Latest news

As promised earlier this month, hacker Geohot has made it so users can continue to use the OtherOS feature stripped by Sony with firmware update v3.21.

Reads geohot's blog post:

OtherOS Supported on "3.21OO"
Here is a video demoing my "custom firmware". It's not any sort of version string change; I would have added something showing off the new features of 3.21, but oh wait, there aren't any.

This can be installed without having to open up your PS3, just by restoring a custom generated PUP file, but only from 3.15 or previous. It's possible this CFW will also work on the slim to actually *enable* OtherOS; I'll know when my infectus gets here.

No release date yet, use the proxy hack to play online with 3.15

Note to the people who removed OtherOS, you are potentially turning 100000+ legit users into "hackers." There was a huge(20x) traffic spike to this blog after the announcement of 3.21. If I had ads on this site I guess I'd be thanking you.

Today Apple gave a sneak peek of the next generation of their iPhone OS software. This is the operating system that powers the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Steve Jobs took the stage at Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters at 10AM and began by talking about the success of the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Then he moved on to the changes in version 4 of the iPhone OS.


Multitasking
As expected there will be multitasking available for third party apps. That functionality is currently only available to the built in iPod software.

Jobs said, "we weren't the first to this party, but we're gonna be the best. Just like cut and paste."

Demonstrating the multitasking capabilities on an iPhone, he double-clicked the phone's Home button and a list of running apps appeared above the Dock at the bottom of the screen.

AOL, infamous for terrible investments, has announced that they will either sell or shut down the social networking site Bebo, which they bought for $850 million just two years ago.

"Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space," said Jon Brod, executive vice president of AOL. "AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking."

At the time of the acquisition, AOL was still part of Time Warner, part of a merger that many have called the worst deal of all-time. (AOL had to take a $99 billion dollar loss in 2002.)

Bebo saw only 5 million unique visitors last month, compared to 112 million for Facebook, and Bebo continues to see declining traffic.

Infinity Ward, the developer behind the blockbuster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has said today that sales of the Stimulus Package DLC have jumped to 2.5 million in its first week of availability.

The DLC costs $15 USD and adds three multiplayer maps alongside updating two of the original maps.

The developer also notes that the DLC was downloaded 1 million times in its first 24 hours of availability.

Activision, the publisher behind the game, also added that the sales were a record for the Xbox 360.

Microsoft has announced it will be launching Silverlight 4 next week, just a month after releasing the Release Candidate at the MIX10 event.

Silverlight is a web application framework that brings together multimedia, graphics, animations and interactivity into one runtime environment.

Says a spokesman: "April 13 is the launch, but we haven't announced a specific date for the release. Silverlight 4 will be available later this month.")

Here is a list of the updated features for the new software: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2010/03/15/whats-new-in-silverlight-4-rc-mix10.aspx

The American Society of Media Photographers, the Graphic Artists Guild, the Picture Archive Council of America, the North American Nature Photography Association, and the Professional Photographers of America have all joined together to sue Google over copyright infringement, claiming that the search giant has scanned millions of books and magazines that include copyrighted images, then displaying those images without consent.

The suit was filed in the same court where Google's long standing Book Search settlement is being considered. In that case, Google agreed to pay a $125 million settlement to compensate the rights holders.

Adds ASMP General Counsel Victor Perlman: "We are seeking justice and fair compensation for visual artists whose work appears in the twelve million books and other publications Google has illegally scanned to date. In doing so, we are giving voice to thousands of disenfranchised creators of visual artworks whose rights we hope to enforce through this class action."

Google responded, via eweek: "We are confident that Google Books is fully compliant with U.S. and international copyright law."

iSuppli has done a full component teardown of the Apple iPad, and the cost of the hardware for the cheapest model comes out to about $260 USD. It is also important to note, however, that the teardown is only for the hardware, and does not include R&D or shipping.

The cheapest iPad, which includes 16GB of flash memory sells for $499.

The 32 GB version, with a $599 price tag, has $289.10 worth of hardware. The top of the line 64GB version, which sells for $699, has $348.10 worth of hardware.

The most expensive components are, as expected, the touchscreen and the processor. The multitouch display adds $95 USD to costs and the Samsung processor is $26.80. Flash memory depends on the capacity: $29.50 for the 16GB memory, $59 for the 32GB, and $118 for the 64GB.

The aluminum back casing adds $10.50. There are more components of course, but they cost under $10 a piece.

According to the latest Experian Hitwise figures, two of the major search engines lost market share in March to Ask.com, which increased for the fourth consecutive month, and Yahoo.

