Hasta La Gadget!

Tesla Model S will support third-party apps and text-to-voice, red lights will never be the same originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If we referred to an Apple or Android army, you might assume we’re talking about a legion of brand-loyal fanboys, with which most Engadget commenters are intimately familiar. Defense contractors, however, are trying to turn the US Army into a lethal Apple / Android force with soldier-centric apps. Harris Corp. has a tablet app in the works that allows soldiers to control IP cameras on UAVs for more pertinent intel on the ground while simultaneously sending that information to command centers anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Intelligent Software Solutions aims to bring mapping mashups to the battlefield (no purpose-built device needed) with an app that combines smartphones’ geolocation with historical data to show troops what’s been going down in the area — from IED explosions to insurgent arrests. Best of all, these apps lower training costs since most warriors are already fluent in Android or iOS and the consumer handhelds can be cheaply ruggedized to replace the more robust $10,000 units in the field today. Should protective measures fail, the devices’ (relatively) low replacement cost makes them “almost disposable.”

Apple and Android get drafted, soldier-centric Army apps coming soon originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 02:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, it looks like you weren’t imagining things if you thought in-app browsers or web apps saved to your iPhone’s home screen seemed slower than Safari itself. Ars Technica has now confirmed that pages or web apps loaded using those methods aren’t receiving the JavaScript boost added to Safari in iOS 4.3, which the site found to be about 2.5 times faster than Safari in iOS 4.2. The problem is that those apps don’t have the necessary permissions to execute dynamically generated native code stored in writeable memory (as Safari does), which basically leaves them running at the same speed they did in iOS 4.2. Not surprisingly, that has prompted some to speculate that it’s all part of a grand plan on Apple’s part to force developers to use full-fledged apps instead of mobile apps, but Ars Technica points out that it could just as easily be due to some technical problems. Hit up the source link below for all the technical details.

Web apps found to be lacking Safari’s speed bump in iOS 4.3 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Samsung Tango View Cleaner has an onboard webcam and mic

Gadget Lab Notes is an eclectic roundup of gadget news briefs and intriguing products that catch our eye.

Samsung Tango View Cleaner-Bot Streams What it Sees
If you’ve always wanted some sort of spy cam in your home, and your floors are perpetually dirty, Samsung has created the hybrid device you’ve been looking for. The Tango View VC-FL87W is an autonomous, Roomba-like vacuum cleaner with a built-in webcam that can stream its view to a smartphone or tablet. An onboard mic and low-light video support make it a sneaky (creepy?) way to keep tabs on what’s going on in your abode when you’re not around to keep an eye on things. Or you can just have fun getting a mouse-eyed view of the world as your floors get cleaned.

Samsung Robotic Vacuum Cleaner [Akihabara News via Slashgear]

Expedition Tripod Is Made of Wood Instead of Metal
The Expedition Tripod is made of sustainably harvested varnished ash in Germany. Why wood? It absorbs vibration better than metals like carbon, steel, or aluminum (or so they manufacturer says). And craftsmen have used the same techniques to build it for over a century.

Wood Camera Tripod [Photojojo via Uncrate]

LinkedIn and Snaptu Join Forces to Bring a Smartphone-Style App to Feature Phones
For international users who want to access LinkedIn on the go but are lacking a smartphone, life will soon get easier. LinkedIn is working with mobile developer Snaptu to create an app that lets dumbphone users access their update stream and profiles, search their network, accept invitations, and invite users to their network. Snaptu is also working with Facebook to bring the social network to feature phones.

LinkedIn Teams Up With Snaptu [TechCrunch]

Google Joining In on the NFC Payment Game
Although Google has explicitly stated that they don’t sell hardware, they have, according to Bloomberg’s sources, been purchasing “thousands” of VeriFone’s NFC payment terminals. The search engine giant is planning to install them in the tech-forward cities of San Francisco and New York City so users can swipe their Android smartphone to pay for transactions. There have been previous rumors that Google was developing their own payment system; this Verifone-purchasing information is right in line with that.

Google is said to ready payment test in New York and San Francisco [Bloomberg via Engadget]

Harman GHS-1 Gaming Headphones Look Sweet, Are Packed With Features
Currently available for $80, Harman’s GHS-1s feature a directional (cardioid) boom mic and passive noise reduction for filtering out background noises. It’s got in-line volume control and mic on/off switch as well as a mechanism in the headband so it can fold up compactly. They’re designed for longwearing comfort, and won a Red Dot Design Award for their good looks.

GHS-1 [Harman via Crunchgear]

Magic Spoon, A Simple Solution for Transporting Flatware
When I decide to eat some food in my room, it’s always a pain to juggle a glass, plate, and forks or spoons as I walk across the house. The Magic Spoon design fixes at least part of that problem by elongating and bending the handle of your utensil, turning it into a hairpin-type clasp. Just slide and clamp it onto a plate or cup to secure it.

The Magic Spoon [Yanko Design]

IMovie will run on your old, slow, bloated iPad as well as the shiny new one

It is possible to install the new iPad 2-only iMovie on the original iPad. You don’t need to jailbreak, and the app runs perfectly well, but there is one big problem which may annoy you into uninstalling it. Read on to find out how.

The App Store checks your hardware and stops you from downloading iMove with an unsupported iDevice. Get around this by downloading iMove using iTunes on your computer. Then you need to download a piece of software from Apple called the iPhone Configuration Utility. There are versions for Mac and PC.

Next, plug in your iPad and wait for it to finish syncing with iTunes. Launch the iPhone Configuration Utility and pick the “Application” tab at left. Then click “Add” at the top of the window and navigate to the newly downloaded iMovie app (inside the Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications folder on a Mac).

Adding the iMovie app to the iPhone Configuration Utility

Once added, you’ll need to actually install it on your iPad. To do this, click on the name of your iPad in the left column and then select the “Applications” tab. Scroll through the list of apps until you get to iMovie. Then click the “Install” button next to it (the screenshot shows it already installed, as I have already installed it on my own iPad).

Installing…

And that’s it. You can now fire up iMovie and start editing. Any compatible video already in your Photos app will show up, and everything seem to run plenty quick enough.

But there’s one problem. Next time you sync the iPad with iTunes, you get this error message:

This annoying box will pop up every time you sync

Authorizing doesn’t help. You just get sent back to this warning after inputting your password. Clicking “Don’t authorize’ will delete iMove from your iPad. Clicking cancel is the one you want. Cancel and iMovie stays.

It appears that this warning only applies to iMovie. I have updated other apps on my iPad since installing iMovie, and that went fine. Syncing then copied those new apps back to the iPad. I imagine it may be possible to get rid of this warning using provisioning profiles, but for now just clicking “cancel” once on each sync works fine.

One final note: Getting footage into iMovie is absurdly complicated. If you have an iPhone, you can shoot movies and import them using the camera connection kit. But if you have a camera that shoots iPad-compatible movies, you’re out of luck. You may be able to view the clip in the Photos app, but it doesn’t show up in the source list of iMovie. Or it does. It just depends on which camera you are using.

It’s probably better to run iMovie on the iPad 2, complete with guaranteed-compatible camera, but if you’re happy to do a little hacking, then your iPad 1 is certainly up to the job.