Lonnie Lazar - page 18

Have you ever tried reading in the car and gotten a headache, or even sick to your stomach? For just 99¢ you can get that feeling anywhere, any time with SkyCoaster 3D on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

SkyCoaster 3D makes effective use of panoramic photography by Gavin Farrell and iPhone’s 3D rendering engine to create a fully customizable rollercoaster experience right on your mobile device. Users can tweak parameters such as height, track length, and acceleration, as well as adjust the ride’s loop-the-loop, corkscrew and downward spiral effects.

The app comes with a built-in techno soundtrack to heighten (or, if you prefer, enhance) its vertiginous effects, or a track from the device’s iPod can be used. The precise map of every ride is randomly generated, so each ride is unique.

Barf bags sold separately.

UPDATE: v1.1 of SkyCoaster 3D released early Friday and v1.1 makes it even easier to induce barfing. The track is more detailed (with links that run perpendicularly to the rails), which gives a greater sensation of speed. Also, you can look around during the ride, and even ride the roller coaster with your back facing forward.

Image: Thomas Hawk

Teens are apt to disregard requests (and even orders) from their elders and will often turn the volume on their iPods louder when told to turn it down, according to a new study published by the Colorado Daily Thursday.

Shocking inferences of teen rebelliousness and even disregard for their own hearing health come from a University of Colorado study of 29 metro-area Denver teens who participated in a survey about their iPod use and attitudes toward music.

A 2006 study conducted in Boston by Cory Portnuff, now a CU audiologist and doctoral candidate, showed listening to iPods on maximum volume for more than 5 minutes a day increases one’s risk of hearing loss. Portuff’s new study confirmed long-held suspicions such as:

* teenagers who feel like they wouldn’t enjoy their music as much on low volume tended to listen loud

* teens turn up their iPods to drown out the soundtrack of the surrounding environment

* teens who indicated the most concern about hearing loss from iPods played their music louder than their peers.

While no one in the study preferred the highest volume, the evidence showed between 7 percent and 24 percent of the teens listened to their iPods and MP3 players at risky levels, and boys listened slightly louder than girls across the board.

Well. That didn’t take long.

Just Tuesday we reported on the sad news that Apple decided a South Park iPhone app that allowed downloading of episode clips would be “potentially offensive,” and so barred it from distribution in the AppStore.

Here’s a how-to video for all the jailbreaking criminals out there who just can’t live without South Park on the iPhone.

Dude has pretty good taste in music and a very easy-going instructional manner. If you’re willing to flaunt “the law” he shows you how to download South Park episodes to your iPhone and even how to put ’em on your PC.

iPhone developer Jason Cross has the antidote to the nine thousand fart apps available on the AppStore, an ingenious application called iFreshener.

FIGHT BACK against Fart app inanity!

Simply launch iFreshener and touch the screen. Using its non-patent-pending psychosomatic virtual smell nonenzymes, iFreshener will make you and those around you feel like better smells are on the way.

Among the reasons Cross touts for spending 99¢ on his app:

* iFreshener costs less than the average name-brand non-virtual air freshener

* Non-virtual air fresheners eventually run out of air freshening chemicals. iFreshener’s virtual smell nonenzymes never run out (so long as you keep your iPhone/iPod charged).

* iFreshener won’t blind you if accidentally sprayed towards your face.

* Free updates for life are included with iFreshener.

Do you get free lifetime updates with real world non-virtual air fresheners? I think not!

Image courtesy TUAW

The bottom line to the story here is clear: after Friday Boxee users will no longer be able to stream Hulu content through Boxee’s media center platform.

What’s less clear is who holds the cards in the deal — is it Boxee, Hulu, or the content providers on whom both of them depend for existence — and who will win in the end.

As usual, consumers, at least in the short run, get the short end of the stick.

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar put the best face on things in a blog post Wednesday, saying, “we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence,” while admitting that without Hulu’s content partners’ content “none of what Hulu does would be possible.”

