“hope you get half, shaunie o’neal” edition : tech news 9/5

shaq has decided to divorce his wife, shaunie o’neal, after 5 years of marriage. i’m sure she’ll be well taken care of considering the small tribe they have together. i, for one, am enjoying my new found life with the wife! we did a small interview over at the “love’s a peach” blog.

on to the news…

man, it has been really hard trying to keep up with all the rumors and news when you go on vacation for a week. besides the fact that engadget comes out with a new article every 5 minutes, a lot of retailers are gearing up for the holiday season and trying to create buzz for next year’s electronic expo. of the ones i’ve sifted through, the most important topics seem to revolve around the iphone…

…that has apparently been hacked. a company called iphonesimfree has ’secretly’ created a software hack that allows one to use their iphone with any gsm network that uses a sim card. no, sprint is not a gsm network. in theory, one could purchase the uber-expensive gadget, ditch the at&t two-year legal choke hold, and pop in a t-mobile sim card. the only downside is that the company isn’t releasing the software to individual consumers and only selling it in bulk to resellers. (via engadget)

updated: i found an iphone hack you can try via the steve-jobs.com website. it’s slightly techie, but reportedly works. have fun!

…or iphone-inspired gadgets. the ‘must-have’ look of a screen taking up all of the face real estate of today’s gadget is on its way. when the ipod launched, many tried to duplicate its look and functionality. some did it really well. of the companies that did (in terms of mp3 players) was creative. starting with a release in singapore, creative has done it again, releasing the new credit-card sized ZEN. it has a big 2.5-inch color screen, can playback video (almost all forms) and provide 25 hours of playback. i honestly can’t wait until this hits u.s. shores, but for the importers our there, you may want to just get your conversion rate on and spend the singapore bucks for a 16 gig. (pic and link via ehomeupgrade)

…and the shows you watch on it (or any pvp for that manner). just in case you missed it last week, nbc and apple also had a divorce. although nbc makes up almost half of apple’s online tv shows, they decided to go their separate ways after some squabbling about pricing and profits. nowadays, it seems to be always be about money, eh? i’ve never used itunes to download shows (i prefer bitorrent), but if you want to get advanced previews of future nbc shows, plan to purchase seasons online, or episodes online, you’ll want to direct your attention away from itunes and sign-up for amazon’s online service, amazon unbox…that is, until nbc slaps them in the face with their own impending online video service. (via techcrunch)

updated: almost as soon as pressed ’submit’, mr. jobs and apple went ahead and had their press conference releasing the new ipods. i’m not going to get into too much detail only because i’m a hater and think apple makes craptastic technology, but the new ‘ipod touch’ (read: iphone w/o the phone) sure is sexy! good luck trying to fit your 30 gigs of music, however. the top model only comes in with 16 gigs. (pic and link via yahoo)