Know Nokia

Review of the WRC Live App

2011-12-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

This is my entry for a post by Nokia Connects regarding reviewing the WRC Live app. Having owned and beaten on a Subaru before moving to a Jeep, I have a solid experience of both being sideways in the dirt and snow, and flipping end over end to land on your bucket, safely saved by a cage of 1.50" DOM.

The WRC app is built using Qt technologies which means it's very easy to migrate it across platforms. It's currently available for Series 40, Symbian, Windows Phone and MeeGo devices. The experience is virtually the same on every piece of hardware. It's fast, responsive and lightweight.

So...what is this WRC Live thingy? It's a tightly knit app that provides access to the FIA World Rally Championship. This means you've got quick updates on current, upcoming and completed rallies. You get standing information along with driver and team stats. Want to know more about a driver? Check their bio and points. Want to see when races are? Take a look at the calendar, complete with itinerary and location staging that is tied into Nokia Maps.

The interface is fast and smooth. Transitions are quick, but unfortunately in order to keep such nice backgrounds and graphics, the app is locked to landscape orientation - which means no one handed use if you're lucky enough to be standing next to the track!

If you're not covered in dirt from being there live, then you'll probably want to check out the most useful section of the WRC app - Media. You can view stunning photos, exclusive feature videos like driver interviews, behind the scenes and live race footage. Videos are decent resolution (some of them were even shot on an N8) and sound is good, depending on how you're listening to it. The one thing that does bother me, depending on which device you're using, the videos may or may not play "within" the application. On the N8, they play seamlessly, but on an N950 the video file is opened by a new browser process and then loaded. Hopefully this is due to simple API inconsistencies and can be fixed.

Although I don't have a Facebook account, I will mention that apparently it has some sort of Facebook integration, if that's your thing. The app does everything WRC-related and it's a great way to stay on top of all the news if you're a rally junky.

If you're looking for the app, you probably don't need to speed at 130km/h anywhere to get it, just saunter over to the Nokia Store on your S40, Symbian or MeeGo handset or just tap the Marketplace icon on your Windows Phone 7-powered Lumia device. It's not even 2012 yet and the races don't start until late January, but who knows what might happen by then...maybe your phone will get run over. Just download it and enjoy while you still can.

Amidst Rogue SSL Certs, Your Nokia Smartphones Are Safe.

2011-09-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

Unless you live under a rock or similar stalagmite, you'd know that DigiNotar was popped and over 500 possibly forged SSL certificates are out there. Why should you care? Well, since you're using a Nokia S40, S60 3rd/5th, Symbian^3, Symbian Anna or Symbian Belle smartphone - you don't actually need to.

After reviewing at least 2 devices from each platform listed above, I've come to the conclusion that the only Nokia smartphones that ship with revoked CA certificates baked in are the N900, N950 and N9. Unfortunately, the N950 and N9 have both Comodo and DigiNotar CA certs included. The N9 is yet to be released - hopefully somebody from Nokia can look at the possibility of having these removed or blacklisting the invalid certificates that were issued, before launching the N9.

Symbian, Maemo and MeeGo/Harmattan currently have an extremely easy way of removing top level CA certificates. You delete them manually through the certificate interface or you drop into a root shell and issue 'rm /etc/certs/common-ca/8868bfe08e35c43b386b62f7283b8481c80cd74d.pem' on the N900 or N950. Manually removing the certs without updating the Trusted Root Store may cause problems; as root issue "cmcli -c common-ca -r 8868bfe08e35c43b386b62f7283b8481c80cd74d" to do it the "proper" way.

On Windows Phone 7? If it's baked in, you have no choice. If it's added afterwards? You have to completely factory reset the device.

While regular iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 users have to wait for updates to be pushed by Apple, Google and Microsoft (unless jailbroken or rooted), those loyal Nokia users can rest assured that their devices are a smidgen more resilient to MiTM attacks (using the compromised certs).

#NokiaUnfenced - A Roaming Weekend

2011-07-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

If a weekend in the Canadian Rockies, testing unreleased phones, lounging on treetops and galloping through Bow Valley in Alberta sounds like too much for you, then tighten the velcro on your shoes and walk yourself off a cliff. All others, read on to see what another weekend with Nokia was like.