A Boxee spokesman told Cult of Mac, “our goal has always been to drive users to legal sources of content that are publicly available on the Internet.” He said as a bridge between the converging worlds of traditional and online media Boxee can be a revenue generator for both content streamers such as Hulu, as well as for original providers. “We have many content partners who are generating revenue from boxee users and we will work with Hulu and their partners to resolve the situation.”

For now, after accounting for the cost of a robust internet connection, consumers can still access content from Netflix, ABC, CBS, MTV and more for free. But where Boxee will fall in the ongoing scrum for ever-tightening consumer dollars among cable providers and network content producers remains to be seen.

Cult reader Flunky Carter shares this interesting survey of his iPhone shot using a webcam’s Night Vision.

Small cracks and stress fractures he says are not visible to the naked eye under normal lighting conditions show Apple’s mobile device takes significant wear and tear in the real world.

Thanks FC!

The long-awaited South Park iPhone app (submitted to Apple last October) has been officially denied AppStore approval, according to Matt Stone, creator of the hit Comedy Central television show, who informed fans in an email to BoignBoing Tueday. “We are sad to say that our [iPhone] app has been rejected. According to Apple, the content was potentially offensive.”

Memo to AppStore Gatekeepers: “Huh?”

The South Park iPhone app was a little something that would have given fans of the show and other users the ability to stream clips, grab wallpapers for the phone, read news, and browse the complete episode index.

A cool feature that would likely have been a big hit with many was the ability to choose character likenesses as “contact images” for the iPhone’s address book. An incoming call from a user’s best friend would display as Kyle or Cartman; the medical marijuana dispensary could be Towelie; Tony Bourdain could be Chef, etc.

This is indeed sad news and further evidence of the persistent inscrutability of Apple’s AppStore approval process, especially in the light of users already being able to purchase entire episodes of the foul-mouthed tv show directly from iTunes.

Via VentureBeat

Designer Tristan Zimmerman has created a unique speaker for your iPhone or iPod that uses no power.

Through passive amplification alone, this unique piece instantly transforms any personal music player + earbuds into a sculptural audio console.

Without the use of external power or batteries, the Phonofone II inventively exploits the virtues of horn acoustics to boost the audio output of standard earphones to up to 55 decibels – or about the max output of typical laptop speakers.

But the Phonophone is only peripherally about sound.

The Phonofone is a clever piece of applied science, a beautiful icon of nostalgia, and an ironic twist on the insular nature of personal listening devices. It is not intended to be used as home stereo system. The device, more a functional work of art than a gadget, is constructed entirely from ceramic, which is not only environmentally low impact, but also inherently rigid and resonant, creating a naturally rich sound ideally suited for the classical, blues and folk music called to mind by its throwback design.

$600 at Charles & Marie.

Here’s an interesting concept for an Apple product by San Francisco artist

Here’s the first touchscreen Mac. Harvey says, “I designed the product from all angles (the back is absent from this page) and set it up on a layout typical to apple.com. Down below there’s also a sloppily thrown together iPhone ][ in a (PRODUCT)RED advert and spliced into Steve Jobs’ hand.”

Check out more of Harvey’s work at deviantART

iFart Mobile, maker of a wildly popular app for iPhone and iPod Touch, asked a court on Friday to rule that it can use the term “pull my finger” without risking trademark infringement claims by another iPhone fart app named, …wait for it, Pull My Finger.

InfoMedia, which developed iFart Mobile, filed a complaint for declaratory judgment in Colorado District Court naming rival Air-O-Matic as defendant after a lawyer from Air-O-Matic demanded $50,000 from InfoMedia for its use of the phrase, according to an InfoMedia blog post.

Apparently, Air-O-Matic first approached Apple with complaints that InfoMedia was guilty of unfair business practices and trademark infringement because it used the term “pull my finger” in a news release and YouTube promo video. Air-O-Matic also asked that iFart Mobile be removed from the iPhone App Store, but Apple told the companies to work it out among themselves, according to a report at Cnet.

