Hasta La Gadget!

Though hard facts on the HTC Thunderbolt’s availability were hard to come by, conflicting rumors were flying fast and strong — now, a Best Buy ad seems to clear most everything up. Like we’d originally heard, the 4.3-inch LTE smartphone will launch for $250 on a two-year contract — or a wallet-crushing $750 without — but the key ingredients here are three words at the very top. The Thunderbolt is apparently a “national retail exclusive” for Best Buy, which explains how the device could simultaneously face Verizon delays and yet come in for a Valentine’s Day landing at the big box store. You’ll also note that the ad mentions Skype video and 4G mobile hotspot functionality, so we’d be surprised if the phone came without, though it’s also possible that the whole kit and kaboodle has been delayed to match — Droid-Life says this ad comes from a February 20th circular, so we might not see anything until then.

In case you needed an additional reason to be excited about the Thunderbolt, the developers at AndIRC have some related news — they’ve already rooted a prototype version (which just so happens to have the familiar codename Mecha) and believe the same technique will work on retail devices. Wouldn’t it be nice to have root on day one… whenever that is?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

HTC Thunderbolt exclusively hits Best Buy for $250 at launch, rooted prototype provides hope for full unlock originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink AliWaqas  |  Droid-Life, XDA-developers  | Email this | Comments

Oh, sure — Google’s being all-too-kind by handing out a few free megabytes of Verizon data with each of its Cr-48 netbooks, but if you’re both lucky enough to have one and more inclined to use that dust-collecting AT&T SIM of yours, there’s hardly a better day for you to pay attention to a hack. After noticing that a recent update to Chrome OS added GSM support for Qualcomm’s Gobi 3G chip, Hexxeh dug in a little to see what it’d take to get the Cr-48 operational with a data SIM from Ma Bell. Turns out there’s shockingly little needed from you; simply flip the Developer switch beneath the battery and follow the shell commands listed in the source link. It should be noted that there’s no data counter here, so watch those gigabytes if you’re working with a data cap. There, we solved your Saturday. You’re welcome.

Google’s Cr-48 netbook now surfing on AT&T’s GSM network (after a gentle hack) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 13:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Slashgear  |  Hexxeh  | Email this | Comments

Okay, so the WP7 hacking community may not be quite as active as that working tirelessly to keep every facet of Android devices splayed to the breeze, but that’s not to say there isn’t a skilled group of tinkerers doing their best on Microsoft’s best. ChevronWP7 is a clear example of that, and though it’s been officially pulled it is still quite certainly being used. Now its functionality has been extended with a second hack that enables you to use Zune to sync your HTC handset without it getting all locked up tight again. You can find all the details on the other end of the source link below, but we’ll go ahead and warn you that as soon as the next WP7 version drops this particular unlock will be disabled. Then it’ll be on to the next one.

How to keep your unlocked HTC WP7 device from re-locking after every sync originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink AliWaqas  |  xda-developers  | Email this | Comments

It’s safe to say that, on the console gaming front, the Wiimote and the Kinect are competitors. But, take a step away to the world of PC gaming, and suddenly they can get along like old chums. That’s what’s demonstrated in the video below, created by YouTuber demize2010, which shows Call of Duty controlled by Wiimote, Nunchuk, and Kinect, enabling reloads, knife attacks, and peeking around corners. But wait, there’s more! The Blitz marketing agency has worked up a demo in which the Kinect can be used with a Flash interface, which doesn’t look too dissimilar from what Microsoft uses on the Xbox. This could open the door to fancier websites — if indeed any large number of PC owners ever actually wind up buying a Kinect. Both videos can be seen below.

Kinect hacked to work with Flash, Wiimotes, we can’t imagine what’s next (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PC World  |  demize2010 (YouTube), CNET  | Email this | Comments

For Sony, the homebrew community is both enemy and friend — at the same time hackers are exploiting the living daylights out of the PlayStation 3, they’re making the experimental PSP Go moderately interesting again. Here it is running UMD disc images directly from flash storage, letting it play games like Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, formerly off-limits since it was released on a physical disc. Sure, we’ve seen it play Sega CD games before, but this looks like the real deal — working, user-installable ISO loaders for PSP Go backups and homebrew. Not to mention the skull-and-crossbones-clad elephant in the room. Perhaps these aren’t exactly Sony’s friends, on second thought.

PSP Go hacked to play UMDs, slightly increase its desirability (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 04:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Ars Technica  |  Wololo (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments