mods

A photo and now video seemingly showing Google's Chromium OS running on an Apple iPad has prompted no small amount of controversy these past couple of days, and it's still unclear to what extent the open-source platform has infiltrated the iOS slate.  Modder Hexxeh revealed the fruits of his hacking labors earlier this week, though with very few details, prompting speculation both that he had installed an unofficial ROM and that he was merely using some sort of iPad remote display.

Video demo after the cut

Continue Reading

Say "shattered" and "iPod touch" in the same sentence, and we'd usually think you'd been careless with your new PMP.  Unfortunately for Apple's repairs department, however, SHAtter is actually a new exploit that should eventually replace now closed loophole used by the jailbreakme.com site.

Video demo after the cut

Continue Reading

If you've a taste for MeeGo and a Google Nexus One lying around - or, for that matter, a Dell Streak or an HTC Desire - then you'll be pleased to hear that the open-source team over at the MeeGo Wiki are busy slapping the Intel/Nokia collaboration onto all manner of Android handsets.  As you'd hope, much of the device functionality is working, so you could feasibly have a MeeGo smartphone long before Nokia get their act together.

Continue Reading

It's fair to say we've waited quite a while since the last HTC Shift mod; the dual-mode Windows Vista/PDA ultraportable tablet was last seen flirting with Windows 7 before its quiet demise.  Now some of the guys over at xda-developers are hoping to resurrect its usefulness with an injection of Mac OS X.

Continue Reading

Apple's HDR photography tool for iOS 4.1 on the iPhone 4 will soon be available for iPhone 3GS and 3G owners, albeit only those who have jailbroken their handsets.  Jailbreak expert Will Strafach is responsible for the hack, which will apparently be included as part of the Cydia unofficial download store available for jailbroken devices.

Continue Reading

Ah, the Apple Newton - spiritual predecessor to the iPhone and a PDA cruelly axed before its time.  It seems a surprise that we've had to wait so long to see an iPhone Newton case, then, but happily Charles Mangin is taking on the challenge; his iNewt project will take an expired Newton MessagePad 2000 and trim it down to perfectly wrap around an iPhone 4.

So far it seems he's managed to hack apart one old Newton and craft a custom bay for the Apple smartphone, doing some re-logoing along the way.  A simple hatch door keeps the iPhone 4 in place, and we're guessing there'll be some sort of pass-through cable arrangement so as to charge and sync the handset without necessarily needing to remove it from the case.

Continue Reading

Sony has pushed out a firmware update for the PS3, v3.42, which the company claims "includes additional security features".  However, according to gamers who have installed the update, the specific features involve blocking the PSJailbreak family of hacks which some owners have been using to circumnavigate the PS3's copy-protection and install titles direct to the console's hard-drive.

Continue Reading

What can we say, we're big childish geeks and we love remote-controlled gadgets that beam back video footage.  That's why Wild Planet's Spy Video TRAKR camera-enabled tank proved so appealing (in a Rovio sort of way), and why Hack A Day's review of the $130 toy is so interesting: turns out, Wild Planet left plenty of fun for mod-friendly geeks to enjoy.

Continue Reading

Apple's Mac Pro is a beast of a machine, and more so when you overclock it, but the fan noise you end up with can be pretty intrusive.  The guys over at Asetek decided to see what they could do with their liquid-cooling components, taking a 2008 dual-CPU 2.8GHz Mac Pro - overclocked to 3.16GHz - with custom cooling and comparing it to a newer, stock 3.2GHz air-cooled model straight from Apple.

Video demo after the cut

Continue Reading

After the discovery that, beyond a few apparently unconnected wires, the Dell Streak's seemingly proprietary charging/docking port is in fact a PDMI connector, John from Linuxslate took it on himself to mod a suitable miniUSB adapter dongle.  It's crafted from an original Dell USB charge/sync cable and, for the housing, the USB cable clip Dell supply.

Video demo after the cut

Continue Reading

Unlocking a cellphone can be a headache, so we're pleased to see Samsung has done its users a service with the Galaxy S - and the US versions, the AT&T Captivate and T-Mobile Vibrant, based on the phone - by including the unlock codes in a file on the smartphone itself.  Unfortunately they've not made them easy to access, and so the team over at xda-developers has stepped in with a simple tool that takes a locked Galaxy S family handset and spits out an unlocked version.

Continue Reading

Given the trouble ASUS had getting their Eee Keyboard onto the market, we're not really surprised that Apple aren't planning an all-in-one PC and peripheral combo themselves.  Still, Steve Jobs' omission is a gap for a modder, and over at the MacBook Air Project Bart Reardon has taken it on himself to craft a custom keyboard PC based on the guts of a first-gen MacBook Air, an Apple keyboard and a new Magic Trackpad.

Continue Reading