Expect nothing–or better yet expect a total trainwreck–and you’re always pleasantly surprised.
That axiom is at play today as Hulu–the online video venture of Fox and NBC launches. The online service, which was launched to be a YouTube-ish competitor, is in private beta and the blogger class has spoken. In a nutshell, Hulu doesn’t stink and […]
We know all about user-generated content, masses of users contributing to burgeoning Web corpus. It’s a manifestation of Web 2.0, the participatory Net, which companies like Google (YouTube), Yahoo (Flickr), Fox (MySpace), etc. are feasting on.
In parallel, users are contributing a potentially far more lucrative Web currency–metadata about themselves. It’s the currency that will […]
Verizon reported solid customer gains for its FiOS TV and Internet services and wireless business in the third quarter.
By the numbers, Verizon added 202,000 new FiOS TV customers for 717,000 total as of Sept. 30. The company, the second largest telecom provider after AT&T, added 229,000 new FiOS Internet customers for 1.3 million total. And […]
As expected Oracle yanked its $6.7 billion offer for BEA Systems. The big question is where BEA goes from here.
The Oracle-BEA saga has been plagued with back and forth letters in recent days. Oracle offered $17 a share for BEA. BEA said it wants $21. Oracle said go to hell. The deal expired and now […]
One of the still outstanding “head scratchers” regarding the Apple iPhone is the continued lack of support for the A2DP Bluetooth profile. Considering the iPhone’s roots are in the iPod, a stereo music player, it is quite astounding that as we sit here already up to iPhone firmware 1.1.1, there is still no native support for A2DP. The good news is that this doesn’t mean A2DP is unavailable to iPhone users.
For those of you unfamiliar with A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile), A2DP is a Bluetooth profile that allows for the wireless transmission of stereo audio from a source (i.e. a phone or computer) to an A2DP receiver (a set of Bluetooth headphones or stereo system).
Back to the good news. Though the iPhone itself does not support A2DP directly (at this time), all iPhone owners can still enjoy the convenience of A2DP headphones, earbuds, and other A2DP accessories. Through the use of an , such as the one recently released by 8Bananas, any iPhone can send audio to an A2DP receiver.
The good thing about the 8Bananas A2DP dongle, the SRS-200BD, which is “made for the iPod or iPhone” is that it connects to the iPhone’s dock connector. Simply plug and A2DP dongle into the iPhone’s dock connector, and off you go. There are a handful of other A2DP dongles out there that plug into 3.5mm headphone jacks which would work with the iPhone, but don’t offer the same level of compact convenience.
We already knew that Apple has decided to limit the number of iPhones an individual can buy in a single transaction - down from five to two - but its emerged that they’ve also decided that your cash just isn’t good enough. Several would-be iPhone owners were turned away from Apple Store cash desks when they tried to pay for their handsets in cash; after a quick call around, it was confirmed that this wasn’t just the odd anomoly but now official policy.
It’s believed that this is a further move by Apple to reduce the number of iPhones that are resold and/or unlocked, a predictable move when you consider the recent news that AT&T pays Cupertino a massive $18 per month for the duration of each iPhone’s two-year contract.
A crew of hackers (including hdm/metasploit, rezn, dinopio, drudge, kroo, pumpkin, davidc, dunham, and NerveGas) have introduced a one-touch instant jailbreak for both iPhone and iPod touch. The jailbreak opens your iPhone for full disk access and installs Installer.app so you can add pretty much any third party application you like.
To use it, open Safari and point your browser to jailbreakme.com (which we aren’t linking to so folks won’t install this by accident, but you are prompted to confirm). Once there, read the directions, scroll to the bottom, and tap Install AppSnapp. If Safari disappears and you return to the main Home screen, you’re good. Just wait a minute more for your unit to restart–don’t touch anything until you see the slide to unlock screen. If Safari hangs, just quit out (press and hold Home for 4-8 seconds) and try again.
Once you get to slide-to-unlock, go ahead and unlock your iPhone or iPod touch. You’ll return to your home screen which will contain a new Installer.app icon. If you’ll want to ssh into your unit, install the BSD subsystem, Community Sources, and then install Open SSH–you may need to upgrade Installer.app (thanks Ste). With Open SSH and sshfs (part of Mac Fuse), you can open Finder windows that offer direct drag and drop access to your phone or touch.
The jailbreak really is as easy as it sounds. I restored my iPod touch and jailbroke it just a few minutes ago and it worked great.
Via http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/29/instant-jailbreak-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch/
Notable headlines:
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: The Leopard has landed: The Mac OS X 10.5 upgrade process. Gallery: Installing Leopard. Robin Harris: Back up before Leopard upgrade! David Morgenstern: Mac OS X Leopard installation as a spiritual practice. Dana Gardner: I got bitten by the Apple Leopard blue screen problem. Techmeme.
Garett Rogers: Use your Google Calendar offline soon. […]
In my morning feed reading I came across a post from a startup company Path 101 about how it would like to work with Linkedin on its APIs. Linkedin has been promising to deliver APIs that would allow developers to tap into its business network.
Path 101 co-founders Charlie O’Donnell and Alex Lines state their mission […]
Gartner just released its Magic Quadrant for team collaboration and social software. What’s interesting is that there aren’t any leaders and only two visionaries, Socialtext and SuiteTwo, products from Socialtext, NewsGator, SimpleFeed and MovableType, bundled by SpikeSource and distributed through Intel. Blogs, wikis, forums, RSS and even social graph
Microsoft and IBM are the highest in […]
Just 24 hours after Facebook received $240 million from Microsoft for 1.6 percent of the company, Ami Vora, senior platform manager at Facebook, said that investment news (which probably wasn’t any surprise to Facebook employees) wasn’t a big deal for anyone she talked to. “We are really focused on what we build. Resources are great, […]
Guest post: Chris Matyszczyk investigates the soft underbelly of Web culture.
As Hillary Clinton and Michael Moore will tell you, there is no greater potential money-spinner in the US today than health. We all get sick. So there’s always some sicko who wants to make a buck out of our bad luck.
I have become fascinated, […]
Microsoft posts its best fiscal first quarter in years and Wall Street cheers. But the angst goes on.
Derrick Shields at SeekingAlpha asks how can Microsoft stay competitive. The common refrain: The days of Office and Vista are numbered. We’ve heard this before–repeatedly for a decade. Wake me up when these units combined only make about […]
BEA on Friday responded to Oracle’s latest letter, which outlined why BEA was nuts for thinking it could get $21 a share.
For those keeping score at home that’s three letters in 24 hours. First BEA said it wanted $21 a share. Oracle said show us your other bidder. And now BEA said:
Dear Charles (Phillips):
As we […]
The lawsuit swirling around the TJX data breach is getting interesting. The most interesting development: The banks suing TJX are arguing that the retailer should be liable because of lax security practices.
Previously, banks and the credit card issuers were on the hook for data breach losses at retailers. If the banks, which are seeking to […]
