Here's a crystal clear image of the new MacBook Pro 2008. At least, if you trust yesterday's alleged spy shot. I created it using that image as a guide for those of you too impatient to wait until tomorrow's Apple event, like myself.

Just like it happened with the iPod nano mockups, let's hope this one is also right on the money. Why? Because 1) I love the design and 2) I'm in the market to buy a replacement for my aging PowerBook 17. I can't wait to get this 15-inch beauty.

Is this thing real? Are the all those rumors going to be true? What about the last minute rumors?

• Print out the bingo card.
• Follow our MacBook 2008 liveblog event and take note of the timestamp as the event in the bingo card happens.
• You can shout bingo if you fill out one line or, alternatively, one of the 2 x 2 brick groups.
• When you get a bingo, quickly send us an email including the events and their timestamps to tips@gizmodo.com.

The first person who sends us a bingo wins the prize, which—in case you are a girl—it will be a dinner for two with me at Good Enough to Eat or—if you are a boy—a dinner for two with Jason at his lair. OK, I just made that up. But you will get our respect and love. Tons of it.

And one free pizza (if there's pizza internet ordering where you are located, that is). Nothing like an edible prize to warm up my heart and my stomach. In fact, we should make this a tradition for each event: The Giz's Liveblog Pizza Bingo. I like how it sounds.

With new Macbooks seemingly imminent, I thought it'd be a good time to look back in time to the first Apple laptop that changed portable computing forever: the original PowerBook.

Back in 1991, Apple wasn't the company it is today. There was no iPod, no iTunes Music Store, no iPhone. At the time, laptops (or "portable computers," such as the Macintosh Portable) were niche devices, extremely expensive and not all that practical. But the PowerBook 100 made some huge steps forward for laptops.

While it wasn't the first portable computer to take what we see today as a laptop's form (that honor goes to the NEC UltraLite, above, released in 1989), it made some steps forward in the design. For example, the flat surface in front of the keyboard that you can rest your hands on? That first appeared with the first PowerBooks. It also integrated a trackball — though it's been replaced by other pointing devices, its spirit remains.. Due to these strong design elements, the PowerBook ended up selling very well, leading to high profits and a strong era for Apple (soon to be dashed by failures such as the Newton, Mac clones and the runaway overlapping product lines of the mid 1990s).

Watching this ad for the very first PowerBooks, it's funny to see Apple going hard after business users, the very same type mocked in today's Apple ads by John Hodgman. Sales reports! How very unhip. Before the MacBook became the laptop of choice of coffeshop-located freelance graphic designers, Apple wanted its laptops to be the choice of the suit set.

The PowerBook 100 was the cheapest of the three PowerBooks first introduced by Apple in 1991. Its price was $2,300, which is surprisingly close to how much MacBook Pros are today. Sure, the form factor has changed a lot, as has the hardware inside and the software loaded on it. But isn't it comforting to think that, nearly 20 years later, you're still gonna drop around $2,000 on a new Apple laptop? In an unstable time, it's nice to see some things stay the same.

You already know about all of the different ways to watch TV online. Now you just want links to your favorite shows (plus all those new ones) as quickly as possible so you can ditch your TiVo and TV once and for all. Our Internet TV remote has the best links to every prime-time show currently streaming online at full length. Bookmark it and check back often, we'll update it as new shows come out... Note: Many of these streams will not work outside of the US, but if you're out of the country and need your fix, you know where to go without any help from us.

NBC
30 Rock
The Biggest Loser
Chuck
ER
Friday Night Lights
Heroes
Knight Rider
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Life
My Name is Earl
The Office
Saturday Night Live
The Tonight Show

ABC
Boston Legal
Brothers & Sisters
Dancing With The Stars
Desperate Housewives
Dirty Sexy Money
Eli Stone
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Grey's Anatomy
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Life On Mars
Lost
Opportunity Knocks
Private Practice
Pushing Daisies
Samantha Who?
Ugly Betty

CBS
Big Brother
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Eleventh Hour
The Ex List
Gary Unmarried
How I Met Your Mother
Jericho
The Mentalist
NCIS
The New Adventures of Old Christine
Numb3rs
Survivor
The Unit
Worst Week

FOX
American Dad
America's Most Wanted
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
Bones
Cops
Do Not Disturb
Family Guy
Fringe
Hell's Kitchen
Hole in the Wall
House
Kitchen Nightmares
MADtv
The Moment of Truth
Prison Break
The Simpsons
TALKSHOW with Spike Feresten
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
til Death

The CW
4REAL
90210
America's Next Top Model
Easy Money
Everybody Hates Chris
The Game
Gossip Girl
In Harms Way
Privileged
One Tree Hill
Reaper
Smallville
Supernatural
Valentine

Comedy Central
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
South Park

MTV
The Hills
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila
Cribs

FX
30 Days
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Nip Tuck
Rescue Me
The Riches
Sons of Anarchy

Design
I was a pretty, um, harsh critic of the Pearl Flip's design as photos of it leaked out. Turns out, it is the most design-challenged phone in RIM's new lineup, but for a different reason than I suspected. It's like each half of the phone comes from a wildly different gene pool. The top half is glossy black outside, and (fake) brushed metal—wonderfully modern and beautiful, if thick. The bottom half feels like it came from white trash branch of the family—cheaper-feeling, toy-like plastic (in black or red) that seems more appropriate on a carrier freebie. Totally incongruous, a bottom more like the top would've made it truly lustworthy. That said, it feels surprisingly nice in your hand, despite being something of a fatass.

Compared to the old Pearl, it differs in two big ways on the navigation front: the trackball is recessed (so it can close) and the keys are almost completely flush (there's a barely noticeable, but palpable curve to them). The trackball groove actually works, cradling your thumb while you zoom around. The flush keys make it harder to cocksuredly touch type than if they were more pronounced, though the keyboard isn't unusable by any means. That really depends on how you feel about RIM's SureType keyboard generally.

OS and UI
Besides being a flip phone, the most significant update from a user standpoint over the original Pearl is that it's loaded with the latest, shiniest BlackBerry OS, with its incredibly polished Tron UI, as seen earlier on the BlackBerry Bold.

Our past props (and jeers) for the re-designed OS and UI mostly stand. Graphically, it's a big step up from the previous OS, though we wish the text-based elements, like in email and the calendar, were bit more punched up as well. It translates fairly well to the Pearl Flip's smaller screen, visually speaking, but it's clear that the Pearl Flip lacks the horsepower of its more respectable brothers—it's appreciably more sluggish at times, and we ran into some retardiculous slowdown more than once. On the other hand, it has one of the best startup times we've seen on a BlackBerry (though the first 30-45 seconds of wakey wakey aren't quite usable). Still, on the whole, the new BlackBerry OS is imminently easy-to-use and almost as easy to look at.

