On an unrelated note, I am extremely upset that Google Reader is being retired.

Sharp is releasing an Aquos Android clamshell phone with a 16-megapixel camera running Gingerbread. This is the latest step in Android’s quiet and gradual takeover of the Japanese phone market. I believe that Japan will eventually become a strategic stronghold for Android and in turn this will serve to shore up Google’s historically weak performance against Yahoo in search and online services in Japan.

Japanese Market

The mobile phone market in Japan has always suffered from the Galapagos syndrome. Clamshell phones developed in Japan by companies such as Casio and Sharp can find little demand in other markets, while on the flip-side, international titans like Nokia and Blackberry never had any significant presence in Japan.

Some believe that Japanese consumers simply dislike foreign products because they are not Japanese while pointing to examples such as the Xbox 360, but Apple’s success with iPod demonstrates that that is a superficial argument. The more likely explanation is that Japanese consumers have quirky demands that are often not part of the design considerations for overseas companies.

Most phones in Japan still look like these

The iPhone has found greater success in Japan than any other foreign-made phones, but its presence is nowhere close to the level of ubiquity it commands elsewhere. That is because as much as iPhone and Apple are considered hip brand names in Japan, Apple’s brand philosophy does not allow the iPhone to be customized for the Japanese market beyond adding emoticons to the soft keypad. The poor-performance camera, the lack of Mobile FeliCa contactless payment and the lack of 1seg digital receiver are severe disadvantages in the Japanese market and these cannot be resolved without custom hardware.

At the same time, Japanese keitai phones are rapidly falling behind in terms of software, a traditional area of weakness for the Japanese tech industry. New keitai models being released today are still running heavily modified variants of Symbian, an outdated platform that has been dead for years and recently abandoned by its primary proponent Nokia in favour of Windows Phone 7. The Japanese industry needs a new platform fast but is incapable of creating one.

Android’s Rise

This is where Android comes in. Unlike iOS, Android is flexible enough to be adapted for all the range of hardware required by the Japanese market.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 doesn’t even have support for Japanese input yet. Microsoft has traditionally been inept at marketing for Japan and its mobile division clearly does not see Japan as an important market. Furthermore, WP7 also comes with stricter hardware guidelines (e.g. capacitive touchscreen) that are unlikely to fly well with the clamshell phones that Japanese school girls love so much.

Android au KDDI selections

The process has already begun. Android has already replaced Windows Mobile 6.5 in the smartphone market in Japan. Just take a look at the smartphone offerings for the three major providers: Docomo, au KDDI and Softbank. They are dominated by Android, save for maybe one WM6.5 and one Blackberry. The only real competition in this sector is the iPhone, which is doing quite well as Apple products enjoy the cool factor even in Japan.

For the past few months, KDDI has been running a series of Android ads called “Android au” in multiple media formats, a campaign that is reminiscent of Verizon’s successful Droid campaign which is often cited as the reason for the sudden explosion in popularity of the Android platform. The KDDI Android ads include endorsement by boy band Arashi and prime-time TV spots, suggesting that KDDI is rather serious about committing to the platform for the long term.

Android’s Dominance

Last year, it was reported that iPhone took up 72% of the smartphone market in Japan in FY 2009. This sounds very impressive at first, until one realizes this is because a smartphone market didn’t exist and even high-end keitai phones are not considered smartphones. In actuality, Apple’s overall 2009 mobile marketshare in Japan amounted to a mere 4.9%. (Source: MM Research Institute)

In the fiscal year 2010, which had just ended, Android sales exploded and took up 57% of the Japanese smartphone market with 4.91 million units sold, while Apple fell to 38% with 3.23 million units. (Source: Bloomberg) With the support of KDDI and OEM giants like Sharp, Android’s lead in the smartphone market appears to have been secured. But beating Apple is just the first step.

The real battle lies in the keitai market, the vast majority of the Japanese mobile industry, and this is where Android will cement its dominance. The iOS is not even in play here due to its hardware dependency and there is no other competing OS platform with the same long-term potential and developer support that Android has. Furthermore, Japanese users expect their keitai interface to conform to certain norms and Android is really the only modern smartphone OS malleable enough to fit that mould and displace Symbian. Sharp’s new clamshell phone marks the beginning of this process.

Implications

For Japanese keitai manufacturers such as Sharp, Android is the most obvious way to leap-frog their phone firmwares to modern specifications without compromising on the traditional user experiences that Japanese users require.

This also has the long-term benefit of finally making their products export-ready (e.g. Sharp’s Galapagos is heading to the US with Android) and cutting down unnecessary R&D previously spent on replicating modern OS features on Symbian. Sharp’s new Android smartphones, such as the IS12SH with 3D cameras, are basically ready for the overseas market with a simple firmware change.

Sharp IS12SH Android smartphone

In the long run, Android is essentially going to win by default in Japan simply due to the lack of alternatives. One day, Japanese school girls will be buying Android clamshells and they won’t even notice the difference. This transition may also prove to be an excellent opportunity for Japanese hardware makers to re-enter the international market after losing badly to companies like Samsung and Nokia.

I for one welcome our new Android overlords.

A small Japanese start-up called Neurowear is marketing what it calls “Necomimi” — head-worn fashion gadgets that move in response to brainwaves. The company calls it “Augmented Human Body”. Or to put it in simpler terms: goddamn nekomimi cat ears that you can learn to control telepathically with your mind. This is serious science at work.

Videos and more information after the break.

The official site is lacking in polish and the English is lol-tastic, but the live trade show demonstrations look pretty legit:

The technology to measure brainwave is actually not that esoteric, especially when accurate localized readings are not required in this particular case. There are even a few toys that utilize brain-computer interfaces, such as Mattel’s Mindflex. Still, it takes the Japanese to apply it to nekomimi headwears.

There is a polished concept/promotion HD video of Necomimi posted on the site:

The marketing blurb from the website:

People think that our bodies have limitations,
but just imagine if we had organs that donâ€t exist,
and could control that new body?

We created new human organs that use a brainwave sensor.

Necomimi is the new communication tool
that augments the human bodies and abilities.

