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The excellent iPhone jailbreaking tool, QuickPWN, has been updated to crack the v2.2 iPhone and iPod Touch software.

Jailbreaking your iPhone lets you install third party applications other than those available from the iTunes App Store, and with QuickPWN it is easy — you just click a few buttons on screen and wait. After it’s done, you’ll see two new application icons on the iPhone’s home screen, Cydia and Installer. Both of these can be used to browse new applications and to download them direct to the iPhone.

For iPod Touch users, there is the added bonus of Google Street View, the feature left out of the v2.2 update. A couple of things that QuickPWN doesn’t do: It won’t unlock your iPhone from your cell carrier, and it won’t work on the second generation iPod Touch (the one with the curved back and volume buttons). For everything else, its a free download for Windows or OS X.

Product page [QuickPWN]

See Also:

• Pwnage 2.0 Released: Gadget Lab Jailbreaks iPod Touch
• IPhone 3G Software Already Unlocked
• WinPwn: iPhone Pwnage Comes To Windows

In a new twist to the wearisome saga of the Beatles digitizing their music catalog for iTunes (or any digital service, for that matter), Paul McCartney says that the negotiations have “stalled.” McCartney said, “It’s between EMI and the Beatles, I think,” before adding, “I really hope it will happen because I think it should.” While an EMI spokeswoman sounded hopeful about the matter getting resolved, we’ll just assume this is all Yoko’s fault in keeping with tradition.

Filed under: Portable Audio

Paul McCartney: Beatles on iTunes stalled, I’m not dead originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple late Thursday night released a major software update for its iPhone operating system, introducing features such as remote podcast downloading and Google Street View.

Remote podcast downloading enables users to download audio and video podcasts onto their iPhones with the iTunes app over a wireless connection. In the past, to get podcasts on iPhones, users had to download them onto iTunes on their computers and then connect the handset to sync the files.

Apple also made major changes to the Google Maps app, which is now capable of displaying Google Street View, a mode that provides a 360-degree view of thousands of locations taken with cameras mounted on Google’s cars. Also new to the Maps app are the abilities to look up walking and public transit directions, view addresses of dropped pins and share location via e-mail.

In addition to new functions, iPhone 2.2 decreases dropped calls and set-up failures, according to Apple. Other fixes include better sound quality for voicemail, improved Safari performance and enhancements to the Mail application.

Thursday’s release validates a few rumors and leaked screenshots floating around about the update a few weeks ago.

And no, there isn’t yet copy and paste.

It’s here. Google Street View and over the air Podcast downloads from iTunes. Yup, public transit and walking directions too and the ability to share your location via email. Bug fixes, Safari enhancements, the ability to toggle auto-text correction, and plenty more… just like we heard in the pre-rumor run-up. Now get outta here, your iTunes update awaits.

[Thanks Gustavo and badburro]

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone 2.2 firmware update available now, Google Street View and plenty more originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Appearing to cave to Hollywood demands, Apple has quietly added a restrictive copyright
protection mechanism to its new MacBooks that is preventing customers from watching movies on external displays.

Apple has secretly included a copy protection scheme called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) in the external display ports on the latest models of it MacBooks, released in the middle of October.

Apple has not disclosed the new anti-copying mechanism, and now increasing numbers of customers are discovering that they cannot play movies bought from the iTunes online store on many external monitors, TVs or projectors. 

"I tried all the movies that I have purchased from the iTunes Store
with the same result," said "Maxyourmacs," who
complained about the issue on Apple’s support forums. "None of them
will play on anything but the MacBook’s small 13-inch screen. This is
crazy unacceptable."

Released by Intel in 2001, HDCP is designed to prevent digital
pirates from outputting movies to copying devices, such as digital video recorders. In industry parlance, the technology plugs the "analog hole" — the security hole created by analog devices like TVs and monitors.

By definition, the technology also prevents movies from playing on non-compliant devices like older computer monitors or flat-screen TVs, which many Apple customers are just now discovering. Even TVs a couple of years old may not be HDCP compliant.

The issue is complicated by obsessive secrecy surrounding the technology. HDCP has been added to many models of Blu-Ray players and other entertainment devices, and several laptops from a range of PC manufacturers. However, it is unclear how many devices are HDCP-compliant: Manufacturers
don’t explicitly label which products are and aren’t. Even industry analysts don’t know how widely the technology has been adopted.

Intel declined to comment, and Apple did not respond to several requests for comment.

However, the surging popularity of Apple’s laptops and its iTunes online store is bringing the issue to the fore.

The copyright mechanism is posing problems for some customers, who are complaining
in Apple’s support forum that they had no idea their viewing devices were not compliant with the HDCP standard,
forcing them to watch movies purchased from the iTunes Store on their
small laptop screens.

"You really shouldn’t be expected to know whether your video devices are compliant," said James McQuivey, a
technology and media analyst at Forrester Research. "It’s not your job. To require that burden on them is an unfair thing to do."

Apple’s new MacBooks (including the MacBook Pro and
MacBook Air) are the first
Macs to include HDCP. McQuivey said Apple is clearly giving in to pressure from its studio partners.

McQuivey said studios are reluctant to deal with iTunes since its
movie-purchasing model involves downloading content straight
to a hard drive, where it is vulnerable to copying. Movies are easily
copied and shared with friends on DVDs or thumbdrives (as long as the sharer also provides their password).

