iPhone 3.1.2 unlock tool blacksn0w has been released, a day ahead of the promised schedule. Available as a free download from blackra1n.com, the software allows the latest version of Apple’s iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS firmware to be carrier-unlocked, freeing you from the tyranny of whichever network you bought it from. According to creator George Hotz, the unlock is also faster than before, by around 15 seconds in fact.
Apple may be reluctant to launch a netbook – and given their financial success selling mid- to high-end notebooks we can’t really blame them – has spawned a busy community of Hackint0sh creators, many of whom turn to humble Atom-based netbooks such as the MSI Wind for use as donor machines for OS X. All that might change, however, with the news that Apple have tweaked Mac OS X 10.6.2, their upcoming operating-system update, to prevent installation on Atom-based computers.
Been waiting for an unlock for your iPhone 3GS? Thanks to George Hotz, who goes by the handle of Geohot and offers the blackra1n unlock tool, a new version – blacksn0w – capable of unlocking iPhone OS 3.1.2 will be launched on November 4th. According to Hotz, one unlocking company has gone as far as to offer him $10,000 for the necessary code; however the good news is that the blacksn0w unlock will remain free.
Problem is, that won’t stop various less-than-honest unlock merchants from “borrowing” blacksn0w and charging iPhone owners for what they could readily do themselves for free. Hotz is asking people to share the information about his – and the iPhone Dev Team’s – offerings, to try to reduce the number of people conned into paying unnecessarily.
Video demo of the unlock after the cut
Android 2.0 may only have been officially announced last week, but don’t underestimate the speed of the open-source community. They’ve already got a basic install of the new OS running on the original HTC Dream (aka the T-Mobile G1); it’s not optimized yet, which means the handset chugs along rather than whipping through the pages like we’re finding on the Verizon DROID by Motorola, but it’s certainly working.
Video demo after the cut
NVIDIA’s Ion LE promises to deliver the same 1080p HD playback as its regular Ion sibling, but at a cheaper price; to do that, it drops DirectX 10 support in favor of solely accommodating DX9. It turns out that the limitation is, in fact, an arbitrary one and that the Ion LE seems to have been artificially crippled by NVIDIA themselves; MyHPMini forum member runawayprisoner found that by slightly modifying HP’s own Ion drivers he could get them to install for the Ion LE.
It’s taken them over 500 pages of hacking, but earnest tweakers over at xda-developers have managed to get Android 1.6 Donut running on the hitherto Windows Mobile 6.1 HTC Diamond. The first-gen Diamond has a compact 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen running at VGA resolution, and the hacked Android ROM is reportedly responsive together with offering support for both WiFi and GPS.
Video demo after the cut
Android is slowly but surely appearing on a number of UMPCs and MIDs, but if you actually want to buy one – as opposed to just read about it – your options are still pretty limited. Over at jkOnTheRun our friend Kevin C. Tofel’s patience has expired and so he’s loaded Android 1.6 onto his Samsung Q1UP UMPC, courtesy of the Android-x86 project.
With the proliferation of hacks for Apple’s smartphone it’s hard to keep on top of what’s most impressive, but we’ve a feeling that putting Expose onto the iPhone 3GS makes a decent argument for being near the top of the list. It’s the handiwork of Steve Troughton-Smith, who you might remember from first identifying the iPhone OS 3.0 tethering hack and then going on to jailbreak the CDMA Palm Pre.
Update: Tom of Ocean Observations, a Swedish design firm, has been in touch to let us know that the original idea for Exposé on iPhone emerged from a video concept some of his team came up with. Check out that video after the cut.
Video demo after the cut
Dell’s Mini 9 netbook may be a little old in the tooth these days, but its angular casing makes it a great donor machine for a netslate project. That’s just what MyDellMini forum member Rob did (to his Dell Vostro A90, the business-rebrand of the Mini 9), adding a touchscreen layer, flipping the display and relocating the power button.
A page of CrystalMark benchmark results may not be the most interesting image to lead with, but when you’re showing the overclock results of pushing Sony’s VAIO P not-a-netbook from its stock 1.86GHz up to 2.3GHz, then we’ll take notice. EeeUser Forum member Cerano was responsible for the modifications, and in fact got his VAIO P cranked up to 2.4GHz (though he didn’t benchmark it at that speed).
SlashGear Japan
