Well it looks like Google Androids will be in the public venue come September. T-Mobile is rumored to be the first carrier to carry an Android enabled phoneset. –

We’re hearing rumor after rumor that Android has been delayed, and pushed back to 2009. Well TmoNews is jumping into the pool or rumors, calling BS on those other rumors, and putting in our vote of confidence on a presale of the Android phone on September 16th, 2008. This information, coming from a trusted source, prices the Android phone, also known as the G1 (Codename or real name, we’re not sure) at $399.

Full invoice that is.

Scare you? Good, well during the presale of the G1, T-mobile customers can pick up the phone for $150. This is where it gets interesting, we’re not seeing any prices for new activations during the presale, so this could mean that only current T-mobile customers can pick up the G1 during the presale. Other customers interested in the G1 may have to wait until beginning/mid October before a national public launch.

$400 for an advanced phone. Scary? Not one bit in my view. This is the price we should be paying for an advanced phone of this type SO LONG as the carrier is reducing their usage rate on the backend. What is this years $400 wonder is next years $100 commodity. That is the way it is in tech. The early adopters always pay the R&D. The price you pay is dependent on patience. I am fine with that. You should be too.

What is most surprising is that T-Mobile has in a very short period of time gone from a follower to a leader. They dumped ETF’s . They are now going to be the first to introduce Andoid. I wonder what else they have up their sleeves?

Linky.

Well if you own an iPhone you can, at least for the battery. First thing go buy this kit for $8 then stash it away. When you iPhone battery gives up the ghost whip this sucker out and have at it. Considering that its $90 for Apple to do the same thing that is $82 in savings.

One caveat. If your iPhone is still under warranty when the battery dies then send it in. Using this kit will most likely void the warranty in their eyes. Once the warranty period expires its fair game.

HT: Coolest Gadgets.

In what has to be the lamest excuse for a security system, Sprint has it. I hope that their legal team has the $$ backing for a possible legal suit. But this is crazy –

I’m a former Sprint rep, I worked with this “3 questions” system numerous times.

I was shocked at the number of times I was able to access an account by simply guessing the answers. Fortunately I am an ethical person, but if I wasn’t I could’ve done a LOT of damage very easily.

In every question pertaining to cars, it was always three Luxury models plus one typical one (Peugeot, Porsche, Ferrari and Ford for example) which made them stupidly easy to guess.

In addition the “none of the above” answer for “which properties have you owned?” was correct 99% of the time.

On top of that, one thing the article does not mention is that you are only required to answer TWO of the three questions correctly to gain access to an account. The system won’t tell you which ones were right and wrong, but you need only answer TWO of three to get access.

This new process is more trouble than it’s worth if you ask me and I’d like to find the person who came up with it and give him a good punch to the head.

But don’t blame Sprint for all of this, some people truly don’t give a crap about the security on their accounts. When asking customers to setup a 6-digit pin number most just wanted to set it to 111111 or 123456. Pretty secure huh?

The Consumerist has had full coverage here and here. We recommend you read both articles.

Now if you are in the market for cellular deals we would recommend that you forego Sprint for the foreseeable future. Not that their services are bad, but you as a consumer cannot afford the risk of identity theft that the Sprint security system could open you up for. A cheap cell rate can never offset the damage that can be done to your credit history.

This is in the darn cute, great way to close out the week dept here at ThirdPipe. Watch the subtitles, it tells it all. They must be a Comcast subscriber.

Your PC running a little hot? Afraid that last frequency adjustment you dialed in might be frying the CPU? You the tinkering type right? Well don’t fear, one of your intrepid brotheren has divined the solution. Behold! –

Thats right fellow traveler, strip down a window AC unit, reduct it and recase it! Why you will be the envy of the lan party!

To be quite honest it is an interesting hack. Window AC units from Korea are dirt cheap, cheaper than buying many high tech CPU coolers. At 40 degrees F at the point of entry in the CPU case it is a damn sight better too. I wonder what he will do with a laptop?

Linky.

We have covered the iPhone hack scene before here at ThirdPipe. The new iPhone series does not even require a soldering iron, its all in software. Good for the customer base as they can unleash the phone and use a SIM card for nearly anywhere on the planet. We still don’t think it is worth the cache of having Apple on the logo for the price. There are other options now and more coming in the near future. –

Ever since Apple changed the Bootloader with the release of the iPhone with firmware version 1.1.2 (Just in case you don’t know, the Bootloader is the code that runs before the operating system runs) want-to-be iPhone owners have had to shell out extra money for hardware unlock solutions like TurboSIM and StealthSIM. This morning however, a full unlock solution for brand new out of the box iPhones hit the web - and, as is normally the case, within a few hours another popped up too.

For those of you who don’t speak ‘Geek’ that means you can now buy (or get a friend who is in the US to buy you) a brand new iPhone from Apple and use software to unlock the phone to a point where you can use any SIM card to make and receive calls. Before this breakthrough you needed to spend extra buying a third-party SIM card that ‘tricked’ the iPhone into thinking you actually were using an AT&T Sim card to make calls. With this release, owning a brand new iPhone just got a $100 cheaper.

So how do you do it? Well, thanks to the web there are many resources that will help you unlock your new iPhone, but the best and most complete site to refer to is here. iClarified will show you everything from unlocking a brand new iPhone, to upgrading your existing firmware to the latest version 1.1.3. Most solutions oniClarified are so advanced that you don’t even need to use a computer to achieve the unlock - you simply the Installer application on the iPhone itself to run the unlock.

Let us make one off hand comment. If in watching the video you still can’t fathom all the directions then you don’t have the sensibilities to operate the phone itself, even fresh out of the box. Save your money, go home and have a scotch.

