Gadgets Mobile

Posted Mar 31st 2008 7:09PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: cellphonesApril Fool’s day joke? Could be, but we’re hearing it might be real: the long standing bastions of iphone hacking, the iPhone Dev Team, posted a note to their site stating that “[today] the DevTeam was approached by an unnamed party to sell all of the intellectual property and related applications. After much consideration [What, hours? -Ed.] the offer was accepted and the [Dev Team] has ceased.” Seems a bit outlandish. For those not in the know, the Dev Team is the same group that posted jailbreaks to 2.0 (before it was out), 1.1.3, 1.1.1, developed the AnySIM unlock, and are thiiiis close to releasing the Pwnage tool (which promised total unsigned firmware control of the iPhone). So yeah, it may well be a prank, we wouldn’t put it past them. Funny thing about the hacker community though, one goes down and 10 more spring up.

[Thanks Andrew, Erica]

Update: Yep, it’s an April Fool’s joke. We’re just going to go offline until April 2nd, peace.

I know what you’re all thinking. Here it’s nearly April, and Mother’s day is coming up, and where, exactly, does one go to buy radioactive isotopes? Maybe a glow-in-the-dark Tritium keychain for the kids? Or bit of certified genuine Trinitite–that would be glass that was created from the desert sand by the historic Trinity nuclear test explosion in 1945.The answer is United Nuclear, a website that sells the nuclear tidbits listed above, as well as a variety of other scientific curiosities like aerogel, magnetic ferro-fluid, levitation kits and samples of the kinds of chemicals that they don’t put into chemistry sets anymore.

If you have a passing familiarity with chemistry, and for example, are familiar with what you can do when you mix up aluminum dust with powdered iron oxide and light it, your reaction may range from “hey, cool!” to “oh my gosh!”

United Nuclear can also set you up with a neodymium magnet the size of can of peaches if you want. These things are STRONG–at first the warnings about having to plan your route through rooms with metal objects and computers and losing fingers are dire enough to bring smiles to kind of people who enjoy dangerous things, until you get the part where United Nuclear tells you about a small child who lost a hand when his father left two of them unattended.

As you look through the various “read this warning or die” labels on the site, you might be curious about who is selling this stuff. The owner of United Nuclear is Bob Lazar, who claims to have worked for the government at Sector S-4, which is of course, where the alien spaceships are being reverse-engineered. The lack of any evidence for his claims to have received degrees from MIT and Caltech is due to the government’s erasure of his identity.

Of course it is. In addition to his United Nuclear site has his own website at Boblazar.com, where he provides “recreated” details about his time studying the alien spacecraft.

UFOs aside, Bob Lazar’s other hobby these days is more closely aligned with items found in his current inventory–the annual Desert Blast that he holds out in the desert where like-minded individuals go off into the sands of New Mexico and blow stuff up. And by “like-minded individuals,” I mean any human male over the age of 36 months.

I don’t know about you, but geek-gift registry is going to be on United Nuclear from now on. After all, there’s only so many USB Rocket launchers one man can have.

Posted Mar 31st 2008 6:19PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
Seeing as our high school network hijinks pretty much led to semi-permanent suspension, our barren hearts were actually warmed by the story of 11-year-old Jon Penn, who has been in charge of his elementary school’s 60-machine network since last year. The previous network administrator at the Arkansas school simply up and left, leaving the IT systems in shambles — and in the hands of Jon’s mom, the school librarian. Jon’s since scrubbed the aging Windows 98 machines of their accumulated viruses and spyware, and he’s installed a firewall and virus / spam filter to keep things clean while he works out a plan to move to Windows 2000 and centralized system management. Right now though, Jon’s got his hands busy doing everything from fixing everything from paper jams to revising server configurations, and it sounds like he’s having a ball — he says he’s been testing out virtualization products lately, and he’s studying up for A+ technician certification this summer. Looks like school’s a lot more fun when you’re running the show, no?

[Via Switched]

Posted Mar 31st 2008 5:44PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: cellphones
Palm’s miniscule and wallet-friendly Centro has managed to reach one million units sold since its launch last September. It got its legs working as Sprint and AT&T’s gateway smartphone at that fantastic $99 pricepoint, and now it’s making a bid for world domination in major markets in Europe and Asia. The one million sales have it nipping at the heels of recent superstar smartphones, the two million plus HTC Touch and the four million plus iphone, not bad company in the least.

I’ve been contemplating picking up an Asus Eee PC for those times when I’m on the road and don’t really want to mess with carrying my larger laptop around. Don’t get me wrong, I like having all of the functions and features of my Windows machine, it’s just that when you’re covering a big show, you don’t want to lug something that large around. So why haven’t I picked one up yet? Because I want to actually be able to see it and use it first. Thankfully I’ll be able to walk into my local Best Buy and do just that.

