Oh man, how awesome would this be?
Apple was the highest ranked PC maker, though number 23 on the list. Comcast, Time Warner and Charter are all at the ass-end of the list. No surprises here.
This could be a biggie - this patent is the crown jewel of Apple’s iPhone tech. Stay tuned…
Jailbreak required, but still… glad to see benevolent hackers are making the iPhone a fully functional device, bit by bit. Copy and paste!
From the iPhone devteam:
“The iPod Touch 2G is now another member of the “pwned for life” family. It has a fatal flaw in its bootrom that means you will always be able to pwn these devices no matter what firmware updates come along. This is the full, untethered jailbreak, something that iPod Touch 2G users have not had before today.
Those of you who hang out on IRC or were able to read between the lines in the various blogs, forums, wikis and twitters may realize that we — and importantly, that’s a that’s a collective, cross-team “we” :) — had been hoping to hold onto this full ipt2g jailbreak until the next version of the iPhone came out. That didn’t happen, but maybe it’s too late for Apple to fix the bootrom in the next iPhone.
The raw patch to the firmware that transforms the “tethered” jailbreak into an untethered one was released here but it’s not yet packaged up into the PwnageTool or QuickPwn flows. But other threads there are pulling together tutorials and other tips for those of you anxious to try this out now. For the curious, the hole itself is explained here. There’s also a “pen and paper” analysis that helped the hybrid team venture transform the hole into an exploit. Hopefully that will be up for viewing soon too, if only because of its geeky beauty :)
Anyway, to all those iPod Touch 2G users out there who waited so patiently through all the various incarnations of the jailbreak for Apple’s latest device — welcome to the family!
For the rest of us, the jailbreak “cat and mouse” game will continue in the summer with the next iPhone. And the carrier unlock “cat and mouse” game continues as ever. :)”
Gauntlet: thrown. Go Cydia!
There are some important points to lay out right at the get go in this article. If you decide to go the route that I did, you can do so without breaking any laws. There is nothing illegal, or even slightly sketchy about watching network-sanctioned streaming media. That said, this is not a good choice for everyone. If you only watch very mainstream shows (Lost, 24, Daily Show, Battlestar Galactica, etc) then you can cut the cord anytime and not miss a single episode. However, if you watch sports or watch a lot of live TV/news (CNN, ESPN, etc), then you’ll want to keep a live feed flowing. For serial dramas and sitcoms, however, now there’s a nice alternative between paying through the nose up front and waiting too long for things to come out on DVD.
So, Boxee. It’s based on the fantastic XBMC open source platform (that runs great on an old Xbox, btw), it’s easy to use, fast, and for an alpha version runs pretty darn well. It has amazing out-of-the-box support for shows streaming through ABC, Comedy Central, the BBC, PBS, the WB (every episode of In Living Color!!!), YouTube, Netflix, and others. Additionally, there are plugins that support additional streaming media sources not built right in, such as Adult Swim and the now take-my-ball-and-go-home Hulu.
If you have an Apple TV, you can install it on the ATV, and you’ve got the whole shebang already dialed into your home entertainment center. Otherwise, a laptop (Linux and OSX only, sorry Vista) works just dandy. Just get an analog or digital audio cable, and a DVI-HDMI cable (this all works dandy with a MacBook or MacBook Pro, FYI; which audio cable you need depends on your TV/receiver) and you’re good to go. You could also repurpose an Intel Mac Mini or make a Linux miniPC.
However you get it up and running, once you do, it’s pretty sweet. The shows in 480p or 720p streams actually look better than they used to on non-HD cable (Daily Show/Colbert in particular). There are some buffering quirks you’ll have to get used to, and you’ll have to be patient during moments when the software reminds you that it’s in alpha still, but that said…. it rocks. All the same prime-time shows, for free, legally, on your TV, just like it used to be. Except now the price tag has dropped to a recession-friendly $0.
You can also just wait a bit too - as this NPR piece suggests, a dedicated Boxee box is on the way (most likely). Or, as mentioned above, feel free to roll your own if you’re handy with spare parts and Linux.
So, unless you’re addicted to CNBC or watch live sports constantly, what are you waiting for? Time Warner, Comcast, the whole lot of them hate you already, so why keep throwing money at them? Listen to Alec. But then, remember the shit they just pulled and get all Boxee with it! Nothing beats free, legal, on-demand entertainment, especially when it liberates your dollars to pay for services that are actually worth it.
Some jobs are recession proof. A good story that shows to power of microtransactions, the appeal of decent code, and why I should really learn programming.
You choose: too profane, or does that fact that it streams all episodes for free mean that it would eat into iTunes revenue too much for the already for sale (and profane) episodes available for download/purchase?
…and I say the hell with that. This idea that we’re permanently renting electronics and can’t modify them to suit our needs is bollocks. If we want them to play nicely with an offered service (AT&T’s network, a modded Xbox on Xbox Live) then I think they may have grounds for such an argument, but in this case people enabling missing functionality for private or other network use seems totally in-bounds to me (no legal expert here); it’s anti-competitive behavior at its best by Apple.
Google now supports an Exchange-like server sync service, to allow folks that use Gmail/Gcal instead to iCal/Address Book to sync up, sans wires!