This catâ€s ear shaped machine utilizes brainwaves
and expresses your emotional state before you start talking

Just put on Necomimi and if you are concentrating,
this catâ€s ear shaped machine will rise.
When you are relaxed, your new ears lie down.

If you are concentrating and relaxing at the same time,
your new ears will rise and actively move.
In general, professional sports players demonstrate this ability the most.

What will happen when people show their feelings
even when they donâ€t express them?
Interesting? Ashamed? Scared?

In the beginning, people may feel strange,
however people quickly become accustomed to controlling their new ears
with their brainwaves. Right now, Necomimi can become a part of your body.

If the sensors in this thing are consistent enough, it is possible that with some focus training, moving the mechanical ears can become a conditioned reflex and a natural part of emotional display, much like how the brains of recipients of robotic prostheses adapt their neural pathways over time to the new interfaces.

The device is being marketed as a fashion accessory, but it still looks too cumbersome in the demonstration videos to excel in that role.

The people in the demonstrations appear to have a rather large and conspicuous piece of sensor pressed against their forehead, which presumably serves as a crude EEG. This ugly protrusion is not seen on the actress in the concept video, although it may have been strategically concealed by her long fringes.

The main body of the device resembles a headphone set with a rather large earpiece. You need plenty of hair to cover that up. That said, this is apparently still not the final retail version, so there’s still some room for improvement. Necomimi will go on sale at the end of the year.

Still, it’s good to know that there are people out there working hard at bringing anime cat girls to life.

This is how it all begins. Pretty soon these things will be surgically grafted onto babies the moment they are born. Transhumanism woot.

So, I got rid of my 20-dollar Logitech keyboard and bought my self a DK9008 mechanical keyboard from Taiwanese manufacturer Ducky Keyboard. Lame brand name aside, this is probably the best hardware investment I’ve ever made.

If it were possible to marry a keyboard, I…wouldn’t but the DK9008 is still a pretty darn good keyboard.

The world of mechanical keyboards is a secret subcultural gathering of people who are way too obsessed with the amount of pressure they need to depress plastic buttons so that they can discuss on online forums, while throwing around jargons like “Tenkeyless” and “NKRO”, in great details how awesome it is to type out what they are discussing while discussing it. It’s kind of meta.

I thought those people were crazy but mechanical keyboards are actually pretty cool if you swoon over them in moderation.

White balance is a bit off; the LEDs are actually blue

The basic idea is this: Most keyboards were once mechanical back in the lost era known as the 80s. By “mechanical”, it means that each key has its own physical “switch” that is triggered when you press the key. Sometime in between the 80s and modern times, rubber dome-switch keyboards (with rubber membranes instead of mechanical switches under the keys) were commercialized. Cheaper and easier to produce, they soon dominate the market and almost all keyboards today are dome-switch keyboards.

Mechanical switches come in many form, the most common of which are manufactured by a German company called Cherry, who specializes in making business-grade keyboards for POS (point-of-sale; not piece of shit) devices and server racks. The types of switches and technical bits are too much to cover, so check out this FAQ if you want. For those who care, my DK9008 uses Cherry MX Blue switches.

For a while, people who wanted mechanical keyboards had to rummage through eBay for condemned POS keyboards or ancient IBM Model M, but eventually many niche providers started providing higher-end customized coding/gaming keyboards, most of them using Cherry MX Blue, Brown or Black switches. Ducky is one of them; Filco, a Japanese brand, is another.

And more recently, mainstream brands such as Razer and SteelSeries also entered the market with their eyes on hardcore gamers (the logic being that mechanical keyboards are more resistant to wear-and-tear). The Cherry Corporation must be doing quite well selling all those switches to everyone.

So how exactly does a mechanical keyboard improve your typing skill, speed, intelligence and sexual stamina? Well, the specific details differ from individual to individual, but there are some general benefits.

Being marketed at enthusiasts, mechanical keyboards generally have better build quality. Many of them incorporate functionalities and manufacturing processes that are considered not cost-effective in regular keyboard production.

Numlock with LED

For example, my DK9008 has a removable USB cable; built-in options to disable the Windows key, to swap the Ctrl and Capslock keys (for programmers) and to swap the Windows and Alt keys (for Mac users); cool LED lights that are embedded into the -lock keys themselves; and full n-key rollover.

Mini USB slot behind the keyboard with cable guides

The main benefit of a mechanical keyboard, in my opinion, is faster typing because the switches produce a tactile feedback that allows your fingers to sense a keypress without full depression. But this is somewhat subjective because it involves personal preference, which is why Cherry manufactures different types of switches to carter to different tastes.

Cherry MX Blue switches are blue

The main drawback is that, depending on the switch mechanism used, the keyboard may sound significantly louder to type on. Again, some people actually prefer the louder sound as feedback mechanism. Personally, I don’t care about this either way. Cherry MX Blue is notorious for being the most “clicky” switch (you can listen to it here), but I chose it for the typing sensation. On the other hand, Cherry MX Brown and Black are basically the same as a regular rubber dome-switch keyboard in terms of noise.

I am really content with my DK9008. It’s much more pleasant to type on, especially if you learn that you don’t have to fully depress keys anymore. The sensation and tactile feedback take some getting used to but I can already feel myself typing faster.

In addition to the type of switch, Ducky also offers options for the key caps. I chose black-on-black (black text on black keys) key caps because I am too chicken to choose the completely blank key caps but want to look like I can type without having my keys labelled…which I can. Most of the time.

Special key caps and cap remover

The keyboard also came with a more wear-resistant set of WASD replacement key caps for gamers, but I prefer to keep my keys consistent.

That said, at the end of the day, it’s ultimately just a keyboard. I am content with the DK9008 because it fulfils my typing needs and I probably won’t need another one for 20 years or so, assuming that claims of mechanical keyboards’ longevity are true. I won’t be starting a mechanical keyboard collection any time soon, unlike the more hardcore enthusiasts.

Still, it’s pretty interesting how online communities can form around pretty much anything. Thanks to them, I now have a pretty sweet keyboard that makes me feel like I’m co-starring with Angelina Jolie in Hackers every time I type a blog post. Woot.

Mess with the best, die like the rest

P.S. Singaporeans can get Ducky keyboards from SmallWalrus on VR-Zone forums for around S$150 depending on options.

