Many of us — okay, a small handful of us — wouldn’t dream of putting beta firmware on our day-to-day devices, so we wanted to treat that very special group of safety-minded individuals to a once-over with iPhone OS 3.0′s finer points on video.

Odds are this is about as close as they’ll get to the goods until Apple blesses the binary a few months from now.

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For the second time in as many months, a list compiled by AvianResearch reveals the BlackBerry Curve is the best-selling handset in retail stores, with Apple’s iPhone 3G again taking the runner-up spot.

The sales numbers were collected for the month of December from the four major US wireless carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, which collectively account for 85 percent of all wireless subscribers.

Data is collected from 100 service representatives from each of the four carriers via AvianResearch’s Monthly Retail Store Survey. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has topped the list since May with various Curve models. The touchscreen Storm is just below the iPhone on the December list at third place, with the Bold in the sixth spot, down from five in November.

Rounding off the top ten is the LG Voyager in fourth, LG Dare in fifth, Samsung Rant in seventh, which replaces the HTC Touch Pro, Samsung Behold in eighth, Samsung Instinct in ninth and LG Env2 in tenth. Online and business sales are not included in the list, so it is possible that other BlackBerries as well as Windows Mobile devices may affect the results.

The results nonetheless suggest sustained interest in both Apple and RIM despite the continued economic slump at the end of 2008, though the placing of three BlackBerries on the list potentially hands their Canadian creator a lead in overall shipments during the period.

It is the weirdest thing, NVIDIA can sometimes move in mysterious ways, and well .. in the past has stepped on the toes of many of it’s AIB/AIC partners. A while ago after the demise of BFG there already was a rumor that NVIDIA themselves might be addressing a chunk of the (r)etails market. It seems that this concern now is validated. On Best Buy USA, the GTS 450 as produced and sold by NVIDIA popped up.

In fact best Buy stores started selling nVidia-branded GeForce GTS 450 and GTX 460 boards. Here’s Bryan Del Rizzo, PR manager at nVidia on the products:

“NVIDIA and Best Buy are working together to offer PC customers the opportunity to experience firsthand the latest in PC technologies right inside Best Buy stores. As part of this broad initiative, NVIDIA is supplying to Best Buy specific GeForce models built and supported by NVIDIA. These products will only be available at Best Buy and will complement GeForce products from our partners. We will provide more details on this later.”

By doing this, NVIDIA is bypassing some major board partners like eVGA and many other players in the USA market. And not just that, they will compete with the board partners … and we all know who the winner there will be.

Here’s some proof of the cards in stores from a guy named zshift, which posted these photo’s taken using his Apple iPhone.

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Owners of iPhones and other smartphones are one step closer towards taking complete control of their gadgets, thanks to a new government ruling Monday on the practice of “jailbreaking.” as Yahoo news reports.

This weekend has seen a flurry of activity about digital rights, but the biggest news dropped Monday morning, when the FCC announced that it had made the controversial practice of “jailbreaking” your iPhone — or any other cell phone — legal.

Jailbreaking — the practice of unlocking a phone (and particularly an iPhone) so it can be used on another network and/or run other applications than those approved by Apple — has technically been illegal for years. Most jailbroken phones are used on the U.S. T-Mobile network or on overseas carriers, or are used to run applications that Apple refuses to sell, such as Safari ad-blocking apps, alternate keyboard layouts, or programs that change the interface to the iPhone’s SMS system and the way its icons are laid out.

While technically illegal, no one has been sued or prosecuted for the practice. (Apple does seriously frown on the practice, and jailbreaking your phone will still void your warranty.) It’s estimated that more than a million iPhone owners have jailbroken their handsets.

Apple fought hard against the legalization, arguing that jailbreaking was a form of copyright violation. The FCC disagreed, saying that jailbreaking merely enhanced the inter-operability of the phone, and was thus legitimate under fair-use rules.

Although this is more Apple news it seems that there is a flaw (everyone stop to gasp) in the new iPhone OS 3.0 Software. This flaw revolves around how the iPhone handles SMS messaging.

According to very limited details it seems that the undisclosed flaw could allow malicious code to be inserted giving an evildoer root access to the thermally challenged device.

Charlie Miller, the person who discovered the flaw went on to say that despite the SMS flaw that the iPhone OS is still very secure. He praised Apple’s decision to remove Flash and Java (despite advertising a full and “real” internet experience) stating that they are potential vectors for attack.

Others disagree with Mr. Miller as there are always ways to protect from flaws in add-ons and say that Apple’s removal of these features, requiring signed code and restricting applications is just a way to control the phone and of course generate more revenue.

With the release of the SDK for iPhone OS 3.1 and the beta version of the OS we know that Apple will be releasing that sometime very soon (rumors put it out on July 17th). Although many other fixes and features were mentioned with the new OS, this was one that got past the official release.

