Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

It has only been a few days since the launch of the T-Mobile / Google G1 and hackers have already bypassed the restrictions implemented on the Android platform.

This hardly comes as a surprise as Android is open source, and hackers didn't take too long to crack the closed iPhone system.

The hack allows the user to access the phone as a root/superuser.

The process seems relatively easy, you need to get PTerminal, a command line tool, from the Android marketplace. From there, you navigate to your system/bin folder (where the binaries are kept) and type telnetd to launch the telnet program which lets you login to the phone remotely.

Make sure your Wi-Fi is switched on then type netstat to get your IP address. From there, you just grab a computer on the same network and telnet in. You now have root access to the entire file system.

It is worth noting that this will essentially allow anyone to access the phone as a super user as the phone has no authentication. So it is advisable to shut everything down once done.

At the moment the hack has mainly been used to install applications onto the SD card which is prohibited normally. However it should be possible to use this technique to unlock the phone, allowing you to use it on any network.

It is expected Google/T-Mobile will try and fix this issue ASAP as T-Mobile cover the cost of the phone based on the user being tied into a long term contract.

Personally I think things like this could end up being one of the strong points of Android. When a system can be opened up and customised by individuals it tends to get a huge community following. Just look how many people contribute free work to things like Linux, Wordpress and Joomla. Granted Android is quite different than them 3 examples but you get my point.

Via: Wired

T-Mobile has been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to pull an advert which misleadingly implies that mobile broadband is of similar speed and quality to home broadband.

A leaflet for T-Mobile stated: “Emails to send, blogs to write, games to play, stuff-to buy- and everything else you love doing online…Broadband on the go for £15 a month...All the benefits of home broadband, on the move. No wires, no waiting, no worries.”

ASA ruled: “Because T-Mobile had not made clear in the ad that there were differences between home broadband services and mobile broadband services, particularly in terms of the potentially higher speeds of the former, and because we considered that that was likely to influence consumers' decision to subscribe to the service, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.”

I am quite glad this has happened, I have had several friends wanting mobile broadband for whatever reason, and most of them seem to think it will provide similar speeds to normal home broadband.

In one case I did a speed test for the mobile broadband provided by 3. I managed to receive 0.1 meg Up and Down. This is most likely due to poor reception, and would improve significantly depending where you are located, but it is clearly no where near home broadband speeds and I feel a lot of people seem to think it will be similar.

Via: Precision Marketing

Some videos and pictures of the new T-Mobile G1.

Hands on pictures from Engadget

Google Android walkthrough on the G1

There has been quite a bit of talk recently about the release of the new G1 phone by HTC using Google's Android.

Android is a open source smart operating system for mobile phones and is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google.

The G1 which is the first phone to be released using Android will be available in the UK in early November and the rest of Europe 2009. The handset will be exclusive to T-Mobile (they are a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance) and will be free on price plans from £40 a month (no news on pays as you go), which will make it competitive with the iPhone on pricing, which is “free” for a £45 a month tariff from O2. You can pre-register with T-Mobile here www.t-mobile.co.uk/tmobileg1.

In the US the G1 Phone will be $179 - very cheap for a smart phone - and will be launched on October 22.

T-Mobile are touting the G1 to have a “Superior user experience” and they predict their Web 'n' Walk will get a 250% increase in Internet traffic.

The G1 has a touch-screen interface and a Sidekick-like keyboard, which will really set it apart from the iPhone.

With video you can swipe, frame and crop a photo to the homescreen. Street view and Google maps look great. Compass (GPS) mode moves as you move. Comes with Google Talk, Google Maps with directions and traffic view, street view with landmarks. Facebook looks good in the Webkit browser. The Music player has advanced features. The Android Market will be an app store for games and apps. It has a dedicated search button on keyboard, which competition authorities might take a good look at.

Unfortunately it does have some major downsides (for me at least!). There is no Exchange functionality (even the iPhone has this!), it can not be used as a tethered modem, and there is no 3.5mm headphone jack.

Exchange is a big one for myself as I use my phone for business and I like to synch everything, there is the opportunity for third party developers to build for this.

Engladget have confirmed that the G1 will use a proprietary ExtUSB connector, meaning you'll need custom headphones or an adapter to plug in your own, AND the adapter wont be available immediately at launch!

I have been quite excited by Android, and I love HTC (I just hate Windows Mobile) but I think this phone may some key features missing that will stop me buying it. I am confident we will see some brilliant phones using Android, and once more 3rd party applications are available this phone could very well be more appealing.