Screen and Multimedia
The Pearl Flip's multimedia capabilities are nothing we haven't seen on the other new BlackBerrys. It uses the standard BlackBerry media player and organization (though dressed up in the new skin like on the Bold) that's definitely capable, but fairly generic, and not as enjoyable as using say, a Zune. Video is definitely watchable on the fairly sharp 320x240 screen—it's good for this kind of phone, but not mind-blowing like the ones on RIM's two flagships. Annoyingly for some reason, though, YouTube videos don't expand to fill the entire screen like a side-loaded one does, they stay in portrait. The Roxio-powered Media Manager still tests the nerves. And the 2MP camera and video recording are just okay—not abysmal, but not great.

Browser and Other Software
Yep, the browser does indeed work way better than pieces of crap RIM called browsers on the last gen of BlackBerrys. It actually renders HTML correctly! (Most of the time.) However, even on pages where the browser gets it right, you get a sad taste of its less-than-manly hardware as it struggles to keep up with you trying to navigate around the page once it's loaded. Even over Wi-Fi—there's no 3G to speak of—it can be godawful slow, especially on sites with a lot of scripts running around (Slate, for instance). The lag makes zooming in and out awkward more often than not. So, while a huge, huge improvement over the past browsing experience, it's held back by a lack of processing juice.

Emaiil is what you've come to expect on a BlackBerry—excellent—and like the Bold, it's now in full HTML. It comes loaded with MyFaves like any other T-Mobile phone, and all of the usual BlackBerry software—BrickBreaker, Maps (though no GPS, WTF), Office to Go, Voice Notes, etc.—as well as a healthy dose of IM clients, from AIM to Gtalk.

Conclusion
I'm torn on this phone. The most consumer-oriented phone of RIM's lineup, straightforwardly speaking it's also the weakest. So, while we don't know the pricing of the upcoming Curve replacement (likely $199 or $249), users looking to step up to their first real smartphone might want to wait to check it out before stampeding to the store for the Pearl Flip, since it's not cheap at $150 with a two-year contract. Also, QWERTY > SureType, even as good as RIM's predictive text is.

But it's not a bad phone, at all—compared to the wealth of dumb feature phones out there, it's exceptional. It's a full-fledged BlackBerry that delivers great email, solid multimedia, usable web browsing and all of the other trappings of a smartphone, like apps. And it definitely has a quirky kind of personality to it. So, if you're looking for a smartphone in a tight form factor—or maybe for your teen—this might be what you're looking for, since the BlackBerry experience remains one of the best.

T-Mobile USA Launches First BlackBerry Flip Phone

New BlackBerry Pearl Flip Features Most Popular Mobile Phone Design in U.S.

Bellevue, Wash., and Waterloo, Ontario—Oct. 13, 2008—T-Mobile USA, Inc., and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM: TSX: RIM) today announced the BlackBerry® Pearl™ Flip 8220 smartphone—the first BlackBerry flip phone—is now available in the U.S., exclusively from T-Mobile.

The new BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone maintains the popular features and benefits of the BlackBerry Pearl; plus it packs numerous enhancements into the sleek and popular flip design. The spacious keyboard allows easy typing and dialing while the flip design helps protect the large, vibrant internal screen and provides the satisfying finality of ending a call by closing the phone. Customers will also appreciate the external display for previewing calendar reminders, e-mail, text messages and phone calls at a glance.

“The flip phone remains the vastly dominant and preferred design for mobile phones in the United States,” said Leslie Grandy, vice president of product development, T-Mobile USA. “Being the first company in the U.S. to offer the unique BlackBerry experience on a flip phone is a huge benefit for T-Mobile customers.”

The combination of rich multimedia capabilities and RIM’s powerful mobile e-mail solution together with support for text messaging, picture messaging, enhanced Web browsing and built in Wi-Fi® makes the BlackBerry Pearl Flip ideal for balancing a busy lifestyle by enabling customers to share pictures, check the latest sports scores or access social networking sites, including Facebook® and Flickr®.

“The BlackBerry Pearl Flip takes all the advanced features and refined usability that customers have come to expect from BlackBerry smartphones and makes them available in a friendly and innovative design,” said Mark Guibert, vice president of corporate marketing, Research In Motion. “Whether they are sending text messages or e-mail, listening to music or simply making phone calls, customers are going to love using this phone.”

In addition to the new flip design, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip also provides an advanced multimedia experience through video recording and playback, a 2.0 megapixel camera with digital zoom, stereo Bluetooth® support, and an easily accessible external memory card slot.

The Wi-Fi-enabled phone provides connectivity for both voice and data, as well as support for T-Mobile’s Unlimited HotSpot Calling service offering unlimited, nationwide calling over any accessible Wi-Fi connection including T-Mobile® HotSpot locations nationwide and great in-home coverage.* Whether through a Wi-Fi connection or the T-Mobile network, customers can quickly surf the Web, view pictures, send and receive messages, download documents, and access attachments.**

Key features of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip from T-Mobile include the following**:

· First BlackBerry smartphone to offer popular flip design

· Wi-Fi-enabled (802.11 b/g) supporting Wi-Fi calling and fast Web browsing

· Support for Unlimited HotSpot Calling, offering unlimited nationwide calling over accessible Wi-Fi networks

· T-Mobile’s myFavesSM support to stay in touch with those who matter most, with quick, one-click access for instant messaging, e-mailing, texting or calling to your Fave 5 SM from the Home Screen

· Enhanced SureType® keyboard to support text messaging, picture messaging, instant messaging (six popular clients), personal e-mail (access up to 10 supported e-mail accounts), and corporate e-mail

· 2.0 megapixel camera with digital zoom, built-in flash and video recording (requires microSD card)

· Advanced media player for pictures, music and video with full-screen video playback

· Stereo Bluetooth® support (A2DP/AVRCP) and 3.5mm stereo headset jack

· Media management software included on the BlackBerry Tools CD, which allows transfer of music files including sync of desktop iTunes music files***

· Enhanced HTML browser for high-performance browsing with a more desktop-style depiction

· Internal QVGA 2.4-inch diagonal screen, 320 x 240 pixels and supporting 65K colors

· 128 MB of flash memory, 256MB microSD card included, and support for up to a 16 GB microSD/SDHC card

· Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE/Wi-Fi network including support for international roaming

· Dimensions: 3.9” x 1.96” x 0.68”

· Weight: 3.6 oz

[T-Mobile]

This is a 20-foot-long Lego model of the HMS Hood, a Royal Navy battlecruiser built in 1920 and sunk by the German Kriegsmarine Battleship Bismarck in 1941. This stunning piece of brick engineering, built to minifig scale, has a robotized mast and is actually bigger than the 16.4-foot-long Lego U.S.S. Harry S. Truman. Check the gallery to really get get the idea of how gigantic this thing is. Updated: Lego builer Ed Diment wrote to tell us the impressive technical specs of his HMS Hood:

Time taken to build - 7 months
Bricks - just under 100,000
Weight - approximately 90kg (200lbs)
Length - just over 5.8m (approx 20ft)
Turrets are motorosied with Lego power functions so that each rotates independently and elevates its guns.

