Hack up your home devices

When north London-based computer programmer Johnny wants to listen to the music stored on his PC in his bedroom, he simply turns on his Microsoft Xbox in the lounge and presses play.

Johnny is one of growing breed of consumers who have added features and functionality to their games consoles by customising them, in this instance by adding a media player.

Game consoles aren't the only consumer electronics products that inquisitive hackers have been tinkering with, either. Across the world, thousands of DVD players have been tweaked, hard disk video recorders upgraded and post mortems undertaken on robot toys.

What's it all about?
While whipping the lid off a DVD player or Sky+ box is probably the last thing on the minds of most buyers, for a few adventurous types, customising consumer electronics devices has become something of an obsession. But why do they do it? What kind of features do they add to their gadgets, and what do manufacturers think about it?

Arguably, the reason there has been such an enormous growth in the number of people playing with consumer electronics products is 'convergence'. If you peek under the lid of, say, a games console or hard disk video recorder, you'll find a computer in all but name.

The kind of people who now tackle consumer electronic devices are the same people who used to mess around with PCs but now want another challenge.

As for why they do it, there are a number of reasons. Many are just inquisitive and want to play around with their unit's components. More intriguing are a small but growing number of hackers who are trying to develop a product further. Although manufacturers officially frown on this and stress that it invalidates a product's warranty, many are privately happy that their products are being expanded in this way.

In the future, most consumer electronics products will be built to be incorporated into a home entertainment network and if consumers can develop networking solutions, they will save manufacturers pots of money.

A strange kind of subculture has developed among these unofficial third-party developers, many of whom share their discoveries via websites and online discussion forums. This subculture has also prompted a series of books.

Matt Haughey, editor of the PVRblog website, reckons that there are now four books on how to modify the TiVo PVR (personal video recorder), with several others already in the pipeline. Books that explain how to tweak the Apple iPod are apparently not far away either.

Adding a little extra
Developing extra applications for a product is one thing. However, history inevitably shows that the main reason for modifying a consumer electronics device is to tweak it for more dubious reasons - so it will play games or movies not intended for it, for example. Just take a look at the DVD player and games consoles markets.

The first instance of large numbers of people taking a screwdriver to their devices was during the early days of DVD players in the late 1990s. Hollywood studios, keen to protect the timeline for DVD releases (US first, everyone else later), carved the world up into a series of 'Regions'. The US was christened Region One, while Europe and Japan became Region Two.

Studio bigwigs then put pressure on the DVD manufacturers to ensure that the players in the different Regions only played discs intended for that specific area. They imagined that Europeans would look on in envy at the new DVD releases in the US, some of which were only just reaching the cinema in the UK and dutifully wait for their legitimate Region Two release several months later.

The Hollywood studios, however, reckoned without a determined group of hackers. From the off, it became obvious that reprogramming the software that prevented a Region Two DVD player from spinning a Region One disc wasn't a particularly difficult thing to do. On cheaper players it often amounted to little more than punching a series of numbers on the remote control.

Manufacturers countered this by stressing that once the player had been tinkered with its guarantee was invalid, yet this had little effect.

Game for anything
From the early consoles through to the Xbox and the PlayStation, techies have attempted to tweak their games consoles, not always with the best of intentions.

"I would say 95 per cent of people hack their PlayStations in order to play copied games," says 'Psycho', webmaster at leading UK PlayStation website, PSXForum. It's not something he approves of either.

"Copied games badly hurt the industry - they keep software prices high and force the smaller developers out of business," he says.

Yet Psycho is adamant that 'chipping' (modifying a chip to play games from other countries) a PlayStation2 is well worth considering. "Just like DVDs, there are games that are released much earlier in the United States and Japan - some never get released in the UK at all. By chipping a console, gamers can play these."

Chipping a PlayStation2 isn't easy. "It is a skilled job that requires precise soldering on the main board of the PlayStation2 and it could not be done by the average person," explains Psycho. "Most people will send their consoles away to be chipped or buy a pre-chipped player."

Naturally, Sony would prefer buyers not to tinker with their PlayStation2 at all. Each version of the PlayStation2 (we are now on version nine) has slight changes to its circuit board, meaning chips have to be altered to counteract the changes. Sony is also attempting a worldwide ban on chipping PlayStations and, as of 1 November 2003, it is illegal to import, sell or install modification chips within the UK.

But Psycho believes that even though it has been made illegal, Sony and the UK authorities will do little to implement the ban.

The PlayStation's major rival in the games console market, the Microsoft Xbox, hasn't escaped the attentions of hackers either. There are mod chips available which will essentially turn the games console into a fully functioning PC. Once owners have added the chip, there is a host of upgrades they can make.

Perhaps the most exciting one so far is the Media Player, which enables the Xbox to play back a wide range of audio and video files.

Quite how Microsoft sees the modification of its Xbox is a matter of debate. While it officially frowns upon upgrades, it is clear that the many tweaks and applications that have been developed for the Xbox may be incorporated, albeit in different forms, on future versions of the games consoles.

Robot's revenge
"One of the great challenges for robot enthusiasts is getting good motors and sensors for your robots," says Chris Waters of the Roomba Community website, so Waters and his fellow hobbyists have turned to borrowing them from intelligent toys and gadgets.

Much of this was inspired by events in 1998, when one of the most searched for websites was the Furby Autopsy site. In spite of its rather gruesome moniker, the site actually contains a detailed description of the workings of the once popular and rather cute little robot toys.

