Life & Technology

News out of the US tells us of George Hotz, who claims he has managed to hack into the PS3 gaming console. Hotz was the same guy who last year hacked, or unlocked, an iPhone. Unlike Australia, Apple has an exclusive deal with mobile carrier AT&T for the iPhone, so all units are locked to that network. Hotz changed that.

What the ramifications of Hotz’s latest hack are yet to be known, I’m guessing it will allow people to play pirated games, which is not good for the industry – after all, where does the development money come from for new games? – sales of current ones.

As Karl said, this is a bit of a “so what?” moment, and to a degree it is true. However, I can’t imagine Sony will be too happy about its console being taken apart, and who knows what kind of problems this might cause in the future. What I do know is, that if you are connected to the Playstation Network, the risk of being hacked is no greater than at any other time you use the facility.

Hi Everybody

Welcome to my new website, lifeandtechnology.com.au, which is the next step in the evolution of how we help you navigate through the world of technology. We have taken onboard your feedback in what you want to see on my blog, and have incorporated it into the latest iteration.

Ease of navigation, crisp, clean images and top-notch video content were high on the agenda, as was the ability for you to ask questions and give feedback. As you can see, we have made it look more lively, and hope you enjoy the new look.

As usual, we are open to new ideas and thoughts to make it even better, so if you have any ideas, please don’t hesitate to contact me via the email address in the contacts section, or leave a message in the comments box found at the end of each article.

2010 is going to be a giant year in the consumer technology space, and I think lifeandtechnology.com.au is a great place to start!

I look forward to hearing from you throughout the year.

Charlie

Spoke with Karl about the Apple iPad, which was released in the US. So what is it?. I tell people it is something between a smartphone and laptop, and has the interactivity of both. With a 10-inch touch screen it is bigger that the iPhone, smaller than the iMac, but quite thin so you can use it on the train or bus on the way to work.

You can surf the net, use it as an e-reader, stream videos etc. It is similar to the Sony Dash that was on display at CES, and expect a lot more all-in-one multimedia devices to be forthcoming from other vendors over the next 18 months.

Also talked to Karl about the My School website, which crashed after going live. There’s no surprise there, as the developers of the website built it with a certain amount of traffic in mind, but it has obviously way surpassed the number of people they would regularly expect to visit the site at any one time. This is of no surprise due to the huge interest parents have in the site. You will be happy to know that the site will probably running at normal speed if they log on now.