According to Asus, their new 4GB Windows XP (yes, Windows) version will soon be stocked at Best Buy stores throughout the country. The system will be identical to the original 4GB model, with the only difference being the operating system. Expect to see these at your local store during the first half of April for $399.

Source: CrunchGear

Posted Mar 31st 2008 2:18PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Handhelds Bookeen’s Cybook Gen3 e-book reader has been a long time coming, but now that it’s out in the wild we’re finally starting to get some reviews of the device, including this fairly thorough one from the folks at The Future of Things. Unfortunately for those looking forward to the reader, they found it to be quite a mixed bag. On the upside, they found the device to be thin, light, small and fast, with it also boasting solid battery life and, most importantly, a screen that’s “very comfortable” to read, even outdoors. They were also impressed with the Cybook’s RSS support, and the Mobipocket format used for e-books. On the downside, the page flip mechanism proved to be “cumbersome,” and they found that the current firmware left a lot to be desired, with them even going so far as to say that it felt like it was “rushed to the market too soon.” They were also somewhat disappointed by the lack of SDHC support, and a lack of wireless connectivity (be it 3G or WiFi). They also point out, however, that none of the e-book readers out there are perfect, so if you’re in the market for one you’ll just have to pick the trade-offs you’re willing to live with.

LG has upgraded its previously released mobile phone LG-LH5000 with 3 new exciting flavors – vanilla, strawberry and pistachio. I know it sounds ridiculous and you might think that I must be kidding, but actually I’m not. LG has really introduced three new colors flavors for the LH5000. Hopefully, you don’t get it to it thinking that you are actually holding an ice cream.

The LG-LH5000 ice cream phone is a thin flip-phone that boasts 3G connectivity, a 2.2-inch color display with QVGA resolution and 2.2-megapixel camera. The LH5000 ice cream phone lasts through 140 hours of standby time and 150 minutes talk time. The LG ice cream phone also sports an LED lighting in the keypad area which complements the different colors of the phone.

Other than this, there’s not much information available for the LG ice cream phone. The LG-LH5000 is currently available only in Korea.

Via [I4U News]

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Posted Mar 31st 2008 11:34AM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: GPS, Transportation Installs gone wrong certainly aren’t all that uncommon, but the tale told by one VTECnical of the 8thcivic.com forum is undoubtedly a cut above the rest, and could well have you reconsidering that suction cup option. As VTECnical tells it, he bought a Pioneer AVIC Z2 GPS unit and some other components from Circuit City last July for more $3,000 and decided to let their installers do the installation work for him — apparently after he was told that it’d slide into his Honda Civic without any modifications.The problems then allegedly began when the installer whipped out a heat gun, which was purportedly intended to be used to mold a mounting guide for the GPS unit but instead wound up melting one of the Civic’s heating ducts. As if that wasn’t enough, the installer apparently also used tape to hold the GPS unit in place, installed the antennae on the inside of the car instead of the outside, and used a glue gun to install the speakers instead of bolting them in place. All told, that apparently not only resulted in over $12,000 worth of damages but, according to the estimate from a Honda dealership, left the car “unsafe to drive.” For its part, Circuit City apparently did eventually remove the equipment and refunded the full $3,000+, but VTECnical is now left dealing with Circuity City’s third party insurance company to recover the rest of the damages.

[Via Autoblog]

Posted Mar 31st 2008 11:58AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
MSI seems to be in quite the contradictory mood, as that “Innovation with Style” slogan certainly doesn’t apply to the laptop it’s plastered on. We had to triple-check to ensure the VR340 wasn’t actually introduced ages ago, but in fact, this 13.3-incher is incredibly fresh. Packed within the way-too-heavy 4.85-pound frame is an elusive dual-core Intel CPU, WXGA panel, up to 3GB of DDR2 RAM, dual-layer DVD burner, a trio of USB ports, 5-in-1 multicard reader and a six-cell battery for good measure. Mum’s the word on a price, but chances are that won’t hurt too many feelings.

[Via FarEastGizmos]

I may love Twitter, the site where you have 140 short characters to tell the world what you’re up to, lovers may love Twitter, but I do understand that Twitter’s not for everyone. Some people don’t want to share the details of every thought, meal or bathroom break with the rest of the Internet and find the constantly updated details of other people’s every thought too much to keep up with.

If you’re one of these people, allow me to introduce you to the anti-Twitter: dawdlr. As the website puts it, “dawdlr is a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: what are you doing, you know, more generally?”

Instead of typing in what you’re up to, you send dawdlr a postcard detailing your activities, and some are chosen for the site. (Current postcards include “trying not to look back” and “enjoying living in London”). It’s basically a humdrum version of Postsecret, as well as a satire on our rush-obsessed society.

If you want to join in, you have plenty of time: the site’s updated around twice a year, with the next update due on May 21st.

Hop to it! Or y’know, don’t . . .