Apple

If you needed any more proof that Apple's lame cat-and-mouse game with the iPhone jailbreak community has only served to increase its resourcefulness and creativity, look no further than the iDongle, a slick piece of hacker-made hardware that can jailbreak and activate an iPhone 3GS or iPod touch running OS 3.1.2 just by plugging it into the dock connector. What's more, it allows a jailbroken iPhone to be rebooted away from a computer, which is currently a problem for on-the-go hackers -- just stick this guy in your bag and you'll be good to go. There's only a dozen prototypes right now, but pre-orders are being accepted to raise funds for production -- we've got a feeling quite a few people are going to be interested. Video after the break.

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iDongle hardware iPhone jailbreak tool makes hacker life a little simpler originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Not entirely dissimilar to the 2008 patent which showed an iPhone being controlled by camera-based input, is this German student's app, which controls the Maps app being controlled by the camera tracking hand movements through the app.

It's probably easiest if you watch the below, which demonstrates—in a slightly limited fashion—a hand being moved in front of the camera, controlling a dot moving around the iPhone's Google Maps app. The iPhone is connected to a laptop, which has the Map interface displayed. Interestingly, moving the hand further away from the camera zooms the map out, and moving it in zooms the map in.

I can't see how this app could be used any further though—or maybe I'm being too obtuse? The idea of having another way to control a touchscreen phone just seems a little crazy to me. [Daniel Bierwirth via Recombu]

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The battle between HTML 5 and Flash wages on with the discovery of an interesting report comparing the CPU usage of HTML 5 and Flash on both Mac and Windows platform. In the midst of all the smack talk about Flash, Flash was presumed to be a CPU hog that chokes your system to the point of death. A series of measurements performed by video compression guru Jan Ozer reveals that Flash may not be as much of a CPU killer as previously thought and that, in some cases, HTML 5 is the culprit that causes CPU overload. Ozer tested HTML 5 and Flash on a Mac using Safari, Chrome and Firefox and on a Windows machine using Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

According to AppleInsider sources, iPhone firmware 4.0 will bring multitasking to the platform this summer. And it may look at lot like Exposé.

The "full-on solution" to multitasking will support "several" third party apps running at once in a "multi-tasking manager that leverages interface technology already bundled with its Mac OS X operating system." To us, that sounds a lot like Exposé, a multi-window view that's already found its way into phones like the HTC Legend, which would be quite different from the proof-of-concepts we've seen thus far (like our lead shot).

But frankly, I don't really care what it looks like, so long as I can pull up my email while web browsing as easily as I can on any Android phone. The iPhone's uni-tasking Gmail support is straight-up punishing in comparison. [AppleInsider]

Apple fans waiting to scoop up the latest and greatest Mac Pro have been drooling at every rumor and waiting patiently for these half-truths to come true. Circulating today is yet another rumor to get those technology taste buds tingling by suggesting once again that the Mac Pro will receive a processor overhaul of colossal proportions extremely soon. According to anonymous sources, the upcoming Mac Pro will rock the recently announced Intel Core i7-980x processor which will clock in at a fast 3.33GHz with TurboBoost to 3.6GHz and feature 6 cores and 12 threads of processing power, a 32nm architecture, Socket LGA1366 and 130W TDP. Before your knees buckle and your head hits the floor, make sure you circle March 16th on your calendar as that is the date these bundles of joy are expected to debut if this rumor pans out.

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