Just imagine how cool would it be to actually build the Bismarck to the same scale and film a battle in stop-motion for the Go Miniman Go contest. Fortunately, you don't need to go that far to participate and win one of the priceless classic vintage sets we are giving away. You only need to send your entry to us as soon as possible because the end of the month deadline is quickly approaching. If you want to participate, check the contest rules here and send your video now. [Flickr via Brothers Brick — Thanks Lindsay Joy]

The facts

• There's an Apple event on October 14 and we will be there to liveblog the pants out of it.

• Long overdue, a new MacBook line will be unveiled, with newly-designed MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

• Remember that Apple told resellers not to stock MacBooks or iPods (this was just before the Let's Rock announcement).

The logical and probable rumors

• The MacBook Air, being a recent design, will probably get a features bump, but not a redesign. This could to be supported by price cuts during the summer.

• The new MacBooks may abandon Intel's chipset—not the central processor, but the supporting circuitry—in favor of an Nvidia chipset. Nvidia delayed the launch of their new laptop chipset to October 15, which apparently provides faster built-in graphics and superior HD capabilities, after it was delayed from its original September 30 intro date.

• Despite the pretty mock ups, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro will probably look like the MacBook Air, but on a different scale. In previous generations, there was always a new model that introduced a new look, then the rest followed up.

• Several images of the base top, the base bottom and the display frame of the MacBook Pro have surfaced. It is still not clear if these images are real or not, even while they do look real indeed.

• Some people alleged that these images show a shell carved out of a single piece of aluminum, using a new and revolutionary manufacturing process code-named "Brick".

• However, there are several reasons to believe this may not be the case, starting with an Apple patent detailing a new welding process. However, both manufacturing techniques may have been combined for this product.

• The MacBook in the teaser invitation may be the 13-inch model. Assuming the Apple logo is the same size as before, that is. They have changed its size before.

• Following Apple's commitment for greener computers, all displays in the upcoming MacBook line may be LED-based.

Crazy rumors and wishful thinking

• The usual blurry MacBook spyshots have appeared, some of which, like this one, have been proven to be fake.

• The glass iPhone trackpads are most probably just that, fake.

• Some crazy people really wish to see a touch notebook.

• There's even more crazy people that think that a semi-transparent MacBook Pro may appear, based on an Apple patent.

• Some really really crazy people have been dreaming about tablet Macs since 2007 and before. Maybe the whole brick thing really refers to the fabled "son of Newton" that every fanboy has been dreaming about since forever, the subnotebook-tablet. After all, a pure tablet with no keyboard is really the only device that could be actually carved from a single piece of aluminum.

Drums:

Drum Kit Shirt: Sure, you could by a real drum kit—but that can be expensive. This drum kit shirt plays seven drum sounds when you tap different areas and it will only set you back $30. [Think Geek via Link]

Drum Table: Yup...it's a table with drums built-in. The way I see it, this would be a great way to score with the ladies when everyone is drinking at a party. I mean look at this dude, he seems well on his way to a foursome. Prices range from $800 to $2,900. [Musical Furnishings via Link]

DrumPants: By dismantling a MIDI keyboard and hooking it up to his pants with a couple of piezo transducers, Tyler Freeman was able to turn his legs into playable drums. If you throw the shirt on top of this, you would basically turn your entire body into a giant kit. [Link]

Guitars:

Angel Sword Guitar: Slay your fans with rock and slay your enemies with steel. Too bad this nerd axe is a one of a kind item. [Link]

Gibson's Robotic Guitar: If you are too lazy to manually tune your guitar, this Gibson will do it for you at the push of a button. Servos tune the guitar to one of seven presets with A440 as a default and the remaining six based on hit songs. Unfortunately, this limited edition instrument will set you back well over $2000 if you manage to find one. [Gibson via Link]

Moog Paul Vo Edition: Moog, a company known for their synthesizers, have branched out to the world of guitars with the Paul Vo Edition. What makes it worth $6500 you ask? Well, it sure as hell isn't looks. However, it does claim to have "infinite sustain." Sure, you can already achieve similar effects with pedals, but the Moog product site claims that it is "like no other sustainer; infinite sustain on every string, at every fret position and at any volume. You may have heard sustain before but not with this power (we call it "Vo Power") and clarity." [Moog via Link]

Synthesizers:

Beamz: The Beamz system uses a series of six lasers that play sounds from instruments like the guitar, violin and even the cowbell when the beam is broken with your hand. If it feels like a Sharper Image gadget to you, good call. Beamz was on sale there before the company went belly up. Don't let that deter you though. You can still get your hands on one from the Beamz website for $400. Oh, and this video is the most hysterically uncomfortable thing I have watched in a long time. [Beamz via Link]

Korg DS-10: Unlike Guitar Hero, you can actually use this game to make music. Basically, Korg took their famous MS-10 synthesizer and squeezed it onto a DS. It features a four-part drum machine, six-track (analog synth x 2, drum machine x 4) /16-step sequencer, delay, chorus and flanger sound effects and the ability to exchange sounds and songs and play multiple units wirelessly. Currently available in Japan for 4,800 yen ($48). [Korg DS-10 via Link]

Piano:

Mini Grand Piano: Have you priced grand pianos lately? Yeah, we are talking tens of thousands of dollars. The good news is that this version from Segatoys will only set you back $570. The bad news is that each one of the playable keys is only 4mm wide. It may be mini, but you can still play like mozart with a stylus. [Audiocubes]

"Alternative" Instruments:

Light Up Tambourine: Okay, maybe cool instruments aren't your thing. However, that doesn't mean you can't rock out. Hey, Davy Jones got lots of chicks playing one of these back in the day. Available for $15. [LB Toys]

Air Guitar (Bonus): So you are good at Guitar Hero but you lack actual musical ability. No worries—you always have air guitar. And if you are wondering how you can get groupies doing something so lame, check out the video of air guitar champion Ochi Dainoji Yosuke doing his thing. So the lesson here is that it's not what you play but where you play it. I'll bet groupies are into anyone performing on a stage. Available for around $4. [stuff4me]

[Image via CNET.au]

Bloom: Highlight of the week here at Gizmodo HQ is Bloom, Brian Eno and Peter Chilver's generative music app in action above (crank up the sound!). Touch the screen and create instant loops in a Music For Airports piano style which will degenerate and evolve in real time. You can also watch it do its own thing, creating a generative loop that's always different. Because why shouldn't a few spare minutes in line or on the can be enhanced by improvisational iPhone-assisted ambient sketches? Take the pain away...for $4.

