The new Google Phone is here: The Nexus S. Built by Samsung, it’s got a 4-inch Super AMOLED “Contour Display,” 1GHz Hummingbird processor, NFC support, and most importantly, it’s running a completely clean version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread. More »
The Slow Down App from OVK on Vimeo.
While driving, it’s tempting to hit the gas when one of your favorite jams plays on the stereo, but a new iPhone app discourages music-induced speeding.
Shown in the video above, the app Slow Down uses the iPhone’s sensors to track how fast you’re driving. If you go a few miles over the speed limit, it slows down the tempo of any track playing from your music library. And if you exceed by more than 6 miles per hour, the music stops completely until you resume driving at a normal speed again. Goofy but clever, though I’d imagine it getting annoying when you need to pass people up on the freeway.
Slow Down is a free app [iTunes] in the App Store.
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A 30-year-old Texas man claimed this week that he was talking on his Motorola Droid smartphone when it exploded in his ear.
Wearing a bandage over his head, Texas resident Aron Embry showed broadcast reporters his Droid 2 phone, which appears to be cracked with a burn.
“I heard a pop, I didn’t feel any pain initially, I pulled the phone down, I felt something dripping,” Embry told Fox News in a video interview.
Motorola has said it’s investigating the claim. The company has not acknowledged a manufacturing defect.
Incidents of exploding mobile devices have made rounds on the web in the past, and often times the cause seems to be faulty batteries. For example, amid incidents of iPod Nanos catching on fire in Japan, Apple in August 2008 issued a recall for a small number of iPod Nanos (0.001 percent) containing defective, potentially hazardous batteries. Also, in 2006, Apple issued a recall for iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 notebooks, because their batteries contained cells manufactured by Sony, which were causing batteries to explode.
From Switched
Apple’s latest mobile operating system update introduces a much-demanded feature: wireless printing. Problem is, it will only officially print from printers labeled “AirPrint-compatible,” which you likely don’t own. However, if you want to print from just about any printer, there’s a mod for that.
AirPrint Hacktivator offers a solution for Macs to set up wireless printing with iOS 4.2 with any printer shared on your network. Here’s how to set it up, with instructions courtesy of the hack’s maker, Netputing.
You will need:
Instructions:
1. Copy the AirPrint Hacktivator software into your Applications folder, then launch the app.
2. Toggle the switch to “ON.”
3. Enter your admin password.
4. A window will prompt you to add the printer you want to use with AirPrint.
5. The hack will launch the Print & Fax utility in your Settings folder, and you’ll be able to perform the add-printer task here.
6. And you should be ready to start printing!
See the video below by Netputing for a visual tutorial.
Research in Motion announced this morning that it acquired Swedish interface design firm TAT, whose initials stand for The Astonishing Tribe.
RIM clearly plans to use the Swedes’ talent to beef up future versions of the BlackBerry user interface, which despite the addition of touchscreen tech in the last year still seems clunky and quaint compared to iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. That could make future BlackBerry phones — not to mention the upcoming Playbook tablet — a whole lot more exciting.
That got us wondering: What might the future, TAT-enhanced BlackBerry UI look like?
We have no idea, but if these concept videos produced by TAT are any indication, we’re guessing your next BlackBerry might have:
What do you think the future holds for BlackBerry? Let us know in the comments.
This page: TAT’s vision of the “Future of Screen Technology” video (also embedded below) includes some pretty eye-popping examples of touchscreens embedded into every aspect of daily life. A man wakes up and checks the news on a stretchable screen that starts out iPhone-sized, but which he pulls on to make it nearly iPad-sized. A woman brushes her teeth while reading headlines and checking her calendar on a touchscreen mirror. A man composes a sport publication on a translucent touchscreen display whose images he can flip around, so coworkers on the other side of the screen can see them. Cool stuff!
AirSync, a new feature in doubleTwist, lets you sync your music, movies and photos wirelessly between your computer and your Android phone. It’s like a wireless iTunes, only without the slowdowns, hangs and general frustration of Apple’s “solution”.
DoubleTwist is a media-manager that lets you get content on and off your devices, offering the same seamless iPod experience you get from Apple, only for pretty much any phone, Kindle or even iPods. It comes from DVD Jon, the legendary hacker who cracked DVD encryption all those years ago.
Air sync, currently $1 in the Android Marketplace (doubleTwist itself is free) let’s you beam your photos, movies and music to your phone or tablet over a Wi-Fi network, relegating the cable to mere charging duties. If all your devices use 802.11n connections, then this should be as fast as hooking up to USB. If not, then you might not be cutting the cord quite yet.
AirSync is available now.
Introducing doubleTwist AirSync [doubleTwist]
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Rumors are buzzing about an impending Windows Phone 7 software update that will bring Microsoft’s new mobile OS up to speed with the iPhone.
While we like Windows Phone 7, it seems highly unlikely that it will catch up to the iPhone quite that fast.
Tech blog WP Central quotes Chris Walsh, who worked on an early jailbreak-like hack for Windows Phone 7 called Chevron WP7, claiming that in January 2011, Windows Phone 7 will get a “massive” software update that’s worthy of being called Windows Phone 8.
“MS took 3 months to do what Apple did in 3 years,” Walsh tweeted.
Walsh claims the update will introduce Bing turn-to-turn GPS navigation, custom ringtone support, copy-and-paste and some form of multitasking.
