iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 Video and Confirmation by iPhone Hacker

Here's a video of the iPhone Firmware 1.1.3, with confirmation that the leak is real from Natetrue, famed iPhone hacker. Like before, the update breaks unlocks and third-party apps, patching previous vulnerabilities at the same time. The video shows how to move icons around in the Springboard, wobbling to indicate they can be dragged and dropped around, which is kind of an Apple-meets-Nintendo touch:

We had some doubts, but now we can tell you we are sure: the new firmware 1.1.3 is real. Or as Nate puts it: "if it is a hoax, they did a buttload of work." The fact is that it installs normally and it works perfectly. For those not familiar, Natetrue is one of the most respected and veteran iPhone hackers and the author of the popular app iBrickr.

Nate goes on to say that "it installs on the phone no-questions-asked and for that you need to have Apple's private key, which i can confirm that the iphone hacker community does not have—as much as we would love to have it." Indeed, Apple's private encrypted key, used to authenticate all accesses to the iPhone most-private guts, hasn't been uncovered yet by anyone in the world.

In other words, no firmware upgrades can be installed without the knowledge of this key. Furthermore, the idea that someone would have access to this key and spend months to create a fully functional firmware update, with key new features and without any documentation whatsoever seems just absolutely silly.

Effects on unlocks and Third-party applications
The update breaks AnySim's unlocks. Logically, you can't unlock this update using AnySim and there's no alternative to iTunes for activation. If you want to activate, it will only work using iTunes and a standard AT&T account. Nate says, "that is the only way we have been able to activate so far." Nate tried to upgrade an AnySim 1.2u iPhone and it failed. Even while he was able to force it to boot, the phone refused to activate even with a normal AT&T SIM card. "I suspect it's due to the fact that the baseband could not be upgraded to the 1.1.3 'required' version", he says.

Other updates remain untested, like iPhone Sim Free or any of the hardware-based ones, like TurboSIM. In theory, these should work just fine, but jailbreak and activation would be absolutely impossible for the time being. We would have to wait until the update gets released in the open to try new alternative activation methods.

Your favorite third-party apps will be gone too, with no possibility of return for now. The update fixes the bugs which allowed "the jailbreak method we were using for 1.1.2, locking us out again, as expected."

Other effects
Like previous firmware upgrades, whatever is in the user partition remains unchanged. Only the Apple-owned part is affected by 1.1.3. So for those of you who claim that this is a fake because it says "Nate" in the network instead of "AT&T," that's the reason. He changed the network name in 1.1.2 using a program by Erica Sadun, of TUAW, called Make It Mine.

New features and future releases
The list of new features are confirmed too: all are correct, but he couldn't confirm if they are the only ones or not.

Many of you would be wondering how this could have happened, knowing the extremely tight security around the iPhone firmware updates. We don't know, but apparently the leak has occurred because "someone wanted to help the unlock effort." The source of the leak is completely anonymous, even to the people who have had access to the upgrade.

Why the update hasn't hit Torrent yet? The code could be watermarked to catch any leaks "so for now it's screenshots and videos." Also, distributing it won't make much sense at this point: according to Nate the iPhone 1.1.3 Firmware update could hit as soon as next week.

Did you know already?!: Technorati here I come

Did you know already?!: Technorati here I come

and? did it work?

Games for happy seasons, games for social reasons

Mobile and online gaming companies are cashing in on festivals as well as awareness days to lure Indian gamers. Zapak, Mobile2win, Indiagames have a gamut of games for Christmas, New Year as well as World Aids Day. While festival games offer good entertainment, games on social awareness are a good way to educate the young urban as well as the rural crowd.

Festival games attract 25-30 % more downloads than other games. "People have a tendency to spend more during festivals . Also, it is a time when people relax. Indians are increasingly adapting gaming as an option for relaxation," says Mobile 2win’s Rajiv Hiranandani. "Also, games for Valentines Day, World Aids Day are a hit with gamers," he adds.

"We have received excellent feedback for our festival games. If our most popular games get 30,000 page views, the games on festivals get 20% more views. We will be offering interesting games on Christmas, New Year and Holi this year as well," says Zapak Digital Entertainment COO Rohit Sharma.

Zapak launched a game Play Safe which gives out the message of safe sex on December 1. "This is the first time we will be having game with a social message. I think game portals are an exceptional way to reach young audience and send across a social message," he adds.

