Every year in Japan they have the M-1 Grand Prix. The best manzai teams in Japan compete for the right to the earn the title of M-1 Grand Prix winner and also pocket the 10 million yen prize money. more »
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TrackbackEvery year Japanese choose a kanji character that represents the society feeling of the year that ends. The most voted character this year was 偽 (gi, nise), it means “falsehood, lie, deceive, pretend”.
The bit internal problem in Japan this year was the loss of more than 50 million records from the Japanese Social Security systems. That means that the government doesn’t know who has been paying or not. The government promised to recover all the data, so they would be able to know who can receive a pension. The those promises started to become lies, and Japanese society started to loose confidence. The former prime minister Shinzo Abe resigned and Jiminto(Liberal Democratic Party) lost the Sangiin elections. Those are the main reasons why this year the kanji of the year is 偽=Falsehood.
A monk writing 偽 (gi, nise). Picture from Mainichi
On 2005 and 2006the selected ones were 愛 (ai: love) y 命 (inochi: life). This year seems to be much more pessimistic than the previous ones.
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According to Yahoo! Tech, the Apple TV deserves a place on the list of the worst tech products for 2007. I’ve heard people who’ve purchased it and they’ve generally been very happy with their Apple TVs. The problem lies in the fact that few consumers have actually adopted this product. more »
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These Star Wars Droid soy sauce bottles add spice - literally - to your table while giving fans of the popular sci-fi movie series one more 'must have' collectible.
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Star Wars R2D2 and R2Q5 Soy Sauce Bottles
Origin: from Inventor Spot - Inventions, Innovations, and Interesting Ideas for the Inventor in All of Us
Comments rss TrackbackSony has just shown his news 3 megapixel camera that looks like a pizza cutter. This curious shape has a meaning, it makes it easier to reload the battery. Every time you want to take a picture you have to roll the wheel against a surface during 15~20 seconds until you generate enough energy to take a picture.
La cámara sin batería de Sony se llama “Twirl N’ Take”.
Comments rss TrackbackSony has just shown his news 3 megapixel camera that looks like a pizza cutter. This curious shape has a meaning, it makes it easier to reload the battery. Every time you want to take a picture you have to roll the wheel against a surface during 15~20 seconds until you generate enough energy to take a picture.
La cámara sin batería de Sony se llama “Twirl N’ Take”.
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There is increasing concern among many (and that includes me) about the potential harm to the environment caused by batteries. With feature-packed gadgets requiring an increasing amount of power, disposal and recycling of batteries promises to become a global headache. So it’s always heartening to see companies innovate and bring out devices that are powered by the good ol’ “human effort + mechanical wizardry” combo. After launching hand-crank radios, Sony has now turned it’s attention to digital cameras. It recently unveiled a hand-powered digital camera equipped with a wheel that can be turned to generate enough power to take photos. Shaped like a pizza cutter, an effort of 15 seconds on the wheel will generate sufficient juice to take one photo. So apart from the tree hugger effect, you have the added advantage of never worrying about running out of batteries for this camera. However, there are two major downers. There is no LCD to preview the photos and the camera is still a prototype. Though Sony currently has no plans to launch this camera commercially, increasing interest may spur it to do so in the future.
Via AFP.
Origin: from Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women
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The Google image results are far more amusing than the Yahoo ones. Via We Are All Angry.
If failure’s your thing, read about 4 Utopian Communities That Bombed Miserably.
Google image results for the word “fail” are hilarious
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If a new iPhone or iPod touch found its way under your tree and you just can’t wait until Apple officially supports third-party application development to extend its functionality (who can wait until February?), it’s time you jailbreak your favorite new portable device. We’ve covered two methods for doing so already, but that feisty Apple keeps on changing things up, and the latest firmware (which all of you new owners are likely running) requires a bit more finesse before you gain access to the throng of great apps that have already been developed for the iPhone. So today we’re jailbreaking that iPhone or iTouch of yours to open it up to the wonderful world of third-party software.
NOTE: I’ve only tested these instructions on my iPhone using a Mac, so I can’t absolutely guarantee the same level of success on the iPod touch or Windows computers. However, the software was made to jailbreak either the iPod touch or the iPhone on either Windows or Macs, so it should work fine on either. That said, I’ll be referring to the iPhone through the rest of these instructions. If you’re looking to install apps without activating your iPhone with AT&T, our pals over at Gizmodo have covered that.
UPDATE: It seems that there have been mixed results for some users attempting to downgrade from the 1.1.2 firmware. The downgrade appears to be working for some, not for others. If you have trouble downgrading to 1.1.1, you can simply restore the current 1.1.2 firmware and everything should be back to normal, but unfortunately you won’t be able to install any third-party apps. I’m very curious to hear what kind of luck others are having with this, so if you give it a try, let’s hear your experience in the comments.
First thing’s first: Dock your iPhone, open up iTunes, and find out what version of the iPhone firmware you’re running by clicking on the Summary tab when your device is docked and seeing what it says after Software Version. If for some reason you’re running one of the early 1.0 firmwares (1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2), we’ve already covered how to jailbreak those phones here. Instead, though, I’d recommend jailbreaking your phone using the following method, since you’ll get new and improved features from the newer firmware. If you’re currently running the 1.1.1 firmware, skip straight to the Jailbreak Your 1.1.1 iPhone or iPod touch section.
Whether you’re running 1.1.2 (the latest firmware) or one of the early 1.0 versions, you want to install the 1.1.1 firmware on your iPhone if it’s not the firmware you’re currently running. The reason is that the 1.1.1 firmware features a one-click jailbreak through mobile Safari, which makes the process incredibly simple and is a necessary step in jailbreaking the latest 1.1.2 version. So how do you successfully downgrade/upgrade to 1.1.1 since it’s not the latest firmware?
Well, first you need to download the 1.1.1 firmware, which you can do here for the iPhone and here for the iPod touch. Make sure that the file ends in _Restore.ipsw, which it should by default. While it’s downloading, go ahead and reboot your iPhone into recovery mode. To do so, plug in your iPhone, hold down the power and home buttons at the same time until your iPhone restarts (don’t slide to power off), and then release the power button. Continue holding the home button until your device enters recovery mode (as indicated in the screenshot).
Since your firmware is probably still downloading, go ahead and download the 1.1.2 jailbreak files here and unzip the contents on your desktop.
When the firmware completes downloading (which—at a whopping 152 MB—can take a little time), make sure you know where you’ve saved it and fire up iTunes if it isn’t already open. Again go to the same Summary tab where you found your current firmware version. This time, though, you’re going to restore the firmware to the 1.1.1 version you just downloaded. To do this, Shift-Click the Restore button in Windows or Option-Click on a Mac and browse to where you saved the 1.1.1 firmware, select it, and restore. When the restore process completes, it will end with an error. Don’t worry if this happens, as the jailbreak software is made to overcome the error.
Once you get to this point, close out of iTunes completely and then run either the windows.bat file if you’re a Windows user or the jailbreak.jar user if you’re on a Mac to get your phone past this error and booting into the 1.1.1 firmware. If you’re running jailbreak.jar, all you need to do is click the Boot from Recovery button.
Now it’s time to perform the first portion of the jailbreak with the 1.1.1 firmware, which—as I said above—is extremely easy. We’ve covered this in detail before, but here’s a quick refresher:
Point mobile Safari to http://jailbreakme.com/ and tap the Install AppSnapp link. Safari will close after a bit and eventually your phone will return to the Slide to unlock screen. After your unlock the phone, you should see Installer.app on your home screen, meaning it worked. When I used this method my iPhone froze the first time I tried unlocking it, so I restarted my phone and sure enough, there was Installer.app. That’s really all there is to it.
At this point you could just rest comfortably in the knowledge that you’re running nearly the latest firmware and it really doesn’t have that many differences from the latest version, but if you want to take advantage of the latest ringtone improvements and you want to be sure you’ve got all the latest and greatest bug fixes and features available, you may want to upgrade to 1.1.2. I did, and here’s how it works.
First, fire up Installer.app on your iPhone, find the Tweaks (1.1.1) section of the Install tab, and install an application called OktoPrep. Nothing special will show up on your phone after you install it, but it will have made a few tweaks on your device making it possible to jailbreak 1.1.2 after you upgrade.
Now you just upgrade your iPhone the normal way—by connecting your device to iTunes and selecting Update from the Summary tab. iTunes will go through the long download and upgrade process and when it’s done, you’ll be updated to 1.1.2 but not jailbroken. To complete the jailbreak, close iTunes, make sure your device is connected, then head back to the 1.1.2-jailbreak Folder you downloaded earlier and re-run either windows.bat (if you’re a Windows user) or jailbreak.jar (if you’re on a Mac).
Follow the instructions each app offers, and when they finish, you should see Installer.app on your home screen and be completely updated to the latest firmware and jailbroken. That means it’s time to start installing those apps!
My current favorites—for those of you new to third-party iPhone or iPod touch apps—include:
Now you’re probably thinking, Great, my iPhone’s all jailbroken, but I sure wish I knew all the ins and outs of this beast, including how I can squeeze the most productivity from this little gem of a device. Lucky for you, the best iPhone book I’ve ever written (with Jason Chen of Gizmodo) is both in stores and shipping right now!
Finally, if you’re looking for more to do with your iPhone, here’s how you can:
Adam Pash is a senior editor for Lifehacker who hacks his iPhone for business and pleasure. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker, and his book, How to Do Everything with Your iPhone, is in stores now. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
How to Install Third-Party Apps on Your New iPhone or iPod Touch [Feature]
Origin: from Lifehacker
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