I've been pretty much living in a hole for the past week due to exams (thanks, Wake Forest), so I've got a bunch of reviews waiting to be published. Sucks for me, but it's great news for you! I'll be posting a series of reviews throughout the week covering some awesome gadgets and some cool software. I'll update this post with links, so bookmark it and check back throughout the week.
QuickPWN 3.0 Beta 4 has been released, enabling jailbreaking the latest beta release of Apple's iPhone OS. If Apple continues to follow their two-week release schedule, we can expect Beta 5 to arrive on or about May 12.
This is an unofficial release; QuickPWN's quick turnaround on jailbreak releases come with the following caveats:
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iPhone 3G users, if you want to keep your yellowsn0w unlock then don’t use this. This is BETA firmware, you will definitely have problems and a lot of jailbroken app will not work with it yet.
UPDATE: Looks like all of the essentials are working exactly as with jailbreaks on previous betas—Icy is present (though I miss the absence of Cydia), video apps such as Cycorder won't work, and neither will MobileSubstrate. Granted, these probably won't be updated until a stable release.
Flaskback: The Zork Trilogy April 29, 2009, 5:33 PM by ROB Posted in FLASHBACK, SOFTWARE, GAMING | 443 views
This is the first in the weekly Flashback series, in which we bring you a new old-school favorite with each installment. Got an idea? Catch me on Twitter @RobLaughter!
I'm what some would call a young'n—I'm 22 years old. I didn't get a computer until I was 14, but when I did get one it came tricked out with a 15-inch CRT monitor, 386 processor, 8MB of RAM, a 120MB hard disk drive, and 3-1/2 and 5-1/4 inch floppy drives. The floppy drives, might I add, were clutch; they made upgrading from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 a snap with the 24-disk installation set. They also, however, let me install the most bad-ass text-based adventure of all time, Zork.
Zork, developed in the late-seventies, was a one of the first interactive fantasy computer games. Totally text-based, players had to remember their positions through the game (or map them out on paper like I tried to do) as they collected objects, battled trolls, and avoided the dreaded grues. The game revolved around finding objects, collecting treasures, and solving puzzles in a vast textual world. Some of the highlights: Flood Control Dam #3, the thief, and—my favorite—the witty easter eggs from the cheeky, taunting narrator. Check out the screenie above for an example I found in a moment of frustration.
I sadly never completed the game (though there are strategy guides and walkthroughs out the wazoo if I were interested in trying.
Get in on the action (and check out a ton of other abandonware games) at sites like XTC Abandonware.
I've been hiding my addictions to Facebook, AIM, and MySpace for years and now, thanks to Spreadtweet, I can cover up my new-found tweeting obsession.
Spreadtweet is a Twitter client cleverly disguised as an Excel spreadsheet. Use it in meetings, use it at work, use it in class... Use it when your girlfriend tells you that you tweet to much. Heck, I've taken a liking to it just because it's neat, clean, and gives me a bunch of tweets in a convenient-to-read format.
Spreadtweet runs on the Adobe AIR framework, so it's compatible with Macs and PCs. In fact, you can pick your version of Excel (Office 2003, Office 2007, or Office for OSX). You get all the bells and whistles of an actual Excel spreadsheet, but none of the buttons work. Instead, your controls are disguised as column headers, giving you access to replies, direct messages, etc.
One itty bitty problem, though. The Windows Office 2007 version gives me an Office OSX dock icon. I guess it wasn't quite designed for Windows 7.
Alex Winston, Ltd. has demoed an app that allows you to control Wolfenstein 3D from a second iPhone through its headphone jack, all without jailbreaking your phone.
The app uses a crossover audio cable to allow communication directly through the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, bringing a virtual joystick and real-time inventory and health updates to the screen on the second phone.
As TUAW points out, while this is certainly cool, it probably won't make waves; the new iPhone SDK includes some pretty rich hooks for peripheral devices in their 1,000 new APIs.
Trillian Astra has been in development for years (it was announced in late 2006) and I've been waiting patiently for my invite to the beta program ever since. Two and a half years later, the software's creator Cerulean Studios is allowing current members to send invites and, at the time of this writing, sending invites to potential beta participants who apply through their beta sign up form.
Some of the neat features of Astra include web-based IM, support for multiple user profiles (each with multiple IM accounts on different providers), a super-slick interface, and some other goodies I'll leave you to find on your own.
Find New Music with Mufin February 27, 2009, 10:29 PM by ROB Posted in REVIEWS, MEDIA, SOFTWARE | 328 views
Let's talk about Mufin. Not muffins of the banana nut or blueberry variety—Mufin.
Mufin is a "music discovery engine" that lets you find music that sounds similar to songs you already like. If you think that description sounds a lot like Pandora, you're exactly right. The basic premise is similar, but there is a laundry list of qualifying differences that makes Mufin a totally different beast.
