Whatis the hottest thing to hack these days? According to a Wired News article titled IPod [sic]: Music to Hackersi Ears, the iPod gets the nod from the hacking world. It seems that many coders like the iPod and want it to do more than play music and list phone numbers. From the article:

In the last few months, hackers have figured out clever ways to store not only names and addresses on the iPod but calendar items, song lyrics and even phrases in foreign languages.

The iPod, which must be the hottest gadget on the planet, has also been made to work with Windows. Itis supposed to be Mac-only, but EphPod is a free program that allows iPods to connect to Windows machines; Mediafouris Xplay, currently in beta, is a commercial program that does the same thing. Griffin Technology recently developed the PodMate , which allows the iPod to function as a TV remote control by plugging a small infrared unit into the headphone jack. Griffin was planning to sell it, but withdrew it from the market at Appleis request.

An enterprising Japanese hacker has even made a boom box out of an iPod.

Thereis even a 14 year old who wrote a hack so that the iPod can show Internet based news headlines. The full article is a very good read.