Aaron Barr, an employee at security firm HBGary Federal, made a bold claim a week ago in the Financial Times that he had uncovered the identities of the top leaders of the Anonymous movement and was going to meet the FBI.

Not long afterwards, the company’s website was brought down by DDOS, its email server was compromised and 4.7 GB of corporate correspondence, including business deals and NDAs, were leaked onto Pirate Bay. The company’s president went on IRC to beg for mercy and disavowed Barr’s actions.

Ars Technica has an excellent write-up on this latest dorama. They always have the best Anonymous coverage.

And the worst part is that Mr. Barr’s claims were exposed by the leaked emails to be of little actual substance. All he did was some guesswork attempting to link accounts from multiple social networks together to identify what he personally believed to be the “leaders” of Anonymous, and then selling the output as some kind of magical statistical tool to the feds in an attempt to boost the firm’s public image.

Anonymous was not amused. To quote their torrent release:

Greetings HBGary (a computer “security” company),

Your recent claims of “infiltrating” Anonymous amuse us, and so do your attempts at using Anonymous as a means to garner press attention for yourself. How’s this for attention?

You brought this upon yourself. You’ve tried to bite at the Anonymous hand, and now the Anonymous hand is bitch-slapping you in the face. You expected a counter-attack in the form of a verbal braul (as you so eloquently put it in one of your private emails), but now you’ve received the full fury of Anonymous. We award you no points.

What you seem to have failed to realize is that, just because you have the title and general appearence of a “security” company, you’re nothing compared to Anonymous. You have little to no security knowledge. Your business thrives off charging ridiclous prices for simple things like NMAPs, and you don’t deserve praise or even recognition as security experts. And now you turn to Anonymous for fame and attention? You’re a pathetic gathering of media-whoring money-grabbing sycophants who want to reel in business for your equally pathetic company.

The ensuing attack and trollage probably left a permanent black mark on HBGary’s IT security credentials.

Really the only thing stopping this from turning into a Ghost in the Shell-moment is that the Internet still doesn’t have enough direct influence over the physical world. They did remote-wipe the guy’s iPad though, so I suppose that’s a start.

Like the old glass-house saying, people working for security firms should learn to secure better. Or, as Anonymous puts in the description of the torrent file, “It would appear that security experts are not expertly secured.”

I can imagine some people out there are probably trembling at the thought of an army of hormonal teenagers with the power to wreck havoc on the Internet superhighway series of tubes. There have been some buzz over a purported Internet “kill switch” being considered by the US Congress and Egypt’s recent Internet shutdown has added fuel to the fire.

But Anonymous and the anarchy it represents is really the pure distilled essence of direct democracy, where no authority is sacred and all traditions can be questioned and discarded. It is a direct filterless channel of human nature, both the good and the bad. There can be no Anonymous without the Internet, but neither can there be an Internet where there is no Anonymous. Of course, Facebook is actively working to destroy that, but we’ll see.

As more aspects of society go online, supranational digital movements that do not respect traditional forms of authority will become more influential. It is simply part of the deal. The outcome can be scary or exhilarating depending on your perspective.

Personally, I enjoy the cyberpunk-comes-alive aspect of Anonymous. So when are we getting our cyberbrains?

Lots of exciting things happened in the PS3 scene the past few days. The aftermath is that the entire PS3 encryption scheme has been irrevocably cracked and broken, with no possibility of a firmware fix, due to a rookie cryptography mistake made by Sony who is now crying in a corner.

Let’s take a look at the itinerary of events.

The Story

First, a little background.

Sony excluded Other OS (Linux) support from its new PS3 Slim models for unknown reasons. This annoyed some people but did not cause too much stir because hackers who wanted Linux still had their old PS3s.

In his attempt to restore Other OS functionality to the PS3 Slim, George Hotz, a famed iPhone hacker who has a slight ego issue, discovered an exploit in the PS3’s Other OS system that may lead to enabling of piracy. Sony made some legal noise and took the drastic measure of removing Linux support from all PS3 consoles through the 3.21 firmware update. This is illegal in Europe and probably other countries with decent consumer protection laws, but no substantial legal challenges have succeeded thus far. This move also pissed off a lot of hackers who previously ignored the PS3 due to its existing Linux support. George Hotz disappeared like a little girl without releasing his claimed exploit because he was afraid of law suits.

Months later when the uproar had died down, the PS3 was suddenly cracked using a USB exploit by a (presumed-to-be) Chinese hacker group who released the hack commercially as the PSJailbreak. Out of the blue, PS3 homebrew and piracy communities sprung to life. The technique was refined and made open source by various individual and community efforts such as PSGroove and PSFreedom and ported to numerous devices.

However, Sony released the 3.50 and 3.55 firmware to block the exploit. The community remained on 3.41 and no real breakthrough was made after that, with the small exception of a “downgrader” released by the same mysterious PSJailbreak team, which was also subsequently cloned by other jailbreak manufacturers and open sourced. While the downgrader allowed 3.50 and 3.55 firmwares to revert to 3.41 using USB protocols copied from Sony’s official maintenance tools, it does nothing to allow 3.41 firmwares to run new games such as Gran Turismo 5 which are signed by a new encryption key present only in 3.50 and newer firmwares.

The Breakthrough

On 29th Dec 2010, a collaboration of hackers called fail0verflow unveiled a groundbreaking discovery at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress (27C3) hacking conference held in Berlin. By observing files and runtimes in the PS3 using processes made possible by the PSJailbreak exploit, the team discovered that Sony had made numerous mistakes in the design of the PS3’s much-hyped security architecture. You can watch their presentation on YouTube and download their slides here.

Towards the end of their presentation, they revealed the most fatal flaw in the system: Sony had failed to correctly implement the cryptography scheme they used to sign their ELF executables (PS3’s equivalent of an EXE). The encryption scheme required the generation of a new random number each time a signature is created, but Sony’s implementation uses the same “random” number every time. This made it a constant instead of an unknown variable, reducing the number of unknowns from two (private key and random number) to one and making it mathematically possible to derive the encryption keys via algebra, which is what fail0verfow did. They published their method but not the actual keys they obtained through it.