Movies from services like Vudu and
Netflix, on the other
hand, which stream movies over the internet, are much more
difficult to copy and easier to
police, he said.

McQuivey noted that iTunes’ movie offerings (about 1,500 movies) pale in comparison to Vudu (5,000 movies) and Netflix (15,000 movies) because studios are distrustful of customers downloading movies to their hard drives.

Michael Cai, director of digital media at Parks Associates, a digital
market research firm, said the headaches caused by HDCP is largely a result of poor communication between manufacturers.

"The industry hasn’t done a very good job
in coordinating with each other to make sure their devices are
compatible with each other so you won’t feel this issue," Cai said.
"And they haven’t done a very good job in terms of educating consumers
with these issues."

Cai, himself, experienced the pains of HDCP.
He recently tried to plug his Blu-ray equipped Sony VAIO laptop into
his Sharp high-definition TV, and the image wouldn’t show up.

McQuivey
added that the HDCP restriction might be counterproductive for both
Apple and movie studios: It could encourage MacBook owners to resort to
illegal means of downloading, such as BitTorrent.

In the Apple support
forums, this already seems to be the case.

"Apple will be out of
luck, because we will, as of today, buy no more movies from the iTunes
Store," writes a new MacBook Pro customer, who said he couldn’t play an iTunes-purchased copy of Terminator 2 on his TV. "If this starts hitting the TV shows and the music videos, too, then
we’ll stop buying them from the iTunes Store as well."

Intel declined to comment. Apple did not respond to several requests for comment.

It turns out that Apple’s new MacBooks and MacBook Pros have a hidden “feature” — HDCP, or High Definition Content Protection, is baked in to the new Mini DisplayPort connector.

Why? To annoy and inconvenience you, of course. The purpose of HDCP is to plug the “analog hole”, the point at which a digital signal is turned back to human-friendly sounds and pictures. HDCP keeps the DRM going right up to the monitor, so in theory you can’t hook up a recording device to pirate a movie.

Of course, this – as ever – punishes the legitimate user, in this case “John”, the friend of Ars Technica’s David Chartier. John tried to hook his new MacBook up to the school’s projector (he’s a teacher) to watch Hellboy 2 which he had downloaded from the iTunes Store. He was greeted with the message in the picture.

John says that not all movies are thus encumbered, so there is no way of finding out if they will play without just trying them out. It’s great that honest John, who seems to buy a lot of movies from the iTunes Store, gets shafted by DRM whereas somebody who grabs the same movie from a BitTorrent tracker can play it anywhere they like. Way to destroy your own business, movie companies!

Apple brings HDCP to a new aluminum MacBook near you [Ars Technica]

The Blackbird Rider Nylon is an odd guitar, a mix of the traditional and the high-tech. First, the “nylon” in the name refers to the strings — the guitar itself is made from carbon fiber, from the single piece body to the hollow neck. If we were making a carbon fiber guitar, we’d probably show off about it in the name.

Second, the guitar looks more like a Lute — not a bad thing, but certainly a design departure for such a traditional instrument as the classical guitar. Less baroque is the “Soundscoop”, a curved hole which sits up by the tenth fret instead of in the middle of the sound board. Blackbird says that this, combined with the all-in-one body and neck and the super-thin (1/32″) carbon fiber contruction, provides better tonal response.

The Rider is built for travel. Blackbird claims that it is “nearly indestructible” (maybe Pete Townshend should try it out) and it fits in an airplane’s overhead locker. It also weighs just three pounds. How much is this high-tech axe? $1900 for the nylon stringed classical version, and $1600 for a smaller, steel-stringed model.

Product page [Blackbird Guitars. Thanks, Jeremy!]

Filed under: Gaming, HDTV, Home Entertainment, Laptops

Man, you just can’t win these days. So Apple offers up an energy-efficient, forward-thinking Mini DisplayPort on its latest MacBook / MacBook Pro, and now users that are still rocking displays sans HDCP-compliant HDMI / DVI ports are up fecal’s creek without a paddle. Apparently select content in the iTunes Store is laced in HDCP, which isn’t all that unexpected in and of itself; the problem comes in when you realize that the new unibody machines don’t offer a VGA / VGA-to-component output, meaning that you have to connect it to an HDCP-compliant display if you want to see anything. We know, one word in particular keeps coming to mind to describe this fiasco: awesome.

Apple iTunes content throwing HDCP flags on new MacBook / MacBook Pro originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Desktops

The details have emerged today on a couple new LG “high performance” desktops in Asia, so if you’ve been lying awake at night wondering when a new XPION would be hitting the scene, perhaps this evening you’ll rest a little easier. The R20 is a slim form factor desktop PC featuring a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, 3GB memory, a GeForce 9500GS GPU, and a cooling system “based on Multi Direction Platform Cooling, which also makes it run fairly quietly.” Even less is known about the S20, aside from the fact that it’s a standard-sized desktop, sports an Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz CPU and a GeForce 9600GT GPU. That’s all we have at the moment, little dude. So just try and relax — you’ll know more as soon as we do.

[Via Hallyutech]

LG unveils new XPION R20, S20 Core 2 Quad desktops originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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