Technology Nirvana

What you are you seeing in these screenshots may seem like a real iPhone application, but it's not. It's a web page displayed in full screen, completely out of Safari, behaving and looking exactly as any native iPhone program would do. The best thing: It is not a new feature of the incoming iPhone OS 2.2 update: The secret feature is "hidden" in the current 2.1 version and only requires one thing: HTML code embedded in the web page itself. No iPhone modification is required. If you are browsing this from the iPhone, you can try it yourself very easily:

1. Click here to go to the Web page. Safari will open this time.
2. Click on the + icon and add the page to the iPhone home screen.
3. Go out and click on the saved application.

Magic! [AppleInsider]

We've spotted WildCharge wireless charging kits before, but this new implementation in the Psyclone TouchCharge kit for Xbox 360 controllers might make the most sense. You load the 360 controller with the special bundled battery and plug the base plate into the wall. Set the controller on that plate and, KAZAAM, everyone in your family thinks you're a warlock as your battery recharges right on your table. The only catch is that we think this kit might only support one battery/controller at a time, and at $70 a pop that's going to add a pretty hefty tax on gaming. [EBGames]

Despite being an avid OS X user, there are deficiencies in this great OS of ours and many of the ones I focus on center — unsurprisingly — around security.

In the plethora of accurate claims of superiority in Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads, one counter-example is the ability within Windows to encrypt individual folders. While Microsoft’s EFS is no panacea of security and usability, it does work and there has been no practical parallel yet within OS X. Until now.

A Twitter post early Thursday morning from the legendary Matt Gemmell quietly announced Espionage from Tao Effect software (Greg Slepak & John Ashenden). This $14.95 utility (for OS X 10.5+) uses some interesting tricks to bring folder-level encryption and/or privacy to your workstation. Read on to see what’s going on under the covers and to find out if Espionage is the right solution for you.
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The Beijing Times is reporting on a shocking court case involving Asus and a young female customer named Huang Jing. It all started back in 2006 when Huang bought a V6800V model ASUS laptop from a Beijing retailer and quickly discovered it to be defective. She sent the computer back to Asus several times for repairs, but the problems persisted. Upon further examination, one of the replacement CPUs used to "fix" the computer was actually an Intel "engineering sample" and therefore unlawful to sell. Now here is where things get really crazy.

At that point, it appears that Huang got herself a lawyer and demanded that Asus pay the equivalent of $5 million US dollars in compensation. If they did not comply, she threatened to break the news of their shady support practices to the media. In March of 2006, Asus had both Huang and her lawyer arrested for extortion. Nearly a year later, she was released after the powers-that-be determined that the evidence against her was inadequate.

Now, Huang is suing Asus again—this time for defamation, selling defected products and false accusation. She has even set up a website detailing Asus' offenses against their customers. It certainly appears that both parties are not free from blame here, so I highly doubt that she will be successful with the lawsuit. Either way, the whole situation is pretty frighting. [Danwei via Boing Boing Gadgets and Asus315]

In case you missed it in our huge photographic timeline of the Lego minifig, today is the deadline for the Giz Lego Minifig video contest. We have got a ton of entries, some of them really amazing ones (one of these actually came in the mail literally two minutes ago). So if you are just about to finish it, hurry up because it ends today before 12AM). If you have sent it already or you are a lazy person, you can sit down, relax, and enjoy all Gizmodo posts celebrating the most iconic figure ever:

Videos

• Exclusive Video: How Lego Builds the Minifigs.
• Minifigs can also time your chicken pies.
• Instead of doing a Lego minifig of yourself, buy a $60,000 natural-sized replica.
• The secret imperial Lego Stormtroopers clone-making factory.
• Lego employees use custom Lego minifigs as business cards, as that's why we hate them.

Galleries and images

• Exclusive: The Lego Minifig Timeline.

• Why are minifigs yellow? Why there are no blonde minfigs? All you ever wanted to know about them is in our Lego Megaguide. And yes, that's me "minifiged" in the image.

• Steve Jobs minifig commanding a real Mac Pro Lego clone.

• He can also deliver Lego MacWorld keynotes.

• If you ever wanted to see how 35,310 Lego Clone Troopers look like together, click here.

• Lego is not limited to Star Wars: check this custom Cylon minifig with LED eye.

• Iron Man got the LED too for his arc reactor.

• Of course, the Lego clonetroopers also got the LED treatment.

• The Anatomy of a Lego Minifig: How a minifig really looks inside.

• Baseball to break minifig legs.

• Imperial Stormtrooper minifigs participate in the Beijing Olympics.

• The Beijing Olympics in minifig scale.

• 80,000-brick Lego Ferrari requires giant Schumacher minifig.

• Somebody once loved me even when I was a minifig obsessed noodle, and I still love her more than all the Lego bricks and minifigs in the world.

• Army of Lego transvestites celebrate the minifig anniversary.

• Lego men minifigs also go to the beach and wear thongs, to the horror of other minifigs.

• Lego minifig skull can hide your secrets.

• Lego minfigs can also be armed and go to war thanks to custom weapons

• In Lego land, there are also iPod ads with black silhouettes of minifigs dancing against primary colors.