Mufin comes in a variety of flavors... er... "packages." First is the web based interface, in which you can search for your favorite songs and artists and find tracks that are similar based upon rhythm, tempo, and density.
Next up is Mufin's new Mufin Player, which they deem the "World's first media player with sound-based music management and music discovery." The Mufin Player bring Mufin's web-based song-sniffing functionality to your desktop, then takes it one step further by analyzing your current tracks to sort them by how they sound.
Analyzing tracks, though, takes a painfully long time. When you first set up the software, you can import your iTunes library (or other music folders, for that matter) and begin analyzing that media. I imported 1554 songs from my iTunes library, which took around a half an hour to analyze. I'd hate to wait patiently for some of my friends' 10,000-song libraries to go through the process.
Another cool feature of the Mufin Player is Audio ID, which lets you use Mufin's analyzed data to identify songs without ID3 tags and save the updated tags automatically. I've tried it with a few of my tracks and, while it found most of them, there were a few that it wouldn't recognize.
If you don't want to use a whole new music player, you can always use Mufin's third option—Mufin for iTunes. It's not as elegant as the Mufin player, but it's a nice add-on to iTunes.
Mufin's greatest highlight, I think, is also its greatest flaw. Since Mufin uses computer algorithms to compare tracks, it can be just a little off. Sorry, Mufin. I don't see the link between Johnny Cash and Linkin Park. Pandora's accuracy is eerie—they hit most correlations right on, and here's why (copied from their own website): "we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists..." They've listened. A computer hasn't listened. They have listened. There is no substitute for subjective human analysis of music that is created 100% by humans.
If you're stuck in the stone age and still haven't evolved from Internet Explorer (which cnet.co.uk has benchmarked as being the slowest modern browser to date), I'm happy to report that you can finally enjoy Google Chrome's dashboard-esque new tab page with Google Toolbar 6 Beta.
Google's new tab page (delivered unto Firefox users a few weeks back) gives users quick access to their most visited web pages, bookmarks, and recently closed tabs and windows.
The toolbar also brings Quick Search Box (QSB) functionality to users without Google Desktop Search and to users who, like myself, use 64-bit Windows Vista. What I'm quickly falling in love with about the new QSB, though, is its application launcher. Using the CTRL+Space keyboard shortcut brings up the QSB and just typing a query (such as "notepad") gives you a host of options.
What's more, the QSB adapts to how you use it most. If you usually use it for search queries, the software will put search suggestions higher on the list. On the other hand, if you're like me and love to have your applications and programs just a quick tap on the keyboard away (rather than having to navigate through menus and such), QSB will learn that you do so and start displaying program suggestions higher on the list. The first time I used the feature, the Notepad application appeared toward the bottom of the list above. After just one use, however, it was moved to the top.
Apple is no stranger to legal controversy and the corporation is at it again—this time in response to an exemption to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) proposed by the EFF that would allow iPhone users to legally jailbreak their phones. The proposed class states:
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Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets
to execute lawfully obtained software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications with computer programs on the telephone handset.
Apple's response:
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Apple is opposed to the proposed Class #1 exemption because it will destroy the technological protection of Apple’s key copyrighted computer programs in the iPhone™ device itself and of copyrighted content owned by Apple that plays on the iPhone, resulting in copyright infringement, potential damage to the device and other potential harmful physical effects, adverse effects on the functioning of the device, and breach of contract.
In a recent legal analysis published on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website, senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann (who prepared the proposed exemption) writes:
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If this sounds like FUD [Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt], that's because it is. One need only transpose Apple's arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity. Sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts. Toyota might say that swapping your engine could reduce the reliability of your car. And Mazda could say that those who throw a supercharger on their Miatas frequently exceed the legal speed limit.
Regardless of the U.S. Copyright Office's decision, the trends say that jailbreaking will continue. Cydia, the open-source distribution scheme for jailbroken iPhones, has upwards of 350,000 users as of October 2008. That number has surely grown since then. Apple has released a number of "bug fixing" updates to the phone, each time breaking the jailbreaking process. Each time, the iPhone Dev Team (the masterminds behind the jailbreaking process) have issued an updated mechanism to open the phone within days.
The question I pose to you is this: Should mobile phone companies be given full authority to lock their handsets? Looking at von Lohmann's analogy, would we expect auto makers to lock down the hoods of our cars?
iPhone users, take note: xGPS 1.2 brings turn-by-turn directions and voice navigation to the iPhone.
Moments after news of the application hit sites such as ModMyi and Gizmodo, users reported problems downloading the utility from Cydia.
xGPS, currently in version 1.1, grants users turn-by-turn navigation on their iPhone 3G or 1st Gen iPhone/iPod Touch (using an external GPS module). Its developers expect to release the new version by the end of the month. Due to restrictions in Apple's iPhone SDK, the app is only available for jailbroken phones.
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