Toyota pulls Cydia theme and ads to appease Apple

Apple asks Toyota to remove jailbreak Cydia theme
In news that will no doubt shake the very bedrock of your belief system, Apple has asked Toyota to remove its Scion theme and its advertising from ModMyi, a Cydia repository. The Scion theme has been available for weeks, but after it received a ton of press in the last couple of days, Apple finally lashed out.

It's not like we should be surprised, considering Apple has claimed in the past that jailbreaking is illegal -- but at the same time, did the Cupertino cronies hear about the ruling that made circumventing DRM, and thus jailbreaking, legal? Anyway, whether Toyota was supporting illegal, legal, or deliciously gray and ambiguous, activity, it doesn't matter: Apple asked Toyota to remove the theme, and Toyota graciously bent over and capitulated.

This story raises a much more interesting topic, though: this is the first time a multinational company has publicly acknowledged and embraced the jailbreak community. Considering jailbreaking is technically legal, and Cydia's creator, Jay Freeman, estimates that up to 9% of OS devices are jailbroken, it simply makes good, commercial sense to target jailbreakers with ads. Toyota was simply trying to make some money, for shame!

As long as Apple continues to throw around its increasingly-expansive mass, the legality of jailbreaking will continue to be inconsequential. It will be interesting to see if another big company dares embrace the jailbreak community after this, too.

Toyota pulls Cydia theme and ads to appease Apple originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/06/toyota-pulls-ios-jailbreak-theme-and-ads-to-appease-apple/

Mika Bernhardt Ingeburg Liebermann Elsa Alexander Furtmann Siegrid Holstein

ASUS Eee Pad SL101 slides through the FCC, still misses promised May release


Sure, it's not unusual for gadgets to miss their shipping targets, suffering months-long delays as they jump through the varies hoops necessary before a release. Fortunately, ASUS can now check FCC approval off the Eee Pad Slider's to do list, with the Honeycomb QWERTY tablet receiving a green light from the feds late last week. ASUS has already confirmed August availability in the UK (after previously promising a May ship date), so we can only hope that the same timeframe applies stateside as well. We're also curious to see whether or not ASUS was able to use this unexpected delay to beef up supplies, so the Slide doesn't suffer a hangup similar to that of its Transformer cousin. The company has yet to confirm Slider pricing in the U.S., though we imagine those details will be revealed along with a shipping date within the next few weeks.

ASUS Eee Pad SL101 slides through the FCC, still misses promised May release originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/25/asus-eee-pad-sl101-slides-through-the-fcc-still-misses-promised/

Finja Kerkhoff Sascha Dörr Kristin Gehrmann Annette Lechner

TripAdvisor app for Windows Phone 7 now available

tripadvisor windows phone 7TripAdvisor, the popular travel planning tool, has just launched an app for Windows Phone 7. Just like the mobile website, the app allows you to search for anything travel-related -- from hotels and flights to restaurants and points-of-interest to visit once you reach your destination.

Geolocation is supported, which allows TripAdvisor to quickly locate places nearby. But while that's a neat feature, it's also a bit of a downer -- because, really, it's about the only feature TripAdvisor for WP7 brings to the table that its mobile Web app doesn't already offer (its browser-based geolocation doesn't work with WP7 at the moment).

While it's nice to see Windows Phone 7 users getting some big-name apps, it'd be even nicer if we saw some packing a bit more swagger.

Still, TripAdvisor for WP7 might just be worth installing on your device if you're frequently on the go -- at least until a better browser arrives with the Mango update.

TripAdvisor app for Windows Phone 7 now available originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/05/tripadvisor-app-for-windows-phone-7-now-available/

Ingrid Schur Emily Trautmann Charlotte Kadelbach Hugo Ruß

Smith & Wesson Tactical Survival Pen can do more than write

We’ve seen multi-tools before, but how about a multi-tool that happens to be in the form of a pen? The Smith & Wesson Tactical Survival Pen not only writes like a normal ink pen, but it can break glass and start fires. It’s made of Aircraft Aluminum with a screw off top that exposes a [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/07/24/smith-wesson-tactical-survival-pen-can-do-more-than-write/

Franziska Spanier Erna Van den Hout Laura Pauli Janna Löhnig

Japanese Nuclear Emergency Director: You Have No Right to a Radiation-Free Life [Video]

This footage, from a recent meeting of indignant Japanese citizens and feckless Japanese government types should be a little shocking. Sadly, it's just more of the same—ineptitude and inaction. Buy denying the right to avoiding radiation? OK, shocking. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/E6HJRkdSbmo/japanese-nuclear-emergency-director-you-have-no-right-to-a-radiation+free-life

Arno Zimmerling Jacqueline Kiesel Michel Rohr Hilde Baaden

Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android

Android Honeycomb
Google, in an interesting but not entirely unexpected twist, will not be open-sourcing Android 3.0 Honeycomb for the foreseeable future.

Historically, Android is usually open-sourced via the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) a few days or weeks after the code is finalized. While this departure from the norm won't affect OEMs like HTC and Motorola that have access to internal builds of Android, small-time developers will likely have to wait months before rolling their own distributions.

As to why Google is holding back Honeycomb, its reasons are actually rather rational. Honeycomb, while originally intended to run on all mobile form factors, is only ready for deployment on tablets. "To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs," says Andy Rubin, the head of Google's Android group. "We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut."

In other words, Google wants to prevent OEMs and homebrew developers like Cyanogen from rolling their own smartphone versions of Honeycomb -- it doesn't want to see the same bitter-tasting tabletified bastardization that occurred with Android 2.1 and 2.2 last year.

Continue reading Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android

Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/25/google-holds-back-on-open-sourcing-honeycomb-heralds-shift-android/

Emma Sauter Rosemarie Ramsauer Jörn Domenighini Marion Dallmeyer

The Engadget Show returns today, July 25th (update: we're booked out!)

After a month-long slumber, the Engadget Show is back! We're taping today, on Monday, July 25th at 6:00pm ET! You can read up on what to expect right here, and if you're looking for plans in just a few hours, we've got a smattering of seats still available. Read below for all the nitty-gritty, and if you're angling to attend, drop an email to darren *at* engadget *dot* com with your name, how many guests you're hoping to bring (if any) and a contact number.

Update: The remaining seats have been claimed! Don't worry, though -- the show will be online soon after it's edited down, and we'll be doing it all again next month.

If you're a member of the media who wishes to attend, please contact us at: engadgetshowmedia [at] engadget [dot] com, and we'll try to accommodate you. All other non-media questions can be sent to: engadgetshow [at] engadget [dot] com.

Subscribe to the Show:

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (M4V).
[Zune] Subscribe to the Show directly in the Zune Marketplace (M4V).
[RSS M4V] Add the Engadget Show feed (M4V) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically.

The Engadget Show returns today, July 25th (update: we're booked out!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/25/the-engadget-show-returns-today-july-25th-win-a-ticket-to-th/

Joshua Heinlein Markus Wigger Alexander Berner Oliver Büdenbender

Your Fingerprints Can Now Reveal Your Raging Coke Habit [Drugs]

Occasional tokers and functioning cokeheads beware. The latest in narc technology will now come in the form of a device that can tell if you're stoned just by your fingerprints. In minutes! More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/oKhzYuNja-c/your-fingerprints-can-now-reveal-your-raging-coke-habit

Siegrid Holstein Michael Vollmar Robin Jones Ingeburg Otte