[Lego Minifig Contest Rules]

Fortune's Techland blog is reporting that with Vodafone's recent announcement that they would fully subsidize the Blackberry Storm, Verizon might be considering similar low cost options to compete against the iPhone. While some inside sources claimed Verizon may go as far as to make the phone free with a two-year contract, other anonymous blabbermouths from the Verizon camp shot that notion down.

Most analysts believe the Storm will be equally priced to the 8 GB iPhone at the very least, but its realistic to see it at a $99 or $150 price point. The goal is to move some serious units during the holiday season, but for that to happen, Verizion needs to actually release the Storm first. [Techland]

If you really like explaining things to strangers, you’ll love having one of these. Because every passer-by will stop, think, and then ask the obvious question. And you’ll have to talk about where you got it and how much it cost and why hasn’t Apple done this yet, blah blah blah. If you’re prepared for that, this looks pretty hot. They’ll take the brand new aluminum MacBooks (not MBPs yet, I think) and turn them into the kind of tablet you wish was already on offer.

It’ll cost you $1300 for the privilege, though — and that’s not including the laptop you have to buy. I guess that’s the price you have to pay to be the coolest kid on the block. That is, until the real multi-touch sub-$1000 Mac tablet hits the market. So basically forever.
[via the Register]

It goes unsaid that Halloween have bigger deals than even Black Friday. Just think about all those tiny, defenseless kids walking around with pillow cases chock full of candy. Oh, and you can score deals on TVs, DVDs and other stuff, too.

HDTVs

• Corion Digital Lifestyles 42'' 720p HDTV for $599.99 plus free shipping (originally $999.99 - use coupon code "TV1027100").

• Refurbished Toshiba 42'' 720p HDTV for $649.99 plus free shipping (originally $2,299.99).

Laptops

• Toshiba Satellite Notebook Pentium Dual-Core with 3GB Memory, 200 GB HD, and webcam for $589.99 (originally $1,299).

Gaming

• Nintendo Wii System - Mario and Sonic Bundle for $399.99 (originally $499.99).

• Xbox 360 Live Vision Gold pack bundle for $49.99 (originally $79.99 - in store only at GameStop and Best Buy).

• Guitar Hero Aerosmith for Wii for $19.98 (originally $39.99).

• Guitar Hero Aerosmith for Xbox 360 for $29.98 (originally $49.99).

Halloween Dealz Movies Special

Blu-rays

• The Nightmare Before Christmas Widescreen, Collector's Edition on Blu-ray for $22.86 (originally $39.99).

• Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Widescreen on Blu-ray for $15.99 (originally $28.99).

DVDs

• The Exorcist DVD for $3.99 (originally $19.98).

• The Addams Family Compete Series for $26.99 (originally $69.98).

• Tales of Terror - 50 Movies Megapack for $13.27 (originally $29.95).

• The Complete 6-Disc Omen Collection for $21.99 (originally $39.98).

• The Complete Nightmare on Elm Street Collection (8-Discs) for $22.99 (originally $60.98).

• The Chucky Collection for $19.99 (originally $29.93).

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD for $7.26 (originally $14.98).

• Bram Stoker's Dracula/Mary Shelly's Frankenstein 2-Pack DVD for $8.99 (originally $19.94).

• Halloween DVD for $7.97 (originally $14.98).

• Dawn of the Dead Ultimate Edition (4-Discs) for $30.87 (originally $49.98).

• The Evil Dead Ultimate Edition (3-Discs) for $14.99 (originally $34.98).

• Army of Darkness DVD for $6.99 (originally $12.98).

• Night of the LIving Dead for $2.81 (originally $4.98).

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre DVD for $6.99 (originally $29.98).

Hey Brian,
It's my first Halloween since I moved into my new house, so I really need to make sure I have enough candy so the neighborhood kids don't change my exterior paint to eggshell white. That means no fun size candy—only the good stuff.

I finally got a chance to play with the New Xbox Experience on my own home console, which Mark reviewed Wednesday, and it's pretty fantastic, but I still have some complaints. The biggest one is that there aren't enough avatar feature choices, so it's just about impossible to make an asian dude that looks like me. The guy I have now looks like Hiro Nakamura and Frank 'Grimey' Grimes from the Simpsons. It does have something like nine different levels of receding hairline choices; something that would have pleased Peter Moore if he were still at Microsoft.

But back to H-Ween.

• Sean has a good Gizmodo haunted house for you to pee your pants through
• Frasier's dad is up on his H-Brew for Wii, distilling dozens of incomprehensible forum posts into something your brain won't explode while reading
• Want a 1TB hard drive for $99? There ya go

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Blackberries? Well, I do.

The Pearl series will never have a place in my pocket, but 70 percent of the population in the US who own a mobile phone carry a clamshell. To bridge the gap between the consumer sector and business sector, RIM introduced the Pearl and Curve models. The Pearl Flip 8220 is the device RIM hopes will saturate the market even further.

This won’t be a traditional review in the sense that I asked a current Pearl owner whether or not he would switch and what he thought about the Flip version.

Breken, a friend with a Pearl, pointed out what he did and didn’t like about it compared to his Pearl 8120.

Pros

Bigger screen
Bigger keypad
Spellcheck
Call quality was on par with his current Pearl

Cons
Feels cheap
The sunken trackball is awkward to use
It seems a lot bigger compared to the older Pearl because of its form factor
The font on the keyboard itself seems off

Me: Would you trade your Pearl 8120 for the Flip?
Breken: No.

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