n64iphone is available to jailbreakers in Cydia for $2.50—ROMs not included, obviously—which would be a fair price for a full-fledged N64 emulator, but feels a little high for what currently amounts to a very neat party trick. [EsferaiPhone]

Apparently all you need to do is download the driver, Bluetooth Keyboard Driver, through Cydia, install the demo app, and let your keyboard connect with your iPhone. Simple as that. Anyone given this a test run yet? [Ringwald via Mod Your i]

What you're seeing here is really the combination of two apps, standby jailbreak justifier and essential iPhone app Backgrounder, which lets your designate any app to run in the background, and new task switcher interface called Multifl0w. (There are other, more basic task switchers already, the most widespread being Kirikae) The new combo feels like magic: It's a little bit Android, a lotta bit Pre, and more importantly, an obvious improvement, at least on the speedier 3GS.

Granted, anyone who's used background knows that for the sake of your battery, you have to be careful how many apps you open, and how many you leave running. Honestly though? Every other smartphone manufacturer trusts their users to mind their own damn processes, which seems to work out pretty well. So, uh, when will we get this by default? OS 4.0? 5.0? Shut up, blogger?

You can give it a try now in jailbreak app manager Rock, and Cydia's on its way. Sadly, it's only free on a trial basis, after which it'll cost your five dollars. Backgrounder and Kirikae, though? They're still free, in all sense of the word. [MultiFl0w--Thanks, William!]

The previous design was a lot sleeker, and placed the controls on the side. But it didn't have those awesome nubs. A test run of those units were shipped to selected people in February, and early feedback, plus a "sleepless night", lead to the updated, bigger look.

You'll need to Jailbreak your iPhone, but the iControlPad is supported by some of the biggest iPhone devs (including ZodTTD's PSX and GBA emulators). If you're interested in placing a pre-order, sign up for the newsletter over at: [iControlPad]

Sophos reports that the worm appears to do nothing worse than spread and change the unlock screen wallpaper. It could have spread to other countries, but is most likely confined to Australia at this point.

The worm's creator, a 21 year old student from Sydney, told Australia's national broadcaster: "The virus itself is not malicious and is not out to hurt people. It's just poking fun and hoping waking people up a little."

But with rickrolling going on, and that Dutch guy holding hacked jailbroken phones to ransom, it may only be a matter of time until some dip-shit does something more malicious.

So if you're a Jailbreaker, go into Cydia, install the MobileTerminal app, and use the passwd command to change the default from "alpine", to something a little more secure. [Sophos]

Apparently all that it took to terrify many Dutch iPhone users was a "trivial" port scanning technique and "a modicum of networking know-how." After the hacker gained access to the jailbroken phones with unchanged root passwords and SSH enabled, he sent the pictured message which led to a demand for a €5 PayPal payment and words of caution:

If you don't pay, it's fine by me, but remember, the way I got access to your iPhone can be used by thousands of others-they can send text messages from your number (like I did), use it to call or record your calls, and actually whatever they want, even use it for their hacking activities! I can assure you, I have no intention of harming you or whatever, but, some hackers do! It's just my advice to secure your phone.

This particular gentleman was almost kind. He didn't inflict any serious harm, only demanded a small optional payment, and limited his activity to the Netherlands. Whoever learns from his approach might not be as nice. The lesson, my darlings? Change your root passwords or disable SSH if you've got a jailbroken iPhone. I finally did. [Ars Technica]

The hacks are pretty hardcore, and demand not just a jailbroken iPhone, but a working knowledge of the handset's operating system internals. Basically, I wouldn't recommend anyone who enjoys having a not-bricked iPhone try either one. Anyway! The former comes by way of the Hackint0sh forums, courtesy of user Whiterat:

1. Backup original CommCenter (goes without saying...)
2. Replace CommCenter in: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreTelephony.framework/Support/ with a patched one.
3. Chmod the new CommCenter to 755
4. Open /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app/M68AP.plist and insert a true boolean value for "mms" under capabilities

and the latter, from the Dev Team Wiki, step-ified by The Beat Mix (the instructions are too long to include here; just check them out at the link).

If they're soooooo dangerous, then why even mention them? Because in their respective forums, the chatter around the hacks is that they'll make their way to the Cydia jailbreak app store before too long, and both be installable with little more than a tap. [MuscleNerd's Twitter via 9to5Mac]

It turns out the new boot ROM doesn't totally prevent the 24kpwn exploit employed by the Dev Team hackers. [See update below] The result? You can still jailbreak your late-model 3GS, but the device needs to be tethered to your computer in order to boot up. It's a major annoyance, especially given how crash-happy 3.1 phones—especially jailbroken ones—can be, but not necessarily a dealbreaker.