I, along with a handful of other lucky enthusiasts, were invited by WOMWorld/Nokia for an event aptly dubbed #NokiaUnfenced. Mountains bigger than planets? Check. Land further than the eye can see? You got it. Throwback transportation? Absolutely. Unfenced, it was.

We were put up in the plush Grande Rockies Resort, with rooms that rival apartments I've been in. We didn't spend much time inside our rooms except for recharging; phones and ourselves. Oh boy, we had phones. At any given time, I can safely say I had roughly $1900 worth of smartphones falling out of my pockets. From the trusty N8 for capturing the experience, to the unreleased Nokia X7, there were many a time when deciding on which device to use was more than a split-second decision.

If you spotted that slightly mangled iPhone 4 and felt a bit sad, I'd like to direct your attention to the 7 foot drop test featuring a Nokia C7 versus an iPhone 4.

When we weren't busy dropping phones, we played around for hours on an 18 station treetop rope course. We teetered and balanced on thin cables, swung on precariously perched ropes and finally zip-lined to terra firma.

It was a great mental and physical exercise, definitely worked up an appetite for a fine elk burger and set the tone for a relaxing horseback ride through the Bow Valley Provincial Park. A few hills, a couple valleys and a great view.

Of course there were many other activities peppered in through out the day. We took a stroll down by the river as well as learned how to saddle a horse, lasso and rope tricks and got great insight into the life of a rancher, in Cowboy College.

I got to hangout with some mobile phone aficionados, technology enthusiasts and social media mavens all weekend. We talked shop with some folks from Nokia Canada, providing feedback along with questions and concerns. Largest back pats to Tom and Donna from WOMWorld/Nokia for all the dedicated work. What seems like a weekend of fun for us, is no doubt stressful on a level I've never experienced.

Nokia N9 Service Manual

2011-07-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

Well, what do we have here? A Level1/2 Care Academy service manual for the N9, depicting disassembly and some tidbits about the internals? Why yes.

Oh. You'd like a copy of it too? But of course, my friend, but of course. Look at that glorious engineering. I'll be giving a ton of love to the N950 for the forseeable future, but here's some hugs and kisses for those who are holding out for the N9 coming in October. Oops, did I let that slip too?

Pushing Wireless Limits on the N900

2011-06-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, I unlocked channel 12 and 13 on my N900 with a simple modification of the regulatory domain variable. Being the 802.11 junkie I am, I also wanted to look at upping the TX power so I could really reach out and touch someone. This is normally controlled by CRDA and wireless-regdb which is digitally signed database of regions containing allowed channels and power usage. The great thing is, it allows generation of a self-signed database for binary reading - which means anybody with a brain the size of a lollipop can override it. Unfortunately for me. CRDA kicked in after 2.6.28 (wasn't backported with compat-wireless/bleeding-edge wl12xx) and left the old static regulatory domain setting in kernel space. No big deal. I modified the hardcoded values for JP to bump 20dBm to 30dBm

REG_RULE() is passed 6 arguments, first the low frequency (ch1) with a base underlap (2412MHz-10/1MHz), the upper frequency (ch14) with a high overlap (2484MHz-10/1MHz), band spacing (4MHz+1MHz over/under for total 5MHz), max antenna gain (600mBi), max EIRP (30dBm) and I have no idea what the last arg is for.

Patch in whatever new CRDA linker you want recognized for high transmit. I called mine "HX" and build your new modules. Drop them into /lib/modules/[whateverkernelyourun] and the easiest way to make sure they're loaded in proper succession is to reboot.

You can check your changes by watching dmesg and you're looking for the line that says;

2402000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 40000 KHz, 600mBi 3000mBm

This should indicate the driver is allowing 30dBm on all 14 channels. I truly don't know if the WL1251 chip stores a max transmission power in EEPROM or tertiary firmware with wl1251-cal nor have I done any pseudo-scientific testing yet.

What I do know is that I probably have the only phone in the world, that can completely disrupt and hose any 802.11b/g/n network with the push of a button...your phone is cool too though, you've got apps, right?!

