SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket exploded on liftoff Sunday, here’s what we know so far

Private space firm SpaceX was planning to make a third attempt atlanding the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket following a launch on Sunday, but that didn’t happen. The rocket was lost about two minutes after takeoff, and with it over 4000 pounds of supplies and equipment intended for the International Space Station. This is the second launch failure in a row for the ISS resupply project and the third in the last year.

This is sure to be an embarrassment for SpaceX, which hopes to receive approval from NASA to ferry astronauts to and from orbit in the Dragon 2 crew cabin. Still, the company is maintaining its standard open approach to public relations. The video of the launch, complete with explosion, is still available on the official SpaceX YouTube page, and preliminary data on the “anomaly” has been released.

Elon Musk has hinted at a “counterintuitive cause” for the explosion, but specifics are slim. Musk has further stated that mission control didn’t get any warning messages from the Falcon 9 prior to this event, but an “over-pressure event” was detected in the second stage fuel tank. Shortly before the rocket disintegrates, you can see a cloud of vapor forming around the junction of the first and second stage. That’s most likely the result of a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE). This is what happens when a vessel containing liquid (like the liquid oxygen in the second stage fuel tanks) at or above its boiling point experiences a sudden drop in pressure that causes it all to boil simultaneously. Things go wrong at about 23:20 in the video below

It appears that the first and second stages broke up, followed by an explosion that destroyed the first stage. According to SpaceX, mission control did get telemetry from the Dragon capsule after the explosion, indicating it was still intact. Dragon has parachutes, but it’s unclear if any of them could be deployed before it hit the water. It’s likely that it had enough speed to breach on impact and sink. The cargo is probably toast, but there could still be useful data if the capsule could be recovered.

As for the ISS crew, they’re not yet in any real danger. It’s standard procedure to have a substantial excess of supplies on the station in case of situations like this. Even with two failed supply runs in a row, the crew won’t need to start rationing until late July, and more resupply missions are scheduled before then. In a worst-case scenario, there’s a Soyuz capsule docked at the station as a lifeboat, so the crew can just hop on-board and return to Earth if need be. One of the biggest setbacks is the loss of new docking adapters that were on the Dragon capsule. These components are needed to ready the ISS for private crew vehicles to dock with the station, which is supposed to start happening in 2017.

A Russian resupply mission is currently scheduled to go up later this week, and additional crew are heading to the station in a few weeks. SpaceX will be investigating the incident with the help of government agencies so the problem can be fixed before the next Falcon 9 launch late this year.

Rejuvenate hack compatible with the PSM Dev Assistant for Unity, could open many doors including PSTV support

YifanLu just announced that the Rejuvenate hack is likely to be compatible with the PSM Dev assistant for Unity. That app, which is similar to the PSM Dev Assistant that was required for Rejuvenate, brings some additional features that the hack can leverage.

First of all, the PSM For unity app can be debugged over wifi. This means that through this app, it could be possible to run Rejuvenate without a USB connection. As a result, it also potentially brings PSTV compatibility with the hack.

Secondly, the PSM for unity app apparently isn’t DRMed, and does not require a license. This is probably a big announcement right here: people who did not register for the PSM dev portal now have a chance at getting the hack moving forward. Installing the pkg file will require access to the package installer app (tough given that this app has been made difficult to access quite a while ago) or to a PS3 (this one should be easier?)

This is all of course assuming you are still on firmware 3.51! Firmware 3.52 blocked access to these apps, and will not work with Rejuvenate.

(logo credits: egarrote from elotrolado.net)

YifanLu stated that more work is of course required to port Rejuvenate and the exploit (VitaDefiler) to the PSM Unity app. Sadly, he lacks the time to actually work on this, and is calling for help to the scene. Everything is open source, so people with the required skills should be able to do this.

On my end, I have some amount of work to do in order to release PSM+. PSM+ is a system that will allow people who have the PSM App installed, but no publisher license, to run homebrews. PSM+ is not my work, it is a combined work from TomTomdu80, Mr.Gas, and YifanLu. However I am hosting it on this site, and because some of the steps are CPU intensive, I have to tread carefully. Bear with me as I gather the required time to launch this.

