Stories by Elizabeth Fish

If you're a gamer who plays titles that use the Steam platform from Valve, you may want to keep a close eye on your personal data.

iPhone users, rejoice! It appears that iOS 5 has it a hidden option to let you create panoramic photos.

Earlier in the month, Geek Tech reported on the iOS 5 jailbreak, which dropped less than 24 hours after Apple announced the latest software update. Like any new jailbreak, it's only constraint (other than not working on an iPad 2) was that you have to tether your device to a computer to boot it--annoying if your phone stops working when you are not near your computer. Since the initial release developers have been working to improve the hack, and now a tether-free version is slowly coming to light.

If the newest update to CyanogenMod wasn't enough to keep you occupied this week, here's some more news for cellphone tinkerers: You can now jailbreak iOS 5 using the Redsn0w version 0.9.9b5.

Do you happen to be one of those people that really love Mac OS X Lion? Or perhaps, on the other end of the spectrum, you feel Lion's a bit too much like iOS? Well, now it's more than just similar, because if you happen to have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can now make sure that Lion never leaves your side, with a bit of clever hacking.

Have you ever been geocaching? While it may seem a little lame to those who haven't, there is a slight thrill to being able to track down a hidden item using only clues and a set of co-ordinates from the person who put it there. Still sounds a little uninteresting? How about geocaching in space?

Everyone loves a good tablet hack -- after all, look at all the interest in hacking the Nook Color and the HP Touchpad. So it's no surprise that iOS devices have been successfully hacked to run Linux.

Earlier today (Monday), Apple released iOS 4.3.5, a security update that patches a flaw in its handling of security certificates. If you're looking to jailbreak 4.3.5, though, here's some good news: "MuscleNerd" of the iPhone Dev Team decided he would check to see if Redsn0w would successfully jailbreak the minor update. You can, however there are still a few pitfalls.

The Nook Color getting hacked isn't exactly new -- there are plenty of Nook Color hacks now, from installing different versions of Android to improving battery life or storage space. It's pretty exciting, then, when someone tests out a totally different OS, that also looks quite impressive on the Barnes & Noble e-reader.

Happy Geek Pride Day! May 25 is here, and while the date coincides with other events such as the 1977 theatrical release of Star Wars: A New Hope, Towel Day, and a celebration of Terry Prachett's Discworld, it's a day to bask in being a geek. But just to make sure, you may want to check the GeekTech list of things a good geek should own or know. If you have or know a few of these things, congratulations. If you don't, see this as a shopping list of what you need.

It there's one thing really irritating about leaving your iPhone out with friends, it's when they unlock to unleash all kinds of madness (usually on your Facebook) while your back's turned. You can always use a passcode, but maybe it's time to add an extra step to the "Slide to Unlock" screen, by adding facial recognition.

There are now hundreds of Microsoft Kinect hacks in the hacking community right now. When you have hacks such as the Super Saiyan impersonator and the robot controller too, it didn't take too long for someone to figure out how to control a rocket launcher connected to the Kinect with just their hands.

Earlier this month, we wrote about a quirky new character profile Website, EightBit.me. Even if you've never heard of Eightbit.me, there's a good chance that you know what Digg.com is. The relation between the two? They were both designed by the same guy.

Following the news that the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan might be emitting dangerous levels of radiation, workers and officials have only been permitted to get so close to the reactors.

If there was one thing that made me jealous when watching Apple's iPad 2 unveiling event last month, it was the really sweet Smart Cover. Not only because it is essentially a spacesuit for the iPad 2, but the cool use of the magnets to turn the tablet on and it's useful flexibility (though not so much the luminous colors). Imagine my disgust then when I discovered it was only for the new slimmer model, leaving out us iPad 1 owners. Not any more.