Workaround for Twitter Integration on Maemo 5

2011-06-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

Remember back when Twitter put the kaibosh on Basic Auth and took out a plethora of older, yet fully functional plugins and clients? I know I do, because ever since that day - Maemo 5 no longer had Twitter integration with contacts. What's the point in Telepathy and Mission-Control if the plugins don't work? We all love it on our desktops, that's why the Maemo team brought it to mobile. After futzing with the deprecated plugin, attempting to backport prpltwtr and kludging Pidgin, I shelved it and moved on.

Well, last night I stumbled across SuperTweet. It's a Basic Auth -> Open Auth proxy. It's specifically made for devices or code, for whatever reason, can't or haven't been updated to OAuth. If you want a simple, straight forward interface for Twitter, this is it. It's brilliant. Why should you care? Well, you can now use the precious `libpurple-twitter-protocol` plugin with it. Here's what you do;

Go to SuperTweet, get an account and authorize it to Twitter. Install `libpurple-twitter-protocol` from extras-devel. Create a new account, scroll down and select Twitter. You'll enter your username and the supertweet password you used. Hit "Advanced" and (unfortunately, you'll need to) uncheck the HTTPS option. This means your credentials and all data is sent in plaintext. When configuring the Twitter plugin on your N900, simply change the Host URL and Search URL to "api.supertweet.net"

Set your refresh rates and you're done. Everything works like it used to before they 86ed us and boy is it glorious!

A Brief Look at the Nokia BH905i Bluetooth Stereo Headset

2011-05-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

I've been held back a bit and have a ton of stuff in the works, but I thought I'd start easy with writing up my initial thoughts of the Nokia BH905i Bluetooth Stereo Headset that I received from Nokia Care US (special thanks to @docmobile).

I've used my fair share of wireless headphones over the many years and I currently have a set of Nokia BH504 headphones as they were a sane price, good quality and comfortably sized. Along comes the 905i; a headset that boasts 8 separate microphones for use in active noise cancellation, quick side controls and an absolutely premium build quality. It's no wonder these retail for over $300.

Sound quality is superb, wired or wireless. They've got a pair of 32mm drivers that feature a frequency response range from 15Hz to 20kHz. That's absolutely good enough for me and it's most definitely enough for you. While I do prefer a slight outside lip on the ear-cup cushions in order to reduce "sound bleed", I had no worries about cranking them to the maximum. From the upper band cushion, the metal cup controls and the extremely small notification LED, I am supremely impressed with styling and feel of the BH-905i.

While many will lambaste Nokia for their continuation of familiarity, it's a welcomed and often under-appreciated cue when it comes to hardware and experience. From using previous headsets, I know where the controls are, what they do and exactly what to expect when I'm picking up either one. From the un-obnoxious notification LED to the full swing of the cups, there are so many subtle thoughts that went into the design. Compare the 2 generations and you'll see. Button placement is easy to reach and simple to distinguish. The bands are completely adjustable, the cups swivel and pivot in the brackets - unless you were on Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold! - these will fit you.

The sound quality is fantastic, the built-in bass boost and stereo widening works exactly as described and is adjustable in 3 different settings. The active noise cancellation is just brilliant with 8 positioned microphones pulling in ambient (and not so) background noise in order to provide destructive interference - just about everything I did that had a noticeable pattern, was blocked out successfully. It's very weird not to hear the hum of numerous machines sitting in my closet just feet away. I have extremely sensitive hearing, especially when it comes to high frequency tones and I could "feel" the opposing sinewaves when ANC was enabled. It was slightly annoying and after extended usage, I did notice it was slightly awkward to walk as my balance was knocked off. I've noticed this before with feeding unfiltered HF into my ears.

While the price might seem a bit steep at first blush, the Nokia BH905i is an extremely premium bluetooth headset. It works with any bluetooth-enabled device for calls and music - supporting A2DP and AVRCP profiles, it comes with a solid carrying case for protection, multiple TRS size adapters and enough auxiliary cables to ensure you can plug it into anything.

I know I'll be reaching for these when I'm in the mood to watch movies, melt into some music while writing or just riding the lawn mower with a cold one.

