iDongle hardware iPhone jailbreak tool makes hacker life a little simpler
If you needed any more proof that Apple's lame cat-and-mouse game with the iPhone jailbreak community has only served to increase its resourcefulness and creativity, look no further than the iDongle, a slick piece of hacker-made hardware that can jailbreak and activate an iPhone 3GS or iPod touch running OS 3.1.2 just by plugging it into the dock connector. What's more, it allows a jailbroken iPhone to be rebooted away from a computer, which is currently a problem for on-the-go hackers -- just stick this guy in your bag and you'll be good to go. There's only a dozen prototypes right now, but pre-orders are being accepted to raise funds for production -- we've got a feeling quite a few people are going to be interested. Video after the break.
Continue reading iDongle hardware iPhone jailbreak tool makes hacker life a little simpler
iDongle hardware iPhone jailbreak tool makes hacker life a little simpler originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
JooJoo hits the FCC
Hmmm, shortly after getting news that the JooJoo tablet will come in a new color as well as an updated user interface, we have news of this tablet going through the rigors of the FCC. Apparently, underneath the hood will reveal an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor and an NVIDIA Ion chipset to keep it going, confirming the authenticity of its flawless video playback in the past. As for the presence of a SIM card slot, that will most likely point towards 3G being an option sometime in the future. While the JooJoo will ship with a Linux user interface, additional pictures from the FCC do point towards Windows 7, so we would reserve our comments on that since the crystal ball looks rather cloudy at the moment. All will be revealed come March 25th, we guess, when the JooJoo launches.
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JooJoo hits the FCC
HP rolls out ‘Let’s Do Amazing’ ad campaign
Continue reading HP rolls out 'Let's Do Amazing' ad campaign
HP rolls out 'Let's Do Amazing' ad campaign originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Passat Monster Truck, Ready for The Fast and the Furious: Warsaw Drift [Cars]
Usually it's frustrating to see a kickass video with no background info. This time, I don't care. I don't even want to know how or why someone made a Passat 4x4. I just want to watch that sucker churn. More
Wiebe-Mitchell ‘Donky Kong’ War Upstaged by Unknown Rookie
Filed under: Video Games
Aside from ushering the term "kill screen" into the popular vernacular, 2007's 'The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters' also introduced the non-gaming world to the intensity and drama of highly competitive battles for video game supremacy. In the film, everyman protagonist Steve Wiebe breaks gaming icon Billy Mitchell's stranglehold on the 'Donkey Kong' high score, only to lose it a few months later -- ceding it back to the showman Mitchell.
Mitchell's record subsequently stood for three years, but after setting a new 'Donkey Kong Jr.' record last month, Wiebe announced that he would once again be challenging Mitchell's 'Donkey Kong' dominance. Well, the record was indeed eclipsed this week, but it wasn't accomplished by Wiebe. According to Asylum, Hank Chien, a previous unknown, emerged from nowhere to topple the high score by a relatively massive total of 11,000 points. (Mitchell's lead over Wiebe was a mere 1,000.)
Continue reading Wiebe-Mitchell 'Donky Kong' War Upstaged by Unknown Rookie
Wiebe-Mitchell 'Donky Kong' War Upstaged by Unknown Rookie originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
JooJoo hits the FCC, reveals NVIDIA Ion, 3G card
Well well. We'd always suspected that the JooJoo tablet was hiding something extra to run HD video and Flash, and it's just hit the FCC with full documentation and a teardown confirming that there's an NVIDIA Ion GPU paired with an Atom N270 packed inside. We're also seeing a 3G card in there, although it's unclear whether it'll be active or installed at launch -- we've been told the 3G version won't be ready until sometime later this year, but things have been changing fast, so that may be in flux as well. There's also a picture showing it running Windows, but we're assuming that's just for testing purposes -- we'd also bet it'd be an easy little hack. But back to Ion for a second: our experience with first-gen Ion netbooks has been one of decreased performance and drastically reduced battery life, so we're very curious to see how the JooJoo holds up compared to modern netbooks running Intel's Pine Trail chips and NVIDIA's Optimus-based Ion 2. We'll see -- it's supposed to ship in just a few weeks. Two more pics after the break.
P.S.- Oh, and Fusion Garage got back to us yesterday with a list of supported local video formats, and it's pretty decent: AVI, MPEG-4, MOV, WMV and WMA, FLV (Flash Video), VOB, OGG, OGM and OGV, MKV (Mastroska), DiVX and XViD. We'll see how the battery holds up, though -- our very own Joanna Stern predicts a best case of 3.5 hours with WiFi on and a video playback time of two hours.
