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Some new consumer-friendly products from Avid coming mid-September
Did I get that right? You get a green screen? COOL! The price of Pinnacle Studio HD, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate and Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection remains the same as previous version: US$49.99, $99.99 and $129.99, respectively. However there will be upgrade price breaks of $30 for Studio Ultimate and $40 for Studio Ulitimate Collection made available to existing customers. Pinnacle Studio is compatible with Windows Vista SP2 (Both 32-bit & 64-bit), Windows XP SP3 & Windows 7.
Here are some more detailed descriptions from Avid:
Each Pro Tools Essential bundle is, as of this writing, available at an MSRP of $129 and works on mac or windows. All of this is good news for the people out there looking for reasonably priced entry products of this nature. It makes sense for both the Pinnacle and ProTools offerings to be released together as they are meant to work together to help people craft “slicker-than-you-thought-I-could-do” home movies and more. I wonder how seamlessly they interact? It’s also a good strategy on Avid’s part to offer these less expensive products to compete with FinalCutPro, Premiere, GarageBand and the many other pro-sumer type software packages out there these days. I seem to always remember Avid as an expensive, “for-professionals-only” platform back in the day when I was doing all my FCP work in agency-life, but clearly their acquisition path and continued development of some consumer-friendly apps shows that they are trying to cover more than one side of the quickly evolving world of digital media.
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:42 am Pigeon Beats Telkom South Africa in Data Race, Sapa ReportsAccording to Bloomberg, a racing pigeon called Winston carrying four gigabytes of data strapped to its leg beat Telkom South Africa's ADSL data service download time by flying from one province to another...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:33 am Leica X1 Puts DSLR Sensor in Tiny Compact Body
More interesting to most people than the new M9, not least because of price, is Leica’s new X1. Think of it as a miniature M-series camera, only with a single, fixed lens. The 12.2 megapixel camera isn’t cheap – the list price is $2,200 – but it should do most of what the M9 does. First, that lens. You can’t change it, and it doesn’t zoom, but as most Leica-M users stick to a 35mm lens anyway, the Elmarit 24mm f/2.8 Ashperical should do the trick. The math nerds will have noticed that 35 divided by 24 is 1.46. This betrays the X1’s huge sensor. It is bigger than the micro four thirds sensors, and essentially puts a DSLR-sized (APS-C) chip into a compact camera. The numbers: ISO runs from 100 to 3200, shutter speeds up to 1/2000th of a second, and there are 11 focus points plus face-detection. There is also a pop-up flash and a 2.7-inch, 230,000 dot LCD screen. What the numbers don’t tell us is that, in addition to the usual auto-modes, the X1 has manual aperture and shutter-speed dials on the top plate, and that when you buy it, it comes with a license for Adobe’s Lightroom software, a very welcome addition as bundled software is usually awful. The one thing missing is an optical viewfinder, but following the trend set by the Olympus EP-1, you can buy one to slot into the hot-shoe mount up top. It’ll cost you, of course (another $350), but if these optional finders become popular then a third-party market might grow to sell them, just like in the olden days of ‘finder-less “rangefinders”. We’re looking forward to this. It could actually be the true spiritual successor to Leica’s now anachronistic M-series. The X1 will be arriving in January 2010. Press release [DP Review]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:29 am Google Voice Now Forwards SMS To Your EmailGoogle Voice users now have the ability to forward inbound text messages to email. And even better, you can reply from email as well. TechCrunch reports. There are third party services (example) that...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:26 am BVR Systems Receives New Orders Valued at More Than $14 MillionROSH HA'AYIN, Israel, September 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BVR Systems (1998) Ltd. (OTC: BVRSF), today announced it has signed contracts valued at over $14 millionSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:21 am GaiKai Beta To Start In Europe "Later This Month"Alison Beasley sends word that GaiKai, the cloud gaming service being developed by games industry vet Dave Perry, is about to begin beta testing in Europe. (Sign-up page.) GaiKai is a competitor to OnLive, which started beta tests of its own recently. IGN got a chance to try out GaiKai for themselves, and they've posted a video showing how it performed. From Perry's announcement: "Our closed beta has two goals. #1 is to bring our servers to their knees so we can choose the final configuration before we start ordering large quantities of them. (We think we have it worked out, but you can be certain our staff will be swapping cards and testing different processors as each day goes by.) Goal #2 is to test older computers. We've had lots of emails from people describing their computers and 99% of them have ample performance. Remember you don't even need a 3D card to see a 3D game run on our service. I know this is strangely counter to what people expect, but we actually want to get plenty of basic office-grade XP machines testing so we can make sure we can reach the widest audience possible. ... After we choose the hardware configuration in Europe, our next phase will be our USA Nationwide Network Test, that will be using 8 Tier-1 Data Centers, getting hammered by Closed Beta testers. During that process, will be identifying the other data centers we need to include to blanket the USA in a low latency array. Phase 2 of that is Europe, in exactly the same test."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:20 am Japan. Mobile Phone Shipments Down For 13th Straight Month In JulyShipments of cell phones and PHS (personal handyphone system) devices tumbled 30.4% on the year to 2.62 million units in July, marking the 13th month in a row of declines, according to data released Wednesday...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:07 am Leica M9: 18 Megapixels, Full-Frame Sensor
Along with Palm and its little Pixi phone, Leica decided that yesterday would be a great day to bury news under the twin stacks of Apple iPod announcements and Beatles releases. Leica in fact announced some of its most significant products for years. First, the M9. The M9, sequel to the M8, is the company’s first full frame digital rangefinder. The 18 megapixel CCD sensor, developed by Kodak, is the same size as a 35mm frame, which means the M9 can use all of Leica’s M-lenses at their originally intended focal lengths. It also consigns the M8 and it’s crop-sensor lenses to the curiosity shoppe of history. The body itself has seen a few tweaks in button positions, but the real changes are internal. The Kodak sensor adds new micro-lenses which help corral the light onto the pixels — all sensors have these tiny lenses over the photo-sites, but rangefinders are a special case: the rear of the lens is so close to the sensor that the angle of incidence is particularly sharp. These new micro-lenses bend the light to fit. The glass sensor cover has also been redesigned and now cuts out infrared light. Previously Leica’s workaround was to add a filter. The shutter, too, is new, and is “microprocessor-controlled”. Leica says that it is “particularly silent”, which, given the legendary whisper-quiet M-series shutters of old, is probably true. It runs up to 1/4000th of a second and offers a maximum flash sync speed of 1/180th/sec. Stick it on your Christmas list now. And that’s it. What? You want to know the price? $8,000, but Amazon will let you have it for a mere $7,000 when it ships. Press release [DP Review] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:06 am Rhapsody streaming app approved for iPhones (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:05 am YouTube's Sea of Red Ink Downgraded to Great Lake Status [MediaMemo]
That’s still not going to appease the folks at YouTube, who have taken umbrage at the assumptions analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena have made when assessing the site’s financials. But until the YouTube guys can provide the outside world with concrete numbers about their costs, sales, etc — which they may never do – they’re going to have to deal with a variety of guesses. For what it’s worth, what’s changed here are the analysts’ guesstimates about YouTube’s bandwidth costs: They used to think the site was plowing through $360 million to deliver all those clips; now they think the number is $300 million. They’ve left all their other estimates unchanged. Meanwhile, some perspective: Google’s YouTube adventure is still less than three years old. The “two kings”, as cofounder Chad Hurley put it in this video, only got together in October 2006. [Image credit: greeblie] Source: All Things Digital | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am DNA pioneer appeals for freethinking scientistsThe geneticist who discovered DNA fingerprinting says scientists must be allowed to conduct research driven by nothing but curiosity. Alec Jeffreys realized 25 years ago Thursday that...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am New IBM Study Highlights Analytics as Top Priority for Today's CIOIBM Study -- "The New Voice of the CIO" -- Shows CIOs are Trying to Standardize Routine Tasks, While Driving New Forms of Innovation and Growth ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 10...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am Turn Elevates Bill Demas to CEOIndustry Veteran Bill Demas Promoted to CEO to Continue Rapid Growth; Jim Barnett Continues as Chairman REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Turn Inc., the smart...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am Transfreight Adds Yard Hound from PINC Solutions to Further Expand its Capabilities in Yard ManagementLeading lean logistics service provider benefits from real-time-location-system (RTLS) enhanced visibility added to yard management solution. BERKELEY, Calif., Sept. 10...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am ViewCast Selects Twofour Digital as Consulting Systems Integrator in Europe and IndiaPartnership Will Optimize Visibility in High-Potential Markets PLANO, Texas, Sept. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ViewCast Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: VCST), a developerSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am University of San Diego Goes MobileSAN DIEGO, Sept. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The University of San Diego has joined an elite group of universities that are early adopters of mobile applications. With the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am Kings of open source monitoring
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 New Zealand Herald | New Hubble instruments take dramatic images TG Daily NASA has released its first images from the newly-serviced Hubble Space Telescope, and jolly impressive they are too. The new pictures include colourful multi-wavelength pictures of distant galaxies, a densely packed star cluster and ... Superb vistas from reborn Hubble Fixed-up Hubble telescope spots distant stardust NASA: Souped-up Hubble sends home new images |
Western Digital has announced 5 new external hard drives of various shapes and sizes. The refreshed lineup represents WD’s shift towards “smaller, smarter, and safer” storage solutions. As a result, all of these new drives come standard with built-in automatic backup software, password protection, and 256-bit hardware encryption.
There are 3 new My Passport drives (My Passport Essential, My Passport Essential SE, and My Passport for Mac) and 2 new My Book models (My Book Essential and My Book for Mac). Each of these will ship with WD’s new Mac / PC-friendly backup solution, SmartWare, which provides an “[e]asy, visual way to protect, store and manage your important data.”
One of WD’s goals was to make the software easy for everyone to use and help users avoid making mistakes with their precious data. To cut down on problems, SmartWare relies on user-friendly visual aids and simple, straightforward options to backup and/or retrieve files. In the demo I saw, the software appeared to be very intuitive and included some nice touches like a search function and real-time backup status reporting.
After configuring the software the very first time you boot up the drive, SmartWare will run automatically (if you allow it), providing an automatic and continuous “backup and drive management” solution. The software comes built-in, i.e. it resides on a separate partition on the hard drive, but the auto-backup can be disabled.
As for the “safer” attributes of the new drives, each one comes equipped with WD Drive Lock – password protection + 256-bit hardware encryption. Once the password is set, the owner (or anyone who knows the pw) is the only person who can access the data. If the password is lost, there is NO way to retrieve it because the password is never shared with Western Digital in any capacity.
Beyond the password, every bit of data stored on the drive is protected by 256-bit AES encryption. In other words, without the password, the data is basically impossible to access. Might sound a bit over the top, but WD said they wanted to err on the side of total security.
The drives come in two basic flavors: portable or stationary. The smaller, USB-powered My Passport Essential, My Passport Essential SE, and My Passport for Mac encompass the “ultra-small, ultra-portable” segment. And now for the details
My Passport Essential:
My Passport Essential SE:
My Passport for Mac:
Both the larger, outlet-powered My Book Essential and My Book for Mac feature an “Illuminated Capacity Gauge” on the spine of the “book.” Here are the rest of the specs:
My Book Essential:
My Book for Mac:
So there you have it folks. More info about 5 new WD external hard drives, backup software, and security measures than you ever knew you wanted. Hands-on review coming soon.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Here’s a lovely video BoomTown did last night at our All Things Digital annual BBQ, at which the crackerjack team at our little rogue operation inside Dow Jones goes analog.
As a completely virtual company, it’s nice to get together to gnaw on some ribs and trade tech tales.
Last night, of course, much of the chatter was all about what went down at the Apple event in San Francisco yesterday, at which CEO and Supreme Leader Steve Jobs made a grand reappearance onstage after a liver transplant.
“I’m vertical, back at Apple and loving every day of it,” declared Jobs, before introducing a variety of new feature and software innovations to the company’s already strong repertoire, most specifically for iTunes and iPods.
(I guess some still stubbornly self-righteous bloggers were a little premature with their hysterical death’s door assertions about the Silicon Valley icon and business-challenged certainty that Apple would wither too.)
Overall from reading the coverage about the Apple (AAPL) gathering, the Jobs performance sounded kind of dramatic, even if there was no launch of a new device, such as the coming-up-next mystery iTablet.
Both Walt Mossberg and Digital Daily’s John “Patches” Paczkowski were at the event, along with Mossberg Mailbox’s Katherine Boehret and our Webmaster, master photog and Newton fanboy Adam Town (see his amazing images of the confab here).
(Walt actually punked me at the BBQ, by pretending he actually had a demo of the alleged Apple tablet in his bag–at which I almost lunged like a lunatic–when he had no such thing. Ha. Ha.)
In any case, here’s their frank ruminations on what went down–not too much new, really, but still interesting as always from Apple.
And, separately, after the Apple event was over, Patches went to a meeting with Palm (PALM) to take a gander at the new Pixi smart phone and gives his first thoughts too.
Here’s the video interview:
 BBC News | Google defends book deal as competitive, helpful Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google's deal to digitize millions of books opens the way for others to enter the online book business, the company's chief legal officer said in testimony prepared for a congressional hearing on Thursday. ... House Judiciary considers Google Books deal Thursday Google May Have to Modify Book Settlement for Judge's Approval Europe's Heated Reaction to Google Books |
By Michael Masnick, Editor, Techdirt
There’s a tremendous amount of opposition to Google’s “settlement” with authors and publishers over its book scanning project. I’m on the record as being very much against the settlement, but for very different reasons than most people. Frankly, I think Google’s book scanning project is an incredibly useful and culturally valuable project, that will help expand culture and knowledge sharing. So my main complaint with the “settlement” is why it’s needed at all.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Google (GOOG), which is often in the crosshairs of newspaper publishers, thinks it can help newspaper companies get paid for their work.
