.::REALITYRECALL::.

Buying a Samsung Galaxy S sounded like a fantastic decision when Android 2.1 was hot stuff, but now that Gingerbread‘s out of the oven, Fascinate, Captivate, Vibrant and Epic 4G owners are starting to get a little tired of being stuck behind the curve. And while we can think of at least one fairly nasty reason why Samsung might be delaying, we’ve been hearing all sorts of conspiracy theories, ranging from holding back Froyo to sell more dedicated Gingerbread phones to making the cellular carriers foot the bill for Android updates for every handset sold or else not get the update at all.

Well, it seems that last rumor’s gained a little traction, because Samsung’s taken it upon itself to squash the story flat. The company gave Phone Scoop the following statement: “No. Samsung is not charging carriers for Froyo updates to Galaxy S. We hope to have more detail on status shortly. Promise!” At this rate, we’re wondering if Samsung should just skip Froyo and just start rolling out some Gingerbread men instead.

Samsung says it isn’t charging carriers for Android updates, promises Galaxy S status report originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The lynchpin for all discussions of open web standards, HTML5, has been spruced up with a dedicated logo from its parent organization, the W3C. We’d wax poetic about it, but that job has already been done:

“It stands strong and true, resilient and universal as the markup you write. It shines as bright and as bold as the forward-thinking, dedicated web developers you are. It’s the standard’s standard, a pennant for progress. And it certainly doesn’t use tables for layout.”

[Thanks, Matt]

Continue reading HTML5 gets a brave new logo for this brave new world

HTML5 gets a brave new logo for this brave new world originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By now, every single person on the internet is well aware of the release of the PlayStation 3′s root keys. The guy responsible, George Hotz (aka Geohot), is the same fellow who brought us the jail break for iPhone.

“What’s the big deal?” some people might ask. To answer that, it’s necessary for us to first explain what a root key is. At its most basic, a root key is a specific string of characters used to authenticate all PS3 software as being produced by Sony. If a piece of software doesn’t have the root key, your PS3 knows it isn’t legit. The release of this key, the very core of the PS3′s security, is a devastating blow to Sony, and one that could spell the end of the platform as a whole.

I can hear the supporters of this guy out there right now, screaming, “This doesn’t even let people run pirated games!” While that may or not be true (I certainly haven’t tested it), no one can argue that this places the tools for pirating, hacking, and all sorts of other nefarious activities into the hands of those who have been longing to do exactly that. As I have said before, it’s like giving a heroin addict a box of needles and a pound of smack and asking him not to use any. It just ain’t gonna happen. Every time a console has had its protection cracked, piracy has been the result.

Yeah, I see you waving your hand. You’re saying that this doesn’t hurt anything, it’s just allowing people to use their consoles however they want, which is part of ownership, right? Sony should never have removed OtherOS, right? Forget for a minute that the only reason it was removed was that people were attempting to use that functionality to bypass the console’s security, and riddle me this, Batman: Which right of ownership allows you to destroy the integrity of Sony’s online service?

Reports are pouring in that the PS3 version of Modern Warfare 2 is overrun with hackers and exploiters. Already we’ve seen Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward say that, “Games rely on the security of the encryption on the platforms they’re played on, therefore; updates to the game through patches will not resolve this problem, unless the security exploit itself is resolved on the platform.” Basically, he’s putting it on Sony’s head, and quite rightfully so. No matter what Infinity Ward might do, the PS3 sees these hacks as legitimate software (because they’ve got the proper root key), so it will continue to run them.

If you’re playing Modern Warfare 2, you can expect to see folks using aimbots and wallhacks out there. You will likely also see folks altering clan tags, unlocking content, and doing just about anything else they want to. Now, get this: It isn’t just MW2 that’s affected. It’s every single game on the console. Sony has pledged to fix this, but there seems to be general disagreement on whether or not they can close this hole through firmware upgrades.

Furthermore, it’s still up in the air whether or not Sony can permanently remove these lovely folks from PSN. There are hacks out there (we won’t be linking to them) that allow the console’s ID to be changed. While Sony appears to use a whitelist method to validate PSIDs, if an unscrupulous individual gained access to a list of valid PSIDs, he could be virtually unstoppable for Sony, unless they devise an additional check that will block the console’s access.

While all of these things are being discussed around the web, there’s one thing no one seems to have thought of yet: the future implications of this action. You see, consoles and videogame systems have been a fairly secure platform to play games on for a while. Sure, there are consoles floating around with mod chips in them, but those historically have been a fairly small number, and they don’t affect anyone other than the console owner. If you torrent an XBox 360 game and play it, you’re stealing from the game developer, but you’re not going online and ruining the game that everyone else actually paid for.

Now, Sony is looking at a situation where their flagship console could be rendered all but useless for online play. Speculation is that they would need to issue a recall to replace hardware in every single system. Not only is it a logistics nightmare, but the cost of it would be staggering. More importantly, it might not even be effective. After all, there is a ton of software already out there that is imprinted with the existing root key, and that all has to work, too. You can bet that they are already planning for their next console, and now the security on it is going to be more robust than anything we’ve ever seen.

We don’t pretend to have any knowledge of anything Sony is working on, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see copy protections requiring at least regular online authentications of software. Perhaps you’ll have to be connected to the internet to play your console games. Maybe something even worse that I can’t think of right now. Remember, once you get burned, you tend to overprotect against getting burned a second time.

So this little incident will have some far-reaching repercussions. Don’t think that Microsoft isn’t watching this closely while they scramble in their security department to make sure it doesn’t happen to them as well. It seems small, but this sort of incident could shape the next generation of consoles. Scary, huh?