RjDj: In a similar vein and just released today is RjDj. It records sounds from your environment via the iPhone's mic and then processes them into a playback loop, adding delay and shifting pitch according to preset "scenes." The effect is really, really cool, even just walking around the house. An ice cream truck rolled by my open window and I almost fell over, just now. There's a free version with one scene, and a $3 version adds another processing scheme. Check out the video above for some serious beatboxing with RjDj—neat stuff. Thanks, Gaby!

i.TV: Your weekend needs a well-structured plan for backlit entertainments. And thankfully the value quotient is very high with the free i.TV, which is a nicely designed TV schedule app that does a lot. Aside from giving you a nice schedule grid, it also pulls descriptions, reviews and images from each show, YouTube trailers for any movie on TV, and allows you to bookmark individual shows, channels or genres to keep track of them individually. Oh, and it also finds nearby movie theaters for showtimes and trailers for current theater runs, too. Free.

iNietzsche: Your sensory deprivation hovel also needs Nietzsche, obviously. iNietzsche provides a random quotation from our favorite nihilist at varying levels of translation precision. Free.

CameraBag: And for when it's time to go back into the world, CameraBag. It's not new this week but I want to right the wrong of missing it by mentioning it here anyway, because it's very cool. There are a lot of cheap-o photo effects apps in the store, but CameraBag is the first I've seen to add unique effects from actual classic cameras/film types to your iPhone's pics. You can add the distinctive vignetting of a Holga, a nice Kodachrome color effect, and a few others. Sure you could do all of this in Photoshop too, but CameraBag is a one-stop shop. $3

This week's app coverage on Giz:
•A sneak peak at the forthcoming South Park iPhone app shows downloadable show clips, wallpapers, contact icons and looks generally great. No streaming episodes though, yet.

•A nifty trick blocks ads in mobile Safari, for jailbreak only.

•Those greedy sonsabitches at MLB.com are already selling next season's version of the MLB at Bat baseball news and stats app, because you're forced to buy the same app again for each new season.

•TouchType adds a highly desired feature—the ability to use the landscape keyboard for emails for 99 cents.

•iPhone OS 2.1 is caught scrimping on the email downloads while in sleep mode.

•And a peak into the innards of the iPhone software 2.2 beta reveals Street View for Google Maps, the ability to turn off auto-correct while typing and Japanese emoji icons.

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

You're more likely than ever to buy a smartphone, not just because they do so much more than dumb feature phones, with real email, decent web browsing and downloadable applications, but because they're cheaper than ever. With the exception of some expensive ass unlocked-but-unsubsidized European models, you generally don't have to pay more than $300 for a balls-to-the-wall smartphone—though the voice plan plus data fees can easily run you $80 or more per month. Here's a rudimentary overview of your choices (more now than ever before), why you might pick them, and why they might suck for you.

ANDROID by Google
The splashy new entrant into smartphone land, Android is Google's Linux-based open source mobile platform meant to bring real, constantly connected internet to phones. Even though it's debuting on a single phone, the G1 from HTC, expect to see the free OS show up on tons of phones, from HTC, Motorola, and others. It's totally modern and powerful, and the fact that it's open source makes it incredibly appealing to some developers, so most signs point to awesome applications and mobile internet.

Why You'll Use It Unlike BlackBerry, iPhone or Windows Mobile, there are no limits on what application developers can do. So its real strength is the power that developers hold—we're hoping to see some of the wildest, most innovative applications hit Android first. You'll have tons of hardware options, from low to high end, and pretty much any input you want—touchscreen, QWERTY, whatever—once the ball gets rolling. This is the ultimate geek phone.

Why It Sucks Developers have to plug a lot of holes right off the bat, like the complete lack of business features. If they fail to come through, it could fall flat. Not as elegant as the iPhone (though it beats, say, Windows Mobile, by leaps and bounds), it still doesn't quite pass the "mom" test.

BLACKBERRY by RIM
Research in Motion's BlackBerry started out as a glorified two-way pager before evolving into what most consider the best smartphone for email. It is also a shining validation of tightly integrated hardware/software model—they make the phones, they make the operating system. Previously it was a phone that corporations gave to people in suits because of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which integrates it with a corporation's email, plus its Exchange support and high security. Now, though, it's increasingly popular with real live people. The BlackBerry Bold offers the latest version of the standard OS, while the recently announced Storm uses one modified for a touchscreen.

Why You'll Use It It has the best email experience around—in part thanks to their traditionally awesome keyboards, so the touchscreen Storm is something of a risk. The OS is really to easy use, with everything neatly presented up front using rows and rows of icons. There's a reason it has surpassed Windows Mobile in marketshare and is the corporate drone phone of choice. Also, RIM seems intent on juicing up its already solid dev community, so expect even more great apps in the future. (Catching a pattern with the importance of apps?)

Why It Sucks It's totally closed and proprietary. You've gotta buy a BlackBerry phone to get the OS. If you're not using the Bold, Storm or the Flip Pearl, it's not very sexy and can easily look dated. Also, in past models, the web browsing experience was absolute garbage. Now just finding its stride as a consumer device, it's not as media-centric as some others, but that is fortunately changing as well.

IPHONE OS X by Apple
Some haters still stay that the iPhone isn't really a smartphone, but for all practical intents and purposes it is. Running a stripped down but very real version of Mac's OS X, it's one of the most powerful and modern OSes of the bunch.

Why You'll Use It It's the most attractive and usable smartphone around, period. It has the best mobile internet browser, largely thanks to multitouch navigation. But its killer feature might be its ability to run third-party apps, which come from one of the most vibrant dev communities around, and are often—but not always—actually useful. Not to mention that, as an iPod, it's also the best music phone on the planet—at least until that mystery Zune phone appears.

Why It Sucks For being so powerful and modern, it can't do things even the dumbest phones do, like MMS, or copy and paste, a smartphone standard. Also email and corporate features aren't quite up to BlackBerry standards, lacking email search among other deficiencies. Apple tightly controls it, which might hurt development and innovation. And the whole making a phone call thing itself still kinda blows.

WINDOWS MOBILE by Microsoft
Unlike the iPhone and OS X, the only thing Microsoft's smartphone OS shares with actual Windows is the name. It has its roots in Windows CE and originally went by the Pocket PC moniker before becoming Windows Mobile. Mostly for corporate troopers, the current version number is 6.1, and it comes in touchscreen and non-touchscreen flavors. It recently fell behind RIM's BlackBerry in marketshare.

Why You'll Use It Diehards swear by its power, even if it isn't so easy for Joe Six-Pack to pick up and run with. It runs on handsets from a bunch of manufacturers, and unlike the BlackBerry and iPhone platforms, you can build your own device to run it. So much of the most advanced mobile hardware you'll lay your eyes on runs Windows Mobile, including the HTC Touch HD and Sony Xperia X1. It's got a corporate soul, so it's designed for business users, and it has specialty applications (like in the medical field) that some professionals need and can't get anywhere else.

