Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you're doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
Harrods department store launched this limited edition 24 karat gold-plated iPod backed by a good cause they hope will induce Scroogy types to part with some extra cash this holiday season.
Laser engraved with the autograph of footie superstar Frank Lampard, the 8GB Midas iPod goes for £264.50 ($440 circa) or £433.81 (64GB) ($722 circa), that’s about £100 over the regular UK retail price for the 8G and £130 for the 64GB.
Lampart will donate all of his royalties from sales to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
This is hardly the first blingy benefit iPod — UK company Gold Genie which is behind this effort seems to be specialized in them — but it will be interesting to see how well they sell in these Bah Humbug! times.
Apple: forbidden fruit in prison. CC-licensed, thanks to 1Happysnapper on flickr.
Two guards in Washington, D.C. were arrested after allegedly smuggling in must-have items for prisoners — namely iPods, cell phones and chargers.
An inmate tipped off the FBI in October 2008 that corrections officers were getting contraband tech — along with the usual stuff like cigarettes — for a price to prisoners.
Two male corrections officers and a female security guard were arrested this week for federal bribery charges on suspicion of accepting cash to smuggle cellphones and iPods. The men are now on administrative leave, the woman was released on personal recognizance.
An undercover FBI agent posing as the brother of an inmate bribed one of the men $300 to smuggle an iPod and charger inside the big house.
Why are iPods verboten in prison?
According to an email sent to Washington Post’s Crime Scene blog , Apple devices are so sought after they constitute a security hazard:
“Inmates may use the components of devices such as iPods to compromise security equipment within the correctional facility. In addition, such items are in high demand and may be stolen or used by inmates to gamble with others…this has the potential to trigger conflict, assaults and other violent behavior.”
Wonder if the playlist on the decoy iPod had “I Fought the Law” on it or some irony-free offerings…
I’m more of a dog person, but the “Cats Love Macs” photo stream on Flickr is one of my guilty pleasures. (Yeah, I know).
Love this recycled iMac now in use as a cat basket that British Macintosh support/dev user nicknamed Mikmac created for pussy Pixel, who snuggles up in it quite nicely thanks to a soft pillow where the computer’s hardware once was.
Courting disaster? London cab with built-in charger. CC-licensed, thanks to Lars Plougmann on flickr.
So you’re shopping, or going ice skating, or heading to some place where hot mulled wine makes the holiday cheer flow.
You take a cab — the parking! — and when grappling with scarf, gloves, maybe a kid or two and some packages, leave your iPhone or iPod on the taxi seat. This is the grim scenario taxi drivers in London paint of the holidays — your favorite device left to the seasonal altruism of the driver or next passenger.
Some 10,000 mobile phones are left behind by customers every single month in London alone, plus another 1,000 iPods and memory sticks. December is the worst month — or best if you’re of the finders-keepers mentality — for expensive gadgets left behind, according to a survey by Credant Technologies.
Steve McMenara, from TAXI magazine, said: “This is the worst time of year for forgetting property at the back of cabs, especially mobile phones and laptops. More people travel into London to buy their Christmas presents during this period who are not regular cab users, they hop a cab to get back to their train stations – and it’s always about an hour later we get a panicked call on their mobile phones asking for them to be returned.”
London taxi drivers say they manage to return 80% of devices left behind; in New York just 66% of cabbies handed lost devices over.
“Back in the good old days when a Window was something you looked out of, and a Mac was something you wore in the rain, it used to be small items like brollies and briefcases stuffed full of boring office papers. Now it’s laptops, smartphones and thumb drives, all chock-full of valuable information to an identity thief,” said Sean Glynn, vice president of Credant Technologies.
The folks over at Instructables have a very timely winter tutorial on hacking your winter gloves so that you don’t have to freeze your digits off to use your iPhone or iPod as the temperature falls.
You’ll need conductive thread, a sturdy needle and enough sewing capability to execute a few stitches without stabbing your eye out.
While there are a bunch of ways to get the touch back into your warm woolies — like Freehands or Dots gloves — we’re talking about the cheap-o version again since this step-by-step tutorial also mentions where to get a small amount of conductive thread, instead of a $20 spool, to sew into the tips for $3.95.