Early this year, iFart Mobile was one of the more popular titles on the AppStore, where there are currently over 75 fart-themed titles on offer. The bloom may be off the rose, however, as only iFart (99¢) Mobile and the free app Atomic Fart are in the top 100 downloads of either category.

Apple has filed a response to an Electronic Frontier Foundation request that the US Copyright Office exempt from the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch which violate certain term of Apple’s SDK, describing the very act of “jailbreaking” an iPhone a crime.

The EFF wants the Copyright Office to officially exempt “computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute lawfully obtained software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications with computer programs on the telephone handset.”

The non-profit consumer advocacy organization believes Apple’s efforts to control the software that runs on iPhone is “corporate paternalism” and described them as comparable to an automaker welding shut the hood of its cars to only allow servicing to be done by authorized dealers.

Apple’s extensive response to EFF’s request (available as a PDF) cites, among other things, danger to the device from unauthorized software and increased support costs that result from problems caused by jailbreaking the phone, and asserts that jailbreaking fails all four “nonexclusive statutory fair use factors prescribed in § 107 of the copyright statute,” essentially calling jailbreaking a crime.

The Copyright Office is not expected to rule on EFF’s request until October.

If you’re interested in a detailed rehash of the legal brickbats flying between Apple and EFF over the matter, AppleInsider has a very good discussion of the arguments raised by both sides.

iPhone developer Ralf Ackermann has achieved a working device-to-device Bluetooth solution, according to a report at ArsTechnica.

Building on work developed by Matthias Ringwald, who has put together a user space bluetooth stack, Ackerman has built external adapters that plug into the iPhone’s connector port, accessing the phone’s bluetooth stack in a way that could possibly even comply with the standard iPhone SDK, according to developer/blogger Erica Sadun.

With such capability developers could theoretically build games and utilities that allow phones to transfer data without having to be on the same WiFi network or connect to a server as an intermediary. Users could transfer photos, play chess against each other, shoot over a vcard, and more, using software that could be sold on App Store.

While the iPhone ships with Bluetooth capabilities, they are a limited subset of its normal features. You cannot, for example, connect your Mac to your iPhone and transfer data files.

Don’t hold your breath for Apple to take Ackerman’s lead in this arena, but this, as Sadun notes, is pretty big news and a great step forward for the effort to make iPhones communicate directly with each other.

Via ArsTechnica

Future Audio Workshop has developed a groundbreaking application for iPhone and iPod Touch that may point a way to the future of global music distribution, making other portable formats look like wax cylinders by comparison.

Deadmau5 Remix is a $3 app that lets anyone with a mobile Apple device running iPhone 2.2 (or higher) firmware, regardless of their level of experience, mix and remix every song on a 10 track album by one of the hottest stars in the electronica firmament.

Users can change BPM, control up to four concurrent effects, skip to the next phrase or back to the last one, loop a phrase, and cross fade between the two tracks, or from one to the next.

And since the tool is so easy to use, it lets anyone DJ a dance party by plugging their device into a stereo and getting a groove on.

This app could lead to a wholesale change in the way music is consumed, according to Wired blogger Eliot Van Buskirk, who points out that, because an iPhone app can contain audio, video, images, software, lyrics, web links and games — all of which are updatable from the server side — an $18 CD starts to look fairly ridiculous.

As other mobile phone platforms embrace the app store model, cellphone makers are sure to enable installing apps like this on millions of devices. When that happens, as Van Buskirk writes, a plain old MP3 could seem just that: plain and old.

Via Wired Blog Network

More than a year ago, I was visiting my cousin in Sunnyvale. It just so happens she works at Apple, but that fact is not germane to this story, though I mention it for the sake of serendipity.

