Breakfast Briefing: iOS 6 jailbreak, Windows 8 apps ported to Android, Nokia's tablet plans

 

Gallery

Posted on 5 Feb 2013 at 09:05

Today's tech stories include a jailbreak for iPhone 5, how to run Windows 8 apps on Android and Nokia's tablet plans. Plus, what Cillit Bang does to the internals of a PC and why Agatha Christie was quizzed over Bletchley Park spy fears.

iOS 6 jailbroken

It had to happen, and it has. iPhone fiddlers have worked out an untethered jailbreak for iPhone 5 and other iOS 6 devices, launching a tool called EvasiOn that unlocks the previously wall-guarded handsets.

Available from a website set up by a group calling themselves the Evad3rs, the hack sneaks past all of Apple's security snares, and has already been the focus of attention from security professionals. Accuvant Labs has a detailed account of how the jailbreak actually works.

Windows 8 apps ported to Android with Wine

Windows 8 apps have been ported to Android via Wine, the same system that allows Windows apps to run on Linux PCs. While it might seem as though Windows 8 is in more need of apps than Android, the system could mean Android running on x86 could support Microsoft software, Ars Technica notes.

Nokia considering making a tablet

Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop has revealed his firm may build a tablet.

"We haven’t announced tablets at this point, but it is something we are clearly looking at very closely,” Elop said, according to an Australian newspaper. "We are studying very closely the market right now as Microsoft has introduced the Surface tablet, so we are trying to learn from that and understand what the right way to participate would be and at what point in time."

Such a move is really no surprise - frankly, the firm is probably considering anything that will make it money - but the idea of a Lumia styled tablet certainly has appeal. While Elop said a tablet running Microsoft’s Windows OS would make the most sense, as it could be paired with Nokia’s existing handsets, he didn't write off an Android tablet, saying Nokia would "consider" all options.

Angry employee destroys PCs... with Cillit Bang

Times are tough across many companies, but credit controller Edward Sobolewski didn’t think that was a good enough reason for failing to get a raise at his job, according to Telegraph. After being passed over for a pay raise, he took to surreptitiously spraying Cillit Bang cleaning fluid into PCs, causing £32,000 of damage. Bang and the dirt is gone... as was the company’s IT systems, off and on over three years.

Sobolewski was fined £10,000 and sentenced to eight months in prison after being caught on camera with his cleaning spray.

MI5 worried Agatha Christie spilled Bletchley secrets

Novelist Agatha Christie terrified MI5 by naming a character in one of her books, N or M?, after the WW2 code breaking centre - at the time that her friend Alfred Dilwyn “Dilly” Knox was working there on the Enigma project, says The Telegraph. The character of Major Bletchley in her book so alarmed MI5 that it had Knox quietly question her about the name’s origins, to find out if she knew what was happening at Bletchley Park.

Her response: "Bletchley? My dear, I was stuck there on my way by train from Oxford to London and took revenge by giving the name to one of my least lovable characters."

Twitter buys up social analytics company

Twitter is in talks with social analytics company Bluefin, over a deal that could bring better insights as Twitter tries to build revenue based on its user and data base. The $70m deal might be just the life raft Bluefin's founders were looking for because, as AllThingsDigital notes, "people familiar with the company said that it has had trouble peddling its analytics services to big brands, so selling now makes sense".