Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been a painful two days, hasn’t it? If you’re a Windows user looking for an untethered jailbreak for your iDevice, the answer is most certainly “yes.” The Chronic Dev Team has just let loose the greenpois0n untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1, but unlike the build released 48 hours ago, this one’s meant for Wintel boxes. The team’s site seems to be down at the moment (shocker!), but there’s a download mirror linked below if you just can’t wait to get going. As always, we’d caution you to back up your iPad, iPod touch or iPhone before doing the deed, and since it’s the first of its kind (for this version of iOS, anyway), we’d be ready to see a few bugs along the way. Minor details, we know.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Greenpois0n untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1 comes to Windows originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 21:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Maybe Windows Phone 7 can gain some presence with the help of the iPhone’s hacker community.

Recently released as a public beta, a new hack transforms the interface of the iPhone to mimic the main screen of Windows Phone 7.

So gone will be the springboard UI we’ve all grown accustomed to on the iPhone and Android OS, and in its stead will be the tile-based interface of Windows Phone 7.

Of course, the iPhone theme doesn’t work exactly the same as the real thing. The authentic Windows Phone 7 uses tiles to represent “Hubs” containing the main experiences of the phone. So for example, the photo hub has your camera, and after you snap a photo it brings up another feature to share the photo on a social-working site or e-mail the pic. Microsoft calls these “threaded” experiences.

The iPhone hack doesn’t replicate the threaded Hub functionality of Windows Phone 7. It just repurposes your individual apps into Windows Phone 7-like tiles and mimics the process of adding or removing these tiles. Check out the video below for a demo.

Windows Phone 7 offers a fresh and brand-new UI compared to competing smartphones, but that hasn’t been enough to win over a large number of customers yet. Microsoft has been cagey about initial Windows Phone  7 handset sales numbers, but according to a new report by NPD, the OS is off to a slow start. Windows Phone 7 debuted with 2 percent of the smartphone OS marketshare, which is lower lower than the debuts of WebOS and Android, according to NPD.

So maybe you’ll more likely see an iPhone running this fake Windows Phone 7 theme as opposed to the real thing.

It’s a neat theme, and if you’re tired of the iOS UI but don’t want to ditch the iPhone just yet, this will be a fun hack to tinker with. Visit the ModMyi forum for a quick tutorial on installing. Jailbreaking is required.

From Gizmodo

Sony’s taken some strong steps against PS3 cracking in the past week — not only has it taken to the courts and won a temporary restraining order against Geohot and fail0verflow for cracking the console, but it also released firmware 3.56, which locked things down again. Unfortunately, that restraining order doesn’t mean anyone else has to stop a-crackin’, and wouldn’t you know it: 3.56 was cracked open in less than a day by KaKaRoToKS, who was behind one of the first 3.55 custom firmwares. Now that the 3.56 signing keys are out, we’d guess updated custom firmware is soon to come — and we’d bet Sony’s lawsuit will just inspire an entirely new wave of people to jailbreak once those hit the scene. Way to put that genie back in the bottle, Sony.

Update: We’re hearing that new custom firmware isn’t on the table quite yet, because Sony changed most of the locks, and is reportedly actually storing the all-important ECDSA private key with random-number cryptography this time around. Be warned: if you upgrade to 3.56, there’s no easy way back down. In related news, Github complied with a DMCA takedown notice to remove KaKaRoToKS’s repositories, so you’ll have to head on over to Gitorious (at our more coverage link) to get at the fail0verflow tools.

[Thanks, Tomi R]

PS3 firmware 3.56 hacked in less than a day, Sony’s lawyers look confused (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It looked for a moment like Geohot and fail0verflow might beat Sony’s DMCA lawsuit over the PS3 jailbreak on a jurisdictional technicality, but things didn’t go their way: the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted Sony’s request for a temporary restraining order forbidding Mr. Hotz and his merry men from distributing or linking to the jailbreak, helping or encouraging others to jailbreak, hacking into the PS3 or PSN, or distributing any information they’ve found while hacking. What’s more, they’ve been ordered to turn over any computers or storage media used to create the jailbreak to Sony’s lawyers — although we’ve got a feeling Geohot’s attorneys will raise a bit of a fuss about that.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Sony’s won anything substantive — it’s just proven to the court that the jailbreak will cause it ongoing harm while the case continues, and it still has to actually win its formal lawsuit to collect any damages or a permanent injunction. And let’s not forget that forcing Geohot to stop distributing it won’t stop anyone else — in almost an exact mirror of the deCSS case, we’re already seeing the jailbreak mirrored all over the internet. Way to learn from history, Sony.

[Thanks, Henry]

Court grants Sony’s temporary restraining order against Geohot, PS3 jailbreak still available everywhere originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s been playing it really cool with the nascent Windows Phone 7 hacker community so far, which is winning them friends in all sorts of important places — not the least of which is the ChevronWP7 team itself. The first guys to split the platform open for homebrew apps were recently invited up to Redmond for a powwow with the guys in charge, and it seems the meetings were fruitful to say the least; though much of what they saw was under NDA, they say they’re “genuinely excited” by what Microsoft has in the works. Furthermore, Microsoft was kind enough to give the team a heads-up that an upcoming platform update would break the existing ChevronWP7 tool, though they say they’re “collaborating with Microsoft on an interim solution that will continue to support homebrew developments after the update.” Considering that they’ve already reached out to jailbreaker extraordinaire Geohot as well, it’s clear that Microsoft doesn’t believe this is a black-and-white situation — the ChevronWP7 guys seem to think homebrew has a place somewhere in the platform’s future, it just remains to be seen how that’s going to play out.

Windows Phone 7 jailbreak devs ‘genuinely excited’ by Microsoft’s roadmap originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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