News - page 2194

Blogger Brian Sweet of Gumball Tech claims to have beaten the world text-messaging record using the onscreen keyboard of his iPhone 4.

The record was recently set by a U.K. woman using a Samsung Galaxy S running the SWYPE keyboard. Melissa Thompson, 27, managed to swipe out the phrase: “the razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human,” in just under 26 seconds. (Her feat is still being verified by Guinness).

Sweet claims to have thumbed out the same phrase in less than 22 seconds, besting the record by 4 seconds. “It’s not official,” says Sweet, “but it’s definitely better than what that woman recently achieved.”

If genuine, Sweet’s feat disproves the notion that the iPhone’s onscreen keyboard is slow. Typing on the iPhone has typically been characterized as slow compared to a physical keyboards, such as those on Blackberry devices.

See for yourself. Here’s a YouTube video of Sweet typing out the phrase. Watch those thumbs fly!

We know, we know: Macs don’t support USB 3.0 yet, which allows USB to pipe through up to a blistering 3.2 Gbit per second of data throughput. The good news is, we all know it’s coming: we just have to be patient.

But why wait for Apple to catch up when Iomega is now selling USB 3.0 compatible external drives in their eGo range, which are not only backwards compatible with USB 2.0 (and therefore, your Mac) but without any price premium over their USB 2.0 progenitors.

According to Iomega, they will be updating all of their eGo portable drives to support USB 3.0 by the end of October. The 500GB currently costs just $114, and the 1TB model weighing in at $189, although these are MSRPs and are quite often yet.

Iomega’s not stopping at USB 3.0 support: they are also adding in 256-bit AES hardware encryption, and promising the drives will be capable of withstanding seven foot drops without a hitch.

As for when we can expect our Macs to be able to take advantage of USB 3.0, Iomega’s Jonathan Huberman told Slashgear that Cupertino’s delay was “interesting,” but he expected them to move to USb 3.0 by Q1 2011.

The bottom line: if you think that Apple is going to shift to USB 3.0 at any time in the near future — and its hard to imagine they won’t — Iomega’s just given you a very compelling reason to pick up one of their new drives. They cost the same, they’ll work with your current Mac, and when USB 3.0 hits Apple’s line-up next year, you’ll be able to take advantage of your drive’s blistering speed the second you unbox your new Mac.

If you’re like us, you’ve got some serious requirements when it comes to a dock. In my house, we’ve got a couple iPads, an iPhone, a couple iPod Touches and even an old 160GB iPod Classic kicking around, always hungry for an umbilical to recharge. We’ve got a handful of docks for these devices, but if there was only some sort of uber dock that consolidated the syncing and charging of all our iDevices into one powerful, attractive desktop dock.

We’re delighted to discover today that there is just such a dock: the iPADock from PhotoFast Co.. This baby’s a beast: using this dock, you can sync and charge up to four iPhones, any iPod and up to two iPads at once. Wow.

And that’s just what you can slam into the dock. If you need to sync more Apple devices, there are seven USB ports in the back (although only four are powered), as well as a connector for the iPad Camera Connection Kit. There’s even several memory card readers, including Compact Flash, SD, SDHC, SDXC, mini SD, mini SDHC, micro SD, Sony’s MemoryStick and micro SDHC.

Amazing, particularly in this compact form factor. It’s also extraordinarily cheap: just $70 all told for all of this docking goodness. Consider the iPADock officially added to our Christmas lists.

Last week’s big news item was the arrest of Apple manager Paul Devine’s arrest for taking over $1 million in kickbacks for insider information.

It certainly looked bad for Devine, formerly of Apple’s iPod and accessories procurement operations department, who was busted by the Feds in what appears to be a seemingly iron-clad case for selling company secrets to various suppliers in Asia through various shell accounts. Apple certainly thought so: they’ve sued Devine in civil court.

Nevertheless, Devine pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Now prosecutors are saying, “O RLY.” They’re skeptical, and it seems like they have every right to be: they have just discovered $150,000 placed in shoeboxes under Devine’s bed.

Does that prove anything? No. Maybe Devine just doesn’t believe in banks. But that’s certainly a lot of fast, easy travel cash lying around. My guess is Devine was ready for a speedy departure if Apple or the Feds caught wind of him. Too bad he didn’t catch wind of them before they busted down his door.

Women out for a stroll at a busy farmer’s market found themselves starring in one man’s iPod video upskirt movies.

Erik Alvarado, 35, landed in jail after shooting video at least 15 women at Saturday’s downtown farmer’s market in Salt Lake city’s historic Pioneer Park.

A sharp-eyed shopper told a police officer that a man had “a mirror or something” inside his shoe, according to jail documents.

Police discovered that Alvarado was in fact walking around with an iPod Nano strapped to his shoe. Alvarado captured video with the Apple device by placing his foot under victim’s skirts.

We start another day of deals with another MacBook Pro bundle from Expercomm. This one includes a Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz MacBook Pro with 13-inch screen, bundled with 8GB of memory for $1,777. For iPhone owners, we have two great games – free. Atrim Escape is a first-person puzzle game, while Golf Putt Pro let’s you brush up on your strokes without leaving the comfort of your easychair.

Along the way, we’ll check out a 2-year iPhone warranty from Squaretrade, along with more iPhone games and cases. We also look at some Mac software and other items. As always, details on these and much more can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Sony has just introduced a pair of new cameras that boast intriguing new translucent mirror technology, marrying the quick-focus of an SLR with the fast-shooting of a mirrorless camera.

Called the A33 and A55, Sony’s latest boast a 23.5×15.6mm APS-C CMOS sensor, a 3-inch LCD capable of tilting up to 180 degrees and rotating 270 degrees, as well as the ability to record full HD AVCHD (1080i) or MP4 (1080p) video while simultaneously employing an impressive 15-point video autofocus system. Otherwise, the only thing separating the A55 from the A33 is the former has more megapixels and a slightly faster Speed Priority continuous shooting mode, along with built-in GPS capability.

The real advance here, though, is the new translucent mirror used in both cameras. Essentially, this mirror allows light to pass directly through it to the camera’s sensors while simultaneously bouncing light up to the autofocus sensor.

What this means from a practical perspective is that you get a much smaller camera body and trade-in an SLR’s optical viewfinder for a digital one, while also inheriting a mirrorless camera’s live view mode. Better, you’ll get some truly impressive shutter speeds out of these cameras — up to 10 shots per second — since the mirror doesn’t have to lift in order to capture an image.

Both the A55 and A33 will come with an 18-55mm lens, with the A55 costing $850 and the A33 costing $750. Both cameras will be available in September.

Chris Nolan’s Inception is such a deviously complicated film that even an unseredipitously timed bathroom break is enough to reduce the rest of the film to mere gibberish. If you’re one of the many, many people who just didn’t get it, though, perhaps this informative Finder-based infographic explaining the dream structure in the film will help.

Of course, that big “Reality” parenthetical is as debatable as a wobbling top, but otherwise… if Finder can’t make sense of Inception for you, what the heck can?

[via TUAW]

Forget iOS’ execrable Notes.app: the best way to keep your post-its in order between your iPhone, iPad or Mac is the incredible Simplenote, which allows you to easily take notes on pretty much any device under the sun and sync it on every device you own.

Now Simplenote has gotten even better, thanks to a beefy update to both the free iOS app and the web backend.

What’s new? For one, tags, similar to Gmail labels (or, if you’re a blogger, your WordPress tags), which allow you to dynamically categorize your notes as you take them. You can also pin commonly accessed notes to the top of your list, making sure it’s always easy to open.

Another cool new addition is the ability to share a note to other Simplenote users, allowing them to edit a simple collaborative document in realtime… with new versioning ability allowing you to easily track changes… and if you want to share your note with someone who doesn’t have a Simplenote account, you can do it through email or the web too.

It’s a big update, and there’s half-a-dozen more new features to play with as well. If you’re not using Simplenote, what are you waiting for? It’s a free download. You’ll never use another iOS note-taking app again.

It’s back-to-school time, but some students may be headed for their headphones instead of campus or class. That appears to be the message from Apple’s Tuesday announcement of 300 million download in three years from iTunes U. The collaboration between the Cupertino, Calif. company and universities provides “iTunes users with an incredible way to learn on their computer, iPhone, iPod or iPad,” Apple said in a statement.