She had a little gadget called Perfect Guy or Perfect Man (I forget which) that, when you pressed a button, produced a computerized voice that said things like, “how about if we just cuddle tonight” and “we might be lost, i’ll ask for directions” and “i don’t know how to fix it” – that sort of thing.

I thought it was cute; my six year-old son couldn’t get enough of mashing the button.

Now, just in time for Valentine’s Day, iPhone developer Michael Hill has released Perfect Girl, an app premised on similar lines, available now in the AppStore for 99¢.

Follow after the jump for what you can expect to hear from the Perfect Girl.

Via Gizmodo

I don’t generally put up posts on every single thing that might compete with Apple products in the market place. After all, when you’re number one, everyone is always gunning for you.

But Samsung is a major player in the global mobile phone market and when the company floats an idea such as the Blue Earth Solar Powered phone, I have to sit up and take notice.

Designed to symbolize a “flat and well rounded shiny pebble,” according to the marketing material, Blue Earth features a full touchscreen front and charges up via a solar panel on the back of the phone, purportedly generating enough electronic power to make a call anytime.

What’s more, the case is made from recycled plastic water bottles and the thing has a built-in pedometer that calculates how many CO2 emissions you’ve reduced (and therefore how many trees have been saved) by walking as opposed to taking the car.

The handset and its charger are both free from harmful substances such as Brominated Flame Retardants, Beryllium and Phthalate. Screen brightness, backlight duration and Bluetooth can all be adjusted in an energy-efficient mode called “Eco mode”.

It would be pure speculation on my part to say whether this phone will pose a serious challenge to iPhone’s preeminence in the touchscreen smartphone market, especially as there’s no word yet on its OS and, as everyone knows, the iPhone’s hardware design is elegant and all, but it’s the OS that sets it apart from all others. So, until we know more, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Blue Earth is supposed to be available in the UK in the second half of this year; no pricing or full tech specs available at press time.

As the guys at SlipperyBrick put it, “this is a serious eco-hippie phone.” And even though I’m not a serious eco-hippie, I’m going to go pour myself a bowl of granola and ponder Blue Earth.

Via SlipperyBrick, via PocketLint

Here’s an iPhone concept sent in by an anonymous Cult reader overnight. Looks pretty fly to me, but then I’m still on a PowerBook G4 and an original iPhone.

What say you, dear reader?

Two stories in the iPhone developers ecosystem Thursday illustrate the challenges of navigating the path to fame and fortune on the back of a cleverly written app and its AppStore sales.

First comes news from AppCubby, whose experiment with 99¢ pricing we reported on a few weeks ago, saying, indeed, selling apps for 99¢ and depending on voluntary donations to cover the gap between success and failure is, for AppCubby anyhow, unsustainable.

Blogger/developer Erica Sadun relates how Apple’s own Department of AppStore Security is quashing some innovative developer marketing efforts and refusing to approve any app that advertises a contest or promises prizes or awards in the app itself or in its AppStore description.

Sadun uses the example of iFartMobile’s currently selling app, which advertises a $5000 prize to one lucky user for submitting a winning video of the app in action, saying Apple’s lawyers want no part of being named in potential suits against developers who may fail to deliver on contest prizes advertised through the AppStore. Developers are now being told no app using contest or sweepstakes marketing will be approved.

With the news this week there are now more than 20,000 apps on iTunes, it’s clear a lot of people out there are hoping to strike it rich panning for AppStore gold.

One can hardly blame Apple for trying to police the panhandlers, though, as Sadun points out, it can be frustrating for developers when the policing lacks transparency.

It’s not exactly Shazam for fonts, but WhatTheFont is a pretty cool new app in the AppStore that will identify or make pretty darn good suggestions for identifying almost any font you find in the wild.

Using the iPhone’s built-in camera, users can photograph the text in question (or choose an existing image from the camera’s photo albums). The app allows you to crop the image, focusing on only the important parts before uploading to the WhatTheFont web-based identification service.

