Now, hack your ipod

I realize that I have been writing more and more articles about firmware hacking and related stuff. It  makes me more and more excited to learn how to play with your gadgets. Especially playing with their core. Now this article is about putting custom firmware on your ipod and many other personal music players. But first let me warn you that doing this will void your warranty.

Rockbox is an open source firmware written for personal music players. It supports wide range of players like apple ipod, iriver, sandisk sansa etc. The latest 3.0 version of the frimware is released in sept-08. The question anyone would ask first is "Why should I upgrade ?". I guess the answer is simple "Because it has loads of features that your vendor would not have provided"

Take apple ipod for example. It supports very limited codecs (file formats). But with this rockbox firmware, your same ipod can play upto 15 different codecs including ogg/vorbis, wma, realaudio-cook format etc. You can have themes for the user interface. Can you believe that you can play "doom" on ipod ? yes, doom. It has plugin support where you can add games, applications. In case of ipods, this firmware is supported for ipods right from the 1st gen ones. So,  you can breath new life into your otherwise obsolete ones.

Operate your computer with wii controller

Lifehacker is running an article on how one can operate the computer with a wii controller.  This technique exploits the bluetooth capabilties of the wii controller (including the balance board of wii fit). Once you have a wii console, all you need is a PC/laptop with a bluetooth capability. If you do not have on in-built you can purchase an external bluetooh adapter/dongle for almost nothing. 

Pairing up of the wii controller with the computer is more or less like pairing any other bluetooth device(Read the lifehacker article for detailed info). Once the device is paired up, you need to use a software named "GlovePIE". This software is used to map the signals given by the wii controller into computer movements like mouse buttons and arrow keys.

What else ? Sit back and control you pc with your wii controller. 

Wall-E iphone ringtone

I became a big fan of Wall-E movie. I was scouting for a Wall-E ringtone for my iphone. Though I got a few ringtones from a blog, I was looking for something more. I wanted a ringtone which has Wall-E name and some music associated with it. When I searched more I found an MP3 file which has it. I converted it to iphone ringtone. I want to share it for the sake of other fans.

You can download it from here.

HTC Diamond: Rotate the phone to lock and unlock

HTC Diamond is one the new mobile handsets from HTC. Few people are aware the HTC is the actual manufracturer behind popular brands like O2, Imate, Dopod etc. Now HTC has entered the market directly. It is brining out interesting models with innovative new features. The cube technology in the HTC touch is a challenger for iphone. Though I personally am not impressed with the cube feature, its pretty good. It does not have multi touch capability. May be I am biased because I am an iphone user. 

Anyway, coming to the main point, the new model of HTC touch which is named "Diamond", has a host of interesting features. Its fast. Its supports touch gestures (but still single touch). One of the features that I feel stands out of the lot is the way the screen can be locked and unlocked. You just rotate the phone to lock the screen. You rotate the phone on the other direction to unlock the screen. May be time taking but vey different. See this video for a demonstration

Multi-touch 3D holographic projection system

This is simply mind blowing. We are going closer and closer to the "minority report" style of user interface. Engadget is running an article about a 3D holographic projection system developed by a company called "Obscura digital". They developed a technology where you control the projected objects in thin air with hand gestures. Really hats off them. You should see the video to appreciate it.

Iphone 2.0.1 firmware updates 3G baseband

There seems to be lot of confusion around the latest 2.0.1 firmware from apple in relation to unlocking. It seems that this firmware updates the baseband only on 3G phones and not on 2G phones. However, both the 2G & 3G iphones cannot be unlocked(as of now) with the latest pwnage 2.0.1 tool.

What this means is that you cannot unlock the 2G/3G iphone with the existing tools if you upgrade firmware to the latest 2.0.1. Apple released this firmware fixing the bugs in 2.0 firmware and making some performance improvements. The 2.0 firmware does not upgrade the baseband even on 3G phones. Firmware 2.0 on 2G iphones can be unlocked using the latest pwnage 2.0.1 tool, but 3G iphones on 2.0 firmware cannot be unlocked yet. See the blog of iphone-dev team which have clarification on the above confusion.

The earlier vulnerabilities exploited by the tools like ziphone, pwnage etc will be fixed in the new baseband. So, apple threw one more challenge to the hackers keeping itself ahead in the catch-up game. The hackers need to find new vulnerabilities to hack the latest 3G baseband in 2.0.1 firmware.

What can you expect ?
- For 2G iphones, hackers will shortly release unlock tools for 2.0.1 firmware
- For 3G iphones, hackers will shortly release unlock tools for 2.0 firmware(not 2.0.1)
- For 3G iphones, hackers will take some time to release unlock tools for 2.0.1 firmware

Iriver spinn: music player with touch screen and spin wheel

It seems that touch screen for gadgets is becoming standard after iphone showed it to the world. Engadget is running an article about the new music player from iriver named spinn. It has a cool user interface sporting a touch screen and a spin wheel. See the video that recently surfaced giving a demo of this cool gadget.

Besides the common features, it has bluetooth capability, TV, picture browser etc. This is not yet available world wide. It is going to be released in south korea shortly. Moreover, this is not going to be easy on the pocket. Pre-order pricing indicates that an 8GB model costs $299, which is same as 8G ipod touch model.