Apr 07

Get Twitter “Bubbles” on Your Desktop

Posted in: desktop, Freeware, Linux, Mac, Software, Today's Chili, twitter, Windows

This article was written on December 10, 2009 by CyberNet.

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Twitter is taking the world by storm, and because of that we’re seeing a flood of third-party apps becoming available. One that recently caught my eye was the Adobe Air-powered TweetBubbles, which isn’t designed to be your typical Twitter client. In fact, you can’t even post to Twitter with it. How’s it useful then?

During presentations or events people tend to have a projector set up that will be used to go through some slides. Before the presentation starts the screen normally just sits there blank or maybe on the first slide, and the same thing happens again for intermissions. With TweetBubbles you can capture your audience’s attention by pulling in related Twitter posts by filtering according to keyword. When a match is found a chat-like bubble will appear around the edge of your desktop showing off the tweet that was recently posted.

There are some obvious flaws to this. The big one is probably that you don’t have much control over the contents of the tweets that show up. Once people at the conference see the keyword filter you’re using they could instantly post something that is inappropriate. The good thing is that you’d know who posted it… unless they prepared ahead of time by creating a Twitter account that doesn’t personally identify them.

As far as settings go you can only configure a handful of things like the keyword/hash you want to filter by, how transparent you want the bubbles to appear, and whether you want them to appear on the left, right, or both sides of the screen. That’s pretty much it.

So I’m not sure how many people will actually use an app like this, but I think the concept is awesome. It would surely keep your audience engaged even during “down time” in your presentation, which is something that could otherwise be difficult to do.

TweetBubbles Homepage (Freeware)
[via Technix]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Apr 04

China’s dead affected by iPad 2 shortages of a different sort

Posted in: Apple, chinese, ipad, ipad 2, Ipad2, kirf, Mac, slate, tablet, Today's Chili

In life as in death, it seems, getting your hands on an iPad 2 is no easy feat. Reuters is reporting today that paper replicas of the tablet are selling out in parts of Asia, as revelers prepare to set the things ablaze during China’s Qingming festival Tuesday. As is tradition, paper versions of money, clothing, and, yes, consumer electronics are burned as offerings to the dead, and this year Apple’s latest slate is apparently all the rage for expired techies — one shopkeeper in Malaysia said his stock of 300 paper iPad 2s sold out quickly, leaving him unable to meet demand. Sounds strangely familiar, doesn’t it?

China’s dead affected by iPad 2 shortages of a different sort originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 21:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 01

Apple patent application reveals plans for external battery pack, spells further trouble for HyperMac

Posted in: Android, Apple, charging, Mac, macbook, macbook pro, MacbookPro, patent, patent application, PatentApplication, patents, solar, Today's Chili

Way back in September of last year, Apple filed a patent-infringement suit against HyperMac, the folks behind these external batteries. At the time, it looked like Apple was protecting its patented MagSafe power connector, but a newly released USPTO application for a “Power Adapter with Internal Battery” might reveal a more accurate view of the company’s litigious motivations. From the look of things, the outfit intends to make its mark on juicing solutions with what is basically a wall charger packing an internal battery. According to the patent filing, the contraption would include a processor for parceling energy to the host device as well as the adapter, and could also incorporate a supplemental energy source like a solar cell. Among other things, it would also communicate with the device being charged to allow users to monitor the juice stored in the extra battery. If the thing does end up making it to market, it looks like HyperMac could have a whole lot more trouble on its hands than a little patent-infringement suit.

Apple patent application reveals plans for external battery pack, spells further trouble for HyperMac originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 31

Witness Turns Your Mac and iPhone into a Burglar Alarm

Posted in: household, ios, ipad, iPhone, Mac, security, Today's Chili

Witness uses your Mac’s iSight camera to detect movement and sound the alarm

If you own both a Mac and an iPad, it’s a fair bet that you also have a home stuffed with other electronic gear, the kind of gear that burglars like to, well, burglarize. Luckily, there’s an app for that.

