Last week, a hacking group called "fail0verflow" presented the PlayStation 3 "private key," a master code that Sony uses to authorize code on all retail consoles.

Knowing the root key means any hacker can gain full control of the PS3 system, without needing to jailbreak it using a USB dongle.

Today, infamous iPhone hacker Geohot released the root key to the world, beating fail0verflow to the punch.

Reads the post:

erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B
riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D
pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19
R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17
n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1
K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D
Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70

~geohot

props to fail0verflow for the asymmetric half
no donate link, just use this info wisely
i do not condone piracy

if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me. any of you 3.
it'd be fun to be on the other side.

...and this is a real self, hello world
although it's not NPDRM, so it won't run off the hard drive
shouts to the guys who did PSL1GHT
without you, I couldn't release this

first piece of homebrew you can run
put in service mode, put on usb stick, boot

Permalink | Comments

---

All Hotmail users who had their email go missing, or had their inboxes automatically moved into the "deleted" folder, now have them back, says Microsoft.

Says the software giant:

"We have restored the e-mails to those who were effected.If you are still missing your e-mails, please post your issue here (please note that you need to be logged in to the windowslivehelp.com site to be able to post) with as much detailed information as possible (How much wasn't restored, and any specifics that you may have) We sincerely apologize and thank you for your continued patience."

Users had bombarded Microsoft with complaints over how their inboxes had suddenly disappeared after the New Year's holiday, with some users even pleading with Microsoft to bring their messages back, some of which included pictures of their kids.

Hotmail/Live remains the most used e-mail service in the world, with 360 million users.

Microsoft would not elaborate on what happened but did say we "identified the source of the issue."

Permalink | Comments

---

As predicted at launch, Samsung has confirmed they have sold 10 million Galaxy S smartphones, just 6 months after launch.

One Galaxy S was sold every two seconds since launch, said the company.

4 million of the units were sold in North America, with another 2.5 million sold in Europe, and 2 million sold in Korea, home of Samsung.

The remaining sales came from different nations around Asia.

Says JK Shin, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics (via IW):

The Galaxy S is the result of our 22 year heritage in the mobile industry. It is the realization of our concept of 'the Smart Life' - we wanted to makes users' lives more convenient, more exciting, and more integrated. Today's milestone shows that we have succeeded: 10 million Galaxy S users around the world are living the Smart Life.

The device sells for all major carriers in the U.S. and is notable for its large 4-inch Super AMOLED display.

Permalink | Comments

---

Research firm Net Applications has released their year-end browser market share figures and Google's Chrome finished out the year strong, closing at 9.98 percent market share.

Internet Explorer, in all its variations, finished the year at 57.08 percent, followed by Firefox at 22.81 percent.

Firefox started the year at 24.51 percent and IE started the year at 62.39 percent, so both saw considerable declines at the hands of Chrome and Apple's Safari.

Safari jumped from 4.50 percent to 5.89 percent market share from January 1st to December 31st.

Opera, despite releasing version 11 to critical acclaim, saw share drop from 2.39 percent to 2.23 percent.

When breaking down the Internet Explorer versions, IE8 accounted for 33 percent of overall share, with IE6 falling to 13.06 percent and IE7 falling to 8.76 percent.

Permalink | Comments

---

The U.S. PlayStation Blog has revealed today that the blockbuster game Angry Birds will be hitting the PlayStation Network this week as a PS Mini.

Minis are playable on the PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation 3.

Reads the Minis description of the game:

Angry Birds- The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake. Dish out revenge on the green pigs who stole the Birds' eggs. Use the unique destructive powers of the Angry Birds to lay waste to the pigs' fortified castles. Angry Birds features hours of gameplay, challenging physics-based castle demolition, and lots of replay value. Each of the 63 levels requires logic, skill, and brute force to crush the enemy.

Earlier in the year, developer Rovio Mobile said they were working on versions of the mobile game for the PS3, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360.

On just the iOS and Android platforms, the game has already seen over 50 million downloads.

Permalink | Comments

---

TorrentFreak has released their list of the most pirated TV shows for 2010, and the now-concluded mystery drama "Lost" topped the list.

At 6 million downloads, "Lost" beat out 2009's champion, "Heroes," which was downloaded 5.5 million times.

Rounding out the top 5 were "Dexter" at 4 million downloads, "The Big Bang Theory" at 3.9 million and "House" at 3.3 million.

The site also makes the interesting note that the most downloaded episodes of the shows actually exceeded average TV viewership, especially in shows like Dexter which air on premium channels.

Overall, downloads of the top five shows fell, year-over-year, notes the site.

The full list:

1. Lost
2. Heroes
3. Dexter
4. The Big Bang Theory
5. House
6. How I Met Your Mother
7. 24
8. True Blood
9. Glee
10. Family Guy

Permalink | Comments

---

AOC, a maker of cheap LCD screens, has announced the launch of a $200 Android tablet which will be fully unveiled at the upcoming CES event.

The AOC Breeze will have an 8-inch screen with 800x600 resolution, 4GB internal memory, a Rockchip CPU and the old Android 2.1 operating system.

Set for release later this month, the tablet will also include a USB port and microSD memory card slot.

The Breeze weighs 1.1 pounds, has a 6-hour claimed battery life for video.

It is unclear if the tablet will have 3G support on top of its standard Wi-Fi.

Permalink | Comments

---

Vizio, two days after teasing it in a Rose Bowl ad, has introduced their first tablet and smartphone, each of which runs on the Android mobile OS.

The company is the top LCD HDTV maker in the United States.

Dubbed the Via Tablet and the Via Phone, the devices will move away from current 4-button Android setups and include just a "Menu," "Back" and "V" button. It is unclear with the Vizio button will do.

Just like with their Web-connected TVs, the apps menu is separated into "Favorites" and "All Apps."

Apparently, according to the WSJ, the Via devices will have Netflix access, which would be a first for Android devices, through Vizio's Via Plus service.

The Via Phone will have a 4-inch screen, a 1 GHz processor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, a microSD slot, a front-facing camera for video calls and a rear-facing 5MP camera.

Vizio's first tablet will have an 8-inch screen, a 1 GHz processor, 3 speakers, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, a microSD slot, and a front-facing camera for video conferencing.

Both devices have HDMI ports and 1080p support.

Vizio did not reveal what version of Android the devices will run on, but most expect version 2.3 (Gingerbread). There is also a chance the devices will launch with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) which has not been officially launched by Google, yet.

Permalink | Comments

---

Wang Chen, deputy head of China's propaganda department has revealed some interesting figures this week, including how many pornography sites were taken down in the nation last year.

Chen says:

By November, 350 million pieces of harmful information, including text, pictures and videos, had been deleted. There was a notable improvement in the online cultural environment.

In an effort to remove objectionable content from the Internet, the government checked 1.79 million websites and ended up shutting down 60,000 pornography sites.

5000 citizens were arrested for spreading the porn, and 1332 received "criminal punishment." 58 of those are currently serving 5 year (or longer) prison sentences.

There are currently over 400 million Internet users in China, by far the biggest online population in the world.

China has long blocked Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook and recently announced Skype will be banned soon, as well.

Permalink | Comments

---