Hasta La Gadget!

This is a wild one, and we’re still parsing through the announcement, but on the surface it looks like the Library of Congress has added new anti-circumvention exceptions to the DMCA that, among other things, allow people to tweak their handsets for the purpose of installing legally obtained software — known as jailbreaking in iOS land, and rooting in the Android / webOS world. Check out the full statement from the Librarian of Congress, which is mostly an update of existing exceptions on record, after the break, but here’s the primary excerpt:

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.

Now, before all you EFFers go all totally wild (although it’s undoubtedly a win for the EFF line of thinking on this issue), you should know that this in no way requires Apple to jailbreak your phone for you, or lay down its arms in this ongoing fight. Basically, they just can’t sue you for the specific act of breaking their protections, but there’s nothing stopping them from putting those protections in there in the first place, or for suing you for an infringement not covered in this exception — like distributing Apple code in a non-Apple-approved way, or installing illegal or pirated software. Not that any of you jailbreakers would ever do that. What’s more, the DMCA still broadly forbids distributing to the public any “technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof” that’s primarily designed to break access controls, so Apple can always go after the Dev Team directly — and we’d still keep those dreams of opening Joe’s Jailbreak Hut on ice for now.

On a more minor note, the language pertaining to unlocking a handset to work on another wireless network has also been expanded from “firmware” in 2006 to “firmware or software” in the 2010 revision. Also, and very exciting for the YouTube set, the section pertaining to cracking a DVD video and excerpting scenes for commentary or criticism has been expanded beyond educational use into documentary and non-commercial applications.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Library of Congress adds DMCA exception for jailbreaking or rooting your phone

Library of Congress adds DMCA exception for jailbreaking or rooting your phone originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The next Android superphone from HTC looks to feature a 1GHz processor, 3.7-inch screen, and a sliding QWERTY keyboard. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20011618-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p

Dell’s taking the slightly revamped “forward hinge” design language it introduced with the Inspiron R line and bringing it down to 11.6-inches with the new Inspiron M101z. The laptop is a followup to the Inspiron 11z, and packs your choice of AMD Athlon Neo K125 (single core) or K325 chips (dual core). AMD, which might still be a bit of a sore subject for Dell, really seems to have carved out a niche for itself in the 11.6-inch size, with its blend of more-than-Atom power, cheaper-than-Intel price, and decent-but-not-ULV power sipping; Dell claims a bit over 6.5 hours of battery life with the standard 6-cell battery. The AMD chips bring along integrated ATI RS880M graphics, and the laptops pack 2GB of RAM and 250GB HDDs standard. What we don’t have yet is the US price: the laptop starts at £379 for a single core model in the UK, which should translate to something around $400-$450 US — Dell has to beat out HP’s $449, similarly specced Pavilion dm1, after all.

Dell Inspiron M101z tosses AMD Neo chips into a new 11-inch chassis originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Home wiring may not be the hottest of topics, but get it wrong and, well, things can certainly get exciting. As electric vehicles become more commonplace, more and more people are going to start looking into what it will take to get more current running to their cars — nobody’s going to want to wait around for a 110V trickle charge. Leviton is a big name in home wiring and automation circles and has launched the Evr-Green sub-brand. One of its first products will be a pre-wiring kit for Level 2 charging stations, like GE’s WattStation. Level 2 chargers offer 240V and, with the Evr-Green pre-wiring kit, will be basically plug and play. The kits are said to cost around $200 — though naturally that won’t include the cost of installation for the kit itself.

Leviton partners with Coulomb Technologies, makes EV charging stations plug-and-play originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The handset maker is said to be porting some version of its Sense UI to the new smartphone platform, but maybe not on one device recently spotted in the wild.