Code Retard

It is quite possible that when you get your refurbished iPhone in the next few days you might be able to get more than just a little information about the previous owner of your phone. Think private emails, contact information and pictures. Yes that’s right, by using the restore feature through iTunes when the iPhone is connected and some forensic tools, you could possibly recover some of the last owner’s data as the refurbishing procedure used by Apple actually does not delete all of the user’s information.

Jonathan Zdziarski, author of the iPhone Open Application Development and an iPhone forensics manual for law enforcement had this to say: Read more »

NBC had sent off broadcast flags thus causing Vista Media Center users to not be able to record TV episodes of “American Gladiators” and “Medium” on Monday night.

After these reports surfaced around the internet, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced that the same exact thing was happening to over-the-air (OTA) programming, something it had not seen before.

One individual report shows a man attempting to record TV shows from NBC’s Raleigh affiliate, WNCN HD, and having an alert tell him “the broadcaster has disabled recording of the programming.” The man was recording from an antenna signal and EFF confided that it was the first it had ever heard of OTA programming being restricted.

Broadcast flags, which come part of the upcoming 2009 DTV standard, were challenged in court two years ago by the EFF and the court ruled in favor saying “that using the flags to restrict copying was not appropriate”. The law was subsequently thrown out. The panel of judges said the FCC did not have the authority to enforce a law of that nature, which is a clear violation of fair use laws.

The EFF then added that Microsoft was voluntarily adopting broadcast flags into its software, as other similar programs now ignore them and have no trouble recording programming even if it is flagged.

“If it is a deliberate ‘feature,’ they have some explaining to do,” EFF international outreach coordinator Danny O’Brien said. “That would amount to putting the desires of content holders above the best interests of its customers.”

I’ve spent a good three months with my Eee. I’ve taken it everywhere and used it for everything. But in the end, I was done with it. I found myself going back to my Thinkpad. 3 weeks ago, I put it on Craigslist for sale. And 2 days later, I pulled the ad.

I realized…I wasn’t done. Not yet. Let’s make this thing really useful. Let’s install Windows XP. Sure, I could buy one with XP pre-loaded, but what’s the fun in that? Stay tuned for the step by step.

Tags:

Whether it’s to be believed or not, these pictures of a case made for the 3G iPhone are actually giving the world the best preview right now a whole month before Apple’s anticipated reveal in June. Case maker XSKN is selling a multitude of cool skin colors in its EXO mask line including orange, blue, green, red, and pink on their website right now for $24.95 with screen protector and free shipping. The case looks faithful to the size specs that were released to case manufacturers a few weeks ago but until Apple’s reveal next month, you can never be sure if this isn’t just some propaganda to divert the public’s attention to XSKN’s site by riding on their curiosity.

Tags:

Looks like another strike for Hitler in the gaming world: first his Xbox Live Account was banned and now, he can’t even play as Super effing Mario anymore… at least not on Mario Kart Wii. If you log on with driver’s license account using a Mii named “Hitler” for some reason or another and you try to race it against other players on WFC, you will encounter this error:

You cannot access Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection using this Mii name. Please change your Mii name and try again.

Read more »

Tags:

If you thought all Eee PCs were created equal, you thought wrong. The white and black Eee PC keyboards actually are quite different if you look closely. The picture above shows the black key sensor as reversed from its white counterpart. This was a comparison by laptopmag.com between the white 701 and galaxy black 4G surf Eee PCs. The black keyboard is also more recessed, allowing keys to be pressed in further and giving a deeper tactile response. Besides some uninteresting spacing differences, the keys were also a little bit more rough on the black Eee PC, providing just a tiny bit more grip than the smoother white keys. They also compared the 7″ and 9″ white Eee PCs (the 9″ black is currently unavailable in the States for now) but found no differences. So we can conclude that the color, rather than the size, will affect the keyboard feel. Hopefully this will sway some potential buyers to one color or the other.

Tags:

Halt, Hammerzeit!

http://www.rustywalrus.com/view.php?id=174

Electronics eating ants

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3941545.ece

Cute little puppy

http://thatvideosite.com/video/4615

New Jawbone 2 hits stores soon, here is a video of it in action

Jawbone eliminates real world noise better than any other headset because it is the only headset that can accurately separate speech from ambient noise.

Read more »

Sony has just released for paid download three new tracks for Rock Band on the PS3. For $1.99 a pop, you can download:

• Sonic Youth – Kool Thing
• The Clash – Train in Vain (Stand by Me)
• Blondie – Hanging on the Telephone

Also worth noting, you can download for a special limited-time price of $0.99 these tracks:

• Black Tide – Shockwave
• The Grateful Dead – Sugar Magnolia

Microsoft announced today that its Xbox 360 gaming console has been sold over 10 million times here in the States since it launch in 2005. Microsoft’s senior VP of Interactive Entertainment Business Don Mattrick was quick to point out that theirs was the first console to reach this number, “History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry.” Worldwide, sales for the Xbox 360 have reached 19 million. Historically, it looks like the Xbox 360 might be winning the console war thanks to its head start on the PS3 and Wii and its extensive gaming library. But don’t count Nintendo out yet. Read more »

Tags: