55,000+ Piece LEGO Wall Tickles Our Inner Geek.

Think you’re a LEGO whiz kid? A few determined chaps at a Hamburg, Germany company (NPIRI) spent a solid year putting together the LEGO wall you see above. In total there are over 55,000 individual LEGO pieces making for the ultimate nerd wall. Think you can top it?

‘Nother shot after the break.

PSA: Unlock That iPhone 4S for T-Mobile, Maybe. [Rumor]

Rumor has it that there is an unlock that has been discovered for the iPhone 4S running iOS 5 – without a jailbreak. I personally cannot test this, but from what the interwebs has been saying, it works. Some users have had to attempt the hack multiple times to get it working, but eventually it yields you an unlock.

Please test this at your own risk, I can’t say whether or not this can cause any damage. I would suggest either waiting for an ultrasn0w unlock or purchasing a full price unlocked iPhone from Apple.

Jump past for the instructions…

The Snowboard With An iPad And Aluminum Body — The iShred.

Apple-atic. Check. Snowboarder. Check. iPad inside of said snowboard. Che-what? Introducing: iShred.

Designed and built by Every Third Thursday, the iShred is one of the most advanced snowboards ever created. Not only is the bottom made entirely out of aluminum, theres a fully functioning iPad on the top and an illuminated signal logo on the bottom. According to ETT, the iShred’s aluminum-clad underside makes it a rocket, but it “weighs a ton” and doesn’t turn well. Minor issues, right?

Minimalistic, sleek, and geeky. Well done ETT. Video of the design/build/test process after the break.

Specs Revealed: HTC Quattro Quad Core Tablet.

HTC’s recently announced Quattro tablet will be the company’s first foray into 4-core mobile computing. But they won’t be alone. A handful of Android manufacturers are putting the finishing touches on their next-gen quad-core hardware in an effort to kick of 2012 with a bang! With that said, the Quattro is now spec-less no more. According to PocketNow, the Quattro will feature 1 GB of RAM, Bluetooth 4.0/WiFi (2.4 + 5 GHz), 16 GB of storage + microSD, and a 10.1-inch 1024 x 768 display. Power will of course be provided by Nvidia’s AP30 Tegra 3 SOC. The front and rear cameras come in at 1.3 and 2 megapixels respectively while video recording capabilities are reportedly 1080p Full HD and 720p rear/front.

Early 2012 is the scheduled release. If we happen to see one of these fine examples of bleeding edge geekery strolling around CES in January, we’ll be sure to snap a few pics.

45 Global Carriers Come Together, Agree Upon NFC For Mobile Payment Standard.

Mobile wallets/payment systems are now one step closer to sharing a globally agreed upon standard. Today the GSMA announced 45 different cellular carriers from around the world have officially endorsed NFC, specifically SIM-based NFC, as “the” mobile payment standard moving forward. (SIM-based NFC is simply NFC tech built into a SIM card.)

Two of the big names behind the agreement include China Unicom and China Mobile, but include many more:

• América Móvil, AT&T, AVEA, Axiata, AXIS, Bharti Airtel, Bouygues Telecom, CSL, Deutsche Telekom, Elisa Corporation, Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company PJSC (du), Etisalat, Everything Everywhere, Globe Telecom, KPN, KT Corporation, Maxis, Mobily, MTS, Orange, Proximus, Qtel Group, Rogers Communications, Saudi Telecom Company (STC), SFR, SK Telecom, Smart, SOFTBANK MOBILE, Telecom Italia, Telecom New Zealand, Telecom Slovenije, Telefónica, Telekom Austria Group, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Telus, TMN, Turkcell, Verizon, VimpelCom, VIVA Bahrain and Vodafone Group

It’s also worth noting that “ISIS”, ” an organisation formed by AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless to build a nationwide mobile commerce network in the United States”, have also vocalized support for the NFC standard.

While there are still many more carriers whom haven’t commented on NFC and mobile payments yet, it’s a big step in the right direction. If everyone could agree on a single technology it means more interoperability between hardware and carriers for consumers on a level most likely never seen before.

Audium Is The Sexiest iOS Music Player We’ve Ever Laid Eyes Upon.

Ever since Apple relaxed iOS developer restrictions on “copying functionality of core Apple apps”, we’ve seen some great additions. In the browser realm there have been several 3rd party browsers such as Opera and Dolphin that while not perfect, bring their own unique features to the table.

As far as music apps go, iOS is full of them. But one particular app that caught our eye over at Beautiful Pixels is a new Music.app replacement by the name of Audium (AudiumApp.com) that is simply…gorgeous. A big focus is put on full-album listening and album art, with controls being relegated to touch/gesture based.

Album Navigation:

• Swipe left or right to scroll your albums | Swipe down to reveal the album name | Double-tap an album to begin playback

Song Navigation:

• Double-tap to toggle between play & pause | Swipe right for the next track | Swipe left for the previous track | Swipe up or down to adjust the volume

We’ve only been using Audium for ~15 minutes but are already in love with how it looks and operates. Our only grip is that there isn’t any shuffle function. And if we’re to be really honest, we love having a couple of social sharing buttons included in-app. But again, those features would go against the app’s main goal — to bring people back to listening to full albums and ultimately, simplicity.

At $0.99 we’d say it’s worth a shot.

• Audium: iTunes Link

Update

We’ve just gotten a handy tip from the devs over at Audium about the first big update — Shuffle, Twitter integration and…Last.fm — shout out to all the srcobblers!

[Update] Alleged iChat Mentions Hidden In iOS Source Code.

We’ve heard a time or two before about Apple bringing some kind of iChat functionality to iOS. The multi-account IM service is pretty decent on Mac, and given the increasingly on-the-go lifestyle the world is employing, iChat would be a perfect fit on iOS.

Developer John Heaton may have just unearthed the early stages of iChat for iOS with the code above. While it doesn’t actually come out with the name “iChat”, the various services listed certainly lead us to believe so.

Apple hasn’t made any mention of iChat for iOS — it’s all been rumors up until now. Is this the first “leak”? If Apple is actively working on iChat for iOS, it would no doubt be a major marketing feature for a new OS, say iOS 6. So how would it work?

If we take into consideration Apple’s general approaches to software design and service integration, we see the “Messages” app on iOS becoming the so-called “iChat” on Apple’s mobile platform. They’ve already blended two services (SMS and iMessages) into the Messages app, why not a few more? In the end, we think Apple’s mobile version of iChat will work similar to how webOS’ messaging does/did — you will see contacts in a chat window with each message having some small indicator telling which service they talked to you with. This all in one window approach makes the act of communicating with people more natural as you don’t have to jump around between 50 different apps to carry on a conversation as you move from desktop to mobile phone to tablet.

All we can say is “Please hurry, Apple”.

Update

According to an update on Apple blog 9to5 Mac, the code above isn’t specific to iOS and was likely copied from the OS X:

“We’ve run this by a few developers who’ve seen this before. Their take is that it is code copied from desktop OS X and may not be indicative of new features. Basically, Apple has a general messaging framework called “ChatKit.” This framework covers text chat and video conferencing. FaceTime, iChat, and iMessage apps are all based on this framework, furthermore some code references will spill over between apps. The image above is simply a list of the Apple software built on top of this chat framework.”

Damn.