If you have bought older generation of iPods, you are in luck as Rockbox 3.0 firmware was just released to the public.

What does it do?  Basically it allows you to free yourself from iTunes and do a lot more with old equipment.

Since Apple has stopped developing the firmware for the older iPods (yes, they keep making new ones to make more money, how greedy!), this Rockbox provides users with alternative way to upgrade their old iPods.

I personally have the 40GB model of the iPod shown in the pic, I should be doing a short DIY write-up to tell you all how it went.

Looks like their site is down already but keep checkin’, it should be up later.

Rockbox’s developers say that the most important changes to the software won’t be particularly obvious to the average user. “The first players supported by Rockbox decoded MP3 files using a chip specifically for this purpose. This made things a lot simpler for Rockbox, but also limited the amount of formats supported to variants of MPEG audio. Newer players don’t use this approach, and as such, it was needed to expand Rockbox to do sound decoding in software on these players. This opens up the possibility of supporting a lot of different file formats, which is of course exactly what we did! “

via engadget, ostatic, Rockbox

For the weirdest reasons, Apple decides to start selling their iPhones online about 1 day after T-Mobile G1 phone came out.

We figure Steve Jobs is jealous of the new G-phone or he’s feeling desperate for the newest foe.

Steve, do you need some time to recuperate?

via gizmodo, Apple

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As much as I can appreciate the Safari mobile browser on the iPhone, I still hate the fact that Apple refuses to make “real” ads without trying to cover up the slowness of the iPhone.

Well, as I told you about how iPhone is the biggest marketing scam ever, it seems like people are slowly starting to realize what I’ve predicted all along.

If above video isn’t proof of deceptive advertising than you must be either stupid or you’ve been whitewashed by Apple’s ads.  No matter what the case, you need to face the facts and that is no company in the U.S. is allowed to “lie” to the consumers, especially in a public commercial.

Look, all I want is the truth, I know iPhone 3G is still lagging behind Sprint and Verizon’s CDMA network so you don’t have to lie.

Next time, would you add “Time Elapsed” in the commercials so people know that it’s not really “blazingly” fast.

Heck, the iPhone 3G in the commercial is probably faster than my desktop landline LAN connection for god-sakes!

You are doing everything great Steve Jobs, just cut the bullshit out and we will keep lovin’ you.

Here’s and excerpt of False Advertising laws in the U.S. from Wikipedia:

Advertising is regulated by the authority of the Federal Trade Commission, a United States administrative agency, to prohibit “unfair and deceptive acts or practices in commerce.”^[3] While it makes laymen’s sense to assume that being deceptive is being unfair, deceptiveness in practice has been treated separately by the FTC, leaving unfairness to refer only to other types.^[4] All commercial acts may be deceptive, not just advertising, but noncommercial activity such as advertising for political candidates is not subject to prosecution under the FTC Act. The 50 states have similar statutes, which generally are very similar to that of the FTC and in many cases copied so closely that they are known as “Little FTC Acts.” While the terms “false” and “deceptive” are essentially the same for most, being deceptive is not the same as producing deception. What is illegal is the potential to deceive, which is interpreted to occur when consumers see the advertising to be stating to them, explicitly or implicitly, a claim that they may not realize is false and material. The latter means that the claim, if relied on for making a purchasing decision, is likely to be harmful by adversely affecting that decision. If an ad is implicitly false, evidence must be obtained for what consumers saw the ad saying, and for the materiality of that, and for the true facts about the advertised item, but no evidence is required that actual deception occurred, or that reliance occurred, or that the advertiser intended to deceive or knew that the claim was false.

Sources confirm that iPod Nano 4G 4GB model is official.

Initially a set of unofficial pictures clearly showed a 4GB logo on the back of the red oval-shaped iPod Nano player. The images then set the web alight with rumours because Apple has, in the UK at least, only released the player in 8GB and 16GB capacities.

However, an Apple spokeswoman has confirmed to Register Hardware that it did make a “limited number of 4GB iPod Nanos for some international markets”.

The spokeswoman couldn’t confirm which countries the 4GB model was shipped out to or how much it cost, but the device is said to have been spotted for sale by a Dutch retailer.

Apple’s 4GB 4G Nano has since been spotted for sale on a European version of retailer Dixons website, priced at €120 (£95/$170).

via reghardware

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Okay, we did get a glimpse of what the $30 Million deal with Jerry Seinfeld will do for Microsoft.

Here’s an obvious answer:

No matter how much you spend and no matter what kind of comedian you hire to whitewash the consumers, Vista is still the same and it simply sucks.

On top of that, these ads are really long and boring, completely opposite Mac ads.  Now, I am not a supporter of Mac of Windows, just someone who has used all that and “knows” Vista does still suck and refuse to do anything with it except write truth about it.

Yes, the truth has been heard, this probably is better than their $30 Million ads.  They should really have stopped at the Vista Mojave Experiment.

If Microsoft really want’s to compete with Apple’s Mac guy and PC guy ads, they’re going to have to realize that their ads can’t just be funny–they have to also give people reasons to use their products, whether that’s through pointing out features that the Mac doesn’t have or talking about Windows Media Center.  I realize that Seinfeld built his career on a show that was “all about nothing”, but that’s not going to work for an advertising campaign.

via gadgetell

New Apple Earphones coming soon...

As someone who has gone through 3 iPod earphones (the ones that come with iPods), I can appreciate the need for better earphones, especially for listening to music on my iPod with the volume at the max limit.

Well, as soon as I heard that these new in-ear earphones are going to be available in October for $79, I got too excited and pooped it out.  there. happy?

via engadget

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Here’s an interesting video of how Apple solved the copy and paste mystery 15 years ago.  Anyone have an old Mac to try this on?

via bb

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Remember Microsoft hired Seinfeld to do advertising for their new $300 Million campaign?

Here’s the new Bill Gates and Seinfeld TV commercial which I did get to see yesterday for the first time and looks like bunch of people uploaded it to Youtube.

First look tells me that this ad really sucks in comparison to Apple.  There’s not enough “juice” going on to even understand what they are advertising.  (Good advertising should be funny even with the sound off, try watching this ad without sound, it’s BORING!)

Bill Gates will have to do a lot better than this.  It would be cool if he was skydiving or somethin’ with Jerry Seinfeld and then Bill Gates gets squashed by Seinfeld on landing.

Okay, don’t get me wrong, this ISN’T the world’s smallest Linux PC.  Actually, the smallest Linux PC maybe even smaller as embedded Linux has evolved.

But from PC users’ standpoint, this Linux PC pictured above isn’t big at all, in fact, it’s as small as an apple designed for use in spaceships.

What’s the point?  It looks cool and eventually we should be able to replace bulky desktop PCs with these little min-versions.

So, would you like a Space Cube? Tough luck, at least for the moment. Outside of Japan - where the Cube has been developed by the Shimafuji Corporation - your best bet is to keep watching the Star Dundee website. It’s an offshoot of the Space Systems Research Group of the University of Dundee. They’re planning to sell the Space Cube once a few technical issues are ironed out and, unfortunately, it’ll be a bit more expensive than the price we found before - around $325. Instead, this remarkable PC will probably be going for around £1,500.

via pcpro