At that price, you can afford to give it a go — before resorting to fingerless gloves to answer your iPhone in winter.
In an effort to stop campus gadget and computer thefts, New York police are bringing an ID program to the New York University students.
On Thursday afternoon, police will set up an engraving station in a dorm lobby for students to bring their iPods, cell phones and computers. Operation Identification is part of a city-wide police program to ID valuables that was extended to the campus after an ongoing increase in “iCrimes.”
An infrared pen will mark student gadgets with a serial number that will be housed in an NYPD database, allowing police to access a description, model and owner information, should the device be recovered. After items are tagged, police can view the serial number by shining a light on it.
This isn’t the first iPod ID scheme we’ve seen at a school — one New Hampshire high school recently embarked on the same kind of program — but it is the largest. NYU has nearly 55,000 students.
Once again, it’s debatable whether ID-ing gadgets will prevent swiping or if it would be easier if Apple provided some sort of lock-down system after thefts.
What are the chances of an invisible serial number stopping a quick grab of an iPod in a dorm room at the end of a long night?
The 21-year-old Australian guy who got chewed out by his parents for launching the first iPhone worm landed a job with an app company.
Ashley Towns wrote Ikee, calling it an “experiment that got out of hand,” a worm that switched iPhone wallpaper for an image of 80s pop singer Rick Astley. Astley, who sang the 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” who morphed into the Internet prank known as “Rickrolling.” The bait-and-switch worm replaces an ordinary video with one of Astley.
The day after the worm infected jailbroken iPhones, Towns said he had received a death threat, media attention and job offers.
The BBC reports now that Towns signed on with mogeneration, an Australian app company with four apps currently available at iTunes, two are kid distractors and two are restaurant finders.
The worm Towns created wasn’t but opened the door for a nasty worm targeting online banking customers of ING.
“It leaves a nasty taste that he has been rewarded like this, yet has not even expressed regret for his actions,” Graham Cluley of Security firm Sophos told BBC News.
Towns said he created the virus to raise the issue of security. He did not face any criminal charges.
Microsoft says that a filter and human buffer are stopping inappropriate tweets from being displayed in monitors in Saks Fifth Avenue windows in New York.
The Twitter stream which broadcasts on one of the world’s busiest shopping streets had been flooded with “Get a Mac!” messages, but Redmond spokespeople say they are not going live.
Microsoft sent seattlepi.com this statement (emphasis ours):
This holiday, Saks Fifth Avenue and Windows 7 are working together to bring the magic of the season to life. For the first time, the legendary Saks Fifth Avenue’s holiday windows are powered by Windows 7. As part of this campaign, there are three Microsoft Windows on 50th Ave that feature video monitors displaying a live feed of people’s holiday wishes for the season shared via Twitter and from kiosks in store.
The windows are the private property of Saks Fifth Avenue. As such, there are filters in place to make sure that in opening them up to Twitter feeds we had content that was appropriate for the general public to view and was within the holiday theme. This filter includes any attempt to spam the windows with negative commentary that is not in the spirit of the holidays. The windows have not been hijacked.
Here’s the thing: if you look at the #holidaywindows, if they filter out “Mac” messages as inappropriate, there’s almost nothing left.
So we need your help, CoM readers: if you’re in New York and happen by the Saks window display on 50th Ave, send us pics.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Ksp-ZkVTk
Department store Saks Fifth Avenue is running a Christmas display in New York City, sponsored in part by Microsoft, where well-wishers can send messages from Twitter to the store window.
In a rather unsurprising, but still entertaining, turn of events a lot of those people express the holiday spirit with “Bah Microsoft!” which then pops up on the Windows screen.
A few recent ones:
midyNo need for a black and blue holiday. Black Friday is coming, why would you want a blue screen of death? Get a Mac.
RGNeighbourFriends don’t let friends buy PC’s. GET A MAC!
If you want to get in on the holiday fun, read the shenanigans or send your tweet try this: #HolidayWindows .
UPDATE: The GNU/free software folks have also jumped on the bandwagon:
rodrigoyVery happy with my Linux: No locks-up, no blue screen, no anti-virus, no malwares, no bullshit…
The interesting thing — with all the obscenities and potentially obnoxious other stuff that could’ve come up that Microsoft should’ve worried about, they’re getting a playful public bashing, which they also might have predicted…
Back to Books: Mac-less students Lucy Ramsdale and Paige Eversden. @Southern Times Messenger
Australian police are after an organized gang they believe is behind 80 Mac thefts from schools.
