Chad's News

Back in 1962, researchers at Corning developed a very strong glass that’s hard to break, scratch, or dent. The product didn’t gain acceptance, and Corning gave up trying to sell it—until recently, that is. “Gorilla Glass” is now being used for consumer electronics such as smartphones and netbooks, and is poised to enter the television market. Corning is making some serious money from this invention that couldn’t find a buyer 50 years ago.

Link #1: http://www.google.com/…
(via engadget)

Link #2: http://www.corning.com/…

Long-time Chad’s News readers will recall how Kyle MacDonald made a series of trades to go from a single red paperclip to a house. Well now, a teenager named Steven Ortiz started with an old cell phone and made deals on craigslist to trade up to a working Porsche Boxster. Admittedly, it took him 14 swaps over two years, but that’s still pretty impressive.

Link: http://www.whittierdailynews.com/…
(via Neatorama)

Several national governments are taking exception to the high level of security provided to Blackberry users. These governments want to be able to intercept and read messages from their citizens, but the Blackberry security protocols are just too good. And the manufacturer, Research In Motion (RIM), isn’t willing to degrade the security. As a result, the United Arab Emirates has decided to suspend several Blackberry services within its borders, and other countries are considering following suit, including India and Lebanon. An imminent shutoff in Saudi Arabia was averted only after RIM agreed to set up a local server in that country.

All I can say is that I’m grateful the founders of our country insisted on the First Amendment.

Link #1: http://arstechnica.com/…

Link #2: http://dailycaller.com/…

Update #1: Looks like everything’s going to be okay after all.

Update #2: RIM has come to an agreement with India, where they hand over the encryption keys and an infrastructure was created to intercept Blackberry messages.

If you have an older iPhone 3G and have found that it slows to a crawl under the latest iOS 4, there is a solution: downgrade to iOS 3.1.3. Note that this method only works for the iPhone 3G and not the 3GS—but there’s an entire forum dedicated to downgrading the 3GS, so perhaps it’s possible.

Thanks to Josh for this link.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/…

This is really neat! Get the Scrabble app for the iPad, and you can use iPhones as the tile racks (via the Tile Rack app).

Link: http://www.engadget.com/…

For the iPhone users out there, are you tired of AT&T’s poor coverage? “Mark the Spot” is an iPhone app that, when you have a service failure, registers a complaint with AT&T and tells them the exact location of the failure.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/…

Airlines have had e-tickets for some time now, but it’s still necessary to get a printed boarding pass. Well, even that is on the way out. My friend Josh sent this screen print of his iPhone. It’s a “mobile boarding pass,” and the airline accepts it from the phone display.

If you have a smartphone plan that allows Internet usage but charges extra for outgoing text or multimedia messaging, there’s a way to circumvent the messaging charges. Many cell phone plans include an email address that turns incoming emails into SMS/MMS messages on the recipient’s phone. Chad’s News wrote about this back in 2006, but teleflip.com appears to have gone belly-up. In the place of one central service like teleflip.com, the linked article has the SMS/MMS email addresses for various cell phone vendors. It’s a bit complicated, and you’ll have to know your recipient’s provider, but it saves money.

Thanks to Josh for this topic.

Link: http://www.iphonehacks.com/…

If you have a Google login and forget your password, you can have the reset code sent to your cell phone as a text message. Of course, you have to configure it with your cell phone number beforehand.

Link: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

Here’s an interesting concept. You know all the power that radio and TV stations use to broadcast signals over the airwaves—most of which just dissipates away? This prototype Nokia phone uses that energy to recharge its battery. The power isn’t very much and won’t necessarily keep the phone fully charged while being actively used, but it would at least make the battery last longer between “wired” recharges. Expect to see this technology go live sometime in the next 3-5 years.

Link: http://ca.tech.yahoo.com/…
(via digg)

At the WWDC last week, Apple made made several announcements about the iPhone. For current users there’s the upgrade to iPhone OS 3.0, which has many new features, including the following:

• Cut, copy, and paste
• Landscape keyboard
• Multimedia messaging service (MMS) (although you can’t use it yet because AT&T, the US carrier, doesn’t support it)
• Tethering (once again, not yet supported by AT&T)
• Voice recording

The OS will be available on June 17^th.

Then there’s the new iPhone 3G S, which is similar to the iPhone 3G but has twice the speed, four times the disk space, and almost double the battery life. Engadget has a side-by-side comparison, and Consumer reports has a good overview. The 3G S will be priced at $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB) for new and end-of-contract customers in the United States, and will go on sale June 19^th.

The real controversy over the iPhone 3G S, however, is what’s happening to existing iPhone owners. If you’re already in the middle of less than a year into an AT&T iPhone contract, the prices go up by $200 (there is a cheaper way to do this). Additionally, the current iPhone 3G is being reduced in price to $99. So if you recently purchased one at the higher price, too bad for you. (There was an available credit, but it expired on June 14^th.)

If you purchased a new 3G on or after May 9^th, you can trade it in for a 3G S for a small restocking fee. According to the Consumerist, “AT&T has extended its one-month price protections for recent 3G purchasers to May 9 so iPhone 3G users who bought their phones that day or later can still turn it in and get the new iPhone 3G S for the same price on June 19. To qualify for this extended return policy, customers will need to visit an AT&T retail store and pre-order iPhone 3G S between June 8 and by June 18.”

Thanks to Josh for suggesting this topic.

Update: AT&T has changed its upgrade pricing for current subscribers who are 11 months or more into their contract. And it turns out that I was wrong in the article above—it was previously possible to get the less expensive 3G S prices if you were a year or more into your current contract.

The Palm Pre is now available at stores. It has the potential to be a serious competitor to the iPhone. One significant difference is that the Pre has a physical keyboard. Price-wise it matches the iPhone, but I’m thinking the service plans may be the place to save money.

Thanks to Donna for this link.

Link: http://online.wsj.com/…

Update: Here’s an additional link detailing some of the downsides of the Palm Pre.