It’s called Witness, and it turns your Mac into a motion-activated security camera. When running, it monitors your room with using the iSight camera, and when it detects movement it sends an alert to your iPhone or iPad.

Included with the alert are photos and videos, so you can either rest easy knowing that Kitty has jumped up on the desk again, or watch in horror as your home is emptied miles from where you are standing.

Forgot to activate the alarm? You can do it remotely from the phone.

Witness seems like a great idea, but for a couple of things: you need to leave your Mac running 24/7 while you are away, which is something of a waste of electricity. It also requires an internet connection, so the smart thief could just cut the power on entry — it’s pretty unlikely that your Mac is out in the hallway where the breakers are often kept.

Aside from this, though, it’s nice not to be worrying about the house when you’re out. The Mac App costs $40, and the companion iOS app is free.

Witness product page [Orbicule]

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Mar 30

Skype 5 for Mac continues to frustrate — how’s it treating you?

Posted in: Apple, issue, Mac, os x, OsX, problem, skype, Software, Today's Chili, VoIP

It’s rare that a new piece of software generates only positive feedback, but the world’s most popular VoIP app has seemingly frustrated throngs of loyal Mac users, including a number of technologically savvy individuals within these very walls. A brilliant comparison of the old vs. new has emerged over at Ignore The Code (linked down below for your perusal), and it got us wondering — are average consumers seeing this any differently? There’s no question that Skype 5 for Mac looks a heck of a lot like the Windows build, but as the aforesaid article points out, it seems that the UI engineers lowered the standard of the OS X version rather than dragging the Windows variant up. What makes the new edition so difficult to swallow is just how ideal the prior model was — now, it’s a chore to spot contacts, initiate chats and handle the most basic of tasks that Skype should handle. So, we’ll leave it to you: is Skype heading in the wrong direction in terms of usability and functionality, or should the collective world just get a grip?

View Poll

Skype 5 for Mac continues to frustrate — how’s it treating you? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 28

Hands-On: Banana TV Streams iOS Video, Pictures to Mac

Posted in: airplay, Apple, Hacks, Hacks, Mods and DIY, Mac, Today's Chili

Banana TV enables an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to stream photos and video to a Mac.

One of the coolest gimmicks of iOS is AirPlay, a button you press on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to stream photos, videos and audio to a huge display connected to an Apple TV. Problem is, you can’t normally use this nifty feature without your Apple TV (or an AirPort Express, if all you want is audio).

Enter Banana TV, a Mac app that allows you to use AirPlay to beam your videos and photos from an iOS device to a Mac. This way, you can enjoy streaming your media onto a bigger screen even if you don’t own an Apple TV.

The best part about Banana TV is it’s seamless. Launch the app and it’s ready to go, so long as your iOS device and Mac are on the same Wi-Fi network. On your iOS device, open any AirPlay-compatible video or photo, and an icon will appear to stream it via AirPlay. Hit the AirPlay icon and boom, the picture is displayed on your Mac.

This will come useful in many scenarios. Say you’re visiting relatives who have a 27-inch iMac, and you want to share photos of your family vacation, stored on your iPhone. Just load Banana TV on their iMac and stream it from your iPhone with AirPlay.

Or let’s say  you give presentations at work, and the PDFs are stored on your iPhone. Just connect your Mac to the projector, run Banana TV, open the PDFs on your iPhone and hit the AirPlay button. Voila — the image will be showing on the projector, and you can swipe the screen to move between PDFs while you’re giving the presentation.

Created by prolific programmer Erica Sadun, Banana TV cost $8 over at BananaTV.net. It’s not available in the Mac App Store, probably because Apple wasn’t cool with people reverse-engineering the AirPlay code, according to Sadun.

“There’s never been anything Apple’s built that I haven’t wanted to reverse engineer somehow,” Sadun said. “I’m sure there’s probably medication for that, maybe therapy.”

Wired.com previously covered Banana TV, which was formerly called AirPlayer, when it was still a work in progress. The near-final version of Banana TV released last week is snappy and fast, as if it came straight from Apple headquarters. It’s a must-have app for any Mac customer with an iOS device.