Why It Sucks There's a reason premiere Windows Mobile handset makers have become increasingly adept at covering up the user interface: It's frankly terrible, especially when it comes to touch navigation. It isn't a great media phone, has a god-awful native browser and doesn't look so hot either. Unfortunately the next version, WM7, is over a year away.

PALM GARNET
Oh, whither Palm. Without getting into the complicated story of Palm's various fits, seizures and splits, the Palm OS goes all the way back to 1996, when it powered Palm's PDAs. All but dead now, its last hurrah was on the Centro before Palm plunged ahead with Windows Mobile. Supposedly work on its Linux-powered follow-up is well under way, but it's been delayed multiple times.

Why You'll Use It Though dated, the Palm OS makes a great starter smartphone, hence the success of the cheaper-than-dirt Centro. The learning curve is shallow and it provides most of the smartphone features you expect, even if it does look like it's still trapped in 1996.

Why It Sucks Uh, it's basically dead. You probably won't see it on another phone post-Centro, Palm's more pricey phones use Windows Mobile, and prospects on the upcoming Palm OS overhaul are dicey. (They should take Android and use it as a powerful foundation for the next Palm OS, but that's just my two cents.)

SYMBIAN by Nokia
Symbian is the world's most popular smartphone platform, thanks to Nokia. The most prominent variant right now is S60. While it doesn't seem so ubiquitious in the US, abroad it's far more common. It powers some seriously sick hardware, like Nokia's N series, and has a solid dev community, though the free side of that isn't as big as on other platforms.

Why You'll Use It Did you miss the "world's most popular smartphone" thing? Buy a Nokia multimedia phone, and you buy Symbian. It offers a lot of the best smartphone features—strong email, web and calendar, plus a large global development community—in a package that is far more usable than Windows Mobile. Also, it works with Macs with far less hassle than Windows Mobile.

Why It Sucks It can be overly complicated, and still not as easy to use as a BlackBerry or the iPhone. If you're not using a really solid piece of hardware, it can be really sluggish. Also, connecting to the web can be annoying. And while it's on handsets from a couple of other manufacturers, for the most part, you had better love Nokia hardware.

And that's pretty much the lay of the land, at least for now.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about dumbphones, dumber people or Mark Wahlberg to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Apple's just sent out invites for the October 14 MacBook event being held in Cupertino at Apple's headquarters. How do we know it's about MacBook? Well, take a look at the image. The fun starts 10:00 AM, PST. We'll see you there early that morning for our usual entertaining pre-game commentary before the actual Liveblog starts. Looks like we'll get to see which one of those MacBook "brick" rumors will be coming true. We're hoping for the one where Steve Jobs gives all attendees a new car.

The first thing you notice while using the new UI is how fluid and dynamic it is. Microsoft wasn't content to just create some static screens and call it a day. Many of the menus have multiple animations and 3D elements at work, which give the software life. Your avatar sits on the menu, fully rendered, loafing around on your screen. Moving from section to section is so fluid that you stop thinking about what you're doing with the controller. There's also the Spotlight menu subset, which highlights the games and features of the Xbox you use the most, so that you don't have to waste time surfing menus. And this efficient mindset extends thoughout the entire Xbox UI.

A new change is that when you hit the home button, a medium-sized box pops up in the middle of your screen with multiple blades that can be shuffled by moving the analog stick left and right. This is a quick menu of sorts that streamlines the entire menu into a no nonsense, text based interface that lets you browse and navigate whatever information you need with a swiftness. You can look up friends, change games, adjust settings, go to your gamer profile, or launch the full dashboard. This was designed around the original Xbox UI, with the seasoned gamer in mind who just wants to carry out a specific task with no fuss. What's nice it is that it doesn't overwhelm the screen like the original UI did in terms of size and layout.

We've touched on it before, but the level of customization you can put into your avatar is nuts. Clothes, Face, Body and Hair are all heavily modifiable within the avatar creator. And they not only feature prominently in menu system and Xbox Live's social features, but they will also be integrated into more games down the road.

The ability to rip games to your HDD is a neat feature that can not only cut down on load times, but the sound that comes with using the DVD drive. It's not intended to archive your entire games library, but rather the few games you play ALOT. In this context, I see it being very handy. It still requires you insert the game disc when you start a game each time, just so it can verify it's not a pirated copy, but after that, the disc drive lies dormant.

I didn't get a look at the Netflix software in this version of the UI, but based on the performance of the Roku and the screens of the Xbox Netflix interface, you can pretty much guess what that experience will be like.

Theme junkies will be glad to know that Themes 2.0 for NXE are far more integrated into the UI than before. Instead of a background and matching color scheme, Themes 2.0 now has features like 3D renderings instead of tiles behind each menu object, that relate to the theme in some way.

Party-style gaming is another new feature Xbox put a lot of effort into and are touting as a main feature in this new UI. I didn't get to see a ton of this mode in action, but I got the sense it will be popular amongst groups of friends who don't always want to play the same game the entire time they're on Live, but want to stay in touch just in case. The menus for creating parties are pretty simple, as you only need to select create party or invite friends and add friends from a list.

Lastly, the Video and Game Marketplaces has been revamped and are pretty well thought out. There are multiple ways to search for content, whether it be XBLA games, XNA games, additional game content, or video, you can search by name, genre or category, and the list continuously repopulates itself as you refine your search string letter by letter. Featured titles appear in the front menu.

Overall, the New Xbox Experience seems to be focused around an polished and efficient experience. We'll be getting our hands on the final version soon, so keep your eyes peeled for a full review. [New Xbox Experience on Giz]

Earlier this week we reported on a rumor about a new "secret" manufacturing technology by Apple. Supposedly code-named "brick", this "revolutionary" process would carve a MacBook shell out of a single block of aluminum. Business Week echoed the unconfirmed information, quoting the usual analysts and citing an Apple patent, implying that the rumor may be true. Today, Engadget published an alleged spy-shot claiming that it looks like a "fancy new MacBook Pro carved out of a single piece of metal." But does it? And does the Apple patent prove anything about this fabled process?

Here's the photo that Engadget thinks is the MacBook Pro made out of a single piece of metal, passed through a Shadows & Highlights and the Levels tool in Photoshop:

Clearly, there's a seam between the top plate and the side plate. Maybe you can argue that the seam is a design feature, but then why bother going with a process that is designed to eliminate seams? A process that, according to the analysts quoted by Business Week, is "very time-intensive" and "expensive"? The original rumor even points out to a completely new factory, which seems to me suicidal in the middle of a recession.

