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App Store coming for jailbroken iPhones
Several groups are working on ways for you to buy and download unapproved apps on your hacked phone.
Everybody's making an online application store for mobile devices these days. Palm, Google, Microsoft, RIM, and, of course, Apple, already have or are working on their offerings. Apple's caught a good deal of flack for the heavy-handed control it wields over its App Store, restricting everything from games with minor political content, to programs adding functionality Apple doesn't want its users having (video recording, for one), to pretty much anything with adult content in it. Frustrated users have taken to jailbreaking their phones, letting them install un-Apple-approved software. app , planning their own App Stores.
Users who want to take the plunge into hacking their iPhones start off by tracking down a jailbreak program. These take advantage of flaws in Apple's software to inject code into the phone that disable the check on only letting Apple-approved App Store downloads run. Though Apple fights back by often disabling these hacks in their firmware updates, the hackers inevitably find another way in. Once the handset is open, many users install a program called Cydia which provides a gateway to track down and install other apps. These apps are mostly free, though developers can set up their own payment structures if they want to support paid versions of their programs as well. Cydia is looking to change that by providing a unified payment system, similar to what the App Store uses. Considering all the work users must go through to jailbreak their phones and even get to the Cydia storefront, any step like that to make purchases go smoothly should really help sales.Besides Cydia, there are companies planning to set up similar systems. One called Rock Your Phone is working on what looks like an all-in-one solution, handling not only the sales and app distribution, but jailbreaking your iPhone in the first place. We've heard no word on just how they're going to manage that, and what it would cost you, but it's definitely a great idea, lowering the bar for entry into the world of unauthorized apps. If you've been wishing that your clean-cut iPhone could be a little more blue, there's also a plan in the works from a company hoping to bring adult-oriented games to its own online store.
Of course, all of this is predicated on it being legal. Apple doesn't think so, so we're sure to see a court or two weigh in on the issue before any of these 3rd-party app stores go live.
Around the web: Gizmodo
, Daring Fireball (448 comments) , theregister.co.uk (1 comment) , Engadget Mobile , news.cnet.com (44 comments) Profile pages: Apple iPhone, Apple iPhone 3G, Apple, Apple iPhone, Jailbreak, iPhone apps
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Snow Leopard likely to see June release
Some detective work has placed Apple's WWDC over the second week of June, where the OS is likely to be unveiled.
Mac OS X users have been anxiously awaiting version 10.6, called Snow Leopard, for some time now. We've already given you a breakdown of the major changes and talked about how they're going to affect the user experience. As we get closer to its release, we now have some more juicy tidbits of what the OS will hold in store, as well as the best indication as to just when that release date will be.
The smart money now is on Apple releasing Snow Leopard the second week of June, with some really ambitious Nostradamuses pegging it down to specifically June 8th. The reasoning behind all this is pretty smart, looking at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. It would make perfect sense for Apple to feature Snow Leopard there, except no one knows for sure when the conference will be. A reporter at the Baltimore Sun thought to check out the scheduling availability for San Francisco's Moscone Center, where the conference has been held for the past several years.
According to the posted schedule, there's one event scheduled for that second week of June that's just the right length for the WWDC, labeled generically (probably due to Apple's request for secrecy) as a "Corporate Meeting". Though there are other such meetings on the summer schedule, the others aren't long enough to fit what we expect from the WWDC. The guess of the eighth, the Monday of that week, is to coincide with the expected keynote address.
Besides having a better hold on the date, we also know more about what to expect in Snow Leopard. 64-bit compatibility sounded good from the get-go, allowing you to install and take advantage of ridiculous amounts of RAM, but now we hear that Apple is pushing 64-bit mode even harder on developers. QuickTime X will bundle in what we've come to expect from QuickTime Pro into the default install, adding some new features. Now it seems that it's getting a user interface tweak as well, sporting a new, minimalist design. For fans of Apple's web browser, you'll be glad to see that Safari 4 beta will be included in the install. We'll just have to wait until June to learn about all the other goodies Apple has planned.Around the web: Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now
, 9to5mac.com (7 comments) , news.worldofapple.com (9 comments) Profile pages: Apple, Apple Mac OS X, RAM, Apple Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Operating system
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Firefox may be buggiest browser, but also first with fixes
While Microsoft leaves many IE holes unpatched, Mozilla has been quick to get out fixes for Firefox.
Choosing the right browser for you involves weighing a ton a factors. Aside from just what features you want, you've got to consider speed, what system resources are required, and what level of support's available. One of the most important factors to weigh is how stable the browser is. Besides just crashing your system and causing you to lose work, bugs can be avenues hackers take to plant malware on your system. Looking at the stats from the major players over the past year, although Firefox reported far and away the most bugs, it was also often that fastest to push out fixes for them.