The search giant is planning to upgrade its existing Google Checkout payment service to handle a broad suite of billing and subscription services targeted at premium content creators like newspapers, according to a memo the company recently submitted to the Newspaper Association of America.
The memo, which went online this week, responds to the NAA’s open request for new “paid content” solutions earlier this summer. It was first spotted by the Nieman Journalism Lab.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Lore Sjoberg, Columnist, Alt. Text, Wired.com
Two Australian girls, lost in a storm drain, recently used their cellphones to update Facebook to alert people about their predicament rather than calling emergency services. Some reports indicate they also took the time to complete a “Which Smurf Are You Quiz,” and got the result “Dangerously Oblivious Smurf.”
This could be a trend.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Mercedes Bunz, Media Reporter, Guardian
Its 17 declarations on the future of journalism in the age of the internet have been discussed worldwide.
As soon as it came out, it was spread all over the net: 15 German journalists and bloggers wrote an “Internet Manifesto” on how journalism works today. Shortly after it was announced online, their server went offline. The reaction was overwhelming.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Andrew Nusca, ToyBox Columnist, ZDNet
So Apple announced a new iPod lineup on Wednesday.
I think they botched it, and in doing so, they showed very un-Apple-like cracks in the product lineup. Here’s why…
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Erica Ogg, CNET News Reporter
Though technically he returned to work two months ago, it was as the host of Wednesday’s Apple music event that Steve Jobs publicly retook the reins of the company he founded.
Jobs was the first person to emerge on stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts here to open the now-annual September iPod introduction.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Video: The iida Polaris is a cool mix between robot and phone
Hands-on with the new iPod nano
Happy 40th birthday, Nerf!
Please observe the ‘Xbox 1080′ handheld console prototype
Microsoft’s new keyboard is thin enough to shave with
 guardian.co.uk | Apple's Gaming Round-Up GamePro.com Straight from Apple's press conference, we take a look at some of the newest games for the iPhone and iPod Touch! This morning, Apple held a lengthy press conference to discuss the future of their iPod line, and where this usually ... Apple Slashes iPod Prices Jobs Himself Is Biggest Rollout at Apple Show Apple iPod Nano (fifth generation, 8GB, silver) |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
BoomTown could not resist posting this photo for posterity’s sake, taken by All Things Digital Webmaster and master photog Adam Tow.
It pictures a quartet of the tech media’s heavy hitters, all attending at the Apple (APPL) event in San Francisco today–including, from right to left, Walt Mossberg of ATD and The Wall Street Journal, Wired’s Steven Levy, Ed Baig of USA Today and the New York Time’s David Pogue.
They look almost harmless. Almost!
(Click on the image to make it larger.)
It gets better:Make sure your microphone is OFF before bragging about and giving disgustingly lewd details of your affair with a much younger woman who is also a lobbyist whose clients have business before your committee, and also laughing about the fact that you are simultaneously cheating on your wife and your mistress with yet another woman...
Not content with mentioning the fact he was having an affair, which would have caused problems enough, Duvall -- who I am now officially christening "Open Mike" -- launched into explicit details, many of which are too nasty to reprint here, and all of which were captured by his microphone. (Among them: tiny underwear, spankings, and the 19-year-age difference....
"She wears little eye-patch underwear," said Duvall, who is married with two children. "So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And so, we had made love Wednesday--a lot! And so she'll, she's all, 'I am going up and down the stairs, and you're dripping out of me!' So messy!"...And best of all? He's refusing to resign (though he's taken to actually running away from reporters).During his political career, Duvall has unabashedly espoused conservative principles and is known as a partisan Republican with a knack for theatrics: He has noisily driven his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to functions. In 2008, Duvall blasted efforts to condone gay marriage. Legislatively, he has proposed bills to aid the insurance industry and government contractors feeding off the state's massive transportation kitty.
He has offered a law to alter the First Amendment rights of Americans by banning anti-war activists from putting the names of fallen soldiers on T-shirts with messages such as "Bush lied" on the front and "They died" on the back; he observed that the dead soldiers fought to protect freedom, and "opportunists" should not be allowed to "exploit" the sacrifices with political messages opposing war.
Such thinking impressed certain constituencies. Earlier this year, the man who never graduated from high school received "100 percent" approval scores by the California Republican Assembly, the state's leading conservative outfit, and the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI), a fierce guardian of traditional family values.
Open Mike Likely to Close Out Legislator's Career
OC Assemblyman In Bed With Lobbyist . . . No, Literally In Bed
Update: He resigned.
Source: Boing Boing | 9 Sep 2009 | 11:56 pm
 Telegraph.co.uk | KidsPost News: Moon Mission Might Be Costly; Almanac Predicts Area ... Washington Post -- Going to the moon is too expensive to do as planned, according to a panel of experts that studied NASA's plans for returning to the moon. In 2004, then-President George W. Bush set a goal for NASA of sending a manned expedition to the moon by 2020 ... Returning to the moon before this century is out NASA contractor plans second rocket test in Utah Presidential panel calls for expanded business role in space ... |
 The Age | How Apple's Nano Beat Palm's Pixi PC World How did Palm manage to schedule its Pixi handset announcement for the same day as Steve Jobs' triumphant return? It's not like Palm didn't know Apple's date, but they went ahead anyway and got trounced, once again. That makes Palm two-for-two in having ... Hands-on with the Palm Pixi Foiled Again! Palm Pixi Overshadowed By Apple, Stock Dives Palm 'Pixi' Extends WebOS Lineup |
The numbers are still going up.
Update: and UP! More than $69,000 now.
(Thanks, Simon!)
Source: Boing Boing | 9 Sep 2009 | 11:47 pm
(Ed. Note: The Boing Boing Video site includes a guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. We'll post roundups here on the motherBoing.)
Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.
Announcing Year's Best Fantasy 9 (Thanks, Pablo!)It's a big week for Tor.com! We're proud to announce the immediate availability of David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's definitive anthology, Year's Best Fantasy 9.
This highly anticipated release also marks something we're particularly proud of: Tor.com's debut as a publishing entity, distinct from Tor Books and as a separate imprint under our shared corporate overlords at Macmillan.
YBF 9 is available only as a print-on-demand book, in keeping with our mission of exploring alternative forms of publishing. Similar to the launch of the Tor.com Store and the serialization of Cory Doctorow's Makers, this title is one of our various publishing projects that seek to experiment with the available alternatives to publishing's traditional sales, distribution, and delivery mechanisms.
Platonic Solids (via Beyond the Beyond)
In this project we explore three-dimensional subdivision algorithms. These have traditionally been used in computer graphics to produce smooth, rounded forms from coarse polygons. By modifying and expanding these established algorithms to include additional weights, one can generate forms with entirely different attributes. By varying the process' parameters, we are able to affect a form's topography, its curvature, its degree of branching, and on a further level its surface attributes. We recursively apply the subdivision process to a source form, which we restrict to one of the five platonic solids. These basic forms allow us to concentrate entirely on the scope of output inherent in the single generative process.Many of the forms produced by our subdivision process appear plant-like and resemble organisms. Some have similarities with radiolaria depicted in Ernst Häckel's Kunstformen der Natur. Different combinations of parameters, however, produce entirely new forms unlike those seen in nature. In both cases the forms' geometric complexity is produced by an extremely simple and transparent process. The forms are thus entirely traceable and malleable.
NifNaks - Rugged Femininity, my new work corset!: (Thanks, Jake!)
To create this hybrid corset, I first chose a fabric consisting of same type of rugged cotton canvas found throughout the Carhartt line. Durable, practical, and breathable, the material allows me to get down and dirty with my hammer and drill without fear of damaging my corset.Next it was important the corset be functional and versatile. I attached holsters for a hammer, drill, tape measure and pliers, as well as pockets to use for assorted needs while working.
All the tool holsters and pockets are attached to the corset with heavy-duty snaps allowing me to change the configuration according to my needs on the job site.
(Image: Nifer in her Carhart corset at Burning Man 2009)
Source: Boing Boing | 9 Sep 2009 | 11:16 pm
 New Zealand Herald | Will Apple's New itunes Put You on Cloud Nine? Washington Post itunes 9 is here. Find out what you should look for, and whether it's worth the download. Earlier today Apple introduced itunes 9 at the "It's Only Rock and Roll, But We Like It" media event. itunes 9 has a number of new features, such as itunes LP ... Home Sharing is great, but where's our Apple home media server? Better Navigation, itunes LP Highlight itunes Store Makeover Steve Jobs launches iTunes 9.0 to mixed reviews |
Editor’s note: With all of the debate lately between RSSCloud versus PubSubHubbub, we wanted to hear from a developer who could actually tell us which one might be better and why. The following guest post is written by Josh Fraser, the co-founder of EventVue, who is an active contributor to PubSubHubbub in his free time. He has contributed several client libraries for PubSubHubbub including a WordPress plugin. Guess which side of the debate he falls on.
In the past few months, a lot of attention has been given to the rise of the real-time web. The problem is that the web wasn’t designed with real-time in mind. There is a huge need for the tech community to get behind new protocols that will power this fundamental shift in how web applications work. Today I want to take a look at two of the leading protocols that enable real-time notifications on the web. While there are older protocols that enable real-time notifications like XEP-0060, PubSubHubbub (PuSH) and rssCloud are two new protocols which show a lot of promise of gaining adoption.
Both PuSH and rssCloud address a fundamental flaw in the way web applications work today. Currently, getting updates on the web requires constant polling. Subscribers are forced to act like nagging children asking, “Are we there yet?” Subscribers must constantly ping the publisher to ask if there are new updates even if the answer is “no” 99% of the time. This is terribly inefficient, wastes resources, and makes it incredibly hard to find new content in as soon as it appears. Both protocols flip the current model on its head so that updates are event driven rather than request driven. By that I mean that both protocols eliminate the need for polling by essentially telling subscribers, “Don’t ask us if there’s anything new. We’ll tell you.”
Dave Winer deserves the credit for coming up with the idea long before anyone else. In fact, the <cloud> element was added to the RSS 2.0 specification in 2001, but has only recently been revived (largely in response to the interest in PuSH). rssCloud made major progress this week with the announcement that WordPress was adding rssCloud support for all 7.5 million blogs on WordPress.com. In contrast, PuSH is currently enabled for well over 100 million feeds with adopters including Friendfeed, Blogger, Google Reader, LiveJournal, Google Alerts and FeedBurner. I expect to see many more services adopt these new protocols soon.
But if you find yourself confused about how they are different, you’re not alone.
Conceptually, both protocols are very similar. Both add a simple declaration to a feed that tells a subscriber which hub/cloud has been delegated the responsibility of handling subscriptions. Both protocols have a centralized hub that notifies subscribers when new content is published. Both protocols are HTTP based.
The subtle differences in implementation are important to understand, however. And in my opinion, PuSH is the better protocol for now. There are basically three things that make PuSH a more robust protocol:
First, PuSH doesn’t just tell you that something changed, it actually sends you the new content (also known as a “fat ping.”) This is an important feature that is missing from rssCloud. Not only do fat pings make integration simpler for subscribers, they also eliminate the danger of inadvertent denial of service attacks as thousands of subscribers respond to the ping notification and request the updated feed at exactly the same time. This problem is well known in computer science and is often referred to as “the thundering herd problem.” While this would be relatively simple to fix in rssCloud, it has yet to be addressed.
Second, PuSH allows variable callbacks (custom URL’s for where the notification is sent) which rssCloud does not. The rssCloud specification states “Notifications are sent to the IP address the request came from. You can not request notification on behalf of another server.” This is highly limiting since you cannot separate the servers which are handling subscriptions from the servers which are receiving the ping notifications.
Third, PuSH has a more friendly policy for handling unsubscribes. In rssCloud, every feed is automatically unsubscribed after 25 hours. In PuSH, there is an explicit unsubscribe function with the option to automatically unsubscribe after a given amount of time. Again, this small detail matters a lot when you’re operating at scale. With rssCloud, RSS readers will be responsible for resubscribing millions of feeds every night – which is far less efficient than sending subscribe/unsubscribe requests only when something changes.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t benefits to rssCloud. It is far easier to implement an RSS cloud than it is to implement a PuSH hub. By design, PuSH hubs are not simple to implement.
There are other small differences, but these are the issues that matter most. Everything else boils down to semantics.
I want to address a couple of misconceptions that are floating around about both protocols. For example, many people think that rssCloud is simply about building a distributed alternative to Twitter. This is largely due to Dave Winer’s stated goal for rssCloud to create “a loosely-coupled Twitter-like network of people and 140-character status messages.” While that is certainly an interesting use-case, it promotes a very narrow view of the protocol and what it enables. I think rssCloud has far more potential than Dave gives it credit for.
The biggest misconception about PuSH is that it is somehow owned and controlled by Google. This simply isn’t true. Not only are there plenty of independent developers like me working on PuSH, there are also other PuSH hubs like SuperFeedr which aren’t controlled by Google. Brett Slatkin points out:
Our spec development process is completely transparent. You can see every code check-in since August 5th 2008. All discussion is on the public mailing list (there is no Google-internal one). The whole point of this spec is to be open, decentralized, and not in control of any company.
Overall, I believe that both PubSubHubbub and rssCloud represent a huge step forward for the web. While I personally believe that PuSH is a better choice, competition is always good and will make both protocols stronger.
(Photo credit: Flickr/Libertinus)
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Ford and Microsoft have found great success partnering together on Sync and the rest of the automotive industry have finally taken notice. We’ve taken Sync for a ride or two and know that it works as advertised. We even took a 2010 Mustang for a spin over the weekend and even without the full-fledged Nav system with touchscreen, Sync worked great. BTW- Ford kicked some ass on the new Mustang. The interior is plush.
Anyway, BMW and Nuance announced earlier today that they’ve partnered to bring Nuance’s Music Search and One-shot Destination Entry tech to the Bavarian’s 2010 lineup of whips with Professional. Said system launches this month in the US and Europe. The speech recognition technology will go hand-in-hand with BMW’s already overly complicated iDrive system. Have fun with that.
Burlington, Mass. and Aachen, Germany, September 9, 2009 — Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), today announced that its Music Search and One-Shot Destination Entry speech technology are now featured as part of the BMW 2010 model series. Nuance’s innovative speech technology has been integrated as part of Professional, BMW’s new navigation system. The system is available in various languages, and will be introduced throughout the U.S. and Europe beginning this month.
Speech technology has been available for many years in BMW’s infotainment systems to support voice dialing and destination entry in the conventional multi-step approach. However, through these technology advancements made possible by Nuance, the new generation of BMW systems now enables a more conversational dialogue between drivers and BMW navigation and entertainment systems. Drivers can search for music by voice and enter an entire destination address in one, simple spoken command, ultimately reducing the distraction posed by manual input and limiting visual confirmation.
Nuance’s speech technology is combined with BMW’s iDrive system, its renowned console controller that enables drivers to control the entire head unit, including entertainment, communication and navigation systems. Both interfaces can be used simultaneously and allow a multimodal use of the speech input that allows drivers to switch easily between the manual controller input and speech recognition. This allows the driver to use navigation and entertainment system quickly and efficiently while minimizing distractions. The system was developed by Harman Becker Automotive, a leading automotive supplier and Nuance partner.
“Speech technology is increasingly becoming a key automotive interface as it allows drivers to remain focused on the road, yet still take advantage of today’s most popular in-car features like MP3 connectivity and navigation,” said Arnd Weil, general manager, Nuance Automotive. “By integrating our Music Search and One-Shot Destination Entry as part of in-car infotainment systems, car manufacturers have demonstrated their commitment to providing a safer and more user friendly driving experience.”
Nuance’s One-Shot Destination Entry featured as part of the new Professional BMW navigation system enables drivers to simply speak an entire address in one, simple command versus a series of multi-step dialogs and response commands for city, street and street number. Drivers can now simply say “1 Wayside Road, Burlington, Massachusetts,” and the route will be calculated automatically.
With Nuance’s next-generation Music Search capabilities for automotive, BMW drivers can quickly and easily access their favorite, stored songs from behind the wheel by selecting the audio source, genre, artist, album or song with a simple, spoken command. Nuance Music Search also recognizes several languages in parallel. So a French-speaking driver can look for a German song title or English album, and vice versa.
Recent surveys commissioned by Nuance have shown that controlling in-car systems by voice is one of the most important features to reduce driver distraction and increase overall ease of use of the entertainment and navigation systems. Nuance’s Voice User Interface study found that consumers desire shorter dialogues with fewer confirmations. Nuance’s Distracted Driver study confirms that One-Shot functionality has a measurable positive impact on reaction time and is reducing the driver distraction. Also, manual control of media players is highly distracting with the average driver 50 percent more distracted during lane changes, versus being able to simply say the artist and song title via a speech-based interface.
Today more than 100 models from major car manufacturers and nearly all leading portable navigation device manufacturers feature Nuance’s industry leading speech technology to enable voice destination entry or speech synthesis for voice guidance. To learn more, please visit http://www.nuance.com/automotive/
Lowepro announced a handful of new camera bags at PMA in March and over the last couple months they’ve slowly trickled into the market. We were lucky enough to snag a Pro Roller x100 early and have spent quite a bit of time with it over the last few weeks including trips to Indianapolis for the Red Bull MotoGP.
Storage is abundant in the x100 and you can comfortably fit two camera bodies and an assortment of lenses that include a telephoto or two. The internal pads can be arranged to accommodate how ever much or little gear you have. On the flapside, there are zippered pouches for manuals, cleaning cloths, filters and memory cards. Lowepro even added multi-color tabs for memory cards to help you keep track of which ones are full/empty. It’s a pretty neat feature.
If you haven’t noticed yet, the x-Series comes with a hidden Reserve Pack that zips out, which is fantastic for photographers who travel with a light to moderate rig. It’s not very comfortable as a backpack, but you take what you can get at this point. The main compartment comes with a kickstand that offers adequate support, but I worry too much and decided to lay the bag on its back when sorting through lenses and camera bodies.
Did I mention the fact that you can use the retractable handle as a tripod? I wouldn’t strap a 300mm telephoto to it, but your standard zoom lens or prime lens won’t knock the bag over. But there are plenty of straps to lock down a tripod.
In addition to the aforementioned features, the x-Series boasts the Lock & Go System, which keeps the Reserve Pack from mysteriously disappearing at the airport. A single retractable cable coupled with the 3-digit combo lock keeps it all together. The lock itself is TSA compliant, so no worries there.
My initial thoughts on the x-Series went something like this, “Oh great. Here’s another crappy hybrid roller bag.” Well, I was wrong. Of course, it’s too soon to comment on durability (wheels, handle, etc.), but from a functional standpoint, it works well.
Prices are a bit steep for the x-Series, but it’s a viable solution for any traveling photographer. The x100 retails for $360 while the x200 and x300 sell for $400 and $480, respectively.
Pro Roller x300
INTERIOR:
14.5W x 6.8D x 21.8H in.
37 x 17.5 x 55.5 cm
EXTERIOR:
18.5W x 11.4D x 26.3H in.
47 x 29 x 67 cm
NOTEBOOK:
14.7W x 1.1D x 19H in.
37.5 X 3 X 48.5 CM
FITS:
1-2 pro DSLRs with grip plus 8-10 lenses; accessories, up to 17″ notebookPro Roller x200
INTERIOR:
12.2W x 6.6D x 19.8H in.
31 x 16.8 x 50.5 cm
EXTERIOR:
15.7W x 11.2D x 24.2H in.
40 x 28.5 x 61.5 cm
Notebook:
12.7W x 1.1D x 18.1H in.
32.5 X 3 X 46 CM
FITS:
1-2 pro DSLRs with grip plus 6-8 lenses; accessories, up to 17″ notebook; airline carry-on sizePro Roller x100
INTERIOR:
11.4W x 6.6D x 15.7H in.
29 x 16.8 x 40 cm
EXTERIOR:
14W x 11.2D x 20H in.
35.5 x 28.5 x 51 cm
NOTEBOOK:
12W x 1.1D x 15.3H in.
30.5 X 3 X 39 CM
FITS:
1-2 pro DSLRs with grip plus 4-6 lenses; accessories, up to 14″ notebook; airline carry-on size
I know, you like posts with pictures in them. Well, too bad! AMD’s new ultrathin platform isn’t quite ready for its close-up yet. If you remember last year, they introduced the dv2 with HP as the first entry in their ultrathin platform, and I liked pretty much everything but the trackpad and the fact that it came with Vista. The new ultrathins are going to be better, faster, stronger… and more expensive. I find that disappointing because the $750 price point on the dv2 (and major lead over all Atom-based netbooks) made it easy to recommend — who knows if I’ll be able to do the same with the next generation.
Luckily, they’re partnering with more than one company this time. Sounds like the dv2 sold enough that others wanted a piece of the pie, and AMD was happy to oblige. The other side of the coin is that AMD doesn’t get to announce the actual units — that’s up to the partners, of which AMD assured me there were plenty.
But they can reveal the basic platform features:
They say that the second generation ultrathins beat the pants off Intel CULV setups, and I believe it. I really want the ultrathins to catch on, since it’s a little more money for a lot more machine when you’re looking at an upsell from a $500 netbook. That said, I’m afraid they might be spreading the “ultrathin” moniker a little thin (13.3″ screens?), but I’ll withhold judgment until the hardware hits.
Here was one of their test rigs for their promo data, to give you an idea of what the machines may be sporting:
In the meantime, all the details you need should be here.
AMD is sort of becoming the Mac of PC hardware. That is to say, they perform well, but in the end want it to be about a final user experience, not a piecemeal selection of parts and capabilities. In this spirit of simplicity, they’re shifting the bulk of their merchandising over from Turion and X4 and all that to three labels under the brand name “Vision.”
It reminds me of when they simplified their gaming line under “Game!” On that note, it’s not clear what the fate of Game! was, but it doesn’t seem to be present in the current lineup. It’s more of a desktop thing, really, so I’m not surprised either way.
Just as “Game!” had plain Game and Game Ultra, Vision will be divided into three parts, from basic to enthusiast to advanced: Plain, “Premium,” and “Ultimate.” Those particular epithets don’t have the greatest track record (they call Vista to mind primarily), but they do bespeak the small-medium-large idea going on here. There’s also a Vision Black, but we don’t talk about that.
The features differentiating the three levels are mostly video-related. Plain Vision promises dynamic contrast and improved video quality — essentially leveraging the GPU for video enhancement. Vision Premium adds better transcoding, and Ultimate supports improved HD video editing. These rely on packaged utilities like Cyberlink’s Power Director and ArcSoft’s upscaling technology — a necessary evil until GPU acceleration can be better implemented with any app you choose.
The new stuff is looking solid, and I wish them the best of luck with it. They’re also pushing that all their platforms support everything Windows 7 will throw at them (virtualization, hardware effects), so that’s one less thing for Best Buy employees to worry about.
Section: Apple, Audio, Portable Audio, Video, Portable Video, Features, Originals
So you’ve narrowed your choices down to the iPod nano, the Zune HD, and the iPod touch, but you have no idea which one to get. Gadgetell has you covered. We’ve got a flow chart to help make your decision!
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
OK, all you Spotify coveters who say you can’t wait to get the much-hyped app on your iPhone. Here’s your chance: Pony up $15 a month and you can get Rhapsody’s app, which does the exact same thing.
Apple (AAPL) gave Spotify the go-ahead for its streaming music iPhone app last month. But the service doesn’t have deals to distribute music in the US yet. RealNetworks’ (RNWK) Rhapsody, however does have deals, and its app just got Apple’s nod.
So. If you want on-demand access to nearly any song you want, it’s all yours: You’re just going to need to pay Real $14.99 a month for its “Rhapsody-to-Go” subscription service.
What’s that? You like the idea of getting all the music you can eat on your iPhone, without listening to ads, but you don’t want to pay for it? Alas. No dice. Spotify mobile users in Europe are paying, too — about $16 a month — and if and when the service gets distribution in the US., you can expect to pay about the same.
So will anyone pay for either app? Good question. Best Buy’s (BBY) Napster says that pricing level is too high, and says it won’t offer a music app until it can get the labels to charge less for their music. The company says it thinks $5 a month is a reasonable charge.
And up until now Rhapsody hasn’t had a whole lot of luck with its “to go” subscription pricing. But! Up until now, Rhapsody wouldn’t work with Apple’s iPod, which has made it a very, very hard sell. Now it has a very large base to sell against.
Will that make a difference? We’re about to find out.
Here’s a video that previews the app.
Bing is an excellent search engine. For one thing the surprising early reviews probably forced Yahoo’s hand as they entered into one of the dumber corporate transactions I’ve ever seen. So, kudos to Bing. Golf clap. Etc.
But one thing about Bing really stands out – it may be the best porn search engine ever created (see Badda-Bing Indeed). In private conversations Microsoft employees always said that the porn search feature was an unintended byproduct of good video search. But we always wondered if that was true.
Anyway, in May we noticed Bing ads on Google, which seemed a little ironic to us given how seriously the two companies compete with each other.
But one thing we didn’t notice until now is that Bing is also advertising on Google for the query “pornography.”
Which in our opinion removes all doubt about Bing’s intentions. There’s nothing wrong with being a good porn search engine, in our opinion. And why not go ahead and advertise it to the world.
Discovered via a TechCrunch employee who has asked to remain anonymous.
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This whole stream idea is starting to catch on. Even sports blog network SBNation is adopting what CEO Jim Bankoff calls StoryStreams for a new redesign it is launching tonight. A StoryStream is “the latest news feeds, Tweets, videos, comments that move a major sports story along,” says Bankoff.
SBNation is a collection of 212 sports blogs across major sports like basketball, baseball, football, and hockey. So far it’s main site, SBNation.com, has been not much more than a glorified directory for all the blogs. But tonight it is changing to more of a true sports destination site in its own right with a small team of editors who cull the best stories from the 212 blogs, as well as articles, videos, and Tweets from elsewhere. Each different major sport will have its own aggregation page, and new items will stream in on a continual basis.
But that’s not really the stream part. A big sports story, like basketball player Allen Iverson moving to the Memphis Grizzles (what is he thinking?), will sometimes show a number next to teh headline which indicates how many individual items are showing up about that one big story. If you click on one of those headlines, you come to a StoryStream page for that particular story, with blog posts, editor commentary, videos, Tweets, and so on about Iverson moving to Memphis or whatnot.
Sports news is like financial (and tech) news in that it attracts sports junkies who like to constantly refresh their favorite sports site to see the latest scores or updates about their favorite teams and players. Why not just stream all of those stories to them so that they never leave? That is sort of the idea behind SBNation’s StoryStream, which I like to think of as more of a SportsStream.
SBNation’s 212 blogs are already attracting a quickly growing audience. Bankoff says the network as a whole is up to 7.5 million unique visitors a month (Quantcast has 3.8 million). SBNation.com is a tiny part of that. Quantcast measures a tripling since April to 350,000 monthly U.S. uniques to SBNation.com,while comScore shows a similar trend (see chart below). Turning SBNation into a central sports hub should pump it up significantly and make it less puny. Adding more content and organized headlines on the main homepage and then keeping visitors longer with a constant barrage of headlines and links to the hottest sports stories should help move those numbers even higher on both the central site and the related blogs..
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Facebook integration. Tweeting my music interests. AppleTV. Full-screen album extras. App management. An entire online store. Smart playlists. CD burning. Ringtone creation. Tips the scales at 88MB. All this in what is essentially the only music player on OS X. At some point enough is enough, and for me it was enough years ago. For god's sake, Apple, all I want to do is play my music.
For years Apple has been adding to iTunes, and while some improvements have been welcome, many have simply added to the bloat. It's time — way past time, really — for Apple to put out something lightweight and basic. I understand that iTunes is a wedge (and weapon) for Apple, and I don't propose gutting it, but considering there are no credible alternatives to the program, it's at the point where I feel Apple has stopped simply adding to the feature buffet, and has started force-feeding users.
A few minutes ago we published a post about Facebook’s new Desktop Notifications app for Mac — a very slick desktop client that lets you monitor your Facebook notifications from your Mac desktop. We’ve been poking around the app’s page a bit more, and we may have stumbled upon something even more exciting: a directory of Prototype Facebook apps. You’ll notice that the page includes an option to “Browse More Prototypes”, which currently leads to a blank page.
At this point there are two possibilities: Facebook either has an internal directory of Facebook applications that are tested by employees and a bug let us access Desktop Notifications, or it’s preparing to give everyone the chance to try out these new experimental apps, while clearly specifying that they are an “experimental feature built by a Facebook engineer” so that it doesn’t have to worry about offering support for them. Given that the Desktop Notifications app has been public for a while now and Facebook hasn’t pulled it, I’m guessing the latter.
This would be similar to a model that Google has adopted with Gmail Labs, which it launched last summer and has led to a number of useful features. And it’s a model that would be perfect for Facebook, which is well known for running marathon ‘hackathon’ sessions during which its engineers cook up new features over the course of a few all-nighters.
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Twitter’s Suggested User List is the source of much controversy. But the rationale behind it is sound, even if the execution isn’t: It’s a way to bundle users that may be interesting to follow together. A new service called TweepML takes the idea and gives it to the masses.
Basically, if you’ve ever used an OPML file to bundle together feeds in your RSS reader, you’ll understand the concept immediately. TweepML takes a bunch of Twitter users that you choose, bundles them together, and allows you to share that bundle with whomever you choose. When the person on the receiving end loads up the bundle, they will be following all the people you suggested.
A good use case for this is for individual blogs. Here’s TechCrunch’s TweepML, for example. If you click on that link, you’ll see a bunch of us TechCrunch writers are selected for you to follow. You can individually uncheck any of us as well. You then sign in with your Twitter credentials below that list and you will be following those users. Oddly, TweepML opts not to use Twitter’s popular OAuth authentication system and instead has you sign in on their own site. But it promises that once it follows the users you’ve selected, it “forgets your password forever.”
Marcelo Calbucci, the man behind TweepML, has created a few other interesting bundles of Twitter users to follow, including U.S. Senators, and the Twitter’s employees
TweepML, the service, is launching today with a couple partners, including Twitter grouping service Twibes and Twitter sound bite service Chir.ps. They also claim to have support from OneRiot, Gnip, Gist and others. It’s a good idea, executed in a simple enough manner that it could just work.
TweepML, the format, promises to be extensible and open so others are free to use it as well. It’s based on simple XML, and Calbucci hopes that sites start making it a standard by implementing it and including .tml files on their servers for visitors to access.
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Facebook integration. Tweeting my music interests. AppleTV. Full-screen album extras. App management. An entire online store. Smart playlists. CD burning. Ringtone creation. Tips the scales at 88MB. All this in what is essentially the only music player on OS X. At some point enough is enough, and for me it was enough years ago. For god’s sake, Apple, all I want to do is play my music.
For years Apple has been adding to iTunes, and while some improvements have been welcome, many have simply added to the bloat. It’s time — way past time, really — for Apple to put out something lightweight and basic. I understand that iTunes is a wedge (and weapon) for Apple, and I don’t propose gutting it, but considering there are no credible alternatives to the program, it’s at the point where I feel Apple has stopped simply adding to the feature buffet, and has started force-feeding users.
On my PC I use Winamp — have for years, love it. I understand I can’t have a carbon copy, if you will, on OS X, but at the very least give me a program that isn’t 80% features I will never use.
I just prefer apps that do one or two things, and do them well — surely I’m not the only one. I play movies in MPlayerOSX or VLC and organize them myself, as I know many people do. Even if I did use Twitter, I wouldn’t want to tweet what I’m listening to or buying; LastFM works fine for that and already has a client or is embeddable in many services. Same for liking things on Facebook. And App management? I don’t have an iPhone or an iPod, why would I want my media player to include support? You can hide some of it, but far from all of it, and it disturbs me that it’s always lurking there, just underneath the surface. Waiting.
Songbird is out there, I guess (I should switch), but it still emulates iTunes shamelessly and adds yet more features I don’t want in a music player, plus a browser. I already have a browser, guys. Use that one for your fun rich content. What else is there? Audion, abandoned these five years? Cog, abandoned a year and a half? Banshee and Vox, for six months? I’ve seen forums where people recommend running Winamp in a virtual machine to save RAM! We’re in a gilded cage, fellow Mac users, and unlike the iPhone’s gated and patrolled garden of mobile delights, it’s not one you should be satisfied with.
Many Mac users chime in angrily whenever I have the nerve to mention bloat in a precious, perfect Apple product. Is it really such a stretch of the imagination to believe that some people might just want to play their music, or perhaps organize and browse it differently from how iTunes lets you? I think for every person who is excited to let Genius pick their party’s music, there is someone who can’t stand how playlists work. And for every person who likes the way iTunes organizes albums and tracks, there’s someone for whom its method of displaying their collection is frustrating and backwards. For instance:
What’s wrong with this picture? It’s janky as hell is what, and this kind of weirdo sorting issue is far from rare. To say nothing of the many other annoyances I find in this monstrosity of a media player.
So what are people for whom iTunes isn’t right supposed to do? For years now, the answer from Apple and OS X developers has been “just deal with it.”
Meanwhile, among the several options I have to me on XP (and 7) are very competent free and/or open-source alternatives to Microsoft’s iTunes-equivalent, Windows Media Player — which isn’t as bad as everyone says, but lord it ain’t good. Take a look at the features available in Winamp. Now observe the following screen:
(or I could just download the 6.4MB “Lite” version)
Why don’t I have one of those for iTunes? Does Apple not trust me when I say that I’ll never use Genius or Facebook integration? Do they not have the ability to decouple these decadent sidecar-apps from the fundamental functionality of their media player? It’s a fail one way or the other.
At the risk of getting too general in my criticism, the lack of a variety in certain kinds of software is one of the unanswerable complaints against OS X. There are dozens of programs on my PC that have no equivalent (or only a weak one) on a Mac, and rarely because, as is often said, the functionality is duplicated in the OS or what have you. If I weren’t away from my desktop, I’d list ‘em off for you. But this iTunes thing is symptomatic of that larger problem. With no alternatives, Apple’s option becomes more and more entrenched, and as it becomes entrenched, it spreads its tentacles hideously, and results in things like the present iTunes (and to a lesser extent, iMovie, iPhoto, and others). After today’s shenanigans, the program is fatter and more tentacular than ever.
In the end, it seems to me that it would be so easy for Apple to make a smaller media player that they must have made a choice not to do so. Considering there are no other options, that’s a decision that is, to users like me, very damaging. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to change, since it clearly hasn’t been damaging to their business. Looks like it’ll continue to be their way or the highway, except without the highway.
It’s not spoiled to want what I’ve had for years on the platform Apple disparages as unusable. I think what I’m asking is reasonable enough, though I have no expectation that the way of the world should be suspended for my convenience. Here’s what I’d like:
What do you think? Is that really such a crime?
Update: It’s not a fix for the bloat and so on, but for a clean UI like the one I chopped together above, it’s as easy as context-clicking on a playlist and opening it in a new menu. If you make a smart list that’s your entire library, that can be your only window. Better than nothing! Thanks, Tim F! Update update: Son of a… you can’t delete things or rearrange tracks. Why would you want to though, right?
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The application is native, which means it doesn’t have any of the CPU usage issues or quirks of Adobe AIR. Using the app is very straightforward: as new messages, notifications, and wall posts come in, you’ll see a Growl-like notification box slide into view. Even better for avid sharers, the application features a universal hotkey for sending out a new status update, though this doesn’t seem to have support for all of Facebook Publisher’s functionality (sharing photos, etc.). You’ll also quickly find that aside from updating your status, most of the functions featured in the app (like composing a new message or viewing your News Feed) are really just links to the Facebook website — you can’t do much from within the app itself. That said, if you’re just looking for a way to bring your Facebook notifications to your desktop, this is a perfect solution.
Of course, this isn’t the first application that brings Facebook to your desktop — a number of third party apps like Amigo, Seesmic and TweetDeck offer some of the same functionality (and more). And Facebook has built its own AIR app that lets you view your News Feed and post status updates.
Thanks to Gambit for the tip.
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Microsoft Hardware’s new Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard is a sexy little number. And its companion is a sexy little numpad. Thin keyboards tend to have short key throws, which is less comfortable for some, but on the other hand, it’s thin enough to slip into… why not, a manila envelope.
It’s got that little kink in the middle that so many people like, and I admit that I probably should get one of these natcheral-type keyboards, what with all the blogging I do. And with all the shaving I do, I could use that razor-thin form factor. As thick as a AAA battery at the back, less at the front. That’ll cut the electrons off an atom.
Microsoft’s keyboards have always been pricey, though: this one will set you back $90, plus $50 for the number pad if you want it. Is it worth it? Buy it and find out, chicken!
Over at Needles and Sins, Marisa Kakoulas DiMattia blogs:
Yesterday was the US launch of the racing game Dirt 2, and what better way to promote virtual off-road rallies than, ya know, a Flash app that lets you tattoo some woman's breasts. The app is called "Dirty Tats." And that's not even the worst part."Dirty Tats." The Game. The Tragedy. (Needles and Sins, thanks Susannah Breslin)
The obviously sex starved Codemasters who created the tattoo game know how to do creepy well, albeit unintentionally. After the intro of loud and just plain bad pop-metal, you're treated to gooey come-ons from a volumptuous vixen who purrs "I like the personal touch," or "Looks like you have some hidden talents." My special talent was not vomiting while trying to get the words "misogyny" across her chest via the Lettering tool.
And like all bad tattoo Flash games, there are the bad tattoo flash stencils that you can stick on her, like the Tribal fish and Kanji for "why am I wasted my time."
Earlier this year, NPR ran a neat narrated slideshow of astronomers discussing their favorite images of space taken through the Hubble Telescope. It's worth a second look, now that the device is back in action, following a final round of repairs. Above, holy wow, right? This image was one of the earlier images retreived after Hubble launched nearly 20 years ago. Astronomer Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson explains that it's a Hubble Space Telescope image of part of the Eagle Nebula, a giant cloud of gas and dust about six thousand light years from earth. These pillars are areas of strong concentrations of gas and dust, in which stars are eroded away, like sandcastles on a beach are blown away by waves. Inside this cloud, new stars are being formed. Hubble's Prying Eyes (NPR News, via Jesse Dylan)
And, with that prelude out of the way -- go have a look at the new images NASA released today from the now-upgraded Hubble Telescope. Below, "Butterfly Emerges from Stellar Demise in Planetary Nebula NGC 6302."
Source: Boing Boing | 9 Sep 2009 | 6:03 pm
A small, California-based company by the name of Apple had an event today where it unveiled many new things. In case you were AFE (away from Earth) for the past few hours, here’s what you missed.
• The iPod nano now has a digital camera. It also has FM radio capability for the first time ever, finally ushering Apple into the year 2002. Neat: Live Pause lets you utilize a cache of as much as 15 minutes. I wonder if it’ll no longer be cool to like the band Phoenix now, seeing as though they’re so prominently featured in the glossy iPod photos.
• The iPod touch got a storage bump, with 8GG, 32GB, and 64GB models. The 64GB is also marginally “faster” for some inexplicable reason.
• The iPod classic is not dead, and now (again, actually) has a 160GB hard drive.
• iTunes 9.0 was released. Manage your iPhone Apps right from iTunes! Watch videos and consume all sorts of bonus content from the music and movies you buy with iTunes LP! Transfer music and movies throughout your house with Home Sharing. And Genius Mixes creates up to 12 Genius playlists automatically.
• iPhone OS 3.1. Genius for all your Apps (which means that it’ll recommend new Apps for you to try based on your current collection). And you can now buy ringtones from the four big record labels for $1.99 a pop. (Note: you’re a darn fool if you actually buy ringtones.)
My short film is about to hit the festival circuit. Would it be cool to email a heads-up to everyone in my address book?
The Internet has a name for that, Dear Reader: spam. Unless you wish to join the spiritual ranks of bootleg Viagra peddlers and Nigerian "princes," indiscriminate email blasts to one's acquaintances is never copacetic. Nobody wants to live in a world where giving contact info to a friend or colleague is tantamount to checking the "Yes, please keep me informed about exciting product offers!" box.
That said, there's nothing wrong with aggressive self-promotion. Sift through your contacts to identify people who might be interested, even though they haven't explicitly opted in. Focus on folks with whom you've enjoyed at least one warm exchange. Then tailor the messages. "Personalize each email," says Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs, a social-media consulting firm. "Send them one at a time and say one personal thing at the beginning of each."
Keep in mind that no matter how much care you take to avoid the whiff of spam, there's a chance that some of your recipients will complain. If that happens, be human enough to apologize—something spambots never do.
To boost my blog traffic, I held a contest, awarding $50 gift cards to readers I picked at random. My husband says it was illegal. Am I going to jail?
Technically, your giveaway wasn't a contest but a sweepstakes — à la Publishers Clearing House. You picked the winners at random, rather than as a reward for, say, their knowledge of trivia. As such, you are subject to the laws of your home state regarding sweepstakes. These generally state that the rules must be clearly posted and that entrants shouldn't have to spend money in order to win.
