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Defcon 16's badges

Last year had some strange badges at Defcon, but they were fun. This year, they're even more full of technology (mini sd card reader, infrared stuff, and what looks like a usb mount point) and much less fun.

Although it is foolish for me to think another conference badge could be as awesome as the Shmoocon 2007 badge, I think it's safe to conclude that Defcon's badges have jumped the shark, because this year's badges are kind of stupid.


2 responses to 'Defcon 16's badges'

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Jordan wrote at Sat Aug 16 22:47:33 2008...
Stupid because they're sharp and jagged so they stab and snag on things.

Last year's was fun because you could program them with your fingers. This year's didn't do anything without extra equipment. Next year I'll probably just request a paper badge if this trend continues.

Rusty wrote at Mon Aug 18 10:31:00 2008...
I actually liked this years badges better than last years. Sure, the LCD display last year was fun and easy to program, but this badge was much easier to hack than last years due to the usb leads on the board.

Materials to hack this years badge and add a USB port were provided in the hardware hacking village, and all of the development tools were available as well.

At that point the only tools needed to modify the badge were a computer, and a mini USB cable that most people have for their cell phones, digital cameras, etc.

Going through the source code, seeing how it worked and trying to think of new things to do with the badge was fun, for me at least.


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