On the other side, the seam may be an effect of the plastic that is on top of the cover, and the top of the laptop may indeed be carved out of a single piece of aluminum. But even if we assume that it is a piece of plastic on top, there are other things to consider in this story.

Business Week argues that the manufacturing technology will allow for a completely new look in the MacBook family. Indeed, when I first heard about the rumor I imagined a wild new shape. Something completely rounded—like the iPhone—in which the componentes would magically slide in and out.

However, the case we are seeing above, while elegant and simple, is not that radically different from what we are seeing now in the MacBook Air or current MacBooks Pro. Instead of having a three-dimensional shape holding the components and ports with a flat lid on top—like we have right now—this image seems to be precisely the contrary, while basically keeping the same look.

This is a perfectly valid option and we are not saying that the image above is not the real McCoy. We are saying that the stories, the "brick" rumor, the "radically" different MacBooks Pros, and the image above seem to be not compatible with each other. That's why one of them has to be false or, at least, divergent from what we have been told so far.

Then, there's a final element in all this: US Patent 7310872, which Business Week quotes in the article as an indication that Apple may be working in this method. However, far from describing the process the brick rumor is referring to, it describes a unique welding process.

A computing device having an improved enclosure arrangement is disclosed. One aspect of the enclosure pertains to enclosure parts that are structurally bonded together to form a singular composite structure. In one embodiment, structural glue is used to bond at least two unique parts together. Another aspect of the enclosure pertains to enclosure parts that are electrically bonded together to form a singular integrated conductive member. In one embodiment, conductive paste is used to bond at least two unique parts together. The improved enclosure is particularly useful in portable computing devices such as laptop computers.

As you can read in the summary and the illustrations in the gallery, this laptop building technique is all about welding and not about carving. According to the description, the new welding method will result in a strong single composite structure. It won't avoid the seams and screws, but it will reduce them. It will also increase the strength of the whole case and avoid the excessive costs of developing the completely new secret factory that the original rumor speculates about.

This welding technique seems like a progressive step, one that will provide a better product to consumers without spending too much money in completely revamped manufacturing during a time of recession. This seems more logical and affordable for a company traditionally obsessed with product margins and keeping costs down. It makes sense.

On the other side, all of it could be true. Maybe the image is real, that's a plastic on top, and the top of the new MacBook is carved out of a single block of aluminum, despite the extra cost, just too look like a simplified Titanium PowerBook, one of the most successful computers in Apple's history. And maybe the new welding technology will serve to put the resulting surfaces together.

Whatever the case is, always remember our first rule of rumors: Never believe them. Specially the ones about Apple.

The very first time you touch the BlackBerry Storm—RIM's first all-touchscreen keyboard-free smartphone, just announced for Verizon Wireless—you will be startled. No matter how many times your fingers dance on the screen like you've been trained on every other touchscreen, nothing will happen. At least, not until you push the screen all the way down and you feel a click. Yes, the screen is a giant button, one you have to punch for basically every action, even every letter you type, completely breaking the touchscreen paradigm. Surprisingly, it works.

While the Storm's defining feature is this, what RIM ungracefully calls ClickThrough, the phone is much, much more. The term "iPhone killer" is clumsily tossed around by bloggers and journos (including us) to describe almost any phone with a touchscreen, but by trying to actually innovate rather than imitate, RIM has conjured up the phone most deserving of the title yet. It's got an innovative multi-touch UI (thanks to ClickThrough), runs on Verizon's EV-DO 3G network in the US, as well as any GSM HSPA 3G networks when abroad, so it's a true global smartphone. OK, maybe there never will be an "iPhone killer"—it's a stupid idea anyway—but based on our limited time with the BlackBerry Storm, it seems like it will definitely hold its own against every other marquee handset on the market.

Typing on that clicky touchscreen
Let's talk more about ClickThrough, since using the Storm means using it. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, who notoriously said he can't type on a piece of glass, told me that it was in development for years as they looked to evolve past the trackball while accomplishing something no touchscreen has before: Separating navigation from confirmation. So you have to push the touchscreen like a button every time you do something. Typing with it takes some getting used to, even if you can fly on an iPhone or other touchscreen device, because you have to retrain yourself to actually lift your thumb back off of the screen to let it pop back up between every single letter. Since you can't "flow" continuously in a stream but are pounding out a series of clicks, it's hard to tell in the limited time I had with it how fast you would be able to go once you're completely re-trained. It's a unique and finely tuned sensation, and I liked it, but I could definitely see people loathing it.

Getting around
More on navigation. One annoyance when typing is that it highlights letters in blue rather than doing a magnified pop-up like the iPhone or LG Vu, so letters will probably be obscured if you have fat fingers. One of the weird inconsistencies (there are a few) with needing to clickthrough for an action actually occurs with copy and paste, which took a few seconds to get down since it involved a long hold and drag when it was demoed for me—they oddly didn't show me the multitouch method shown in the leaked user guide, though RIM later confirmed it would be there. Also worth noting is that it has an accelerometer (which seemed to be a hair more sensitive than the iPhone's), so it detects whether it's in landscape or portrait orientation, using the QWERTY keyboard for text entry in the former and SureType for the latter.

While the BlackBerry OS has been optimized for grubby fingers, all of the standard BlackBerry navigation paradigms are in play, so there's plenty of pushing the four buttons along the bottom of the screen: menu, back, send and end like you would on a regular BlackBerry to get around.

Browsing and network
The browser improves upon the one in the Bold and is even more competent at rendering HTML. You have a couple different ways to navigate around a page, though the most unique makes use of the whole screen as a trackpad, so that once you have the cursor pop up, you can put your finger anywhere on the screen to move it around, just like on a notebook. It's context sensitive, so it'll do what it's supposed to when you hit a link or whatnot. It had some trouble with a text entry field in the browser, as well as some other jitters, but then it obviously wasn't a final version. RIM's concern with the user experience is very apparent, so I expect it to be cleaned up when the final version ships in November, though I'm not holding my breath for flash support.

Overall, it was a solid browsing experience, though one thing to take note of that is per Verizon standards, you'll be doing it over EV-DO, not Wi-Fi, since it doesn't have the latter. Lack of Wi-Fi is one of the biggest knocks on the phone, no matter how damn good Verizon's network might be. The fact that it packs both EV-DO and HSPA into a single phone is a truly impressive feat worth marveling over, but why couldn't they cram Wi-Fi in there too?

Screen, multimedia and consumer features
The screen is gorgeous. I haven't seen the HTC Touch HD in person, but barring that, the 480x360 184-pixel-per-inch stunner could be the best screen on the market. It's bright, contrasty, the colors are beautiful and the viewing angle is ridiculous. I think I could watch the whole of Iron Man on it. Media navigation isn't as intuitive as the iPhone, basically re-using the usual BlackBerry UI, but it's not difficult to get around by any means. Still, RIM clearly intends to take the fight seriously, since the Storm supports a bunch of audio and video formats, will come with an 8GB microSD card and supports stereo Bluetooth. It'll also have Verizon's V CAST, naturally.