Nearly 80 Apple computers (laptops and desktops) have been ripped off from 15 schools in the state of South Australia this year, along with a number of screen projectors for a total loot count police place at about $90,000 ($100,000 AUD).
Thieves wore gloves to eliminate fingerprints and knew exactly how much time they had to get in and out — in one case only swiping half of the MacBooks available. The thefts took place at suburban schools, in one case a Christian K-12.
“At times there are individual computers taken but they’re more opportunistic thefts,” Chief-Inspector Dennis Lock told local papers. “The short time it took for the thieves to steal the computers before security arrived indicates this was a more planned, organized and coordinated attack.”
If you’ve ever stared at a painting and wanted to reach out and squeeze that adorable little putto, you’ll soon have a chance to do it without getting arrested.
Italian art, Cover Flow style. @centrica
Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, one of the largest treasure troves of Renaissance art, is developing a touch-screen device that allows art lovers to zoom in and take a closer look at the masterpieces.
The program is called “Uffizi in a Touch” (sadly, a name not vetted by anyone who actually speaks English) developed by an Italian company called Centrica.
It took them four years to take life-size 100-megapixel photos that will be up for perusal in December for researchers and the more tactile groups of tourists.
No word yet on whether Apple will be after them for using the Cover Flow technology that’s been on the Cupertino company’s devices since 2006.
If an iPhone with Ocarina makes sweet music, how about three iPhones?
That may be the thinking behind a trio of iPhones (the third is peeking out from under the back — for some thumb action, maybe?) mounted to a laser-cut body found at the Maker meet-up in Japan.
No reports on what comes out when you blow into the mouthpiece, but the idea is sounds good, though perhaps not good enough to justify the three-device cost.
Journos on Macs at Microsoft's Mobius event. @windows phone thoughts
It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire” at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think they’d have a more sympathetic crowd.
If this pic posted by Jason Dunn over at Windows Phone Talk is any indication, most journalists, even the best and brightest from sites like Engadget and Slash Gear are Macs, at a non-scientific ratio of five to three.
Sorry guys. It looks like we’re mostly interested in covering you, not using you.
In “The Proposal,” Sandra Bullock plays a Canadian-born, bulletproof book editor who finds herself stuck in Sitka, Alaska while waiting to marry her assistant to get a green card.
After her cell phone gets stolen by an eagle, she picks up a replacement at the town general store — what could be more Alaska? — and then goes to the only Internet cafe around.
And has to answer all of her 37 urgent messages with a handful of dimes on a coin-operated modem system — via a iMac G3. This in stark contrast to the late-model iMac she had in her New York fiefdom.
It was one of the only bits in the movie that made me smile. I kind of wish I hadn’t sold mine, old as it was…
There are iPhone-controlled cars and beds — now one company plans to integrate iPhones/iPods in its wheelchairs for a new kind of accessibility.
Dynamic Controls developed a system to connect an iPhone or iPod Touch to the wheelchair system via Bluetooth; it mounts on an adjustable arm and has a recharger, too.
In addition to music and all the other stuff you can do with an iPod/iPhone that might come in handy — compass reading, maps — it has an app that can be used for some controls on the chair, showing chair information in real time, including speed, and a diagnostics feature for when things go awry.
“We recognized the iPhone has revolutionized the way people communicate and saw the opportunity to develop this solution for wheelchair users, taking full advantage of Apple’s ‘Works with iPod / Made for iPhone’ developer program,” Charlotte Walshe, CEO of Dynamic Controls, said in a press release.
Lee Kwok, a wheel chair user in Christchurch, New Zealand was also quoted in the presser, saying says he thinks it will be fantastic to be able to buy an off-the-shelf product that has so many features for powered wheelchair users: “Having access to mainstream technology via a wheelchair is a huge advantage.”
The new feature is expected to launch in April, 2010.
‘Tis the season: Italian magazines are chock full of ads for this sleek iPod dock and bedside lamp called “Diva.”
Designed by Dante Donegani and Giovanni Lauda for Italian firm Rotaliana, it’s an LED light and music system whose polycarbonate, anodized aluminum curves are all in the right places.
Clutter phobes will appreciate the retractable docking station and arm for the light. The docking station, suitable for iPods and iPhones, has four 6-watt speakers, plus an FM radio and USB socket if you’d rather play music from a flash drive. The whole shebang can be commanded via an infrared remote control. She comes in black, gray or white.
At €360 euro (circa $535) one would have to offer molto proof of saintly behavior to Santa for this one.
Holds toilet paper and an iPod, but is it an alibi for murder?
A man appealing his conviction for murdering a British student in Italy testified Wednesday that he heard the victim arguing with an American defendant in the case minutes before she was slain — while in the bathroom listening to his iPod.
In November 2007, British student Meredith Kercher was murdered in Italy, during a study abroad program in hill town Perugia.
In October 2008, Rudy Guede was sentenced to 30 years for his part in the killing, for which Kercher’s roommate, American student Amanda “Foxy Knoxy” Knox and her boyfriend, Italian IT grad, Raffaele Sollecito, are now on trial.
During what has been hypothesized was some sort of late-night Halloween sex game where the 21-year-old Kercher was an unwilling participant, Guede maintains he was out of commission during the murder while in the bathroom of the young women’s apartment.
Top-selling titles include Friday Night Lights, iSpy Game, iReferee, Pet Peeves (a social network for griping pictured above), iSexyRef2, Pro Rodeo Fan, Sit Up Counter and Shake 2 Count.
CoM had a quick word with owner Brice Milliorn about the sale, what’s next for him and how he sees the future of apps.
CoM: Was JBMJBM sold?
BM: No, I have not sold company or apps yet. I am in talks with one guy about buying me out via stock, but it doesn’t look promising.
CoM: What plans to you have to sell it now?
BM: No plans to sell again, just going to continue doing what I am doing and do more freelance work as well.
CoM: What changes would you like to see in Apple’s app store?
BM: I don’t have a problem with Apple, you follow their guidelines you get things approved, simple as that. The few items that I have had issue with them, they called explained, I fixed and it got approved. I even wrote the number down and called the guy back a few times when I was having issues and within a few hours it was fixed.
CoM: Where do you think the future of app development is headed?
BM: I think the future of the iPhone is opening it up to Verizon. That will be another huge influx of potential app buyers and I look forward to this happening.
I also believe all this hype on the Droid and all those other handsets that will ultimately never get to the level of the iPhone. The only company to match the iPhone and better it is Apple itself.
Used with a cc-license, thanks to juanpol on flickr.
The Economist’s quarterly mag Intelligent Life did round robin interviews with a number of design luminaries, literati and museum curators about what objects define life in the aughts.
The iPod and iPhone came up most frequently, leading the editors to name this the iDecade.
That doesn’t mean they have anything nice to say about them, however.
Most of the comments veer towards the “these devices cut us off from humanity” type. Young’uns in other times were more social and less social media, apparently, we were all the better for it.
A few choice excerpts:
STEPHEN JONES, Milliner
iPhone. Txt spk
What is the Mini of today? Probably the iPhone. I wish I could say floor-length dresses or big green hats, but I can’t. Communication is the issue now, not freedom and mobility: iPhone, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter. This is a big sea-change: it is more about communication through the word and less about the image…
DOMINIC SANDBROOK, Author of “White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties”
iPods. Extreme materialism. Politicians cycling.
People listening to iPods on their way to work—and not merely as a symbol of technology, but as a representation of a sort of introversion, a retreat within our own bubble…
EKOW ESHUN, Artistic director, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
The Prius. iPods. Style jams
The Prius is the car of the decade. It’s unlovely in lots of ways, but it has become an icon of aspiration. And then the iPod and social networking. Something that spools from these is that we don’t really have style subcultures anymore. Instead we have a playlist culture, where you’re allowed to mash up everything around you in a sort of pick’n’mix…
The original manual comes with the Apple 1 up for auction on eBay.
There’s another Apple 1 on the eBay auction block, this one comes with enough collateral to stand as its own museum exhibit.
The starting bid is $50,000, the auction is on for another two days.
The owner, who wished to remain anonymous, told us how this Apple artifact got there.
CoM: How did you get your hands on an Apple 1?
Anonymous Owner: I came to own the Apple 1 through a very convoluted story, but in short I found a guy in Minnesota who bought it from the original owner in 1990 and, eventually, he sold it to me.
CoM: What made you decide to sell it?
AO: It is killing me to sell it but I’m on very hard times and I’ve sold everything else of value. I want to keep this magnificent piece of history forever. There is no price I would willingly put on this item…but I have kids and of course that takes priority.
CoM: How did you decide the price?
AO: I set the opening price because a) an Apple 1 has sold for as much as $43k and b) if I have to sell my most prized possession and I sold it for an inadequate amount I’d have to take my life.
So, really, the price is all about saving lives. lol.
CoM: In the selling info, you say that Woz looked at it and said that it probably wouldn’t boot because the first batches of Apple 1s used a brand of chip they later replaced because they blew out easily.
The 21-year-old Australian behind the first iPhone virus got a death threat, media interviews and job offers as the result of his efforts.
Ashley Towns, who said the result was an “experiment that got out of hand,” created a worm that switches iPhone wallpaper for an image of 80s pop singer Rick Astley. Astley, who sang the 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” who morphed into the Internet prank known as “Rickrolling.” The bait-and-switch worm replaces an ordinary video with one of Astley.
Here’s how it happened:
“I was reading a blog that said in bold letters to change your passwords and I wondered how many had.”
It turned out that most of the people on his network had not.
“So I started writing it from there. I stayed up all night and when I was half asleep I decided to test it.
“I didn’t really think about legal consequences at the time. I honestly never expected it to go this far.
“I thought it would spread to no more than 10 or 15 people.”
Let’s say you’ve got $30 grand to blow on a gold and diamond iPhone but the idea of just buying one without the thrill of an auction bores you.
Two of these tricked out iPhones are up for sale from “bespoke luxury communications” (read: cell phones that go bling-bling along with ring-ring) purveyor Stuart Hughes on BillionaireXchange.com, a site that launched this week billing itself as the first online marketplace for, uh, billionaires.
The pink 3GS model above, coated in 18-carat solid rose gold, was designed entirely by hand and dusted with 53 pink diamonds on the Apple logo. Each phone takes four craftsmen months to make. If that’s too girly, there’s also the 22-carat gold model with a white diamond logo.
Retail price for both? Nearly £22,000 ($36,000). Starting bid on the auction site is £18,000 ($30,000).
Both auctions say the reserve price has already been met, so maybe diamond-encrusted iPhones aren’t the white elephants of the aughts.
There are only thought to be about 50 Apple 1s still in the wild, this is the second one up for auction on eBay in a month.
The last one sold for about $18,000, several thousand over its estimated value, to an anonymous computer collector who also tipped us off about the sale of this 1976 progenitor of the personal computer. The starting bid is $50,000.
So why is this Apple 1 , which the seller states won’t boot up, priced at 177% more than the other one?
It’s pretty much a capsule history of early Apple: the wise person who first bought it for Electric City Radio Supply in Montana kept everything — the invoice, the box (which shows the return address as Steve Jobs’ parents house), a cassette with BASIC, the operation manual and a typed letter on ring binder paper from Steve Jobs answering questions about it, including how to hook up a keyboard. Even if you don’t have the cash, the photos are worth checking out.
We wrote to the seller, more when we hear back.
Hit the jump for the letter signed “Steven Jobs” on notebook paper and more details…
BBC reporter Sharif Sakr took a top-of-the line Yamaha PDX50 dock (about $250 plus the iPod) and put it up against a secondhand stereo system (with CD player, amps and speakers) estimated cost, $80.
Then he wrangled about 10 passersby to get an earful of Pavarotti warbling. They told him which sounded better — though they couldn’t see which device was pumping out the opera.
Almost everyone — 8/10 — preferred the secondhand stereo, to the highly-rated Yamaha dock calling the sound warmer, fuller and more crisp.
Like a lot of people, I’ve got an iPod dock, but it’s not replacing my stereo. It lives in the kitchen, where sound (as in listening to the Car Talk podcast while flipping French toast) more than sound quality is important.
How many of you just use an iPod dock instead of a stereo system?