Unfortunately, the fine print in some states can be annoyingly specific. You may come across detailed requirements governing the font and type size for your "No Purchase Necessary" disclaimer or the exact odds of winning.
Didn't dot those i's or cross those t's? Don't fret. You're highly unlikely to do time, especially given your piddling payouts. (The California attorney general's office couldn't identify a single case of a blogger being punished for holding a sweepstakes.) But next time you feel the need to channel Ed McMahon (may he rest in peace), do your best to obey the law. It's a royal pain, but look on the bright side—long legal disclaimers give your blog an air of authority.
I recently posted a photo on Facebook of my 4-month-old son taking a bath. My mom flipped; she said I was creating child porn. Is she overly paranoid?
Sounds like your mother has seen one too many episodes of To Catch a Predator. The legal test is for the depiction of "sexually explicit conduct" (including "lascivious exhibition" of genitalia). Neither the Feds nor Facebook care about a cute bath-time picture of your own kid. And it means a lot if Facebook is cool with it, because the company is notoriously prim—it has been known to delete images of breastfeeding. "We've carved out an exception in our policy to allow photos of infants posted by parents or other family members," says Simon Axten, a Facebook spokesperson.
Mom also needs to understand that Facebook can actually be more private than a beach or park—the photos can be viewed only by trusted friends, assuming you have the appropriate privacy settings. (You do, right?) Unless she has a blanket objection to her grandson appearing naked in public, including during emergency diaper changes, her anti-Facebook logic doesn't hold water.
Need help navigating life in the 21st century? Email us at mrknowitall@wired.com.
When the movie 9 opens on September 9, theaters nationwide will be invaded by a swarm of goo-goo-eyed rag dolls wandering a postapocalyptic hellscape bereft of sunlight and dominated by clanky, cranky monster bots. (But enough about the concession stand—hey-o!) The 8-inch computer-generated burlap heroes, voiced by Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly, among others, embody a scrappy aesthetic described by filmmaker Shane Acker as "stitchpunk." "There's a real beauty in turn-of-the-century mechanics, and we wanted to celebrate that," Acker says. "The main machine is basically a cyclops with many arms, and we do our own reinterpretation of Medusa. It's like a steampunk version of Clash of the Titans.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Say hello to the new iPod Nano, now featuring a video camera. Mind you, the video is standard definition, but it’s still a compelling feature on an iPod. After all, the best camera, as Wired.com’s shutterbug Charlie Sorrel would say, is the one you carry around everywhere with you, right? That’s exactly what Apple had in mind with this upgrade. Heck, given the puny size of this thing (3.6 inches tall; 1.5 inches wide; 0.24 inch thin), you could call this a sexy spy camera. (Note: It doesn’t shoot stills, but we’ll see if we can find a workaround for that.)
Here’s something that’s not so sexy: The camera and the mic are on the bottom left of the back of the iPod. If you’re right handed, you’re probably going to accidentally cover the mic and camera with your finger when you’re shooting video. That could take some time to get used to.
In terms of overall looks, we like the new Nano. It’s got a shinier look thanks to its polished anodized aluminum, and the corners are less pointy than its predecessor’s. Both pluses.
Other new features on the Nano include an FM radio, a pedometer that works with Nike + and voice recording. After some thorough testing, Wired.com will provide a full review of the iPod Nano. Meanwhile, check below the jump for more artsy photos of the iPod Nano, courtesy of Wired.com photographer Jon Snyder.
The iPod Nano comes in two models: 8GB for $150 and 16GB for $180. It’s available today (although the San Francisco store wasn’t carrying any, last we checked).
Product Page [Apple]
See Also:
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
 Crain's Chicago Business | AT&T to Speed Its Network in 6 Cities by Year-End New York Times AT&T said on Wednesday that it would make improvements that would double the speed of its wireless network in six cities — Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Charlotte, NC — by the end of the year. ... AT&T to Boost 3G Network in Six Cities AT&T Details 3G Upgrade Plans AT&T To Jack Up 3G Speeds With HSPA 7.2 |
“I need Android like I need a hole in the head.” – Tom Conrad, Pandora CTO
Popular music service Pandora is a huge hit on the iPhone, and they were one of the first Palm Pre apps available as well. But when it comes to Android, the company has at best always been “meh.”
In July 2008 Pandora CTO Tom Conrad said “I need Android like I need a hole in the head,” adding “the last thing from a technology standpoint that i need is another OS platform that sits on top of buggy firmware.” The relevant video clip is here (skip to the 55 second mark).
“We’re going to put your face next to that quote when you launch an Android app,” I said at the time (check!). Conrad later clarified his position.
Anyway, back to reality, Pandora has now launched an Android application, and it’s pretty darn cool. Unlike the new Facebook for Android, it doesn’t skimp on features. In fact, it’s the first mobile Pandora application that integrates with the built in music player so that you can create stations from the artists and songs in your local collection. It also integrates with the Android home screen widget system.
So overall I give the product an A, and I give Tom Conrad an A+ for creating drama around an otherwise less interesting launch. Well done.
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Because dude, this was harsh. And this was cute but not sufficiently cute. It's okay, you guys, Xeni's here now. Boing Boing moderator Antinous points us to this, and says, "I recommend dropping acid and hitting them all simultaneously." (via Teresa Nielsen Hayden)
Source: Boing Boing | 9 Sep 2009 | 5:05 pm
Section: Communications, Accessories, Cellphones
The Wi-Ex zBoost YX510-PCS-CEL. Simply put, it’s a cell phone signal booster that works with every carrier that isn’t Nextel. It retails for $399.99.
Inside the box you’ll find, an instruction manual, the base unit, an antenna, power supply, 15 feet of coaxial cable, a signal receiver, and a mounting unit.
The best part of the unit is that it does what it sets out to do. It boosted the cell phone signal to my Verizon LG VX8300 excellently. In the one area of the house where my service continually cut out, or stayed at around 1 bar, the zBoost gave me a steady 3 bar signal, which is not bad at all.
The zBoost managed to boost the signal through the walls of a finished basement that contain exclusively metal supports, which was likely the cause of the reception issue.
The major issue with the zBoost is that it has very strict limitations as to where the device has to be placed. The signal receiver has to be placed in a spot where you get the most signal, possibly even outside. If that location is outside, you’ll need to find someway to run the coaxial cable from the receiver to the base unit.
The base unit then has to be placed where you want the reception, but don’t have any. However, the base unit shouldn’t be within 2 feet of any other cords, metal objects, or wireless routers. This makes for quite an annoying setup, and in some (if not most) cases, it can be very difficult to meet all the demands the manual lays out for you.
However, despite the very strict limitations, there really is no need to follow them exactly. For example, the placement I had for my device has the signal receiver laying on the top of bookshelf (I didn’t find the need for the mounting device), with the coaxial cable stretched across the floor to the base unit that sat on an unused metal-frame futon. It may have interfered with the signal, but I was still able to get a steady signal from the device on both a Verizon VX8300 and T-Mobile myTouch 3G.
While the Wi-Ex zBoost YX510-PCS-CEL certainly worked as advertised, it can be difficult to recommend unless you absolutely require it to get any sort of signal in your house or apartment. At $400, it’s not cheap, but should be worth the price if most of your home (or office, or wherever you need signal) is virtually a dead zone.
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
As if it wasn’t enough to introduce the sickest mini MP3 player/Video camera/Radio ever and a gorgeous new version of iTunes, Steve Jobs had to throw in an iPhone OS update for good measure. For those of you who missed our live feed, here’s an overview of what the iPhone OS 3.1 update contained:
Genius Recommendations for Apps
Mad props to our own MG Siegler for calling this a few weeks ago. Genius recommendations come straight to your iPhone through the in-phone App Store. Now, alongside the “What’s New” and “What’s Hot” in the Featured section of the App Store is a “Genius” section. Basically, it takes apps you’ve already got and gives you recommendations of other apps that you might want to get. Fortunately, it doesn’t simply provide you with what apps “Customers of [X app you own] also downloaded.” That would be uber lame since that feature already exists in the iTunes Store.
Instead, it actually provides you recommendations that are dissimilar from the app you have but related. For example, I’ve got WordPress on my iPhone. Instead of giving me access to other blogging apps, it recommends similar utility apps such as BeejiveIM 3.0 and Twitterrific Premium. On my first pass, this looked great and I got some solid recommendations. Upon further inspection, though, a few of the recommendations seemed a bit from left field. Based on my owning Button (disclaimer: made by our own Greg Kumparak), it recommended Service Bell, which, frankly, is not at all related to Button in any way except that they are both free apps.
Only time will tell whether the Genius feature for apps actually works or not, but to be honest, who cares? Better that it exists than it doesn’t. How else will you sift through the 70,000 apps and counting?
Genius Mixes
iTunes Genius now comes with a new feature: it automatically makes 12 playlists for you. In the past, Genius would make playlists only if you provided it with a sample song. Then, iTunes’s Genius feature would go and pick other songs in your library similar to that sample song and create a playlist for you. This worked pretty well for some, but now they’ve beefed it up a bit. You no longer have to provide a sample song. All you have to do is fire up iTunes and hit the Genius Mixes button on the left taskbar. Bam. You’ve got genre-based mixes (or playlists) that you can then pull onto your iPhone/iPod to enjoy on-the-go.
Wirelessly Downloadable Ringtones
Let’s face it: the iPhone ringtone is classic, but now that everyone has one, you can’t always know if its your phone ringing or your co-worker’s. Problem solved, says Jobs. You’ve now got the ability to wirelessly download ringtones to your phone. A long time coming, I say, but a welcome addition to the iPhone features list nonetheless. I went ahead and tested it out – the process was fairly simple, though the downloading took a bit longer than expected (I was on wi-fi). As soon as you download the new ringtone, your iPhone prompts you with the option to make it your default ringtone or just the ringtone of a specific contact. Obviously, you can go into Settings on your phone and change your ringtone. Or you can go into Contacts and assign specific ringtones for your favorite friends, your boo or whoever else you’ve got in your address book.
Improved App Organization straight from iTunes
We’ve already covered this, so I’ll spare you the details. Basically, you can now manage all of your iPhone App pages directly through iTunes. Juggle them around. Delete the bad ones. Add old ones. Whatever your little heart desires.
Of course, there are a lot more improvements than the ones mentioned above. Here’s the full list from Apple:
iPhone OS 3.1 also includes these features and updates:
* Improved syncing for music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and photos
* iTunes U content organization
* Redeem iTunes Gift Cards, codes, and certificates in the App Store
* Display available iTunes account credits in the App Store and iTunes Store
* Save video from Mail and MMS into Camera Roll
* Option to “Save as new clip” when trimming a video on iPhone 3GS
* Better iPhone 3G Wi-Fi performance when Bluetooth is turned on
* Remotely lock iPhone with a passcode via MobileMe
* Use Voice Control on iPhone 3GS with Bluetooth headsets
* Paste phone numbers into the keypad
* Option to use Home button to turn on accessibility features on iPhone 3GS
* Warn when visiting fraudulent websites in Safari (anti-phishing)
* Improved Exchange calendar syncing and invitation handling
* Fixes issue that cause some app icons to display incorrectly
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Section: Business News, Video, HDTV, Gadgets / Other, Green
Thinking about buying a new TV? Well, new Energy Star certification standards for 2010 and 2012 will make it harder for TV manufacturers to get the Energy Star sticker on their product. The new standards will demand 40 to 65% greater efficiency in power consumption, respectively. In particular, TVs over 50 inches in size will be held to the same in-use requirements as 50 inch TVs, which is 108 watts. Hopefully, the stricter standards will not only influence consumer behavior, leading to purchases of more efficient TVs, but also encourage manufacturers to improve the technology in their televisions.
Read: [CNET]
Full Story » | Written by Merlyn Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
You get the feeling that Palm had something to hide today. On the surface that makes no sense, considering it officially announced the Pixi, the company's second webOS-based phone, this morning. (The company's first webOS phone, the Pre, launched to much fanfare last May, owing to an almost Bill Goldberg winning streak-like level of hype.) But as you're already aware, Apple had an announcement or two of its own today, including the inclusion of a digital camera on the iPod nano. It's unfortunate, but Apple events are really the black holes of this industry: on Apple event days, no other tech news can escape out into the wild. That is to say, unless your company name is Apple, Inc., you'd be better served laying low for the day, and make any announcements later in the week.
In case you haven't heard already, Norah Jones was the surprise musical guest at the Apple announcement this morning. I love her red guitar, the black roses on her guitar strap, and the red heels. So classy.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
At the Apple announcement today, Jobs invited several game makers up on stage to introduce some cool new App store games that exploit unique features of the iPhone/iPod Touch. Here are my three favorite examples:
1. Madden NFL 10
EA's oh-so-popular football game is finally available at the App store. Cool feature: you can draw plays with your finger on the screen and then watch your fave team execute them.
2. Nova
Gameloft's first-person-shooter pits you against aliens in a mission to defend humanity — if you play it on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you can set your sniper mission to your choice of music.
3. Riddim Ribbon
Tapulous, the company behind Tap Tap Revenge, is a new rhythm racing game. Tilt the phone to follow a race track and bust out remixes of Black Eyed Peas songs.
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones
Palm announced the brand new webOS-based Palm Pixi today, September 9, 2009. It looks to be the rumored Palm Eos just with a new name. Is this phone anything to get excited about? Gadgetell visited with Randall Bennett to talk it over on TechVi.
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Here are a few pics of Steve Jobs announcing the new Nano and its sweet new features at this morning's Apple event, taken with my G10. (Not bad for a point-and-shoot!)
This is what the Genius Mixes will look like.
