Ultrasn0w now ready to unlock your iPhone 4
As promised last month, the iPhone Dev-Team has now released their iPhone 4 unlocking tool, Ultrasn0w, which can be used by U.S. owners tired of being stuck on AT&T.
The carrier unlock required a complete rewrite of the software because of Apple’s new baseband OS for the updated phone.
It is important to note that users who unlock their iPhone 4 can use T-Mobile’s cell network but not its high-speed 3G data.
Ultrasn0w 1.0 comes with instructions, courtesy of RedmondPie:
How to: Jailbreak iPhone 4 on iOS 4.0.1:
-Step 1: Unlocking requires that your phone is jailbroken on the latest firmware. Follow the complete guide posted here to jailbreak your iPhone 4 on iOS 4.0.1 / 4.0 using JailbreakMe 2.0.
How to: Unlock iPhone 4 (Any Baseband) on iOS 4.0.1:
-Step 2: Once you are done with the jailbreak, you can now unlock your iPhone on any baseband using Ultrasn0w 1.0-1 from Cydia. To do this:
-Start “Cydia” on your iPhone.
-Touch on “Manage” tab on the bottom.
-Now touch on “Sources”
-Touch on “Edit” and then on “Add”. You will be prompted to enter a url source as seen in the screenshot below. Type “http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com” and touch on“Add Source” to add this repo if you haven’t already.
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Microsoft, Salesforce.com settle over patent dispute
In early May, Microsoft sued Salesforce.com, claiming the company had been actively infringing on nine of the software giant’s patents.
The complaint was significant as it targeted patents relating to customer-relationship management (CRM), which is the bread and butter of SalesForce’s business.
Microsoft was seeking for an injunction on the features used in SF’s software that infringes on the their patents.
Today, the companies have settled the suit, although details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Salesforce says with the agreement both companies will be covered by each other’s patents.
Adds Microsoft: “We are pleased to reach this agreement with Salesforce.com to put an end to the litigation between our two companies. Today’s agreement is an example of how companies can compete vigorously in the marketplace while respecting each other’s intellectual property rights.”
Intel settles U.S. anti-trust suit
Intel has agreed today to stop unfair practices including using threats and giving unfair discounts to block out rivals.
The company settled with the FTC (U.S. Federal Trade Commission) without paying any fine and without admitting any wrongdoing.
Furthermore, Intel pledged to give its rivals access to processor technology for the next six years.
Intel had been sued by Nvidia and rival AMD over the unfair practices. The Nvidia case is still pending.
The chip-maker has 80 percent of the microprocessor market.
“It’s a landmark settlement that really will have a striking effect on improving competition in the market,” says former FTC policy director David Balto.
Intel is now banned from “retaliating” against computer makers if they chose to do business with AMD or other non-Intel suppliers.
The European Union, Korea and Japan have all, over the past couple of years, accused Intel of similar unfair/anti-trust practices.
Google kills off its ‘Wave’ service
Google has said today it is killing off its Wave collaborative messaging service due to a lack of user interest.
The search giant revealed the Wave service last year, which allows people to “communicate online by letting them exchange messages in real-time and collaboratively edit documents.”
Many called the service a hybrid Twitter, IM and email client.
The service itself was very confusing to many would-be users, however, and Google has decided to add the service to its growing list of failed projects.
“Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product,” noted Google Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Hölzle.
Hölzle did add that Wave’s technology will be used in other projects, and that the code is not dead. “Many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, will still be available to customers and partners that want to build upon the technology,” adds the WSJ.
EC chooses iPhone, HTC over BlackBerry for its employees
The European Commission has now chosen the Apple iPhone and HTC devices over the RIM BlackBerry line, two years after beginning searching for a smartphone to support amongst its employees.
Security and financial impact were part of the criteria in choosing the phones, and BlackBerry security issues were a main concern.
Throughout the week, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India and Kuwait all threatened to block features of BlackBerrys due to security concerns.
The EC employs 32,000 people.
“Following this evaluation, the HTC and the iPhones emerged at the most suitable platforms for voice/mail-centric mobile devices. As a result, the Commission currently supports these two platforms,” said an EC spokesperson, via Reuters.
Windows 7 surpasses Vista in global use
In less than one year, Windows 7 has surpassed Vista in global usage, however both still pale in comparison to the aged Windows XP.
Vista was released in 2007 to extremely harsh critical reviews. The operating system left many concerns of application compatibility, stringent hardware requirements, and who could forget about the UAC?.
