Entries from July 2009 ↓

It’s pretty easy to jailbreak 3.0.1. You can use redsnow but you just point it towards 3.0 firmware file when it asks for it. This update only fixes the SMS exploit that was recently announced. Here’s the official word from the Dev Team:

Short version:

You can re-use redsn0w v0.8 we released a few weeks ago to jailbreak today’s 3.0.1 update. Just let iTunes update or restore you to official 3.0.1 then run redsn0w. The only “trick” is that when redsn0w asks you to identify the IPSW used, point it at the 3.0 IPSW instead of the 3.0.1 one. After the jailbreak, reinstall ultrasn0w 0.9 if you need the unlock.

More details:

The 3.0.1 release is a “branch” from 3.0 that occurs (code-wise) before all the 3.1 betas. The programs redsn0w needs to change for the jailbreak are identical when you compare the 3.0 and 3.0.1 versions. It seems pretty much the only changes Apple made were for the SMS bug, which affects programs that redsn0w doesn’t touch. That’s why you can re-use redsn0w 0.8 on 3.0.1 even though it was written for 3.0.

And since 3.0.1 doesn’t touch the baseband either, ultrasn0w 0.9 works for those needing the soft unlock. Just install it from the repo666.ultrasn0w.com repository using Cydia as usual.

We’ll at some point fix redsn0w to recognize both 3.0 and 3.0.1 IPSW’s, but really that’s the only change that would be made to it. Everything else would be identical, so there’s no need to wait for the “proper” version that recognizes the 3.0.1 IPSW as valid.

Dig this vintage clip of the late Carl Sagan explaining the 4th dimension with a trip through “Flatland.” And it is a trip. Of course, the weird realm of Flatland was first proposed by Edwin Abbott in his 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. (via The Daily Grail)

Jonas Jäger has taken this whole augmented reality thing from oh-cute! status to holy-frack-that’s-cool position. His business card will make the owner appear like a 3D hologram, displaying Twitter information in real time, plus all kinds of cool stuff.

Not surprisingly, according to Jonas, his inspiration for the Augmented Business Card was Star Wars:

While developing my concept it was very important to me that everybody should be able to create such a businesscard and present himself to the audience. Also i am a Star Wars fan and i liked the idea of displaying the person as a kind of “hologram” :)

The good news is that everyone in the galaxy—the Galaxy of Dorks—will be able to get this: The source code will be available soon in his website. [Toxin via Make]

Available In: Cydia     Â

Price: Free Â

GeoHot, the developer who brought us the purplera1n jailbreak, has released his iPhone 3GS unlock, purplesn0w. Below is what he has to say about purplesn0w and instructions on how to install it. You can view the original post HERE. This unlock is said to fix Wi-Fi, Battery and Unlock failing issues experienced with the ultrasn0w unlock.

Note: This unlock is different than the unlock released by the Dev-Team (ultrasn0w).

Wifi fails? Battery fails? Unlock fails? You need purplesn0w, the geohot 3GS unlock solution. Now I know you here a lot about different colors of sn0w, but I’m here to tell you why purplesn0w is the best. First off, what is purplesn0w? It’s a soft unlock for your 3GS that I’d actually use day to day. It’s not a daemon that takes any resources, and it doesn’t add a task to your baseband. It’s very close to a true unlock. All it does is patch three files, CommCenter, lockdownd, and your wildcard activation plist (which you need, activate w at&t sim first, no hacktivation support yet). That’s it, no other files are installed. Props to Oranav for the at+xlog exploit!

A full explanation is coming soon, but I think you clever reversers out there will see what it does, and see why it’s so pristine The payload is radically different from other varieties of sn0w. beta as usual, back up first.

Instructions:
- Be sure to have legit activated 3GS
- Disable 3G if you don’t have it (like T-Mobile).
- Add apt.geohot.com to Cydia
- Install com.geohot.purplesn0w
- Watch for success output in Cydia
- Reboot, and enjoy your unlocked iPhone

ScreenShots

Last October, Yahoo announced the Yahoo Query Language, a language similar to the popular database language SQL. Then, this February, Yahoo also announced its first major product that made use of YQL, the Open Data Tables, which allowed developers to create their own table definitions besides the ones already provided by Yahoo. As we reported in March, Yahoo then went ahead and extended YQL with YQL Execute, which gives developers even more flexibility and basically turns the web into a giant database that can be processed and mashed up with YQL. Today, Yahoo announced that it has completed its set of YQL verbs with three more functions (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) that now also allow developers to not just read and manipulate data, but also write data back to other services.

