The AppleTV has only been out for a few days, and already it’s been hacked backwards and forwards. Is this a bad thing? Not at all! Apple so far has been quiet on the modifications that enterprising geeks have made to the equipment, making it everything from a desktop wifi enabled computer to upgrading the hard drive that’s built in, and people who were taking them apart started finding interesting things under the hood, like hardware that could support full HD video in the future should Apple release a firmware update for it, a pretty fast processor, and more.

The major gripe people have had with the AppleTV up to this point is “limited functionality,” meaning Apple traded ease of use for features that some people would have wanted. Well, since Apple didn’t do much to stop the hardware from being able to perform at its best, people have already started engineering hacks and add-ons to the AppleTV that extends the functionality to levels that even Apple may not have intended when the product was released. The OS is easy to upgrade (it’s actually a version of OS 10.4.7), the hard drive is easy to upgrade and clone, and the AppleTV is surprisingly easy to open.

With the ease that tinkerers can get into their AppleTV and upgrade it to be a beefier machine than they may have initally paid for, and the ease of use Apple provides out of the box with the AppleTV with no modifications whatsoever, Apple may seriously have a winner on its hands with another device that’s a lot like iTunes and the iPod – easy to use and very functional at the basic level, and the more you want to dive into it and do with it, the more you can do with just a little extra knowhow. Clearly the AppleTV is everything but limited, and has a pretty long and bright future ahead of it as a device.

[ MacWorld :: Hacking AppleTV ]

The AppleTV is out and about, having been formally released by Apple last week and having begun landing in press rooms, tech labs, and living rooms around the country within a few days. The highly anticipated new TV-to-computer bridge device from Apple has had analysts waiting with baited breath for a while now, and technology enthusiasts and Apple fans alike wringing their hands to find out whether or not the AppleTV would live up to its promise to unify the content on my PC or Mac (or both!) with my television. If early reviews are any indication, it most certainly has.

The AppleTV synchronizes with the first Mac or PC you pair it with, wired or wirelessly over your home network – it copies the contents of your iTunes library to the built in hard drive, and constantly updates based on that library, so if you subscribe to podcasts or video podcasts, the AppleTV will automatically update the new content when its downloaded to your computer. You can also hook up the AppleTV to stream from up to 5 more computers on your home network, beefing up the amount of content you can get on your TV set through the AppleTV. The AppleTV has all of the ports you would expect, from HDMI to component, and while it can’t display true high-def, it already has the ability to connect to any high definition television. The device is so far easy to use, simple to set up, an excellent bridge from your computer to your television, and how well you’ll use it and how much you want one probably has to do with how closely iTunes is to the center of your digital life; that is, if you download a ton of videos from iTunes like Battlestar Galactica or Starsky and Hutch and want to watch them on your living room big screen, the AppleTV is the device for you.

For more information, check out this review from PCMag:

[ PCMag: AppleTV Review ]

And this review (with video!) from David Pogue, technology editor for the New York Times:

[ New York Times: AppleTV Has Landed ]

(image courtesy of one of my homes away from home, AppScout!)

According to Symantec, Firefox is living up to its name as the more secure browser, as it suffered 26% fewer flaws and critical bugs than its rival for market share, Internet Explorer, in 2006.

According to Symantec’s tally, 40 Firefox vulnerabilities were disclosed between August and December 2006; Internet Explorer (IE), meanwhile, was hit with 54 bugs. Opera and Safari — the browser Apple Inc. bundles with Mac OS X — had four flaws each.

For all of 2006, however, the numbers were nearly neck and neck: Firefox was nailed by 87 flaws during the 12 months, IE by 92.

The trend line also put Firefox in the better light. The open-source browser had 15 percent fewer vulnerabilities in the second half of the year compared to the first, while IE’s total increased 42 percent during the period.

“Internet Explorer was particularly affected by concerted efforts to ‘fuzz’ the browser for new vulnerabilities,” said the Symantec report, which cited July’s ‘Month of Browser Bugs’ project as a big contributor. “The majority reported affected Internet Explorer or Windows components accessible through the browser,” Symantec said.

