Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announced that all of their popular iPhone and iPod touch titles, including their latest title Field Prowlers POLICE RUSH!, are available for 99 cents on the App store now through November 30th. To view the full lineup of the titles, please see below:

* Field Prowlers POLICE RUSH! - In this all-new exciting car chase game, players assume the role of a police officer sworn to protect and serve by chasing down criminals and arresting them. Gamers will draw lines on the touch panel with their finger and guide their two patrol cars to hunt down bomber vehicles on the run from the law. To succeed, players will have to capture all the criminals across 30 missions over several distinct stages.

* Frogger - Help guide one of Konami’s most beloved characters safely across the highway while avoiding oncoming traffic and other obstacles.

* Metal Gear Solid Touch - The award-winning commercial warfare adventure brings Old Snake to the iPhone though five chapters spanning 20 stages in which familiar enemies attempt to keep Snake from accomplishing his mission.

* Silent Hill: The Escape - Enter the fear-provoking town of Silent Hill where players must solve puzzles, uncover dark secrets and gather clues to avoid grotesque monsters and survive.

* Silent Scope - Players will fight to save the President and the First Family from terrorists by using their marksmanship skills in this fast-paced rail shooter.

* Krazy Kart Racing - Pick one of ten classic Konami heroes and speed across 16 themed racing circuits in this 3D cartoon styled racer.

* DanceDanceRevolution S - In this addictive music rhythm game, choose from up to three gameplay modes with 26 songs and 18 playable characters.

* DanceDanceRevolution S+ - Groove in classic DDR style, but with an added bonus of being able to download new tunes to tap to on the go.

* Power Pros Touch - Experience the crowd cheers, fight songs and over 120 variations of play-by-play baseball commentary as players chose from 25 to 162 game seasons.

All of the titles listed above are available now through November 30th for 99 cents at the App store for the iPhone and iPod touch. For more information and assets, please visit http://www.konami.com/downloads/.

“There are some pessimistic views over the marketability and profitability of the devices. Except for some ‘Apple maniacs,’ chances are low that the handsets will penetrate into the minds of general customers,” an official at SK Telecom said, Monday.

LG and Samsung have smartphones that are technologically competitive with the iPhone and selling at significantly lower prices. The Korean iPhone at KT will be priced between 750,000 won (about $642) and 850,000 won (about $727). The Telecoms regulator in the country has given the go signal for the iPhone. The iPhone has also been exempt to use its own mapping software. Korean law states that mobiles should use local software and technology for GPS and maps.

[sources: reuters, koreatimes]

The article mainly centers on the history of iphone jailbreaking and unlocking with George Hultz, or better known as master Geohot in the iPhone jailbreak community, as the focal character. It talks of how the jailbreak movement has grown and changed, the birth of Cydia courtesy of Jay Freeman (aka Saurik) to rival the App Store, and why Apple can’t legally put a stop to the jailbreak movement.

It’s a pretty interesting piece if you want to know more about the iPhone jailbreak front, and I strongly agree with the quote they got from JerseyBama of Soundoff:

“I’m convinced Steve Jobs is two people - one is a genius, the other is an idiot. If he had not locked the iPhone into AT&T, almost everyone would be using an iPhone today.”

For those who wan to unlock their iPhones, you can to try the blacksn0w iPhone unlock, the only unlock that works with iPhone 3.1.2 firmware complete with baseband 05.11.07. For jailbreaking, you can either use Geohot’s blackra1n iPhone jailbreak or the iPhone Dev Team’s iPhone 3.1.2 jailbreak.

Do be careful though as it’s been discovered that a juvenile Rick Astley iPhone worm and a more serious Privacy.A iPhone Worm are now floating around.

[via cnn]

According to this rather enlightening CNET article, netbooks are not to be compared with laptops. Rather, think of netbooks as smartphone with a bigger screen and a QWERTY keypad you can actually speed type on.

… students in K through 12 are accustomed to iPhone-size screens and performance. So moving to a Netbook is a big step up. From this perspective, the screens are large, the keyboards expansive, and the performance more than adequate.

