A tony prep school in Knoxville, Tennessee has made it mandatory for every student between grades 4 and 12 to own an iPad. That might be a good idea, someday! But being this far ahead of the curve shortchanges students. More »
iOS 4.3-ready apps begin turning up in the App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We’ve seen the Kindle DX fail as a textbook alternative, but the iPad marches ever onward as a pioneer of wireless education. Or so it seems, anyway. This time the tablet has set its sights on a private school in Knoxville, TN, where all students from fourth to 12th grade will be required to carry iPads starting this August. Webb School students can either provide their own slate or lease a WiFi-only model for $20 a month. Just like administrators at Seton Hill University, the folks at Webb School see the iPad as an eventual replacement for traditional textbooks, as well as a tool for interactive learning. We’ve voiced our skepticism about the in-school iPad trend before, and while we still wonder just how effective the devices might be in the classroom, we’re interested to see how this thing turns out. You know, we love the Oregon Trail and everything, but don’t today’s students deserve to see more than pixelated trailblazers dying of digital diphtheria?
[Thanks, Jordan]
Tennessee’s Webb School makes iPads mandatory, still looks down on note-passing originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The next iPad and iPhone will contain a Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip that will let you use them to make purchases, according to Bloomberg. This technology is widespread in other countries – Japan, for example – but has never taken off in the US. Putting a chip into the iPhone 5 could provide the critical mass that is needed for wireless payments to go mainstream.
It’s a nice theory, and it may well be true, but Bloomberg’s sources are not inside Apple itself. Instead, the story comes from consultants, and is pure speculation.
NFC lets you pay by touching or waving your phone near a payment terminal. You have likely used very similar RFID technology when using public transport – the Oyster Card in London is a good example. In fact, NFC is compatible with the RFID tech used in these cards, so you could use your phone to get on the bus and metro, too.
NFC in the next iPhone makes sense, despite the complete lack of evidence. Last year Apple added a front-facing camera and a gyroscope to the iPhone 4. The next iPhone needs some new gimmick to make people buy it, so why not con tactless payments? For many people, losing their iPhone is already more painful that losing their wallet, so why not toss all those eggs into one tiny, beautifully-engineered basket?
Apple Plans Service That Lets IPhone Users Pay for Purchases With Handsets [Bloomberg]
Photo: Chris Mear / Flickr
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You’ll no doubt be aware of our (well justified) distrust for anything that passes a tech analyst’s lips, but this time’s a little different. Richard Doherty of Envisioneering Group cites “engineers who are working on hardware” for Apple’s latest project in asserting what that project actually is: NFC capabilities are apparently being built into the next generation of iPhone and iPad devices. Contactless payments via NFC have been steadily building up in hype and adoption recently — at least in the western hemisphere, the stuff is commonplace in Japan — and Doherty predicts Apple will make its move into the field with some new hardware and an accompanying “revamp” of iTunes. The idea would be to allow the use of iTunes gift card balances and the credit card info Apple already has from you to make swiping payments at compatible retail outlets. Apple is said to be planning enticements, like loyalty credits and points, to get you using its service in the place of the competition, and there are already a couple of software patent applications from the company detailing other potential uses for the technology. All of which could mean absolutely nothing, of course, but this seems like an awful lot of smoke for there not to be a fire under it.
iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will come with NFC built in, suggests well-connected analyst originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Hey, can everyone please stop talking about the iPad? RIM’s been skirting around Apple’s tablet, saying only that its upcoming PlayBook slate would have “comparable” battery life, but now it’s dropped all pretense and called the iPad out by name. Specifically, the Canadian company’s senior business marketing VP Jeff McDowell has promised that the PlayBook will offer “equal or greater” battery endurance to Apple’s device, while using a smaller cell size. The latter part isn’t hard to achieve, considering Apple filled most of its slate’s innards with Li-Pol juice packs, but the promise of matching its autonomy from the wall socket is a big claim to make. Many people consider that to be among the iPad’s foremost strengths, so RIM is surely aiming high by pledging to not only match it, but potentially better it. The PlayBook we saw in person wasn’t quite up to that level yet, but there’s still time until that March launch for RIM to turn bold words into a beautiful reality.