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Mar 26

iPad, iPad 2 get unofficial CF card compatibility (video)

Posted in: Apple, camera, dslr, ipad, ipad 2, Ipad2, Mac, memory, photography, Photos, reader, slate, Today's Chili, video

Given the impressive knockoffs and official camera kits we’ve seen, we’d say the iPad’s definitely got the stuff to help out most shutterbugs, but up until now, uploading content from a CF card wasn’t exactly easy. Well, our friends over at MIC Gadget recently showed off an iPad / iPad 2-compatible card reader that fixes that on the cheap. Simply called the CF card reader for iPad and iPad 2, the thing slips right into the slate’s dock connector port and, as you can see from the video below, it transfers HD video and high-res images in a snap — it also sports USB connectivity. Like its predecessor, the reader’s available from MIC for $29.90, but you’ll have to wait at least a month to get your hands on one. Oh, and a word of warning, you might want to make sure the iPad supports your camera’s video format before shelling out the dough, as MIC found the slab couldn’t playback video from a Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

Continue reading iPad, iPad 2 get unofficial CF card compatibility (video)

iPad, iPad 2 get unofficial CF card compatibility (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 12:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceMIC Gadget (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

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Mar 24

Ask Engadget: best ergonomic keyboard for a Mac?

Posted in: Apple, AskEngadget, keyboard, Mac, os x, OsX, peripheral, Today's Chili

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Andrew, who isn’t interested in ever getting CTS. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I bought my first computer from Apple a few months ago (15-inch MacBook Pro) and I’ve been using it extensively around campus. I didn’t give it too much notice at first, but the keyboard is making me develop wrist problems (possibly carpel tunnel?). My wrist has been hurting so much that I couldn’t sleep because my wrist would keep twitching. I bought a Logitech Wave Pro, which helped my wrist problem a lot. Problem is, Logitech dropped OS X support for the Logitech Wave almost two years ago, and many of my buttons are mapped incorrectly.

Which ergonomic keyboard would you suggest? I’m open to anything. Bluetooth is a bonus so I don’t have to worry about a receiver, but if that degrades the performance / speed of the keyboard then I don’t want it. Thanks!”

We know Andrew’s not alone here. There simply aren’t enough legitimate ergonomic keyboard options that work perfectly with OS X, but hopefully there are one or two that have really made you folks happy. Let us know in comments below, cool?

Ask Engadget: best ergonomic keyboard for a Mac? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 21

Apple releases OS X 10.6.7 with fix for MacBook Pro display issues

Posted in: Apple, Mac, macbook pro, MacbookPro, os x, OsX, thunderbolt, Today's Chili

It may be a minor update for most, but those with a brand new MacBook Pro will no doubt find the just-released OS X 10.6.7 upgrade particularly welcome. In addition to various minor improvements for all Macs, it includes a fix for early 2011 MacBook Pros that promises to “improve graphics stability and external display compatibility.” That sounds like it may actually fix both the freezing issue we reported on earlier today and the flickering issue that’s been plaguing Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pros since day one, though we’ve yet to confirm either ourselves. Let us know how things work out for you in comments.

Update: Early indications are that it does indeed fix both the freezing and flickering issues. We’ll let you know if we find anything else.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Apple releases OS X 10.6.7 with fix for MacBook Pro display issues originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 17

Nokia Software Updater for Mac available in beta, lets you update your N79 under OS X

Posted in: Apple, Mac, nokia, os x, OsX, Today's Chili
Nokia Software Updater for Mac available in beta, lets you update your N79 under OS X

There hasn’t always been a lot of love between Symbian devices and Macs, and while Nokia just got awful friendly with Microsoft the company is also extending something of an olive branch to the Apple community. The Nokia Software Updater for Mac just went live, more than a year after the Windows Phone 7 version, and, while it’s still in beta form, it’ll allow you to push the latest revisions of core software and apps to your device. At this point there aren’t any particular issues being reported, but the app does warn that you can brick your device if you unplug it while updating. Nothing new there, really.

Nokia Software Updater for Mac available in beta, lets you update your N79 under OS X originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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