I can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for the poor ol’ souls who went and spent how many hundred dollars on an iPhone, then got it unlocked, then with the new firmware update had their lovely piece of walkin’, talkin’, sleek ‘n’ shiny moolah turned into a fat (when compared to the iPod Touch) brick. Today, though - Downgrading instructions have surfaced… No phone features have been returned yet, but at least you can get all your 3rd party applications back. You can’t say Apple didn’t warn you, and I quote;

Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed. Apple plans to release the next iPhone software update, containing many new features including the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store (www.itunes.com), later this week. Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone’s warranty.

Anyhow, here’s Gizmodo’s set of instructions. If you head on over to their site, you’ll see a video tutorial has been posted additionaly.
• Make sure you have a copy of the 1.0.2 firmware “iPhone1,1_1.0.2_1C28_Restore.ipsw” stored in: “youruser/library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates”
• Reboot iPhone holding the top button (power) and the home buttons.
• Release the top button 10 seconds after that, right after the screen goes dark. But keep the home (bottom) pressed for a while.
• The iPhone screen will appear to be off. Now start iTunes manually.
• iTunes will tell you it has found an iPhone in “restore mode.”
• Press option key and then click the restore button.
• Select the 1.0.2 firmware .ipsw file from here: “youruser/library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates”
• The phone will restart and there will be an error out at the end. Don’t worry. It was bound to happen (if the iPhone returns to Restore Mode instead of Activation Mode, then you may have to restore the 1.1.1 firmware, wipe all information in the iPhone and then repeat from above. But first, try to restart the iPhone.)
• Shutdown iTunes.
• Launch the latest iNDpendence (Mac-only for now.)
• Activate the phone using a expanded 1.0.2 file (to do that, make a copy of the 1.0.2 ipsw file, then select “Open with…” from the Finder’s action menu and use BOMArchiveHelper.app (it will appear in the menu.) The ipsw are really .zip files.
• It will flash all sorts of errors, but don’t worry.
• Activate the phone.
• It will show the SIM error but now the iPhone will work again with your Wi-Fi and your apps.

Long, eh?

Chances are you’ve seen the annoying “TV signal jammers” (or had the displeasure of being on the receiving end of one), used by unscrupulous pranksters. How would you feel though, if mid-conversation - a spotty little teenager whipped out a phone jammer and shoved it in your face? The little device, which promises to block mobile GSM signals weighs in at an all but hefty 70-grams and warns against ‘usage in public places without notice’. *cough* Where would be the fun in that?

Brando - You’ve done it again. No more calling for backups in extreme cubical warfare. Just a hailstorm of high-speed, foam missiles. Throw in some super-cute, ultra-discreet camera-in-nose puppydog surprises and you’ve got one heck of an undercover operations center at the ready! Get ready to rumble!

Vertu have released the second Ascent made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Ferrari. Unlike the Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947 where 1947 phones were made only sixty will be made. The Vertu Ascent Ferrari 60 is inspired by the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and features wallpapers and ringtones of it.

The Ascent is made of Ferrari Titanium and uses the same Philips screws and leather as used in Ferrari cars. The back features the iconic Ferrari gate in titanium.

The phone comes with a comes with a Vertu Aerius bluetooth headset designed by the acclaimed designer Jacob Jensen who has his own brand concentrating on designing regular phones and does alot of design work for Bang & Olufsen. Naturally it is one of the lightest full featured headsets in the world and also features advanced background noise reduction.


The phone also comes with a valve from a Ferrari F1 car.

Lastly as with all things Ferrari, the phone comes with a service package which allows the phone to be serviced every six months and have the leather replaced.

Unlike owning a Ferrari, having to only service your Vertu Ferrari phone every 6 months (vs. every 6 weeks) should be somewhat of a treat to any Ferrari enthousiast.

[Source: CarZi.com]

I eat my words… Yesterday I ranted about the fact everyone else was obsessing over Halo 3. Today, I fall victim myself… The fanboys hit home with a stunning casemod, pitting master-chief head-on-head with a hidden spartan, slumped against the ‘wall’ of the Xbox 360. With some incredibly effective blue cold cathodes and a snazzy semi-translucent paint job, this is one tricked out 360.

Complete with rocks and foliage, the modded Xbox 360’s base is big enough to demand center-place in any gamer’s cabinet. If not already, surely this modder will be snapped up by a professional team, or a games company themselves. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d have seen a solo-modder be commissioned to do the designing for a mainstream mod. The tension’s buliding and the world (overstatement? perhaps not…) is waiting. Halo 3 - we salute you!