The Keys

Almost immediately after fail0verflow’s disclosure, George Hotz made a sudden grand entrance back into the scene and released the PS3’s metldr keys he discovered by using an undisclosed exploit to dump the “metldr”, which fail0verflow did not achieve, and then applying fail0verflow’s method to recover the private encryption key. I am not completely clear on this part, but I gather that the metldr is some kind of bootloader the PS3 uses to call up the higher-level functions like the Game OS.

The metldr key is a very low level encryption key embedded in the PS3 hardware that can then be used to decrypt higher level keys found in the Game OS firmware that are used to sign actual games. Immediately following this announcement, community members of the PS3 scene used the metldr key to decrypt and post every single encryption keys used in every PS3 firmware version.

The Aftermath

With these keys, it is now possible for anyone to sign any PS3 ELF executable as if he were Sony and there is no reason for any PS3, modded or otherwise, to reject the signed files.

The immediate effect is of course homebrew. Anyone can now create applications for the PS3 and run them without using PSJailbreak.

The next obvious outcome is of course piracy. Since all PS3 games can now be decrypted, it is trivial to decrypt new games such as Gran Turismo 5 using the 3.55 key and re-encrypt them with the 3.41 key so that they can be played on an exploited PS3 running older firmware. Indeed, fixed EBOOT.BIN for the frequently-requested Gran Turismo 5 was one of the first scene releases following the breakthrough.

Going forward, it is likely that the current piracy methods will be greatly streamlined and such manual patching processes will no longer be necessary. This is because the keys allow hackers to decrypt all official Sony firmware updates and use them as the basis for creating custom firmwares similar to those prevalent in the PSP piracy scene. Since these custom updates will be signed with Sony’s official keys, even non-modded PS3s will accept them without complaints. The first custom firmware for the PS3 came out just days later and allows users to install homebrew without using the PSJailbreak exploit.

In the next few months, there will likely be non-stop releases and refinements of PS3 custom firmwares, amazing homebrews (an XMBC port maybe?) and streamlined piracy tools.

An amusing side effect of all these is that PSP’s private encryption keys are also completely exposed and they have been used to implement the HEN exploit on the newest 3000-series and PSP Go hardware running 6.31/6.35 firmware. The keys were presumably being used by the PS3 to play PSP Minis games. Apparently, Sony was very confident of the PS3’s protection scheme.

The Conclusion

For Sony, there is no way to put the genie back into the bottle. The metldr key cannot be revoked through a firmware update and changing it will require new hardware. But a new hardware revision is utterly meaningless, since current PS3 consoles (with their metldr key exposed) must presumably be able to run all future PS3 games and firmwares. As a result, future game- and OS-level encryption keys will forever remain vulnerable to reverse engineering, unless Sony takes the extremely drastic action of breaking games compatibility with current PS3s.

The conventional wisdom has always been that console-hacking is motivated mainly by piracy. This idea is being challenged by the case study of the PS3, a console which remained secured for years despite what we now know is a utterly broken security architecture. The piracy motivation has always been there, but the pirates apparently did not possess the technical expertise needed to make the breakthrough.

The explanation proposed by fail0verflow, which they say apply to themselves, is that highly motivated and technically competent hackers were initially not interested in cracking the PS3 protection scheme because it ran Linux out of the box. Efforts to crack it by capable individuals only began after Sony excluded Other OS from the PS3 Slim and subsequently removed it from all existing PS3s through a firmware update.

Looking at the flurry of activities in recent months, less than a year after Other OS was removed, there appears to be some truth in that explanation.

Sony has completely lost the battle. The war will continue with the PS4.

How the mighty has fallen. Once upon a time, Microsoft could sell garbage and people would still buy them because it was the only garbage in town. Now it’s desperately playing catch-up to iOS and Android with its late-to-the-game abysmally-named Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Naysayers are already predicting a Kin-like premature demise for WP7 and that may very well turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But for this ethereal moment, I am happy with my LG Optimus 7.

The lock screen with MIKU-02

I’ve been using the Optimus 7 for a few days now. It is a decent phone with powerful hardware and some flaws, which puts it on par with most higher end Android phones. In fact, given that all WP7 phone OEMs are also hedging their bets and making Android phones, the hardware difference between the two platform is more or less purely cosmetic, so the real competition lies in the software.

The WP7 OS is basically Microsoft’s attempt at out-Appling Apple. For every difference in philosophy between the iOS and Android, Microsoft went with iOS. This makes the end product anathema to my usual preference for customizability, but I can see its merits.

Interface

Microsoft chose to adopt Zune’s UI directions when designing WP7, completely abandoning its Windows roots. This is a good thing because Windows Mobile is and will always be the ugliest smartphone OS ever created.

The home screen with Live Tiles

The unified UI design (Microsoft calls it Metro as it resembles subway signs) is very much in line with my personal sense of aesthetics — san serif, flat and minimalist. I never liked the 3D chrome and shininess that both Android and iOS employ in their icons and UI. Some people would see it as lazy design (*cough* like this blog *cough*), but I just find the flat display visually appealing.

The UI elements are all very smooth and responsive and in terms of human interface there is nothing that really differentiates the WP7, for better or worse, from the iPhone. You have all your standard swipes and pinches.

The OS interface taken from Zune media players is fantastic. Combining real-time information and application icons into so-called Live Tiles offers no real practical advantage but does stylize the home screen a great deal. The flip side of this is that for all purpose and intent the home screen is not customizable beyond rearrangement of the Live Tiles.

The Pictures hub

Microsoft calls its app-design concept Hubs, but that moniker makes zero sense to me. What they mean is that what would normally be different screens within an app on Android or iOS are combined into one giant side-scrolling screen. You swipe horizontally to see different aspects of the application. For example, in the Music and Videos app, you swipe rightwards to see play history, recent additions, etc. This implementation reduces the number of on-screen UI elements needed to navigate the applications, which is great, but some people may be annoyed by the way the screen crops.

Album art, navigation buttons and white san-serif text on black background are all I need

Oh and I really love the media player interface. It’s an exact representation of my ideal interface. Indeed, I would be all over the desktop Zune player, which uses the same design motif, if it wasn’t missing so many features like global hotkeys or minimizing to tray.