HT: APC

An interesting piece on UMPC’s being a possible new market category for compute devices. One of the telling enablers is WiMax –

Why, oh WiMAX

The Internet will always be second-rate on a phone, due to the small screen and lack of processing power. Once phones start catching up to desktop browsers for flash and AJAX, new technologies will emerge and leave phones behind. But having the Web available on a portable device is becoming a popular idea, and both consumers and companies are seeing the potential in a mobile Web. I think that Web will be a much better experience on a more powerful device with a larger, more interactive screen.

If it seems a frivolous notion to expect a desktop Web experience on a portable device, remember how much the iPhone changed expectations about what a Web browser on a phone will be. In the same way, I would like to see a Web browser reinvented for the UMPC. A browser that can work with the UMPCs GPS and telephony capabilities to extend the mobile browsing experience. But again, we’re talking real power here. So, if you’re curious about a movie that’s playing at a theater you’re walking past, you can download a high-quality preview quickly. If you want to find a good Italian restaurant, you can browse Zagat, make a reservation on Open Table, and then GPS will help you get there easily. And if you want to videoconference with the friends you’ll be meeting, that will be no problem either.

The article is a point - counter point style so also read the ‘why not’ piece as well.

But with marketing photos like the above from MWave, there is a decided niche for women. They are lighter, smaller than a standard like the Dell D600 class laptop. These are factors that women favor.

I can think of a few things to add. WiMax of course. But once that chips is in there, circuity for always on capability for supporting VoIP and a bluetooth (or better) capability to link that with the earset.

Linky.

All too often even the power user has problems establishing WiFi connections on their laptop, and connecting many portable devices can be a nightmare. A new utility from Devicescape promises to provide transparent, seamless WiFi connections on a wide array of devices:

Company head Dave Fraser said in an interview yesterday, “Without registering or going to our Web site or anything, as soon as you install the client, or power on a device with the client in it, you get immediate access to any hotspot we can get you into.” Fraser noted that’s any of the tens of thousands of free hotspots that are part of their system now, including Google in Mountain View or McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. Fraser said, “There’s lots and lots of them in our database now. We’ll automate those. You don’t have to plan in advance, and register, and populate My Wi-Fi,” the part of a My Devicescape account in which you list networks you’re a member of.

Devicescape currently has software available for Mac OS X and Windows, as well as certain Nokia phones and tablets, Windows Mobile, and jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches (iPods touch?). Prior to its current incarnation, the company focused exclusively on providing Wi-Fi and networking software for mobile devices, and that’s still a big chunk of their business; this means we can expect to see a host of devices with Devicescape software built in, ready to go. The company had no announcements about built-in device support today, however. (from Wifi Net News)

A great many who would make use of WiFi simply give up on the idea when they discover how tedious making a new connection can be. If it does all it promises, Devicescape could bring WiFi to the masses. It also could introduce a whole new class of users to security risks, but that’s another subject for discussion.

Still use a TiVo box? You also have a boatload of downloaded video content? But the TiVo won’t speak the lingo? Ahhh, well give a listen. The folks over at LifeHacker have a possible solution for you.

Your TiVo can play more than just television it’s recorded —it can also play video that you’ve downloaded to your computer from the internets, and it can do it without the pay-for TiVo Desktop Plus upgrade. If you’re a BitTorrent’ing, usenet’ing, podcatching, downloading fool, filling up your hard drive with movies, television episodes, and video clips you want to watch from the couch instead of the computer chair, you can do just that if you’ve got a TiVo sitting under your flat screen in the living room. Using the free Videora TiVo Converter for Windows, here’s how to watch your video downloads from the comfort of your couch without forking over extra cash.

Note: If you don’t have a TiVo but still want to watch your video downloads in the living room, check out our previous tutorials on how to build your own DVR, or hack your classic Xbox into a tricked out media center, or watch video on your Xbox 360.

Ready to start watching downloads on your TiVo? Here’s what you’ll need to get started.

* A TiVo connected to your home network
* A Windows PC on your home network
* A PC video file you want to watch on your TiVo (.AVI, .MPG, etc.)

First, if you haven’t already, download and install the free TiVo Desktop Software onto your PC. This is the app that will let your TiVo see your PC and vice versa. Once TiVo Desktop is up and running, on your TiVo, under Music, Photos, & More, select “Enable Home Network Applications.”

It might be your video match made in heaven. Link here.

the recession it appears is starting to effect another internet player — Yahoo. Yahoo has not had the revenue strength of say a Google but they have a well stocked technical larder. The layoffs though expected are surprising by their depth.

The Sunnyvale-based company’s biggest purge since the dot-com bust most likely will be announced next week, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The person asked not to be identified because the exact number of jobs to be cut is still under discussion.

Yang and his management team already have committed to jettisoning at least several hundred jobs to help boost Yahoo’s profits and placate investors demanding more action to reverse a steep decline in the company’s stock price.

Securities analysts are betting Yahoo will trim its 14,000-employee payroll by about 5 percent - or 700 workers. If that many people are dumped, Yahoo could save about $100 million, JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan estimated in a Tuesday note.

Besides trimming Yahoo’s expenses, job cuts could help buy Yang more time to carry out his strategy to re-establish Yahoo as a main entry point to the Internet and create a more compelling online advertising network.

Many investors had been questioning whether Yang was too emotionally attached to the company that he started in 1995 to make the tough decisions needed to turn it around, said Standard and Poor’s equity analyst Scott Kessler.

“A lot of what drives the market comes down to perception and, rightly or wrongly, there is a perception that Yahoo needs to be repaired,” Kessler said. “To gain credibility, you need to make hard choices like this.”

Linky.