To add insult to injury to IE, Mozilla developers patched Firefox five times faster than did Microsoft’s. On average, Firefox had an attack exposure window — the amount of time between the disclosure of a bug and when it was patched — of just two days based on a sample set of 26 flaws. By comparison, Microsoft took an average of 10 days to patch the sample 15 vulnerabilities. Both vendors’ attack windows were a day longer in the second half of the year than in the first six months.

That about says that. Firefox evangelists, rejoice!

[ PC World: Firefox Hit by Fewer Flaws Than IE in 2006 ]

Electronics retailer Best Buy announced today that it had reached a deal to acquire ISP Speakeasy for $97 million dollars, primarily to strengthen its small business technology offerings. What this means for current Speakeasy customers, and whether this means that there’ll be service changes for those customers or a cutoff of new customers remains to be seen. Speakeasy has long been seen as one of the better ISPs by public opinion, providing outstanding service at decent prices, without the same “big telco” image that other companies like Verizon and Comcast wear.

It would seem that Best Buy’s interests extend beyond small business, however – what with owning Geek Squad as a technology service and support arm and now owning their own ISP, the suite of services that Best Buy looks to offer seems like they have a business strategy that attempts to exert control over and similarly support the digital life of their customers, from making a buying decision on a computer that works for them, customizing and supporting it for its operational lifetime within the Geek Squad arm of business, and providing their customers internet access through a preferred and fully supported ISP in Speakeasy. Only time will tell if this becomes a long-term business strategy that we’ll be able to see inside Best Buy stores, however.

[ ZDNet News: Best Buy Acquires ISP Speakeasy for $97 Million ]

The venerable Wired News has, like its print version, gotten a major overhaul in looks, and I, for one, like I do with the print version, think it’s a spectacular new look. It’s much much better, cleaner, has a stonger and more legible typeface, and all in all looks more attention-holding and crisp as a site. Rather than being bogged down by graphics, they’re a fine compliment to the different sizes of text on the page, and rather than being a long jumbled list of links and snippet images, the entire site design walks the line between an attractive print page and informative web outlet for information. Very nicely done, Wired!

[ Wired News: A Note On Our New Design ]

Adobe today unveiled its long awaited update to the Creative Suite line of graphic design products, and gave users a sneak peek at their new web authoring tool, so far named “Apollo.” The new Adobe CS3 is fully compatible with Intel-based Macs, which subsequently ushered in the sound of a million Macintosh fans breathing a sigh of relief from their fears that either Apple and Adobe would never heal the rift that was reportedly opened when Apple made the switch to Intel hardware, and the fear that Adobe might never release the widely anticipated update. Wired News got their hands on CS3 good and early, and has reported significant sucesses with it that should make Mac designers mouths water.

CS3 is a Universal Binary, meaning it’ll run equally well on Intel-based and PPC-based Macs without the need for Rosetta, Apple’s translation engine that seamlessly allows old PPC-based software to run on Intel Macs. The benefit of the Universal Binary, among other things, is that the removal of the need for Rosetta makes the application suite significantly faster, and able to take full advantage of the Intel-based hardware under the hood of all of the new Macs. Scott Gilbertson of Wired News has a glowing review, saying that CS3 so far is faster, more stable, and a significant improvement in not just speed from its predecessor, but also in features and functionality.

[ Wired News: Inside Photoshop CS3: Faster, Better and Easier to Use ]

You know that here at Gears and Widgets we’re huge fans of green technology and hybrid automobiles. We love that kind of stuff; it’s not about some political debate for us, it’s about using technology to make the world a cleaner, greener, better place for our kids that we leave behind than the world we inherited from our parents – there should be nothing political or argumentative about common sense things like clean air, fresh water, and a healthy environment – we’ll leave the “debate” up to the politicians, for what it’s worth, but we think technology and industry, with the right motivation and some nudging by people and government, can make the world a better place.

