To review, when the NXE hit late last year, some Xbox 360 owners who had connected the console to their HDTV using an HDMI cable were greeted with silence. The response from Microsoft at the time was something along the lines of "we're looking into it," while others reported tech support indicated it was an older TV- or hardware-related issue.

Since then, 23 pages of discussion over the issue have sprouted up at the official Xbox forums, and still there has allegedly been no response from customer support. A rumored—a completely unconfirmed rumor—indicates this may be addressed with a February update.

We'd say HDMI and HD gaming are *somewhat* important parts of the Xbox 360 user experience, so we hope that's true, at least for the hundreds of users allegedly without sound for their Xbox 360 games and movies. [Xbox Forums via Boy Genius Report] Update: A fix is coming February 3.

In a related note, some people on the forums are claiming that after running Quicktime or iTunes will cause the problem to occur. That particular instance hasn't happened to us—our issue still continues to be a thing that happens a few times at the beginning of a computing session, then stops after a few reconnects. Here's hoping that it's still fixable via software.

Here's the issue: occasionally (somewhere between a few minutes and an hour), the screen will look like it's missing half its display information, like one of its dual "links" has failed. This can only be fixed by unplugging and plugging in ether the Mini DisplayPort connector to our MacBook Pro, or the USB connection (yes, the adapter uses both DisplayPort AND USB).

A quick search found these two Apple support threads, here and here, with a bunch of people that have the same problem.

And this issue doesn't seem to be isolated to Dell's displays, users have the same screen distortion with Apple's 30-inch Cinema Displays as well.

Our own limited testing showed that this happens really quickly (in about a minute) when there's a USB hub plugged either into the second MacBook Pro USB port, or into the pass-through port on the actual adapter itself. If we have nothing plugged in, the display is fine, but if we have a powered hub plugged in, the distortion hits almost immediately.

Here's hoping this is an easy software fix. And, we probably just found the reason why the adapter was delayed so long. If you're looking to buy one of these, hold off until the problem has been fixed.

Roku engineers have acknowledged the problem, and are said to be looking into it. At this point they a directing blame at Netflix claiming that recent changes to the content distribution network (CDN) may have contributed to the problem, but the lack of complaints on other Netflix compatible devices like the Xbox 360 and the Samsung BD-P2500 / BD-2550 Blu-ray players make this defense unlikely.

Apparently, the problem is serious enough that some are experiencing quality drops of 50% or more with extremely low connection speeds. Just how widespread this problem is remains to be seen, so I have to ask: if you own a Roku, have you noticed any quality issues lately? [Roku Forum via Wired]

• Turn off the Xbox 360.
• Remove the hard drive.
• Turn on the Xbox 360.
• When the Dashboard loads, put the hard drive back.

Apparently, the fix is only temporary. If you turn of the Xbox, you will have to receive the process. [Xbox360 Fanboy]

I connected with Apple Tier 2 support and we conference called into AT&T. They claimed that it was my device (never had a problem until this point) and that before they would put in another ticket I had to test my SIM card in another non iPhone 3G AT&T device. If that behaved properly then they said Apple should replace the unit. If the problems returned with the new iPhone then and only then, will they submit it to "voice tech" whatever the hell that is.

They claim no known issues, but I asked a stranger at Starbucks today whom I noticed had a 3G if he was having the same issues, and before I could even finish my question he described the same symptoms had been happening all week. This is along with five collegues/friends. So far this has gone under the radar and AT&T is denying any problems. The last tech insisted it wasn't the network but instead a slew of "all-the-sudden" faulty iPhone 3Gs. He claimed since my phone rang on his end and that he could leave a voicemail "it was there" the phone just wasn't getting it, yet somehow that's not a network problem?

It seems like this isn't a nation-wide thing, but there's enough complaints out there to determine that this probably isn't because of the iPhone either. How's it looking to everyone?

-Thanks Eric and Aaron!

To troubleshoot the problem, he restored his phone from scratch, but even after reinstalling 7.7.1 iTunes and 2.0.2 firmware in his never-jailbreaked iPhone 3G, the sync is unbearably long. We even tried syncing on an Air and an iMac and used another cable. The only outstanding set of data Brandon had is that he loads 74 apps to his phone. And he says that by adding apps one at a time, his sync/backup time slowly goes up—so it's not a single buggy app ruining the process.

Now, I'm sure Brandon's case is an exceptionally complicated problem. He still has an iTunes error message pop up when he syncs, for example. And even when we both load up 50 apps on our phones, his sync is much longer at 4 hours. This is clearly not a normal example, but that doesn't mean it's not real, and it doesn't mean it isn't related to the big problem many have been suffering from since firmware 2.00 hit. Maybe Brandon can be our poster boy for the eternal sync/backup problem. Or, until Apple fixes it, we can watch this video every time we complain about the iPhone's sync times and we can feel like it could have been worse. Like 8 hours' worth of worse. But damn if that video doesn't make you happy when it's finally done with the transfer. [Brandon's Blog]

The song in the video is Foreplay/Long Time, by Boston, FWIW. [Brandon's blog, Foreplay/Long Time Amazon, iTunes]

His setup:

Both machines running 10.5.4 and iTunes 7.7.1 (but again, this started on 7.7)
Air is a day 1 1.6GHZ, 80GB and the iMac is a 2.8GHZ 4GB RAM 320GB HDD