Hardware

Taking a page out of Apple’s world domination guide, Microsoft has set very specific guidelines for WP7 hardware. The end result is that all the launch phones look like clones of one another. They are all extremely boring in their perfection.

Some app tiles; also media control at the top

For example, all WP7 phones (Windows Phone 7 phones? Please shoot the marketer who came up with the name) come with three physical buttons below the screen: Back, Home and Search.

By default Search launches a hidden Bing app but this behaviour can be overridden by the active application with an app-specific search. For every new app you use, there is no way to know what the Search button will do when you press it until you give it a try. It’s like Heisenberg’s cat except that instead of death you are forced to use Bing half the time. There is no way to change the Search to launch Google instead, making this particular compulsory hardware button completely dead to me.

The Home button works like it should. You can hold it down to activate voice commands. The only thing I don’t like about it is that, unlike the iPhone, you cannot use it to wake up the phone. You have to press the Power button to unlock your screen. Again, there is zero options to modify this default behaviour.

The Back button not only goes “out” of a screen/app like in Symbian phones, it literally goes back like in a browser. For example, you can press it in the Home screen and end up at the previous app screen that you just closed. This can be useful or annoying depending on who you are, but I think it’s useful.

The 480 x 800 capacitive touchscreen is really nice, but then it’s standard by now. The Optimus 7 has a TFT screen but some of the other launch phones have AMOLED. There are some slightly dark spots at the bottom of the LCD similar to the PSP screens, but they are not noticeable in normal use. Personally, I think it’s good enough.

The battery life is like 5 minutes or something. But apparently it’s still rated as one of the longer ones in today’s smartphone world. Certainly, I don’t think it is shorter than most Android phones, so it’s more of a limitation of physics than anything.

Some hardware gripes specific to the Optimus 7: the power button is awfully small for a button you have to press all the time to unlock your phone, the volume rockers feel terrible to press on because they are small and hard and the USB cover feels flimsy as they all do.

I’ve also had problems with applications opening up in landscape mode (the main UI has no landscape mode) even when I hold the phone upright. I am not sure if this is specific to the Optimus 7’s accelerometer implementation, or if there is something wrong with WP7’s software algorithms. It’s a minor problem that can be easily solved with an orientation lock. Hilariously, Apple unsolved this problem for the iPad in the latest update.

Software

This is where you can tell that Microsoft really rushed this puppy out of the door.

Most default applications come with close to no customization. For example, Internet Explorer has a total of three options plus delete history and there is no way to change the home page. (Arguably you don’t have to since you can just create a shortcut for it but that’s a dumb argument.) Now it works fine, scrolls well and is generally bug-free, but it’s no Opera Mobile.

Internet Explorer

Functionalities like YouTube and World Clock were added in through official Microsoft apps in the Marketplace probably because they failed to meet the deadline for the production ROM.

The official YouTube app is just a browser window with YouTube’s mobile version, but you must install it to play YouTube videos because it comes with some critical backend that should’ve been native to the phone, given that the vanilla OS already plays H264 videos out of the box.

Official Twitter app

There are supposedly thousands of applications on the Marketplace, but most of them cost money so I am too cheap to try them. The free Facebook and Twitter apps are decent if slightly lacking.

On another note, Bing Maps sucks monkey balls especially when it comes to location search. The WP7 app doesn’t even have turn-by-turn directions. I often find myself using the horrible web-based Google Maps (or gothere.sg which uses Google API). I can only hope that Google finds the time and incentive to make a WP7 Google Maps app.

My favourite part of the WP7 software is the People app/hub (i.e. the contact list). The phone can synchronize all your Windows Live, Google and Facebook contacts and create consolidated information of every person. It does so by matching email address across accounts, but you can also manually tell it to link contacts that it cannot automatically match. The end result is that I can easily see the Messenger accounts, Facebook statuses, email addresses and phone numbers of people in one single interface and use their Facebook display pictures for Caller ID.

Facebook status updates in the People hub

The drawback to this implementation is that the master list defaults to your Windows Live contact list. There is a setting to hide Facebook contacts who are not linked to anyone in your master list, but you can’t do the same for Live because it is the master list. And of course there is no way to change the default option.

So if you have a habit of adding random strangers on your Messenger account, you will have a lot of unrecognizable email addresses in your contact list. Fortunately, this is more of a matter of aesthetics than usability since there is instant search. Bizarrely, there is a software button for instant search in the People Hub, rendering the dedicated hardware button moot in this case.

Zune

What is even more bizarre is that Microsoft decided not to implement Outlook contact sync. In the past, this was done with ActiveSync (brings back memories of my old HP iPAQ), but that ancient relic has now been replaced by the Zune software suite, which, being a media-centric software, provides zero contact management functionality. Ironically, this makes iTunes superior because it does sync local Outlook contacts.

Of course, this problem is specific to contacts stored locally. There is no issue when syncing with contacts stored on Outlook Exchange servers because you can simply add the Exchange account like any Gmail or Live accounts.

Amusingly, the easiest solution to this problem is probably to export all your local Outlook contacts into Gmail using a CSV file and then syncing with your Gmail contacts.

Managing photos on the phone in Zune

But in general the Zune desktop software is pretty sweet. It feels more lightweight than iTunes on Windows, no doubt because it uses native Windows APIs and does not need redundant memory hogs like Bonjour or Apple Software Updater. It even plays Xvid AVI files, auto-converting them to H264 when syncing with WP7, but unfortunately it does not recognize MKV containers.

Zune sync

Zune also does all the iTunes stuff like Marketplace, photo album management, song ripping and transcoding and region-locking you out of Marketplace if you live in the wrong country… God bless Microsoft.

Zune album management

Of course Zune comes nowhere close to replacing what I use Winamp for, but I actually find it orders of magnitudes more usable than the horrible spawn of Satan that is iTunes for Windows.

Facebook v. Google

The level of Facebook integration in WP7 is actually quite amazing. For Microsoft, this may be a strength worthy of further leveraging.

You can find both the individual Facebook status updates of your contacts and a general feed in the People hub. There is even a built-in interface to read and write comments.

Facebook is also the only other built-in upload option for photos taken with a WP7 phone, with SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud offering for photo sharing, being the other option. Picasa Web Albums is nowhere in sight.