Gaming status? Still a massive BF2142 fan - but been playing Lego Starwars a bit… Rumor has it that Lego Indiana Jones & Lego Batman are hitting the shelves sometime soon, too. With Halo Wars and goodness knows how many other Halo games scheduled for release, why shouldn’t we see a Lego Halo? Raise your hands to vote for…

I could’ve written about any number of things today. Halo 3 Schwag bags. Halo 3 Helmets. Halo 3 Xbox 360s. Xbox 360s with HDMI ports. Xbox 360s with Halo controllers. Limited edition Halo Merchandise - or even (ingeniously)… Halo 3. But when 47-thousand other blogs are doing just that, I figure you’ve probably seen it all already - in the meantime, whilst we wait for the tech/gadget/gaming/geek blogs to resume to their usual programming, take a look at this lightwriting experiment done in London.

Simply a string of long time exposure photos, capturing people writing with flash lights on the landscape. Pretty darn incredible. Think just that on a larger scale… Say… Statue Of Liberty style? It’d sure make one good photo.

In this quick lil’ text/video review I’ll be looking at the Brando USB Missile Launcher, the first of several Brando ‘USB devices’ which I’ll be reviewing. So the foam-missile launcher rocks. Plain and simple. You install the software off a CD (shipped with the launcher), hang up the practice map, plug in your base-pad and you’re set up to go. Open up the application, aim your launcher using the arrow keys or number pad and then hit the space bar to fire. Range is impressive, stretching at least five or six meters when aimed right, though accuracy is only semi-proficient, sporadically sending missiles off at odd angles. Check out this mini video for a demonstration.

The Great Bits!
- Software controls work great.
- Nice, swish ‘camoflauge’ black/green design.
- Yellow missile with red fins to boot.
- Fantastic gizmo with a whole tonne of fun packed in.
- Drivers and software come on CD.
- Each missile has ’safety plug’ for storage, out of the line of fire.
- Target practice poster included!

The Not So Great Bits…
- Long ‘windup’ or ‘get ready’ time.
- Annoying ‘hazardous nuclear warning’ sound effects. Thankfully can be turned off. Appeals to young children.
- Can only fire one missile at a time.
- Whilst extremely cheap, the plastic casing reflects the price.

Features - 80/100 (Great gadget - limited to set functions. What were you expecting, though? An iPhone?)
Durability - 60/100 (Cheap materials to fit budget, missiles/firing mechanism rugged though.)
Design - 80/100 (Reasonably impressive turn time. Nice ‘camo’ design.)
Value For Money - 100/100 (For what you get - you’re getting great value for money!)
Bank Per Buck - 90/100 (Again… The price is low and the fun is high.)
Overall - 82/100

All-in-all, a great buy for anyone hoping to take cubical warfare to a whole new level.

Holy cow. The extreme modders at Computer Choppers are selling their behemoth of a casemod - the Digg case. For those of you who haven’t been keeping tabs on the modding comunity of late, you probably won’t know all the details - but I’ve gone to the liberty of posting ‘em up here for all too see. More photos after the jump.

The Digg case mod is a one-off project by Computer-Choppers.com finished in April 2007. It was modeled from the Digg.com logo (popular social news website) and has been used as a show-computer piece for most of the summer at various computer events in the northwest. It has just about 30 hours of use on it in total. The system will be featured in a future issue of CPU magazine later this year or the start of 2008. The case is fabricated from the ground up using MDF (fiberboard) and has been finished with a blue pearl custom paint job. The letters on the front of the case light up in blue and can be switched off and on at any time. A newsreader under the lettering takes the top news stories from Digg.com and displays them on the front of the case.

Bidding currently stands at only $2,500! For the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor inside, you’d expect to pay more than this for even just a basic rig, let alone a super-modded component-packed master model like this. I’d place a bid, but a rather daunting several thousand dollar shipping bill to the UK doesn’t sound all that appetising.

Get all the great features of Adobe Photoshop CS3 on your iPhone! No word on pricing yet, but J-Lo, my, uh… ‘man’ assures me that it’s all reasonably pitched so casual $20,000 phone users will find it within their price range and that the over the phone ’specials’ are just all part of the deal. How many more thousand pixels could you want? Just scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll and do some more scrolling, before pinching seven or eight times and BAM! It’s as quick and simple as that. Check out the video in action.

