Hasta La Gadget!

There’s a new iOS coming… eventually, and if you’ve jailbroken your device you know it’s going to get locked up tight again. The latest version of Cydia won’t change that, but getting back to where you left off just got a lot easier. The app has merged with Rock Your Phone and now enables you to sign in using a Google or Facebook account. It will then track your purchases and downloads so that they can be easily applied again. And again. And probably again. There’s also a new rating system and lots of other goodies — but don’t take our word for it.

Latest Cydia release lets you easily download that jailbreak again and again originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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To be a jailbreaker means different things depending on the device that you’re busy hacking preinstalled walls from. If you’re fiddling with consoles, a legal team would come highly recommended, but if you’re tweaking mobile code, at least Windows Phone mobile code, you’re in for a much sweeter ride. The ChevronWP7 guys that brought us the first jailbreak of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 are currently in Redmond having a sitdown and a frank exchange of views with WP7 dev experience director Brandon Watson, and the amicable nature of their discourse has been evidenced by the image above. Microsoft is clearly taking a light-hearted and community-friendly approach to handling the (now inevitable) efforts at disabling limitations to its software and we can only congratulate its mobile team for doing so.

[Thanks, Tasos]

Update: Looks like Microsoft’s softie approach really is working. Shortly after the jolly news, notorious hacker Geohot announced on Twitter that he’s going to treat himself to a WP7 device; but before long, Redmond’s already reached out to offer him a free handset. Any bets on MuscleNerd hitting the tweet button next? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Visualized: the glamorous lifestyles of WP7 jailbreakers (update: Geohot crashes the party) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We figured Sony would follow up last night’s temporary restraining order against Geohot and fail0verflow for distribution of the PS3 jailbreak with a copyright infringement lawsuit, and well, here it is. It’s actually pretty straightforward, as far as these things go — Sony alleges that George Hotz, Hector Martin Cantero, Sven Peter, and the rest of fail0verflow are:

• Violating §1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids bypassing access control measures;
• Violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which forbids accessing computers without authorization;
• Guilty of contributory copyright infringement for encouraging and helping others to crack PS3s as well;
• Violating the California Computer Crime Law, which is the state computer fraud act (think of this as a backup fraud claim);
• Violating the PlayStation Network’s Terms of Service (which feels meaningless, really);
• Interfering with Sony’s relationships with other PSN customers (also meaningless);
• Trespassing on Sony’s ownership right to the PS3 (this one feels weak) and;
• Misappropriating Sony’s intellectual property (another weak argument, but there in case the copyright argument fails).

Sony’s asking the court to forbid Geohot and fail0verflow from distributing the jailbreak and turn over all computer hardware and software that contain the jailbreak code, as well as unspecified damages and attorneys’ fees. Yep, these boys done got sued — and we’re sure there’ll be some serious fireworks once they lawyer up and fight right back.

Update: And here we go — Carnegie Mellon professor David Touretzky has posted up the first mirror of Geohot’s code as a First Amendment protest, openly challenging Sony to take action. That’s moxie — we love it. [Thanks, Pedro G]

Sony follows up, officially sues Geohot and fail0verflow over PS3 jailbreak originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember when George “Geohot” Hotz demoed homebrew on the PlayStation 3? Yeah, we know, it was a whole day of CES ago. Well, it looks like that video wasn’t a random crack, but full custom firmware, and not just for show — he just released it to the world. Believe it or not, we didn’t bring our PS3s with us to CES 2011, so we can’t actually test it for ourselves, but if you have faith or enjoy living on the edge, you’re two clicks, one USB stick and a manual System Update away from potential freedom. Now, let’s see him keep his original promise.

[Thanks, Omar]

Geohot releases PS3 jailbreak for firmware 3.55, world ceases to have any meaning originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 21:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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James Whelton won a pink 8-GB iPod Nano and on the plane on his way back home, he hacked it. While he hasn’t jailbroken the Nano, he did get the better of the little device and dug out some interesting details of what may be possible.

James got control of the Nano’s SpringBoard, the iPod equivalent of a desktop, where all app icons appear. Normally, the Nano’s OS checks to make sure that it isn’t trying to load a modified version. James bypassed this check and proved it by removing an app icon, leaving a blank space (see video below).

That’s cool and all, but the SpringBoard plist (a plist is a file that Apple’s devices use to store preferences) shows that it could be simple matter to switch on support for movies, TV shows, games, an address book, a calendar and even a passcode lock. Here’s a picture of the extracted file:

Watching video on the tiny, square Nano screen seems kind of pointless, but so what? And unlike iOS devices which receive updates regularly, the normal iPods get one or two updates in their lifetimes, if ever, so there wouldn’t really be any reason not to hack one.

To be clear, the Nano hasn’t been jailbroken yet, and James hasn’t been able to do anything more interesting than make an app icon disappear. Still, it’s a start. We’re looking forward to seeing if hackers are able to come up with a full jailbreak for the best wristwatch of 2010.

Hello Nano [NanoHack.me]

See Also:

• Hands-On With New Apple iPods
• The One-Dollar iPod Keychain Hack
• Hack Turns 5G iPods into iPhones. Almost