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Security Expert: “Mac OS X Is Safer, But Less Secure”

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Tech site H-Online has an interesting story today, quoting security expert Charlie Miller about his forthcoming talk at the CanSecWest conference next week.
He says OS X is full of security holes. There are lots more than in Windows, he claims.
And yet: OS X is a safer system to use. Why? Because, in the words [...]

Apple Devotes Entire Home Page To Jerome York Obituary

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If ever you needed a sign that Apple was a different kind of technology company, this is it.
What other computer manufacturer would remove its top-selling, hype-inducing, industry-altering new product from the prime spot on its website home page, and replace it with an obituary to an investor?
This is one of those “Here’s to the [...]

Coming Soon: Steve Jobs, the Sitcom

Fake Steve creator Dan Lyons just signed a deal to bring Steve Jobs to another small screen near you.
The half-hour series called “iCon” is billed by the presser as “a savage satire centering on a fictional Silicon Valley CEO whose ego is a study in power and greed.”
Making sure the barbs prick will be the [...]

What’s Next For the iPad? A Tabletop iPad, According to Xerox PARC Circa 1991

Way back in 1991, just as Apple was transitioning from 68k to PowerPC chips, the braniacs at Xerox PARC were predicting it’s entire iPod, iPhone and iPad strategy. And next up for the iPad is a blackboard-sized device.
Nearly 20 years ago, just as personal desktop computers were taking off, researchers at Xerox started thinking about [...]

An Audio Augmented Reality Game I’d Like To Play

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Russell Davies does lots of things that are interesting, including, um, Interesting and Newspaper Club and a bunch of other stuff, but the other week he did a talk at the Playful event in London, culminating in this fabulous mock-up of an augmented reality game using an iPhone.

The idea is genius: you start playing the game with one tap, and after that you don’t have to look at the device at all. You walk around with your earphones in, and it alerts you with sounds when there’s stuff to interact with. This video explains it better:

SAP from russelldavies on Vimeo.

It’s called Situated Audio Platform, or SAP. It’s augmented reality based on sound; a virtual world wrapped round our existing one, but one you listen to, not one you have to watch on screen.

Russell’s example shows interactions like finding hidden virtual objects, or destroying nearby virtual baddies. Think about it for a moment: suddenly you’re not just playing a game, you’re inside the game. It happens around you while you’re ambling down the street to the shops, or hanging out in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

Think of some other possibilities:

  • a platformer level whereby the iPhone instructs you to leap to the left to avoid an incoming Goomba
  • a racing element where the iPhone detects several players standing within a few feet to one another, and instructs all of them to run to a point 200 feet away, ready steady GO!
  • a treasure hunt aspect, where you can “drop” files from your phone (sounds, images, whatever) in the real world, ready for someone to find later (and perhaps return to you to win a prize)

Augmented reality is growing fast and is going to be huge, I have no doubt. There are already a few augmented reality games in the App Store; but Russell’s concept is different from anything else I’ve seen out there. (If anyone’s seen something something similar on the Store already, please mention it in the comments.)

I’ll leave you to read Russell’s full post to get a proper idea of what he’s trying to say. It’s well worth 10 minutes of your time.

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About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He is a columnist for PA, and has written for the BBC, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, MacUser, Macworld, and The Morning News. He has a blog you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

Email the author | Read more posts by Giles Turnbull.

2 comments

    Silly “high tech” motive with annoying pinball machine noises. Pass. Big time.

    think of the possibilities

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