Author: John Herrman

For every Android phone, the hacking process comes in waves: it’s tinkered with, then rooted, then flashed with totally new ROMs. At under a month old, the Nexus One‘s landed its first native multitouch hack, and soon, much, much more.

Virtuoso Android hacker Cyanogen, who maintains the definitive custom Android ROM for the G1 (among others) just posted an installable version of the native Android browser with multitouch enabled. (If the ADB install instructions don’t make sense to you, just read this—they’re not as complicated they looks.) This is big news! But not nearly as big as what’s coming next, probably within a matter of days. Says Cyanogen, echoing the sentiments of other Nexus One developers:

I won’t be releasing a full ROM until Google drops the 2.1 source code into AOSP.

The AOSP is the Android Open Source Project, which Google has been slow to update, and which will give modders the information and code they need to issue a full Nexus One overhaul, including multitouch for all the stock apps. The Nexus One has already been rooted, so Google’s tardiness is the only thing standing in the way. And, uh, guess what!

Google’s been making Android 2.1 code available all morning, so the first custom ROMs worth downloading could be here by this weekend. As is, the Nexus One is a spectacular phone. But man, just imagine what’ll happen when modders can open the hood on its software. [XDA, TheseAreTheDroids]

As mentioned in our review, the added RAM in the Palm Pre Plus means you can run “a LOT” of apps. You know, like 10! Absurdist logic site PreCentral asks the obvious question: why not 50?

Anyway, I’m stuck on the third mission of GTA: Chinatown Wars on my iPhone, because I keep getting calls while I’m playing, which shuts down the game completely. So, my question is, is this Pre Plus making fun of me? Because it sure feels that way. [PreCentral]

Rumors about Microsoft’s mobile plan are evolving, weirdly! Today, we’ve got dueling speculation: from Twitter, evidence of new “Danger” hardware; from Microsoft, mention of “the next generation of Windows Phone.” It’s mystery meat, this stuff, but at least it’s juicy.

Engadget spent the better part of their morning piecing together a puzzle’s worth of cryptic, oddly tagged tweets from unknown Twitter users. What was so interesting about these Tweets? See if you can tell:

DANGER. Lots of DANGER. This is the company that made the Sidekick, and that Microsoft absorbed. It’s also the division variously implicated in the exclusive Pink phone documents leaked to us back in September, which may or may not actually represent Microsoft’s next phone play, rather than a straightforward Windows Mobile X evolution. The kicker? Sidekick devices don’t tag their tweets “Danger”, and these tweets have been ramping up very quickly in the past week. So!

Microsoft’s been giving more direct clues as well, by way of their MIX 10 conference site. MIX is an annual developers’ conference held by Microsoft in March, just after Mobile World Congress, where Microsoft is almost definitely making some kind of mobile announcement. Peek the schedule, and you’ll find this:

The next generation of Windows Mobile phones. Sounds like a bit of an overstatement for an incremental update like Windows Mobile 6.5.3/6.6/whatever, and why would developers need new guidance for developing on a platform built on the same codebase, anyway? Again: delicious mystery meat.

The wild, scattershot nature of these rumors is actually what keep them interesting, I think. There’s evidence that we’re soon going to see Pink, and that we’re soon going to see Windows Mobile 7. The obvious conclusion, if not a particularly descriptive one, is that we’re going to see a new thing—a single new thing—that’s the product of all the wild rumors we’ve heard so far, changing nomenclature aside. And, fingers crossed, it may actually be awesome. [Engadget, MobileTechWorld]

Days away from the supposed launch of the Apple tablet, we know almost nothing about it. While we can’t say for sure which rumors are true, we can definitely say which, over the past decade, were just plain dumb.

If you think galleries are dumb, too, click here for a single page.

Amazon’s finally got some competition—and may be about to get even more—so they’re doing everything they can to stay competitive, and to keep publishers happy. This means higher revenue cuts, but also new rules. Interesting rules.

The new system works like this: If they elect to publish under this new program, publishers are entitled to 70% of a books sale price, minus delivery costs, at $0.15/MB. (Amazon says the average book size now is about 368k, which would cost six cents to deliver). This is practically an inversion of their current scheme which saw publishers getting less than half of the book’s sale price, so on the surface this is a very good thing.

So why would Amazon suddenly offer this plan? The answer’s in the fine print:

• The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99
• This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest physical list price for the physical book
• The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights
• The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
• Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices. Amazon will provide tools to automate that process, and the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price.