Apple just launched the new iPhone 3GS (for Speed), but is this new iPhone worth the upgrade? – We see how it stands up against its older brothers.

Introduction

The iPhone has become an icon in popular culture. The iPhone, along with its sibling, the iPod, are woven into our view of the world. As a device it is sleek and sexy. It has a great sense of style and shows that while Apple may do many things wrong, they at least do them with style and flare.

From its launch the iPhone has been poked at and prodded, reviewed and tested. The latest launch is nothing new; there have been all kinds of comparisons of the iPhone 3GS and individual tests ran to determine how much better it is than the older iPhones.

We will take a look at the new iPhone 3GS as a first time purchase and see how it compares to its older brother, the iPhone 3G with the same software. So let’s dive in to the new iPhone 3GS and see if it is worthy of your money and time.

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Analysts are saying that this weekend Apple could sell half a million iPhone 3G S handsets. This is a rather large number and is significantly less than either the 3G bought in with its launches.

Although some are saying it is due to the limit on the number of countries that are getting the 3G S, after all 21 countries had the 3G at its launch while the 3G S will only be released in 8.

The low number could also be due to the relatively minor improvements made to the new 3G S; including a complete lack of any outside improvements to the appearance of the phone.

Read more here

Munster expects Apple will sell 500,000 iPhones this weekend, according to a research note sent to clients, reports Fortune. That’s half as many phones as Apple sold when it launched the iPhone 3G, but Apple sold that phone in 21 countries on the first day. In comparison, the iPhone 3G S will be sold in only eight countries on its first day.

Still, 500,000 phones sold in three days is a lofty number. Consider that the iPhone 3G was a fairly big upgrade over its predecessor when it was released, and most notably added the much faster 3G data speeds to the device.

The new iPhone OS has made its way to many a happy iPhone user. This is a good thing as it means that iPhone users can now finally join the ranks of other smart phone owners with such exciting features as Copy and Paste, Tethering and Voice control.

But with these come some interesting extras. Apparently hidden in the new update are 45 patches that cover vulnerabilities in the old iPhone OS. This would seem to fly in the face of Apple’s normal stance of “our hardware and software is completely secure”.

Do not get me wrong, I think the inclusion of fixes and security patches is great and Apple is doing the right thing by making sure they get out to iPhone owners. I just wish they would knock off the BS that OS X and iPhone OS are more secure than other operating systems out.

Most users would not notice them because they were issued as part of the iPhone 3.0 operating system.

While the tame Mac press rushed to praise Apple for its “stellar security” reputation it had to admit that 45 is a large number when it comes to counting patches.

If it were Microsoft releasing this many the Mac Fanbois would be dribbling with bile by now. Linux fanbois would just laugh at them both, of course.

AT&T and Apple have detailed how the launch of the iPhone 3G S will work come June 19, and it looks like those who don’t preorder the phone will be getting the shaft.

Apple will be opening their stores a little early at 8AM. This will all those who preorder the phone to come in early and grab their new overpriced paperweight.

Those going through AT&T to get the new phone have a little bit more to deal with. If you preorder the phone then it might not be so bad as you will be able to line up early and get priority to get your phone on launch day. Those who don’t preorder will have to wait until the store opens and have to wait for all the preorders to be fulfilled first.

It sure isn’t going to be cheap either. New AT&T customers or those eligible for their upgrade will be able to get the new iPhone for $199/$299 for the 16GB/32GB versions. If you aren’t eligible for the upgrade are going to have to cough up a lot more dough however as it will be between $399/$499 and $599/$699 for the 16GB and 32GB models respectively, all depending on how much time is left on your two year contract.

According to a very detailed breakdown of features between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3G S one stands out. OpenGL ES support. In the iPhone 3G you have OpenGL ES 1.1 only. In the new iPhone 3G S you have OpenGL ES 2.0 and 1.1, this is thanks to the new PowerVR SGX graphics chip in the cover.

Application developers are now faced with the problem of designing applications that can take advantage of the newer standard or making them available to more iPhone users.

Read more here.

When we were breaking down the meaty differences between the old-school 3G and the 3G S yesterday, we made an assumption about support for OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics APIs in the original iPhone 3G based on the fact that it had been available in the iPhone OS 3.0 SDK for several betas. Turns out, though, that the graphics processor in the 3G S — the PowerVR SGX — supports hardware acceleration of both OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 while the more pedestrian PowerVR MBX found in the iPhone 3G supports 1.1 alone.

What does this mean to you? OpenGL ES is the lightweight version of OpenGL, a powerful library of real-time 3D rendering APIs; many modern phones and other handheld devices support the older 1.1 specification, but 2.0 is less common — it kicks things up a notch by supporting more complex textures and shading operations, which basically means games written to support it look more badass. Here’s the problem, though: because OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 are completely incompatible with each other, apps need to be written to support both if they’re going to be maximally compatible.