Hasta La Gadget!

We have seen twittering toasters, toilets and robots. Now an old-fashioned cuckoo clock gets a makeover so it can wirelessly connect to the internet and display status messages from Twitter.

Haroon Baig, an interface and interaction designer, added a display on the front of a cuckoo clock so it can announce Twitter updates with the charm of a mechanical cuckoo popping out of the timepiece.

Baig modified the innards of the clock, which has a touchscreen display with a controller board and a Wi-Fi dongle. It also uses Chumby, a hardware open source platform with a Linux operating system.

A custom-built widget connects to the Twitter API and receives new tweets. The mechanics of the cuckoo is controlled by the Arduino Board.

The clock can monitor any twitter stream or search. But it has been configured to react on self-referenced tweets. If any tweet mentions “TwitweeClock,” the tweet displays on the built-in screen and triggers the cuckoo mechanism.

As Baig’s video shows, its a fun mod to do. The Twitter-enabled cuckoo clock’s tweet can be found at @twitweeclock.

Twitwee Clock from Haroon Baig on Vimeo.

A close-up of the innards of the cuckoo clock:

See Also:

• Toaster, Toilet Lead Appliance Invasion of Twitter
• Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense
• With Tweetie Acquisition, Twitter Locks On Mobile
• Listen to ‘World’s First Twitter Album’

[via Make]

Adobe will no longer pursue its plans to bring Flash to Apple’s iPhone and the iPad.

Adobe on Tuesday evening said it is ceasing investment in a software tool that enables Flash developers to port software into native iPhone and iPad apps, according to Mike Chambers, Adobe’s principal product manager for Flash developer relations.

“The primary goal of Flash has always been to enable cross-browser, platform and device development,” Chambers wrote in a blog post. “This is the exact opposite of what Apple wants. They want to tie developers down to their platform, and restrict their options to make it difficult for developers to target other platforms.”

Adobe is reacting to a new rule in the iPhone developer agreement, which stipulates that iPhone and iPad apps must be coded with Apple-approved programming languages, such as C++ or Objective C. If enforced, the rule would effectively ban any apps coded with Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a tool enabling Flash-coded software to be easily converted into native iPhone apps, released last week with Adobe CS5.

Faced with Apple’s new rule, Adobe pulled the plug on Packager for iPhone. That ends, for now, any hope that Flash apps (or apps that incorporate Flash) will ever be able to run on the iPad or iPhone.

Apple’s new app policy has been met with furious debate. Critics say Apple is depriving consumers of choice, because Flash apps that could have been on the iPhone will never see the light of day. Supporters of Apple’s decision, including Steve Jobs, say the move was necessary to retain quality of apps in the App Store and nimbleness of updating the platform.

Apple has been steadfast with its lack of support for Flash on the iPhone OS. Some customers have complained that without Flash, iPhone and iPad users are missing out on a big chunk of the internet. Jobs said during a staff meeting that Flash was not supported because it is “buggy” and frequently causes crashes on the Mac OS, according to a secondhand account first reported by Wired.com.

Rather than supporting Flash, Apple has reportedly pushed website creators to use alternative web standards, including HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, which are all supported by the iPhone and iPad browser.

Apple said Adobe was incorrect to accuse Apple of locking in developers by not supporting Flash.

“Someone has it backwards — it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary,” an Apple representative said in a statement provided to CNET.

However, as simple as it may sound for web developers to switch to different standards, Wired.com’s Webmonkey editor Mike Calore said the transition to HTML5 for video playback would be complex. He explained that there’s no agreed upon video format for HTML5, and support varies greatly from browser to browser.

“Not to be overly critical of Apple — anyone pushing for open web standards deserves kudos — but the company seems more deeply concerned with digging Flash’s grave than it does with promoting semantic markup,” Calore wrote.

See Also:

• Adobe Reacts to New iPhone App Policy (Updated)
• Jobs: Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy
• Flash Lands on iPhone — One App at a Time
• Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone
• As Apple Barricades Flash, HDTV Embraces It
• Adobe Apps: Easier to Pass Through the ‘i’ of a Needle?
• Google Fires at Apple, Integrates Flash Into Chrome Browser
• Steve Jobs Debates Developers Over Apple’s New App Policy

A month ago, the world saw Apple as equal parts North Pole and KGB—unpredictably innovative and notoriously secretive, they were a force wielded by nothing less than magic. Then, an elf got loose. More »

Say you’re the world’s largest producer of desktop processors, you’ve got a ton of cash ($16.3 billion to be exact) burning a hole in your pocket, and you’re watching the entire mobile industry grow into a monster before your very eyes with virtually no skin in the game. Sure, you’ve got MeeGo and Moorestown up your sleeve — but considering that they’re distant underdogs with no global domination strategy (or product, for that matter) in sight, it might be time to play some hardball, yeah? CFO Stacy Smith commented this week that the company is “looking at what [it believes] can accelerate [its] progress” in the smartphone game — and, more broadly, the consumer electronics game — and that it “can and will deploy capital” if it sees something it likes, just as it did with its Wind River Systems buy last year. Intel has had shockingly little relevance in the race to dominate the pocket ever since it offloaded XScale to Marvell a few years back; is it time for these guys to embrace ARM again, or can they find a way to put x86 cores in devices that people like?

Intel looking to ‘deploy capital’ on smartphone and other CE acquisitions originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  BusinessWeek  | Email this | Comments

CNET editors compare Internet services, like Netflix, YouTibe, Facebook and more, on 2010 HDTVs.