Apologies for the movie posting spree - it’s this or dry ice. Anywho-how - stop whinin’ and start watching - it’s Thursday and you could do with a laugh, right? via Technabob.

Evil obstacle courses. Vending machines. Specially bred secret-agent squirrels. Can you say… Mission Impossible?

Then there’s the evil “twirl-a-squirrel” device, reportedly devised by the CIA as an incredibly advanced, squirell confusion tester - designed to pit the hairballs against their wits. In a real-life terror situation, when you’re c aptured behind enemy lines you never know what they’ll do to you.

And for those squirrels who refuse to talk? Well, the Russian government isn’t taking to them too nicely. Check out the catapult of doom (not funny - but rather unfortunately ’sick’).

Also handy for a quick exit. Bring it on, doggie! (UPDATE: It appears the catapult video has been removed. Pooey. Gizmodo is running an old version here!) Common belief that all squirrels and fury rodents are to blame for this single group of rogue agents, whilst it may hold some truth - is “utter rubbish” according to the SPOIS (Society for the Protection Of Innocent Squirrels). Here’s what the “don” had to say on the issue.

Lovin’ it, your Godfatherly-ness. I for one, (how can I resist?) welcome our new squirrelyfied overlords.

Talk about a hectic day at the Apple camp! Sadly, my predictions weren’t all that accurately. I picked up that an online store was offering sim-free O2 iPhones in the UK, which was (of sorts) the pre-event warning that O2 was to be the UK carrier, which of course they were. Moments before the even took place, the O2 store went ‘down’. Though not confirmed, I’m willing to place a whole lot of money on T-Mobile being the German carrier and Orange being the French carrier, although all European countries besides the UK are still in the dark as to who really is their official carrier.

No official report on how much the O2/Cupertino UK contract was valued at, but moles report that it could cost O2 as much as 40% revenues from all iPhone related activity. The same source also revealed that T-Mobile, Vodafone and Orange all believed at some point during the proceedings that they’d be the UK carrier of the phone. Sorry chaps - Cupertino aint’ got you covered this time. Anyhow, UK iPhone sale price is £269 or about $535 for all you Americano beans reading along. The date? November 9th.

“We’ve been thinking about what kind of ads to run for the iPhone, we need to get out of way and let the iPhone speak for itself.”

Too right Stevey! The “Do you want to see them?” ads get a British voiceover. Coolio Jones. Another interesting tid-bit… You know all the iPhone web shots that keep popping up, of a full-screen New York Times? Well, guess what… The Guardian won the lucrative UK advertising deal, if that is indeed what it is.

“Why do I want to bring it to my customers in the UK? The iPhone will bring us another breakthrough experience. We’ve partnered with Carphone Wharehouse, 1300 points of distribution in the UK. Every store will have an expert on the phone.”

That’s the O2-UK CEO, speaking there. 1,300 iPhone ‘experts’. Oh joy. Engadget reports that visual voicemail is enabled and unlimited data plans ranging from £35 to £55 will be available. “No worry tarrif on EDGE and GPRS”. No 3G support, either. Reportedly though - the service will offer number transfer from whichever provider you’re currently using and port it to your iPhone.

“Our phone has a talk time of 8 hours and that’s really important when you want to use your phone for internet and music. 3G needs to get back up to 5+ hours, something we think well see later next year. … WiFi is way faster than any 3G network. Energy efficient EDGE with better, faster WiFi. That’s why we chose it.”

Whether this indeed means extended battery life or not, we’ll have to wait and see.

Q: What are your plans for iPhone launch in Europe, and your reaction to upsetting other carriers who feel played-off in terms of not getting this deal?

Steve: “We said we’d be in a few countries in Europe and we still plan to do that. As to the carriers, we took the approach to see who would be the best fit — it’s like going out on a few dates before getting married. So yeah, we have a few upset girlfriends out there.”

What a great way to put it… Steve - you can sure think on your feet! Before I send you off on an east-egg trail reading other sites takes, I’d like to highlight one thing Steve said which I found very interesting.

We’re working on the next iPhone and the next one after that.

So yes, boys ‘n’ girls. It’s confirmed. The iPhone 2.0 is in development. Officially.

In other news, iTunes 7.4.2 has patched a few of them lovely ringtone hacks we’ve all (Haha!) been avoiding. Image via Giz