RIM: PlayBook battery life will be ‘equal or greater than the iPad with smaller battery size’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If we were running Microsoft, we’d stop trying to pigeonhole the iPad and focus instead on reversing Apple’s domination of the burgeoning tablet market. Alas, for better or worse, we’re not the ones in charge, so all we can do is cringe at the news that Microsoft has put together a marketing campaign for its reseller partners that highlights the iPad’s enterprise shortcomings. Yes, the device that was patently designed for consumer-centric accessibility is being tarred with the damning brush of being unfriendly to business. The thing is, business customers are indeed deploying iPads in their workplaces, but we’re pretty sure none of them are throwing out the ThinkPads in the process, which kinda makes Microsoft’s furrowed brows and highfalutin concerns — such as the lack of enterprise OS patch management tools — seem, well, disconnected from reality. Still, we know trash talk when we see it and there’s a whole ten slides of the stuff at the source link below.
Microsoft’s answer to the iPad: attack its enterprise weaknesses… even if nobody cares about them originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This week in consumer electronics was full of culture. Or maybe it was full of color — we’re not quite sure what the difference might be, but there was a lot of weird / cool news in the CEO, handheld gaming, and tablet worlds. The point is, we’ve got another weird / cool podcast on our hands that you haven’t listened to yet and you need to take care of that, like, five minutes ago.
Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, #1 Digitimes bestselling author Paul Miller
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Superstition
00:04:15 – Steve Jobs takes medical leave from Apple, Tim Cook taking over daily operations in his absence
00:10:22 – Apple turns in record Q1: $6b profit on $26.7b revenue, 16.2m iPhones sold
00:23:20 – Apple’s invested in a ‘very strategic’ $3.9b component supply agreement, but what is it?
00:25:10 – Asahi Glass introduces Dragontrail for consumer electronics, puts the Gorilla on notice (video)
00:25:48 – Larry Page taking over as Google CEO, Eric Schmidt will remain as Executive Chairman
00:35:30 – Google Voice now lets you port your own phone number, maybe (update)
00:44:53 – Exclusive: HP / Palm’s webOS tablets — pictures, plans, and more
00:45:42 – HP / Palm tablet to feature Touchstone dock, cloud storage, Beats audio and Tap-to-Share smartphone integration
00:49:30 – HP calls us out, implies it’s got even better scoops at February webOS event
00:53:20 – HP’s first webOS tablet may start shipping in March, fulfill longstanding promise
01:06:00 – Motorola Xoom launching February 17th at Best Buy (update: priced at $700)
01:06:22 – Motorola Xoom priced at $800 at a minimum, according to Verizon leak
01:14:52 – Nintendo 3DS coming to US March 27th for $249.99, Europe first on March 25th (video)
01:19:10 – Live from Nintendo’s 3DS preview with Reggie Fils-Aime
01:23:22 – Bloomberg: Sony PSP2 to debut next week, PlayStation Phone at MWC
01:23:47 – This fan-made PSP redesign is sexy
01:25:15 – PSP2 to be based on iPhone-esque PowerVR GPU, rival original Xbox in power?
01:27:52 – The Engadget Show returns next Sunday with Steve Wozniak!
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Filed under: Podcasts
Engadget Podcast 230 – 01.24.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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MotionX-GPS has been a solid choice in the iPhone and iPad navigation game for some time now, but only recently has started to stretch its legs a bit. The app now has compatibility with a series of JVC and Pioneer head units (listed out below) that enables full-screen 3D navigation. In this mode the mobile device basically turns in to a remote control with a simplified interface, with POI searching and of course media playback. Connectivity is not using the Terminal Mode standard, this works exclusively with the iPhone and iPad, and we’re told that sadly the company has no plans on supporting any other platforms going forward. So, if you’re not on iOS you’ll just have to find your own way to wherever you’re going.
MotionX-GPS Drive exports full-screen nav on Pioneer and JVC head units, has love only for iOS (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We’re a little short-staffed on Qualcomm chipset engineers at the moment, so forgive us if we can’t immediately confirm this tale, but we’re hearing iPhone hacker Zibri has discovered proof of the Apple / Qualcomm collaboration in his very own build of iTunes. Zibri claims that by tearing apart the latest version, he found the chunk of code above, which contains files that are allegedly the exclusive “building blocks” of Qualcomm radio firmware. That doesn’t tell us anything about a supposed iPhone 5 or iPad 2, unfortunately, as it’s probably just referring to that CDMA chipset in the Verizon iPhone 4… but with the right building blocks, one can craft any number of wonders.
Apple hacker digs up Qualcomm baseband proof by decompiling iTunes? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Jan 2011 13:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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