UPnP/DLNA N900 Server

2011-03-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

After messing around with native Rygel and building mini bzip'd chroots for MediaTomb, I decided to port over Fuppes to Maemo 5. I've been using it on a severely mangled Thinkpad that's missing an entire LCD, it's literally a keyboard sitting on my desk that sparks A LOT of conversation when people come over. It allows me to stream all my media content to any device on my network, most importantly, my PS3. I use it as my main video player and have it hooked up to a 64" screen and an amp that's powering a nice 7.1 system.

Well, the big thing nowadays is all the content on mobile phones and how to share it. I carry around 64GB of media (comprised of music and movies) on my N900 and having that stuck on a device with a 3.5" screen basically sucks. All the Android kids have Twonky and the iPhone does AirPlay. We've had a native DLNA client implementation for a while, servers were clunky, but, at least we don't have to spend money on more iProprietary hardware or pay for "an app" to do it.

Grab the binary package (which is optified) and install it using `dpkg -i $FILENAME` and then issue `apt-get -f install` in order to fetch the dependencies and tie them to the package. You'll need to launch it manually using `/opt/bin/fuppes` at shell prompt and you'll be up and running.

It's configurable via the web interface, you can point and click your way through configuring the bind interface as well as the ever so important media trawling directories. You can also manually edit ~/.fuppes/fuppes.cfg to your liking.

The really great feature about Fuppes isn't really described at all. It doesn't use tracker to index media. I built Fuppes with SQLite3 capabilities. It crawls and stores a separate database of media in ~/.fuppes/ and it's drop dead simple to update. Launch the server and press "u" to update it or "r" to destroy and rebuild. It'll take a few minutes to initially build, but after that - it's mere seconds to update and your media is instantly available.

I've specifically disabled transcoding since I want to keep it lightweight on mobile, taglib is giving me some problems so audio metadata and thumbnail rendering for video isn't working at the moment. I've tested it and gotten word from @Reffyyyy that it's all good for him as well. So there you have it. The power of open source compels you. Go forth and stream!

Unlocking Disabled WiFi Frequencies On Your N900

2011-02-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

If you live like a criminal and run your 802.11 networks on the upper channels of 12, 13 or 14 in North America, you may have found out that your N900 has 2467MHz and 2472MHz completely blocked. Not just IBSS RX/TX but passive scanning as well. Bummer eh?

Well think again simpleton! You can use channel 12 and 13 by changing the regulatory domain via CRDA. It's as simple as issuing `iw reg set JP` to set the regulatory domain to JP which is Japan. All channels from 1-13 (2412MHz-2472MHz) are unlocked on 802.11g and I'm guessing if you force 802.11b, you can access channel 14 (2484MHz) as well.

Tada. Easy as pie. Changes are volatile and will disappear after a reboot, so do yourself a favour and toss it in a properly syntaxed script inside /etc/event.d/ and call it a day. Now you can continue to be a threat to the state by using non-sanctioned frequencies for your puny network :D

Flash 10.1 On Your N900

2011-01-31T13:19:00.000-08:00

Remember when Adobe and ARM were working on Flash 10.1 for Cortex-A SoCs and they said devices would ship with Flash 10.1 in 2H 2010? Well, it's Q1 2011 and we've yet to see officially Flash 10.1 on the very device it was developed on - the N900. Luckily, they did give out the plugin on a case-by-case basis. Well, the internet is a vast and anonymous place, blah blah.

Here is the plugin on dropbox. To install it, simply replace the shared-object in /usr/lib/browser/plugins - but be sure to create a backup in the event that you need to revert. I suggest you move it out of /usr/lib and into /opt as it'll chew roughly 7MB of space. Restart browserd or reboot your device and you're done.

UPDATE: Accelerometer-based Phone Control

2011-01-20T09:15:00.000-08:00

In my previous post, I whipped up the ability to hang-up calls when placing my N900 face down, well I got a few comments and requests about turning the loud speaker on when placed face up. So, with a little time to kill on a Wednesday evening, I cracked a cold Moosehead and added that in.

I can now enable the loudspeaker by placing the device face up, as well as disable it automatically once it's picked up. Very useful if you're on hold for long periods of time - just pick it up and the device will automagically shut off the loudspeaker for you by the time you've got it near your head.

