Jailbreak Your Apple Products

August 2, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 31 Comments

It’s finally here, after being declared completely legal to jailbreak your iPhone, JailbreakMe 2.0 is released.

Now, any and all iDevices can be jailbroken by simply visiting the URL above; however, before you start your devious adventure in the land of apps not approved by big brother Apple, there are a few issues.

The webpage is being slammed at the moment so you’ll have to wait. There is a chance the jailbreak will not work, and you could brick your phone. MMS and Facetime are having complications after jailbreaking. And finally, carrier unlock still needs to be done with ultrasn0w.

But beyond those small stepping stones, jailbreaking is just a touch away.

XT IDE Controller

July 31, 2010 by Mike Szczys 35 Comments

[Geordy] wanted to use some IDE devices but he didn’t have an interface card for his XT system, which can’t handle 16-bit IDE. He looked around for 8-bit ISA controllers but they were hard to find and quite expensive. Lucky for him there’s an open source project that makes a solution to this problem. The XTIDE project brought together a group of vintage computing enthusiasts to design this ISA card. [Geordy] was even able to order a professional PCB from one of the forum members. He ordered the parts an soldered it together, costing about $30 total. He had a friend help him burn the code to the EEPROM but that’s easy enough to do with an Arduino, Bus Pirate, or one of several other methods. Now his grand plans at installing DOS 6.22 have been realized.

Extra Extra: Now Legal To Jailbreak IPhone

July 28, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 33 Comments

For those living under a rock, the latest ‘greatest’ news to hit hacking front page is the the Copyright Office granting Six Exemptions Regarding the Circumvention of Access-Control Technologies. Of the six the one of the two regarding iPhones is as follows,

“(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.”

Which (along with section 3) really just means that you can unlock and crack cellphones and companies can no longer fine you $2,500. Not that many ever have but the threat was there. Apple however, can and still will void your warranty if you jailbreak.

The 4 other areas not involving phones are the ability to circumvent DVDs for portions of video, video games in order to better the security of said game, computer programs that require dongles but dongles are no longer available, and literary works that prevent read-aloud or rendering to a specialized format.

One tidbit I keep hearing about in these exemptions is the ability to now break DRM on music, as much as I wish this were true, I can’t seem to find any sources on it, sorry pirates.

Regardless, now that the world is one step closer to an open framework, whats changed? For me, I’ve been jailbroken for years so sadly nothing. If you agree with the ruling, disagree, or just want to tell about your now legal jailbreaking joys, please leave a comment.

Additional Sources: FOXNews and CNNMoney thanks to [Voyagerfan99], [Ryan Knight], and [Steve S.] respectively.

[Image credit: Fr3d.org]

Store Update: Bags, Pads, And Possibly Badges.

July 27, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 43 Comments

Some new products have worked their way into our hands and are just waiting for some awesome Hack a Day logos to be put on them. We’ve added a couple bags, some huge mouse pads as well as normal ones, and we’re considering adding the Hack A Day badge. You’ve seen the badges before, when we took them to CES. [Devlin] estimates that the cost would be $25 each before shipping. We would like to get some feedback before he starts pumping these things out. How many of you want one?

Break Out The Two-ply, Ecobot III Poops

July 21, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 24 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU6zi1_aZiw&feature=player_embedded%5D

Imagine our surprise when this article on Ecobot III and the disgusting video above showed up in our feed. The robot can theoretically be self-sustaining forever, so long as it has a food source. Yes, you read correctly, food.

Typical robots relying on grub burn the biomass to produce heat/steam/energy, but Ecobot III actually digests using Microbial Fuel Cells and extracts energy in the form of hydrogen.

The process isn’t very efficient (yet), and of course waste must be excreted, but we’re inching closer and closer to the day our robot overlords are invincible. The project has come to a halt (we can’t imagine why), but you can still read up on the process, and meet Ecobot’s brothers: II and I.

Related: We’re all going to die, Carnivorous robots.

Complete The Hack A Day Survey, Win A Shirt

July 21, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 77 Comments

Take our reader survey. Do it. Do it right now. Do you think we should run more articles on the dietary needs of Llamas? Here is your chance to let us know. We got a lot of great feedback from [Jason]’s post, and now we’re ready for more. We’ve put together 10 quick questions that will help us get a feeling for what you want. We will be choosing 5 participants at random to give free t-shirts (the basic logo one).

Update: While we wait for our survey slave to get the changes made, please just put something in the fields that are mandatory(questions 7-9). Even if you put “no opinion”, we’ll get good info from the rest of the survey.

IPhone 4 Steadicam

July 20, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 25 Comments

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a steadicam, and to quench our thirst is this iPhone 4 steadicam. The system does use the typical 3 axis PVC gimbal and heavy weight setup that we’ve seen before, but (why has it taken so long to get this implemented?) the addition of a hand grip means you no longer get blistered fingers. The tutorial recommends the use of an expensive cup holder mounting system, but we think making your own epoxy one might save another dime and allow a wider range of cameras or phones.

The whole process is also wrapped up in a quick and simple how-to video (after the jump alongside an in action video), which goes to show even though a hack may have been done several times before, presentation can make a big difference and impact.

[Thanks Max Lee]

Continue reading “IPhone 4 Steadicam” →