The latest competitor for MP3 player domination comes out of Japan (where else?), where an engineer friend of Engadget, living in the town of Ageo, has built a motion controlled device that plays tunes from an SD card.
Housed in a set of speakers (switching from stereo to mono when the satellite is unplugged), the very DIY device has an accelerometer-based interface: you can skip ahead, skip back, change albums, pause, loop, turn down or crank up the sound by tilting, tapping, or setting the thing down.
The iPhone and iPod Touch take another step toward recognition as legitimate atristic tools with the introduction of an app called Lignt, from Digital Film Tools. The app allows users to introduce realistic lighting and shadows to any photograph using digital versions of the gobo library created by Gamproducts.
Normally used in front of lights during photography, gobos, or patterns, are widely used by lighting designers in theatre, film, photography and television to create atmosphere, project scenery, and generally enhance the visual impact of their lighting.
With Light, these same exact patterns can be applied digitally to an entire image or inside a selected area. Gobos from the Gamproducts collection included with Light are arranged into categories designated Breakups, Foliage, Lights, Sky and Windows, and are controlled with sliders affecting light position, rotation, and size. They even built-in accelerometer functionality so that a shake can produce a random effect or reset effects to the photo’s original state.
One probably needs to have an advanced sense of lighting design or a least a little training to make truly effective use of Light’s capabilities, but for $2, anyone can take a whack at turning blah and boring into striking or alluring just by experimenting with different effects.
Light is a great example of the many applications being developed to drive the evolution of Apple’s mobile device platform. As iPhone’s drawing and photography options become more varied and its output is more accepted, look for a new wave of visual and multimedia creative talent to come from its millions of users.
T-Mobile USA, the carrier that released the first Android-based cell phone, said it plans this year to introduce more smartphones using Google’s open-source handset platform.
Promising “more G series phones” in 2009, T-Mobile USA senior engineering vice president Neville Ray breathed new life into rumors of the G2, according to industry publication FierceWireless. The G2, created by HTC, reportedly could be released in April.
Unlike the G1 which T-Mobile released in mid-2008, the G2 would ditch a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for a virtual one similar to the iPhone. The phone could also carry a smaller price, making the handset attractive in the current tight economy, according to reports.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is increasingly appearing to be the place to be in 2010 for Apple vendors. The tradeshow announced the iLounge, an 18,000-square foot area for Apple gadget sellers.
A gauge of the swiftness of the shift from Macworld to CES could be seen in that the Apple-centric venue at CES initially was to be just 4,000-square feet.
“In fact, the original space allocated for the pavillion sold out in less that one week – a CES show record,” AFP quoted CEA vice president Karen Chupka.
Just days after Apple released updated iPhone firmware, some owners of the handset report problems connecting with iTunes.
The complaints, voiced on Apple’s online support message areas, revolve around reported trouble syncing their iPhone with Apple’s music store.
While many owners talked of problems with their iPhone syncing with iTunes, one writer reported having trouble adding a movie he purchased to his 160GB iPod.
Computer-maker Dell is considering entering the tight smartphone market, possibly offering a touchscreen alternative to the iPhone as soon as February, according to a Friday report.
Dell is mulling whether to use Windows Mobile or Google’s Android platform to power the handset, according to the Wall Street Journal. The device, which could compete with Apple’s iPhone or RIM’s BlackBerry would also featured a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
The report follows analyst talk earlier this month that a smartphone from the No. 2 computer-maker was “closer to reality.” In late 2008, accidentally released photos appeared to show two smartphones on Dell’s website. In October, the website briefly featured the Traveler 117 and Traveler 127 from Inventec.
Our friend and colleague at Wired’s Gadget Lab, Brian Chen, has an interesting post up about the potential for the next iPhone to really make a credible challenge to the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. He cites a lot of potential factors, including that the iPhone already has 1,500 games, which is five times as many gaze as the DS, and more than double that of the PSP. All that, and it should have measurably better 3-D graphics once it implements hardware from newly acquired PA Semiconductor.
The post’s sources — and Apple — do not, however, address the elephant in the room with iPhone gaming: the controls just aren’t that good. For certain types of gameplay, such as those that don’t require pinpoint touch, or those that can work well with tilt to manage directionality, the iPhone is great. For anything that is best managed with directional controls, however, it’s kind of a disaster. The clearest example of this is the hugely disappointing Katamari for iPhone, which has dreadful tilt-based gameplay that just doesn’t work.
I’d love for iPhone to mature as a gaming platform — and today’s rumors of $20 premium games is actually a signal in the right direction — but some more basic things need to be fixed before we get too concerned about how sophisticated the texture capabilities of its graphics chips are. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be seeing people attempting to bolt a directional pad and action buttons onto existing iPhones.
