Company offers easy Apple TV hacks for everyone

The Apple TV enjoyed a great deal of hacker love upon first release. Users were figuring out ways to play different codecs, and even ran full Mac OS X installs on Apple's set-top box. Unfortunately, things seemed to die down quite a bit when Apple unveiled the iPhone, causing programmers and hackers alike to be instantly distracted by the shiny new toy. While individuals still remain focused on the Apple TV, the fervency of the hacker community has quieted down considerably. Until this week, anyway.

A company called Apple Core is now offering a USB flash drive that automagically installs a host of software and codecs onto the Apple TV, expanding its functionality. The list includes software such as ATVFiles, nitoTV, MediaCloud, Sapphire, Couch Surfer, and Jaman Movies, along with codecs allowing users to play FLV, AVI, various Windows Media formats, and a long list of others. The company claims that the key features, besides the added video and audio codecs, include the ability to play DVD files without conversion as well as the ability to use Safari, local weather, an RSS viewer, and SSH access, all while not voiding your warranty.