Archive for 2010

The annual Pwn2Own hacking contest is coming up next month. During the event competitors will be given the chance to win cash prizes.

The competition will start on March 24 at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. This year, hackers will take on an iPhone 3GS, a Blackberry Bold 9700, an unspecified Nokia smartphone running the Symbian S60 platform and a Motorola, most likely a Droid, powered by Google 's Android. A successful hack must result in code execution with little to no user-interaction. Any exploited phone wins its attacker $10,000 in cash.

Opera had finally demonstrated new Opera Mini for the iPhone at the Mobile World Congress.

In comparison to the default iPhone browser it looks pretty quick - Opera Mini loads the New York Times like 5x faster than its rival. Its main disadvantage is that it lacks the all-important feature pinch-to-zoom, and the only alternative is a method of double-tapping the webpages. Generally, the iPhone owners will find that the usual silky smooth scrolling through favorite webpages and responsive interface are maintained at the very best.

Unlike other platforms, the iPhone variant actually remembers the website you happened to browse last - the feature that will obviously be favored by a legion of iPhone admirers.

Company says as soon as beta tag is removed the browser will be submitted for approval. And it is not obvious whether Apple approve it or not, because it maintains the option of rejecting any app that "duplicates functionality" of the apps Apple builds into the iPhone. Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner has his own point of view on this:

"Opera Mini is the world's most popualr mobile browser and users on the iPhone deserve a choice."

There is a handful of people who have been trying to tell the story of Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple and one of the front-rank hi-tech innovators of modern era. A number of attempts to tell about this remarkable personality have either enjoyed very modest success or were vehemently repulsed.

It looks as if only Walter Isaacson, the author of two other best-selling biographies and former editor of  Time magazine, could persuade Jobs to take part in the project. He says that the book will cover the most important stages of the Steve’s life, from his life in the notorious Silicon Valley through the years at Apple.

Though the Apple spokesmen do not comment on these rumors.

Steve Jobs’s attempts to convince publishers to provide the content in a useful digital form were not that successful and the negotiations initiated in February have "stumbled."

Some newsmakers report of "friendly" talks, but speak of Apple's business model as a crucial change for the publishing business. They aware of the impact iTunes had had on the songs industry in 2003. Then the number of downloads of single songs from Apple influenced the resulting purchases of the singers’ albums.

Apple has been conquering the e-reader market long before the new iPad was on offer. So that is not a surprise that such companies as Amazon, which previously dominated the market have to increase their prices in response to the iPad’s outbreak.

According to 9to5Mac it seems that Apple will present the new Firmware 4.0 on a new event scheduled for March 14, 2010. The news were received from a reliable source, but this is still rumors. Previously Apple was expected to release firmware 3.2 in March-April and firmware 4.0 some time in July. We'll see!

It's really true, that in some cases the best ideas are the simplest ones that come to mind in moments when we least expect it. Here is a good example, when one of users created an iPhone stand using cigarette package. The result is a support for the iPhone that is very simple and functional:

Several users report that Apple started allowing iPod touch owners to upgrade to iPhone OS 3 for no charge.

The information initially comes from PocketGamer's Tracy Erickson:

Syncing a second generation iPod touch today with an older version of the software prompted me to accept the free upgrade. How exciting.

Just as when asked to download and install the latest firmware on an iPhone, iTunes simply asks for confirmation - no signing in to pay for the software.

Sounds like free a good price for iPod touch 3.1.3 upgrade.

PS: Jailbreakers: think before updating - you might lose the ability to jailbreak your device if you upgrade the firmware.

Update: Several users confirmed the free update. However a number of users report that they are still asked to pay for the update.

MacWorld Expo 2010 started on the Feb, 11. We'll show you how that day and the MWSF generally started.

Read the rest of this entry »

It looks like Apple has started banning iPhone hackers from the iTunes App Store.

A few day ago Sherif Hashim, the iPhone developer and hacker, tweeted that he had found an exploit in the latest iPhone OS 3.1.3, which could enable the unlock on 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G. Yesterday he has been banned by Apple for the so called "security reasons". It seems that Apple is quite angry! Here is what Sherif gets when he tries to access App Store from his iPhone:

Sherif Hashim’s Tweets:

"Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons", that's what i get when i try to go to the app store, they must be really angry ))))

and guess what my apple ID was, "sherif_hashim@yahoo.com", what a fool was me not to notice )), can't help laughing, they are babies ))

Another iPhone hacker named iH8sn0w, the developer of Sn0wbreeze (PwnageTool alternative for Windows), tweeted saying he was also banned by Apple right after he released an exploit known as XEMN:

@sherif_hashim lol, they did that to my ih8sn0wyday[@t]googmail.com too. (right after I posted XEMN)…

For now Apple isn’t banning Jailbreakers - they’re banning people who actively work to find exploits in the iPhone software to create Jailbreaks for the rest of us.

AT&T, Telefonica, Orange and 9 other world's leading mobile phone operators created an alliance to build an open technology platform that is designed to deliver applications to mobile phone users. The decision will be announced tomorrow at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. There are rumors the presentation is supported by Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG.

According to the Times, Vodafone hasn't yet committed to the new alliance. It is collaborating with Verizon Wireless, Softbank of Japan and China Mobile to create a new common technology standard.

Designer with a nickname Luca_sx has created a new concept of what could be the iPhone 4G.

As we can see from the image this iPhone also features a front webcam, redesigned Home button, new silent mode button, a card reader and the backlit Apple logo. Not bad!

GeoHot recently posted a small message on twitter. He actually responds to many users who continue to ask him about the ability to run firmware 3.1.3 jailbreak using Blackra1n.

GeoHot has always been a bit reluctant to release new versions for various minor firmware updates. His advice is in fact once again to keep firmware 3.1.2, because the latest one does not have anything interesting.

GeoHot will be certainly back on the scene with the next release of firmware 3.2 in March / April or firmware 4.0 that is expected in July.

iH8sn0w released a new version of Sn0wbreeze, the Windows tool that allows to jailbreak the newest firmware 3.1.3. This is a small update that addresses several problems with YouTube.

You can download the new version of sn0wbreeze from here.

We still recommend to use DevTeam utilities - redsn0w (Windows and MAC OS) and pwnagetool (MAC OS only).

The new version of Navigon, the famous navigation applicatin for iPhone, will be released in March. Here is the first demo video directly from MacWorld 2010:

Fuzzyband is an application that can downgrade the baseband for iPhone 3G. Recently it has been updated to include the support for firmware 3.1.3 baseband 05.12.01. It works only with bootloader 05.08 (early iPhone 3G).

Why do users need to downgrade the baseband? The answer is simple: if they accidentally upgraded the new firmware and need to run unlock software (blacksn0w and ultrasn0w). Unlocked iPhones do not need Fuzzyband. iPhone 3GS users cannot downgrade baseband with Fuzzyband.

Fuzzyband is available for jailbreaked iPhones in Cydia (repository BigBoss, category "System" ).