Last summer I was trying to impress my neighbors, betting that I could hack into their router. After hearing for a few minutes that the mere notion was probably one of the geekiest things they had heard, I proceeded to show them (with their permission of course).

By them having a wireless router, I was able to connect to their unsecured WiFi network with very little difficulty, and then I took a guess that they probably had a Linksys or D-Link router. Guessing at the Linksys model first, I went to the Linksys website, and read the installation instructions to get the management URL and default username and password. Within about 5 minutes I was in and secured the WiFi with my own password that I did not tell them. Now I was in and they were out.

I would not consider myself …

Sharp has introduced the BD-HP1, a new Blu-ray recorder which has been able to cut some costs due to some ingenuity along with the small requirement of a compatable Sharp television.

The new Blu-ray recorder from Sharp can connect to its Aquos LCD line of televisions through the iLink connector (iLink on other TV’s may not necessarily work) and utilizes the televisions tuner instead of its own built inside the Blu-ray recorder. What the BD-HP1 turns out to be is basically a Blu-ray player with recording capabilities, which requires an external input.

Since the DVD recorder is using the tuner from the television and doesn’t have its own, its not possible to watch a different channel that the one that is being recorded. Dual tuners is common with many DVR‘s or TiVo type systems. However, the AQUOS televisions do not need to be …

In a speech at the 3GSM World Conference in Barcelona on Wednesday, Edgar Bronfman Jr., chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group, spoke out in support of a digital music DRM (digital rights management), most likely in counter attack to the open letter from Steve Jobs of Apple regarding their DRM.

“DRM and interoperability are not the same thing,” said Bronfman. “We believe in interoperability…Consumers want it and should have it. We at Warner, and I hope the rest of the music and content industry, will make it as easy as possible to achieve interoperability.”

Apple has been under some ridicule lately for its music DRM which restricts music downloaded from Apple to be used only on iPods, as well as restricts the number of computers and iPods that the music files can be transferred to.

Some argue that this system is unfair and …

That’s right, this is a second generation iPod shuffle that is waterproof! This waterproof Shuffle does not require a case, but has the waterproofing applied on the inside allowing normal use of the device at its original size.

This Shuffle is water resistant for depths up to 10 feet which makes it safe for showering, bathing or swimming as long as you keep it relatively shallow. SwimMan, the originator of the modified waterproof Shuffle, also has waterproof headphones to go along with it for your underwater listening enjoyment.

The iPod Shuffle with applied waterproofing is available now, and $250 gets you the 1GB Shuffle, the waterproofing technology and a set of waterproof headphones along with a limited warranty (Apple’s warranty is most likely void with this).

SwimMan via Engadget

AMD has recently unveiled three new processors for mobile devices that are focused on enhancing multimedia capabilities – the AMD Imageon 2298, 2294 and 2192 media processors.

The processors are intended to bring faster and more efficient processing of high quality video and images to the mobile devices. Along with improved processing performance, multi-threading of applications would also be enabled to allow users to listen to music simultaneously while taking photos without disrupting the processing and music playback.

“As mobile broadband networks continue to increase capacity and improve quality, the consumer appetite for sophisticated multimedia on the go is growing exponentially,” said Paul Dal Santo, of AMD’s Handheld Business. “We are bringing to fruition our vision of helping global OEMs and network operators truly delight their customers with incredibly realistic, immersive media-rich experiences.”

The new Imageon media processors will enable a number of enhanced multimedia functions …

Motorola has announced the new MOTORIZR Z8 from Motorola featuring a sleek design that’s becoming commonplace with Motorola phones, but this one has a slight twist, or more of an angle really.

The Z8 has a “kick slider” design, which slides out to expose the keypad while creating a slight angle to match the contour of the face. The intention here is to make the use of the mobile phone more a little more comfortable, and we’re always happy to see new designs for cell phones, even if it is just a slight change.

The MOTORIZR Z8 packs some decent multimedia capabilities with a 2 megapixel camera that can shoot photos as well as video with audio straight to an MPEG4 format. The handset also houses a 16 million color QVGA display and supports video playback at up to 30 frames per second.

Multimedia can be …

Today SanDisk, the original inventor of flash memory cards, has introduced a 4GB microSDHC card. The significance of this release lies in the fact that this microSD card is the largest capacity to date for the smallest model of removable flash memory cards.

The 4GB capacity of the microSD also kicks it the tiny memory card into the microSDHC realm, defined by a new SD 2.00 specification that applies to any microSD card larger than 2GB. The new specification is required for capacities from 4GB to 32GB by the SD Association.

“Content is driving the demand for higher capacity flash memory cards in mobile phones,” said Jeff Kost, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Consumer Solutions division at SanDisk. “The new 4GB SanDisk microSDHC card will allow handset manufacturers and mobile network operators to plan rich media …

Today HP announced a new iPAQ smartphone to their product lineup featuring voice control and hands-free functions along with any array of wireless connectivity.