This was from a demo of the new video camera on the Nano. The resolution is awesome, but a quick hands-on after the announcement revealed what in my opinion is a pretty big design flaw — the camera is right behind the control pad, which means you really have to make an effort not to cover the lens with your fingers while shooting.
This is a screen shot from a new ad, which you'll probably see on TV soon.
Steve Jobs made a surprise comeback at the Apple event in San Francisco today, announcing an upgraded operating system for the iPhone and iPod Touch, a new version of iTunes, and new generations and pricing for the Touch, the Shuffle, and the Nano.
Much to the disappointment of many fans, none of the new products include a still camera; however, the fifth generation Nano, which goes on sale today, has an integrated video camera with speakers so you can shoot and watch videos instantly. Two other key announcements made today were the iPhone and iPod Touch's new OS 3.1 and iTunes 9, both available online now.
In addition to the video camera, the new Nano has a pedometer that can be synced with Nike Plus, an FM radio, and a voice recorder. It's available in seven colors at $149 for the 8GB version and $179 for the 16GB. Apple also unveiled a new and improved Shuffle in five new colors with the option for multiple playlists, a voice that speaks to you about battery life, and controls integrated into headphone wires. The new Shuffle comes in a $59 2GB version, a $79 4GB version, and a limited edition stainless steel 4GB version sells for $99. Also announced were new pricing and a faster graphics for the iPod Touch (8GB at $199, 32GB at $299, and 64GB at $399). The original iPod retains its $249 price point, but now holds 160GB instead of the previous 120GB.
iTunes 9 has several new exciting features including media sharing, an on-screen app manager, and a redesigned Store. Genius Mixes, an extension of the music recommending Genius function, creates playlists from the iTunes library based on songs that go great together. Syncing has been improved, and a new interface for managing iPhone and iPod Touch apps allows users to drag and drop and rearrange apps on-screen from the iTunes app. Media can be shared through Home Sharing, which allows up to five computers in one house to copy the contents of their iTunes libraries freely. Finally, the new Store has a cleaner looks and and two new features, iTunes LP and iTunes Extra, which provide photos, liner notes, exclusive interviews, etc for music and movies, respectively.
The iPhone's new OS 3.1, which is available today at the iTunes store, will include a Genius function for Apps that recommends apps much like how Genius in iTunes recommends music. It also includes Genius Mixes, peer to peer gaming, and ring tone downloads.
Jobs, who has been absent from the last couple of Apple events due to health problems, prefaced the announcements by confirming that he had had a liver transplant five months ago. He thanked the donor — a twenty-something year old who died in a car crash — for his generosity.
Apple has sold 30 million iPhones in just over two years, with 1. 8 billion apps downloaded from the App Store. Jobs claimed the Nano is "by far the most popular music player in the world" with over $100 million units sold. Similarly, iTunes, which is now available in 23 countries, is the number one music retailer in the world, with 8.5 billion songs sold on 100 million accounts with credit cards.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Way back in February, when iPhone OS 3.1 was but a distant “dream,” we posted 8 Little Things We Still Can’t Stand About the iPhone. More than half a year has passed and we can finally knock #7, “Arranging applications sucks something terrible,” off the list with the release of iPhone OS 3.1.
Apple succinctly explains this new feature:
Organize Apps in iTunes
Use iTunes on your computer to drag apps onto virtual Home screens, then sync them to your iPhone.
Gone are the frustrating days of rearranging iPhone / iPod touch apps with the old “tap > hold > drag > drop” system. Now, managing and organizing your plethora of iApps could not be easier – simply click and move apps around your iDevice from the comfort of your computer. As great as multi-touch is, sometimes the tried and true method of “mousing” just cannot be beat. Farewell, #7. We won’t miss ya.
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FROM APPLETELL - The iPod classic managed to get a mention on stage at today’s Apple event, while nothing really happened to the device itself.
MORE »
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Video, Portable Video, Computers, Mobile Computers
Today’s iPod refresh tipped Apple’s concerns over cannibalizing iPhone sales via the iPod touch. Leaving the camera off the touch surprised many and even angered some. The backside of this move presents this questions to consumers: Do you want a video camera or do you want all the fun you’ve been hearing about the App Store?
The iPod Nano got the video camera while the touch didn’t. The nano looks like a great little device, but the iPod touch now looks a bit like the forgotten product: no new form factor, no new must have feature (yes, the high-end is 50% faster with more space, but is that must have?). Customers in the market for an iPod now have to choose which feature is more important to them: Video or App Store.
Putting myself in the customer’s shoes, the choice isn’t an easy one. Apple has advertised the heck out to the App Store so much that buying a device that can’t use it seems silly. But the new Nano looks fantastic and having a video camera that small is bound to be interesting.
In theory, if video is the desired feature, iPod touch sales will suffer as demand is shifted to the Nano. Is Apple saying we don’t want video that much or are they saying want it all?
Apple’s theme for the event was “it’s only rock and roll but I like it” but should have been perhaps: impossible choices. Interesting move, Apple. What is your take, did Apple make an error in not giving the touch a camera?
Read [Appletell]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Looks like the never-ending “sync war” between Apple and Palm continues to rage on. According to numerous PreCentral forum contributors, iTunes 9 does NOT sync with their beloved Pres. What now, Palm?
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Section: Apple, Audio, Portable Audio, Video, Portable Video, Imaging, Camcorders
The Apple event has come and gone and for the most part, we’re looking at evolutionary changes, not revolutionary ones. The iPod nanos got the most new features with the addition of a video camera capable of recording VGA video, a microphone, FM radio, and a pedometer. With the radio and pedometer, the iPod nano becomes even more workout friendly.
The other iPods like the touch and the classic can handle more music and video thanks to larger capacities, but they did not see any external redesigns. Apple is pushing the iPod touch as a gaming machine and dropped the price on the smallest capacity one to $199. A new 64GB model was introduced at $399. The pricing change looks to be to compete with Microsoft’s forthcoming Zune HD.
iTunes got some new features that helps families with iTunes 9—it’s a lot easier to share and copy music between computers. Apple also came out with “iTunes LPs” that are kind of a throwback—you’ve got photos, notes, and music. For videos, there is “iTunes Extras” which gives you extra features, kind of like DVD special features on your downloaded video.
iTunes 9 also brings app management for the iPhone and iPod touch so you can organize your apps on your computer instead of your touch screen device. The Apple touch devices got some new features in software with the iPhone OS 3.1 which includes Genius for apps so now your phone can suggest apps the way the Genius feature could recommend music. The biggest news might be that Steve Jobs returned to give the presentation.
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
FROM APPLETELL - The iPod nano now sports a video camera. That’s not all though, there’s now also a speaker and microphone, along with a built-in pedometer and refreshed vibrant gloss colors.
MORE »
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
FROM APPLETELL - Apple has just released a few updates to the ever popular iPod touch. While the device itself has stayed the same, the price has dropped and the memory has expanded.
MORE »
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
FROM APPLETELL - iPhone OS 3.1 has just been released featuring new updates such as Genius features for your applications from the App Store, and access to over 30,000 ringtones for just $1.29 each.
MORE »
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
The quality of iPhone games have been improving over the last couple years and Anima’s Bomb Commander is clearly one of the latest wonders to hit the iPhone (and iPod Touch). It’s a simple game, really.
You see, you have a finite amount of shields available to protect your planet. A constant onslaught of bombs and space destroyers are threatening to burn your planet to a crisp. Tapping on one bomb will cause a chain reaction of other bombs to go off if they’re within distance before they cripple your force shields. You’re given a variety of bombs and setting off a chain reaction of explosions will reward you within more bombs and shields.
I clearly stink at the game so I haven’t progressed through the game as fast as I would like, but I’m OK with that because the game is challenging and makes me come back for more.
Graphics are high quality and gameplay is simple enough to pick up and play without the tutorial. Bomb Commander is a AAA title and a must have for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. Get it now for $1.99 from the App Store.
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 PC World | Monopoly City Streets Launches on Google ABC News In a 21st century twist on the popular board game, toymaker Hasbro and tech giant Google have made the game available online, allowing players to compete in a worldwide, real-time version of the game. Launched today, Monopoly City ... 'Monopoly City Streets' Servers Swamped Monopoly City Streets Mashup Struggles to Pass Go Google Maps Monopoly board folds under server strain |
It's that time again, one of those rare few days of the year when all gadget bloggers leave their home offices and head out to downtown San Francisco to bask in the excitement that is... an Apple event! This year, I'll be joining the flock too, congregating with the rest to see what's in store. Our heads are filled with important questions that will only be answered in the secret no-video-allowed conference room in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts between 10 and 11am — Will the original iPod go extinct? What will the new Nano look like? Could this be the debut of the enigmatic tablet? Will Steve Jobs make a comeback? Who could the musical guest possibly be at an event titled It's Only Rock and Roll? And perhaps most importantly, who will live blog the fastest? Will it be Gizmodo or Engadget or Ars or GDGT or.... well, it definitely won't be us, because we're not live blogging it, but I will be live-Tweeting the important details — plus some random trivia, factoids, and observations on the whole fiasco — from ground zero. So keep up-to-date by following me on Twitter or checking back here for updates to this post. Join me as the mysteries unfold — it's gonna be fun!
Follow our live-Tweetage of the Apple event
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday made his first media appearance since returning from medical leave earlier this year, taking the stage at Apple’s annual music event to announce a few new iPods, as well as an update to iTunes. Apple’s small, rectangular iPod, the Nano, received the beefiest upgrade with the addition of a video camera, which could pose a threat to budget cameras such as Flip.
In addition to a standard-definition, 640×480-pixel video camera, the iPod Nano now has a built-in FM radio, a pedometer for tracking steps with Nike+, a microphone for voice recording and a bigger, 2.2-inch display (up from 2 inches). The device also features a speaker for music and video playback. Available in nine colors, the 8GB Nano costs $150 and the 16GB model costs $180 and is available today.
When introducing the new Nano, Jobs showed a slide of a Flip Mino camcorder, making it clear that the low-end video industry is Apple’s primary target.
“Flip’s about to feel a little bit of a world of hurt,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst and technology strategist at Interpet. “I think we’re going to hear a lot about video from Apple in the months to come.”
Apple has traditionally hosted music events every September since 2001, and the focus has always been on iTunes and iPods. This year’s event kept analysts and journalists wondering what Apple would do with its iPod family since the MP3 player market is shrinking considerably. In a recent earnings call, Apple said the iPod (not including the iPod Touch) accounted for 18 percent of Apple’s overall revenue, compared to 55.5 percent in 2006. Who’s to blame? Explosive growth in sales of the more versatile iPhone and iPod Touch, of course.
However, Apple is persisting in the music player market with its Wednesday releases. With 73.8 percent of the mobile music player market (according to Apple’s numbers), however, Apple didn’t need major new releases to stay on top: It just needed a few incremental upgrades to maintain its overwhelming momentum, and that’s exactly what the Cupertino company delivered.
iPod Upgrades
Targeting hardcore music junkies with gigantic iTunes libraries, the iPod Classic received a minor upgrade, increasing the storage to 160GB (up from 120GB) while sustaining a $250 price tag. The iPod Shuffle, which comes with 2GB for $60 or 4GB for $80, looks identical to the previous generation; the only difference is it now includes an adapter to work with other headphones.
Most mysterious was Apple’s upgrade for the iPod Touch. Many observers believed, prior to the press conference, that this device would gain a camera, bringing it closer in line with the iPhone. However, the iPod Touch only received a processor upgrade and support for Open GL ES version 2.0, the platform graphics API — which the iPhone 3GS also features. Apple dropped the 16GB model of the iPod Touch and now offers 8GB, 32GB and 64GB models priced at $200, $300 and $400, respectively.
Apple likely left a camera out of the iPod Touch to give consumers incentive to purchase a Nano as a companion device, Gartenberg said.
“I think they’re keeping them segmented to create an aspiration, where I don’t just want one of the products; I want them all,” Gartenberg said. “Now you’ve got a reason to buy a Nano and ann iPod Touch.”
However, Forrester analyst Julie Ask believes the inclusion of a camera in the iPod Touch is imminent, and it’s just a matter of time till Apple delivers one.
“You have to imagine it’s in the works and whether it’s the question of price point today or timing,” she said. “This is what they could have done in time for the Christmas season, and that’s what they did.”
Prior to the event, there were rumors that new iPods with cameras were experiencing technical issues and could see a delay. A camera-embedded iPod Touch might be the device experiencing the delay, as the iPod Nano goes on sale today.
New iTunes
On the software end of the spectrum, Apple released a new version of its media player, iTunes 9. With this new version of iTunes, Apple is now selling music albums in a new format called iTunes LP, which packages albums with various pieces of multimedia, including sleeve notes, song lyrics and art. Clearly, this is Apple’s move to boost digital album sales in its iTunes Store.
“I think it’s really cool, but iTunes LP isn’t going to sell albums,” Gartenberg said. “Good music will sell albums. Still, it’s nice we’re getting back some of the stuff we lost with the CD.”
Additionally, the iTunes Store received an overall makeover. Each page has been revised with a cleaner, more modern design to make navigation more easy.
Also new to iTunes 9 is a feature to easily organize apps on iPhones and iPod Touch devices. Under the “Applications” tab, iTunes users can see a preview of each page of their iPhone Home screen and move applications around with their mouse. (In the past, this could be done on the iPhone itself, but it was a time-consuming process that involved dragging applications around one by one with your finger.)
Apple also added a utility to iTunes called Home Sharing to easily share songs, movies and TV shows between up to five authorized computers on a network. Networked users can both stream and copy each other’s media with this feature.
iPhone OS 3.1 and the Beatles
Apple today also released an update for the iPhone OS: iPhone 3.1, which carries a new “Genius” feature that analyzes a user’s iPhone app library to automatically find recommendations for other apps they may enjoy. This partly addresses the challenge of finding apps in the App Store, which is becoming increasingly crowded with 75,000 apps and counting.