Source and details: Yifanlu

PS Vita Firmware 3.52 is out, revokes PSM support, effectively patching the Rejuvenate hack (do not update!)

PS Vita firmware 3.52 is out, and it patches the Rejuvenate hack, by revoking PSM from the device.

If you are running the Rejuvenate hack, or are hoping to run it, do not update to firmware 3.52. This “stability” update has the only goal of blocking the recently released native hack.
Just like many other stability updates on the PS vita, the sole goal of this update is to slow down the hacking scene, and this will not bring any stability whatsoever. Add it to the pile of updates Sony released only for the sake of the scene 

For those of you who do not have a publisher’s license but have the PSM Dev App installed, we’re still figuring out the timing to release PSM+, the tools that will let you run Rejuvenate without a publisher’s license (some details here).

It is important at this point that as many people as possible stay on 3.51 or lower. A significant amount of people running the Rejuvenate hack could make a huge difference in how lively the PS vita scene will become in the months to come. I have lots of things to announce to follow up on the hack release, unfortunately the timing is not perfect on my end as I just switched jobs and don’t have the time I want to spend on this. Please bear with me.

Do NOT update to 3.52 if you ever want to run Rejuvenate. Even if you can't download/use PSM DevAssistant, hold off on 3.52 for now!

— Yifan (@yifanlu) June 24, 2015

.@heleius Basically they revoked PSM. Sorry to any PSM dev who wanted to fix bugs in their games before the deadline.

— Yifan (@yifanlu) June 24, 2015

Our friend Heleius at hackinformer stated that other, undisclosed hacks, including ePSP hacks, are still working on this firmware, confirming that the Rejuvenate hack was the only target for this update.

Pasta CFW Version 1.3 (beta3) is out for 3DS

My favourite 3DS Custom Firmware “Pasta CFW” has been updated to Version 1.3 (beta3). Most important feature for this update is “Firmlaunch”. Firmlaunch lets you spoof your New 3DS firmware to 9.5 and Old 3DS firmware to 9.6.

Pasta CFW is a custom firmware for 3DS. It lets you install and run unsigned .cia files. It is an open source project and new features are added by every update. Right now, it works up to 9.2 firmwares on both original and new 3ds. It  requires a Cubic Ninja cartridge to boot. If you are on 4.x original 3DS, you can also use the DS Profile (MSET) exploit, this way you won’t need Cubic Ninja.

Pasta CFW can do things Gateway can’t (GBA/DSiWare games booting, being able to use SaveDataFiler to extract saves from retail cartridges) and can’t do some things Gateway can (EmuNAND support, MSET support for new 3DS via downgraded system settings, spider entry point for original 3DS). Still Pasta CFW is a good alternative, it doesn’t need a flashcart, it is open source and developers behind it are open to suggestions.

With the latest update, Pasta CFW can use Firmlaunch. “FIRMLAUNCH is a feature that allow launching titles that requires a higher FIRM version that the one you have.” says motezazer, one of the developers of Pasta CFW. Think of it like a firmware spoofer, it is not the same thing but you get the idea. Right now it supports up to 9.5 fw on New 3DS and 9.6 fw on original 3DS. Thanks to this update, Xenoblade Chronicles which need 9.3 firmware finally works on New 3DS via Pasta CFW. As there is still no way to have gateway/custom firmwares on firmwares above 9.2, this feature is a great addition to Pasta CFW. Also WIP features include EmuNAND support and spider entry point. I can’t wait to see these features included in Pasta CFW.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D working via Pasta CFW

It is good to see open source custom firmwares on 3DS scene and as these custom firmwares are getting better and better, pricey flashcarts/DRM dongles will be useless in the near feature in my opinion.

Here is the full changelog of the latest update of Pasta CFW:

UPDATE (21 June 2015): VERSION 1.3 (beta3)!!!
-Moved the GUI code to arm9
-UI completely redesigned
-Added config app inside the CFW_Launcher: you can edit settings without the companion, directly on your 3DS!
-Added Nand Dumper!
-Added ARM9 dumper interface
-Added FIRMLAUNCH!
-Added FIRM downloader inside PC Companion App (windows only, for now)
-A lot of code cleanup

-Beta3: now you can enable and disable firmlaunch from settings!