So Amazon’s willing to cut you a better deal on your books if and only if you undercut your physical copies (DIE BOOKS DIE), let Amazon sell it with text to speech or whatever other presentation techs Amazon might come up with later, and you conform to Amazon’s vision of $10-or-less prices for all ebooks. Larger publishers already follow these rules most of the time, and often negotiate their individual deals behind closed doors, so this plan may be directed at smaller companies, but should be available to all.

It’s ballsy, and a little iTunesy, and in the end, the announcement makes a lot of sense—as does its timing, just days before Apple may or may not announce their entry into ebookery, which could be accompanied by an ebook store of its own.

Amazon’s new revenue scheme will be available starting in June, alongside their current DTP program. [Amazon]

Apple’s finicky about emulators in the App Store, but most of the candidates have been unofficial, and dubiously legal. Sega’s Ultimate Genesis, though, is official, and looks like a full virtual console for your iPhone.

Sega’s released a pile of classic games in the App Store, all of which were technically emulated; the apps were emulators and ROMs, all packaged into one. (This made the adaptions faithful, if a little slow on non-3GS hardware.) Now, with the App Store’s in-app purchasing system, they can do it right: the free app, which should show up sometime today,in the beginning of February comes with just one game—Space Harrier II—but you can buy as many as you want from within Ultimate Genesis. Here’s the current lineup:

• Sonic the Hedgehog: $5.99
• Golden Axe: $4.99
• Ecco the Dolphin: $2.99
• Shining Force: $2.99

Some of these games are already listed as standalones, so in an abstract way, Ultimate Genesis is really just a new way to package old apps, and a focused sales channel for new ones. But that’s exactly what a Virtual Console-style emulator is! And why this is a fantastic idea. [Sega]

Watching this ad for Grasshopper phone systems, you might not notice anything amiss. Watching this ad for Grasshopper phone system while fast forwarding, you still probably won’t notice anything amiss. And that’s the whole point.

The ad foils commercial-skipping DVR users by planting a brand icon—that grasshopper there—in the middle of the screen throughout the ad, and ending with a simple information panel. It looks more or less the same whether viewed at regular speed or high speed, so even if ad-skippers don’t have to sit through the audio pitch, they still end up absorbing some of the ad’s information, in theory. Another neat trick: By using this gimmick, Grasshopper has fooled numerous bloggers into posting about their ad. Planning on spending your commercial break browsing Giz? Ha. Grasshopper’d.

If they have the choice, people don’t watch ads, and increasingly, people do have a choice. I imagine we’ll see more than a handful of awkward stunts like this over the next few years, at least until traditional TV advertising falls by the wayside, replaced by something more akin to the unskippable ads we’re starting to see in online video. [Adrants via Gawker]

The giveaway today is some kind of gross Zombie Pizza game, which is fine. But stick around: last month, I made off with MiniSquadron, iBlast Moki and a few more gems, for free. [FreeAppADay]

The Video Electronics Standards Association has codified the standard for the next version of DisplayPort, and the small, Apple-loving HDMI competitor, and it just got a lot more interesting. Like, multiple-monitors-on-one-plug interesting.

The concept of daisy-chaining multiple monitors on one DisplayPort connection has been part of the vision all along, but version 1.2 will be the first to actually support the technology—at this stage, up to four at a time, at a resolution of 1920 x 1200. On top of that, it’ll bring full HD, 120fps-per-channel 3D support, a 21.6Gbps data rate, and bi-directional USB data, meaning that anything connected to a DisplayPort 1.2 cable could serve as a high-bandwidth USB hub.

And of course, VESA’s already accepted Apple’s miniaturized version of the port into the DisplayPort family and audio support is still present—albeit not in Apple’s variant. In other words, no, the battle isn’t settled, and HDMI hasn’t won—even forthcoming HDMI 1.4 hardware can’t hang with the next generation of DisplayPort hardware, if anyone decides to actually make it. [PC Authority]

Milpitas, Calif., Jan. 18, 2010 — The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today formally unveiled the industry’s most innovative and flexible digital communication interface standard for transporting display, audio and other data.