More than 800 universities worldwide have contributed 350,000 audio and video files. China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico and Singapore are just the latest countries to join the program. The free content allows anyone to get a taste of learning or virtually audit a classroom.

Tain’t the heat, t’is the humidity… at least when it comes to iPhone moisture sensors in Hong Kong.

According to the South China Morning Post, numerous Hong Kong iPhone users are having a hard time getting their handsets covered under warranty because the moisture sensors — the small little stickers inside every iPhone that discolor when they get wet, indicating user error — max out at 95% humidity.

The problem? Hong Kong and other Asian countries regularly excess 95% humidity, with some areas seeing greater-than-95% humidity for 73 days between June 1st and August 16th. For an iPhone, this is the equivalent of spending two and a half months in a sauna.

For some users like Justin Hayward, this has resulted in it being impossible to get an iPhone fixed under warranty, and instead being dinged a massive charge for a replacement phone.

“I’ve never used it in the bath, gone swimming or anything like that,” Hayward said. “Let’s face it; many people do break the rules. But a significant number of people are making these kind of report. If the limitation is over 95 per cent humidity, they ought not to be selling the product here. I find it quite unbelievable – a real piece of corporate greed or a great oversight.”

I’m not going to blame this on corporate greed, but Hayward has a point: if the mechanism Apple uses to detect moisture in iPhones doesn’t work in real-world locations, they shouldn’t be denying warranty service on those devices when they fail with triggered moisture sensors.

This isn’t even a problem limited to the Far East: a California woman sued Apple earlier this year over the same problem, and faultily triggered moisture sensors is a rampant problem in the tropics. If Apple’s not going to honor service based upon a moisture detection mechanism that verifiably fails in real-world conditions, they should reconsider selling devices where you can cut the air with a knife.

We always like to tell readers when the ‘other shoe falls’ concerning Apple technology. Earlier this week we reported how Apple products are seeing huge growth rates compared to PCs in both government and business. Today, we see why: corporate IT gatekeepers are becoming more comfortable with iOS-based products, particularly the iPad.

Unlike when the iPhone was first introduced in 2007, the Cupertino, Calif. company has devoted time and effort to answering the concerns businesses expressed early on. Such issues included ways to encrypt information and establishing secure methods to connect to corporate networks, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The latest versions of iOS “adds features that make the devices easier for a tech department to manage, including the ability for businesses to distribute internally developed apps without going through Apple’s App Store,” the newspaper writes.

When we posted yesterday about a new Apple patent hinting at future touchscreen Macs, one of the excellent points made in our comments section was that one reason behind Apple’s reluctance to install touchscreen panels in their non-mobile computers is the ergonomics factor: it’s just not comfortable to constantly be leaning forward to poke and prod a screen.

A new patent from Apple shows how future touchscreen Macs might just solve the ergonomic dilemma. The patent describes a touchscreen iMac with a swiveling display that rotates into a more appropriate, horizontal configuration for multitouch. A built-in accelerometer could automatically determine the display’s orientation and trigger the appropriate interface or even operating system: for example, OS X in an upright position, iOS when prone.

At the end of the day, I don’t buy that a swiveling display is how Apple would go about solving desktop touchscreen ergonomic problems. It seems a little too finnicky as a solution. Still, at least Apple’s thinking about the problem, and if Cupertino’s history with multitouch mobile devices is anything to go by… when they finally do an iMac Touch, they’ll do it right.

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Google Goggles is easily one of the biggest app advantages the Android operating system has over iOS… but Google seems ready to hobble their own advantage by releasing it to for the iPhone later this year.

Goggles itself is incredibly neat, allowing you to use your smartphone’s camera to take a snapshot of anything around you that you might want to search for on the Internet. For example, thwarted by your own swollen-tongued artistic plebeianism while on a date at the museum, you could take a snapshot of a painting you know absolutely nothing about and quickly get a list of talking points back about it. You can also use Goggles to scan text and then manipulate with it your phone, by emailing it to yourself or using a number as a contact.