Pasta CFW Download

You can Download Pasta CFW here.

For Source and more information, visit the thread at GBATEMP or check the github source. Always have a sysNAND backup ready before dealing with custom firmwares or any other thing which deals with sysNAND.

Vita Hack Rejuvenate – How to run your first homebrew

The vita hack Rejuvenate was released this week, and is the very first native hack for the PS Vita. People might be confused as to what they need in order to run their homebrews, so here’s some quick how to.

Requirements to run Vita Hack – Rejuvenate

• you need to be approved as a PSM Publisher. If you’re not a PSM Publisher, a friend of yours with a PSM publisher license can generate the required keys for you (see official documentation). If you don’t have friends, stay tuned: ways to bypass this limitation will be revealed soon.
• The current version of Rejuvenate works on Vita firmwares 3.00 to 3.51 included
• You need the PSM Dev Assistant app installed on your PS Vita. Compatible versions are 1.11, 1.14, 1.15
• The tools require a Windows computer for now
• Because of the need to have a USB connection to your Vita to run homwbres, Rejuvenate is not compatible with the PS TV as of today.

you need to have the following software:

• Rejuvenate 0.2
• .NET Framework 2.0
• .NET Framework 4.0
• Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable
• Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable
• PSM_SDK_1.21.02.exe (333MB) (installation for that last one is not required, you only need the files!)

Install and Run your first Rejuvenate homebrew

Please note that YifanLu is providing all the steps as clearly as can be in his readme, with several troubleshooting steps that we reproduce below.Read those if you run into an issue and before asking for help, this could save you lots of time!

1. make sure you have the prerequisites installed (see above)
2. Extract the Rejuvenate 0.2 zip to a folder on your windows computer.
3. Copy  PSM_SDK_1.21.02.exe to the current directory and runSETUP.BAT. Follow the instructions. You will need to do this only once. The setup will:
   1. Extract the PSM SDK
   2. Install the PSM Driver (this will require admin permission)
   3. Ask you to enter your PSM Dev Assistant version number (reminder, this is currently only compatible with 1.11, 1.14, 1.15)
4. Connect your PS Vita to your PC, and run the PSM Dev Assistant.
5. To run homebrew, drag your homebrew elf file INTO “run_homebrew.bat” (as of now, only the provided “Hello World” file works)
   1. Note: I initially got a “connection error” when doing this. Running the “Ballblaze” Demo through the PSM Dev Assistant, then trying again, seemed to “unblock” the issue

And you’re good to go!

Google looks to patent smart contact lenses for ‘iris fingerprint’ detection

Google’s getting more and more fascinated with biometric security measures. According to a recent patent filing, the Mountain View, California search engine giant is looking to integrate fingerprint authentication into its latest Android M update that will arrive this Fall. In addition to Google’s mobile efforts, the company has also been flirting with the idea of smart glasses (a la Glass) as well as smart contact lenses with an integrated camera for those who’d rather not bring too much attention to themselves.

Google also aims to design smart biometric technology to aid the health of humanity with its smart contact lenses, which can detect blood sugar levels via tear ducts. But the company also sees technology in a broader light, including security. To this end, Google’s latest patent shows it’s moving toward more secure forms of biometric identification – and iris fingerprints are more difficult for a hacker to “lift” than hand fingerprints.

The patent, dated June 2, 2015, covers a smart contact lens and a circuit containing light sensors (situated slightly over the iris) that scan the eye to form an “iris fingerprint” of an individual. The iris fingerprint detected by the light sensors would then be compared with an iris fingerprint on a computing device (whether desktop, mobile, etc.) for user authentication for a website or account, for example. As with prior smart contacts patents, the iris fingerprint detection system presented here would also call for a wireless power source of some kind.

In line with its commitment to user identification and internet security, Google says that “users can opt out of providing personal information” with an iris fingerprint detection system, and that data could be “anonymized” while still safeguarding account users.

Smart contact lenses could serve a number of purposes beyond biometric identification and measuring blood glucose levels. For one, smart contact lenses could also deliver medication doses over time (say, each hour or two), instead of requiring patients to take large medication doses at once. Night vision would be another benefit of smart contact lenses — a huge help for those who have trouble seeing at night, such as the visually impaired. And tear ducts contain an ingredient called lacryglobin that detects various cancers (breast, lung, brain, and so on), so smart contact lenses could help doctors and patients detect early, troubling signs or monitor for remission.

Google is but one of a few entities working on the future of contact lens technology: Swiss company Sensimed wants to use smart lenses to measure ocular inflammation in glaucoma patients; Seattle, Washington company Innovega has its sights set on creating smart lenses that can handle high-resolution displays while not affecting user vision; and the University of Michigan wants to create infrared lenses that provide night vision.

While plenty of patents are filed that never come to fruition, Google’s interest in smart contact lenses seem to be growing, which explains why the company announced its new partnership with Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis last year to begin the production of its smart contact lenses. Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez said that consumers can expect to see Google’s contact lenses on the market no earlier than 2019. Regardless of when the smart eyewear arrives to market, you can be sure that smart contact lenses will do more than just look fashionable.

PS Vita Hack: Yifan Lu announces “Rejuvenate” – A platform for native PS Vita Homebrews!

Despite not getting a space on Sony’s E3 lineup, Yifan Lu decided to announce a PS Vita hack: the Rejuvenate platform for the PS Vita on his very own blog.

But what is Rejuvenate? Well…

PS Vita Hack – What is Rejuvenate?

Summarized: A way to have native PS Vita homebrews on your portable (No PS VitaTV support) Playstation Vita handheld!

The Rejuvenate ps vita hack does NOT enable any kind of PS Vita piracy, even if Yifan Lu wished to, he cannot, due to limitations preventing piracy on the vita itself.

Yifan Lu bypassed a few limitations that Sony has added to the PSM programme, which in the end made it possible for him to enable native Homebrews for the PS Vita through this hack.

Like he has said in the past few weeks, the PSM Dev application is necessary and you have to have the PSM SDK installed (on your computer). If you lack these things, you cannot use Rejuvenate. Yifan Lu says he expects Sony to remove the PSM Dev App from the PSN Store any time now, so get it while you still can.

If you are a fan of numbers, then keep in mind that the PSP 2000+ (non-1000) has 64MB of shared memory, runs at 333MHz (CPU) and 166Mhz (GPU), while the PS Vita has 512MB of memory (main), 128MB of (video) RAM and four CPU’s running at approx. 1GHz each!

If the PSP could provide cool homebrews with its weak hardware, then just think of what the PS Vita, and its great hardware, could be capable of?!

Heavy modifications in terms of installing an alternative OS, major (or minor) system modifications or kernel access is not possible with Rejuvenate.

If you want to know more about Yifan Lu’s upcoming platform release, then head over to his blog. He is explaining a lot of things regarding Rejuvenate, including the upcoming release schedule, as well as limitations. Cheers for this PS Vita hack!

Source via Yifan Lu.

Researchers power surveillance cam with WiFi signal

At Google I/O a few weeks ago, Google unveiled Brillo, its Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform. Brillo has been devised to compete with Samsung’s ARTIK and Apple’s HomeKit, and delivers a system where all of its devices talk to both the Internet and each other. While Google’s IoT plans involve the interaction of multiple devices, little was said about how these devices would remain charged or recharge in such 

situations, at least without needing wall chargers or external battery packs.

A team of researchers has developed Power Wi-Fi, a system that could potentially speed up IoT adoption in the next few years. Power Wi-Fi essentially recharges devices by way of a Wi-Fi router. For the experiment, University of Washington-Seattle doctoral student Vamsi Talla and fellow Sensor Systems Lab colleagues used a battery-free camera and a temperature sensor, both containing Wi-Fi chips, placed inside six homes along with Wi-Fi routers (Asus RT-AC68U) that powered the devices.

The team then modified the routers to broadcast noise and maintain constant energy to power the camera and temperature sensor. The experiment employed low-power VGA Omnivision camera and an LMT84 temperature sensor. Future possibilities include wireless charging hotspots to power fitness trackers, although security could be an issue with public Wi-Fi networks.