I don't have much sanity checking, it's essentially just enable/disabling it when the accelerometer reports specific values over dbus, so very kludgy - hence why I've not made it available.

Here's a quick video;

N900 Easy/Angry Hangup (Using Accelerometer)

2011-01-05T21:44:00.000-08:00

Remember the good ol’ days of smashing your phone down after getting into a fight with somebody over which color peppers they were supposed to buy at the grocery store? Yeah, me neither. Well now I can experience that vintage feeling on my N900.

I whipped up a small script to drop a call once the accelerometer reads 2 signification changes, the last one being a "flat face down". The beauty is that it camps dbus triggers and will event based on IPC calls that are always in the background. Not battery hit at all. See the video below;

Every other night I get a little spree of boredom mixed with an inkling of “creativity” and come up with stupidness like this. Feel free to recommend me something to do!

Session Hijacking from your N900

2011-01-02T15:21:00.001-08:00

Remember FireSheep? Remember Idiocy? Well now you can remember Pwnitter, if you’re an N900 user.

“Sidejacking” as it’s been called, a method of snarfing and re-using session cookies, is now publicly available for your mobile phone and Twitter. If you didn’t feel like hacking up FireSheep to get it working on your device, chewing over 40MB of space and wreaking havoc on your dependencies – well, look no further than a nice packaged binary called Pwnitter, by Tobias Mueller of GNOME fame.

With a modified code base from Idiocy, added Maemo-specific backend ties and services, Pwnitter allow users to drop the built-in WLAN interface into RFMON mode, passively sniff session cookies from Twitter and insert status updates by impersonating the previously “authenticated” user.

If you fancy a quick-hackup of FireSheep, I’d recommend taking a look at the WebOS port.

Angry Birds Seasons for Maemo 5

2010-12-13T17:46:00.001-08:00

Unfortunate for Rovio, they decided to leave N900 users out in the cold with the Seasons updated for Angry Birds. We didn’t get all the previous levels, we didn’t get the Trick or Treat levels, and we’re still waiting for the Christmas ones. Well waiting at the whim of somebody else is not my cup of tea.

I grabbed the Angry Birds binary package for WebOS devices, dissected it and installed it. Of course, the graphics are sized at 480x320 for the Palm Pre, but everything runs smooth, gameplay is perfect – it just looks goofy and will eventually hurt your eyes. I’m sure tearing apart an iPhone 4 binary package with “HD” graphics and frankenstein’ing it would work perfectly fine – but I don’t plan on doing that unless I have to. Rovio should know that it takes a negligible amount of work to go from WebOS –> Maemo. Seasons is in the Palm Catalog, why isn’t it available for N900 users? Ovi Store or not, stick it on your page and let users pay you directly and download it. The time it would take for a single developer to build and package it would be less than 1 hour of actual work, even if there were only a dozen N900 users – it’s extra income; at least that’s what is obvious to me. There might be red-tape and politics behind it, but at the end of the day – it matters not to me.

Make it available elsewhere and on a different platform, if we want it bad enough – we’re going to get it working.

Quiet Response to N900 Laughs…

2010-11-20T06:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I’m hanging with friends of mine who are big on Android and iPhone, and they make feeble attempts to mock my N900. “That thing is a brick”. “Nice resistive touch screen. Made in the 90’s?”. “Does it have apps?”. “Hey, let’s all play iScrabble and stare at our phones while we’re sitting in front of each other!” I’ve learned to quietly brush off their comments, calmly finish replying to my text message and enter a few key commands and place the N900 in my pocket.

“What? Why can’t I update Facebook"?”. “My email isn’t working!”. “Guys, my iPhone won’t let me online to call this pizza place..”. “I NEED TO PLAY iSCRABBLE!!!”

Oh heyyyyy – looks like the wireless isn’t working anymore…. What’s that? You don’t actually pay for data plans on those things? You bought an $800 phone and need to leech WiFi everywhere you go?

“Here, let me just open up Firefox…and then…ah, there. Should I order the pizza guys?”.