While Microsoft, Apple, and Opera reported only a few dozen bugs over the course of the year (Google's Chrome was not included in the tabulation), Mozilla revealed almost 120 in Firefox, according to the study done by vulnerability researchers at Secunia. Comparing the two main browser competitors, Internet Explorer and Firefox, IE bugs tended to go unfixed for much longer. Secunia looked at cases where bugs were publicly known before a patch was available. While Mozilla patched Firefox in as little as 15 days, taking 86 at the longest, Microsoft's fastest turn-around time was 78 days. Of the six bugs in this category reported for IE last year, half of them still haven't been patched, 200 to 300 days later.
To be fair, of those bugs Microsoft has yet to patch, two are considered to pose a low threat, and one none at all. Still, you'd think that a company would want to patch even a small vulnerability as soon as prudent, presumably at least within a year. Firefox has the benefit that, once a bug is publicized, you can be pretty sure that someone's going to get around to fixing it, as its open-source nature lets non-employees edit the code. Even if you're a skilled programmer, and you're aware of a vulnerability in IE, you're out of luck until Microsoft decides to implement a fix itself. So, despite the large number of reported bugs, the speed at which the Mozilla community puts out fixes makes it seem like the security winner in our book.Around the web: news.cnet.com (28 comments)
, blogs.chron.com (5 comments) Profile pages: Microsoft, Open source, Mozilla, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox
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MacBook Pros suffering from problems with NVIDIA graphics
Some of the 17-inch laptops experience display corruption when running both GPUs at once.
When we first heard about the graphics powerhouse Apple was building into its MacBook Pro, we got pretty excited. The idea of having two levels of GPU chips in a laptop seemed pretty revolutionary at the time, letting you balance power consumption and graphics performance by only enabling one of the chips when you needed it. Unfortunately, it looks like the combo is being plagued by some defective chips, as users have begun noticing display anomalies when using both chips at once.
The specific model reports are coming in for is Apple's 17-inch MacBook Pro. Normally the laptop uses its NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor to keep battery life maximized. Switching on the auxiliary 9600M GT chip boosts the system's capabilities, letting it handle demanding 3D games. Owners of these systems are now reporting that when they turn on the 9600M, strange vertical colored lines appear, corrupting the display. Apparently a system restart can temporarily fix things, as does turning off the 9600M, but the problem returns shortly after enabling it again.
If this really is a failure in the 9600M, and not one of Apple's components, it looks like NVIDIA hasn't learned its lesson when it comes to manufacturing laptop GPUs. Last summer the company admitted that faulty chips made their way into dozens of laptop models from an assortment of companies. The repairs and replaced parts cost the company a couple hundred million dollars. Making this seem even more like déjà vu, one of the affected models was the previous-generation MacBook Pro, which used NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT chips.
We haven't seen any response from Apple or NVIDIA yet, but really hope these are either isolated cases or can be fixed with a software update. If this is just the tip of another spade of GPU failures, NVIDIA could be in some serious trouble.
[Image courtesy Apple.com forums poster forcefedmedia]Around the web: Engadget (28 comments)
, SlashGear Profile pages: Apple, NVIDIA, GPU, Apple MacBook Pro, Apple MacBook Pro 2008, NVIDIA GeForce, Apple MacBook Pro 2009 (17-inch)
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Twitter moving search and trend tracker to its main site
Until now, you've had to use an external search web site to track down new conversations.
If you're intimidated by the vast quantities of unorganized information constantly streaming through Twitter each second, the company has some changes to tools in store that should make it easier for you to find what you're looking for amongst all that noise. Although it's only rolled out the new features to a select group of users so far, soon everyone should have access to an integrated search tool and trend-tracker to spot the most popular topics.
Right now, Twitter search is conducted through a separate web site. It started off as a third-party Twitter-based application from a company called Summize. Twitter acquired Summize last summer and set the service up at search.twitter.com. While that's fine and good, most users expect a search box that's built-in to the site they're using; having to keep separate tabs open for Twitter and Twitter search, jumping back and forth, can get a little annoying. Which the new embedded search, you'll be able to search for Twitter topics directly from within the main site.
Along with the search box, a trends tracker will be added to the site's navigation bar. Right now you spot these trends on the external Twitter search page, but just like the search itself, Twitter is moving it to the main site. The tracker automatically identifies common keywords that are driving the greatest number of recent conversations. Right now, for instance, besides the usual group of people just tweeting about it being Friday, looking forward to another week of work ending, users are tweeting about the release of the movie Watchmen, with a large number specifically talking about seeing it in IMAX.