There is a huge market for mobile games in rural India. Since games cut the language barrier, they provide a brilliant way to educate the rural youth on issues affecting the society. "Games are now not only a source of entertainment but also edutainment and infotainment. Mobile games are a good platform for educating, not only the young urban crowd but the rural as well, about various social issues," says Mr Hiranandani.

Mobile content developer and distribution company Sitare Games is also launching a game on spreading awareness about HIV and Aids. "It is well known that a major reason for the sharp rise of HIV-positive people in the country is lack of knowledge about Aids. Today, mobile devices are the most prevalent tool among children, adults as well as rural populations. It is our social responsibility to spread HIV/Aids awareness using the latest technologies," says CEO Devashish Mishra.

Indiagames has a set of games that gives message on ill-effects of smoking. "The gaming market in India comprises mainly college going students and young men falling within the age group of 17-25 years. Games help send across a social message in an effective yet non-preachy way to this age group," says vice-president Ciril Ferri.

"Our games on Independence Day and Ganpati gained huge popularity among the gamers. We offered various games for Independence Day under Mera Bharat Mahan title and the game on Ganpati was similar to Pac-man where the gamer had to make Ganpati eat as many ladoos as possible while the devils would try to stop him. Gamers liked this concept very much and the game downloads increased by almost 30% that time," adds Mr Mishra.

Indian gaming industry is not just growing but is also waking up to the cause of addressing the social issues affecting the society.

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Online gaming is a real industry, with real money

A senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR, Eric Mantion, once said that online gaming is a real industry, which will make real money. He also claimed that there are a lot of companies working very hard to make this industry grow quickly, which will help to move things along faster than many of us expect.

A report published by IMRB International on behalf of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, (IAMAI), values the online gaming industry in India at Rs 210 million, with most of the revenues in this segment, currently, coming from organised cyber cafés (Rs 121.7 million), subscription based revenues (Rs 66 million) and advertising revenue (Rs 22.4 million).

The gaming market in India is expected to grow to $ 424 million by 2010, according to the 2007 NASSCOM Report. This growth is expected to fructify by enabling factors like increasing internet penetration, and entry of industry houses into online gaming business. Today, entertainment features as one of the predominant spending areas amongst the Indian consumers.

Currently, most of the online gaming portals are on a free-to-play model and are looking at advertising revenues to sustain the first phase of growth. Brands, which have already begun to realise the power of in-game placement and advergaming, are now associating with online games, in one way or the other. Almost 20% of the revenue from gaming (Rs 40 million) currently accrues directly to international players not based in India.

Internet usage has seen an upward swing in the last few years. I see online games as soon becoming an avenue to satisfy the craving of Indian users. Casual games, which constitute a major chunk of the pie, can be positioned as another arena for entertainment to appeal to women and older men.

The three factors which will fuel the growth of internet in India are content, access and pricing. Gamers, today, do not fret too much over whether the games are of Indian or foreign origin. They want an engaging gameplay, which, along with the two other factors will decide if s/he will play the game again or simply shift his loyalties to another game.

Well, the number of PC literates and has also been on the rise in India. A recent study by - IDC and Forrester – states that one out of every 50 Indians has access to a PC. There were 27 million units installed in the country by the end of November 2007.

Moreover, pricing is the most critical factor for the Indian gaming industry as India is a price sensitive market. If the companies are able to play well on the pricing factor, it would take the game further in the Indian gaming industry.

80% of US Kids Now Play Games Online

A new report from the “2007 American Kids Survey” by Mediamark Research and Intelligence has revealed that nearly 80% of children ages 6-11 play online games on a regular basis. Besides that, there seems to be almost no difference between te number of boys and girls playing online:

“The percentage of boys and girls who play online games was virtually the same, 77.7% vs. 78.5%, respectively. Boys are much more likely to report they go online to get tips or cheats for their gaming: One-quarter of boys (25.8%) versus only 5.6% of girls.”

I can’t seem to get the PDF of the report to open right, but I do wonder more about what defines an “online game” in this instance. I’m sure some kids maybe play Halo or something, but I’d bet most of them are playing online flash games or somesuch.

Is time slowing down?

IT CAN drag or it can race, but what if time stopped altogether? It now seems that time could disappear from our universe - and we may already have found evidence of its forthcoming demise.

When astronomers observed a decade ago that supernovae are apparently spreading apart faster as the universe ages, they assumed that something must be causing the expansion of the universe to speed up. But so far, nobody has been able to explain where the "dark energy" causing this acceleration comes from.

Now José Senovilla at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, and his colleagues have a radical answer - we are fooled into thinking that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, because time itself is slowing down.