Keith Adams just pointed out that Workstation 5.5 and Player 1.0 support VT (Pacifica) on appropriate hardware. Keith works for VMWare in Sunnyvale in the VMM group, so he would be in the know.

Reading through his blog, it also appears that Sun is exposing their own hardware API for virtualization, adding a new hypervisor API to OpenSolaris.

Reading on, it's interesting to find that VT/Pacifica are very similar to IBM's S/390 virtualization extensions, and there are a number of other good ideas that simply haven't rolled into x86 dies yet.

'What is old is new again' indeed!

I think Keith's blog is going on my blogroll from now on :)

Yesterday, Fabrice committed some new experimental changes adding a "-kqemu-kernel" option.

This new option virtualizes most ring-0 code (as well as ring-3 code), boosting performance of QEMU to that of VMWare.

It is undocumented, and fresh in CVS, but users are already reporting a 30-40% improvement in speed (run times 60-70% that of QEMU without it enabled).

Just stumbled upon CAN-view while catching up with Gizmodo.

It is a CAN bus viewer that allows both video integration via a SCART connector (usable with a convertor) and a DB9 serial port for capturing touchscreen input.

I can't think of anything better for the wardriving interface, can you? :)

I have an aging Sony PCG-C1XS Picturebook begging to be used as a carputer...

This article disappeared from my site for a while.. restoring..

The DENSO NAV system uses a DVD which you can find in a Prius so equipped by sliding the driver seat forward, prying off the plastic cover panel, sliding the eject button lock over, and hitting the eject button while the car is in aux power but not yet “On”.

If you put the DVD in your home computer, you will see an ISO9660 filesystem representation of the KIWI data files used by the NAV computer. Check out the KIWI Documents for the actual data format of these files; I’m actively trying to write something to decode them now. Mapmaster appears to be Toyota’s navigation division.

This is a full 8G DVD, you will need a dual-layer burner to make a copy.

The files are just pointers into the actual KIWI datasets.

VERSION.TXT - The version of the data on this DVD (ver.04.2 for a DENSO NAV 4.2 DVD)

ALLDATA.KWI - A file that represents all of the KIWI MAP data (I think). - This is the biggest file on the root of the filesystem at 2.8G

COVERAGE.TXT - Text file listing all files in the COVERAGE/ directory

COVERAGE/ - Directory full of BMP images showing the coverage area of this DVD as a raster image. This would be the easiest thing to hack with your own graphics.

INDEXDAT.KWI - Lists the IDX/ directory files.

IDX/ - Directory full if Index files. My guess is for searching and/or quick access for names/addresses/phonenumbers etc, as that is what they appear to contain. - This is the biggest directory on the DVD (5G)

METADATA.KWI - Metadata. Contains this string:

LANG::=US English,UK English,German,French,Spanish,Italian,Dutch,Swedish,Danish ; CHCD ::=ISO 8859-1 ; COOR::=WGS84 ;

SPEC.KWI - Specification file. Contains this string:

SUPERMETA::=AFUS:2.47, AGUS:2.47 ;

LOADING.KWI - Loading Module Management File. - At 520M, including strings like “/HDD/slot1/passwd.osg”, the first thing that I think of when I see this file is “this is the code that the NAV computer boots”. - “I Agree” is in this file. Removing that initial nag screen may be as simple as a binary patch to this file! Woo!

DICVCE56.KWI - From the strings, it looks like a group list of Points of Interest (not the actual points, just the general groups). This is a small file.

VIRTUAL0.DAT VIRTUAL1.DAT - No idea what these are for. They appear to be full of NULLs.

I’ll be updating this node as I figure things out.

I’ve created a quick little perl script based solely on the KIWI “All Data Management Frame” document 0500122e.pdf. The script, alldata.pl is a very rudimentary parser of the data structures, based entirely on a hash tree of the schema information gleaned from this document. Hey, it’s a start.

Update: KAMIYA Satosi has restored his Ruby KIWI Voice scripts!

More to come…