The new iPAQ 500 series Voice Messenger phones can understand over 20 different voice commands, include a voice reply command that allows the user to dictate their voice into an email message and send it, never having to key anything into the phone. The voice commands also control navigation of the phones menus and will read email and text messages so the user can listen to them instead of reading them.

The new iPAQ runs on the new Windows Mobile 6 OS and supports VoIP via built-in WiFi, “push” email, Bluetooth and GSM/EDGE.

“Busy professionals are constantly flooded with email and looking for ways to quickly and easily manage it and move on with their day, …

Pictured here is ASCI Red which was the first computer to reach a Teraflops of processing, equal to trillions of calculations per second. ASCI Red did this in 1996 using almost 10,000 Pentium Processors running at 200MHz and using 500kW of power. (Another 500kW of juice was needed to keep the room cool.)

Intel has now announced just over 10 yeas later that they have developed the world’s first processor that will deliver the same Teraflops performance all on one single 80-core chip using less electricity than a typical single-core processor at only 62 watts and small enough to rest on the tip of your finger.

This exact chip design from Intel is not intended to actually go to market, but this processor will be instrumental in looking into the types of interconnections needed for moving this amount of data as well as …

According to some anonymous credible sources, Sony has a new DAP up its sleeve in their Walkman line of MP3 players which may be a viable challenger in the iPod/Sansa type audio player market.

Pictured here is an NW-A3000 from Sony which reportedly is similar to the look of the new player but slightly flatter and more rectangular. The new Walkman is a video player coming in sizes of 2, 4 and 8GB with 8 to 10 hours of video playback. A larger screen than the iPod nano with horizontal viewing is expected with the player being on 6.5mm thick in total.

The new rumored player from Sony is said to come in colors of violet, black, blue and pink and will be officially announced in early March with pricing slightly higher than the nano. The fact that there are no …

You may want to set a side a little time for some updates and rebooting on Tuesday, February 13th. Microsoft has 12 security updates scheduled in their monthly security bulletin communication that list out various Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft software products.

Eight of the security bulletins scheduled to be released Tuesday affect Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office with seven of them having severity rating of ‘Critical’ with the rest rated as ‘Important’. The remaining four bulletins range from ‘Important’ to ‘Critical’ and will affect Windows with Visual Studio, Step-by-Step Interactive Training, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) and multiple security applications that run on Windows including OneCare, Antigen, and Wiindows Defender among others.

Along with these high-security updates, Microsoft will be releasing another update to the Malicious Software Removal Tool and 10 additional non-security related high-priority updates.

These security updates from Microsoft are a common …

Some early pics and information on a new mobile device from Toshiba were unleashed today from the 3GSM show in Barcelona this week via Engadget.

The Toshiba G900 packs the new Windows Mobile 6 platform with a slide out QWERTY keyboard and a 3-inch WVGA display. Also included is 64MB of internal memory with a miniSD card expansion slot, a biometric scanner for finger print security and video calling.

Connectivity to the G900 is manged through tri-band HSDPA, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth and a USB connection. This device will also support USB On-The-Go which allows two devices to connect to each other without the need for a host with drivers. We’ll provide more information on this as it comes available.

In keeping up with the regular installments of iPod accessories, we ran across this locking iPod case from Elecom via Akihibara News.

We’ve seen some strange iPod accessories in the past months, including the iDisguise and a bullet proof case which both have different angles on protecting the player.

This iPod accessory appears to be a combination lock with a wire cable which can lock the audio player to another object to prevent it from being stolen. Simply remove the top, slide the iPod into the case and replace the top while securing the cable to a stationary object.

I’m struggling coming up with a reasonable situation where something like this would be necessary, but I’m starting to think that necessity is not the mother of iPod accessory inventions. You could probably lock the device to something at home to keep your little brother from …

This MP3 player from TASCCAM is designed with the guitar player in mind, housing many features which make it easier for the up and coming talent to jam along with the player.

The MP-GT1 model from TASCAM is an MP3 player small enough to fit into your pocket but large enough to run for 9 hours on one set of batteries and hold 240 songs. Music files can be loaded through a USB connection from your computer straight to the player.

Features of this specialized musicians MP3 player include the ability to slow down the playback without changing pitch, looping playback to hear a particular “riff” repeatedly, and the ability to manually change the pitch of a song to match that of your guitar. Having no ear for pitch whatsoever, I have to assume this is a good feature.

The player also has a …

Earlier in the week Steve Jobs released an open letter via the Apple website addressing some “rubs” against Apple for having a digital rights management (DRM) that restricts iTunes music downloads to be played on only iPods.

In the letter Jobs describes how the DRM came to be through restrictions from the larger music companies who were concerned about users pirating music through the iTunes website. The DRM was made to protect downloaded music from being copied freely across the internet and in turn gain the approval of the music companies which would then allow Apple to sell their music online.

Jobs also points out that Apple is not the only company with a DRM that restricts downloaded music to a device. “Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store …