Twitter is double-checking that these changes don't break anything, but if everything goes smoothly you should start seeing them on your Twitter home page shortly.Around the web: ReadWriteWeb (1 comment)
, Techmeme , Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now (50 comments) Profile pages: Twitter, Twitter, Inc.
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Latest Boxee update restores some Hulu access
The work-around can stream Hulu shows that have been posted on one of the site's RSS feeds.
Boxee fans who have been feeling the pain since Hulu asked Boxee to remove its streams finally have some relief in store. While it won't bring back the same level of integration with Hulu that it featured before, the latest alpha release of Boxee includes support for a work-around that will let you watch some Hulu programming again.
Boxee was asked by Hulu to voluntarily remove its support for the site, prompted by requests from the networks owning the rights to the site's content. Rather than fight them, Boxee conceded and pulled its support, but has been working since on finding an amicable way to get those shows back. Unfortunately, they've not been able to reach an agreement as of yet, so Boxee won't be reinstating the old Hulu access.
Instead, the Boxee team added an RSS-based video player which can display streams coming from any number of sites, including Hulu. Any publicly-available RSS feed can be added to the player to let you access its clips. Right now Hulu posts feeds in several categories, including recently-added programming, what's most popular, and clips about to be taken off the site. Though it doesn't offer the same selection as the previous implementation, nor is it as polished, the work-around will let you restore at least some level of Hulu access.
Besides the RSS reader, there's now support for an app store of sorts, a way for you to download apps and plugins directly from Boxee. There's no indication that the team ever plans to start offering for-purchase apps like you'd get on your iPhone; instead, this is more of a repository for getting all Boxee downloads together in one place, and to simplify installs.
Finally, there's now a working auto-updater, so you won't have to wait for posts like this to learn about new versions of the software. Then again, if the team plans on pulling support for any other video sites in the future, maybe that's one option you'll want to disable. The new Boxee is available for download now.Around the web: The Social (1 comment)
, Webware.com (1 comment) , CNET News.com (1 comment) , eCoustics (1 comment) -
Chief Information Officer wants cloud computing, more commercial gadgets in the government
As first federal CIO, Vivek Kundra has his goals set on improving government efficiency and spreading access to data.
As part of the Obama administration's ongoing love affair with technology, President Obama today appointed the first federal Chief Information Officer. As CIO, Vivek Kundra will be responsible for advising the administration on technology issues, helping guide internal policy to best make use of what tech's available and ensure the government uses it as efficiently and securely as possible. In a conference call earlier today, Kundra discussed what his goals are as CIO and what big changes the U.S. needs to make regarding how the government uses the IT resources it has available.
One of the key areas where the government needs to improve is in its adoption of commercially-available hardware and software solutions. Kundra alluded to the power of today's smartphones, which are relatively cheap, easy to use, and gloriously portable. The CIO doesn't like how many government agencies try to develop in-house systems to meet their needs, when it would be far more efficient to purchase off-the-shelf gadgets and then adapt them. A smartphone with the right software could replace any number of proprietary communications devices as used by police and public works officials.
Another topic that Kundra was anxious to see the government take better advantage of is cloud computing. This network strategy takes the load off individual PCs by running applications largely on an external group of servers. Considering how many hundreds of thousands desktop computers the government uses, switching to a cloud model would save vast amounts of resources, ultimately allow processing power to go where it was needed, when it was needed, and offer advantages when performing ongoing upkeep and maintenance tasks.
Kundra also spoke about using web sites to enhance citizen involvement and increase government transparency. In addition to the recovery.gov site, the CIO mentioned plans for data.gov, which would publish information produced by federal agencies. While admitting it will be require a "massive transformation", Kundra wants to see all non-restricted federal information made available online. That's quite the ambitious task, but we hope that seeing this kind of ambition from him during his first day on the job is a sign that the CIO plans on actually getting things done.Around the web: bits.blogs.nytimes.com (28 comments)
, eWeek , All Things Digital (1 comment) , Neowin.net / Main , Alley Insider (1 comment) Profile pages: Smartphone, cloud computing
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Acrobat bug can lead to malware installs without even opening an infected file
Because Adobe builds parts of Acrobat into Windows Explorer, you can trigger the bug unintentionally.