Anyhow, chances are it won't be this way for long—remember the iPod Touch 2G? It was jailbroken fairly quickly after launch, but it had a new, slightly more secure boot ROM, and there needed to be tethered in order to boot. A few weeks later, the hackers finished their thing, and there was moderate rejoicing. This chain of events, which is already under way again, is starting to read like a script.

UPDATE: Evidently, the boot ROM update does disable the 24kpwn exploit, which was the bit of code that allowed for untethered jailbreaks in the first place. For what it's worth, the Dev Team still sounds unfazed. [Gadget Lab]

With it, Windows users will have available to them a jailbreak solution for OS 3.1.2 on all iPhone and iPod touch generations. Installation is pretty simple: Download and install the app on your PC, then plug in your device.

Update: There is a warning associated with this, so read on and take note:

WARNING: Even though the GeoHot jailbreak supports 3.1.2 do not update if you are on iPhone OS 3.0.1 or 3.0. You will lose your unlock. Use PwnageTool to safely update to 3.1 without performing a baseband update. If you really must have 3.1.2 then wait for the next version of PwnageTool. If you have already updated to 3.1 or 3.1.2 without using PwnageTool then you've lost the ability to unlock for the time being. You can now use BlackRa1n to at least regain your jailbreak :)

Update provided by iClarified and the comment section. Thanks! [On the iPhone via BGR]

I don't know about you, but I wish I could have access to bits of information in my iPhone without having to access the applications themselves. Calendar, Twitter, weather, Facebook updates... widgets that will only display data and, with one click, go straight to the app itself to do an action. That will allow the iPhone to have a customized front end like the Motoblur in the new Motorola Cliq.

Sadly, it won't be available from the Apple iTunes Store: It requires to jailbreak your phone. However, it's completely worth the effort, especially if they include some useful widgets with it. The developer is going to publish an SDK for it:

A SmartScreen SDK will be available to everyone in November 2009 but widget developers are being selected to participate in a Beta programme, if you feel you could participate and would like to produce widgets, please email dev@media-phone.ch and we will consider you early access to the programme.

I'm looking forward to the widgets people can come up with. I just hope SmartScreen doesn't require me to paint my nails with glitter in order to use it. I like my current fluorescent green, thank you very much. [Media Phone]

No, really, you won't have to wait long. Which is kind of important, because without the 3.1 firmware, you can't indulge in some of iTunes 9's best treats—app organizing and genius playlists, to name a few. From the Dev Team:

Because of changes with Apple's update techniques this will be a multipart release, starting with the initial release of PwnageTool for Mac OS X - this application supports the iPhone 1st Generation (2G), The iPhone 3G and the iPod touch 1G. NB: THIS DOES NOT SUPPORT THE 3GS OR 2ND or 3RD GEN IPOD TOUCH. redsn0w for Mac OS X and Windows will follow sometime in the near future, please don't bug us about it - we'll release when we have something ready.

The rest of you can download Pwnage Tool right here, which should handily jailbreak and unlock any piece of hardware that hasn't been released in the last four months, and with a lot less hassle than with the hackish method discovered yesterday. [Dev Team—Thanks, tipsters!]

If you update to Apple's new software using the normal iTunes process, you will lose your ultrasn0w unlock. In fact you may lose it permanently, because for most people the baseband firmware cannot be reverted to a previous version (unlike the main application CPU firmware).

But don't worry…our PwnageTool program lets you update your main firmware without touching your baseband firmware, so you can still have the best of both worlds.

From all reports, you can still update to (and sync with) iTunes 9, but just be sure to mash "no" when pestered to update your firmware. [Dev-Team]

It kind of sux that even a monitoring app got banned. But, according to Apple:

…this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights. We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store.

So no torrent apps, at all, period. Right then.

Instructions on how to install µMonitor on a Jailbroken iPhone can be found here: [µMonitor via TorrentFreak]

The whitoken theme hasn't been released yet, but its creator promises that it'll be available for the iPod touch sometime tomorrow. No word on iPhone availability. [MacThemes — Thanks, Marco!]

The iPhone Dev Team put up a post detailing instructions on how to use the current versions of redsn0w and ultrasn0w on 3.0.1, and it's pretty easy: Jailbreaking with redsn0w only requires you select the IPSW file for OS 3.0, and then you can use Cydia to install ultrasn0w and everything will be perfect in the land of semi-approved iPhone tinkering. Phew! [iPhone Dev Blog]

GV Mobile should show up in Cydia, the grey market iPhone app store, starting sometime in the next 24 hours. Seriously though, if this is how it's going to be it won't be long before we all get fed up enough to jailbreak. [Lifehacker]