MOBODOJO

Palm has officially announced the Centro. The time was sure to come, and its clear that there are a lot of people who want Palm to do good things. Evidence of this comes in the form of a 6.2% jump in stock on the announcement of the Centro’s launch yesterday at the Digital Life show in NYC. The sweetest aspect of the launch has to be the Centro’s US$99 price tag. There’s even speculation that new Sprint customers may be able to get it free. I won’t go into the specs. Here’s the video:

On Thursday Apple Computers released the much anticipated 1.1.1 firmware update for the iPhone. It is apparent that Apple is firing back at consumers with unlocked iPhones , but the update will also impair the use of third-party applications such as the ‘essential’ AppTapp installer. The 1.1.1 update offers several new features to the iPhone, many of them addressing security within Safari, Mail, and Bluetooth. Read more at ZDNet

I was thrilled beyond belief when contributor ER found the new theme we are now offering. If you look to the right you will see a new item called the Theme Switcher. As you can see, there is our theme, MoboDojo PHM, and there is now the new Retro MacOS. I’ll warn you up front, it doesn’t have the same features as the default theme. Its more like an RSS feed than a website. It is a hoot, though! Many thanks to Stuart Brown, the theme designer!

I doubt any of my readers are under the illusion that I am a fan of Vista, and its becoming clear that a lot of people share my loathing. Vendors like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and many others are offering XP Pro roll-back discs for users who want to get rid of the plagued OS. Depending on the vendor you can either get the disc as an option if you choose to degrade (upgrade?) later or charge a fee of US$15-20 to get one if you already bought your system. In case you have any doubts whatsoever, check out this piece over at PC World.

FlipStart, the makers of the “very long time to go from announcement to shipping product” FlipStart micro PC, has announced they are now shipping the Snap Camera accessory for the FlipStart. The unit snaps (I honestly didn’t get that from the name) onto the lid of the FlipStart and imbues the little PC with a 3.2MP camera.

FlipStart rather flippantly refers to it as a 5MP camera, but admits that it only achieves that via software interpolation. The addition also makes the already chunky device even chunkier, but to get a complete PC in such a small package is pretty darn cool. Its a bonus that it also handles VGA video capture. They round it out rather nicely by pricing it at a very reasonable US$150. Not bad, if you can get over the US$1,500 pricetag for the PC itself.

Engadget has some rather enticing, but ultimately dissatisfying, images of labels on the back of what can really only be a third in the line of internet tablets. There are no additional details, but an FCC filing is certainly enough for me to believe. The listed model number is “NXXX”, suggesting that it will be more of a follow-up to the N800 and not a wholly new design. Hey! Pssst!! Put some PIM functions in this time, eh!!

Apple is finally responding to the groups who are offering ways of bypassing the SIM usage restrictions placed on the popular iPhone. Currently, US-based iPhones are only usable on the AT&T network, but some smart people have figured out a few ways to get the device to work on other GSM networks. Apple, clearly a bit peeved about this behavior, has come out stating that future upgrades would disable cracked iPhones, but some are saying that Apple could be breaking the law by making such a threat.

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 states that is it illegal to void a products warranty if changes to it do not damage the product. Opponents of Apple’s response are claiming that the changes do not alter or modify anything in the iPhone but the software, which can easily be reverted back to the original. However, George Hotz’ iPhone hack, the first one to be proven to work, involves hardware modification, as you can clearly see in “Step 3″. This operation unquestionably voids the warranty, and this is very likely what Apple is aiming at. What, do you think Apple’s lawyers are stupid?

Regardless, the outcome of this row should be very interesting, indeed.