If you've been living in fear of opening any suspicious PDF files since we let you know about a still-unpatched bug in Adobe Acrobat that could expose your PC to a malware infection, we've got some bad news for you: it turns out that, due to how the bug is integrated into the software, it's possible for malware authors to still get into your system, even if you never actually open an infected file.
The bug affects only Windows computers running Acrobat version 7 or later. Because the program doesn't correctly read PDF files containing a certain type of compressed image, a specially-crafted PDF can at once crash Acrobat and inject its own code into the system, beginning a malware installation. Even though this bug's been public knowledge for weeks, and exploits are already out taking advantage of it, Adobe has been delaying its release of a patch to fix it, scheduled to be available on the 11th.
While you may have thought to play it safe by not opening new PDFs, or installing a program other than Acrobat to view them, that no longer looks to be a fix. As part of its installation, Acrobat adds extensions to Windows Explorer to let it understand information embedded in PDFs. This way, you can make use of metadata like a document's title or author when sorting files in Explorer.
A security researcher found out that the code that triggers this PDF bug can be placed inside that metadata. Just hovering your mouse cursor over the infected file, not even clicking on it, will cause Explorer to try to read the PDF, setting things off. This is dangerous because even if you installed a new PDF reader, you may still have these Explorer extensions installed, leaving your system vulnerable.
If you want to be safe for now, make sure you totally uninstall Acrobat, not just use another PDF program alongside it. Luckily there's only a week left until the fix should be out, though it's frustrating it's taking Adobe this long. If your curious, check out a video of the exploit being demonstrated after the break.Around the web: theregister.co.uk
, blog.didierstevens.com (26 comments) , Slashdot (187 comments) -
News agency embraces Twitter for breaking news coverage
Sky News is setting up a full-time Twitter correspondent to find news as it breaks on the service.
When we want to know what our friends are up to, we check the usual social networking destinations for our news updates. We'll swing by Facebook, stop at any blogs our friends have up, and read up on the latest from whom we follow on Twitter. As the site matures and attracts more and more users, it's starting to get attention from big businesses, which are realizing that it's just as useful for finding "real" news as it is at letting us know where our friends are meeting up for a movie tonight. In order to stay on top of any stories breaking through tweets, Sky News has created its first full-time position for a Twitter correspondent.
As Sky News pointed out in the memo it distributed to its employees announcing the position, plenty of recent stories in the news have had Twitter play a part in them. When flight 1549 made an emergency crash landing into the Hudson River, the first on-site pictures were spread via Twitter. The amateur photo taken with an iPhone beat out any professional photographers at covering the rescue of the passengers. The next time someone uses Twitter to post first-hand information on a breaking story, Sky wants to be sure it has someone watching the feeds to catch the tweet as it hits.
Though Sky News says it's been gathering stories this way for years, this will be the first time it has someone dedicated to working with Twitter. We expect to see this sort of thing catch on with other news agencies, as it's like having an army of reporters for free. The only tricky part is sorting out the gold from the sea of all tweets, but so far Sky seems to finding success with the service.Around the web: uk.techcrunch.com (13 comments)
, Techmeme Profile pages: Facebook, Twitter, Twitter, Inc., tweet
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Amazon wants to buy your used video games
Amazon Video Games Trade-In pays you competitive rates for shipping in your used titles.
Most of us have ordered from Amazon at one point or another. Although ostensibly a bookstore, the site's product selection has grown to include most any consumer product you can think of. In recent years, it's tried out some new business models, selling downloadable music and starting up a video-on-demand service. The latest new offering from the company turns the tables on its relationship with customers, as it's now interested in buying from you, specifically your used video games.
Amazon launched the beta of its Video Games Trade-In Store, offering to purchase titles in a list of about 1500. If you've got one of those games and you're looking to sell it, Amazon will generate a shipping label for you to use to send the title in. After verifying the game's in good condition, the company will credit your account with an Amazon gift card for the appropriate amount.
The project is getting a lot of attention because it could upset the used game market, now mainly controlled by GameStop. The company sees the bulk of its income come from used games, as it can buy low and sell high, often to the same gamers who keep coming back to trade out their old titles for new ones. Amazon, though, is so far offering higher buy-back prices than GameStop, providing a compelling alternative to gamers who can wait a few days to get their games in the mail. Hoping to sweeten the deal, Amazon is also offering a 10% discount on a future game purchase to customers who try out the Trade-In Store.
If you've got any games just gathering dust, you can check to see if they're on Amazon's wish-list and maybe turn them back into a little cash.Around the web: Alley Insider (2 comments)
, amazon.com , news.cnet.com , Between the Lines , Webware.com , Crave , CNET News.com
Sony PS3 Slim image gallery
