Hasta La Gadget!

Myriam Joire (tnkgrl) was born wearing combat boots and holding a keyboard; moments later she picked up a soldering iron. She’s been stomping, typing and hacking ever since. In her regular series, she’ll share her tips, tricks, and mods on everything from phones to netbooks — and be sure to catch her weekly on the Engadget Mobile podcast.

Things used to be simple: you either had a CDMA device with no SIM, or a GSM device with a SIM. If your GSM device was unlocked you could swap SIMs between carriers, and if was locked, you could swap SIMs between accounts on the same carrier. Basically, an unlocked phone meant mobile freedom. At first, the only complication was the different frequencies used for GSM in different parts of the world, which was remedied with quadband radios. Then 3G was introduced, with different frequencies used by different carriers in the same geographic area, like North America. Today, this proliferation of bands makes it difficult to build universal radios, and makes it less appealing to switch carriers. In fact, the only phone that currently supports all 3G frequencies used in North America is the upcoming pentaband Nokia N8.

The second obstacle was the introduction of special data plans, either requiring additional service layers (such as BlackBerry or Sidekick plans) or restricting the types of devices permitted as the iPhone and iPad plans do. What used to be as simple as changing APNs is now a Kafkaesque nightmare, complete with nasty “you are using the wrong data plan and we are going to send you a bill” text messages from carriers. Strike three was the micro SIM (also known as the 3FF SIM), popularized by Apple’s iPad and the iPhone 4. This smaller form-factor SIM is electrically compatible with the standard SIM we all know and love — and as such, it’s easy to convert a standard SIM into a micro SIM and vice-versa (but still, it’s one more hurdle standing in the way of happiness).

Let’s dive in and take a look at how it’s done.

Continue reading How-to: resize your SIM, change your APN, and drink the sweet nectar of mobile freedom

How-to: resize your SIM, change your APN, and drink the sweet nectar of mobile freedom originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We just saw Flash 10.1 ported to the iPad demonstrated in video form by Comex, and now you can get in on the action too, as long as your iPad is jailbroken. It’s called Frash, and while the plugin is still pretty early and doesn’t do video playback yet, you can definitely play games and other animations right now, and we’re told video support is forthcoming. Okay, so let’s try this out, shall we? It’s not point-and-click simple, but it’s not that hard, either. Full instructions after the break.

Continue reading How-to: Install Flash on your jailbroken iPad (for real)

How-to: Install Flash on your jailbroken iPad (for real) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The cat-and-mouse struggle between Android users, carriers, and manufacturers to gain, patch, and re-gain root is one that shows no signs of slowing down, but the EVO 4G’s latest recommended root method is particularly creative. Made necessary after the most recent over-the-air firmware update patched the old way of doing it, you’ve now got to visit a page on Adobe’s site for tweaking local Flash settings, at which point a script works some magic and apparently takes advantage of a vulnerability in the EVO’s Flash Lite build. Of course, that’s just one of twelve harrowing steps in the whole process — but regardless, it’s not often we’re thanking our lucky stars for a security issue.

Latest EVO 4G root uses Flash Lite exploit to do its deed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Daring Fireball  |  xda-developers  | Email this | Comments

So you’ve got a nice secure thumbdrive, but did you ever think to lock its port? Engineers at the Royal Military College of Canada say the plug and play functionality built into most computers automatically trusts whatever’s plugged into the USB slot. That doesn’t just go for flash drives left out on the street, but all manner of other peripherals as well, as the trio of triumphant researchers demonstrated when they (presumably) infiltrated colleagues’ offices with a totally sweet spy keyboard. That particular device flashed an LED or made the mark’s sound card warble to covertly transmit stolen data, but such exotic methods are reportedly not required — so you’ve yet another reason to cringe when your coworker trots out his Humping Dog.

Researchers say any USB peripheral could steal your data, even a coffee-cup warmer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take it with a grain of salt, but it’s looking like some prayers have been answered on this Fourth of July — Flash (or is that “Frash”?) is running on this man’s iPad, cleverly ported from Android. The YouTube video claims that by using a compatibility layer, the Android runtime can play Flash content natively in Safari, but only on iPad so far — iPhone 3GS support is planned soon, as is iOS 4, and there’s a call for developers to move the project forward at GitHub. We’ve no way of determining its legitimacy at this moment, but it sure seems like Comex (he of the iPad “Spirit” jailbreak) has outdone himself this time, and hey, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? See Strongbad answer emails on iOS, right after the break.

Update: It appears Comex has indeed been working on this project for some time; a second blurry video after the break (running on iPhone) shows us what it used to look like.

Continue reading Flash 10.1 ported to iPad, burninates the countryside (video)

Flash 10.1 ported to iPad, burninates the countryside (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jul 2010 11:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Redmond Pie  |  GitHub, YouTube  | Email this | Comments