In an effort to keep up with changes from Apple at a faster speed, the iPhone Dev Team is considering open sourcing AnySIM, the free unlocking solution for the iPhone. Talking to Gizmodo, iPhone Dev Team member Sam said that this move could "open a lot of possibilities for the future", mainly in terms of the speed of the updates and avoiding sloppy and possibly dangerous binary patches.

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Ah, the irony: a reader sends us this screenshot of the Nintendo Wii News channel admitting its own four-week "defeat" against the Sony PlayStation 3. It's either that a) the channel editors feel they are not being paid enough, b) that Nintendo doesn't give a damn about giving the losing side some respite, c) nobody edits the channel or d) you are all a bunch of Apple Sony fanboys. [Thanks Eric]

Two years after the Xbox 360 kick-started the next-gen console race on a Black Friday week, EA chief John Riccitello says this year's Black Friday completed the transition to the (now) current-gen consoles:

"It's been the longest, hardest transition in the history of the industry...Last Friday marked one of those points where you can say something's changed...Around the world, based on the data I've got, it was pretty clear that the transition is now over.

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Soccer may not be the most popular sport in the US - but don't tell that to millions of minivan-driving suburban mothers. Chances are, the kids they are constantly hauling back and forth to practice would love this soccer ball remote. Not only will it handle your TV, DVD and satellite controls, it is also a full-size, functional ball. So you can kick it around, do headers and let the TV channels fall where they may. I just hope you are a fan of English soccer. Available for around $45. [Product Page]

This is not the first time we have come across a wristband that alerts you to incoming calls. Some of you may recall the BlueQ from earlier this year. It worked - but not all that well. Could this device, dubbed the LM957, be a better alternative? According to the product site, the LM957 will not only discreetly alert you to an incoming call, it will also let you know when you have wandered more than 15 feet away from your phone.

We are not sure how it compares to the BlueQ in terms of functionality, but it sure as hell looks better. Even if it does work, I wouldn't be all that interested unless there was a watch involved. Available for £23.50. [Product Page]

According to the Health Care System Foundation, a lack of diet and exercise combined with a sedentary lifestyle (that includes playing an upside-down Xbox 360) leads to childhood obesity and an untimely death. Yeah, the kid is definitely fat - but if I were his parents I would be more worried about the fact that he is playing games with a controller that isn't plugged in. Could it be that an abundance of fat and Xbox 360 playing leads to insanity? [Kotaku]

The PS3's still got a long ways to go to catch up to the Xbox 360 in the online space, and their next step toward it with an HD VOD service seems kind of lackluster. It's launching next year in Japan only. And the launch content seems pretty anemic unless you're into cars and racing: "motor-racing vids" and a BBC car documentary. Sony's hoping it'll get people's motors running for Gran Turismo 5. Uh, vroom vroom? [Variety via Game|Life]

This isn't the first time someone has offered a bounty to hack the Linux-based Neuros OSD, but if successful, this hack could have some very interesting implications. The goal is to get the Neuros to piggyback on the TiVo's recording schedule and make MPEG-4 recordings that can be simultaneously transferred onto a portable device like a laptop or an iPhone. There are two segments to the bounty, with a cash reward that totals $US3500. It sounds pretty cool, but whether it can be done is up to you. [DVRupgrade]

The CoolIT USB beverage chiller is certainly one of the more common gadgets of this type on the market, but it does have one major flaw. The fact that the bottom of the can is the only area that comes in contact with the cooling element can result in a drink that is less than thoroughly chilled.

Fortunately, there is a DIY solution available that will give your CoolIT device a much needed upgrade. All you need is a foam can cozy and a Genisys xs 3D rapid prototyping printer. Eh...there is probably a workaround for that second part - or you could simply buy an off-the-shelf version that could do the job. But where is the satisfaction in that? Hit the link for instructions. [Flickr via Make]

The Great Pepsi MP3 Giveaway returns, but this time with...Amazon? Yup. Starting Superbowl Sunday (Feb. 3), Pepsi's stuffing 5 billion bottles of Coke soda with download codes, but you need five of 'em to get a free song. That's right,... Read More »

The Writers Guild strike languishes on: Heroes ends for the year next week. In a bid to end our suffering, the producers' trade group has made a "groundbreaking" offer to the Writers Guild, grandiosely titled the "New Economic Partnership." The deal's a mind-blowing less-than $US250 flat fee for an hour-long show to be re-broadcast on the internet for up to a year. If you recall, internet distribution's sort of the sticking point and writers asked for 2.5 percent of the "distributors' gross revenue". Let us count the ways writers get screwed by the producers' Scrooge-y offer.

