Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to make a digital copy of any of your DVDs as if it were an audio CD you wanted to import with iTunes? You can! I mean, you will once RealNetworks introduces it’s $30 software program: RealDVD. It’ll allow users to make a digital copy of an entire DVD, including all the extras and artwork from the box.

Let’s face it: Blu-ray is king these days and that sucks for all the loons who bought a library of DVD movies (which is everyone). Now that DVD is out the window, Hollywood could care less if you copy all of your DVDs and start selling them on your website. OK, that’s not true at all but at least it’s giving up the ban on digital backups. If you dare do it with Blu-ray discs, the peoples of Hollywood will hunt you down and kill you. Just prepare your hard drive beforehand, otherwise you’ll only be able to fit the first season of Dawson’s Creek on it, and we all know that the second season is way better.

Link

For all the iPhone owners out there, I don’t know how you can live without copy and paste functionality. Lucky for you, there’s OpenClip:

A non-profit, open source implementation of copy and paste for the iPhone, OpenClip uses an area of the filesystem to enable participating apps to share the contents of a common clipboard. A small number of apps have pledged support, and until Apple has its own version this may come in handy from time to time.

And it’s just as awesome as you’d expect. It blends in almost seamlessly with the iPhone interface. It’s even open source, so you know it’s going to take off like a rocket if enough people start using it. Hit the link below to visit the OpenClip website.

Link (via)

The Netherlands-based locksporting group Toool held a panel at HOPE discussing new and advanced opening techniques for high security locks. We sat in on this two hour discussion with Barry Wels and Han Fey commenting on some unorthodox approaches to key copying.

The speakers mentioned how easy it is to copy even the most exclusive of key profiles, which in actuality, only block hardware store copying methods. Noting the classic clay mold approaches to key copying, the speakers quickly alluded to the simplicity of imprinting the key’s marks on your own arm as a form of copying. Go ahead and press your house key into your forearm, the imprint stays there longer than you’d think.

They even challenged attendees to bring their own locks or “impossible to copy” keys, so they can take a crack at it. What daring hackers.

Link

This is no April’s fool joke, but the above picture shows a real product label of a device named PS3 that is made in the mysterious country of Koera. Strangely enough there is also an IMEI code. Jump to find out more.

(more…)

Comparing to Nokia, LG is doing a far better job in handling illegal “replicas”. That is, they act before the replicas had the chance to become popular, before their own product starts selling, and most importantly before they have to hire a law firm. Across the Easter weekend LG has issued a warning letter to shops in Hong Kong warning them from carrying the SHINE clone (a clone from a mainland Chinese company), the shops were so freaked out and removed the stock so fast that we didn’t even have the chance to figure out what they’re called, how they looked like. If Nokia is Nokir, does that make LG Shine Shinier? –Sam Chan

Link

Whilst Microsoft was bragging about the sales number of their latest OS Windows Vista, few would actually know that they have only managed to sell 244 copies in the whole of China in the first 2 weeks. You heard that right, and that’s the number quoted from the headquarters of the Windows Vista chief (90% national volume) distributor in Beijing.

We have gathered these pictures for you, showing various versions of illegal copies; some also come with Office, Linux, MacOS and Windows 98/Me/2000/XP on the same disc. However not all of them are reliable and not all files written on the box can be found on the disc. Most of these copies make use of the Timestop hack (out of the 6 other mainstream hacks), so that users don’t have to go through the process of activation, and still manage to use the Windows Update service. But here at Gearfuse we advise our readers to respect copyright laws. –Sam Chan

Source in Chinese
Source in Japanese

While this new Canon fax machine labeled the JX200 looks very nice, one can’t help to wonder why anyone needs a stand-alone fax machine anymore? Aren’t fax machines so 90’s business room tech? With the thriving of multi-function printers that can fax, scan, copy, and have built-in phones, what is the point of this? There are advantages to having a standalone: the main one being that it does its job well, not a ton of jobs OK. So for specs, the JX200 scans and copies at speeds of one page per six seconds. canon also has said that this fax machine is fairly quite, which is something that is pretty hard to find in printing type devices. There is no doubt that this is a high quality product despite its fair price of $80. Canon does not put out products that disappoint. High quality is all fine and good, but is there a demand for fax machines when you can buy multi-functions that can do so much more for just a bit more of an investment? — Nik Gomez

Canon’s New Ol’ Fashioned Fax Machine [SlashGear]