In the Pictures hub, both your Facebook and SkyDrive albums are listed alongside your local albums/folders. You can also find a feed of Facebook albums uploaded by all your friends and comment on them from within the native UI.

Gmail: the only Google product that WP7 grudgingly mentions

Plus the fact that the stupid hardware search button is hard-coded to Bing, it appears that Microsoft and Facebook are really getting in bed together to form a united front against Google. I can see WW4 in the making (after we emerge from our nuclear bunkers in the aftermath of a second Korean War).

Overall

It looks like I have more complaints than praises because finding faults is what I am good at. The truth is that for all its lack of multi-tasking and copy-pasting, WP7 is not any worse an OS than iPhone’s first iteration. In fact, I much appreciate the general design and UI innovation that WP7 brings to the table. I find the minimalist navigation more to my liking than iOS or Android and that is the main reason why I have a generally positive final impression of the WP7 OS.

That said, the road ahead for Microsoft is long and treacherous and it faces a Sisyphean task ahead. There is much taint associated with the Microsoft and Windows Mobile brand names, and being as good as the competition is not good enough to overcome that. Given that it is already late to the game, it may never get the momentum it needs to redeem itself.

Adjustable thumbnail size would be nice given the tiny default

The Metro UI design is highly subjective in its merits and works for me, but in terms of pure technical advantage the WP7 has nothing. In fact, it is functionally inferior to the iOS at this stage even if you do not take jailbreaking into account, much less the open Android platform.

Microsoft needs to first fix all the things that are wrong with the OS (crappy calendar, copy and paste, lack of settings, locked to Bing for most dedicated functions), which it may or may not manage to do with the rumoured massive patch that is coming.

Then, even more importantly, it needs to bring something new beyond aesthetics. Perhaps something to do with the existing Xbox Live integration. After all, the 360 seems to be the only bright spot on Microsoft’s resume these days.

I’m selling away my Optimus 7 when I leave Singapore next year so I’m only intending to experiment with WP7 for a short while. Despite how much I adore its UI, my conclusion for now is that Android will probably be more suitable for me in the long term because I need things like tethering and USB mass storage support (which even a jailbroken iPhone can do)…

But perhaps Microsoft will make me change my mind with updates in the next few months. Do you believe in miracles?

If only there were some way to get the best of both worlds.

P.S. I would totally love a Windows desktop OS that uses the Metro design.

We have won one or two Internets before in our lifetime and now we can finally claim our hitherto figurative prize.

The entire hosted content of the defunct Geocities free hosting service will be released as a 900-gigabyte torrent file by a group called Archive Team. I’m sure we all have fond childhood memories and traumas associated with the pop-ups-with-flashing-cursors monster that was Geocities. Here’s the chance to relive it.

From Techradar.

The entire contents of Geocities is to be released as a torrent – granting people access to a database of websites and content that should be considered a huge part of the internet’s history.

Geocities was shut down with little fanfare by Yahoo back at the tail end of 2009, but the speed with which it cleared out the data shocked many.

However, the self-styled Archive Team has now gathered up that data and has announced that it will release the whole lot as a torrent.

Geocities existed in a simpler time when the Internet had not yet hit major meme status and websites in general were far less polished and sanitized. Awkward HTML tables, Times New Roman, animated GIFs and primitive Javascript message boxes were the state of the art and we hated it all. But we had a great time.

With shiny and smooth Web 2.0 designs still far off and Ajax still just a hero in the Trojan War, surfing on the information superhighway then felt like a second great westward expansion full of exploration and adventure. This unbridled experience that has since evolved into something closer to cable TV. And in that analogy, Geocities was the hive of villains and outcasts that thrived in the lawless frontiers of the West.

The group releasing the torrent explained their intentions in a blog post.

Who will want this? Anyone who feels like browsing among the artifacts of yesterday, who wants some data to play with, who is doing research into history, who wants to get some mileage out of a few weblog postings of crazy glittery animated GIFs and MIDI music. Itâ€s not for everyone. Some people will probably grab a few files out of the thousands of archives in the torrent, unhook and call it a day. Others will want all of it, every last bit, to put onto their $80 1TB hard drive they bought down at the local computer mart.

When you think about it, it’s kind of amazing that Geocities’ archive fits on a consumer-grade hard disk that you can get for under a hundred bucks today. Downloading the Internet has never been more literal.

I can only imagine the vast amount of raw data that future historians will have access to.

Today, our archaeologists can extrapolate so much information about ancient civilizations from a few mud bowls and skeletons.

Tomorrow, there will be a whole new class of historians called web historians who will create massive statistical computer programmes to analyse the significant events and social developments of the past. There will be archaeologists who specialize in ancient digital protocols and hardware manufacturing.

And, I suspect, there still be people waiting for the Year of the Linux on the Desktop. (Except that desktops will have long been replaced by personal computers embedded in our bodies.)

Futurist reveries aside, I suspect the short-term implication of the Geocities torrent is actually copyright. After all, Geocities may be ancient in Internet years, but its entire life span is but a blip in the outrageously-long copyright terms we have today. A torrent of its entire archive probably steps over more imaginary property rights than the entire 4chan image board.

And yet, it’s hard to argue why anyone should care about the potential infringement. It’s painfully clear that the copyright laws we inherited from the Industrial Revolution are severely ill-equipped to deal with the digital world. The fact that advancements in the techniques of information dissemination have always been followed by extensions of copyright terms greatly amuses this writer.

I cannot even being to fathom how we can hope to legally study history in the future, should perpetual copyright terms ever come to pass, as some crazy people with ill-placed good intentions desire. Once we begin to accept that people can own ideas, it’s a straight path down to thoughtcrime hell. There is a cyberpunk dystopia novel somewhere in that.

Geocities, the site that just keeps giving (ad-infested pop-ups). Rest in peace, gentle abomination of our childhood.

P.S. I think I used to have a Pokemon fan site hosted on Geocities back when I was ten (complete with animated GIFs and Comet Cusor). Maybe I’ll try looking for it when the torrent is released…

P.P.S. Here’s an awesome collection of animated “Under Construction” GIFs archived from Geocities sites.