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If you're planning on buying or gifting an iPhone or an iPod Touch this Christmas, might we suggest the book How to Do Everything With Your iPhone to go along with? It's got lots of tips, tricks, and will even teach you how to jailbreak and SIM unlock your iPhone. Oh, and did we mention that it's written by Jason Chen and Adam Pash? Yeah, that's the same Adam from Lifehacker, and the same Jason that you've grown to love here. ME!

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You think your bathroom is awesome? It's not. Check out this Japanese bathroom that's built into an aquarium, featuring a peeping tom of a turtle and a bunch of fish with no dignity. It's a ladies' room, so there are no dudes allowed, unfortunately. It cost $US270,000 to build, which is a lot for a bathroom but not that bad for a gigantic aquarium. And you thought running the faucet made it easier to go. [Pink Tentacle]

The announcement earlier this week that Tag Heuer was designing a luxury > mobile phone didn't inspire shock as much as a raised eyebrow, but Biggs the watch fetishist over at Crunchgear dug through his old archives and found this rendering. Dated January 18, Dialaphone.uk found these renders of a possible Tag Heuer mobile phone watch that's both classy and able to call people. Whether this is the actual Tag Heuer phone is uncertain and unlikely, but we'd actually really love a mobile phone watch that doesn't look like something we'd wear in the third grade. [Dialaphone via Luxury Launches via Crunchgear]

Our experience with Bluetooth headsets tells us that you first have to place it into discoverable mode before any other device can connect to it, but this video claims otherwise.

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UDC is one of a handful of companies pioneering OLED development and manufacturing techniques for the big boys such as Samsung, Sony, LG and of course, the US Department of Defense. No one's written about how they make these displays, panels that'll make up our next generation of super-slim HDTVs, until now. This week, Benny and I visited Universal Display Corporation's headquarters in Princeton, NJ for an exclusive tour of the factory, where we witnessed just how they make 'em.

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According to DigiTimes sources, Nvidia is planning on rolling out GeForce 9 this February. They also noted that the first chip in the family will be the 65nm D9E --complete with support for DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1. As with all rumours, this should be taken with a grain of salt, so I wouldn't put your holiday plans for the 8800GTs on the backburner just yet. [DigiTimes via RegHardware via Gearfuse]

Readers who enjoy the Amazon Kindle e-Book reader's concept for letting you consume literature in electronic form - but won't purchase one until they see what's inside - will love this post. RapidRepair's taken apart the Kindle bit by bit, showing you exactly what's inside. Unless you're a hardware engineer, seeing the internals probably don't add much to your enjoyment of anything, but it does saves yourself from having to void the warranty on your own. [RapidRepair via TheRawFeed]

It's Friday for me, and that means one thing: sex. Or shower. I can't remember what, but the always-fab Regina Lynn's Wired Sex Drive column is out, and while commenting on David Levy's new book Love + Sex With Robots she gives us 10 reasons why she would consider a robo-marriage. Some of them are quite interesting, beyond the obvious vibrating snap-on accessories. Now, would you marry a robot? And if yes, why?

In another note, I would marry Regina Lynn. Or Ginger Lynn. I could go either way. Although Addy won't be happy about that. [Wired]

Those man on the street iPhone commercials have inspired a lot of parodies, partially because they're so easy to replicate. SNL did a couple of amusing ones of their own, but YouTube is full of amateur parodies that are just as funny as the ones the pros made. I went through them and picked five of my favourites of the bunch. That one above was made by a guy who was mugged and beat up in Brooklyn for his iPod Touch. When he got home that night, he made that parody video. Yeah, that's the first thing I'd do after getting my arse kicked as well. Hit the jump for four more quality parodies.

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It's not hard to find items with the Porsche logo on them lately - heck, we're thinking that soon you'll even be able to find Porsche dildos. If you'd like to have just one thing with a Porsche logo on it in your household, this little bobsled for your kids might just qualify. It costs $US115, and that's a whole lot less than the car, or even the Porsche >> mobile phone . It doesn't look half bad, either. [Porsche Design, via GeekAlerts]

They're refurbs, which makes the deal less shiny than the crapload of cheap Zune 30s, but they come with decent warranties so don't let it put you off. The 30GB Creative Zen Vision:M is $US100, which ain't too shabby dealwise. But the real steal here is the 8GB Creative Zen Micro for only $US70--a great deal for a solid flash player w/ that much storage. Naturally, there's far fewer of these in stock, so don't waffle around for too long. [Buy.com, Buy.com via Gadget Lab]

Remember the USB connector device we pointed at a couple days ago that could bring two-way cable communication? It be this Motorola USB SDV tuning resolver. Dave Zatz explains that this tuner, which will plug into the back of... Read More »