After confirming which characters are used in the image, the app provides a list of possible matching fonts, which users can either e-mail a link to a MyFonts page with more info on that font, or open the page in the iPhone’s built-in Safari web browser.

iPod Touch users can even get in on the action by using any image saved from apps such as Safari and Mail.

The app is free in the AppStore.

Via MacMerc

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOdhudBl3Vc&eurl=https://macenstein.com/default/archives/2710&feature=player_embedded

The ever-amusing Dr. Macenstein has unearthed a pitch for a new Apple advertising campaign meant to counter the growing prevalence of lawsuits charging the company with misleading consumers.

The new angle would show real-world Mac users and how they use their Macs in the real world. Simple is brilliant, eh?

In this test pilot, author/evolutionist Richard Dawkins uses his PowerBook to read hate mail.

Who would you use out there, dear reader?

Is Justin Long over?

Om Malik, a notable technology blogger, gave up on his iPhone Wednesday.

Citing ongoing and ultimately insurmountable frustration with AT&T’s network, Malik decided to ditch the iPhone and opt for a T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900 for email and SMS. “I also signed up for a plain-vanilla voice service from Verizon Wireless. And I already have a 32 GB iPod Touch for surfing and music,” he said.

Admitting all that is probably not an ideal solution, Malik – wiith over 1800 friends on Facebook and nearly 20,000 followers on Twitter – found solace in the fact his new devices “can all be charged using the USB port of my Macbook, thereby obviating the need for extra chargers.”

Given that his decision rested solely on the deficiencies of AT&T’s network in the San Francisco Bay Area – ungodly stretches of time “searching” for the network, slow download speeds of web pages, problems with email, static, dropped calls and shoddy call quality – and he professed love for the iPhone, it’s a wonder he didn’t just jailbreak it.

Apple may be putting the finishing touches on a new streaming video service that would allow iTunes users to access purchased video content without the need to download and store it on a local machine, according to a report Wednesday at AppleInsider.

iTunes Replay would let users stream content such as movies and TV shows directly from Apple-owned servers in a manner similar to Amazon’s Video on Demand (formerly known as UnBox) and the Instant Watch service from Netflix, and may also improve the experience of the company’s Apple TV set top box, allowing users to stream purchased media directly from Apple’s servers without syncing or copying files between Apple TV and a computer running iTunes.

The report is unclear whether Apple intends to move toward a “streaming only” distribution model for the typically large files created by video content, or if iTunes Replay would merely represent an option for consumers with fewer concerns about retaining physical control of their purchased media content (and less storage in which to keep it).

To the extent that media distributors such as Apple, Amazon and Netflix embrace the streaming distribution model, consumers may find relief from the need to maintain ever greater storage capacity for growing media libraries. Though the trade-off – and guaranteed consumer dissatisfaction – will arise over bandwidth limitations that already make even a YouTube-watching experience sub-optimal at peak demand times in some places in the US.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6BrtXI9Da4

If you’re one of the many out there who lives wild and free with a jailbroken iPhone, this is a big week for you.

First we reported on the availability of some serious porn for you, and now it appears you can have turn-by-turn voice navigation, courtesy of the dev team at xGPS.

xGPS uses Google’s map data and driving directions, adding a real-time navigation readout and a voice engine.

If you expect you might lose your data connection during the drive, you can also select a map area to download ahead of time.

Watch the ModMyi video above to learn more.

The app also supports a number of external GPS units, so 1st-gen iPhone and iPod Touch bad-boys and girls can get in on the fun too.

Via Gizmodo

Maybe I’m just out of touch with college-level humor today, because the animated dig at iPhone produced by the Flash technicians at College Humor strikes me as, well, kinda like a skit on SNL – pretty good idea; too long by a lot.

If you manage to sit through it to the end, though, the last 5 – 10 seconds is pretty funny.

Via Gizmodo