Windows 7 was released in September 2009 to high critical review.
New NetApplications analytics show that Windows has 90.67 percent of the OS market, with XP the dominant leader at 61.87 percent. Windows 7 has now moved to 14.46 percent, just ahead of Vista at 14.34 percent.
In the United States, XP has 44.26 percent, ahead of Vista at 23.31 percent and Windows 7 catching up at 16.09 percent.
Overall Windows share fell from just over 92 percent last July, thanks to a small increase in Apple Mac sales and a large jump in mobile operating systems. Linux share fell to under 1 percent.
Rumor: Next iPad to include camera
According to AppleInsider, the second generation iPad tablet will likely have a camera, a feature shockingly missing from the first version.
Citing a document of Apple’s iPad management policies, the site says there will be an ability to disable the use of the camera. As we know, there is no camera on the current generation model.
Additionally, the site cites a recent job listing from Apple for a “Performance QA Engineer, iPad Media” wherein the description says “we are looking for a software quality engineer with a strong technical background to test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks.”
Applicants can then “build on your QA experience and knowledge of digital camera technology (still and video) to develop and maintain testing frameworks for both capture and playback pipelines.”
The second generation model iPad will likely offer a front-facing camera with FaceTime video conferencing support.
Verizon, Motorola team up for FiOS tablet
Motorola and Verizon will soon unveil a new tablet with a FiOS digital pay-TV service included, trying a new method to differentiate itself from the growing number of tablets expected to hit shelves this year.
The 10-inch device will run Android 2.x and can launch as early as “this autumn.”
Motorola is a long-time partner of Verizon, creating TV set-top boxes for the FiOS service.
Market leader Apple has sold over 3 million iPad tablets since launch in early April, but HP, RIM, Microsoft, Samsung, Lenovo and LG have all promised tablets by the end of the year, running either BlackBerry, WebOS, Windows 7 or Android operating systems.
None of those devices, however, has promised TV integration.
Verizon has 25 percent share of the U.S. TV market, and 29 percent of the broadband market.
Taking another shot directly at the iPad, the upcoming Motorola tablet will also support Adobe Flash, the standard used by over 85 percent of videos on the Web but blocked by Apple.
MyTouch 3G Slide gets OTA update, no Froyo yet
T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide owners will begin receiving an OTA update for their Android operating system tomorrow, but it is not the highly anticipated Android 2.2 Froyo upgrade.
Along with optimizations comes some nice bug fixes as well, including a fix for an issue that has been quite annoying to me as an owner; the inability to receive MMS when connected to Wi-Fi.
Says T-Mobile: “Beginning August 4, T-Mobile will send an over-the-air (OTA) update to myTouch 3G Slide customers, which will provide a number of benefits, including increased battery performance and enhancements to software features such as Faves Gallery and Genius Button. The update will be sent to customers in staggered waves beginning August 4 and we anticipate all customers will receive it by August 19.”
The improvements to Battery Life consist of “Updates to the T-Mobile online contact backup connection, which will improve battery life.”
Users will now be able to send and receive MMS messages when connected to Wi-Fi.
The “Genius Button” is now improved with the “Ability to turn GPS on and off using your voice, such as “Turn GPS on.” The button will also announce Caller ID for incoming voice calls and allow you to “Answer” or “Ignore” using your voice. Finally, the button will announce incoming text messages and allow you to “reply” with dictation.”
Furthermore, the “Faves Gallery” is improved “the Faves icon being displayed beside notifications that appear while the device is locked to indicate that the communication is coming from one of your Faves. Fave photo display speed will be enhanced. Finally, general stability will be improved, including more seamless scrolling and consistent display of photos.”
Rdio now available to all
In October 2009, billionaires Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the creators of the Kazaa P2P client as well as Skype, announced that they had developed and financed the unlimited music subscription service Rdio, and the company has now made the service available to all.
Separating the service from others like Rhapsody is the fact that Rdio allows users to listen from anywhere in “the cloud,” including through their phones, instead of needing to download DRM-laced music locally.
Furthermore, Rdio has many social networking features connected to Facebook and Twitter. Rdio uses subscriber’s online social networks to recommend songs, as well. If a bunch of your friends like a certain artist, Rdio will likely recommend it to you.
Rdio has over seven million tracks available from the major labels and thousands of indies.
The service charges $10 per month for unlimited access to music on a computer or your smartphone. For $5, you can get browser-only access.
Rdio is available on BlackBerrys, Android devices and the Apple iPhone.