While I believe Windows Phone 7 will soon gain these features, that hardly sounds like a massive update to me. The only major new feature would be multitasking; custom ringtones I’d file under “meh,” turn-by-turn navigation is a thumbs-up but hardly mindblowing, and copy-and-paste is yes, an important tool, but not that big: Android has only partial support for copy-and-paste, and that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the most popular smartphone operating system.
Furthermore, to say such an upgrade would “do what Apple did in 3 years” is an incredible overstatement. To catch up with the iPhone, Windows Phone 7 devices would also need front-facing cameras, something comparable to AirPlay to stream video onto a TV box, and more — not to mention 300,000 third-party apps. Windows Phone 7 is just a month old; it’s got a lot of catching up to do, and it would take a few miracles for the platform to be up to speed with the iPhone by January.
Microsoft declined to comment.
Rather than rush out new features, I think Microsoft is probably prioritizing getting Verizon to hop on board with Windows Phone 7 — a move that would boost its growth to compete with its more direct rival: Google Android. I’d place a bet on CDMA Windows Phone 7 handsets arriving before we see devices up to par with the iPhone.
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Photo of Windows Phone 7 devices running software tests in a server rack: Mike Kane/Wired.com
Apple banned an iPhone magazine app because it contained content related to using Android phones, according to the app’s creator.
Apple refused to approve the magazine Android Magasinet, a publication about Google’s Android OS, according to Brian Dixen, managing editor of Danish magazine publisher Mediaprovider.
Dixen said when he asked why, an Apple executive replied, “You know… your magazine… it’s just about Android…. we can’t have that in our App Store.”
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
File this under “trivial” for now, because it’s questionable why an iPhone owner would want to read an Android magazine in the first place. However, Dixen said he’s concerned about the implications that this incident poses about editorial independence in the App Store. I’d agree the implications are more concerning than the end result: As I’ve argued before, the issue of Apple’s editorial control is poised to grow as the iPad matures into a major publishing platform.
From Fortune
Photo: laihiu/Flickr
Apple last week rolled out a major update for its mobile operating system iOS 4, and among the new features is a nifty free tool: Find My iPhone.
As its name suggests, Find My iPhone is a tracking feature to locate a missing iPhone 4, iPad or fourth-generation iPod Touch. (Only the latest models get the free feature.) If you’ve dropped your iDevice in a cab, or if someone’s stolen it, you can hop on a computer to follow the GPS coordinates of the iPhone on a Google map (see above).
Or, if you’re just absent-minded like me and you misplace your iPhone as often as you lose your keys, you can use your computer to trigger a beeping sound to help you find it. It should be loud enough to hear from under a couch cushion. (You’ll never have to bug a friend to call your phone again.)
If you do indeed think your iPhone is in the hands of a thief, you can use Find My iPhone to remotely lock the device or wipe the data. Do note, however, that if you wipe the device, you won’t be able to track it anymore (hap tip to @shacker for catching that). Also, a clever thief could just remove the SIM card, and you wouldn’t be able to track or wipe the phone.
Of the many new features in iOS 4.2.1, I found this one to be one of the sweetest bonuses. Find My iPhone originally was only available as part of a MobileMe subscription, which costs $100 per year. Making it free was a nice move on Apple’s part: An iPhone can potentially contain a treasure trove of personal information, so losing one is a big deal.
You need to activate Find My iPhone before you lose your phone, so do it now. Since the steps to turn this useful feature on aren’t immediately obvious, here’s how to do it:
1. Make sure you have the latest iOS update (iOS 4.2.1) installed. Plug in your iPhone and click “Check for updates” in iTunes to get the software.
2. With iOS 4.2.1 installed, tap the Settings app on your iPhone. Then tap “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” and “Add Account.” Then choose MobileMe.
3. In the MobileMe account menu, enter your iTunes or Apple ID and password (i.e., the login you use to buy iTunes media on the iPhone).
4. The “Find My iPhone” option should appear. Slide it to “ON” to activate it.”
And you’re done! From here on, you can hop on a computer and enter www.me.com in a web browser. Then enter the same login credentials you used to register for Find My iPhone, and you’ll immediately get a GPS reading of the phone, along with a simple menu of buttons allowing you to lock, wipe, or send a message or sound to the iPhone.
Update: Corrected an error that stated MobileMe costs $10 per month. In actuality, it costs $100 per year.
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Osram, the lightbulb company, has come up with a bright new LED lamp for use in cellphones. Called the Oslux, it is 50% brighter than other LEDs, but more importantly for taking photographs, the light is flatter and “more evenly distributed”. This means that the light-falloff towards the edge, something common to regular and LED flashes alike, is reduced. This in turn gives a bigger patch of usable light.
The chip that does this all is smaller, too, at 2.5mm (shaved down from 3mm). How does it manage to be so bright? “New UX:3 chip technology that makes the LED capable of handling high currents.” That “high currents” part sounds like bad news for your cellphone battery.
Your photos will still be ugly, though, with washed-out faces and harsh shadows. Which brings me to a question about cellphone “flashes”. The lenses are tiny, so why not make a ring-flash that wraps around them? That way, shadows would be cancelled out (or, rather, filled in) and instead of bad snapshots you’d get a great fashion-shoot look to all your snaps. I’m serious. Why isn’t somebody doing this already?
The fancy Oslux lamps will find their way into cellphones as soon as a phone manufacturer decides it needs a new bullet-point on the feature-list.
Powerful LED flash for cell phones [Osram]
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