The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security has installed 72 iPad kiosks in 26 driver service center across the state to make it quicker and easier for drivers to renew their licenses “in minutes.” It has cost the department almost $80,000 to set up the service, which it hopes will improve wait times by making the process of renewing a license significantly quicker.

Our iPhones and iPads are fast little beasts, but it can still take a long time to load up an app you need in a pinch. A new team of engineers, however, have figured out a way to allow iOS to read your mind and start launching the next app you need before you even tap its icon.

Bad back? Of course you do, because you spend the day slouched in front of a computer monitor, and then you slouch over the machines at your gym whilst listening to the excellent CultCast on your iPhone, before heading home to a slouched dinner in front of the TV.

In fact, you’re so indifferent to your posture and the health of your back that you probably don’t deserve to know about the LumoBack Smart Posture Sensor, but I’ll tell you anyway. You’re welcome.

The LumoBack is a small sensor on a belt that you strap around your lumbar region, and when you flop into a bad position it administers a short, sharp buzz to remind you to sit up. But of course there’s a lot more to it than that.

Over the past few months we’ve learned a lot about the mobile ad market from a variety of studies. We know that iOS users are more likely to respond to ads than Android users, and that there’s often a big return on ads designed specifically for the iPad and other tablets. We’ve also learned that many ad agencies haven’t yet realized the value in either of those data points.

One company that sees the value of mobile ads is Universal Pictures. Universal has created an interactive mobile campaign for its upcoming “Savages” – an Oliver Stone thriller that opens a week from Friday (July 6) – that ticks all the right boxes for mobile ad success.

We’ve been drooling over the next-generation MacBook Pro since Apple unveiled it at WWDC earlier this month, and we thought we knew all there was to know about its gorgeous high-resolution Retina display. However, Apple surprised us with a new FAQ page on its website this morning, which reveals a number of things about the notebooks new screen that we hadn’t heard before, which will help you make the most of your new display.

Here are a few of the things that you may be interested in.

There’s nothing more played out than amateur music videos about iPhones featuring the chorus line “There’s an app for that,” but in iMan by Luke Escombe in the corporation, it all somehow works.

That the music video is about an anthropomorphic iPhone in love with its owner who teams up with a radioactive cockroach and become her murderous stalker after accidentally being fried in the microwave doesn’t hurt, of course… it’s hard to be clichéd when that is your central premise.

A really fantastic song and really funny music video by Luke Escombe.

Source: YouTube

Apple’s iPhone chargers certainly aren’t the biggest accessories in the world, but accompanied with their wires, they can be a pain to travel with — especially when they get tangled up in your make up (not that I’d know about that). But with the JuiceBuddy from Pacific Productions, there is no need for wires.

This little box attaches to your keychain and provides you with an iPhone charger wherever and whenever you need it most. Simply plug it directly into the wall and then dock your iPhone in the top.

Instagram was just updated with its first big tweak since it was bought by the Evil Empire, and much of the buzz is about the new Explore section, which replaces the useless Popular tab (which mostly featured I Shot Myself-style self-portraits of pretty girls, and cats).

But Facebook designer Keegan Jones Tweeted out an awesome little tip: long-pressing on the camera icon launches you right into your camera roll.

If there’s one thing you can be certain of, it’s that date formats, measurement units and currency will generally be different when you travel to a different country. If you’re living in a new country, or working there, chances are this will be even more important to change on your computer, so as to make your written communication that much more comprehensible to your friends and co-workers in your new country. Mac OS X makes it easy stay in sync with the region you are visiting with just a few preference adjustments.

Despite the success of Gears of War on consoles, it is in fact Infinity Blade for iPad which holds the title for Epic Games’s most profitable game of all time. The popular sword fighter, which has been showcased at a number of Apple keynotes over the years, has earned a whopping $30 million since its debut just 18 months ago.

Just days after opening the App Store to 32 additional countries, Apple released a press release this morning to announce that the iTunes Store is also extending its reach to another nine countries in Asia today, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

If you’ve ever jailbroken an iPhone, you should be familiar with BiteSMS, the built-in Messages replacement that delivers almost every feature you could ever want in a messages app. One of its highlights is a feature called Quick Reply, which allows you to respond to incoming messages from the home screen, the lock screen, or from within other apps using a handy popup window.

The developer behind this awesome app has now brought Quick Reply to the hugely popular WhatsApp messenger, using a new tweak that’s available now from Cydia.

