News - page 2204

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I sometimes wonder what monsters haunt the nightmares of Apple’s resident designer, Mr. Jonathan Ive. He’s so prim, so meticulous, so clean and proper, but on those nights when he has a slice of pepperoni pizza a little too close to bed time, what horrors does he dream up? Some horrible Cenobite iMac dragging itself bloodily across the floor whispering “Make way for the new flesh:” a biomechanical monstrosity of Foxconn components crammed into the pulsating sack of some skinless, cancerous stomach?

Or is it something more like this cardboard box Hackintosh, put together by the guys over at One Block Off the Grid — a cooperative for buying photovoltaic solar panels at a group discount — after one of their Macs proved too slow to run Adobe After Effects?

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Up until 1996, id software’s Doom engine was pretty much the de facto technology driving the best and most advanced PC computer games on the market, including Doom, Doom 2, Heretic, Hexen and Strife. Then id software released their next game engine, Quake, which boasted true 3D environments, and any game that still ran on Doom’s 2.5D engine was barely worth a laugh.

That was very unfortunate for HacX when it was released in 1997. The last commercial game using the Doom engine, HacX boasted some incredible enemy, weapons and level design, but was ultimately as ignored at retail (where it was passed over for flashier games running on truly 3D engines) as it has been forgotten by all but the most die-hard retro gamers.

I was delighted to hear, then, that HacX has gotten a new lease on life, as it has been ported as a free app for the iPhone and iPad. It’s still using the Doom engine, just this time it’s using the updated iPhone engine released by id software’s own lead programmer, John Carmack.

Here’s hoping that HacX can finally get some of the recognition it deserves this time around.

We absolutely loved that fantastic chart we posted yesterday showing off the litigious melee amongst smartphone companies as they all try to figure out which of their thousands of patents are enforceable and which are nonsense… but, infographically, it was a bit ugly, like a particularly inelegant illustration of magnetic repulsion found in a 70s-era high school physics book.

The updated chart by George Kokkinidis above conveys the same information more attractively, with clean geometric precision, sexy fonts and color coded arcs.

We approve. Maybe the Guardian should hire this guy instead of doing all of their infographics in Powerpoint ’97.

For some time we’ve heard talk that T-Mobile in Germany would get the iPhone 3GS, ending that nation’s exclusivity for Apple’s popular handset. Now comes word that Vodafone will launch the iPhone 4 in Germany on October 28. The report from a German Mac site said the carrier will begin airing ads for the iPhone 4 on Oct. 18.

We have also independently confirmed the report with a T-Mobile employee in Germany. Although the Vodafone iPhone 4 is expected to be locked to the second-place carrier, O2 is also believed to be preparing to sell an unlocked version in Germany soon, according to the report. Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent, has 37 million German customers. Vodafone has 34.9 million subscribers and O2 has 16.3 million members.

The promise of a free iPhone should always be subject to the skeptical arching of an eyebrow, but Facebook users should be extra cautious over the coming days, as new malware promising free iPhones to those who click on a link is taking the social network by storm.

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Sharp has just matched the iPhone 4’s touchscreen pixel for pixel with their new IS03 Phone, but that’s not going to stop Apple from crowing about the Retina Display in their latest ad, highlighting the fact that the world’s “highest-resolution phone screen ever” will make “every freckle, every wrinkle” (and presumably every wart, every melanoma, and every port wine stain) look clearer and more beautiful than ever before.

For extra points, check out those impossibly beautiful Twitter friends the iPhone 4 hand model has. Compared to that, my Twitter friends are a sad collection of hobos.

Readers should rightly file the following tidbit under “highly-speculative”: a rumor site suggests this morning Apple is looking to hire a blogger. The Cupertino, Calif. company supposedly met publicly with a mobile editor for Tech Crunch, now owned by AOL. A tipster thought he saw the usually-secretive Apple PR team hand the blogger what was described as “an offer packet.”

Before someone takes the report hook, line and sinker, there are caution flags waving and warning sirens blaring. For starters, there was the Keystone Cops incident over the lost (or stolen?) iPhone 4 prototype. Remember how Gizmodo’s possession and eventual return of the device triggered a police investigation amid Apple’s claims the handset was stolen? Remember how Apple sued (then settled) with the blogger behind thinksecret.com over unauthorized leaks?

Still, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has almost become a regular contributor to some blogs, firing off short missives on products and services. Other mobile companies, such as Nokia and Orange, have also hired professional bloggers to tout their brands. However, doesn’t Apple already have a wide array of bloggers commenting on every major (as well as minor) announcements impacting the company and its millions of customers?

[via: Gawker, 9to5]

Sparrow is a new email client for OS X, which takes a fresh approach to displaying and managing email.

You have until midnight, October 6 to enter your best iPhone snaps to be part of a traveling exhibit of the best in iPhone Photography.

Winners will be showcased in Apple stores around the US — Chicago (Oct. 21), New York’s Soho Store (Oct. 29) and in Santa Monica (Nov. 11).

Your best shots must be done on an iPhone, unaltered and family friendly (this is retail, people).

Take a look at the litigious melee going on among companies trying to squeeze profits out of the mobile communications landscape. It’s a wonder we have phones and operating systems at all, isn’t it?

Interestingly, the one suit against Google by Oracle is somewhat misleading, given that many of the suits represented by the flying arrows in the graphic relate to Google’s Android operating system, including all of the ones filed by Microsoft.

Microsoft, with its Windows Mobile 7 OS about to ship, is asserting intellectual property infringement cases against Motorola and HTC, claiming Google’s Android operating system runs afoul of patents it holds for several important tasks handled by today’s new generation of smart phones. Specifically the software giant says Android copies its patented methods for handling email, contacts and calendar synchronisation, scheduling meetings and notifying applications of changes in signal and battery strength.

Via [The Guardian]

Well, it took nearly a year, gut Google finally put Goggles into its mobile search app for the iPhone, according to a blog post Tuesday.

A feature Android users have enjoyed since last December, Goggles allows a Google mobile Search user to tap on the camera button to search using Goggles. The blog post said “Goggles will analyze the image and highlight the objects it recognizes — just click on them to find out more.”

The feature remains a Google Labs project and thus should evolve and improve with time. It works reasonably well, according to Google, for things such as landmarks, logos, and products, but not so well yet for animals or food.

Via [TechCrunch] [iTunes app link]

Steve Jobs joined California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in signing legislation to establish the U.S.’s first nationwide kidney donor registry.

Jobs, who received a liver transplant in 2009, has been credited with providing the impetus for the bill.

“As a transplant recipient, I know how precious this gift of life is,” Jobs said at the signing ceremony in Palo Alto. “And on behalf of those future transplant recipients who will now receive organs because of this new law, I want to thank governor Schwarzenegger, Senator Elaine Alquist and all of the legislators who voted for this law. Thank you all very much.”

Schwarzenegger said the registry will vastly increase the number of donors and make it much easier to find recipient matches. Only one quarter of qualified donors in California are currently signed up on registries, he said.

Donors can sign up here: Donate Life California.

There’s a webcast of the signing ceremony here.

Grammy winning rapper Lil’ Wayne is discovering the sound of silence in jail.

During his last month in prison, he’s confined in “punitive segregation,” where he’ll spend 23 hours a day alone.

The punishment was meted out after Wayne got caught with a contraband iPod. Officers found the telltale Apple earbuds and charger hidden in a bag of potato chips, while another inmate stashed the 28-year-old rapper’s MP3 player.

It’s selling for just $99, and you know Apple’s making a profit, but exactly how much does it cost to make every second generation AppleTV? Just $64, according to market research firm iSuppli.

Over the past few months, we’ve certainly seen our fair share of cases grafting a working keyboard onto the iPad. We love the idea, but we’ve yet to see a really solid execution.

Perhaps the PADACS iPad Keyboard Case is the, well, iPad Keyboard Case we’ve been waiting for. Unlike the competition, it features a hard physical keyboard with firm plastoc keys instead of softer, rubbery ones. That should make the PADACS more satisfying to hammer out prose on from a tactile perspective, but those paranoid about scratching their iPad display may want to stay clear.

Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about the PADACS iPad Keyboard Case, though, is that the Bluetooth keyboard comes with dedicated keys for Select All, Copy, Cut, Paste, Blank Screen, Slide Show and Search… as well as Command, Option, Function and Control Keys. That’s something I don’t think the competition actually has, and puts the PADACS about on the same level of functionality as iPad’s own $69 Keyboard Dock… albeit at a $30 premium.

[via Ubergizmo]

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Capcom’s Dead Rising series for the PC and the Xbox 360 is an acquired taste, despite the fact that it’s central conceit is the chocolate meets peanut butter of zombie games: killing the slavering, flesh-hungry dead in an American shopping mall. Now it’s coming to the iPhone later this year in Dead Rising Mobile, but can Capcom make the series work on a handheld device?

A lot of conventional wisdom around the Apple blogosphere has suggested that iPads are eating into computer sales, with even Best Buy’s CEO recently saying that Cupertino’s tablet had halved notebook sales. But is it really true?

According to the NPD, yes, iPads do cannibalize computer sales… but it’s not as significant as you may have thought. According to their research, only thirteen percent of those who bought an iPad did so instead of buying a computer.

Tony Curtis was a wonderfully idiosyncratic man. His roles included a cross-dressing jazz musician, a medieval Briton with a Brooklyn accent and a Lawrence Olivier’s slave boy toy. He once cheated on his blonde bombshell wife, Janet Leigh, to have an affair with another blonde bombshell, Marilyn Monroe… and afterwards almost came to blows with her husband, playwright Arthur Miller.

Now, after his death, add one more charming idiosyncrasy to the list: he was buried with his iPhone.

Apparently, when Tony Curtis was buried on Monday, he was interred with his favorite possessions. Not only did he go into the ground still clutching his iPhone, but the 85-year old Oscar-nominated actor was also buried with a Stetson hat, an Armani scarf, driving gloves and a copy of his favorite novel, Anthony Adverse.