Google fell marginally to 69.97 percent, Yahoo increased their share 3 percent to 15.04 percent and Bing fell for the third straight month, falling 1 percent to 9.62 percent.

Ask was the big winner, increasing 21 percent month-on-month to 3.44 percent.

Experian says 69 other search engines account for the remaining 1.93 percent.

Techcrunch has a very interesting article today that speaks about "new DRM," the embedding of personal info into tracks purchased from major retailers such Apple and Wal-Mart.

Here is their post from an anonymous music industry 'insider':

Hidden in purchased music files from popular stores such as Apple and Walmart is information to identify the buyer and/or the transaction. You won’t find it disclosed in their published terms of use. It’s nowhere in their support documentation. There’s no mention in the digital receipt. Consumers are largely oblivious to this, but it could have future ramifications as the music industry takes another stab at locking down music files.

Here’s how it works. During the buying process a username and transaction ID are known by the online retailers. Before making the song available for download their software embeds into the file either an account name or a transaction number or both. Once downloaded, the file has squirreled away this personal information in a manner where you can’t easily see it, but if someone knows where to look they can. This information doesn’t affect the audio fidelity, but it does permanently attach to the file data which can be used to trace back to the original purchaser which could be used at a later date.

Engadget is reporting today that the top selling e-reader, the Amazon Kindle, may be reaching Target retail shelves as soon as April 25th, marking the first time the device will be available outside of Amazon.

The move would make sense given the new launch of the Apple iPad, which is available in brick-and-mortar Apple and Best Buy locations and had extremely strong sales opening weekend. Additionally, the popular Nook is available in Barnes & Nobles retail stores.

Amazon and Target have been partners for almost a decade, with Amazon running Target's e-commerce website.

So far, both Amazon and Target have said they "do not comment on rumor or speculation."

The US Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia has ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to enforce network neutrality rules for broadband internet providers.

The ruling came in Comcast's appeal of the that agency's 2008 ruling on the cable giant's practice of throttling P2P traffic.

Although the court's decision means the FCC doesn't have the authority to punish Comcast for their "network management" practices, their legal problems aren't over yet. In fact it clears the way for lawsuits pending in federal court which have been held up by the question of FCC jurisdiction.

There's also the potential for action by the Federal Trade Commission over alleged false advertising of their service.

What makes things more complicated is that the FCC may still be able to establish jurisdiction over net neutrality by revisiting a 2002 ruling on the nature of internet service. At that time it was determined that broadband internet was merely an information service, and therefore not subject to the same level of regulation as common carrier service like traditional phone lines.

Nintendo has announced that they will be unveiling the next iteration of the DS line, the 3DS at the E3 event later this year, but today mockup pictures have shown up on a Japanese blog, and the design shown off by the site is interesting to say the least.

Their is one large touchscreen, which splits two simulated screen for DS backward compatibility, and games can be played vertically and horizontally.

The device can also take pictures, scan pictures, place 3D images on real backgrounds, "3D pointing," and more. 3D Pointing "tracks the movement of the user's finger, including distance, to manipulate an object on screen," says Kotaku.

Although the mockup is definitely a fake, it is still a pretty cool idea. Here are all the pictures posted:

ZodTTD, the developer behind the Snes4iphone emulator has made a video this week playing Super Mario Kart for the SNES on the new iPad.

Says the developer: "I just got my iPad and the first thing I did was install a build of snes4iphone made specifically for non-jailbroken iDevices. This is the video of the first test. I have 2x scale enabled on the iPad to make it full screen, and I enabled smooth scaling in the emulator. I'm playing Super Mario Kart on my iPad and it looks, sounds, and plays great! This is going to be amazing."

Unfortunately, the emulator app is not available to the public yet, and will likely need your iPad to be jailbroken.

Check the video here, it looks great:

Accessory maker Hori has unveiled an add-on LCD screen with speakers for the Slim PS3, making the console "portable."

The Hori HP3-87 is an 11.6-inch LCD with a resolution of 1366x786, allowing for 720p playback.

The system arrives in Japan on May 27th, and has a 500:1 contrast ratio, 7ms response time, stereo speakers, two headphone jacks and RCA and component inputs.

The HP3-87 has a $275 USD equivalent price tag.

Yesterday we reported that the iPhone OS 3.2 may have clues about rumored Verizon iPhone and today Verizon's CEO Ivan Seidenberg has confirmed the wireless company wants to carry the iPhone.

Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations, Seidenberg would not give too much details, but did say the company is actively trying to get the iPhone over to Verizon's networks.

So far, the iPhone is only available for AT&T, and the phone uses the GSM standard. Verizon runs on CDMA.