Hasta La Gadget!

You’d think people would learn.

Last week, a man grabbed an iPhone out of the hands of a woman standing on a San Francisco city street, then sped off on his bicycle.

Ten minutes later, he was in custody of the police. It was his bad luck that the victim had been in the middle of testing a GPS-tracking app, and the app was running on the phone at that very moment.

She returned to the office, called the police, and was able to give them the exact location of the iPhone because the app was still running.

“This reminds me of the bank robber who arrives during the security test,” said the phone’s owner, David Kahn, in the newspaper report. Kahn is the CEO of Covia Labs, and had given the phone to another person in order to demonstrate his company’s GPS-tracking capabilities.

The would-be thief isn’t the first phone grabber to be nabbed thanks to GPS. In 2007, the town of Babylon on New York’s Long Island was able to retrieve 14 stolen city phones, thanks to GPS tracking. A company called GadgetTrak has a whole page of devices retrieved using GPS and the company’s software. Apple offers a “find my iPhone” feature with its optional, $100/year MobileMe service, and similar services are available for other GPS-enabled phones.

And don’t forget that Brian Hogan was tracked down by the authorities after allegedly taking home a prototype iPhone he found in a bar, thus kicking off one of the biggest gadget stories of the year.

For now, the odds are probably still in phone-snatchers’ favor: You have to have a GPS-capable phone, and you need to have some kind of tracking app or service turned on before you lose the phone. But over time, an increasing number of phones are going to be trackable, whether they are stolen or simply lost in the trash.

Thieves should probably start to think twice before snatching a phone out of someone’s hand.

Unluckiest thief nabs iPhone with GPS tracker (San Francisco Chronicle)

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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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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With the iControlPad seemingly slipping further and further from reality, iPhone gamers with an affinity for buttons have fewer reasons to get out of bed in the morning and face the world. If that’s you then it’s time to wake up, Sunshine, because the iPhone Game Pad is here to bring a little light to your life. It’s a somewhat chubby slip-on case that, as of now, works only with the original model iPhone. (There’s a 3G/3GS model to come.) On the face it offers four primary control buttons plus a D-pad, what appears to be Select and Start buttons, plus a pair of shoulder buttons atop. This combination should make it perfect for emulation hounds or any ‘ol heathen who values tactility over design purity. As of now it’s just a prototype, but if you have the resources to bring this thing to production the folks at CP Design who crafted it would surely love to hear from you.

Continue reading CP Design’s iPhone Game Pad prototype does Donkey Kong Country right (video)

CP Design’s iPhone Game Pad prototype does Donkey Kong Country right (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We had a feeling Apple wasn’t done showing off the apparent reception woes of its competitors — after all, the company already updated once this week with the Nokia N97 mini. Now it’s going after Motorola’s celebrity of the moment (and known iPhone 4 bully), the Droid X. You can see Cupertino’s results in the video after the break, but unlike Apple’s other videos, we can’t seem to recreate this one as easily with our Droid Xs. But hey, it’s not like anyone’s gonna buy a big phone anyway, right?

Continue reading Apple keeps antennagate alive with Droid X’s ‘kill switch’ (video)

Apple keeps antennagate alive with Droid X’s ‘kill switch’ (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s safe to say that General Motors is struggling for relevancy these days and, while the Chevy Volt could be a huge step into the modern era for the company, that still leaves every other car looking a bit — traditional, technology-wise. OnStar is going to help, expanding its Volt-specific controls to the entire 2011 lineup of GM cars. When we saw OnStar’s Volt app earlier this year we loved how it not only let you control recharging but also unlock the doors and monitor system specs from anywhere. While monitoring recharging status obviously won’t be much good if you’re rocking a good ‘ol ICE vehicle, you will still be able to start the car remotely, unlock doors, and also monitor stats like tire pressure and oil level from your iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android handset, as demonstrated in a video after the break. Yes, you’ll need to be an OnStar subscriber to use the app, with rates currently starting at a somewhat steep $18.95 per month. Now, if only there were an app that could help us to afford a new ZR1.

Continue reading OnStar expands smartphone control over entire 2011 GM lineup

OnStar expands smartphone control over entire 2011 GM lineup originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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