The TekServe store in Manhattan has been celebrating 25 Years of Mac this week with what it calls “a petting zoo” of Macs at the largest independent Apple shop in the US. The store’s exhibit includes an original Macintosh 128k signed by Steve Wozniak himself, a Lisa, the original Mac Portable, a Newton, a NeXT cube, the G4 Cube, various Powerbooks, the eMate, the legendarily laughable 20th Anniversary Mac, and the first iPod.
If you happen to be in the New York area and want to get a first-hand look at the Mac’s evolution, be sure to stop by TekServe by Sunday, the exhibit’s final day.
The event is free and open to the public. Tekserve is located at 119 West 23rd Street, just west of 6th Avenue. Store hours are Monday through Friday 9 am till 8 pm, Saturday 10 am till 6 pm, and Sunday noon till 6 pm.
In the last of our stories from owners of original and classic era Macs, we talk to Nigel Curson. His Mac Plus has seen action as a desktop publishing workhorse, early internet client, and now toy for kids. And it’s still going strong.
When the new iLife 09 package was announced, I was pretty keen to get my hands on a copy. Some of the features in iPhoto – face recognition, photos on maps – looked too good to be true.
Turns out they *were* too good to be true.
Now that iPhoto 09 has “upgraded” my photo library, I’m cursing myself for installing it. Allow me to explain why.
I *do* like the new features. The face recognition is a little haphazard, but it works most of the time. Seeing photos mapped is also very cool and a great idea for browsing through a large collection.
But you pay a price for these new features. iPhoto 09 includes plenty of new eye candy and interface snazz which is having a detrimental effect on my photo browsing. Photos now animate into view when selected for editing or viewed full-screen. Each photo can be flipped upside down to add metadata, an idea copied from Dashboard widget behavior.
The net result of all this animated swishery is my MacBook’s fans going bananas, and the machine slowing down noticeably when I’m browsing or editing. Frustrating doesn’t cover it: this is maddening, when I stop to consider how smooth and easy and processor-friendly everything was with iPhoto 08.
Another frustration (a minor one, I’ll concede) is that the built-in Flickr upload offers very little in the way of options. Every upload creates a new Flickr set, even if you’re uploading just one image.
What seems to be missing, in my view, is some flexibility in the preferences. If I could simply switch off the eye candy, and tweak the Flickr upload defaults, I’d be a much happier bunny.
In the meantime though, I’m a bit of a grumpy one, and wishing I was still using iLife 08.
If smartphones were judged on component pricing, Apple’s iPhone would best RIM’s BlackBerry Storm. The iPhone 3G costs $174 to make, versus $203 for the Storm offered from Verizon Wireless, according to a new report.
The data from iSuppli suggests carrier Verizon Wireless is greatly subsidizing the $200 touch-screen BlackBerry. AT&T, the exclusive U.S. AT&T has indicated subsidizing the iPhone 3G cost it $450 million in the fourth quarter.
The manufacturing cost difference appears to hinge on component choices, including transmission technology.
This Shel Silverstein inspired iPhone sticker is bound to bring a smile to anyone who grew up on his quirky tales like “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and “Falling Up.”
CoM reader Flunkycarter made the sticker inspired by Silverstein’s 1964 “The Giving Tree,” a tale about a boy who enjoys the fruits (including apples) of a tree without giving back…
He even wrote an an Apple-update of the work:
But soon the boy grew older and one day he got on the iPhone and said,
“Can you make me some money, iPhone, to buy something I’ve found?”
“I have no money,” said the tree, “Also, no copy, no paste and no MMS”
“But you can take my SDK, boy, and make apps to sell them in the store”
And so he did and…
Oh Steve Jobs was happy.
Oh Steve Jobs was glad.
He’s now “obsessed with getting a green case, to match the real book cover more and also printing the branch that is tossing the apple to the boy.”
Don’t know, I like it as it is. Can think of a few people I’d like to give this to…
Here’s an early Mac movie product placement. In the opening minutes of 1989’s “Back to the Future II,” Marty McFly lands in 2015, where hover cars loom, “Jaws 19” in 3D plays in movie theaters and folks sport layered outfits that only a daltonic could love.
In an antiques store, Michael J. Fox does a double-take over a “vintage” Mac sitting next to other 80s relics like a Dust Buster and a bottle of Perrier.
As Apple’s App Store grows and more publishers seek recognition, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is set to highlight ‘premium’ games priced at $19.99, reports said Thursday.
The action is viewed as yet more confirmation traditional game publishers see the Apps Store and the iPhone and iPod touch as new vehicles to reach customers.
Athough the move would allow big-name games to stand-out from the $0.99 apps, the move is being criticized for a form of red-lining. The new ‘premium’ games section would be limited to large publishers, such as Electronic Arts.
Apple faces another lawsuit over iPhone 3G performance. The latest, a class-action lawsuit filed in Northern California, asks a court to award more than $5 million to iPhone 3G buyers.
In the 14-page lawsuit, California resident Jason Medway alleges Apple knew the “iPhone 3G cannot maintain consistent service” and has only offered buyers replacement phones.
