iPhone Atlas is reporting that the “unofficial” release of the v1.1.3 jailbreak by Nate True breaks “Nikita,” a component that is responsible for installing signed software. This means that applications created with the soon-to-be-released iPhone SDK most likely won’t work with this jailbreak.

Currently, the only signed applications available are the $20 set of apps for the iPod touch (Mail, Notes, etc.), but more are sure to be available next month.

Jonathan Zdziarski of the iPhone Dev Team said that the official, and currently unreleased, jailbreak by the iPhone Dev Team does not suffer from this problem, but their jailbreak will not be available until after Apple releases their iPhone SDK. In the meantime, Zdziarski recommends staying away from Nate True’s jailbreak.

It turns out that the release of the iPhone v1.1.3 jailbreak resulted in iPhone Dev Team member Nate True’s expulsion from the Team. The v1.1.3 was released against the team’s wishes due to its use of Apple copyrighted materials.

NateTrue has recently leaked a v1.1.3 Jailbreak without the Dev-Team’s permission, getting himself kicked off the team. Against our wishes, he’s included both files belonging to Apple and patches which contain copyrighted information by Apple, making his personal release illegal and unethical. This is directly contrary to the spirit of true hacking, honorable competition, and sharing of knowledge. He’s a disgrace to developers everywhere. I’d like to strongly advise against using his system for upgrading, and make it known that the rest of the dev team does not support software piracy or copyright infringement. The method the Dev Team was/is planning on releasing allows you to perform the jailbreak without violating federal law. (via Jonathan Zdziarski)

From Cre.ations.net:

Now you may be wondering how this jailbreak works. Here’s a breakdown:

- iBrickr grabs the 1.1.3 iPhone firmware image and extracts, decrypts, and decompresses the disk image.
- Then it applies a patch, jailbreaking the disk image and activating it, and also installing Installer.app.
- It uploads this new modified image to the phone, as 113_upgrade_image.bin.
- The “1.1.3 soft upgrade” app flashes the phone with the image and reboots.
- You have a perfect, jailbroken, upgraded 1.1.3 phone, with all your settings and music intact!

Apple today added more refurbished current generation iPod nanos to their store. The colors include silver, blue, green, and black.

The 4GB iPod nanos are available for $129 and the 8GB iPod nanos are available for $169. These are Apple certified and come with free shipping.

• Refurbished iPod nano, 4GB - Silver
• Refurbished iPod nano, 8GB - Silver
• Refurbished iPod nano, 8GB - Blue
• Refurbished iPod nano, 8GB - Green
• Refurbished iPod nano, 8GB - Black

Cre.ations.net has posted instructions on how to make a Web Clip speed dial button for your iPhone’s home screen. I just tried it myself, and it does indeed work.

Lee Fernandes has also posted instructions on hosting the script on your own site. I will also mirror the script.

If the instructions on Fernandes’ site aren’t clear, here is my summary:

1. Download call.txt and rename it to call.php
2. Upload call.php to your webserver.
3. On your iPhone, go to the following URL (replacing mydomain.com with your actual domain, replacing 1112223333 with the number you want to speed dial, and replacing imageforwebclipicon.jpg with a URL for a graphic to use for the icon):

   http://mydomain.com/call.php?n=1112223333&i=mydomain.com/imageforwebclipicon.jpg

4. When you see a “Call” popup, press Cancel
5. Press the + button at the bottom of the Safari window
6. Press “Add to Home Screen”
7. Give your new Speed Dial button a name

Now when you want to dial that number, simply press its icon from the home screen and press call.

This video by Johnny Chung Lee shows a very nice example of how game developers might implement virtual reality(VR) with devices like the Wiimote. Check it out.

Ars Technica has a nice article showing that iPhone sales are not yet slumping as The Inquirer led some to believe.

But does that trend—ramping up from some 12,000 units per day sold in the first quarter to 21,000 per day by the time the keynote hit—indicate that sales have fallen to “a tenth of early estimates”? Obviously not. It clearly shows a steady increase in iPhone sales from June 29, 2007 until January 14, 2008. It may not be the entire world’s favorite phone—it’s just barely gaining traction among business enterprise users—but as it already has 20 percent of smartphone sales after being on the market for less than a year, it’s certainly doing well.

This video is so funny, I just had to post it here.

Electronista is reporting that the reason that the MacBook Air’s external SuperDrive is only compatible with the MacBook Air, is because the SuperDrive requires more power than the USB spec allows. Only the MacBook Air has a special USB port with the capability to drive this “out-of-spec” drive.

I haven’t found any other sources to confirm this yet.

iPhone Atlas reported that the previous hardware-only jailbreak of v1.1.3 firmware now has a software-based hack, but there is currently a debate on whether or not to release it before Apple officially releases their iPhone SDK. Early release of this new jailbreak method could result in Apple “breaking” the jailbreak in less than a month with the release of the SDK.