Let’s hope it’s not as bad as all that. Let’s hope that Sony can close up the security holes generated by this devastating hack. If not, let’s at least agree that when the PlayStation 4 with Gestapo-like security is released, we won’t complain to Sony about it. Instead, we can send all the complaint emails to Mr. Hotz. After all, he worked hard to earn them.

The biggest news from Wikileaks today isn’t that the US embassy in Jakarta requested $100,000 to get a million people to “like” them on Facebook. Apparently, the UFO cable has been leaked. More »

Need to know when the legion of Spider-Man titles were in print and for how long? This helpful chart sums up the web-slinger’s publication history rather nicely. [Edge of Space via Bleeding Cool] More »

Free-to-play Flash game site Kongregate has just dropped a service for Android devices that’ll bring more than 300 games to the sorely under-populated platform.

Unlike the iPhone and iPad, Android is a bit lacking in users’ ability to track down quality games. Kongregate’s new service hopes to make the discovery part of the process a little easier, in addition to converting a ton of its site’s simple Flash games to a format that works on Android 2.2 Froyo.

Some of the games will be downloaded with the app and available for offline play, but for the most part, it sounds like you’ll need an Internet connection of some kind to play Kongregate Arcade. On the plus side, you can integrate your existing Kongregate account to keep track of all scores and any badges you earn when playing — so if you’ve got Kongregate friends, you can spend some time squashing their scores whenever you’ve got a free moment.

One more cool thing: this should single Kongregate’s start with making Android-specific games rather than just converting its existing Flash games to touchscreen capability. Sounds awesome.

Via Joystiq.

In short, Samsung wants to charge carriers for features added to Android, the open source operating system that power the phones; carriers don’t want to pay. So… that’s annoying. [XDA Developers] More »

Space entrepreneurs look to extract resources from the moon, but others are arguing that international laws need to be made first

Oh, hello. A trusted tipster just sent in these internal renders of HP / Palm’s “Topaz” webOS tablet, which is one of two tablets currently being developed in Sunnyvale. That’s right, two tablets: the 9-inch Topaz and a 7-inch model codnamed Opal — a lineup that fits nicely into Palm’s “Something big, Something small, Something beyond” tagline for its upcoming February 9th event. Looking at the render, we’re seeing the no-button design we’d previously heard about (we’re assuming the gesture area rotates with the display), a front-facing camera, a micro USB port on the bottom, and what appears to be a Vizio Tablet-style three speaker arrangement for stereo audio in both landscape and portrait modes — that’s two speakers along the left side and a third on the right. (That’s just a guess, though.) We’d also note the back appears to be a glossy material, which might rule out a giant Touchstone for charging — Touchstone backs have heretofore been soft-touch, but anything can change, we suppose.

We're told that units will start to arrive at Palm HQ in June as production ramps up for launch later this year — a timeline backed up by an internal marketing slide we received that lists WiFi-only, AT&T 3G, and Verizon LTE versions of the Opal arriving in September 2011, and on AT&T LTE in July 2012. The slide also indicates the Opal will have a particular e-reading focus, which makes sense for a 7-inch device, and there's a mention of "premium audio," which nicely reinforces our speaker hypothesis. Unfortunately, we don't have any word on specs or pricing yet, but these things had better be packing some serious heat for cheap if Palm is really planning to wait until September to launch them — they'll be going head-to-head with the Xoom, the PlayBook, and presumably the iPad 2. We’re still digging for more, so keep an eye out — things are going to get crazy leading up to February 9th.

Update: We’re told that they both have unspecified 1.2GHz processors, and that Topaz may arrive before Opal. We’ll let you know if we learn anything else.

Exclusive: HP / Palm’s webOS tablets — pictures, plans, and more originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Victory over America’s failing, overcrowded schools! In Florida, our nation’s smartest state, they’ve figured out a successful formula for bringing down class sizes: just let the kids be taught by a computer. More »

Digital audio has been around a very long time so there’s bound to be a plethora of audio formats out there.  Here are some of the more common ones, what differentiates them, and what to use them for.

Before we talk about everyday audio formats, it’s important you understand the basics, and that means understanding PCM.  After that, we’ll tackle compressed formats

An alleged prescription drug trafficking ring in Saskatchewan has spread to Manitoba.

Reports of weird glowing lights and “shining globes” emerging from the sea have circulated in Chilean coastal towns for years. When last year’s earthquake hit, these sightings increased. The recent quake saw another wave of UFO reports. More »

Using a technique that produced a mouse from tissue frozen for 16 years, a scientist at Kyoto University plans to clone a mammoth within the next four to five years. More »

A memo from Steve Jobs was sent to all Apple employees today, stating that Jobs will take a medical leave of absence so that the CEO can “focus on [his] health.” Full details below. More »

Todd Bradley did promise us there’d be more than just slates on HP’s webOS menu and today we can add netbooks to the list of form factors for Palm’s famed OS. This heretofore unknown slice of info comes from a carrier training website HP has set up to educate resellers on the strong points of its forthcoming products. The training video on the site speaks of the great synergies that can result from smartphones, slates and netbooks all running the same OS and “speaking” to one another, which echoes Bradley’s “connected experience” mantra from a couple of days ago. Smartphones are said to be the beginning of a new family of webOS products, with their larger siblings set to come “soon enough.” Is February 9th soon enough? We’d say so.

Continue reading HP promises webOS netbooks to go along with smartphones and slates

HP promises webOS netbooks to go along with smartphones and slates originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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