The legal action claims iPhone 3G purchasers “have experienced broken promises regarding the phone’s transmission speeds.”
AT&T, after using the iPhone to salvage its fourth-quarter revenue, is in talks with Apple to team up for a 3G data service aimed at MacBook owners, reports said Thursday.
At the heart of the speculation is a brief comment to Fortune by the carrier’s Emerging Devices group president Glenn Lurie. Lurie said he’s talked recently with interim Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“I would very much like to do more business with Apple, and I hope that we do,” Lurie said Wednesday. Although the AT&T executive said he was having similar conversations with other companies, Apple has been an especially profitable partner.
Eagle-eyed CoM reader Joaquin Jang spotted what looks like a either a Pismo, the last G3 PowerBook launched in 2000, or its close cousin, the Lombard PowerBook G3 laptop launched a year earlier, in a recent Wells Fargo bank banner.
He writes, “Imagine my surprise when I went to log in to my bank account at Wells Fargo’s website and found this picture which appears to show my first Mac laptop, the Pismo, it could also be a Lombard which had a similar form factor.
While the Pismo still does some work for me, it’s not my everyday machine since it is nearly ten years old. Yet, it still makes it into a website ad nine years after it was introduced.”
So, which one is it?
Many thanks to Joaquin for the tip and screenshots.
CoM readers: if you spot other interesting Macs starring in ads, let us know!
If we ever do become a paperless society, Houdah Software’s ACTPrinter apps for Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch are likely to be among the solutions credited with helping to get there.
With a Mac running OS X Tiger or Leopard and an Airport/WiFi card installed, ACTPrinter Mac (a free DOWNLOAD) works in concert with ACTPrinter 1.1 ($1.99 for iPhone or iPod Touch) allowing you to “print” from any application which uses the standard “Print” dialog. On the Mac you simply “Print to iPhone” and documents (emails, web pages, letters, and more) are sent wirelessly to your iPhone. With this app, documents have finally become mobile.
Aside from being a handy way to store important papers on your mobile device, one of ACTPrinter’s most effective uses stems from the fact that bar codes embedded in documents can now be scanned directly from the touch screen.
The US Transportation Security Administration is currently testing a pilot program at 13 US airports, with the intention of standardizing the electronic boarding pass nationwide in about a year.
Follow after the jump for a list of the participating airports and airlines, and for a full list of features included in the latest ACTPrinter 1.1 update.
The BBC’s coverage of the Mac’s 25th has in some cases left something to be desired, the nadir being a bizarre video showing a Microsoft employee battling with an original Mac and comparing it against her Windows laptop. Ex-Macworld UK head honcho Simon Jary rightly pulled said video apart on his PC Advisor blog, although he didn’t note how, amusingly, the Mac boots much faster than the PC, despite MSN tech editor Jane Douglas cunningly refraining from giving the Mac its system disk until the PC’s been whirring away for a good few seconds.
Presumably wanting to avoid the same level of oddness, BBC Radio Five Live’s Pods and Blogs scoured the internet, looking for a Mac expert to chat to. Failing that, they ended up with me (Oho! You self-deprecating Brit, you!–Ed.), and I spent a happy 20 minutes talking to the extremely personable Jamillah Knowles about all things Mac.
As is always the case, the interview itself was knifed somewhat (due to it being nearly as long as the entire podcast was supposed to be), but there’s still a reasonable chunk left. Importantly, the Mac doesn’t come off looking too bad, although I do wonder what Jamillah’s co-presenter is going on about regarding how rubbish Macs used to be for getting online. (I’ve never had such a problem.)
Apple has expanded the refurbished products offered at discounted prices from its online store. The Apple Store now includes newer iPods, as well as refurbished aluminum unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company now sells its latest 1GB iPod shuffle for $39. Available colors include silver, green, blue and pink.
The latest 8GB and 16GB iPod nano is being sold refurbished for $129 and $169, respectively.
Here’s an Apple keyboard spray painted snowy, pure white — nothing to stop your eye but if your touch typing skills are still at high-school level, you’re in trouble.
“The design snob in me isn’t particularly happy with Apple’s recent trend of using two colors (black and silver, white and silver) on their stuff.
So. Combine my pedantic taste for minimalism with nerdy touch typing abilities and a cheap can of white spraypaint, and you end up with my keyboard – possibly the most pretentious keyboard in existence.”
AT&T Wednesday deemed Apple’s iPhone 3G a “success,” reporting adding 1.9 million of Apple’s smart phones before the end of 2008. The news comes as the exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier appears to have sold double the Blackberry handsets of rival Verizon Wireless.
The carrier said it had activated 4.3 million iPhone 3Gs since the handset’s launch.
Despite being a $450 million drag on AT&T earnings, the carrier announced new iPhone subscribers helped it post a 2.4 percent revenue increase for the quarter, reports said.
The iPhone and iPod Touch take another step toward recognition as legitimate atristic tools with the introduction of an 