Power Wi-Fi may transcend traditional wall, USB, and wireless charging, but the technology seems to suffer from small power output. In Talla’s experiment, the team was only able to snap one picture on the Omnivision camera after 35 minutes of charging. Additionally, as is often the case with current wireless devices and Wi-Fi, the power “leaks during silent periods, limiting Wi-Fi’s ability to meet the minimum vintage requirements of the hardware,” the team said in its paper on the experiment.

So long charging times are a problem — as they are with solar and other emerging energy solutions. On the plus side, the team was able to maintain consistent data transmission rates while powering the camera. And with public Wi-Fi hotspots finally beginning to deliver mass Internet access to the public, power over Wi-Fi could quickly overtake wireless charging as a possible, futuristic way to charge our devices.

[3DS] rxTools with patched out signature checks released

Developer AHB_person released a version of rxTools with patched out signature checks. This allows installing and running .cia files without valid signatures.

rxTools by Roxas75 is a versatile CFW for original 3DS (3DS, 3DS XL/LL, 2DS) which lets you have emuNAND up to 9.8. It also includes powerful tools to manipulate/dump NAND, system titles etc. It can be booted through DS profile exploit MSET (up to 4.5 SysNAND) or through the browser (up to 9.2 SysNAND). Now with the patched signature checks, rxTools can be used as a replacement of Gateway. It doesn’t have the full feature list of Gateway, but it is really close.

Credit to Roxas75

This patched rxTools has 2 versions. One version has Gameboy Advance and DSiWare games support which Gateway lacks. Unfortunately this version doesn’t support booting Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and Super Smash Bros. The other version supports booting Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and Super Smash Bros. but lacks GBA and DSiWare support. For anyone wondering, you can boot GBA games even from EmuNAND. You are no longer bound to installing these titles to SysNAND. DSiWare games still need to be booted through SysNAND though.

PastaCFW and signature patched RxTools are great alternatives to Gateway for now. What do you think about the future of Gateway?

SOURCE:

Homepage of original rxTools

Signature patched version of rxTools at GBATEMP

GBA rom injection is now possible for 3DS

Hacker Riku at GBATemp has managed to inject GBA roms to official GBA emulator on 3DS. This is the first time the official GBA emulator on 3DS can be used for something other than the 10 games Nintendo made available for Ambassador 3DS owners.

Nintendo offered Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program as a way of showing appreciation for the people who bought their 3DS before the price drop. The program includes 20 virtual console games in total, 10 NES and 10 GBA games. Even though Nintendo made NES games available for public later, GBA games were never made available thus making ambassador consoles precious.

Official GBA emulator on 3DS is very accurate. It uses the hardware emulation for accuracy. That makes in-game home menu, sleep function and savestates impossible but it is a price to pay i guess.

Credits to Riku at GBATEMP

GBA rom injection is possible on all 3DS models. That means 3DS, 3DS XL/LL, 2DS, New 3DS and New 3DS XL/LL. You will need PBT CFW (for o3DS and 4.5 firmware only) or Pasta CFW (up to 9.2 both for o3DS and New 3DS). Gateway doesn’t support this yet, so i would advise using Pasta CFW instead. Also you can only use this on sysNAND, emuNAND doesn’t work for GBA titles.

The process involves installing stuff to sysNAND so i would advise to do a good reading before applying. Also having sysNAND backups can only help.

Source, Tutorial and Downloads are at GBATEMP.

Vita index.dat decryption keys released

A set of Vita keys for decrypting index.dat have emerged on vitadevwikiyesterday, through updates by Hykem and Proxima. This lets us decrypt the index.dat file, one of the system files on Vita.

Will this lead to other achievements or decrypting other system files? It is too early to speculate, let us wait and see. We will be sure to update the situation when new information arrives.

Source at Vitadevwiki

Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 offers USB compatibility — at full Thunderbolt speed

Ever since Intel launched its high-performance Thunderbolt interface, it’s been fighting to win market share away from USB devices. There’s never been any question of which standard was faster — first-generation Thunderbolt blew USB 3.0 out of the water — but higher device costs, expensive cables, and limited OEM uptake have limited Thunderbolt’s market penetration. Today, with the announcement of Intel’s Alpine Ridge, that schism is effectively over. Third-generation Thunderbolt won’t just be faster than USB 3.0 or USB 3.1, it’ll offer all of its performance over the same type of plug.