An anticipated announcement that did not become a reality at the event was The Beatles’ albums for sale in the iTunes Store. Apple and The Beatles in the past had a trademark feud, because the popular band’s record label is named Apple Corps. Ultimately, the computer company won the rights to the trademark.
The lack of Beatles news comes as somewhat of a surprise because yesterday Yoko Ono reportedly told Sky News to expect the band’s music to become available via iTunes today. The publication later deleted this report without explanation.
It’s worth noting, however, The Beatles: Rock Band and The Beatles’ remastered CDs were released today. Chicago Sun-Times tech journalist Andy Inhatko theorized that an iTunes release today would cannibalize sales of the remastered CDs.
“There’s no upside to putting these tracks on iTunes on the 9th,” he wrote in a blog post. “All you’re doing is giving consumers the option of buying only the “White Album” tracks they like, instead of making them spring for the whole uneven pile.”
Late Tuesday, EMI told Financial Times that Apple and The Beatles had not yet secured a deal, and no such announcement would be made at today’s press conference. However, EMI suggested The Beatles and iTunes would come together eventually.
“Conversations between Apple and EMI are ongoing and we look forward to the day when we can make the music available digitally,” Ernesto Schmitt, EMI’s global catalog president told Financial Times. “But it’s not tomorrow.”
See a full transcript of Wired.com’s liveblog coverage below the jump.
Photos: Jonathan Snyder / Wired.com
We’re in the auditorium, rocking out to the sounds of Aerosmith, Green Day and The Who. It’s a sizeable crowd — probably 200 or 300 people here.
They’re playing the Stones’ “It’s Only Rock and Roll” now. I’d say Apple is taking dead aim at the Baby Boomer demographic.
Lights are dimming and Steve Jobs is on stage!
10:01AM The crowd is standing up to applaud.
Same old Steve with the black turtle neck and blue jeans.
Steve is looking thin but well, and his voice is quieter and weaker than before. He’s also clean shaven.
He got a standing ovation from the front half of the crowd here. The back half appears to be liveblogging.
“I’m very happy to be here today with you all. As some of you may know about five months ago I had a liver transplant, so I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs. And I wouldn’t be here without such generosity so I hope all of us can be as generous and elect to become organ donors.”
“I’d like to take a moment and thank everybody in the Apple community for the heartfelt support.”
“It really meant a lot and I’d especially like to thank Tim Cook and the entire executive team at Apple. They really rose to the occasion and ran the company in that very difficult period. So thank you guys.”
10:04am: “I’m getting to work with our very talented teams to come up with some great new products in the future. It’s wonderful, thank you.”
He’s starting off with talking about music.
But first Steve wants to talk about the iPhone.
“In a little over 2 years we’ve sold 30 million iPhones.”
He says the reason for that has been the App Store. It’s a little over a year old and we now have a little over 75,000 apps in the App Store.
Users have downloaded 1.8 billion apps, not including updates.
For iPhone and iPod Touch owners, they’re introducing iPhone 3.1
Upgrade for the iPhone 3.0 operating system.
first new feature is Genius technologies to apps in the App Store.
It automatically makes recommendations in the App Store based on the applications you own.
The Genius bar will appear next to the “What’s Hot” button in the App Store.
The second thing is ringtones to the iTunes Store. 30,000 ringtones from 4 major labels. $1.29 for ringtones.
You can just buy ringtones just like you can other music and they show up right on your iPhone.
(Buy ringtones through the iTunes app in the iPhone)
iTunes is the #1 music retailer in the world now.
There are 100,000,000 iTunes accounts with credit cards.
Now he’s moving on to iTunes 9
Cleaned it up a bit and made it much easier to navigate around
10:09am: new features: Genius Mixes
54 billion songs have been submitted and analyzed to Genius database. It’s gotten smarter and smarter and smarter.
The recommendations have gotten better and better, Steve says. We’re applying that same technology in that same database now to something new called Genius mixes. Imagine a genius DJ that plays endless mixes of songs from your iTunes library that go great together.
Next feature: improved syncing.
54 billion songs have been submitted and analyzed to Genius database. It’s gotten smarter and smarter and smarter.
The recommendations have gotten better and better, Steve says. We’re applying that same technology in that same database now to something new called Genius mixes.
Imagine a genius DJ that plays endless mixes of songs from your iTunes library that go great together.
Next feature: improved syncing.
Syncing to iPods and iPhone is better now.
Next feature is Home Sharing.
You can copy songs, movies and TV shows among up to 5 authorized networked computers in your house.
Syncing to iPods and iPhone is better now.
The sync feature now breaks into categories. If you just want music by Bob Dylan, for example, you can checkmark Bob Dylan.
With syncing photos you can sync events, too.
And with apps you can now manage applications for the iPhone.
Now you can arrange them however you want really fast.
You get a preview of your Home screen and you can move the icons around.
You can copy songs, movies and TV shows among up to 5 authorized networked computers in your house.
You turn Home Sharing on by typing in your name and password. You can click on others’ content and you can stream it or copy it.
Next up, redesigned iTunes Store.
Much better navigation to get anywhere instantly. Just a makeover for each of the pages.
Next feature, iTunes LP.
It’s buying albums in crazy LP-like packages. You buy a great album in the past you can get that content with iTunes LP. For American Beauty, it’s got videos, liner notes, all sorts of stuff, lyrics.
(This is the rumored project codenamed named Cocktail)
10:19am: Now they’re just demoing the new features.
Going back to Applications management, you get a full preview of each page of your home screen laid out in iTunes. You can shuffle apps around, move them to different screens.
You can also move an entire page. Like say your games are on screen 4, you can move the entire page to screen 2.
Now demoing Home Share. A networked computer’s library shows up under “Shared” on the left menu bar in iTunes.
You can access that user’s entire iTunes library. Then you can stream, or you can select the tracks and drag it to your library.
(Hurray for pirates! Easy music sharing!)
Now demoing the new iTunes Store. Cleaner look: all the pages in the store have been redesigned. There’s a new navigation bar.
Navigation bar contains drop-down menus of each category: music, movies, TV shows, App Store, Podcasts, Audiobook, iTunes U.
You can click on each category and get a drop-down menu of the different subcategories (genres).
New social networking feature: Now you can share via Facebook or Twitter a link to any of the content on the store.
So songs you’re interested in, you can slap them in your news feed right on Facebook or Twitter.
Dylan Tweney says: Jobs and Robineaux talk about how much “cleaner” the new iTunes is, and it does look a bit better. But there’s still the same confusing array of options under the Library on the left panel and tabs along the top. I don’t think this redesign goes nearly far enough.
Moving on to iTunes LP.
Really nice visuals. Showing an album by The Doors.
You can navigate through songs and see all their lyrics.
Accompanied with really nice photos
(It’s actually a very attractive package, but we wonder if this will really boost music sales.)
The video feature in iTunes LP — now that’s cool.
They’re showing an interview with Ray Manzarek about the Doors.
Dylan Tweney says: They picked the perfect Ray Manzarek clip to demo the video capabilities of iTunes LP. He is the distillation of 1960s hippy blow-your-mind awesomeness.
Also includes music videos.
Now he’s showing a Dave Matthews Band album (bleh).
The menu for the album kind of looks like a DVD menu.
A song displays a page of lyrics and the play button is at top.
10:27am: Now they’re showing WALL-E. It has a new feature called iTunes Extras, which is just like DVD extras. Menus so you can access supplemental material in addition to the movie.
iTunes 9 is a free download available today on Apple.com.
Now we’re moving on to the iPod.
Phil Schiller, VP of marketing, is coming on stage.
“The iPod has been a big hit. It’s absolutely incredible what’s happened. We’ve now sold 225 million iPods to date.”
Latest market share data: the iPod is now 73.8% market share.
Microsoft has 1.1%
(for MP3 player market share)
The fastest growing of the iPod lines is the iPod Touch.
“To date we have now sold over 20 million iPod Touches.”
So 30 million iPhones, 20 million iPod Touch.
Schiller is going over the new features the iPod Touch has with the new OS. For instance, it now supports the Genius playlists and Twitter/Facebook sharing built into iTunes.
All this and it fits in your pocket — something other people’s computers don’t do, Schiller says, showing a slide of someone trying to cram a Dell into the hip pocket of their blue jeans. That gets a few cheap laughs.
10:34am: He’s emphasizing how the iPod Touch is a gaming platform too, with lots of cheap, easy-to-buy games.
Sony PSP: 607 titles. Nintendo DS: 3,680 titles. iPhone OS: 21,178 gaming titles.
So far, the Schiller segment has largely been a rehash of old news.
They’re rolling a video clip designed to show off the iPhone OS’s 3-D capabilities. It’s impressive. And loud.
Now we’re going to get to see a few new titles.
First up is Ben Mattes from Ubisoft, the makers of Assassin’s Creed. He’s showing a game called Assassin’s Creed II.
Tapulous is coming up, the developer of Tap Tap Revenge
Bart Decrem, Tapulous CEO, is taking stage.
Decrem says Tap Tap Revenge hit 2 million users in 3 weeks.
Today he’s introducing Riddim Ribbon, a new music game for the iPhone and iPod Touch, of course.
Dylan Tweney says: When Decrem says “Riddim Ribbon” with his German (Dutch?) accent, it sounds really bizarre. I want that as a ringtone.
It looks like a weird 3D racing game where you follow a green line. You drive into different obstacles to remix the song.
Looks fun, kind of like Super Monkey Ball on an acid trip.
Next up is Gameloft’s Mark Hickey.
He’s giving a preview of a first-person shooter called Nova.
Pretty intense looking!
Looks kind of like Unreal tournament but slower paced. You can listen to iPod music by tapping on a musical note in the game.
Dylan Tweney says: I really like the ability to play your *own* music as the game’s soundtrack. Every game should offer this option.
10:47am: Electronic Arts is up next. Travis Boatman, in charge of their studios for mobile apps, is coming on stage.
They’re showing a Madden NFL 10.
Yup, 3D football game.
Phil calls iPod touch an “unbelievable game playing device.”
10:51am: The iPod Touch: Apple is slashing the price to $199 for the 8GB iPod Touch
(From $229)
The 32GB is $299 and 64GB is $399
The 32 and 64GB versions of the iPod Touch are getting the speed gain that the iPhone 3GS got.
Phil Schiller says: “$199 is a magic price point”
And the Open GL ES Version 2.0 for graphics.
Now we’re moving on to iPod Classic.
They’re upping the capacity from 120GB to 160GB and keeping it at the $250 price.
The iPod Shuffle now have more headphone choices.
The Shuffle comes with an adapter to plug in different headphones.
New iPod Shuffle talks to you. Weird.
Some examples: “Battery full” and “Workout Mix”
The iPod Shuffle has new colors: black, silver, pink, green and blue.
$59 for 2GB; $79 for 4GB.
There’s also a new special edition iPod Shuffle made of polished stainless steel.
$99 for the 4GB model.
“We do have one more thing. And that is, a video camera,” says Jobs. He shows a picture of the $150, 4GB Flip.
(Dun dun duuuunnnn)
They’re showing a slide of the Flip Mino. 4GB of memory for $149. Really popular, “We want to get in on this.” Says Steve.
“We’re going to start off with 8GB. We’re going to lower the price from $149 to free.”
“We’re going to build a video camera right into the new iPod Nano.”
The camera is integrated on the bottom left corner, back of the iPod Nano.
It also has a speaker
1.1 cu inches thin.
compared to the 10.9 cu in Flip.
11:00am: He’s showing us the video camera on the iPod Nano.
UPDATE: Looks like the video camera on Nano is not HD. H.264 VGA video, 640 x 480 pixels, up to 30 frames per second with AAC audio http://tinyurl.com/kmdfsl
You can just watch recorded video on the Nano, or you can sync it onto your computer.
“iPod Nano is a pretty incredible device. It is the most popular music player in the world. We’ve sold over 100 million iPod Nanos. By far the most popular music player in the world. And it’s a great music player.”
iPod Nano also has an FM radio built in.
And a pedometer to keep up with your steps, sync up with the web for Nike plus.
And a voice recorder app.
They’re composed of polished anodized aluminum.
Nano comes in 2 models.
16GB for $179.
8GB for $149.
That’s it. No camera for the iPod Touch: Surprising.
Norah Jones is performing.
Not Paul or Ringo.
No Beatles announcement. Nothing about the Beatles whatsoever. Yoko Ono is a liar!
Dylan Tweney says: Norah Jones is fantastic! Way better than John Mayer if you ask me.
Looks like we’re wrapping up. Thanks for joining us, folks! Stay tuned for a full news report.
See Also:
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
This is strange, even for a wireless carrier. Both the enV Touch and enV3 launched in May at $179 and $129, but then dropped down to $149 and $99, which is about right. After all, non-smartphones generally only stay at their original price for a few months. But now both of these phones are back up to their starting price. Why?
We hit up a couple of our Verizon tipsters and they indicated that these two phones are some of their best sellers, which leads us to believe that VZW is just trying to milk it. The carrier has been heavily pushing both of them on TV spots recently. Or maybe the phones just dropped in price for a back-to-school sale. Who knows.
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Welcome to 2006, AT&T.
That’s right, folks. AT&T has finally joined the fray and they’re calling it the A-List with Rollover. AT&T prisoners can now call up to five domestic “VIPs” without putting a dent into their pre-existing plan. As an added bonus, the Rollover feature has been bundled in and starts with the individual Nation plans higher than $59.99. A-List with Rollover launches on September 20. Oh, and don’t forget to read the fine print.