I’ve long been a keen observer in the growing war of opinions over the future of intellectual property rights. Just a few days ago, ABC, NBC and CBS decided to block Google TV devices from streaming from their websites, joining Hulu in what appears to be a last-ditch effort in forcing Google to cough up concessions it really shouldn’t have to. This got me thinking, so I shall leave a few notes here for my future reference.

Google TV

Google TV is basically Google’s attempt to remake Microsoft’s failed WebTV concept from the 90s, i.e. an integrated web-connected set-top box or TV that combines the functions of DVR, web browser, media player and content aggregator.

There are many cynical arguments against the concept of web-based TV, some of them valid, but it looks increasingly clear that the future of television lies with a flexible delivery system that maximizes convenience for the consumer and not rigidly structured channels and cable packages that sell you two million channels so that you can watch one show. It is why Apple’s iTunes Store sells individual episodes instead of subscriptions to cable streams. I would even argue that the rise of BitTorrent is a stronger indication for this desire for convenience than anything else.

Therefore, it’s inevitable that something like Google TV will eventually be the way we consume media (other than a full-fledged computer) — a device integrated with the TV that is capable of telling us what new episodes are just released, provides us with the capability to search, organize and discover media content, allows us to instantly watch what we want to watch and comes with usable implementations of micro-transactions and targeted advertising to pay for the content. Google TV does not yet do all that and others have tried and failed spectacularly, but today’s Google probably has a better shot at this elusive goal than anyone else ever had.

This is of course a terrifying idea for the major networks. After all, bundling is how they have always sold television. If people can choose to consume the most popular shows directly, then the traditional association between popular franchises and their respective network’s brand name is greatly diminished. This threatens the very financial foundation of television networks: monetization through advertisements. (Interesting note: remember how there used to be no advertisements on cable channels because we already paid for the subscription? Hmm.)

So really, it’s understandable that they will do whatever to resist change in the short term. The problem is, will it work in the long run? And if it will not work, then is temporary resistance going to cause more harm than good?

My feeling is that the major networks know that the writing is on the wall, but they just can’t figure out what exactly the words say. They are buying time. They offer web streaming (within certain limits) on their own websites to people with computers, and it should be obvious that Google TV is really just a general computing device running Android OS and Chrome browser.

Blocking Google TV is therefore not only technically silly but of dubious practical value. It really shouldn’t matter to the networks whether the end user streams the content they offer for free on their websites with a Macbook running Safari, a self-built Linux desktop running Firefox or an Android mini computer running Chrome.

If Google chooses to fight the fight, it can easily bypass the filter by changing the default setting for an existing user agent string option in Chrome and have it report itself as a regular PC. (You can argue about DMCA‘s anti-circumvention provisions, but it’s quite obvious that user agent filtering can hardly count as copyright protection.)

But Google is not going to that extreme (but it does quietly let the users have the option to do so) because it too knows that the writing is on the wall. Why be an asshole when you know that you are going to win?

The networks are threatened by the idea that Google TV sets out to promote the unbundling of TV shows and in doing so dilute the value of traditional network channels, but this idea is not new at all. Nothing Google TV does is new to those of us who have long been able to do the same on our computers. The problem is that Google TV sets out to reinvent the idea of television itself, instead of being sold merely as a computer that happens to play videos. Or in other words, the problem is that Google TV is connected to a TV instead of a monitor, even if the distinction is more imaginary than real.

Ultimately, just as YouTube survived the lawsuits and criticisms directed at it by major content producers, Google TV, or something similar to it, will prevail. My feeling is that the major networks will eventually relent and deal with Google TV when they figure out how to monetize it properly. But for now, they have to take ridiculous measures like this to assert their control and to get a better deal when that eventuality comes.

The distinction between computers and televisions is becoming more and more meaningless. While waiting for television to catch up with the Internet, people like me will stick to BitTorrent. It offers the convenience promised by a post-television future today, but has the unfortunate drawback of providing no compensation to the content owner. But as the end user, the latter is not my concern. Television networks could learn a thing or two from Crunchyroll.

It’s been just over a month since the sudden debut of the world’s first PS3 mod device. The original release was purely commercial and overpriced (around 150 USD for what is essentially a simple USB development board in a casing), and as a result it was quickly made obsolete by cheaper (and free) alternatives). Still, its spirit lives on in the countless clones that have since flooded the market and we owe the original creators for the breakthrough. If only they weren’t such greedy bastards.

Since the breakthrough, a PS3 homebrew community has blossomed overnight and, though it still has a long way to go, significant progress has been made. It’s really like the early days of PSP’s 1.5 firmware. Here’s a quick summary of the current state of PS3 homebrew.

Jailbreak Method

The method of jailbreaking itself has not fundamentally changed since the original PS Jailbreak was unveiled a month ago. The essential steps are:

1. Have a PS3 (slim or original) with firmware 3.41.
2. Switch off and on the PS3’s main power.
3. Plug in the jailbreak USB device (this comes in many possible forms).
4. Press the PS3’s power button followed immediately by the eject button.
5. Jailbreak device does its magic.
6. PS3 starts up in debug mode, allowing you to install and run all unsigned code.

The general idea is that Sony uses a proprietary dongle to repair and reflash bricked PS3s at their service centres, much like the Pandora battery for PSPs. The PS3 looks for such a dongle when the eject button is pressed immediately after powering on. The role of the jailbreak device is to emulate a USB hub with a USB device plugged into it that shares the same device ID as Sony’s service dongle. It doesn’t actually work as a service dongle, but it uses this access to execute some exploits that put the PS3 into debug mode. The exact payload used is described here for those who can understand it.

The jailbreak device itself has grown to include a whole variety of reprogrammable USB devices thanks to the PSGroove and PSFreedom projects. The list of compatible devices include:

• Nokia N900
• Palm Pre
• Archos 5 IMT
• Dingoo
• TI-84+ calculator
• iPhone 2G and 3G and iPod touch 1G
• MP3 players running Rockbox
• Various Android phones, including the major ones like Droid, Hero, Desire, Legend, Dream, Nexus One
• Various USB development boards, including Teensy, AT90USBKEY, Minimus AVR USB

This is of course not an exhaustive list. In addition to homemade solutions, there are various dedicated jailbreak devices, some of which are reprogrammable with a PC, such as PS3 Key and X3 Jailbreak.

