This time around a guy named George (Not to be confused with George Hotz of the Gunlock fame) has come up with a simple solution to Activate and Jailbreak iPhones with the latest firmware.

Before I go into the specifics of this hack, let me point out that this hack is based on the same RAMDISK exploit that ZiPhone is based on. The tool released by George will only Activate and Jailbreak firmware 1.1.4, so to Unlock it you would still need to use ZiPhone.

Here is what George had to say while coming up with the exploit :

Okay, the firmware 1.1.4 has been released, since my phone is running 1.1.3 with bootloader 3.9, and there’s a very convenient tool named ZiPhone out there, so I decided to give 1.1.4 a try. In case anything’s wrong, I can always return to a previous version.

So I update my 1.1.3 to 1.1.4 with iTunes, the update was completed without hassle, at the end of update (after iPhone restarted), iPhone stayed in SpringBoard (same as it was during my last 1.1.2 to 1.1.3 update), so I checked the version, yes, it is 1.1.4 with baseband 04.04.05_G.

Then I restarted my iPhone and expected it’ll be stuck at the activation screen, and yes it did stopped there, now I need to find a way to jailbreak and activate it.

As I have played with ZiPhone some days ago and are familiar with the way it works, so I quickly created a new ramdisk which jailbreaks the phone and adds the afc2 support so that I can get the new lockdownd to analyze. I jailbreak my 1.1.4 with the customized ramdisk, then I use iPHUC to get the new lockdownd 1.1.4.

Yes, it’s possible to install SSH during the jailbreak, but I was just too lazy to do it, besides, iPHUC could do everything I needed except running shell commands which was not needed at the moment.

He has come up with this small tool that will Jailbreak and Activate the iPhone with the latest firmware version. Download the Tool from here: http://george.zjlotto.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/act114.zip 

Via George’s Blog

Well the rumor mills finally got it right! Apple finally upgraded its MacBook and MacBook pro line to the latest and greatest of the chips from Intel, Penryn. Unlike the minor upgrades we saw in November, the upgrades are bigger this time around with improvements across the board. The Processor speeds have been bumped, Higher amount of Stock RAM, Higher capacity disks and other stuff thrown to make every Apple Fanboy lick his fingers in anticipation. Both MacBook and MacBook Pro’s now feature the Penryn Core 2 Duo Chipset and the higher end models walk away with a spectacular 6MB of L2 Cache.

Let me walk you guys through the upgrades

MacBook

Apple has done the right thing in sticking with the current price configuration. The base model without the Superdrive retails for 1099$ while the MacBook Black comes in at 1499$. While the pricing has remained the same, the specs of the base model have received a nice bump.

• Processor speeds now start at 2.1GHz for the base model, 2.4GHz for the $1299 and $1499 models.  
• 120 GB drive is standard for the base level MacBook, 160 GB for the $1299 MacBook and a whopping 250 GB drive for the MacBook lack. All drives are 5400 RPM.
• 2 GB RAM standard for all but entry-level MacBooks (that remains at 1 GB).

MacBook Pro

Well the upgrades are more pronounced for the Pro Machines. Have a look at the specs.

• Processor speeds now start at 2.4GHz, and are available up to 2.6GHz (2.5GHz being the standard for the 17″); the new 2.5GHz chip has 6 MB of L2 cache. Whoa!!
• The MBP 17″ now has an LED backlit screen option.
• 200 GB is the starting HD size (this is up from 120 GB in the last revision), 250 GB standard for the upper 15″ and 17″ models. A 300 GB drive is available BTO, as is a 7200 rpm 200 GB drive.
• NVidia 8600GT now starts at 256 MB of VRAM — 512 for the higher end 15″ and stock 17″.
• Multi-touch trackpad as in the MacBook Air.

All in all the upgrades look nice to me. But I would have loved to see Apple come out with thinner and more stylish enclosures for the MacBook and MacBook Pro. What do you guys think about the upgrades?

Looks like Apple has been upgrading its product line every Tuesday this year since the MacWorld. So what will we get to see the next Tuesday? My bet is on the iPhone SDK!

9to5Mac is reporting that, Apple will soon be dropping the prices of the iPhone and the iPod Touch. It is believed that this will be a 100$ drop on all the existing models, and it could also possibly eliminate the lower end models like Apple did the last time with 4GB iPhone.

I’m sure Apple is making this move, to increase the sales of the iPhone, like it last did. Also this makes perfect sense, since they have just launched the 16GB model, and they have apparently been making even higher more profits with them. Lets hope that they drop the prices this month end at the special event this month end. 

Also, I believe that Apple is already working on the launch of 3G iPhone and is doing well to create a introduction price point at about 499$. This is how the product lineup might look like after the price cut :

• iPhone would come at 299$ (8GB) and 399$ (16GB).
• iPod Touch at 299$ (16GB) and 399$ (32GB).

It would be interesting to watch if Apple decides to do away with the 8GB Model of the iPhone, because a 299$ 8GB iPhone will allow Apple to get extremely competitive and sell even more iPhones and capture more marketshare.

Here’s a potential iPhone timetable for this year:

• Late February 2008 – iPhone SDK Launches
• March/April 2008 – iPhone price cut, 16 gig iPhone now $399
• Summer 2008 – 3G iPhone $499

Lets see what Apple has in store for us this year.

[photo: flickr/djloche]

The Standalone version of the service pack is pretty huge and comes in at about 1GB for X86 Architecture. Also you need atleast 7GB of free space to install the Service Pack. Here are some of the changes that we will see in Service Pack 1 :

• Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from Windows XP to Windows Vista.
• Provides security software vendors a more secure way to communicate with Windows Security Center.
• Improves the speed of copying and extracting files.
• Improves the time to become active from Hibernate and Resume modes.
• Improves performance of Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 in Windows Vista, reducing CPU utilization and speeding JavaScript parsing.
• Improves battery life by reducing CPU utilization by not redrawing the screen as frequently, on certain computers.
• Improves the logon experience by removing the occasional 10-second delay between pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL and the password prompt displaying.

You can see a detailed analysis of what is New in Windows Vista at the Windows Vista SP1 Beta Whitepaper here