Let’s all hope Mr. Curtis thought ahead of a good charging solution when he’s down there. I’m not sure HyperMac sells a battery big enough.

RIP Mr. Curtis, you wonderfully weird man. You’ll be missed.

[via Gizmodo]

It only took hours for the iPhone Dev Team to successfully jailbreak the newest AppleTV through the SHAtter exploit once it slid through their front mail slot, which should at the very least open the door to hacks like native 1080p playback and which might — fingers crossed — allow the new AppleTV to run apps.
But how hard is it going to be to install and execute user apps on the new AppleTV once the jailbreak has been officially released?

iPhone hacker Steven Troughton-Smith has done some homework and there’s good news and bad news. On the one hand, he has confirmed that you can actually install applications to the AppleTV already. The bad news? There’s no way to launch them once they’re on the device.

Back in the flower of my youth, I took a job at the local mall working as a minimum-wage cashier at a discount clothing outlet permeated with the distinct smell of moth balls. It was awful. My boss had a greasy pencil moustache and a lazy eye and was overly complimentary about the softness of my hands; my only customers were antique, gum-sucking grannies buying pre-soiled brassieres and underpants by the carriage full.

Meanwhile, across the way, my friend Josh had landed himself a job in a posh clothing boutique aimed largely at girls in their late teens and early twenties. It being summer, there seemed always to be a bikini sale going on, and I can’t even count the hours I spent watching him through the greasy yellow plate glass of my work store window, encouraging the buxom and spritely clientele — freshly emerged from the changing rooms in some impossibly flosslike two-piece to show off to their friends — to take a bounce on the complimentary trampolines that had been installed around the show floor. It was enough to make an undersexed teenage boy spill a vein in sheer impotent jealousy.

This memory came flooding back to me when I first saw the picture above of the Mall of America’s new Microsoft Store, which is currently under construction directly across from the Apple Store.

Computer component supplier SinTek Photronics wants no part of a rumor it is involved in building a touchscreen iMac. The denial follows a recent report the company was sampling capacitive touch panels for the supposed Apple device. The denial follows a report by a Taiwanese industry publication claiming the new desktop unit would offer touchscreens of 20 inches and more.

Earlier this month, the publication said SinTek had “a good chance” of supplying the new iMac.

Although I never end up using it unless I happen to browse music on my iPhone in a supine position, by most accounts, people love Cover Flow, Apple’s virtual shelf for iTunes on the Mac and iOS that displays albums by their cover art (or, in OS X, by its preview image). A nice flourish, but not particularly functional for dealing with large collections, I’ve always thought. Not really worth it.

You have to wonder if Apple isn’t wondering the same thing this morning, after an East Texas Federal Court passed down a ruling saying that Apple has infringed on patents held by Mirror Worlds, a company started by Yale computer science professor and, tragically, Unabomber victim David Gelernter… and been commanded by the court to pay $208.5 million in damages for the transgression.

Here’s a land deal almost anyone would envy: swap your one-acre North Carolina homestead for $1.7 million. That’s the price Apple reportedly paid to relocate Donnie and Kathy Fulbright’s home away from the Cupertino, Calif. company’s $1 billion data center. The real estate transaction was like the proverbial blank check. “They told us to put a price on it and we did,” Kathy Fulbright said.

To put the numbers in perspective, the Fulbright’s paid just $6,000 for the one acre 30 years ago and Apple likely paid as little as $35,000 per acre for other land needed for the data center. Apple says it plans to begin using the center by year’s end. However, as Apple’s iEmpire stretches its present resources, the arrangement may have purchased more peace-of-mind.

Nokia has released the N8, a multitouch smartphone with a 12MP camera. It runs Symbian^3, a new version of an old operating system. Nokia clearly hopes it will help carve back some of the profits that the rest of the industry has been losing to Apple, but what are initial reports like?

Are you planning on writing a book? Do you want to be the next Mark Twain? Or are you a starving author looking to cut out the middle man so you can keep all the profits from the sale of your book? It appears that your time has come — Barnes and Noble has announced PubIt! an alternative to self-publishing in the iBookstore.

PubIt! is a new self-publishing platform that will allow authors to directly upload the books they’ve written to the Barnes & Noble eBookstore. Once uploaded Barnes and Noble acts as your books distributor. The books will be sold as bona-fide ebooks and the author gets to keep a nice portion of the profits from each ebook sale. Book prices range from $1 to $200. You will earn 65% on books sold for under $10, but only 40% on books that are more than $10.

It works by accepting your book as a digital upload in HTML, RTF, TXT, or Microsoft Word. The file will be converted from one of these formats into an ePub formatted file. In less than a week your book will appear and go on sale in the Barnes and Noble eBookstore. The book will be available to Nook owners as well as Nook app users on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac.

Self-publishing is getting a lot easier as PubIt! joins Amazon and Apple by offering a competing service that gives authors another option they can choose from. Authors can keep more of their profits since there is no agent or publisher to share them with. So start your word processors people! Or just dust of your copy of Adobe Indesign and get to work!