Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Details are still shaky, but GigaOM is reporting that the futures of certain AT&T executives may also be dubious. In addition to a recently replaced CTO and recently departed USi CEO, apparently VPs are being offered exit packages or demotions (their choice!), possibly to trim some of the fat at the top of the pyramid before the US economy gets any crappier. We can't say for sure, but hey, those billions of dollars in 700MHz auction funds have to come from somewhere -- immediately, too, you don't want the FCC sending over hundreds of goons to kneecap thousands of employees. AT&T had no comment on matters both of downsizing and the FCC's mafia-like collection practices.

 

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Trying to capture the conference phone market is Spracht’s Aura SoHo. Compatible with most systems, it has multi-line and Skype compatibility, echo and noise cancellation with its Digital Signal Processing tech, and is analog ready. The plug-in bay offers wireless, Bluetooth, and PBX capability with optional adapter. With 3 built-in mics and a 5 watt speaker output, there is auto-room acoustic profiling. Add to that a one-touch conference button, built-in keypad, and redial, and this is one handy phone. The SoHo carries a $249.99 price.

Tags: aura (T), bluetooth (T), cell (T), conference phone (T), digital processing (T), phone (T), skype (T), soho (T), spracht (T)

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Filed under: iPhone

This posting on iphone-dev.org states that the iPhone dev team has withdrawn their pwnage tool and sold all their intellectual property rights to an unnamed third party. No further details are available about the settlement and I'm assured this is real and not an April's Fools joke. Update: I am also assured by other parties that this is fake and is an April's Fools joke. Which is real? I have no idea.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Update 2: Yeah, apparently just a April Fools joke. Apologies to all our readers.

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Filed under: Cellphones We'd normally chalk this kind of thing up as an April Fool's day joke, but we're hearing it's real: the long standing bastions of iPhone hacking, the iPhone Dev Team, posted a note to their site stating that "[today] the DevTeam was approached by an unnamed party to sell all of the intellectual property and related applications. After much consideration [what, hours?] the offer was accepted and the [Dev Team] has ceased." Funny thing about the hacker community though, take one down and 10 more spring up to take their place. (We're sure the iPhone Elite team is having quite a day.) Developing... [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Cellphones

[Thanks Andrew, Erica]

Update: Yep, it's an April Fool's joke. We're just going to go offline until April 2nd, peace.

 

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Seeing as our high school network hijinks pretty much led to semi-permanent suspension, our barren hearts were actually warmed by the story of 11-year-old Jon Penn, who has been in charge of his elementary school's 60-machine network since last year. The previous network administrator at the Arkansas school simply up and left, leaving the IT systems in shambles -- and in the hands of Jon's mom, the school librarian. Jon's since scrubbed the aging Windows 98 machines of their accumulated viruses and spyware, and he's installed a firewall and virus / spam filter to keep things clean while he works out a plan to move to Windows 2000 and centralized system management. Right now though, Jon's got his hands busy doing everything from fixing everything from paper jams to revising server configurations, and it sounds like he's having a ball -- he says he's been testing out virtualization products lately, and he's studying up for A+ technician certification this summer. Looks like school's a lot more fun when you're running the show, no?

[Via Switched]

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

Palm's miniscule and wallet-friendly Centro has managed to reach one million units sold since its launch last September. It got its legs working as Sprint and AT&T's gateway smartphone at that fantastic $99 pricepoint, and now it's making a bid for world domination in major markets in Europe and Asia. The one million sales have it nipping at the heels of recent superstar smartphones, the two million plus HTC Touch and the four million plus iPhone, not bad company in the least.

 

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Filed under: Gaming, iPhone

At this time of year, every press release must be taken with a grain of salt, but sometimes products announced on or around 4/1 can prove to be real even when they seem a bit unlikely (1GB of free email? Must be a hoax). It's in the vein of strange-but-true (I hope) that Unity Technologies announced a beta program for Unity 3D on the iPhone.

Unity's dynamic game development system (used by some fairly big names), if it makes the leap to the iPhone and iPod touch successfully, will give game creators a spectactular platform for rapid development. Hopefully that will include the unique interaction modes (multitouch, accelerometer & maybe even location awareness) that we saw at the SDK announcement. Can't wait!

Thanks fursund

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Filed under: Gaming, iPhone

At this time of year, every press release must be taken with a grain of salt, but sometimes products announced on or around 4/1 can prove to be real even when they seem a bit unlikely (1GB of free email? Must be a hoax). It's in the vein of strange-but-true (I hope) that Unity Technologies announced a beta program for Unity 3D on the iPhone.

Unity's dynamic game development system (used by some fairly big names), if it makes the leap to the iPhone and iPod touch successfully, will give game creators a spectactular platform for rapid development. Hopefully that will include the unique interaction modes (multitouch, accelerometer & maybe even location awareness) that we saw at the SDK announcement. Can't wait!

Thanks fursund

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Bug Labs announced in January that it'd be busting out a BUG+EDU program for getting units into the hands of impressionable youngsters, and now that they've sold out of the first crop of units they're getting those educational discounts off the ground. Students (with relevant ID) can now purchase modules at a 10% discount, while K-12 schools and secondary education institutions can buy Bug for 25% off. K-12 schools can also participate in Bug giveaways, while undergrad and postgrad programs can develop coursework in conjunction with Bug -- long story short, some kids out there are going to get themselves some fun edumicatin'.

 

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