A-List: Numbers must be entered online at MyWireless Account at att.com/wireless.com. Only standard domestic landline or wireless numbers are eligible. For additional terms see http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/legal/plan-terms.jsp
Let the good times roll. With AT&T A-List with Rollover, customers can do just that—with unlimited mobile calling to and from five “VIP” domestic phone numbers at no additional cost. Families can join in the savings too with unlimited calling to up to 10 lines with FamilyTalk. And only AT&T lets you keep the minutes you save with Rollover. When A-List premieres on Sept. 20, customers can manage their A-List exclusively online at www.att.com/alist.
“This is an incredible value for many of our customers that essentially lets them ‘double dip’,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Not only will they not use minutes from their monthly plan when they call their A-List numbers, but our unique Rollover feature means they can keep those minutes for use in future months. Nobody else is going this far in letting customers stretch their minutes. Others may let you save minutes, but only AT&T lets you keep them.”
How To Prepare For
AT&T A-List with Rollover* Be sure you’re enrolled in online account management at www.att.com/alist.
* Review previous bills to determine which numbers you call most often.
* When AT&T A-List with Rollover launches, visit www.att.com/alist to create your A-List.Customers with individual Nation plans of $59.99 or higher can use A-List with Rollover to select up to five domestic phone numbers to call anytime –including landlines and wireless numbers on any network– without using any of the minutes in their plan.
FamilyTalk customers with plans of $89.99 or more can select up to ten numbers which any person in the FamilyTalk plan can call as much as they want.
Adding and modifying phone numbers on A-List with Rollover is easy. Customers can use the online account management tool available at www.att.com/alist. Numbers can be changed anytime, though customers should allow 24 hours for the changes to take effect on their account. Any online changes will result in an email confirmation for security purposes. Instructions available at http://www.att.com/Common/merger/files/pdf/choice/a_list_fact_sheet.pdf .
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With all the excitement buzzing around about Palm’s second webOS device, the Pixi, an update to the vaunted OS quietly creeped into the handsets of those with the Pre. A gaggle of new features have been added and an even longer list of issues have been remedied. A few nuggets to be found in webOS v1.2.0 include: copy on steroids in browser and email, filtered search in email and support for Amazon MP3 over WAN.
Adds the following updates and enhancements:
-Enhanced copy feature added to browser and email (shift key + tap and drag to select text).
-Improved global search to catch synonyms. For example, “Movies” brings up YouTube and Videos.
-Send/Receive vCards via the contacts application (tap left menu drop down)
-LinkedIn enhancements
-Filter search in email
-Bluetooth for expanded car-kit support
-Improved auto-linking of contacts
-Save inline images in email
-Resume support for podcasts and long songs
-Download files in browser
-Backup/Restore of web browser bookmarks
-Support Amazon MP3 over WAN (not just WiFi)
-Photo Albums sync via Media Sync
Addresses the following issues:
-Capability has been added to dial phone numbers from a calendar notes field.
-User interface now displays “updating PRL” correctly when you tap on Update PRL in Phone Preferences.
-Device will no longer reboot while attempting to download music when there was not available user memory.
-Real-time updates on Yahoo Finance now work properly.
-Sprint Navigation is now able to use free form addresses for navigation, including addresses from personal email accounts.
-PDF files can now be opened from a browser link.
-If the device receives a notification alert (for example an SMS), a clock alarm would not play unless the notification alert was dismissed.
-If a calendar event is snoozed then moved to a future time, the event notification will now appear at the proper time.
-When editing or creating a calendar event and toggling to another application before saving the event, the event will no longer be duplicated.
-On Google calendar, all day events that are changed to timed events on a computer are now properly updated.
-If a cancellation is received for an event and the user selects “Remove from Calendar”, the event is now removed from the device and desktop.
-If large attachments are sent in an e-mail, the e-mail is no longer sent twice.
-When setting email sync time to manual the device will no longer automatically sync the email accounts.
-Certain properties of tasks that can be set via the computer (but not displayed on the device) will no longer be deleted on the server.
-When two contacts were linked (one with a last name and one without) you will now be able to find them in SMS and email.
-Syncing issue with personal accounts has been resolved.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Recently on Offworld, German developer Exozet revealed not only the first screenshot for the upcoming official iPhone version of Catan, but also opened a limited number of beta applications to the public, meaning you might be getting your hands on the game much earlier than expected.
Elsewhere, Adam Saltsman proved out just how successful rapid prototyping is and announced an iPhone port of his already widely viral one-button game Canabalt, ngmoco finally revealed its online arena iPhone FPS Eliminate with an interesting take on microtransactions, and Capcom showed more of its fantastically illustrated diminutive DS sequel Okamiden (above).
We also went behind the pixel/Rubiks with a video interview with guerrilla artist Invader, saw the Max Max-ian shooter Borderlands go all Christian-Bale-flip-out, found a collection of stunning custom Team Fortress 2 figures, ordered Famicom and Pac-Man business card holders, and our 'one shot's for the day: the BeatlesBox 360, and the most invulnerable he-Link the Legend of Zelda will ever see.
Leaked case designs have hinted at the presence of cameras in the new iPods expected later today, but until now that’s all they’ve been — cases. If genuine (and this close to launch, it certainly could be), this photo of Nano and Touch cases from Cygnette could actually contain the new iPods around which the cases are wrapped.
Follow Apple’s iPod announcements today with Gadget Lab’s live, up-to-the-minute coverage from the Apple press conference, starting at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern.
The Touch appears to have a lens on the back, surrounded by the same shiny-steel case of the current model, and above the volume rocker-switch is another, new, button. Dedicated shutter release? Hold button in a new position? If this is an iPod Touch, it also seems to have inherited the iPhone’s front-facing earpiece,and the screen is displaying the first-generation Touch’s icons and dock (no mail, and no dots at the bottom to indicate further screens).
And the Nano (below)? Not much there. The screen looks a little taller, but there’s no view of the back. Only a few hours left before we find out, but we have a feeling that these images have been photoshopped together from older iPhone and iPod product shots by Cygnette itself.
Product page [Cygnette via CNET]
See Also:
Follow our live blog coverage of the Apple event at her on Gadget Lab.
Yesterday the Internet was abuzz with an offer from Sprint that involved a $100 service credit if you port-in a number and buy a Palm Pre. It was a fair deal but Sprint quickly pulled the offer and now explained what happened.
“The offer of a port-in service credit of $100 to new customers who buy the Palm Pre has been pulled, because it was put into the system in error,” Sprint spokesman James Fisher said.
Apparently the company was considering the offer, but didn’t intend for anyone outside the walled garden to know about it. Too bad Sprint pulled the offer though, otherwise the Palm Pre could be had for only $50 now that the official Sprint price has dropped to $150 in light of the Pixi announcement.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
There are many ways to carry things with you on a bike, even if you don’t want to go down the pannier/rack or “granny-basket” routes. You can make a saddlebag, wear a fanny-pack or use a handlebar bag. Now you can get a stylish and useful frame-bag which hangs from the top tube and keeps your valuables neat, tidy and safely between your thighs.
Hambones’ Velopocket and Balzac are similar to the many frame-bags already out there, only they look good off the bike as well as on. A rear loop hooks around the seat tube to stop swinging and two internal straps hang around the top tube so you can open and close the flap without the bag falling off.
Handmade by siblings Hernan and Lisa Marie and sold on craft store Etsy, the bags are reasonably priced. Even the larger leather Velopocket costs just $50, with fabric Balzacs (say that name out loud and consider the position of the bag) starting at $20.
Product page [Hambone Designs via Uraban Velo]
Japan’s No. 2 cell phone carrier KDDI au is stepping up its efforts to promote its iida sub brand of designer cell phones (here’s my photo report of some iida concept phones from back in April). Not only did it present its robotic cell phone Polaris today, it now gives us another two (more conventional) phones.
And these you can actually buy soon (if you live in Japan).
The first iida phone unveiled today is the iida Ply [link in English], which comes with a plywood stand. Part of the phone (pictured at the top and below) is plywood, too, and it looks much prettier than the Prismoid. Its features include a 3.2MP camera, a One-Seg digital TV tuner, support of various KDDI au services, and a 3-inch TFT display.
The second, the Prismoid [link in English], isn’t that pretty if you ask me (pictured below). It features a 2.7 inch main display (IPS) and a 0.6-inch sub display (OLED) that shows you the latest news. There also a 1.97MP CMOS camera and a microSD and microSDHC slot, but nothing outrageous.
Both phones will be available in Japan only starting in the fall.
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Follow Apple’s iPod announcements today with Gadget Lab’s live, up-to-the-minute coverage from the Apple press conference, starting at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern.
With nary a “back soon” sticky note to signal a reshuffle of its product lines, Apple has already started to drop the prices of various iPods.
The main landing pages still carry the old prices, but the new, lower prices are already live on the actual checkout. Here’s the rundown:
iPod Classic (120GB) was $250, now $230
iPod Nano (8 GB) was $150, now $130
iPod Nano (16 GB) was $200, now $150
iPod Touch (8 GB) was $230, now $190
iPod Touch (16 GB) was $300, now $250
iPod Touch (32 GB) was $400, now $280
That’s right: The top-end, 32-GB iPod Touch drops its price by a rather large $120. We were expecting a range-wide price cut with the new models, but discounting the current range is a surprise — and that it does so mere hours before the announcement of new models. What is going on?
Our guess is that these are either the new prices for the new, camera-equipped iPods coming today, or that Apple is planning on selling these older models at a discount for a while to come. This was unheard of in the past — old products disappeared into the Ministry of Love as soon as new ones were announced, but the old (and better) clip-on Shuffle and the white plastic MacBook are still hanging on.
It makes sense. The rumored price points for the new Touches are $200, $300 and $400 for 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB respectively, putting them a little above these discounts.
And speaking of the horrible new Shuffle, is is time to say good-bye? If an iPod Touch can be had for under $200, who would buy a Nano? Joggers. But if the Nano price gets cut too, who would buy the Shuffle? Nobody. Right now, for less than double the price of the buttonless, screenless, charmless Shuffle, you can have a video-playing, clickwheel-toting Nano, with the bonus that, should it slip down the back of the sofa, you’ll actually be able to find it again.
The Shuffle really has turned from a neat, novelty stocking stuffer into a useless, too-small parody of itself. Remember the iPod Pequeño? I’d say that it is about time that it shuffled off this Earth. And don’t get too lonely, Shuffle — the Classic will no doubt be joining you soon enough.
Here’s Apple’s Product page; Apple via TUAW.
Follow our live blog coverage of the Apple event on Gadget Lab.
Japan is the nation of robots. Everybody knows that. It's also the nation of cell phones. So why not mix robots and cell phones? That's what the country's second biggest mobile phone provider KDDI au thought and today presents the iida Polaris, a robotic cell phone [link in English], for the first time (click here for my iida concept photo report from April).
If you are the curious type (and it has been proven that, along with possessing above-average intelligence, Gadget Lab readers are as curious as up to nine cats), you’ll be wondering why on Earth somebody would put an LED light in a clothespin. Is it for the nocturnal hanging of washing? Is it to be combined with mothballs to attract the flapping moon-fanciers to your clothes and then immediately repel them, thus creating a perpetual motion machine from the poor creatures?
No. The Lighting Pin has nothing to do with clothes, and everything to do with pin. Or clip, if you prefer. When you see the pictures, you will utter an “ahhh” of realization. The peg is simply a clip on light, a household version of the garage-bound inspection lamp, and when used to hold together the seams of a rolled tube of paper, it becomes an instant, mini, table lamp.
Can you buy it? Sadly, no. Can we link you directly to the product page? Of course not, silly. As part of a designer’s portfolio, Internet Law dictates the site be constructed in hard to navigate, impossible to link, processor-cycle-hungry Flash. Thanks!
Product “page” [Sungho Lee via Design Boom]
Reelight, the Danish maker of magnet-powered LED bike lights, has announced a new handlebar-mounted version of its set-and-forget lamp.
I have had a pair of Reelights (the SteadyLight) on my city bike for almost a year and I love them. They don’t buzz and grind and slow you down like a bottle-dynamo rubbing the wheel, they’re glowing all the time you are riding, so you can never forget to switch them on, and they are utilitarian enough not to be a thief-magnet.
The one problem is that they sit down by the wheel hubs. The lights work by generating energy from magnets hooked onto the spokes. As the magnets are near the hubs, so are the lights, and down there they aren’t as noticeable as they could be.
The new lamps have a cable running from the generator to the light, which now sits up high. Same battery-free lights, same always-on behavior, only now you can see them properly. If these work as well as the regular low-riding Reelights, and you don’t care about bolting bits to, and running cables around, your bike, there is no reason not to buy a pair.
Reelight at Eurobike [Rad Spannerei via Cyclelicious
Photo: Red Spannerei
Manufacturer site [Reelight]
See Also:
It is almost certain that today’s new iPods will gain a camera, bringing the iPhone 3GS’s best new feature to the plebeian masses. But what if you are stuck with the old model or worse - gasp - you foolishly bought an iPod Touch within the last few weeks? You can roll your own camera.
Forget about auto-focus, fixed-focus or size limits on emailed photos. With the iPod1 Pinhole camera, you don’t have to worry about any of these. You don’t even need an iPod — Flickr-er Wheehamx, who made this camera, used an iPod Touch box donated by his son.
The setup is simple, with a metal plate forming the pinhole and a lens cap and step-ring closing off the hole to form a “shutter”. A pair of internal wooden strips and screws let this camera take a roll of 120 film and Wheehamx even added a little transparent red plastic covered window to use as a frame counter.
How many megapixels does this camera have? None, technically, but the resolution is way higher than your average camera-phone, and the pinhole gives almost infinite depth of field for front-to-back sharpness. If you’re thinking about making one, do it quick before apple inevitably reduces the size of the packaging yet again and you’re forced to use - horror - 35mm film.
ipod1 pinhole camera [Flickr via iPhone Savior. Thanks, Seth!]
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