It often seems weird to see Google obviate their own advantages over the iPhone, but all Google really cares about is getting as many people using their search engine — and therefore, viewing their search-targeted ads — as possible. Android’s just one means to that end; every other smartphone is another.

A dozen individuals have been arrested in the United Kingdom for laundering money through iTunes.

The twelve individuals’ plan was pretty simple, all things considered. Using stolen credit card numbers, they purchased tracks that they themselves had uploaded to Apple’s digital music delivery service. All things considered, they laundered over $300,000 worth of purchases in just four months.

For the record, this isn’t a security vulnerability with iTunes. Transacting digital goods is actually a common way to get money off of a stolen credit card number: I myself had $1500 stolen from me a few years back when someone got a hold of my credit card number and simply lost game after game of online poker against another account that he controlled.

The same thing pretty much went on here, and Apple wasn’t the only company to get hit: Amazon’s MP3 service was also used by the criminals in question.

Should this worry you? Probably not: in most cases of credit card fraud, credit card companies are quick to side with the card holder. In my case, all I had to do was assure Mastercard that neither I nor my girlfriend were secret gambling addicts. If you ever do see a suspicious iTunes charge come through on your credit card statement, give your bank — not Apple — a call, and they will very quickly set things right.

In a bid to prevent another ‘antennagate’ when the iPhone 4 reaches China in mid-September, Apple’s exclusive carrier there will offer free cases, according to a local news report.

“The iPhone 4 is expected to suffer from the same issues related to signal reception in China, but China Unicom will be offering cases to customers as a free gift,” reports Caixin, an English-language online news site. The iPhone 4 will be introduced in China on September 16.

Following numerous reports of dropped calls when the the iPhone 4 was held in a certain position, Apple eventually announced it would provide free cases to affected customers. Apple is eager to introduce its record-selling iPhone 4 in China, a nation where the Cupertino, Calif. company plans to build 25 stores and has seen 144 percent growth.

As temperatures soar to new records here in San Francisco, quench your thirst at tonight’s Ubergizmo’s Digital Summer party, a festival of fashion, photography, tech and fun.

At 8PM, San Francisco’s glamorous people will gather for Digital Summer, an annual fashion show/tech-showcase that attracts throngs of the city’s brightest young things. Last year, there was a line around the block. (Check out the glamorpuss pictures below).

Full disclosure: We’re a media partner.

This year’s event promises a live runway fashion show, studio photo shoots, a future of fashion display from Intel and hands-on demos of Motorola’s Droid X and Verizon’s Wireless MiFi Mobile Hotspot. Verizon is also recycling old cell phones, so bring them along.

Digital Summer is at the Temple nightclub on Howard Street. It’s $5 with a RSVP (get one here), or $10 on the door. Here’s the Facebook event page, and the full itinerary after the pictures:

People who quilt are also nerdy. Or nerdy people also quilt. Either way, there’s some bitchin’ stitchin’ happening — as per this compendium of Dr. Who and Harry Potter blankets — but we especially like these Apple-related sewing projects. Quilt different!

iNerd Mini Quilt

Liz Harvatine made this for her husband as kind of an emblem for the North Hollywood Classic Mac Collectors Club of which he is one of two proud members. It’s a nice banner to be under…

And here’s Percolator, today’s Best Thing Ever for people who love their iPhone photography.

What does it do? It re-renders photos in glorious approximation, creating gorgeous mosaics out of roundels of color.

Two issues are pushing Apple to expand beyond its current one-carrier arrangement for the U.S. iPhone, an analyst told investors Monday. Not only is the iPhone maxxing out the AT&T network, the Cupertino, Calif. company needs to stem the tide of Android phones flowing from Verizon.

This is where we usually write about Verizon’s chances of obtaining the Apple handset. Although such speculation has reached the level of the Easter Bunny or BigFoot as an appealing tale lacking only facts, Kaufman Bros.’ Shaw Wu takes a different tact: if not Verizon, how about a two-for-one deal?

Someone in government must love Macs. How else to explain one analyst’s figures released Monday showing a 200 percent increase during the second-quarter of 2010 – 16 times greater than the overall PC market’s 12.1 percent growth-rate? But, as the late-night pitch-men like to say: Wait, that’s not all.