MacRumors received several reports today from Apple customers who have gotten emails from Apple. In the emails, they were told that the Retina MacBook Pros they had purchased on launch day (through Apple’s enterprise site) have been delayed, in some cases by up to a month.

One such email is quoted below.

Judge Lucy Koh handed Apple an injunction against Samsung selling their Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the US in the latest round of legal warfare between the two companies. Her decision comes after her previous denial of Apple’s request as well as a federal appeals court ruling for her to reconsider the request.

App analytics firm Localytics reported today that app retention is increasing across the mobile app market, while developers are looking at more than just downloads, like the number of times an app is actually used.

The firm also notes that the iPhone crushes Android in app retention, a measure of just that – how many times an app is used.

As you’re probably aware, MobileMe shuts down on June 30, and along with it will go hundreds of thousands of users public webpages, photo galleries, and iDisk folders. In an effort to save this data, the Archiveteam has downloaded all of it. That’s a whopping 272 Terabytes, not Gigabytes, of data.

For the times when you’d like a little extra privacy on your iPhone, a new jailbreak app, Protecti, will come in handy. Protecti allows you to lock down any app or notification you want, to keep prying eyes out of your information stored on your device.

With the release of Apple’s own dedicated Podcasts app today, it’s clear that Apple is finally taking Podcasts seriously. When podcasts were first brought to iTunes in 2005, Apple made a strong push to promote what they felt was the future of broadcasting. Apple’s own Eddy Cue even said at the time: “We really think podcasting is the next generation of radio.”

Unfortunately, as time marched on, podcasts were pushed to the side and left pretty much unattended. iOS has always had minimal support for podcasts, and even iTunes itself offers no real compelling way to manage your subscriptions. What makes today’s announcement big is that it marks a new, renewed effort on Apple’s part to make podcasts a key part of their iTunes ecosystem.

The East Alton school district in southwest Illinois announced earlier this week that it will be launching a one-ton-one iPad deployment for all students in grades three through eight (plus shared iPads for kindergarten through second grade). The announcement is far from unique. Many schools across the U.S. and throughout the world have already launched similar programs – some of them on a much larger scale.

One of the interesting points about East Alton’s decision, however, is that the school district isn’t buying the iPads for its students – a least not initially. Instead, the district has signed a four-year leasing agreement for the iPads. The decision highlights Apple’s often overlooked leasing programs for both business education customers.

OmniPlan for iPad is touted as one of the more comprehensive project management apps available. With such a complex and robust app, it can be helpful to spend a little time with it and learn some of the best ways to use such a system.

First up, let’s look at creating a timeline for your project. In project management circles, such a chart is called a Gantt Chart. It basically places your tasks, goals, and project milestones on a timeline chart, to help project team members know what to do first, second, third, etc. This visual system helps managers know when things are getting behind.

Apple is preparing to build another billion dollar data supercenter like the one powering its iCloud in North Carolina. This time, though, it’ll be built right outside of Reno, Nevada. Let’s hope that doesn’t prove to be the biggest little mistake Apple’s ever made.

Microsoft confirmed yesterday that it plans to purchase Yammer, a four-year old company that specializes in providing enterprise social networks. The move, which has been rumored for months, offers Microsoft a chance to develop business collaborative systems that go well beyond the company’s Sharepoint service.

The move is an interesting one that could be significant in the enterprise space. The success of public social networks has led a number of organizations to attempt to bring the social concept into the workplace. The rate of success has varied with NASA’s Spacebook project being one of the more notable failures (and one lampooned by Stephen Colbert).

Local SF Bay Area startup California Headphones presents two high-performance headphones that combine fetching good looks with a less bottom-heavy audio usually associated with a lot of over-ear headphones aimed at rap/hip-hop listeners. These retro-styled headphones instead emphasize the middle and higher sonic frequencies of guitar and vocal music, the sound milieu of breezy California. And my favorite part is that the headphones come with Duo-Jack smart signal divider, so you and a friend can both listen simultaneously to your iPod.

You know those apps which turn you photos into pencil drawings or watercolors or oil paintings? Let’s face it — almost every single one of them is junk (iPhoto’s paint effect is a rare exception). Which is why Popsicolor is going to blow your socks off.

Never say never: in the past ten years, Apple has entered market after market and revolutionized them. The portable media market. The smartphone market. The tablet market. The connected TV market.

Where will it end? Tim Cook has promised Apple will never release a Toasterfridge, but that’s not to say they might not enter the home appliance market… or at least that’s the conceit of this very funny parody ad by Slacktory.