Where Cellphones Go After They Die: A Photo Essay

Technology Review has a fascinating photo tour of a ReCellular facility, where many of the phones "traded in" for new ones end up. Dealing with thousand of phones at a time, the workers are charged with figuring out which phones can be reused, which can be broken down into their component materials and which are just plain useless. The photography is stunning, and you're just about guaranteed to see at least one of the models you used to carry (or maybe still do) nestled among of the piles and piles of disused handsets. Most interesting is the undignified, molten fate met by parts of the least lucky StarTracs and Nokia bricks, pictured after the jump.

iPhone Dev Team Releases PwnageTool 2.0.3, Jailbreaks Latest 2.0.2 Firmware

This release adds support for Pwning the 2.0.2 5C1 firmware on the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as an update to the latest version of Installer.app. Mac-only for now but, as usual, just sit tight for a few days.

Six Fun Things to Do With Serious Military Hardware at a Russian Armaments Show

The International Defense Exhibition of Land Forces went down in Moscow this past weekend, and it seems like it was a pretty a great time, judging from these photos sent in to our good friends at English Russia. First stop, obviously, is to strap on the Tevas and nautical print Hawaiian shirt for a quick sit in this bad-ass anti-aircraft (I think?) battery. And as you can imagine, that's not all the fun to be had for the whole family with all the heavy weapons around.

You could also have a refreshing break with a water bottle next to this Dok-Ing Croatian mine-sweeper.

Give the kids a chance to see what it's like to look down the firing sights of a shoulder-launched missile.

Or, better yet, the sights of this gigantic cannon.

Fondly stroke a grenade launcher, perhaps.

Or stand on the business end of some pretty demonic-looking UAVs on their launch sleds.

Plenty more fun to be had over at: [English Russia]

Would You Ever Consider Using a Palmtop MID?

At the Intel Developer Forum last week, a lot of the buzz on the demo floor was around new Atom hardware. There were the requisite netbooks and EeeClones floating around, but it seemed like peculiar little quasi-computers, or palmtop Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) stole the show. Sure, it's impressive to see a full, net-connected Vista or Ubuntu desktop running on something the size of a Sega Game Gear, but who exactly is supposed to use these? I played with as many of them as I could (see which ones in the gallery below), and they are impressive, as least as feats of engineering. But as usable consumer devices? Not so much. None of the manufacturers have figured out exactly how we are supposed to interact with these machines, implementing half-baked touch controls, keyboards that suit neither your thumbs nor multiple fingers, and hardware that is too small to use for a long period of time but too bulky to fit in your pocket. Oh yeah, and projected prices range from $500 to well in excess of $1000. That said, I've got a different needs than a lot of users, and I'm exceptionally curmudgeonly for my age, so I'll pass it it you.