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Nintendo DS Emitting Anomalous Signal?
An Anonymous reader writes "An owner of Nintendo's Shiny New Portable, has noticed his DS is emitting a signal that is projecting a ghostly image of his screen onto his TV- and he's not even multiplayer gaming. He and several others have uploaded photos of their DSs interfering with their TV's reception. As one forum-goer points out, this doesn't seem like the DS is adhering to FCC standards." More news from a forum, so enjoy some NaCl with this.
Hmmm, well this certainly has some interesting possibilities if true. It might be kinda cool to be able to project one's gameplay on a good TV. I wonder if anyone will try to enhance this "feature"?
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Wasn't this called VanEck Phreaking or something like that when you could see what was broadcasted on the screen from one computer to another?
It was a scene in Cryptonomicron, I believe.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
I don't like to throw down credentials for fear of sounding like a braggart but in this case it is relevant. I am a test pilot (or more specificly a test NFO). For a living, I flight test new equipment on military aircraft. Every time a new piece of equipment is introduced, the aircraft and new equipment must go through varying levels of EMC/EMI/TEMPEST testing. Devices that were designed to be properly shielded fail all the time. The aircraft I test used to have a problem with the ship-board radar causing the aircraft's wing-lock mechanism to repeated lock/unlock in an attempt to fold the wings. Having an aircraft's wings fold during a catapult shot or landing is generally considered to be a "bad thing". I seriously doubt that the gaming industry has invested dollar-one in EMI shielding. From what the guy describes, it sounds like video signal is not properly shielded and the nearby TV antenna is picking it up. If it is interfering with the TV signal, it is probably somewhere in the 170-200 MHz range - and thus potentially could interfere with VHF communcations and radio navigation equipment. Think there might be an IC somewhere in the aircraft that has a clock frequency in this range? Probably. Over what other frequencies is this think leaking? Is it really worth putting an airliner at risk because you would rather level-up than read a book?
Now you are correct in asserting that if properly tested, this should be a non-issue. The problem is that flight testing is ridiculously expensive. And it doesn't matter how much you harden the aircraft, you still need to test each portable device in every combination of aircraft configurations. This of course is impossible. Even if you could certify certain types of machines, who is goinig to maintain the list of approved devices and do you really expect an airborne cocktail waitress to know that your Nintendo DS is approved but the guy with the RIO next to you isn't? I actually think that the current policy is somewhat reckless. Basicly the FAA has taken the position that they will let passengers use most electronic devices above 10,000 FT with hopes that if there was some catastrophic failure, the flight crew would have a few minutes to deal with the problem.
Putting the government in the loop only slows the feedback process down.
True statement but what is the alternative? Not having the government regulate airline safety? Let the free market punish reckless airlines in lost sales after a disaster?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Even if the screen is driven digitally, it's still serially updated. If the timings are in sync enough to 60hz (or 30Hz even), then you could get some kind of semblance of an image on your TV (59.97Hz) from the interference. This is proably likely, too, since most games are striving to run at 30-60Hz. Maybe you don't get an image all the time as the framerate is not always high enough to reach 60Hz updates -- this is further backed by the evidence of people only getting decent screenshots of things like menus, etc. where there are low poly counts and the hardware can easily manage a constant 60fps.