Hasta La Gadget!

Ableton and Serato — two of the biggest names in live music production — have been working in stealth mode over the past year to create what they’ve been billing as “the future of digital DJing,” and today that new product has been revealed as The Bridge. Basically, you’ve got a thin layer of software that sits between full versions of both Serato Live (or Itch) and Ableton Live that allows output from both products to flow into the other — DJ sets can be imported into Ableton with full control over effect parameters, tempo, pitch, and so on, and Ableton instruments can sit inside a Serato session. It’s an interesting advancement, and the way the companies are talking, this is just the first in a string of products of the partnership; the good news is that The Bridge will be free to owners of both products, but unfortunately there’s no release date yet, so raves are going to have to soldier on using last year’s technology for at least a while longer. Hang tight, we’re told it’s “coming soon.”

Ableton, Serato announce ‘The Bridge,’ cause DJs to faint en masse originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew the when and the what, but now we know the whom: Eric Clapton will be touting the new Fender Limited Edition of T-Mobile’s myTouch 3G on national TV, and a few of his hits will be pre-loaded onto the phone. The faux-wood handset goes on sale January 20th, and packs a 16GB microSD card for cramming in some of Clapton’s lesser-known jams from your own catalog, along with a long-awaited 3.5mm headphone jack so you can actually get some enjoyment out of them. There are also a few guitar-related apps preloaded, a new doubleTwist partnership for music syncing, and Fender will be selling a few accessories of its own to really kit the thing out. At launch the $180 phone will be running Android 1.6, but it’s supposed to get a 2.1 update this spring. Hit up the source link for the ad, featuring a very weathered Eric Clapton tolerating his new handset.

myTouch 3G Fender Edition subs for G1 on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A rather clever programmer has managed to get the iPhone to run interactive apps created using Adobe’s Flash platform. And because it works inside the Safari browser, it isn’t subject to the dictatorial rules of Apple’s App Store.

The software is called Gordon, and it doesn’t actually allow Flash itself to work on the iPhone. Instead, Gordon is a JavaScript runtime written by Tobias Schneider which allows the browser to play and display .swf files (the Shockwave Flash file extension). A runtime is a collection of software that allows the running of code inside it. A helpful analogy is a software emulator for a games console which allows you to play the actual code of, say, Super Mario World on your PC.

Does this mean that the iPhone now supports Flash? Not really. You can’t just visit any site that has Flash, because the hack only works on sites that have installed it. Developers would need to add this runtime to each instance of Flash on their sites (although calling the runtime only requires a few lines of code).

And while the open source project is available to all, it still doesn’t solve one of Flash’s biggest problems. These SWF files still hog the CPU. One demo, a simple vector graphic of a tiger, throws my desktop browser up to around 100 percent CPU usage.

Still, the hack potentially opens the door to a new class of interactive, animated mobile websites. While many web developers rely on Flash to accomplish things that can’t easily be done in HTML, those Flash apps won’t run on the iPhone. And while the lack of Flash support has been one of the most persistent criticisms of the iPhone platform, Apple has done nothing to rectify the problem. Adobe’s workaround, announced in October, has been to offer developers a way of converting Flash apps to iPhone apps, but that wouldn’t support Flash within the web browser, and those apps are still subject to Apple’s approval before they’re available.

You can see it in action yourself by heading over to this Gordon demonstration page (which works in both Mobile Safari, on your iPhone or any desktop browser). On a new iPod Touch, the animations run just fine, and as the runtime is directly displaying the SWF files it should also work with video.

Could we ever see a browser in the App Store which would let us view any Flash content this way? It’s very doubtful, due to Apple’s ban on anything which can run interpretive code.

Also, when naming the project, Tobias doesn’t seem to have considered the search terms required to google it: Flash Gordon. Or maybe that’s the joke?

Gordon demos [Paul Irish]

Gordon project code [Github/Tobias Schneider]

Here’s an interesting little new media legal dilemma for you: apparently there are several paid apps in the iPhone App Store that bill themselves as “readers” for publications like the New York Times, CNET, and the BBC, but aren’t actually licensed or official in anyway — they’re just pulling RSS feeds. That means people paying for an app like The New York Times Mobile Reader aren’t actually getting an app from the Times — and, perhaps more importantly, the Times isn’t getting anything from anyone. Seems like Apple should probably just shut these apps down, but that’s the interesting part: all these apps are pretty much just custom-built feed readers, and you can generally access all of the same content using Safari. Now, there’s obviously a trademark issue involved here, especially if these apps are confusing people into thinking they’re official, but we’re curious to see how these pubs and Apple handle the situation in the next few weeks, since it’s relatively uncharted territory.

P.S.- Let’s not even get into the fact that Apple’s rated the NYT Mobile Reader app “12+” for “Infrequent / Mild Mature / Suggestive Themes.” Oh, the App Store.

Unauthorized iPhone news readers raise eyebrows originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s fourth-generation iPhone is due for a June or July launch with a better camera and possibly a touch-sensitive housing, according to an analyst.

Robert Chen of Goldman Sachs told Bloomberg that Apple’s next iPhone will be a major hardware and software upgrade. He did not disclose his source.

“Apple’s going to put a lot of innovation, not just on the hardware, but also on the software of the new iPhone,” said Chen, adding that the handset will feature a 5-megapixel camera and a new touch-sensitive plastic casing similar to that used for Apple’s Magic Mouse.

A June or July release for a fourth-generation iPhone would be a reasonable prediction, as Apple’s current and previous handsets have each launched during the summer of their respective years.

It’s unclear how a touch-sensitive housing would enhance the iPhone experience. The Magic Mouse’s touch-sensitive plastic detects gestures that control Safari and a few other Apple applications. On an iPhone, the housing would be on the back, so one can imagine that touch gestures could control core functions such as pausing or playing an iPod song, adjusting volume or answering a call.

Very few rumors have surfaced regarding Apple’s next iPhone, but it’s widely speculated that Apple must upgrade the iPhone’s camera and display to compete with new rivals, such as the Google Nexus One, which includes a 5-megapixel camera and OLED screen. Apple’s current iPhone 3GS has a 3-megapixel camera and an LCD display.

In November, business news publication Near Field Communications published a rumor that the fourth-generation iPhone would include a radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader. An RFID reader would scan RFID tags, which consist of a computer chip coupled with an antenna. Data stored on the chip transmits wirelessly through the antenna to an RFID reader operating on the same frequency as the antenna. Many retailers use RFID tags to track products in transit; libraries use RFID tags to track books. RFID tags are also used to track humans or animals for scientific and medical applications.

Thus far the rumor of an RFID reader in an iPhone has the most credence. Apple in July 2009 filed a patent describing an RFID antenna being placed in the iPhone’s touch-sensor panel.

See Also:

• ‘iPhone 4G’ Part Probably Meant for Pirates, Not Apple
• Rumor: Next iPhone to Gain Radio-Frequency Powers

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com