iPhone and iPod touch v1.1.1 get instant jailbreak + installer

Engadget:

“We could hardly believe it ourselves, but the open source community has parlayed that game-changing v1.1.1 TIFF exploit / file system hack into a full-on ready to rumble instant installer for AppTapp on the iPhone and iPod touch. Check out TUAW for the steps and further details, but we tried it on our v1.1.1 touch and it worked like a damn charm. In fact, we think this is finally what’s going to get us to upgrade that virgin 1.0.2 iPhone we’ve been using. Fingers crossed.

Update: We upgraded that iPhone and it worked well, just like the touch (albeit a bit slower, since it’s pretty clear all the upgraders are slamming the AppTapp download servers). Our hats go off to the dozens of hackers that developed this one, this is impressive stuff.”

Fresh Portal Maps

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: “Mapping
folk are never particularly slow about churning out maps for new games,
but the rate at which Portal stuff is appearing nevertheless surprises
me. A whole bunch of new maps can be found over at Portal Maps,
varying from the absolutely basic sandbox to the fairly complex
challenges. I’ve only had a chance to play through a couple, but some,
such as Glasschamber, seem even more fiendish than the Portal levels
themselves.

Meanwhile a search of Moddb
reveals that no Portal modding projects have yet been announced. Tsk,
get a move on Modders. (Yes, that’s your cue to link to a Portal mod,
readers.) I guess in the meantime we’ll just have to play through all of Half-Life 2 with the portal gun.”

Still Alive Performed on GMod Piano

OK, this is so crazy that I can’t even fathom it. The level of fandom for the Portal song just reached new heights…

JonathanCoulton.com: “Crazy emmer effer called FPtje on YouTube has used the Valve Source
engine and GMod (yeah grandma, that’s like, a sort of sandbox add-on
thingie built using the Source SDK…er…which is kind of like a, um,
forget it, never mind) to create a playable piano within the Half-Life
environment, on which he plays along to “Still Alive” in this here
video, seemingly BY AIMING AND FIRING HIS GUN. In theory I understand
what’s happening here, but I’m not sure I would be able to explain it
without reading from the post I just wrote. Holy shit, when did I fall
so far behind?

Anyway, it’s awesome. As Mr. tje (or perhaps Ptje?) points out in
his YouTube post, “It’s hard to play a piano with a gun!” I couldn’t
agree more.”

Researchers Achieve Amazing Memory Density

Geeky AND crazy…

Slashdot: “Mr. Fahrenheit writes in with a Wired story on research out of Arizona
State, where researchers have “developed a low-cost, low-power computer
memory that could put terabyte-sized thumb drives in consumers’ pockets
within a few years… The new memory technology — programmable
metallization cell (PMC) — comes as current storage technologies are
starting to reach their physical limits.” PMC involves the on-demand
creation of copper nano-wire bridges. It’s said to promise memories
that are 1/10 the cost and 1/1000 the power consumption of conventional
Flash memory. Three memory manufacturers have licensed the technology
and the first chips are expected on the market in 18 months.”

Team Fortress 2: Group Halloween Costumes

This is crazy, and awesomely amazing…

Digg: “Managed to get all 9 classes together a few weeks in advance for a group costume.”

LINK TO FULL SIZE

Freestyle Basketball Freed Up

Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

“Sierra have announced that their Korean online basketball game, FreeStyle Street Basketball, is now free to play. Although not exactly the finest basketball game the world has to offer, it is easy to play and the customisable cell-shaded ballers have a certain charm to them.”

The biggest problem, I suspect, will be getting a game.”

Geek T-Shirts at Switched.com

T-Critic:

“The Switched gadget blog just posted a “top 11 Geek T-Shirt” list, and here are a couple of my fav’s

Brilliant Lolcats t-shirt

and a Nice Tags t-shirt, although they probably didn’t mention that this was probably inspired by consumating.com which is a very cool site, and yes I have a profile.”

Horrifying cute animals photoshopping contest

Boing Boing:

“Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: “Deadly Cute” — cute
animals photoshopped into sheer viciousness. Lots to like here, but
none so creepy as the Spider Squirrel — Hedgley Cute gives it a run for its money, though.”

LINK

Start of GALACTICA’s Final Season Delayed Until April!!!!

Holy frak, my hatred of the Scifi channel really is coming to a head…

Ain’t It Cool News: “Fans who have been waiting since March for new episodes of “Battlestar Galactica” are going to have to wait a little longer. The Los Angeles Times now reports that “Galactica’s” fourth and final season, long expected to begin in January, won’t commence until April. This would finally explain why the series’ 3rd season DVD set won’t be out till April!

Still up in the air is whether or not we’ll have to wait until 2009 to see the series’ final episodes.

The Times also reveals that series mastermind Ron Moore plans to make his directorial debut on one of “Galactica’s” last 10 episodes.

Read all of the Times’ story here.

Gmail: What Gmail IMAP Means for You (and Your iPhone)

Lifehacker:

“As reported late last night, some Gmail users are seeing IMAP support appear in the settings area of their account. This morning Google confirmed: IMAP was just launched, and if you’re not seeing it yet (like we’re not, boo-hoo!) you will soon, as they are “rolling it out to everyone in the next few days.” What does IMAP mean and what’s the implication for you iPhone users? Image by News Blog.

Unlike POP access, IMAP
is a two-way syncing mechanism between your email client and Gmail.
That is, if you mark a message as read in Thunderbird, for example, it
will appear as read in Gmail. (Here’s more on why IMAP is better than POP.) Gmail’s IMAP support even syncs message stars, labels (as folders), as well as their Spam and Trash folders. Here’s a list of IMAP client actions and how they will be reflected inside Gmail.

Check out some screenshots of this in action from Rafe Needleman from CNET’s News Blog. Question for Gmail/IMAP users: If a message has TWO labels, does it appear in both folders in your IMAP client?

Here’s Gmail’s supported IMAP client list includes Thunderbird, Mail.app, Eudora, Outlook Express/2003/2007 and Windows Mail, as well as the iPhone.

That’s great news for iPhone users. No more marking as read twice,
or not being able to work with labels. Here’s a video courtesy of
Google on how to set up and use IMAP on your iPhone.

If all of this sounds yummy but you’ve never used IMAP before, see Gmail’s Help Center’s IMAP section for setup howto’s and frequently asked questions.Having been a loyal IMAP user for years before switching over to
full time web-only access to Gmail, this is a very exciting option for
resurrecting my desktop client again for true synchronized Gmail use.
You try out Gmail’s IMAP support? Thoughts? Let us know how it goes in
the comments.”

Sync your inbox across devices with free IMAP [Official Google Blog]