Nokia just announced a competition looking for hackers and modders in the US to submit ideas to transform the Nokia N900 into something else. The top three ideas will be chosen from the ideas submitted by a panel of judges, after which the finalist teams will be provided with a Nokia N900 and some support to actually build their mod. Cash prizes range from USD 3,000 to USD 10,000.

2G/3G Mode Selection Applet works exactly as it sounds. Installing this applet adds 3 buttons to the Nokia N900′s status menu that lets the user change between 2G only, 3G only, or Dual (3G priority) connection. This is a really quick way to change modes without going through other settings. I made a video to show you how it looks.

The Nokia N900 received a minor update on Monday to prepare for the major update released just now. The Maemo team is calling the update Maemo 5 PR1.1, but the version number is 2.2009.51-1. Nokia has provided the official changelog and wow it is long!

The Ovi Store for Maemo just arrived for the Nokia N900 and some users already found a way to bypass the payment gateway. An example is that users were able install the extra level for Angry Birds that costs $3 directly from the Nokia N900 for free. I’m assuming Nokia found about the security breach right away because the extra level is no longer listed at the store.

Nokia N900 users who updated to 1.2009.44-1 earlier today and clicked on the Ovi store icon were met with the same old “coming soon” page. However, going to store.ovi.mobi directly on the web browser now actually lets you install apps, games, audios, videos, themes, and wallpapers. If you don’t have a Nokia N900, I’ve made a video to show you how it looks.