VESA’s DisplayPort Version 1.2 is a comprehensive extension to the original DisplayPort standard offering many new benefits to the end user. Benefits include: double the data rate of the previous DisplayPort v1.1a standard (enabling higher performance 3D stereo displays, higher resolutions and color depths, and fastest refresh rates); multiple monitor support from a desktop or notebook computer using only one DisplayPort connector; the ability to transport USB data between a PC and Display, supporting Display USB functions such as a webcam and USB hub. DisplayPort v1.2 is backward compatible with existing DisplayPort v1.1a systems, including existing cables and the Mini DisplayPort connector.

DisplayPort v1.2 increases performance by doubling the maximum data transfer rate from 10.8 Gbps (Giga-bits-per-second) to 21.6 Gbps, greatly increasing display resolution, color depths, refresh rates, and multiple display capabilities.

DisplayPort v1.2 supports “multi-streaming” — the ability to transport multiple independent uncompressed display and audio streams over a single cable, supporting protected content and high performance applications such as 3D gaming. This enables the use of multiple monitors connected by cable in a daisy chain or hub configuration. Whereas the current Display v1.1a standard can support one 2560 x 1600 monitor at 60Hz, DisplayPort v1.2 can support two such monitors with one cable, or four 1920 x 1200 monitors. Many other combinations are possible, including multiple video sources, multiple displays (even at different resolutions) and multiple audio speakers.

Another new feature is the ability to support high-speed, bi-directional data transfer, allowing USB 2.0 or Ethernet data to be carried within a standard DisplayPort cable. For DisplayPort v1.2, the maximum data rate of this “AUX” channel has been increased from 1 Mbps (Mega-bit-per-second) to 720 Mbps, providing suitable bandwidth for USB 2.0. The DisplayPort cable can therefore support USB data to/from the display to support Display USB functions, in addition to sending the video and audio information. Standard Ethernet can also be transported in the DisplayPort cable.

DisplayPort v1.2 was designed to be compatible with existing DisplayPort systems and cables. To take advantage of the new capabilities, a PC will need to be DisplayPort v1.2 enabled, however existing standard cables can still be used, including those with the new Mini-DisplayPort connector. To achieve the 21.6 Gbps rate, the per-lane data rate is doubled from 2.7 Gbps to 5.4 Gbps, over the four lanes that exist in the standard cable. For a single display, this enables up to 3840 x 2400 resolution at 60Hz, or a 3D display (120Hz) at 2560 x 1600.

DisplayPort v1.2 also adds new audio enhancements including the following:
— Audio Copy Protection and category codes
— High definition audio formats such as Dolby MAT, DTS HD, all Blu-Ray
formats, and the DRA standard from China
— Synchronization assist between audio and video, multiple audio channels, and
multiple audio sink devices using Global Time Code (GTC)

DisplayPort v1.2 also includes improved support for Full HD 3D Stereoscopic displays:
— Life-like motion using up to 240 frames-per-second in full HD, providing 120
frames-per-second for each eye
— 3D Stereo transmission format support
Field sequential, side by side, pixel interleaved, dual interface, and stacked
— 3D Stereo display capability declaration
Mono, Stereo, 3D Glasses

“DisplayPort is a truly open, flexible, extensible multimedia interconnect standard that is ubiquitous in the PC, notebook and display markets and is rapidly gaining traction in consumer electronics applications,” said Bill Lempesis, VESA’s executive director. “DisplayPort Version v1.2 offers a complete set of benefits and capabilities that no other standard can provide. It is completely backward compatible with DisplayPort v1.1a and requires no new cables or other equipment, making it the standard of choice across the industry.

Want to have your mind blown, slightly? Try this:

• Open any YouTube video
• In the video’s URL, switch out the “Y” in “Youtube” for a 3
• Ask yourself why you didn’t think of this first.

KickYouTube handles video downloads in an equally clever way, and with even more options. [Lifehacker]

It doesn’t really matter if you’re a no-good, cheating scumbag or simply married to a paranoiac nutcase—either way, you probably don’t want your partner scanning your every text message. The iTrust honeypot app can catch iPhone meddlers red-fingered.

iTrust takes a screenshot of your homescreen (which you can take by pressing Sleep+Home at any time) and sets it as a full-screen background. If someone tries to use your phone while it’s running, they’ll see what looks like a regular homescreen, but won’t be able to do anything with it—it’s a dead image, after all. Whatever they try to do, though, is saved in an excruciating, slo-mo simulated screen recording.

