparently a Star Wraith 1 must have existed too.

Apprentice: Already reviewed by me. Read the review. Then enjoy it (the game that is, not the review, which is quite enjoyable too. Anyway. You know what I mean…)

S.W.I.N.E.: I guess most people refer to it as SWINE, and believe it is a very good RTS(for a freeware at least).

Defender of the Crown: The old arcade-strategy-action classic by Cinemaware, is now being brought back to you by Cinemaware. Wow!

Eye of the Kraken: An amazing, strange and funny-at-times 3rd person adventure. It’s a full blown former-commercial production.

No-Action Jackson: Another adventure, only not a professional one. It is excellent though. Great cartoon graphics, good dialog, good jokes, Lucasarts style and a plot that has to do with (pen and paper) RPGs.

Anarchy Online: The well known commercial, contemporary MMORPG. Well, part of it is free. Go play with the big boys.

DOOM, the roguelike: Combine ascii graphics, Rogue dungeon-based gameplay and the Doom atmosphere and this is what you get.

T2002: Or, to be more precise, Turrican 2002. Get it? Go get it now!

Source: gnomeslair

“StationRipper^TM allows you to Record Internet Radio Stations and broadcasts.”

Pros about it

• Splits up internet radio songs to single MP3 files
• naming by bandname and song name
• Downloads album art.
• Can search for songs and bands that stations have been playing.
• Fast connections can get thousands of songs a day.

Cons

• quality is relatively not good
• low bit rates, most stations doesn’t exceed 128bps
• the program can’t figure out the beginning and end of songs
• all stations doesn’t release ID3 song info

Is it really legal as they claim, after all we are copying songs from the radio stations without any permision? It’s same as downloading songs from P2P networks. But few care anyways about its legality.

If you want to try click here to download it.

One of the three unsolved complex ciphers encoded by a new version of German Enigma machine in 1942 has been cracked by online amateur cryptologists. It has been solved using a code breaking-software run on a grid of home computers linked through internet. This attempt was started by Stephen krah who is interested in cryptography and open source software. The project named “Project M4” by Krah has 2,500 participants now.

The encrypted cipher which doesn’t make any sense is,

“NCZW VUSX PNYM INHZ XMQX SFWX WLKJ AHSH NMCO CCAK UQPM KCSM HKSE INJU SBLK IOSX CKUB HMLL XCSJ USRR DVKO HULX WCCB GVLI YXEO AHXR HKKF VDRE WEZL XOBA FGYU JQUK GRTV UKAM EURB VEKS UHHV OYHA BCJW MAKL FKLM YFVN RIZR VVRT KOFD ANJM OLBG FFLE OPRG TFLV RHOW OPBE KVWM UQFM PWPA RMFH AGKX IIBG”

and the cracked cipher after translation to English is very informative,

“Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. Last enemy position 0830h AJ 9863, [course] 220 degrees, [speed] 8 knots. [I am] following [the enemy]. [barometer] falls 14 mb, [wind] nor-nor-east, [force] 4, visibility 10 [nautical miles].”

It is believed that Enigma machine was “the backbone of German military and intelligence communication”. During the war, British team of codebreakers based in Bletchley Park were trying to decipher Enigma ciphers. They decoded thousands of these encrypted messages using early computers inorder to “head off U-boat attacks.

The unsolved cipher no.2 is,

“TMKF NWZX FFII YXUT IHWM DHXI FZEQ VKDV MQSW BQND YOZF TIWM JHXH YRPA CZUG RREM VPAN WXGT KTHN RLVH KZPG MNMV SECV CKHO INPL HHPV PXKM BHOK CCPD PEVX VVHO ZZQB IYIE OUSE ZNHJ KWHY DAGT XDJD JKJP KCSD SUZT QCXJ DVLP AMGQ KKSH PHVK SVPC BUWZ FIZP FUUP”

You can join the deciphering team in the Project M4 by allowing your computer to be used by the project.

I am always fascinated by cryptography and infact I attempted to make a program which would encrypt a message. I know the real cryptography involves lots of mathematics but I used a very simple method. Here is the screenshot of it:

The cryptogram of this line looks something like this;

Can anybody decipher this?;

MAG1%1AA(1G1.13B7AL0YA$1J1C0,A70GA>CRBV1)1TC?A\
0N1KC!AUA*C218A(121AC
A/AI1/1VA#161″1-0[AH0DB)CZA5ACB1A
0F0#0MC*CQBQ121=070O1*C.0,0+0NC4C/BF0]B9A!C”0T0R
C4C4B]1-C”B,15BKA[05B%A+C#C”B$0KBJA
A$C+BF000NBDA*C&CZA
W1^0=BZAQ0)0LB1ACC*C=BE1:1′A$BZBIA8C:1ZC+05AN0\
0ACXB/1K1?0W0S1J141 1MCN0(BF1J1906C41OAM0;0>
0&C91K0/0(B5CUA!0202B%C
QB’A116B1A!0&0Y0CC

There will be six different versions of Windows Vista (previous code name Longhorn) which is expected to be launched by end of 2006. The versions are organised by what you are planning to do with your computer. So they are:

• Vista Business
• Vista Enterprise
• Vista Home Basic
• Vista Home Premium
• Vista Ultimate
• Vista Starter

Vista Ultimate is my choice, because it has all the features of Home and Business editions all in one package. I am planning to lots of stuff my computer, so this the perfect choice for me. Although, I am also thinking to install a version of Linux in my PC for practicing programming in C++ but don’t know which one would be the best for a newbie like me.

By the way, I used to be a PROGRAMMER. I used to program in Visual Basic 6.0, made a couple of programs and then realized how limited it is so I started learning C++. Had to stop because of my O Level exams. After the exams I don’t know why I didn’t resume and lost interest. Hopefully I will resume after installing Linux and programme in that.

Links: Windows Vista Website

One of the first viruses for Apples’s OS X software has been found online. Popularity has its own drawbacks, right?

Read more about it: Malicious worm aims to bite Apple