Having somebody de-auth flood your AP…annoying? Yes. Childish/immature? Yes. A tactical response to your annoying and childish comments towards my phone? …

Brief Look at NeoPwn Beta (for the N900)

2010-11-09T15:35:00.001-08:00

Many people have been holding off on donating or opting in for the NeoPwn beta – waiting to see the functionality and how easy installation is…well this is a post for you. Buying into the project, if only for redmine and repository access, is completely worth it to provide means for development to continue.

Here’s a brief look at the first release of NeoPwn that you can get your hands on.

Dive into the menu and fire it up by selecting the NeoPwn v2 TARGET icon.

You’ll be presented with a little dialog box, if this is the first time you’re opening the control panel. This will setup a quick chroot and mount the environment.

Let’s go through each tab and see what is offered.

Keep in mind, this is a beta and not all function work. They will be added in at a future date.

See screenshots below to see what other options are available.

It’s a very clean install, and a good start to a huge project.

You’ll also be happy to know, there are a lot of tools sitting in the chroot including misc THC tools, amap, nmap, p0f, kismet, aircrack-ng suite, metasploit, s.e.t and much, much more.

N8 Charges N900. One Step Closer to Perpetual Motion?

2010-10-15T10:58:00.001-07:00

I got an N8 for review a couple days ago and started to tinker with it. Great build, design and hardware. Hardware that just so happens to have USB Host Mode for USB On the Go and proper software support. I’ve seen people plug in hard-drives, usb keys and actually saw an N900 with USB Mass Storage mode plugged in…what I didn’t see was the device being charged…deliberate or not – I wasn’t having it.

I chopped open a microusb cable, jumped the data pins and connected the +/- leads as necessary. Of course, I tested it with a multimeter before plugging it in.

Voila. I can now charge my N900 using the N8. See video below.

Stay tuned, as I will rack my brain for other things I can power (and possibly control) with the N8.

Quick Port! NetDiscover on the N900

2010-10-10T18:24:00.001-07:00

At the request of a reader, I’ve compiled NetDiscover for the N900. You’ll need libnet installed, and you can use the stable / lenny Debian ARM package from here. Straight install with `dpkg -i libnet1_1.1.2.1-2_armel.deb` - do note this package will go right into /usr/lib/ as it’s not “maemoptified” but it only eats roughly 100Kb of space and provides the necessary libraries and dependency for A LOT of network tools you’ll want to use on your N900…

I’ve attached the source, and a precompiled stand-alone binary. You’ll need to run it as root, and with the parameter “-i $INTERFACE” for scanning, else you’ll be kicked out with a error, as the application is unable to connect to any non-loop back device – since you didn’t supply one.

Fire it up and get scanning those networks…

Source with prebuilt binaries and libraries is HERE on DropBox. Enjoy!

BFS Patches for N900 – Updated for Community Power Kernel

2010-09-30T18:22:00.001-07:00

I briefly talked about BFS kernel patches for the N900…well Kolivas has updated his diff and Corey has built it against the newest N900 community / power kernel – release 40. The build packages are available at the Maemo Garage page and need to be manually installed. We’re not sure if Tom will be incorporating the patches into Power Kernel (for stability reasons), so go ahead and continue at your own risk.

There is a noticeable performance boost from BFS and I’ll be patching and building it against the NeoPwn kernel source (so all your drivers work properly) once I sort out developer credentials. Speaking about NeoPwn…I’m also taking list suggestions for tools to include that are not already in the images. If you have a request or can offer assistance with the project – please email info@neopwn.com, comment or send me a message on Twitter.

Does anybody even read this?

Thanks!

Dissecting a Fool…A Call Out

2010-09-26T09:15:00.001-07:00

I am officially calling out the author of “5 Reasons Why Nokia’s N8 Won’t Beat the iPhone 4”.

Time to whip the llama;

1). The author claims the N8 to have a weak processor, when compared to specifically, the iPhone 4, HTC Evo 4G, Motorola Droid 2 and Samsung Galaxy S – with his 1GHz clock speed mention.

Sorry, are you stuck in 1996 before the megahertz-myth was absolutely and completely debunked? I’ll use an analogy that your simple mind can understand.