Of course, many people already know that (the original contenders were iPhone and Asus Eee PC). I know a friend who said he would never buy a never because he had already bought an iPod Touch. But most people would say this, I don’t need a netbook, I have an iPod Touch (or an iPhone). No one ever said I don’t need an iPod Touch or an iPhone because I already have a netbook. Do you feel the same way?

[read]

Taken last November 11th, the Motorola Droid accounts for 1.49% mobile internet traffic in the US. That may seem small, but that’s actually 25% of total Android traffic in the country which is quite remarkable considering that it has only been available for barely a week. The iPhone still stands tall as its responsible for 52.09% web traffic in the US and further improves outside the country with 63.21% share. The Motorola Droid is still 0% outside the US, but this will soon change as the Motorola Milestone is expected to debut both in Europe and Canada in the coming months.

The Droid is truly shaping up to be quite a winner for Motorola. Hopefully though, it won’t be a one-hit wonder.

[clicky, bgr via cellphones etc]

[via iphone dev team]

The second iPhone worm of the week carries with it a lot more risk than the first one. According to Intego Security, this new iPhone worm that is known as iPhone/Privacy.A uses the same hole that ikeeex found a few days ago to change the hacked iPhones’ background image into Rick Astley’s photo. The new iPhone worm, however, is a more serious one because it allows the hacker to install software without going through iTunes.

The new worm bypasses iTunes in jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches and copy private data. These data include e-mail, contacts, SMSs, photos, music files, videos, calendar entries and saved data from apps. Intego explains:

Hackers using this tool will install it on a computer – Mac, PC, Unix or Linux – then let it work. It scans the network accessible to it, and when it finds a jailbroken iPhone, breaks into it, then steals data and records it.

This hacker tool could easily be installed, for example, on a computer on display in a retail store, which could then scan all iPhones that pass within the reach of its network. Or, a hacker could sit in an Internet café and let his computer scan all iPhones that come within the range of the wifi network in search of data. Hackers could even install this tool on their own iPhones, and use it to scan for jailbroken phones as they go about their daily business.

Intego recommends its own VirusBarrier X5 for the iPhone/Privacy.A malware. Also, you can simply change the SSH password. iPhone jailbreak is common to six to eight per cent of iPhone users.

[intego via mobilecrunch]

Apple became the world’s most profitable handset vendor in Q3 2009. Fueled by strong volumes, high wholesale prices and tight cost controls, the PC vendor has successfully broken into the mobile phone market in just two years. What can Nokia do to regain the number one position?

Apple’s operating profit during Q3 2009 is at 1.6 billion surpassing Nokia’s $1.1 billion for the same quarter. Please note that operating profits are different from sales volume, and sales from the iTunes App Store may have spiked the revenues for the iPhone. Nevertheless, the iPhone’s profitability bode well for Apple’s future dominance in the mobile hardware industry.

[via gigaom]

The Apple iPhone in the U.K. has officially stopped being exclusive to O2 starting today. Orange is offering subsidized iPhones and pay-as-you go but will not compete with fees that O2 is currently offering. So it’s a level game there in Britain for both iPhone providers. Forecast from Mediacells is saying that a million iPhones will be operated through the Orange network providing revenues of £795,065,695.77. Yes, Medicell rocks on research if they can forecast the last cent earned from iPhones. The insight company lowers its projections for the Orange iPhone depending on cost for unit with £250 per unit projected to bring in £500,000,000.

Already there are 250,000 pre-subscriptions for the Orange iPhone. If these pre-subscriptions all sold during today’s launch, Orange will be second to AT&T’s first iPhone weekend.

[sources: pocket-lint, gomonews]

And AT&T is suing them for misrepresenting their network coverage:

In essence, we believe the ads mislead consumers into believing that AT&T doesn’t offer ANY wireless service in the vast majority of the country. In fact, AT&T’s wireless network blankets the US, reaching approximately 296M people. Additionally, our 3G service is available in over 9,600 cities and towns. Verizon’s misleading advertising tactics appear to be a response to AT&T’s strong leadership in smartphones. We have twice the number of smartphone customers… and we’ve beaten them two quarters in a row on net post-paid subscribers. We also had lower churn — a sign that customers are quite happy with the service they receive. More from Engadget.

Verizon, on the other hand, just keeps on twisting that 3G coverage knife with two more ads: