iPod - page 15

A 14-year-old British girl owes her life to her iPod earbuds, which took a 300,000-volt surge when lightning struck.

Sophie Frost and her boyfriend huddled together under a tree near Essex during a storm when a bolt of lightning hit. Doctors say that Frost and her beau were saved because the massive surge took the shortest route to the ground — through her earbuds.

The four-day-old iPod (a gift from her grandmother), may have saved her life, but she still suffered severe burns that left tie-dye like  patterns down her torso and legs and a perforated eardrum.

The teens were knocked unconscious by the jolt and hospitalized for burns but doctors believe they may heal without permanent scars.

Dr. Ian Cotton, a reader in electrical engineering at Manchester University, told the Daily Mail Sophie could have been saved by her iPod:

“If lightning hits a person it can do one of two things. It can go down the outside of the skin, which is more likely if someone is caught in a storm and their body is wet. Or it can puncture the skin and go into the body. Potentially a metal wire, which is highly conductive could divert the electricity away from the heart and save someone’s life.”
There have been some reports of iPods directing currents and harming wearers in storms, this seems to be the first time it saved someone’s life during a blitz.

Via Daily Mail, BBC

The latest iPod shuffle is arguably too small to need a case to keep it from harm, but the folks at Scosche devised a case with external controls — so you can plug in other headphones instead of relying on the originals.

Available in black or white in early July,  tapStick slips over the iPod and, though the design doesn’t do much justice to the original, it allows you to control the device sans headphones. Tapstick also comes with a three-foot aux cord, for playlist goodness in the car.

It’ll set you back $30 from Scosche.

Via Coolest Gadgets

In April, I got terribly excited about Flight Control, an air traffic control arcade-oriented ‘management’ game. The premise is simple: drag aircraft to landing areas. The reality is an intense arcade game where game over is a blink of an eye away.

Recently, I’d heard rumors of updates. But with the original game such a fantastic, simple and polished production, there was the worry that it’d be ruined under a pile of new features. That worry went away on playing Flight Control 1.2, which keeps the original’s gameplay intact but introduces two new airfields and new craft.

The beachside resort is the first new airfield, adding water landings to the mix. Initially, this seems little different to the original game, but the number of craft ramps up rapidly and the revised landing layout is tougher than the original’s.

The real star, though, is the intense and absurdly tricky aircraft carrier level. Military jets move just a tad faster than anything else, and you’re soon not only juggling that, but also a surprising twist when you realise what happens to landing areas on a moving ocean… Frankly, we’ll be shocked to see 10,000+ landing scores on this map for some time to come.

Overall, this is a triumphant update—a classic iPhone game made even better. The fact that it’s still under a dollar [App Store link], for a game that betters most other handheld titles out there, just goes to show what great value Apple’s platform can be for gamers.

TIPS: If you’ve any tips for dealing with the new airfields and getting high scores, please post in the comments below.

Hacker Nathan Seidle has rigged his car so that his Nike+iPod pedometer unlocks the doors wirelessly as he walks up to it.

“I hate keys,” he writes. “I am on a mission to dispose of them all.”

Seidle already uses keypads and wireless RFID cards to get into his home and office — the last key in his pocket is for his car.

So Seidle took a Nike+iPod sensor — the pedometer/transmitter that normally goes into your running shoe — and rigged up a simple proximity sensor inside the car to detect when it approaches. The Nike+iPod sensor is constantly transmitting a unique ID, which the car uses to identify Seidle and unlock the doors. He keeps the Nike+iPod in his pocket.

Seidle made the proximity detector inside the car from the Nike+iPod receiver (the part that normally plugs into the iPod) and an Arduino Pro Mini microcontroller board, made by his company, SparkFun Electronics, plus a few other bits and pieces.

The system, which Seidle calls the iFob, is an intermediate hacking project. He’s posted a detailed tutorial on the SparkFun website.

Unfortunately, the iFob doesn’t start the car; it just unlocks the doors.

“The system now works great!” Seidle writes. “When you’ve got a handful of stuff, it’s great to know the doors will automatically unlock as you approach. However, I still have use a key to start the car. The next step is get a big red button wired up for button start so that I don’t have to carry my key. Someday.”

Via GadgetLab.

Microsoft will release a Web-surfing, HD-video-playing, multitouch Zune in the fall to compete with the iPod touch — and the hardware actually looks pretty cool. But as Apple well knows, the gadget is one thing, the software and services are another.

Sporting a sexy metal case, the Zune HD will have a 3.3-inch, 480 x 272 OLED capacitive touchscreen display (16:9 widescreen); a built-in HD Radio receiver, and WiFi. The “HD” refers not to the touchscreen, but the HD radio and HD out (720p), though that’s only available with an optional cradle. Pricing was not released, and release is “early fall.”

“There’s a lot here that MSFT is doing well, especially when it comes to the hardware,” said Interpret analyst Michael Gartenberg on his blog.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMtOKvJFetk

Maybe old iPods turned into sequencers only sound good at 2 am, as the guys who made these one late night admit.

But maybe not. This nifty 16-step sequencers with sounds from iconic video game Mario  + bass use pdPod on iPodLinux; if you want re-purpose your old iPod this way, check out the re-ware project, then let us know if your sounds are worthy of daytime broadcast.

Via Make

Consumer Electronics Show (CES) organizers have supersized the iPod and iPhone showcase at the January 2010 event. The next iLounge Pavilion will offer over six times the floorspace dedicated to Apple accessories and software sellers, from 4,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet.

In a press release, Jeremy Horwitz, Editor-in-Chief of iLounge.com and co-sponsor of the iLounge Pavilion said the 525% space increase is due to the surge in iPhone and iPod touch popularity from the App store. It also probably has to do with Apple’s decision to pull out of Macworld and Macworld’s move to February.

Signed up companies so far include Griffin Technology, Scosche, Incase Designs, iSkin, Incipio Technologies, Jaybird Gear, MusicSkins and AAMP of America.

Via MacWorld

Swiss insurance company Mobiliar gave knockoff iPods to guests at the Swiss Economic Forum. Pic: Berner Zeitung.

The head of Apple Switzerland has threatened legal action after a Swiss Insurance company gave 1,200 iPods to bigwigs at the tony Swiss Economic Forum. Trouble is, the iPods were cheap Chinese knockoffs.

At the Swiss Economic Forum last week, the insurance company Mobiliar surprised guests with an MP3 player that looked very much like a second-generation iPod shuffle.

But when Adrian Schmucki, the head of Apple Switzerland, received his, he threatened legal action against Mobiliar.

Add insult to injury, several of the guests asked Schmucki if the knockoffs would work with iTunes.

The Swiss Economic Forum is a two-day gathering of Switzerland’s leading companies, politicians and academics.

Berner Zeitung (Google German-to-English translation).

Many thanks to Renato Mitra of ApfelBlog. Link to Renato’s post.

Source: DisplaySearch 2009 Touch Panel Market Analysis

Thanks to the success of the iPhone, touchscreen technology will see explosive growth in the next few years.

The touchsreen market will nearly triple in the next few years, growing from $3.6 billion now to $9 billion in 2015, predicts a new report by market research firm DisplaySearch.

“With the success of the iPhone, the touch panel market has entered a dramatic new growth phase.,” the DisplaySearch report said.

The report predicted big growth in projected capacitive touchscreens — the technology used in the iPhone and iPod touch.

“Projected capacitive touch screens have increased substantially and become the second biggest touch technology following closely behind resistive touch,” the report said. “About 27 touch screen suppliers manufacture it. Not only have more resistive touch screen manufacturers moved to produce projected capacitive, but projected capacitive technology has evolved to single layer or film type, and can serve sizes larger than 100-inches.”

Whoa  — a 100-inch iPhone in 2015.

Mobile phones and smartphones will be the most popular application of touchscreens, but they will also be the primary interface for media players, navigation devices, and games. More than 40 percent of mobile phones will have touchscreen interfaces by 2015, the report predicts, up from 16 percent now.

Touchscreens will also become popular in applications like retail, ticketing, information kiosks, and education and training terminals, the report said.

Image from GameSpot.

This isn’t official yet, but look out — sales of Apple’s iPod business might have dropped in April compared to last year. If true and an indication of performance for May and June, that’s the first time that’s ever happened — iPod revenue has gone up year over year every single quarter since Apple launched the 1G in October 2001. According to the NPD Group, Apple will sell between 9.5 and 10.5 million iPods this year, between 5 and 14 percent of last year’s mark.

Now, this doesn’t include iPhone revenue, which is almost guaranteed to keep delivering huge profits and revenue growth for years to come (dividing the money from each iPhone sold across 24 months will tend to yield more reliable numbers than lump sum payments). But it does show that even Apple isn’t immune to the current downturn — and the iPod business might be in for somewhat lean times until we get to back-to-school promotions and the holiday season. When money’s short, the urge to upgrade fades away, especially when the new killer features of the last year are Shake-to-Shuffle, built-in NikePlus support, and a buttonless shuffle. Still, who knows — people constantly expect iPod sales to collapse, and it’s never happened yet.

In better news, Mac sales are solid and down less than most consensus estimates. In spite of Microsoft’s best efforts. People are loving the Mac. Using a late 2008 MacBook, I’m not surprised. This is the best line-up of computers that Apple has ever had. Not a weak spot in the family.

Via BusinessWeek

This steampunked iPod is the handiwork of Neal Bridgens , a Toronto-based retoucher and illustrator, who noticed that a piece of copper tubing on his workbench fit perfectly around the rounded edges of an iPod.

From there, Bridgens told CoM that he spent “many, many hours” in this labor of love over the last year building the case from materials he had on hand.

MICROSOFT SPOKESMAN: Hi — you look dumb. Would you like me to advance the dumbest possible argument for Zune ownership? See, it’s like this: iPods, though they’re really cool, cost money to get music on them! So you should pay a $15 monthly subscription for Zune music, which is basically free! You can trust me — I’m a financial planner. People in finance have never misled anyone!

APPLE BLOGGER: I had a music collection long before the iPod existed, dumbass. And who on earth owns an iPod classic these days?

YouTube via Ars via Engadget via Giz

Picture via Engadget

Adding iPod connectivity as standard equipment on their vehicles could save American automobile manufacturers from extinction, according to recent research by Jacobs Media.

The study conducted among 21,000 listeners of rock-music radio stations from around the US suggests high-tech features play an important role in the vehicle-purchase decision and that carmakers should not miss key opportunities to include and market such features to consumers.

The study asked prospective vehicle purchasers to rate the most desired features and options relating to entertainment, music, and information. Nearly half (47%) of the respondents said iPod and other MP3 player connectivity was “very important” to them, ranking above satellite radio, GPS, DVD player, and HD Radio.

The finding that a large percentage of consumers are considering American cars – coupled with the fact that so many respondents want iPod connectors, – presents opportunities for American carmakers to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, according to Jacobs Media President Fred Jacobs.

“The automakers are struggling to generate sales in a challenging economic environment,” Jacobs said. “but outside of KIA’s new commercials for their Soul, iPod connectors are not in the sales proposition. It’s a missed opportunity. Satellite radio and GPS won’t move the needle – but iPods will.”

[MarketingCharts; Thanks Dave]

And some wonder why Apple’s VoiceOver kit hasn’t set the world on fire…

[Thanks @jsnell]

The Better Business Bureau is warning Facebook users to read the fine print when responding to ads.

A recent BBB press release stated that an estimated $1.3 billion will be spent on social networking advertising this year. The large print on ads featured on social networking sites, like Facebook and Myspace, do not always tell the entire story.

The warning about MacBook Air scams is a hoot:

Also common on Facebook are ads to get a free MacBook Air claiming that the company is seeking laptop testers. The ads lead to an incentive marketing program at https://www.colormyrewards.com/ where participants must sign up for various products and services in order to earn their free laptop.

The Fine Print: Customers must complete two options from each of the three tiers, Top, Prime and Premium before receiving their “free” MacBook. Example offers listed in the Top and Prime tiers include signing up for credit cards or trial offers for subscription services such as for vitamin supplements or DVD rental services. In some cases, the participant will need to pay for shipping, and if they aren’t vigilant about canceling the trial offers they signed up for, they’ll begin being billed every month.

Examples of the Premium offers listed on the Web site that must be met in order to get the MacBook are much more expensive and include paying as much as $1,500 for furniture or purchasing a travel package with a minimum value of $899.00 per person.

BBB Warns: Incentive programs can be extremely costly in the long run and the fine print shows that the customer might have to pay a significant amount of money in order to get their “Free” items. It is also a red flag that Apple does not even make MacBook Air in purple, red, pink, or green. (Emphasis mine.)

And as flickr user 4braham noted (image used with a CC license) the Mac in the scam pic isn’t a MacBook Air. Sheesh!

Via News & Tribune

In Arthur Phillips’ latest novel, the iPod “plays a role as pivotal as Puck’s in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

In “The Song is You,” Julian Donahue,  a director of TV commercials in his mid-40s, former philanderer separated from his wife and man adrift in a state he thinks of as “divorcistan, a coolly celibate land.” Music is the center of his sole surviving desire. This appetite is, yes, partly nostalgic because Julian has been curating a “soundtrack to his days” since the debut of the Walkman when he was 15.

A quick check of the Amazon “search inside the book feature” revealed some 41 name drops for the iPod, which wouldn’t particularly inspire me to read it but I loved Phillips’ “Prague,” about a bunch of self-absorbed 20-something expats set in Budapest haunted by the feeling they should really be somewhere more happening, namely, Prague.  iPods in this novel sound like more just product placement…

Via Salon

Image used with a CC license, thanks to myuibe

A hold-up victim in Iowa helped police ID the perp by giving them a copy of his playlist.

Police checked it against an iPod found on robbery suspect Donald Cook, 18. Cook was charged with second-degree robbery shortly thereafter and is being held on $10,000 bond.

Police said the 18-year old victim and two other men pulled into a Des Moines video store parking lot about 10:20 p.m. Wednesday. Two men approached them, took them out of their car and put them on the ground.

One of the robbers said, “What you got on you? I know you got something on you.”
After taking about $390 in cash, the iPod and some cell phones the robbers got back in their car and drove away, according to a police report.

Officers said the playlist given to them by the victim matched the playlist on the iPod in Cook’s possession. Officers did not mention recovering the cash or the cell phones. The other suspect remains at large.

Image used with a CC license, thanks FHKE
Via Des Moines Register

U2’s lead singer Bono recently revealed in an interview with a DJ in Toronto that his ego knows no bounds. The band’s quiet break-up with Apple in favor of first Palm and now RIM? Well, it’s all because Steve Jobs wouldn’t let him help out with the hardware and software design of the U2-branded iPod.

“[RIM] is going to give us what Apple wouldn’t — access to their labs and their people so we can do something really spectacular,” Bono told Alan Cross.

Hmm. While I’ve always been impressed with U2’s ability to design an experience, ala ZooTV and the PopMart Tour, I can’t say that I have any confidence that U2’s input could have in any way, shape, or form improved the iPod. I’ll trust Apple’s creatives more than U2’s…singer.

This collaboration has fail written all over it.

Globe and Mail via Electronista via Digg

Sony has added what the company calls “USB 1-wire” connectivity to select models of its 2009 car audio line up, enabling direct digital connectivity for USB powered audio devices such as iPods and iPhones, as well as other MP3 players and even USB thumb drives.

If you’ve ever been frustrated by the sketchy signal provided by radio frequency car adapters such as iTrip, or been dissatisfied by the sound quality of AUX in connectivity trying to get your iPod playing in the car, Sony’s Xplod line of head units is well worth a look and listen.

“We’ve needed to do this as an industry for some time,” explained Mike Kahn, Sony director of marketing for mobile electronics at a media meet and greet in San Francisco Wednesday night. Direct digital connection of the external device to the auto sound system is quickly becoming a standard feature for manufacturers such as Sony, Alpine and Pioneer, which is no surprise given the boost in sound quality over cobbled together analog connectivity solutions of the recent past.

Sony’s gear is very price competitive with its major rivals and its USB 1-wire technology doesn’t require any special cabling – you can use your standard iPod USB cable to plug right into the head unit, browse the device’s library and select songs right from the auto unit’s controls.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIS6G-HvnkU

A series of Microsoft ads are aimed at budget consumers worried about price tags, further perpetuating the pricey Mac myth.

Associated Press reports the ads were shot by recruited unwitting subjects by posing as a market research firm studying laptop purchasing decisions.

It picked 10 people who answered a call for volunteers on Craigslist and other websites and sent them out with a camera crew and budgets ranging from $US700 to $US 2,000. If they found a computer that fit their criteria, they could keep it.

In the first 60-second ad, a red-haired recent college grad named Lauren is on the hunt for a speedy laptop with a 17-inch screen and a “comfortable” keyboard, all for less than $1000. She strides into an Apple store; then, the scene jumps to her walking out empty-handed, telling the camera that the only laptop in her price range has a 13-inch screen.

Back in the car, she sighs and says, “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.”

Lauren heads to Best Buy next and buys a Windows notebook made by Hewlett-Packard Co. for $US699. And she wasn’t alone. While some might have been able to find an Apple computer that fit the budget, Microsoft said none of the people they filmed picked a Mac.

Via The Age

A businessman who ran a $50 million iPod investment scam was sentenced to 17 years in prison by a federal judge in Miami.

Andres Leonel Pimstein, who pleaded guilty to a dozen wire-fraud counts in December, must also turn over 5,540 of the Apple devices and a Fidelity investment account totaling $138,522, U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan said.

It was a simple enough scheme: Pimstein bough iPods at wholesale prices and resold them to a department store chain in Chile. The chain, named Ripley, was supposedly going to buy the iPods from him at above-market rates.

But there was one slight problem: it was a Ponzi scheme.

‘In exchange for their work, Pimstein made `interest payments’ to the agents that were purportedly derived from the sale of products to Ripley,” according to the criminal information charging him with wire fraud. ‘The agents, in turn, distributed a percentage of the `interest payments’ to their investors and retained the difference as a commission.”

Pimstein was accused of creating false invoices to document the purported purchase and sale of the iPods.

Via Miami Herald

Image used with CC license, thanks to FHKE

An independent iPod repairman was charged with fraud and money laundering after acquiring more than 9,000 replacement iPod Shuffles by entering serial numbers into Apple’s Web site.

Nicholas Woodhams, 23, then sold the replacement iPods for $49 each, according to court documents filed Wednesday in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Through his repair business, Woodhams knew iPod owners could get a replacement if their Shuffle had problems.

“Through trial and error, the defendant determined that he could guess valid, warrantied serial numbers and enter them into Apple’s Web site for ‘replacement’ units without ever in fact purchasing or possessing the ‘original’ units,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler wrote.

If Apple didn’t receive a defective iPod in return, the company would charge the cost of a replacement to a credit card provided by the customer. But Woodhams used credit or debt cards that rejected the transaction, the prosecutor said.

His lawyer Randall Levine told the Associated Press: “He is one of those guys who is computer-savvy. This is a very bright man who did not fully appreciate the seriousness of the situation.”

Image used with a CC license, thanks to re-ality

Apple has confirmed the existence of a proprietary chip in the on-cord controller of the company’s headsets that began shipping with the new iPod Shuffle announced last week, but the chip itself serves no “authentication” function and will not prevent third party headset manufacturers from producing headsets that work with Apple’s music player, according to company spokespersons.

The chip will be required for headsets wishing to bear the “Made for iPod” licensing certification for accessories that work with iPods, however. Apple has thus created a new revenue stream and extended “Made for iPod” certification to headphones/remotes, accessories that were not previously required to be certified as “Made for iPod”.

So while there is no DRM in the chips themselves, third-party headset manufacturers who want their products to be sold in Apple Stores and / or to be regarded as competitive, are likely to feel pressure to pay for the chips and obtain the “Made for iPod” certification.

The proprietary chips will cost manufacturers less than $1, bundled with a $2 microphone, according to one report.

In “Burn After Reading,” the Coen brother’s black comedy about privacy and politics, Brad Pitt plays Chad, an amiable goof who works in a gym.

Along with co-worker Frances McDormand, who thinks plastic surgery will buy her love, he tries to sell a memoir from a former CIA agent found in a diskette left behind at the gym.

Chad is almost always plugged in to an iPod (and singing out loud) even when he’s on a stake out — as shown in the movie poster. Pitt doesn’t have a big part, but gets a lot of mileage out of playing a dim bulb in a stellar cast including George Clooney,  John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton.

The new iPod Shuffle may talk, but a lot of what people have to say about it concern the placement of controls on the headphones. No third-party headphones are available yet and the rumors are flying about “authentication chips” contained in the headphones that Apple may require on those made by other companies, too.

Sean Mulvihill, who recently shared with CoM his MacBook Touch mock-up, sent in a prototype for a redesigned Shuffle, with the controls on the side of the device. The resulting Shuffle isn’t bulked up and would be easy to use on-the-go. Plus no headphone kerfluffle.

What prompted him to try a redesign?

“With the new release of the revamped iPod Shuffle me and a lot of  people were disappointed with the controls now on the headphones, therefore you cannot use your (own) headphones.  I decided to make a little mock-up of what I think the new iPod Shuffle should have looked like. ”

Though the small size and storage capacity of the actual Shuffle are interesting, I’d be hard pressed to replace my dead pod with it. Each iPod I’ve had averaged about three to five pairs of headphones (that’s a conservative estimate), if forced to replace the busted ones with Apple earbuds or pricey headsets (leaving the mystery chip issue aside for the moment)  it wouldn’t be worth it.

What do you think?