A Lamborghini weighs about 3000lbs and puts about 450HP out. An Oldsmobile 455 weighs 3500lbs and puts out about 420HP. One of them will win in a straight line. One of them will win going around twisting corners. Crash them both into a wall – and you’ll walk away from the Oldsmobile. You’ll be scraped off the ground if you’re in a Lamborghini. Point is, it completely depends on what you’re tasking the hardware for. If you want to go fast in a straight line, you’ve got a car for that. If you want to go fast around corners, you’ve got a car for that. Here, let me let your main man, Steve Jobs do the talking;

It’s about pipelining, instruction architecture and a plethora of other configurations and optimization on the silicon and in the software. Should I EVEN make mention about the GPU in the N8 when compared to those handsets? I’ll let you go look that up on your own.

2). Low memory? There are 2 platforms that you haven’t seen pushing the hardware limits recently - BlackBerry OS and Symbian. Why? BlackBerry is purely and absolutely optimized for their own hardware. Nothing else can run on it. Their code base hasn’t drastically changed in a decade. Symbian “suffers” from the same. Their code is written for a specific set of hardware, instruction set and architecture. Oh, they also use a nanokernel that supports real-time response. Without getting too technical and hurting your head, this means it’s faster and more power efficient. HTC and Motorola devices are built vanilla generic. The hardware is plain enough that Windows Mobile and Android can use it. 2 extremely opposing platforms. Do you see a problem with how that can effect writing code for SPECIFIC hardware?

3). According to Gartner? Symbian still holds more than 40% of market share. One company. Almost half. It used to be more. Against an entire industry? Yes, Nokia really just bleeding money right now. It’s quite clear, they have just under half the global market share with numerous competitors, that’s a definition of failure. According to me, you should shut up.

4). Internal battery? If anything, it’s an equalizer. The iPhone doesn’t let you replace it, the N8 doesn’t let you replace it. Nill argument. Zip zero. Okay, so a sealed unit means a better design maybe, perhaps more solid construction – your device will last longer. Do you have an iPhone 2G? How’s your battery? I have a Nokia E71 from that era. My battery is great, I can buy a new one and put it in. My 4 year old cousin can install it for me.

5). I’m glad you clearly indicated it was off-carrier pricing when you compared it to the AT&T pricing of the iPhone and other models. If and when AT&T or a national carrier does pick up the N8 – you can bet your pretty little jester-bells that it will be inline with the iPhone pricing. An unlocked, unbranded, direct from manufacturer N8 costs $549. An unlocked, unbranded, direct from manufacturer iPhone 4 costs $779…what were you saying about price again?

The next time you want to put down a device, please have some legitimate reasons as to why it’s not up-to-par with the competitors. You could have made up reasons better than trying to justify the ones you did here.

A Birthday Card; #N900 Style

2010-09-20T12:39:00.001-07:00

While I was away at Nokia World – and having flown out to England on my birthday, my girlfriend was busy making me a card. One week later, I arrived back home, she drove 4 hours to see me and give me the second ”phase” of my present. The reason I am posting this – is because the CARD that came with my gift was a replica N900.

Complete with fine details, like an off-set space bar, 3.5mm headset jack, lock switch and the speaker grill ports. Even a kickstand.

And what type of card would it be without a birthday message in true Maemo 5 Conversations UI style? Notice the task switcher? Battery icon? How about the time? 8:30, the time I was walking onto the plane.

If that’s not tremendous effort to stay interested in the “side hobbies” I have, I don’t know what is.

The N900 Marries PSJailbreak. Produces PSFreedom.

2010-09-03T06:58:00.001-07:00

Success! Breakthrough with successful payload delivery, code execution and exploitation has happened. Both a Palm Pre and an N900 have been used, by completely separate developers, to "jailbreak" the Playstation 3.

Using a modified kernel driver, KaKaRoTo has been able to successfully emulate multiple USB devices to deliver his payload for the psgroove vulnerability, giving you the ability to run unsigned code and opens doors for developers, hackers and homebrew'ers. PSFreedom.

He has said source and all will be released shortly, but has provided the kernel driver, compiled against the stock OMAP1 kernel for the N900. It's literally plug and play.