The Storm is RIM's most consumer-oriented device yet, but it's also still a BlackBerry heart, with all of the standard enterprise features like Office document editing, full email search, Exchange support—everything a BlackBerry user expects. Not to mention littler touches like BlackBerry Maps (it'll have Verizon's VZ Navigator too), BrickBreaker and Facebook pre-installed.

The outlook
You've already seen the app store in leaks, and RIM told me that there will be an SDK for the phone in short order. The weird explosion of consumer-oriented BlackBerry apps a little while ago was not a coincidence—RIM seems fully aware that a strong developer community and killer apps are more critical than ever in the consumer smartphone market.

This will be the most important phone in Verizon's lineup, and from the looks of it, the best. Some people will hate ClickThrough—it's not a perfect solution, but it's genuinely innovative and really damn good. Some people will hate that it's not the iPhone (or the G1, since it's another tightly integrated hardware/software package). But for BlackBerry users looking for a touchscreen phone, or Verizon customers who don't want to do without the carrier's superior coverage area, this is the best there is.

If you've got questions, leave them in the comments, I'll answer them.

BlackBerry Takes the World by Storm on the Most Reliable Networks in Europe and the U.S.

Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and RIM Deliver the Power of a Smartphone with the World’s First Tactile Touch Display on a BlackBerry

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., NEWBURY, England, and WATERLOO, Ontario – Verizon Wireless, Vodafone Group (NYSE:VOD)(LSE:VOD) and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced that the BlackBerry(R) Storm(TM) will be available later this fall, exclusively to Verizon Wireless customers in the U.S. and Vodafone customers in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Designed to satisfy the needs of both consumers and business customers, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone combines the powerful communications features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry(R) platform with a revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface and enables easy and precise typing. The world's first "clickable" touch-screen responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation.

In the U.S., Verizon Wireless customers will benefit from the nation's most reliable wireless voice network and the pervasiveness of Verizon Wireless' reliable high-speed 3G Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network for rich Internet browsing and multimedia applications. In Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, Vodafone will support customers with its high-speed 3G mobile broadband networks and the power and reach of the world's leading international mobile communications group.

"We are proud to introduce the first touch-screen based BlackBerry smartphone together with Verizon Wireless and Vodafone," said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer at RIM. "The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touch-screen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touch-screens. Consumers and business customers alike will appreciate this unique combination of a large and vibrant screen with a truly tactile touch interface."

"The BlackBerry Storm offers our customers more ways to stay connected to both their personal and professional lives - whether in their communities or around the globe," said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless. "The BlackBerry Storm combines the reliability of our 3G network with the dependability and network efficiency of the BlackBerry platform to deliver our customers the ultimate wireless experience - all in one of the coolest smartphones available on the market today."

"We are delighted to bring the power of the purpose built BlackBerry Storm, directly into the hands of consumer and business customers," said Frank H. Rovekamp, global chief marketing officer, Vodafone Group. "With its unique clickable touch-screen, giving access to all the desirable multi-media features and services such as browsing, music and video, turn-by-turn satellite navigation, messaging and social networking, and BlackBerry's mobile heritage and strong business reputation, the BlackBerry Storm is being brought by Vodafone into the consumer world. With Vodafone's ultra high-speed, reliable mobile network and this exclusive and exciting new smartphone, there has never been a better time to be with Vodafone."

Touch and Feel
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone comes with an innovative touch-screen that actually depresses ever so slightly when the screen is pressed. The user distinctly feels the screen being pressed and released with a gentle "click", similar to the feeling of a key on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse. The "clickable" touch-screen gives the user positive confirmation that they have made a selection and the result is a dramatically enhanced touch interface and a highly-intuitive typing experience.

In addition to the familiar navigation keys ("phone," "menu" and "escape") that are common to other BlackBerry smartphones, the new BlackBerry Storm adds support for multi-touches, taps, slides and other touch-screen gestures, so customers can easily highlight, scroll, pan and zoom for smooth navigation.

The BlackBerry Storm smartphone also features a built-in accelerometer, allowing its touch-screen to automatically switch between landscape mode and portrait mode as the user rotates the handset - RIM's SureType(R) keyboard layout is available in portrait mode and a full QWERTY(1) keyboard layout is available in landscape mode. Other relevant features, such as cut and paste, are only a touch away for the ultimate smartphone experience.

World Class Smartphone
The BlackBerry Storm is a top-of-the-line 3G mobile phone with premium features and global connectivity. In the U.S., the BlackBerry Storm 9530 gives Verizon Wireless customers 3G EV-DO Rev. A/CDMA technology - and (2100Mhz) UMTS/HSPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM for global use. The BlackBerry Storm 9500 from Vodafone supports (2100Mhz) UMTS/HSPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks.

Browsing is Fast and Easy
Customers will enjoy a full HTML high-performance browser that works in either portrait or landscape orientation. Navigating Web sites is fast and easy with the touch-screen interface that lets users double tap to zoom in and slide their fingers to scroll and pan.

Icons along the bottom of the display allow for quickly accessing Web sites, switching between "Page View" and "Column View" as well as the ability to toggle between "Pan" mode and "Cursor" mode. The enhanced browser supports file downloading, streaming audio and video (RTSP), and with its built-in RSS support, new content from supported Web sites can be automatically pushed to the user.

Staying Connected
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone brings the full power of the industry's leading mobile e-mail and messaging solution without compromise. It supports personal and corporate e-mail and text (SMS), picture (MMS) and instant (IM) messaging on the most prevalent consumer and enterprise platforms, as well as easy access to popular social networking sites.

Packed with Additional Features
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone, available from Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, also includes the following features and functions:

- BlackBerry(R) Internet Service, BlackBerry(R) Unite!, BlackBerry(R) Professional Software and BlackBerry(R) Enterprise Server support
- Preloaded DataViz(R) Documents to Go(R) allows users to edit Microsoft(R) Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
- 3.2 megapixel camera with variable zoom, auto focus and a powerful flash that also provides continuous lighting when recording video
- Built-in GPS supports location-based applications and services, as well as geotagging of photos
- 1 GB of onboard memory storage and a microSD(TM)/SDHD memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB of additional storage
- Media player that can play movies smoothly in full screen mode, display pictures and slideshows quickly and manage an entire music collection; playlists can be created directly on the handset and there's an equalizer with 11 preset filters - including "Lounge," "Jazz" and "Hip Hop" - for customized audio ranges when using wired headphones or external speakers
- A 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, support for Bluetooth(R) stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP) and dedicated volume controls
- Sleek, elegant design with contoured corners, stainless steel back and chrome accents surrounding its large (3.25") glass lens; its exceptional 480 x 360 resolution at 184 ppi is crisp and bright with eye-pleasing clarity
- An ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts backlighting for ideal screen viewing and an accelerometer that allows customers to view applications in either portrait or landscape mode by simply rotating the handset
- Removable and rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery that provides approximately six hours of talk time on 3G networks and 15 days of standby time