Thunderbolt 3, aka Alpine Ridge, accomplishes this by integrating a USB 3.1 controller directly on-platform, neatly bypassing the entire “Should I use Thunderbolt 3 or USB” argument altogether.

Here’s what this means, in aggregate: You can now run DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, USB 3, and PCI-Express over a single Thunderbolt port. Even better, the USB 3.1 port in question is USB 3.1 Gen 2, as opposed to the USB 3.1 Gen 1 (aka USB 3.0) port that Apple uses for its new MacBook. Unlike Thunderbolt 2, which kept total bandwidth the same as Thunderbolt 1.0, but allowed for more flexible bandwidth sharing options to improve performance, Thunderbolt doubles real bandwidth to up to 40Gbps.

Intel doesn’t include PCI-Express on its list of interfaces, but at this point, it could. 40Gbps works out to 5GB/s worth of bandwidth — which means Thunderbolt 3 can provide roughly a bit less bandwidth than an older PCI-Express 2.0 connection. The new standard offers support for up to two 4K 60Hz panels or a single 5K 60Hz display (this makes sense, as a 5K 60Hz panel is roughly 1.8x as many pixels as a 4K panel). This works out to an x4 PCI-E 3.0 connection. While not exactly suited for multi-GPU configurations, it should be enough bandwidth to run a single card at near-full speed in the vast majority of cases.

The combined Thunderbolt 3 / USB 3.1 standard will offer up to 100W for laptop charging if the manufacturer certifies the port to draw that much power and 15W of power for standard, bus-powered devices. 15W is significant because that’s more than enough energy to run most hard drive docks or external peripherals, including low-power portable displays.

The new configurations are also supposed to be flexible. Second device ports offer all the same functionality as the computer port, meaning you can plug a USB device into a monitor, which then connects to the computer via a Thunderbolt cable. Up to six devices can be daisy chained. Intel is also pushing the entire concept of a Thunderbolt external graphics dock for mobile gaming, and even the use of Thunderbolt for networking purposes.

One of the problems with Thunderbolt has been its reliance on expensive cabling. While the standard has never required the optical cables that were originally meant to debut alongside it, the available copper cables have often been expensive. Intel has improved the situation somewhat: Thunderbolt 3 will support passive cabling up to two meters with bandwidth of up to 20Gbps, 40Gbps active copper cables for full 40Gbps connectivity (again, up to two meters long), and 40Gbps optical cables arriving in 2016, with lengths of up to 60 meters.

Could Thunderbolt 3 finally catch on?

I’ve always been dubious about Thunderbolt’s chances of finding wide acceptance, but this latest announcement makes me think claims of Thunderbolt’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. FireWire may have lost its fight with USB, but FireWire never took the step of integrating a USB controller into the same package.

The two major questions remaining are how much Thunderbolt chips will cost and when they’ll ship. Intel has said it expects to begin shipping devices by the end of this year, which implies the new technology will show up on Skylake. If the licensing fees are reasonable, high-end devices with combined Thunderbolt / USB 3 ports could quickly become commonplace.

Gateway Ultra v3.2.2 Public Beta Released

Today Gateway Team released v3.2.2 firmware update for their flashcart. This update makes updating EmuNAND to latest 9.8.0-25 firmware possible. Unfortunately it is only for Old 3DS.

Just following the release of 9.8.0-25 firmware for 3DS, Gateway was hasty to update their flashcart to support 9.8 firmware on EmuNAND. Without this update, 9.8 EmuNAND has compatibility problems like missing multi-rom menu etc. This flashcart firmware update only affects EmuNAND, so no other new features.

If you don’t have a flashcart and still want 9.8 EmuNAND, RxTools can cover you. It has perfect support for 9.8 firmware. Again only on Old 3DS.

Unfortunately right now there is no way to have an EmuNAND above 9.5 for New 3DS. Hope it will be possible in the future.

Also keep in mind that Gateway works up to 9.2 firmware on your 3DS SysNAND, there is still no workaround for higher firmwares.

Source and Download at Gateway’s official site.