"I actually put the site up to highlight the fact that the Furby wasn't very interesting or hackable, and that most of the marketing hype about Furby's learning ability was false," says the site's creator, who goes by the name of 'The Furby Coroner'.

The only real tweak the hackers managed was to trigger its features using a remote control. "You can't really make Furby do something it wasn't programmed to do without a great deal of effort," says the Coroner.

The Furby Autopsy did, however, inspire youngsters across the globe to pull open their electronic toys and take a peek inside. And as robot toys have become more sophisticated, so too have the ways of enhancing and improving them.

One of the most tweaked products is Sony's pet robot Aibo. 'Aibopet' - owner of the AiboHack website - says Sony actually encourages hackers to add functionality to their Aibos. "Sony gives away free resources for people to program their Aibos."

Aibopet admits that the number of people who come up with something new for an Aibo is rather small, but any new application is lapped up by Aibo devotees. Among the most popular are BrainBo/HomieGate that increases the English language vocabulary that Aibo is able to respond to and Disco Aibo, which turns the pet dog into a canine John Travolta.

Suck it and see
Robots have become pretty fair game for hackers in the US in the last year but none has been quite so popular as the Roomba - an inexpensive robot vacuum cleaner that retails for around £300. Just like the Furby, hackers took the Roomba apart to see how it worked.

According to Waters, a host of new roles have been developed for the cleaner. "The Roomba is perhaps the most functional and cheap robotic platforms that has ever existed," he says.

"Therefore it makes a great platform on which to build non-vacuuming robots. One of the great challenges for robot enthusiasts is getting good motors and sensors for your robots. The Roomba solves this problem at a low cost.

"One of the best uses for a hacked Roomba is in education. Couple a Roomba with a built-in computer and you have a great way to teach programming and robotics at the same time."

Ending up in the classroom or as the latest challenger on Robot Wars isn't the end of the potential of the Roomba. "There is a lot of scope for improving the functionality of the Roomba as a robotic vacuum cleaner," adds Waters.

"And while the manufacturer iRobot is worried about returns and liability, I quietly believe they think it is a good thing."

TiVo-lutiuon
In the US, the other consumer electronics product most regularly pulled apart is the TiVo PVR, mainly as punters seem to have problems with one key area - its storage capacity.

"I reckon that 90 per cent of those who upgrade TiVo simply swap the hard disk for a larger one," explains PVRblog's Matt Haughey.

For the other 10 per cent, there are a variety of tweaks that are made, many of which are outlined in books like TiVo Hacks by Raffi Krikorian.

"My favourites include adding caller ID, so the TiVo can tell you who is calling you without interrupting your viewing, and incorporating TiVo into a network so you can program it from any computer with internet access," he says.

So far, Haughey thinks that TiVo's manufacturers have been delighted with what the hackers have done. "They are getting research and development on the cheap. People make these tweaks and then the company can consider adding that functionality into future models."

You can read more about TiVo hacking at Tivo Community Forum.

TiVo isn't the only hard disk recorder to receive attention. As Sky+ owners know, the hard disk recorder/satellite receiver's 40GB drive fills up very quickly, so expanding to 80Gb or even 120Gb drives has become popular.

It's a straightforward process that involves removing the old hard disk and then fitting a new one. The only major drawback is that the unit can't recognise the actual size of the new hard disk, so its description of how much space it thinks is left for recordings will always be wrong.

The shape of things to come
As more and more consumer electronics products borrow technology from computers, they are ever more likely to be played with and tweaked by hackers.

There is tremendous potential for adding functionality to the Apple iPod - a fact recognised by Apple, which last year began encouraging third-party developers to offer upgrades and accessories for the hard disk-based music player.

Johnny, our north London-based computer programmer, has gone even further. "I now have my iPod running Linux. Not only is it compatible with my Linux-based PC, I have also added extra features such as file sharing, Ogg Vorbis and DJ-style scratching," he says.

Mobile phones are also being hacked, often to reactivate features that networks have disabled. Recently, instructions appeared online for unlocking features on Motorola's A920 3G handset that the UK network Three had locked.

Manufacturers continue to warn how tinkering with their products invalidates warranties, yet we think they cautiously welcome some hacking. After all, how much money will they save if the next generation of their products is partly developed in garages and spare rooms across the globe?

Legal issues
There may be many good reasons for tinkering with your Xbox or DVD player but if you are tempted to unscrew the lid there are a few things to bear in mind.

Firstly, you will be invalidating the warranty. If things go awry, the only way you'll get your device fixed is to find a repair person to do the job and that is likely to cost you. You are also likely to be breaking the law.

Article six of the European Copyright Directive, which became law at the end of last year, states that the only way you can develop software for a format is by signing an agreement with the creators of that format. This renders all those Xbox enhancements illegal.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US also prohibits the sale or distribution of code-cracking devices to illegally copy software. In both cases you could be fined.

You will also be falling foul of the manufacturers' rules. From November 2003, it became illegal to import, sell or install modification chips for the PlayStation. Microsoft takes a similarly hard line and the company prevents modded Xboxes from connecting to its online gaming service Xbox Live!

Of course, should you develop a great new application for games consoles or any other consumer electronics device, you may find yourself on the company payroll. It's a bit unlikely though. By all means explore your consumer electronics device, but remember, it is at your own risk.