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Motorola Hacker Rewards Program

Posted by michael on from the some-disassembly-required dept.

Nuclear Elephant writes "Pen Computing Magazine recently ran an article about the Motorola v710, which has been crippled by Verizon. A hacking contest is now underway, and the pot is steadily growing. The first hacker to provide a hack (or instructions) to enable OBEX and OPP features on the handset before Jan 1 wins the pot. See the official site for more information." We mentioned this phone a few days ago.

4 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Does the prize include by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lawyers fees for the DMCA lawsuit from Verizon?

    1. Re:Does the prize include by erick99 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I worked for one of the top three cell phone companies from April until August of this year (I resigned on Aug 12th). You would not believe this industry from the inside. First they shoot themselves in the foot by selling phones for a penny that costs them several hundred dollars. Then, they try to get it back by selling all sorts of "extras." The billing errors alone probably make up some of the lost profit. I did not see a single billing error on any of my screens that were in favor of a customer. My own bill for my two boys were off by $150/month for three months in the carriers favor. The pressure to get new "activations" is enormous. You are directed to say almost anything to get a new activation and then they deal with the lies on the backend. If you choose not to lie, as I did, they make your life almost unbearable. I did make a good income and I could have continued. But, I got so that I didn't like myself much anymore.

      Cheers,

      Erick

      --
      http://www.busyweather.com/
  2. Verizon known for crippling phones by __aaitqo8496 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Verizon is known for doing this type of things with thier phones. Entire communities have been created to discuss the problems and find workarounds. Just taking a look around at Howard forums and you can come up with tools such as the balpatch which was created in an attempt to take control of the Motorola T720 for loading of pics and tones. Despite a user outcry and many letters written to them in complaint of abandoning JAVA in favor of BREW (a proprietary Qualcomm language), Verizon cares not.

  3. Re:Take my money - please by ElGuapoGolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't get it: Verizon has rabidly faithful customers already. They do a great job with the high-speed data service. Why don't they go the last mile and carry a decent Bluetooth phone? It's not like I'm asking for it for free - I'll *give* them the money, they just won't take it....

    It's all about the extras. If they gave you a fully functional Bluetooth phone, with a functional OBEX profile, you wouldn't have to use their Get-It-Now service to send yourself the pictures you've taken using the camera phone you bought from Verizon. Could you imagine, getting your photos off your phone(which you paid for) for free? It'd almost make that .3 megapixel picture somewhat compelling. And I know you can do it with the transwhatever card that's in the phone, but imagine how nice it would be to do it wirelessly...

    But that's not all. If you had Java on the phone, instead of that redheaded stepchild BREW, you could use bluetooth to send yourself the games you've bought in the past for your older phones. And Verizon wouldn't make a penny! Could you imagine the horror of getting to use your old games and Verizon not making a penny out of that, other than the initial cost of selling you the game?

    But wait, there's even more! If you had multiple cellular phones, you could take a ringtone from off your fiance's phone and send it to yours! For free! Verizon wouldn't make a penny, except for the money they made when they sold you the ringtone to begin with. The horror.