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I've had a few weeks to get acquainted with Siri and I have to admit she's pretty useless to me. I'm tired of her telling me, "I don't know what you mean by..." because she doesn't understand my lisp, or because I tend to mumble. I've struggled to have her set reminders and direct me to friend's homes, and it seems like her solution for everything is doing a web search. Thanks Siri, but I know how to Google!

I know Siri is in beta right now and she is only going to get better, but I don't think she will ever be a useful tool for me personally. Maybe I'm just not creative enough to use her to her full potential or I just feel weird talking to my phone. Whatever our problem is, I hope things work out between us professionally in the future, but until then we can at least have a little fun right?

Apple submits plenty of patents every year that never see the light of day, but a recent filing published in the database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Dec. 22 has a lot of people overly excited. Application 20110311895, filed in August 2010, reveals that Apple is looking into hydrogen fuel cell technology. Hydrogen fuel cells would allow batteries to last for weeks without recharging, and would also make devices lighter and slimmer. Too bad it is years away from reality.

Even Apple acknowledges in their patent application that “it is extremely challenging to design hydrogen fuel cell systems which are sufficiently portable and cost-effective to be used with portable electronic devices.” Hydrogen fuel cells would also be friendlier to the environment eliminating the use of toxic chemicals for hydrogen.

Thanks to pod2g and the iPhone Dev-Team it's now possible to jailbreak the iPhone 4 and all models of the Phone 3GS untethered. Although iPhone 4S and iPad 2 owners are still waiting for an A5 jailbreak, all iOS devices running iOS 5.0.1 with A4 hardware can now be jailbroken untethered. This includes the original iPad, iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G.

Using redsn0w to jailbreak is a straightforward process, and will install the Cydia app store on your device. This opens up a whole new world of tweaks and apps to improve your iPhone experience and customize operation. Be sure that before you proceed with the instructions, you have installed the iOS 5.0.1 firmware update.

iOS hackers chpwn and Ryan Petrich have released Spire, a new installer that will bring Siri to your jailbroken iOS device without any copyright concerns. Spire is available in Cydia right now, but uses 100 MB of data, so make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi before installing. You will also need to enter your own proxy server address for it to work. Chpwn created a list of suggestions in case you need help.

If you already own an iPhone 4S or know someone else who does, setting up a proxy should be easier. If you do not have access to an iPhone 4S you will have to be more creative. Chpwn admits Spire is "far from perfect" but it's a positive step towards bringing Siri to other iOS devices besides the iPhone 4S.

Thanks to the hard work of pod2g the untethered iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak is finally here. He shared his exploits with the iPhone Dev-Team and Chronic Dev Team, and now there's a suite of tools for anyone running iOS 5.0.1 on a non-A5 device. This is great news for jailbreakers, however it also means that iPhone 4S and iPad 2 owners are still waiting for an untethered jailbreak.

First off, the redsn0w jailbreak tool has been updated to 0.9.10b1 on OS X and Windows. This new version of redsn0w requires iOS 5.0.1 installed on your device, and will jailbreak the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (GSM), iPhone 4 (CDMA), original iPad, iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G untethered.