Gizmodo: Cheating

Video: Girl Cheats Claw Game In Creative Way

Matt Hickey — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:32:52 EDT

Either this little girl is very ballsy or very, very dumb, but I have to give her credit for just going for it. Not content to be ripped off by one of those claw game scams, she just went for it, climbed up into the machine somehow, and picked her trophy. But the fun comes when a little boy—presumably her brother—goes to get his mom, and then the crowds come. I totally wish this had audio.

Rock Band Bot Can Get 100% On Expert Song, But You Still Suck

Elaine Chow — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Robotics maker Mark Single hooked up a Rock Band guitar to Christmas light show software and scored 100% on Green Grass and High Tides on Expert, one of the hardest songs in the game. He's detailed how he did it so you n00bs can try your hand at it too. I've never really understood the point of modding a game to play itself, but in case you were one of the lame asses who needed to cheat to get sweet scores in Guitar Hero III and panicked at the thought of actually playing to pass songs in Rock Band, Pure Pwnage has got you covered. Though, at the end of the day, is it really worth it to get a perfect and still feel so empty? [Pure Pwnage via HacknMod]

Guitar Hero Robot Shows Just How Much Its Creators Love Achievements

Jason Chen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:00:00 EDT

These Electrical Engineering students at Texas A&M love Guitar Hero so much that they made a "robot," which is actually just some levers and switches and a circuit board set up on top of a Guitar Hero guitar, and a system that analyzes the video signal to determine when and where to hit the notes. The end result is a bot that can get a very respectable 96% on some hard- ass songs, negating the need for a human player to get all the crazy achievements in Guitar Hero 3. We would have suggested these college kids go get drunk and laid instead of spending their time building a Guitar Hero robot, but then we remembered that they're Electrical Engineering majors. [Slashbot]

Wristwatches Banned in College-Entry Exams Thanks to One Lousy Cheater

Wilson Rothman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:10:07 EST

Some kid used his cellphone-connected watch to receive incriminating text messages during a college-entry exam in Thailand and now "all kinds of watches" have been banned from 18 exam centers. Thailand has a seriously competitive testing system, with selectivity in some engineering and medicine programs reaching 1 in 100. Still, you'd think that a kid caught using an innovative way to cheat would be sent to the head of the class (kinda like Captain Kirk and that Kobayashi Maru business). I wonder what they'll do when everyone has cellular/GPS implants—little bit harder to ban, I'd imagine. [Reuters]

Soldier Uses Wii to Catch Wife Doing Up, Down, Left, Right, A-B-A-B With Another Man

Benny Goldman — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:39:07 EST

Tony, a soldier returning from Iraq after a year of active duty, found out that his wife couldn't wait for some lovin' while he was gone by checking his Wii. When he confronted her with his friends' accusations, she claimed that she only kissed another man once. However, after checking his Mii channel for war buddies he discovered a Mii he didn't create.

When he went through the calendar, he found that his wife and the man had spent several nights together playing Wii bowling. Tony has since separated and filed for divorce.

You gotta feel for the poor guy. He spends all this time serving our country only to come home and see a cartoon character who looks "strikingly similar to [his] wife's [alleged lover]". I can only guess what the original phrase was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "Mario Party expert." [Gamepro]

Cellphone-Cheating Chess Player Earns 10-year Ban

Travis Hudson — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:36:01 EST

A professional chess player from India has earned himself a nice, hearty, 10-year ban from national chess tournaments because he was discovered to be cheating. He cheated by using a small Bluetooth device in a stocking cap. With the Bluetooth device linked to a cellphone, the player, Umakant Sharma, communicated with an outside source who used a computer system to analyze situations and provide Sharma with the correct moves. See, chess players aren't that big of geeks—oh wait, yes they are. – Travis Hudson

Check-mate for Indian chess player after phone ploy [Reuters]

Roulette Prediction Device Ready To Rock UK Casinos

Gizloco — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:09:20 EDT

UK gamblers looking to get their teeth knocked out will be happy to hear the news that a company has developed a device that makes cheating at the roulette tables much easier. Costing around $1,900, the device employs a time recorder, a computer and an earpiece. When put in the hands of someone who actually knows how to gamble properly (not a newbie, in other words), the odds of winning can be greatly stacked in their favor. One estimate showed a 100 percent increase in the likelihood of winning.

The device measures the acceleration speed of the wheel and sends the info to the on-board computer. The computer then calculates where the ball will send based on the acceleration data and sends the result to an earpiece inside the user's ear canal. All very tricky, all very likely to get you thrown out—if not worse—from your local house of gambling. – Nicholas Deleon

For sale for £1,000: gadget that means you'll never lose at roulette again [The Guardian via Ubergizmo]