Continue reading JooJoo hits the FCC, reveals NVIDIA Ion, 3G card
JooJoo hits the FCC, reveals NVIDIA Ion, 3G card originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Sic semper tyrannis: motion control in video games
Let the record show: I think motion controllers, like the Wii, Sony Move, or Microsoft’s Project Natal, are sorta dumb. They simply don’t seem to be precise enough for my tastes—I’m far too used to a mouse and keyboard to give that up for the “thrill” of flailing my arms in the arm like the robot from Lost In Space. But it wasn’t always like that.
Like many of you, my first experience with a motion-esque controller was in Duck Hunt for the NES. Granted, a light gun isn’t the same as the Wii remote, but it’s the closest thing I get to being “down” with all that jazz.
I asked the two fine gentlemen in the chat room right now, Matt and Doug, the simple question: motion control, yea or nay? Of course they couldn’t me a simple, Fox News-friendly soundbite, but instead chose to nuance their way out of the question. “I like it for sports and shooting games,” said Doug. Meanwhile, Matt also echoed my nostalgia for Duck Hunt. I’ll also add the orignial Time Crisis as a “motion control” game I enjoyed. And I played House of the Dead once in a bowling alley—that was neat.
But things like painting a wall by slinging globs of paint at it? Eh, I could do without it. Motion control seems to devolve into silliness quite rapidly. Remember this?
Oh, look, we’re curling! Woo!
That’s not nearly as fun as cranking up the DPI on a fancy Logitech mouse, then sniping a dumb Heavy in Team Fortress 2 with millimeter precision. Is the Sony Move going to be as accurate? I doubt it. Even if it were, holding my arm in the air for any length of time is far too much to ask. I have little girl arms, and they tire very quickly. It’s far easier to rest my hands on a comfy keyboard, or sitting on the couch playing the rubbish Xbox 360 port of Final Fantasy XIII. (I’m very seriously considering buying a PS3 in the next few months simply to play the “real” version of the game. Getting God of War III and Heavy Rain won’t hurt, either.)
So I don’t know, clearly Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo see motion controllers as a viable option. As an old man afraid of change and inconvenience, I don’t know that I’m too high on it.
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Sic semper tyrannis: motion control in video games
eCards Too Much Work? Procrastinators Send Video Cards From Phones
Forget thumbing through racks of paper greeting cards. Some card companies are now offering a video alternative on cell phones. According to The New York Times, American Greetings has taken the lead, and is now offering short video messages that are selected from a Web site and sent to a phone. Best of all, these e-cards are available to customers of all the major service providers. You don't need a data plan to send or receive a greeting, but you will have to pay an annual $15.99 subscription fee. That price will get you access to about 500 video cards, with plans for thousands more. Yet, unless you're a chronic card sender, Hallmark's pay-as-you-go service seems like a better option. It costs just 99-cents to send a card from the Web to a cell phone.
While video greetings aren't about to eclipse text messages in popularity, some predict they do have huge market potential. Portio Research, a British firm, estimates it'll be worth about $31.5 billion by the end of this year. We'd be open to dropping some cash on a video greeting and saving a trip to the store -- unless there's a pricey subscription fee. Then, a simple hug or phone call on a friend's birthday will suffice. [From: The New York Times]
Filed under: Cell Phones
eCards Too Much Work? Procrastinators Send Video Cards From Phones originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Video: Android hacked in place of Windows Mobile on a Touch Pro2
While a lot of people are pretty pumped about Windows Phone 7, there’s are some people who definitely are not: everyone stuck on a now antiquated Windows Mobile 6.5 handset. Microsoft has already confirmed that if your phones running 6.5, it’s not going to be running 7 any time soon.
If you can’t join’em, beat’em, right? There’s a new project in the works which aims to breath new life into old Windows Mobile 6.5 phones.. by replacing the whole OS with Android.
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Video: Android hacked in place of Windows Mobile on a Touch Pro2
JooJoo Tablet Gets New Interface With Updated Home Screen, Navigation and Keyboards [Jooojoo]
Though the shipping date for JooJoo, the underdog tablet, was recently pushed back to March 25, Fusion Garage isn't letting that time go to waste. They've overhauled the JooJoo's interface, expanded local video playback, and given its backplate a makeover. More