As Google continues to dominate search, they bring about new ways to make searching easier. The problem is that most people simply type loosely what they want and hope to get the right answers. There are better ways. This graphic takes a look at some Google hacks that can make it easier to find the solution to the various problems that Google normally solves for you. Click to enlarge. From: Used Cars Topeka Via: Automotive SEO…

We have the technology. The hanging-chad debacle of the 2000 presidential election proved that we had the need. Now, as more states adopt electronic voting machines to register the “voice of the people” during election times, stunning allegations are being leveled on Diebold voting machines and the ease in which they can be hacked. According to the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory, these machines can be hacked for $10.50 and an 8th-grade science education, casting doubt over the validity of the votes that will be going on across the country during the Republican…

Surely you’ve seen your share of Kinect hacks in the last little while – hell, even last week I posted a couple here on Techi. Microsoft was originally not down with this, and implied potential legal action against anyone modifying their device. But it seems they’ve now had a change of heart, claming Kinect was always ‘open by design’, and that they’re happy to have folks write all sorts of drivers for all manner of Kinect-based ballyhoo. “What has happened,” says Microsoft’s Alex Kipman to NPR, “is someone wrote an open-source driver for PCs that essentially opens the USB connection, which we didn’t…

Because you’re awesome, have this quick video of Mehmet Akten playing with his prototype for a 3D art program for use with the newly-hacked Kinect. ‘Memo’ is short and sweet about it. The XBox Kinect is connected to my Macbook Pro, and I wrote a little demo to analyse the depth map for gestural 3D interaction. One hand to draw in 3D, two hands to rotate the view. Very rough, early prototype. Very well. But know this, Mr. Akten. You like to touch people? Well, we like to watch – and we’re going to be watching you very closely as this radness develops. You might say it… kineckts ass? No, that’s a really terrible…

What do you get when you have a cheap but powerful device that was created to do simple tasks and a bunch of hardcore hackers that are determined to undermine those limitations? You get something more than you bargained for. You get the LeapFrog Didj. The Didj is a gaming system released by LeapFrog that is intended to be a kiddy version of the PSP, aimed at children aged 6-10. One of those teach-your-kid-math-and-english things. It even goes as far to offer dedicated games that can be purchased. But the hackers have pretty much taken over the platform by gaining access to the root by soldering two wires…