Meanwhile, Hector Martin has been working with his OMAP3 beagleboard, and has received word from a fellow tester that he was able to tinker with gadget and sysfs enough on his Palm Pre, to deliver the code to a PS3 sporting 3.41 firmware.

I prefer the userspace approach, however once KaKaRoTo releases his source, I'll be compiling it for my kernel and giving it a shot!

Ain't this device just the best?

PS3 Jailbreak – Coming Soon to Your N900

2010-09-02T15:19:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while since the PS3 was hardware hacked, however it never came to the masses due to the hardware needed to glitch the bus and the level of complexity and pure luck of timing. Then came PSJailbreak – a closed release of a USB-based “modchip”. Sony stuck their lawyers on them with an injunction attempt. Welp, somebody decided to sniff out the entire payload delivery from one of the units – and so PSGroove is born. A completely free and open source alternative. You’ll need some proper hardware to do it; an Atmel microcontroller is the recommended choice, but there’s nothing stopping you from using an OMAP beagleboard, or say – even your N900.

I got in touch Hector Martin, the supreme hardware hacker who busted open the Wii, and started digging into getting his PS3 delivery and payload package working on the N900. Unfortunately, with the way Nokia took HAL, BME and made dependant watchdogs – it’s extremely hard to get direct userland access to the hardware without some serious voodoo trickery.

After a few hours of futzing around and talking with him – I’m going to let him continue with his work code. I don’t have deep-dish hardware skills, and after attempting to negotiate and send USB descriptors – delivery fails on my (and the other tester’s) N900s; note the resets back to high-speed modes, which indicates HAL/BME not be giving up control of the hardware completely. BME is something I’ve grown to hate, a long with others who have been working on USB Host Mode for the N900.

There’s some work being done using USB Gadgets as a separate way of delivery, by Kakaroto – who has been working on the implementation since before PSGroove was released. This method is semi-specific to the N900 and may require an updated kernel and modules to achieve functionality. Either way, huge steps here.

With some very talented people at work here, I feel confident to say – that we can expect the ability to jailbreak the Playstation 3 using nothing but an N900 and widely available microUSB cable. Who else can say the same thing about their phone?

NeoPwn Beta2; Now Shipping for the #N900

2010-09-01T16:58:00.001-07:00

NeoPwn recently started sending out emails with instructions and links for downloading the current beta incarnation of their mobile pen-testing suite. After a little bit of a tussle with the Maemo comunity, everything seems to be back on track.

Included is a full chroot filesystem for writing to a 4GB microSD, updated kernel and kernel modules for nefarious network purposes (including live injection). You’ll get access to a plethora of tools, repository and source that compares to the full-blown BackTrack.

I’ll be posting up a quick overview with more included tools, the UI and confirming the stability of live injection – once I get it and shoehorn it onto my device. Which I’d like to have done before I visit Nokia World. So here’s to hoping.

If you can’t wait for that, head over to the NeoPwn Store – drop $40 and you should receive an email with more details.

Going Across the Pond (to #NokiaWorld)

2010-09-01T13:42:00.001-07:00

While I did not get an official invite, through MaemoFanatics, Mobile Fanatics or this site – I did manage to win myself a trip and ticket, accommodations paid, to Nokia World 2010…courtesy of the Ovi Blog contest of course.

I’ve docked my name down for the 1000 heads meetup. Which currently weighs in at over 50 bloggers strong. Micky (along with Dan, Michael and Richard) and the 1000heads crew have tackled the huge task of hosting a “meetup” (read: party) with some of the top-dog Nokia and mobile-tech bloggers on planet Earth. Check out the huge list of attendees.

Should get some live updates at Mobile Fanatics as well as Maemo Fanatics and quite possibly here. It’s going to be an extremely busy week, especially since I’ll be skipping out on 4 days of classes. I’ve got a good feeling of what is to be announced at Nokia World (and I’d love to be surprised) – but the most exciting part is the people I will meet and finally shake hands with.

I hope to get some time to hop from Nokia World to the Developer Summit to see what’s cracking there. Who knows.

I also should mention I’ve never been to England (although my mother was born there!) so this will be a real treat and a helluva good time since it falls the day after my birthday.

So away we go!