holy grail

First iPhone Hacked


And they're off. George Hotz, New Jersey blogger and hacker extraordinaire, gets his name in the paper (and in our hearts) for pulling off a network transfer on an iPhone. In his YouTube footage you can clearly see the T-Mobile insignia (the iPhone runs AT&T, if you didn't know).

Picture_73How he did it I don't understand. But it means that not only those of you stuck with T-Mobile now have a shot at the iPhone, but now anyone anywhere in the world can buy a prepaid GSM card and use Apple's holy grail.

It takes a few steps to pull off (and a lot of Red Bull), but heck if the kid hasn't done what Apple should have done in the first place. —Jacob Ward

(p.s. Classy kid. He takes time to thank his friends and fans at the outset, and Mom raised him right — he thanks "the dev team for a great product.")

Hackers of the world, I beg you ...

Iphoneicons_2
The first shot has been fired in the race to hack the iPhone. Engadget reports that a firmware image is now floating around the Web. The firmware is the operating instructions that live between the hardware and the OS, so being able to peer into that code is often the first step to real hacks. We'll be keeping our eyes glued to places like howardforums.com to see what the first cracks are—and there will be cracks. Here's our initial wishlist:

  • Enable the other Bluetooth protocols. Right now, the Bluetooth is crippled so it can only be used for headsets, but with the right uncrippling, you could stream music to wireless speakers, transfer files (like songs and photos) to and from your computer wirelessly and surf the Web on your laptop using your iPhone's data connection.
  • Unlock the device so you can put other sim cards into it; particularly useful for taking overseas.
  • Enable support for more music and video format
  • Upgrade the memory
  • Replace the battery yourself (sure to come)
  • And the holy grail: Let it run third-party apps. If this has a full OS in it, there should be endless uses. Then we'd really be talking Jesus Phone.
  • Oh, and play Tetris Blocks. Every device must eventually play Tetris Blocks.

What do you want to see it do? Let us know in the comments.

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Why Buy: How to Buy an Inkjet Photo Printer

Forget dpi. It's all about drop size.

Who hasn't been romanced by an inkjet's impressive dpi (4,800 by 1,200) or speed (17 pages per minute!) specs? Unfortunately, this is a formula for disappointing prints. The most important (though not sole) consideration these days is actually drop size—not something printer makers play up on the packaging. Here's what to look for when purchasing your next photo printer, along with a measure of importance.

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