Intruders could obviously just hit the Home button to kill the app completely (not before trying to tap the screen a few times, though!) and the app doesn’t let you recording snooping beyond generalized icon-mashing, but hey! At least you’ve got proof that your spouse tried to open your call history six times while you were taking a dump, which will surely be of help next time you’re having a pleasant conversation abut how much you hate each other and want to die.

A dollar! [iTrust]

As Mobile World Congress—and presumably Window Mobile 7—careens closer and closer, we’re going to hear a lot more of this. Today’s batch? Business and consumer versions of the OS, a sexxxy new name, and possible first hardware.

WMExperts’ post is essentially a digest of everything they think they know from a variety of sources, including this very site. Even as a summary, though, it’s pretty huge, and the rumors sprawl from totally ridiculous to fairly credible, so here are the meaty bits:

&bull Windows Mobile 7 won’t be marketed as Windows Mobile 7. We sort of knew this already, since Microsoft has been marketing Windows Mobile and “Windows Phone” since the announcement of 6.5. But it’s not even going to be that, apparently. The new name? “Seven.”

&bull There will be two versions of the OS: one for OEMs and businesses, a stripped-down that’s being referred to in development as Business Edition; and one media-oriented version for consumers, tentatiely called Media Edition. Business edition will be focused on enterprise tools, like collaborative document editing, while the media edition will be focused on, well, media.

&bull If we see Seven at MWC, it won’t be a full product—we’ll see HD video playback, a Zune-like media interface, and some of the rest of the UI, but not all of it. This sounds odd! But the rumor consensus is that the OS won’t hit phones until late 2010, so it’s plausible that they’re just not done yet,

There’s nothing earth-shattering here, and most of these rumors just prompt more questions. Perhaps the juiciest part of this whole mess, though, is the rumored hardware from LG and HTC. What’s so great about the LG Apollo and HTC Obsession, assuming they actually exist? Well, seeing as they’re supposed to be Seven launch devices, they represent the new baseline for Windows Mobile phones. And this baseline is high: WMExperts reports both have 1GHz+ Snapdragon processors, 3.7-inch AMOLED screens, and 512MB to 1GB of RAM. In other words, Windows Mobile 7’s dumpiest handsets will be gutsier than anything you can buy today—something that will get less and less impressive the longer Microsoft waits to release this thing.

Anyway, if you’re still feeling a little lost as to what on earth WinMo 7 may or may not be, WMExperts’ breakdown is worth a read. [WMExperts]

Pay no mind to the vague, nonsensical App Store description for Fishbate: This app is about masturbating fish to completion. Or, possibly, to death.

How do I know this? How can I say with such certainty that the app’s description, which claims that “shaking the slippery fish” is a “great ice-breaker”, is really just full-on fish masturbation simulator? (Aside from the fact that it’s called “Fishbate?”) Cue the developer’s glorious PR pitch, which landed in my inbox this morning:

Hello John,

I was wondering if you were interested in downloading my first app on the app store.
It’s called “fishbate”, and the goal is to masturbate a floppy fish. There are squishy sounds to coincide with the visuals.

I have tried this app. I can confirm these things: When you shake your phone, you are treated to a horrific, wet slurping sound, and as you approach the 50-shake “climax”, the frequency of vibration increases. Once you meet the goal, the fish spews pale white liquid from its head (resident fish dick enthusiast Joel Johnson assures me this is called “milt”) and dies, according to the ensuing notification windows. I can also confirm that, while you may laugh during the process, you’ll feel pretty bad the second it’s all over.

So, Apple, just to be clear: It’s not OK to release an image browser app that can potentially be used to view porn, among other images, but it is OK to release an app in which you pleasure a fish until it ejaculates. Yeah? Got it. Fishbate is free until February.

UPDATE: Breaking news from the developer!

We are currently working on version 2 which includes Bluetooth multiplayer competition.

Come on. [Fishbate]

Another week, another treat from our mole: Windows Mobile 7, which we should see for the first time at Mobile World Congress next month, is intended for release before the holiday season of 2010—not 2011. And there’s more.

For a release to follow a debut by six months or more isn’t unprecedented for Microsoft, where long public beta testing periods have become the norm, if not the rule. And a late 2010 release is in line with older estimates, which have been recently derailed by claims that it would be pushed off until 2011. Even more interesting, though, is that the OS still seems to be in a state of flux. Here’s what we’ve heard:

• It’ll be shown at MWC, but don’t expect Microsoft to give a firm release date estimate—they’re not ready for that yet. LG slipped up and hinted at a September release for their first Windows Mobile 7 phones, but it sounds doubtful that anyone’s release dates are set in stone—and they’ll likely have to toe Microsoft’s line, since with WinMo 6.5, Microsoft’s been enforcing a hard, unified launch date for Windows Phones; something they never really did before.