As an adult, bathroom activity is meant to be a solitary experience - well, usually - but when kids are first learning to use the toilet, they want everyone and their mother to join them. The Potty Watch from Potty Time puts an end to group potty sessions as it alerts your toddler with music and lights every 30, 60 or 90 minutes to pay a visit to the porcelain throne. The watch is available in pink, blue and green for $US10, which seems too small a price to pay to never hear the words "I gotta go potty" again. [UberGizmo]

Our father told us that the best way to test whether a steaming cup of anything was cool enough to drink was to just drink it. It wasn't until the fifth time we were in the hospital that we discovered that the man wasn't our father. If we had these heat-sensitive On/Off mugs, which change from the Off position when cool to the On position when hot, we'd still have our original tongues. However, as Joel from BBG points out, the heat-sensitive plastic lining has a tendency to wash off - leading to a scenario where a practical joker could paint the mug black and write OFF on the side, then pour in a cup of boiling hot coffee. [Charles and Marie via Technabob via Boing Boing Gadgets]

"Mummy, what are those cookies doing?"

"Well, honey, they're fighting, maybe pretend-wrestling, and rolling around, having a good time, that's all. They're getting in the holiday spirit!"

"Have they been good? Will Santa bring them lots of presents?"

"No, honey, it looks like they've been bad. Very, very bad."

In addition to the four patterns you see here, this disgusting set of Kama Sutra-inspired cookie cutters includes four more positions that are even more raunchy. [Pipparkakan (Swedish), via TFTS]

We tested out the Ped 3, a sturdy rotating stand for iPhone and iPod touch, and we give it a big thumbs up. It's heavy enough to keep the iPhone from tipping over, and effortlessly spins the iPhone around from vertical to horizontal. Its clamp won't scratch up your cherished device, and it makes it so you don't have to keep holding the phone in your hands if you want to watch a movie. Bravo. The only drawbacks? It's a little too big and heavy to carry with you on the road, and it's way too expensive at $US39.99. [Thought Out]

Eating while driving is inadvisable, but at least you have a bunch of "car" between you and the thing you hit. Not so when you're on a bicycle, which is why this BreakFast tray - which holds your breakfast AND has a slot for a cup - is probably a bad idea. Sure, if you can manage to balance yourself, pedal, chew and read a newspaper at the same time, then you might not kill yourself while using this BreakFast tray. But if you're like any of the bike riders we've seen around Giz HQ, you're just asking for a free ambulance ride (that you actually have to pay for later). [Produktdesign via Wired via Dvice]

Looking to make Guitar Hero a little crappier? Great! Just play it on a Commodore 64. That's what Toni Westbrook is doing for some insane reason with his Shredz64 project. The game isn't done yet, but when complete it should provide a rudimentary facsimile of the popular game using the squawking beeps that the Commodore can make as "music." It promises to be much less fun and much more tedious than the original, but hey, power to ya, Toni. [Project Page via Technabob]

Straight outta Germany, the colossal Acapella Sphäron Excalibur speakers look like a couple of tubas attached to a piece of wood. The cabinets feature four 15-inch woofers and weigh a herniating 619 kilograms each. Acapella only recommends these behemoths for living rooms that are at least 131 square feet (the size of many entire apartments in NYC) but considering their price tag, space shouldn't be a problem for those of you who plan to pick them up. The crane rental might be a bit tricky though. [Acapella Speakers via Bornrich]

Dru and Nate over at Gearlive don't only have awesome looking matching beards, they also have matching love for replacing the iPhone battery. Their video tutorial lets you see--in moving picture--exactly how to shove a new battery into your phone. It's hardly been six months since the phone has been released, so most of you probably won't need this unless you're horribly mischarging it. [GearLive]

Earlier this year, Viacom put every Daily Show episode online for free, and it was awesome. Now, they're following suit with South Park, with plans to put every episode of the animated series online for free next year.

It's a ballsier move than putting The Daily Show online, as South Park sells lots of DVDs, and these episodes will directly compete with episodes available for sale in stores. The Daily Show is less valuable as it gets older, as it's news-based, so putting episodes that poke fun of Ralph Nader online wasn't as much of a risk. If successful, look for more MTV and Comedy Central shows to get this treatment (The State! Please!). The more free TV shows online the better, as far as we're concerned. We'd like it if they spread the love and made all these episodes available to other players such as Joost, but I guess we should be happy with what we get. [Reuters]

Steampunk meets The Matrix in Sony's crazy spot that reminds me of a bad dream I had last week. The company is trying to somehow illustrate how the processor power of the PS3 can keep you one step ahead, but we're just thinking somebody slipped some kind of special fairy dust into the bong bowl hidden in the back room of Sony's ad agency. We've seen some weird ads, but this one reaches a new level of strange. What a peculiar concept! No wonder Sony's thinking about ditching TBWA/Chiat/Day, its ad agency covering the PS3. But wait. The spot moved me to show it to you, so it must've succeeded on some level. [CrunchGear]