When I started, I had

997.1 MB of music (163 songs, all .m4a files, except 27 .m4p)
5 playlists
93.6 MB of photos
27 ringtones
No movies or TV shows
47 MB video (all video podcasts)
Contacts, calendar synced to MobileMe
3 other IMAP email accounts
74 apps (a lot, I know, but certainly not as many as you could possibly have)

The sync added

No music
No playlists
No photos
No ringtones
No movies or TV shows
3.5 GB of video (99 podcasts, and this part only took about 10 minutes, as you can see in the video)
6 app updates (2 of which were not installed because of an error)
No new apps

The backup folder produced this time weighs in at 9,771 items and 848.1 MB [corrected from GB]

My observations:
It doesn't matter if the app updates error or not, my last sync was 6:49 with 4 app updates, all of which were successful.
Since 2.0, backup and sync has been very long, but not to this extent. Usually 1.5 - 2 hours.
It started getting this bad about a month ago, right before iTunes 7.7.1 came out, an app crashed mid install via Wi-Fi app store, crashing the phone to the Apple logo but not booting all the way.
When it crashed like that, I put it in DFU mode and restored from backup, immediately had the same problem.
Back to DFU mode and restored with fresh firmware—instead of crashing daily, it did it every few days, requiring DFU mode and fresh download of firmware.
Did a complete wipe from within the phone, installed fresh firmware again, and started from scratch. New iTunes installation (removing support files first, empty trash, reboot, then reinstall) new firmware download.
Since then, no more Apple logo of death, and very few app crashes in general, but still excruciating backup/sync times.
If I skip the backup (I'm inclined to do that these days, since they are usually corrupted, even with a fresh copy on the desktop) it still takes at least 2-3 hours to sync.

It's been such a long time
I think I should be goin', yeah
And time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rollin'
Sail on, on a distant highway
I've got to keep on chasin' a dream
I've gotta be on my way
Wish there was something I could say.

Well I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' along
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.

It's been such a long time. It's been such a long time.

Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm tryin' to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're comin' back to find me.

Perhaps most interesting of all is the fact that Steve thinks "it was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store," which is an admission that perhaps Apple had bitten off more than they could chew. "We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence." That's pretty evident, and clearly something that Apple needs to keep an eye on in the future.

History looks much clearer with the benefit of hindsight, but it also looks like Steve has acted to protect future MobileMe development with a restructuring of the team. The team now reports to a chap called Eddy Cue (his name has appeared connected to iTunes in the past) who in turn will report directly to Steve. In fact, Eddy is now in charge of all web-related services, including iTunes and the App Store. That sounds eminently sensible, but leaves us wondering what the structure was like before? And what happened to the exec formerly in charge of MobileMe— did they get the chop?

Steve closes by being frank about the lack-lustre start to MobileMe's life: "The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services." But clearly he intends Apple to learn from its mistakes and not trip up in the same way again: "And learn we will." [Ars Technica]

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.

Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.

Another snag we have run into is our use of the word "push" in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe "cloud," changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word "push" until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.

We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.
We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.

Thank you,
The MobileMe Team

[Apple]

• Google Maps Faux GPS has problems working unless you install Navizon.

• Cannot change EDGE Settings. Jesus's EDGE is now nonfunctional because he can't enter in the custom settings for his provider. This is not a big deal for people actually on AT&T or one of the three official providers in Europe, but for people who've SIM unlocked and are wandering about on other networks, it's a huge deal.

• The jailbreak may break official third party apps from the SDK? We don't know if this will be the case, but iPhone Atlas claims that the method Nate used to jailbreak disables "Nikita," which is a component in the iPhone that installs signed software. Signed software, in the iPhone's case, would be official third party apps that are signed by Apple to make sure they don't corrupt or kill your device. If this is broken and unfixable, then jailbreakers may be unable to get in on the SDK action in February.

The official iPhone Dev Team jailbreak was released yesterday, but we haven't had any experience with this yet.

What have you heard? Drop a note in the comments detailing the problems you've had with the jailbreak or just 1.1.3 in general.

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AT&T: iPhone Activation Woes Improving [Washington Post]

It is also noted that he isn't the only one dealing with some hot fon problems. A lot of users on the Fon message boards are reporting heating issues, none of which seem to be as extreme as this guys', but nevertheless, a melting router is never a good thing. There is no official work from Fonero, but I would probably suggest disconnecting if the router is getting melty or unusually warm. –Travis Hudson

Looking at the numbers, we see that only 197,000 PS3 units were shipped during November, which makes their claim of hitting a four-fold increase dubious at best. In comparison, 476,000 Wiis and 511,000 Xbox 360s were sold in the same period. And to top those, 664,000 PlayStation 2s were sold. So if you believe Sony, you'll have a large chance to get your hands on a PS3 by the end of '06. – Jason Chen

PS3 problems now resolved - Sony [Gamesindustry via Kotaku]

Image via Asame

The plan is tricky, though:

register your M8 on Leica's website and they will send you instructions on how to send in your camera to the service center in Solms. All new cameras made from this date forward will have the problem already fixed. And to solve the IR sensitivity problem, Leica is going to give users two free filters to attach onto the lens. A better solution would have been to fix the IR issue in the camera, but what do we know? – Jason Chen

Leica announce fixes for M8 [dpreview]