• Contrary to Eldar Murtazin’s report that Windows Mobile 6.x apps won’t work on the OS, we hear that they will. Our info implies a promise of support though—not necessarily out-of-the-box, native compatibility—which could mean anything from an emulator (like webOS’s Classic app) to a set of streamlined porting tools for devs. Regardless, this isn’t really the kind of thing someone could deduce from playing with a device for a few minutes, which is what Eldar appears to have done.

• Speaking of apps, we should expect an SDK for the new OS to be available as early as June, giving devs a little lead time to have apps ready for the new OS. This implies that the platform will be markedly different than 6.x, which pretty much everyone has been assuming all along anyway.

• It doesn’t look quite like any of the renders or mockups we’ve seen floating around. There are some aesthetic similarities to some of the early renders, but they’re not pronounced enough to say that it looks like anything that’s already been “leaked.”

• The new input system, which we initially called “Natal-like,” is more of a complex gesture system than a whole new way of interacting with the phone. There is a motion sensing element, but it’s a close-quarters, proximity-sensing type thing, and only used for certain gestures: pinch zooming, rotation, twisting, etc. This was also described to us as resembling a tech demo, so it may not be a banner feature for the OS, but rather something that Microsoft is toying with behind the scenes.

• It’s being kept secret in a way that’s somewhat rare for Microsoft. It’s only being shown to people immediately concerned with the project within the company, and evidently to a small group of journalists as well. It’s Zune-HD-level secrecy, which is to say, pretty high.

That’s all we’ve got for now, and with Mobile World Congress creeping closer by the minute, it’d be safe to assume we’ll learn more before the big unveil. We’ll keep digging, but as always, if you know anything, let us know.

The iPhone’s got its first GTA title, and it looks pretty great. As teased before, this is a top-down GTA, and it’s a near-direct port of the Nintendo DS version, albeit with better graphics, and more awkward controls.

Touch Arcade‘s had some time to run/jack/drive/murder their way around the game a little bit, and here’s what they noticed:

• The graphics are much better than they looked in the early screenshots, falling closer to the PSP version of the game than the DS version.

• The plot and writing are classic GTA, which is to say decent, and gratuitously profane. In a good way!

• The controls aren’t as awkward as they look. (Note: they look very awkward.)

• It’s a full-fledged GTA title, with integrated minigames, hours of gameplay and an appropriately high price: $10.

GTA: Chinatown Wars is live in the App Store. [Touch Arcade]

Sony Insider’s interview with Sony COO Stan Glasgow turned up two nuggets of gold: Sony’s OLED TV strategy for 2010 is, evidently, not to release any new OLED TVs in 2010; and the PS3 will get Bravia Link video streaming.

That OLED TV innovation is still stalled is no surprise, since during lean economic times, companies—even huge ones like Sony—are hesitant to throw down the capital outlay necessary to ramp up production on larger OLEDs:

We’re working on all sorts of prototypes, but I don’t see production of product in 2010. There’s a wonderful 3D OLED prototype here at CES; that’s the real way to do 3D and TV – because you’ve got direct transmission, rather than back lighting and all the other reflective ways of doing it. But getting it to be commercially reasonable in price, we’ve got a long way to go. That’s the whole problem in OLED, great technology, great feature set, but it’s really hard to get the costs down. Smaller form-factors are easy to do.

We were warned, so the most I can say about that news is that it’s predictably disappointing. But the revelation that the PS3’s video streaming features will be merged with Bravia Link is actually kind of awesome:

We’re beginning to port that network to other Sony products. We’re doing BRAVIA Internet Video Link – which is more of a streaming service than a downloading service. We’ve got that growing at a fantastic rate in our televisions right now, we added it to Blu-ray players, and we’re adding it to the PS3.

Bravia Link currently supports Netflix natively, so this could mean PS3 users get to ditch the disc for Instant Watch. Other than that, it would change a whole lot as is, but the prospect of new streaming widgets being added to the Bravia Link platform—assuming it consistent across hardware—is definitely exciting. [Sony Insider via Engadget]