Sponsor

We talked to Yahoo! Chief Technologist, Sam Pullara, (@spullara on Twitter) and Jonathon Trevor, the product lead for YQL yesterday. They specifically stressed that Yahoo was trying to stay as close to the SQL language as possible, as this would allow the largest number of developers to make use of YQL without having to learn yet another new language.

The Read/Write Web

While the earlier incarnations of YQL were mainly meant to read data, with the addition of these three new SQL verbs, the focus has now shifted towards writing data back to the net as well. Developers can now use YQL to write and modify data on web services and applications.

To explain how useful this can be, the Yahoo team used a few different examples. A developer can now easily use YQL to update a Twitter account (even authentication with OAuth is possible), for example, or add a new comment to a blog post, or insert any data into a remote database. Basically, developers can now use YQL to write data back to any web site that uses forms for data entry and to any API, including authenticated APIs.

To try this, here is an example from Yahoo (you will have to log in to the YQL console):

Try creating a new tweet from the YQL console, follow this link <a href="https://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console?q=use%20%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yqlblog.net%2Fsamples%2Ftwitter.status.xml%27%3B%20insert%20into%20twitter.status%20(status%2Cusername%2Cpassword)%20values%20(%22Playing%20with%20INSERT%20UPDATE%20and%20DELETE%20in%20YQL%22%2C%20%22twitterusername%22%2C%22twitterpassword%22)">to run this</a>:

use ‘http://www.yqlblog.net/samples/twitter.status.xml‘;

insert into twitter.status (status,username,password) values ("Playing with INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE in YQL", "twitterusername","twitterpassword")

Pullara and Trevor also stressed that because Yahoo runs YQL on five datacenters spread over three continents (three in the US, one in Europe, and another one in Asia), executing commands through YQL is generally very fast. Yahoo also set some relatively generous rate limits for the service. Developers who use the service and who identify themselves with an access key can make up to 100,000 calls per day, while anonymous users are restricted to 1000 calls per hour, which is still a pretty good number.

Discuss

Apple has seeded firmware 3.1 to developers and there is already info coming out on the new features. Of course, they have updated the baseband so if you want to unlock, don’t upgrade. Also, If you want to jailbreak, don’t upgrade. There is speculation that if you upgrade, you may never be able to jailbreak again. Here’s info from the Dev Team and then a list of new features.

You’ve seen us give this warning before, and there are only so many ways to say it or come up with a clever title But here it is: ultrasn0w users must stay away from any firmware updates past 3.0 (including today’s 3.1 beta) until we release the tools that let you update the firmware without updating the baseband. For most phones out there, baseband updates are irreversible and you’ll lose ultrasn0w.

The 3.0 jailbreak was one of those (rare) times where both the jailbreak and the unlock coincided (the only other time was 2.2). It’s important that people realize that *most* firmware releases aren’t like that, and you need to take steps (via the tools) to separate the firmware update from its included baseband update.

This warning does not apply to the iPhone 2G, which uses BootNeuter for the unlock, not ultrasn0w.

List of new features:

- Non-destructive video editing now gives you the option to trim your clip then “Save as copy…” rather then replacing the original clip.
- Voice Control now works over Bluetooth
- iPhone vibrates when moving icons
- Updated AT&T profile to 4.2
- Updated modem firmware to 5.08.01
- Improvements to OpenGL and Quartz.
- APIs to allow third party apps to access videos and edit them.
- MMS buttons are back in the Messages app for AT&T customers but still don’t work
- Copy & Paste functions also work in the address book as well as in the numeric keypad of the phone application.
- Videos can be saved from e-mail attachments and stored.
- Find My iPhone feature, the audio alert Blasts at full volume regardless of what the ringer volume is set to.
- It does NOT fix the high pitched noise issue, I still hear it when locking my phone.

ScreenShots

Thanks to gadgetsonthego.net, theiphoneblog.com, iclarified.com, iphoneblog.de & blog.iphone-dev.org for all the info.