So in that vein, Toyota’s been leading the way with the Prius hybrid vehicle. It landed at the top of Consumer Reports’ Customer Satisfaction Survey, and people not just think it’s a good car for the environment, but they love to own it, they love to drive it, and they just plain love it. It’s a great example of how with the right intentions, even the much maligned auto industry can make a green product that’s good for the environment and our communities, and just plain kicks ass and people clamor to have one.

So at the Geneva auto show, the same place that Toyota unveiled their revolutionary auto-parallel parking system last year, they’re showing off their Hybrid-X concept vehicle this year (shown above) that a lot of people think will wind up being the base design for the redesigned and remodeled 2009 Prius. of course it won’t look quite like the photos in the gallery; the Hybrid-X is a concept car and thus packed with futuristic displays and curvy surfaces that would never pass a Joe Blow focus group, but I have to admit that even if the basic design makes it into the production vehicle, I’d love to have one. It’s out and out gorgeous. Check out all of the photos and some speculation about Toyota’s futuristic and incredibly geeky design changes at AutoblogGreen.

[ AutoblogGreen : Geneva Motor Show: Toyota Hybrid-X concept ]

If you’re looking for more technology content, I mean several posts a day of great technology news, reviews, gadgets, gear, applications, updates, and more, then I have a couple of blogs that you definitely should add to your bookmarks:

[ Gearlog.com is a gadget blog by geeks, for geeks, with tons of gadgets and gear every day, from robot sharks to RFID protecting wallets. ]

[ AppScout.com is an app blog whose writers scour the web for the coolest sites, best applications, new services, and more. ]

And I’m not just plugging these two because I write for both blogs.

That’s right – if you’re a Gears and Widgets fan, you can catch several posts per day from me at AppScout and Gearlog by heading over there and looking for my name! Read lots, comment often, and enjoy!

Analysts at Juniper Research expect WiFi Phones to be completely absent from the electronics market within 5 years. I can’t say I disagree with them. Services like Skype are wonderful, and products like Linksys’ iPhone and this Samsung Skype Phone (shown above) are great ideas, but they require you to be near a computer or a router, which makes them great as cordless phones if you have VOIP service at home, or if you use your computer to make calls, but not really effective for carrying around with you as a low-cost replacement for a cellular phone, especially if you have to jump from wifi hotspot to hotspot in order to make calls. Dealing with encrypted networks is still buggy even on the best WiFi phone models, and choosing and switching among available networks is problematic. The technology is great, it’s just not a very good replacement for already extant cellular technology when it comes to portability, and WiFi phones may not penetrate so much in the home since household VOIP services like Vonage already have cordless devices that work with their services.

Juniper claims that the best use for the technology and their expected path for WiFi calling to take would be to find more cellular phones with WiFi capability, meaning more and more phones that can call on a traditional cellular network, but if you’re looking to save money and you’re sitting in a Panera or a Starbucks, you can switch to WiFi mode and place Skype calls for free. It’s an intriguing idea, but I wonder if it’ll save the idea of the WiFi enabled phone, when cellular does all of that already at a price that’s relatively affordable to the consumer. We’ll see.

[ PC World :: Death Knell for Wi-Fi Phones? ]

A new site, proudly proclaiming itself the #1 site for Blackberry users and abusers, has gone live: Crackberry.com. It’s a hilarious play on the moniker that lots of people have given the addictive little personal connectivity devices; and I’ll be perfectly honest, I didn’t think I would ever turn into the kind of person who’s constantly looking at his Blackberry or emailing from parking lots until I actually had one of my own and found myself in a job where so much work was conducted over email.

Crackberry.com is part satire and part actual content; it bills itself as a “rehab” site for people addicted to their Blackberry devices, but at the same time it’s a site that allows people who always keep their Blackberry at their hip to enjoy their device and have fun, offering games, downloads, ringtones, and more for Blackberry users, as well as forums and a community so Blackberry lovers can interact. There’s even a store where users can buy extra batteries, peripherals, and more. There’s even a part of the site dedicated to cures and treatments of the infamous “Blackberry thumb.” It’s hilarious, and in the wake of Blackberry beefing up its lineup with the Blackberry Pearl and the shiny new Blackberry 8800, I can see only more converts to the platform, including myself!

[ Crackberry.com ]