Running the Jailbreak (TI-84 Plus)

I am using a TI-84 Plus because it’s the only compatible device I have on hand. I’ll probably be getting a dedicated dongle (PS3 Key in my case) soon because it’s somewhat troublesome to run the corresponding programme on the calculator each time I start up my PS3, plus the calculator requires four AAA batteries… Here’s how the process looks like:

Run the installed programme on the TI-84+

Ready to switch on PS3

Eject button pressed

Debug mode enabled, allowing you to install arbitrary .pkg files

A FTP server for managing files on the PS3’s internal HDD, an example of a homebrew currently available

Backup Manager

Let’s face it: most people who jailbreak their PS3 are going to play pirated (“backup”) games. The Backup Manager is the tool that lets you do that. Indeed, it was the very first homebrew released for the PS3 and it was made by the original creators of the PS Jailbreak.

Backup Manager, used to rip and load games off internal or external HDDs

That said, there are some very compelling legitimate reasons to use the Backup Manager over Blu-ray. Loading games off the HDD is many times faster than loading games off Blu-ray. The reduced load-time is especially noticeable in games like Bayonetta which suffer from extremely long loading screens. Loading a stage in Bayonetta from the internal HDD takes less than 10 seconds. Using the Backup Manager also reduces wear and tear of the Blu-ray drive. Given that DVD drive failure was the number one cause of PS2 mortality, this is an attractive advantage.

The Manager works by ripping wholesale the entire folder structure on the game Blu-ray disc onto either the internal HDD or an external USB HDD. This means that it will not produce an ISO image, but rather a folder of files and subfolders. There is currently no way to run a game off a Blu-ray ISO image, which is encrypted.

Backup Manager menu. Note the lack of unicode support resulting in Tales of Vesperia having a blank title (still works otherwise)

Upon loading a game, the Manager exits to the main menu. The current game disc is replaced by the loaded backup, much like in very early UMD loaders for the PSP

The PS3 does not support NTFS for external media and only accepts FAT. Since FAT only supports files up to 4GB in size, this may be problematic. However, since the Manager rips games into folders instead of a single ISO image, this is only a problem if the size of a single file in a game exceeds 4GB (usually a movie file) and it is not as common as you may imagine.

The PS3’s proprietary internal file system supports files of any size (at least for current-day purposes) and therefore has better compatibility with games. This serves as an incentive to upgrade your internal 2.5″ HDD. Furthermore, loading games off the internal HDD is significantly faster than loading games through the USB interface. The internal HDD also has better games compatibility, no doubt as a result of the difference in load time. A comprehensive list of compatible games can be found on Google Docs.

The first release of the Backup Manager requires any legitimate Blu-ray disc to be in the drive in order for backups to work, much like the first-generation PSP UMD loaders. A new release removes this requirement but appears to have poorer game compatibility.

Homebrew

Currently, the PS3 homebrew scene is still in its infancy. There are no comprehensive development environments or programming guides available and development is largely carried out by dedicated long-time veterans in the console homebrew community. The use of Sony’s official development kit to compile homebrew programmes also brings legality into question.

But still, impressive progress has been made in the span of one month. There are various proofs of concept such as Pong, a port of SNES9X SNES emulator, a port of NullDC Dreamcast emulator, a port of Yabause Saturn Emulator, a file manager, an FTP server, and various tools for PS3 development such as a registry editor.

The FTP server in particular is a god-sent because it allows direct access to the PS3’s internal HDD.

blackb0xâ€s FTP Server running

PS3’s root folder accessed using Filezilla

Folders containing ripped games

I suspect the next homebrew breakthrough will be a full Linux distro. Sony previously removed the PS3’s OtherOS Linux support in firmware 3.21 due to concerns over Linux being used as a potential vector for exploiting PS3’s anti-piracy protection. This pissed off a lot of people who actually used the OtherOS for things like distributed computing. I am sure a successful Linux port would be too delicious an “up yours” for the dedicated hackers out there to ignore.

The Future of PS3 Jailbreak

Current jailbreak solutions offer no fundamental improvement over the original PS Jailbreak. The exploit used only works in PS3 firmware version 3.41 and older and no new exploit has yet been uncovered for firmwares 3.42 (which was released with the sole purpose of blocking the exploit) and 3.50 (which went one step further by blocking all unauthorized USB devices, including unlicensed third-party controllers).

Much like the early PSP homebrew scene’s reliance on PSP firmware 1.5, current PS3 homebrew development appears to be confined to 3.41. This problem was solved for the PSP with the discovery of new buffer overflow exploits in later firmware revisions and eventually by the Pandora battery hardware solution and the development of custom firmwares capable of spoofing official firmware versions. There is no guarantee that the same will happen with the PS3 due to the complexity of its hardware, but there is no indication that it is impossible either. We can only wait and see.

PS3 Key, one of the more reputable jailbreak solutions currently available

For now, using the Backup Manager and homebrew solutions requires that you do not update your firmware beyond 3.41. This means that you will not be able to log on to PSN, but your PS3 can remain connected to the Internet as long as you disable auto-updating. Games released after September will also start to require firmware 3.42 or newer, which will pose a problem if no solution is found in the long run.

The Xbox 360 and Wii were successfully modded a long time ago and both have now developed more sophisticated jailbreak solutions than the initial exploits. If the same applies for the PS3, future developments will likely see the release of firmware loaders that allow the user to switch between different firmware revisions or custom firmwares that are capable of fooling the PSN and version-checkers that come with games.

However, there is no guarantee for this due to the PS3’s notoriously complex Cell architecture and the fact that it took three years to even produce one viable exploit. On the bright side, should such a solution come to be, most current jailbreak devices are easily re-programmable using a PC and you won’t have to pay for new mods.

Conclusion

I’ve been following the development of the PS3 jailbreak since the first batch of working samples was quietly mailed out to modchip vendors by the secretive people behind PS Jailbreak and subsequently reverse engineered by the community. This article serves as a summary of all the important milestones that have transpired so far.

If you are looking for a more instructional article, please look through PS3 Hacks or PSFreedom.