Macs in business (especially very big businesses) rose nearly 50 percent during the three-month period – three times that of the PC market’s 12.1 percent, according to Needham analyst Charlie Wolf.

Remember back in June when Apple told developers the iBookstore had 22 percent of the eBook market? An author who uses both platforms to market his writing is now telling a vastly-different story. He sells 200 Kindle ebooks each day, compared to 100 a month for the iPad’s iBooks.

Despite the Kindle ebooks not currently supporting color or video, like the ebooks via Apple’s iBookstore, “according to my numbers Apple is a very small part of the ebook market,” blogs author Joe Konrath. “I sell 200 ebooks a day on Kindle. On iPad, I sell 100 a month,” he adds.

The Magic Trackpad is a fantastic addition to a desktop, but it’s insistence on being battery powered is a little strange. For most users, it’ll never leave their desk, yet there’s no USB option, unlike Apple’s own keyboards; additionally, unlike the Magic Mouse, where a cable would limit its effective range, the Magic Trackpad is designed to stay stationary.

For a lot of people, then, the Magic Trackpad’s battery guzzling represents something of a waste, and while Apple’s introduction of their own Battery Charger mitigates a lot of the environmental concerns, its still a shame there isn’t at least an option to plug it into your iMac or MacBook’s USB port directly and never worry about its juicing at all.

That’s why MacRumors modder markbog hacked his Magic Trackpad to hook straight to his Mac’s USB port by taking the batteries out of the device, stripping down an old USB cord and attaching them to a battery sized dowel.

Supposedly, it works great. Let’s not forget, though, that the Magic Trackpad is a pretty great mobile accessory as well: it easily fits into a laptop bag, and I can say from first hand experience that it makes an absolutely fantastic way to control your Mac mini driven HTPC set-up.

After being caught completely unprepared for the iPad’s debut, this Christmas season is looking to be a slugfest between different electronics companies each aiming to out iPad the other.

What’s the outcome going to be? According to Acer chairman JT Wang speaking to the Chinese language paper the Economic Daily News, Wang said that by the time the tablet market “stabilizes” Apple’s share will plummet from almost 100 percent to close to 20-30 percent.

While we’re skeptical that the drop will be quite so profound, this isn’t really news that Apple fans should be discouraged by. Apple barely controls 15% of the smartphone market. Android, in comparison, controls 17%, RIM 18% and Symbian a whopping 41% of the smartphone market. But so what? That hasn’t stopped Apple from making billions off of the iPhone. It hasn’t stopped the iPhone from leading the way in the mobile arena. And even though Apple’s in fourth place, it hasn’t stopped the iPhone from being absolutely synonymous with the very definition of a smartphone. iPhone is in a class by itself.

The same thing’s going to happen here. Everyone is going to release a poorly realized tablet to compete with the iPad, and since they can’t license iOS, they’ll install Android, webOS or Windows on their devices. I have no doubt that, very quickly, those operating systems will be fatter slices on the tablet marketshare pie chart than iOS will be… but so what? There’ll still only be one iPad; all the other tablets will just be competing with each other.

We’ve been hearing rumblings of an iOS-driven AppleTV rebranded as the iTV and priced at $99 for a couple months now, and now it seems that Digg founder Kevin Rose thinks that these rumors have a lot of weight.

Although it’s not clear if Rose has any inside information, he writes: “From what I hear we should expect to see the iTV launch in September.” That would certainly confirm rumors we’ve heard that the new ‘iTV’ will debut alongside a freshly rejiggered iPod Touch at Apple’s iPod event in September, and it makes a lot of sense besides: the AppleTV, after all, has always pretty much been just a big iPod you could hook up to your television.

More to the point, Apple themselves said that their plans for a media-streaming iTunes update would likely be “more limited in scope” than people were anticipating. We all know that the music industry and film industry have been being difficult when it comes to signing licensing agreements with Apple for streaming, but television’s another story… as an institution, they are already quite comfortable with digital streaming. Could that mean that the streaming iTunes rollout will be limited in scope for everything save television at first?