[RIM, Verizon]

The first time Mercury was photographed up close and personal was in the Mariner 10 mission. Mariner was only able to take pictures of one hemisphere during its flybys, and its camera had a very low resolution: It could only capture details 0.99 miles across. Messenger's wide angle and narrow angle cameras, on the other side, have a resolution of 59 feet across, and is going to be able to take pictures of the fully-lit planet. All while trying not get fried up by the sun thanks to its rotatable solar panels—which balance temperature and power generation—as well as its multilayered insulation. [NASA]

Hanging out at sites like Giz may have instilled in you an insatiable, pocket-emptying gadget habit. But now we're entering a new era—the old guys on the TV are saying that soon we may not even have pockets, let alone money for them. Don't panic though: You've probably got a wealth of gadgetry sitting underutilized in your living rooms, closets and basements, just waiting to be given powerful new (not exactly authorized) features. For free.

I've collected the best firmware replacements, software mods and homebrew hacks from the DMCA-flouting, EULA-hating frontiers of gadgetland that'll breathe new life into your stable of hardware and maybe—just maybe—let you feel that lusty new-gadget rush again.

Turn Your Xbox, Old PC or Apple TV into a Genuine Media Center

Xbox Media Center is about as refined as an unauthorized hack can get, playing back virtually any audio and video format, running a bevy of console emulators and still playing your Xbox games. To be honest, this should almost be viewed as a natural update for every Xbox, which at its core is a slow but functional PC with an easy TV connection. (Any actual PCs you have lying around can run a PC-ported version of XBMC.)

Boxee is a very slick fork of the XBMC project for Mac, and it's available for Apple TV. As shipped, the Apple TV works fine within the closed iTunes ecosystem, but Boxee's support for virtually every video codec and free online video like YouTube, CNN, BBC, and Revision3 will suit your new, more destitute lifestyle a bit better.

Difficulty: Easy to Moderate. Installation is pretty straightforward in most cases, with simple Boxee and XBMC setup programs available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Before you load XBMC, though, you have to mod your Xbox with one of these methods, many of which require a specific game. After that it's all install wizards and lollipops.

Installing anything on the locked-down Apple TV used to take some serious finagling, but there are now tools that will create an automated Boxee installer on a flash drive. Just plug the drive in, restart and you're good to go.

XBMC Online Manual

Boxee

Make Over Your iPod, Archos, iRiver or Sandisk with Rockbox

It's hard to look at the current generation of media players and not admire their diverse capabilities and extensible software platforms. That's not to say that your 5th-gen iPod doesn't play back music perfectly well, or that your iRiver H10 still isn't a kickass media player, but they do feel a bit dated. Rockbox replaces your MP3 player's operating system with something more substantial, effectively making it a completely new device. You get endless codec support, advanced audio options, dozens of games, useful apps like a calculator and a text editor, plus you can choose from tons of different interface skins for a unique look and feel. Rockbox's tweaking possibilities mean you will earn admiring "what is that?" questions from friends, and it won't cost you a thing. If your player isn't supported yet just hold on—everything from the Zen Vision:M to the Toshiba Gigabeat S has a fairly active dev team.

Difficulty: Easy. Rockbox has an automated tool called the Rockbox Utility available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It does the work for you. Even better, it often automatically configures your player to dual boot with its original OS.

Rockbox Official Site

Convert Your PC or Notebook Into A Much More Expensive Mac

It's undeniable that Macs are too expensive. For many, they are considered a luxury item whose added cost doesn't justify the benefit. Luckily Apple's switch to an Intel platform opened up a world of unauthorized OS X installations which can turn your existing PC into a powerhouse Mac Pro workstation, or morph your MSI Wind or Asus EeePC into the Mac netbook that should be in their goddamn product line anyway. Check the hardware compatibility list to see if your PC is eligible for the upgrade.

Difficulty: Moderate to Hard. If you're not morally opposed to downloading iATKOS and Kalyway, which are pre-patched Leopard install DVDs (this is bit torrent territory), then the process is much like installing any other OS. If you insist on building your own patched install from a DVD you own, then, well, good luck. Always check hardware lists first, though, because driver support is everything.

OSX86 Project Page

Flash Your Crappy Router Into a Top-Line Piece of Hardware

The DD-WRT project exists for a simple reason: Most routers are physically very similar, but are priced differently because of functionality derived from software. The DD-WRT firmware unlocks the potential of the most basic routers out there—too many to name but damn if yours isn't on the list. As it turns out, your budget model is kind of impressive: Program-specific traffic throttling, professional level wireless security and radical signal boosting are just a few of the dozens of new features that can be enabled.

Difficulty: Easy. If you can't manage this one, then you don't deserve a router—installation just takes a few clicks on the device's default configuration pages. A word of caution, though: Make sure your router configuration page is totally compatible with your browser before the operation, as some choke on Firefox and can botch firmware upgrades. Stick to IE if you have the choice.

DD-WRT Project Page

Download Updated Maps For Your Old GPS

I'm referring of course to capital 'D' downloading here, mainly because at the moment GPS map updates are a racket. You could spend hundreds of dollars on map data that is freely available on Google Maps, Microsoft Live and MapQuest, among others, or you can just, you know, not. Map packs for Garmin, TomTom and Magellan units are floating around torrent sites and usually don't require much more than a simple CD image mount and run routine to set up. (Guilty conscience sold separately.)

Difficulty: Easy to Moderate. If you're just running a copy of a CD, then you'll be able to use the installation wizards. Some more involved methods for Windows CE-based devices require some SSH file transfers, but these are relatively rare.

Jailbreak Your iPhone for Wi-Fi Internet Tethering

Two internet plans are enough, but to sign on to a mobile internet contract when you've already got unlimited iPhone data feels kind of stupid. Jailbreaking your iPhone is now about as easy as performing a firmware upgrade, and there are actually multiple tethering apps. PDANet and iPhoneModem both work a treat, but keep in mind that excessive usage could draw AT&T's attention and ire: Tethering is not allowed on the data plan, even though it works fine. Both apps are available in Cydia, where you can also find a limited assortment of other apps that don't have a place in the app store.

Difficulty: Moderate. Jailbreaking can be managed through the Dev Team's fantastic Quickpwn tool, but it does take a few minutes and can go wrong if instructions aren't followed closely. After jailbreak, Cydia and Installer fill the role of the gray-market app store, functioning as simple package managers that are arguably as polished as their more legitimate younger brother.

PDANet and iPhoneModem take different approaches to tethering, but neither requires more networking exp