phones

If you have a taste for adventure and exploring the places you visit, check out this iPhone app that helps you find cool stuff in your area. Though the front page asks for a registration, you can click the "Try it now!" link to get a feel for Earthcomber. Simply enter your ZIP code or any city and Earthcomber finds all the cool stuff in that area, like parks, bars, live events, museums, restaurants, and tons of other stuff. With this app on your iPhone, you'll never say "there's nothing to do" ever again. … Read more

Want to get the best price for a particular book? Simply enter the ISBN number in this simple iPhone app to get a list of the lowest available prices from several sites around the Web. Though the interface for Booksearch.app is nothing to write home about, the functionality (and saved money) might help you overlook the...look.

iPhone link: http://iphone.campusbooks4less.com/

Web site link: http://campusbooks4less.com/

Box.net, providers of free and paid-for Web storage have a slick new front-end for iPhone users. Once logged into your box.net account, you can access all your files and folders, using a scrolling hierarchical interface similar to that of the iPhone and iPod. Since it's still the same old Safari browser, you can't actually download any of the files to your iPhone, but it works great for viewing images, natively supported movie files, PDFs, Office documents, and text files on the go.

The real reason this would excite most people is the possibility of accessing music … Read more

Researchers at Independent Security Evaluators have announced at least two exploits that take advantage of the way the Apple iPhone opens a specially crafted Web page in Safari. Exact details of the vulnerability exploited will have to wait until a presentation at the end of next week's Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. However, some general information has been offered here.

In a preliminary draft of the Black Hat presentation, ISE researchers Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Joshua Mason note that there are "serious problems with the design and implementation of security on the iPhone," and they … Read more

MacRumors.com recently posted (and subsequently removed) some convincing clips of a possible sixth-generation iPod interface. DapReview.net was able to collect some of the yanked clips together into a YouTube video (visible below, hopefully). Could this be a taste of what the future holds for the next iPod? If so, I'll be somewhat disappointed. After the iPhone teased us with Cover Flow navigation and widescreen video, it'll be hard for Apple to put that genie back in the bottle. What do you guys think? Real or fake? Anyone else spot Boards of Canada on the Artist list? … Read more

So much for the theory iPhone designers were North Carolina fans. Cisco and Duke University are now absolving the iPhone of any blame for wireless network outages at the school, as was earlier alleged, but they aren't saying exactly what caused the problems.

In a news report earlier this week, a Duke official directly implicated the iPhone for causing network issues that knocked out parts of Duke's wireless network. But Duke spokeswoman Tracy Futhey, in a statement Friday on the school's Web site, said: "The reality is that a particular set of conditions made the Duke … Read more

He whined, he groused, and finally he flat-out begged, but at last Stephen Colbert is an iPhone owner.

"Guess what folks," Colbert told the audience this week during the The Colbert Report. "I gots me one!"

"I've been using this nonstop," continued Colbert. "I've been making calls. I've been petting it. All the things you dream of doing with a phone."

In June, Colbert was steamed at Apple and CEO Steve Jobs. He noted that the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USAToday had reviewed the handset. … Read more

One of the beauties of the iPhone is its supposed near-ubiquitous access to a huge amount of your personal information from one access point. Think about it: your contacts, text messages, e-mails, music, photos, stock portfolios and bookmarks, even to what you're doing and when, are all in your hand or pocket.

Over iced tea on a sunny day in San Francisco, a friend who is quite the entrepreneur noted that if you ever, god forbid, dropped your iPhone or lost it, or if it should get stolen, the next person who picked it up would have access to … Read more

In case you haven't been paying attention, the old 700MHz wireless spectrum is up for auction by the federal government. And under the veil of touting an "open" platform, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced that the company will participate in the Federal Communications Commission auction for the bandwidth--with a few minor requests for the FCC: open applications for users; open devices that will work with whichever network provider customers choose; open services that would allow for third-party resellers to acquire wireless services on a wholesale basis; and open networks, which would allow third parties, such as Internet … Read more