News from category ‘Hardware’

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.

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:

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

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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!

More than 3 years after Steve Jobs announced the iPhone on the stage at Macworld 2007, Apple has finally secured the trademark. iPhone is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. – officially as of Feb 09, 2010. The registration number is 3,746,840.

The procedure, as you can see, required a lot of time, becasue Cisco in the US and Comwave in Canada were marketing VoIP products under the same name.

Now Apple has a new goal - iPad trademark.

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This video was found on one of the Korean sites. And its pretty hard to describe the feelings you experience when watching this movie. The first question to ask yourself is probably why he uses sausages instead of his fingers? But here is an explanation:

According to the Korean portal Hani.co.kr the sausages are the best substitutes of human fingers for iPhone. If your fingers are too sweaty for continual touchscreen use then sausages are the only solution for your problem, because neither gloves nor stylus will work on the capacitive iPhone screen.

We don't know about how many Koreans have sweaty hands, but we have an information that sausage sales in that country increased by 39% over the same period last year. Obviously, the sausages become a usual practice in Korea.

A new job offer on the official Apple website gives one more evidence that in future the iPad and iPod Touch will have a camera and will be able to record video. In particular, Apple is looking for an engineer for the team "Media Systems" who will test the possibility to take pictures, playback and record audio and video:

The Media Systems team is looking for a software quality engineer with a strong technical background to test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks. Build on your QA experience and knowledge of digital camera technology (still and video) to develop and maintain testing frameworks for both capture and playback pipelines. You will work together with the development team to ensure quality. Your focus will mainly be on performance testing and developing performance measurement test tools. You will be responsible for the development and maintenance of methodical testing strategies and accompanying test documentation. Day to day activities will include developing and conducting functional/system/regression testing.ad-hoc testing; creating and tracking high quality bug reports; and reporting on project progress.

iPad's announcement caused many people to wonder why Apple decided to use an ancient standard for video output rather than a more modern protocol, such as DisplayPort or HDMI output.

About ten years ago Apple changed Macs output from VGA to DVI standard that supported HD resolution displays and improved digital accuracy. Few years later Apple made another shift – from DVI to DisplayPort. So why Apple chose VGA output on the iPad? There are 2 main reasons:

1. Most of the video projectors support the iPad’s resolution of 1024x768 over a VGA port.
2. VGA is sufficient to handle the iPad’s resolution, and it is really cheaper and easier.

For more details – watch the video of Daniel Eran Dilger from the RoughDrafted Magazine:

iPhone 3G is on left and 4G is on the right

iPhone repair site iResQ.com has posted photos of the parts for the iPhone 4G that will be released later this year.

As we can see, the most notable feature is a front panel, which is approximately 1/4” taller than the iPhone 3GS.

You can also notice the reflective surface on the new front panel that is located just above the earpiece slot. iResQ suggests it is a likely location for a proximity sensor, though that wouldn’t explain the need for the mirrored surface to be visible on the front of the device.

The LCD appears to be factory glued to the digitizer. This looks more like the iPhone 2G than the 3G or 3GS, as the latest versions have a digitizer that can be separated from the LCD. This means for us that the 4G screen repair prices will be much higher since both parts will have to be replaced at once.

Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope recently met with Apple executives:

Apple wants the iPad to be the best device for a few key use cases. For instance, the company believes it could eventually be seen as superior to both handheld and notebook devices for browsing the Internet, using the App Store, and consuming mobile media (video, photos, and e-books). Nevertheless, in other areas, notebooks, the iPhone, or an iPod may be more appropriate. This clear segmentation of capabilities suggests that cannibalization may be less of a concern than most currently believe.

Shope writes about the price:

it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble (pricing could change if the company is not attracting as many customers as anticipated).

Sounds great. What do you think about $200 iPad? Would you buy one?

ZoomIt is the first SD card reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This peripheral together with ZoomIt application gives iPhone users the ability to load photos, music, PowerPoint, PDF and other files directly from SD card.

ZoomIt is a great way to extend iPhone's storage or simply backup photos during vacation. It will be available in April for $50.

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The iPad will be available for purchase in March. For those who don't want to wait Jess Silverstone put together a cut-out of the Apple iPad. Just print these images on a standard A4 paper (8.3 x 11.7 inches) and make your own iPad:

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The new concept by Patrycjusz Brzezinski was released recently in the Internet. It is a docking station, which looks pretty similar to the bottom of an iMac. It would work good for the iPad, as with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard it could be used as a some kind of a touch enabled mini iMac.   And if you suddenly need to go somewhere, just undock the iPad and put it in your bag. That's convenient.

Patrycjusz Brzezinski is also known for his previous concepts. The concept of "MacView", a tablet with a pair of touch screens in a slider design, was one of the most resonant. It is presented on the pictures below.

Debra Shinder from TechRepublic posted an article about 10 reasons why she won’t buy an iPad. As time passes by her thoughts provoke more and more passionate discussions on this topic. So here are these 10 reasons:

1. There is no physical keyboard (or you need to buy an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard).
2. One size doesn’t fit all (it doesn’t fill the gap between mobiles and netbooks as 9.7” inches is an exact screen size of netbook, and you cannot put it into your pocket).
3. It runs iPhone OS (so there is no multi-tasking).
4. There’s not enough storage (and you cannot expand it via USB-flashdrives).
5. There’s no HDMI output or camera (if you can watch video, why you can’t make videoconferences with your friends?).
6. There are no USB ports (and you would not be able to connect your own web-cam, for example).
7. There is no flash memory slot.
8. The price is not right (it just seems to be illogical to pay 200$ for additional 48 GB )
9. It is locked in. All apps are in AppStore, and good ones cost money.
10. It is all about network (why should people change their internet provider to AT&T just because of purchasing some new device?).

While Debra compares fully-equipped 829$ iPad with a powerful and though compact laptop, it seems like she’s looking for an ability to make use of all its capacities. On the other hand, TUAW critics and Apple fans say that iPad is designed to be an enhanced ebook-reader that makes it easy to handle everyday operations like checking e-mails or surfing the web.

What do you think?

Darren Beckett created a small table, comparing the entry-level iPad's cost and functions with popular e-readers like the Amazon Kindle DX, Fusion Garage JooJoo, Sony Reader and others.

While the iPad is as the most expensive on the list, it's fairly obvious if you need anything more than a simple e-reader, the iPad offers the most bang for your buck.