Infectious: Make your iPhone look like a Polaroid.
At least they didn’t use an SX-70. That would have been sacrilege.
ReadWriteWeb: Cherokees First to Use iPhones for Native Language.
New tech should be an enabler.
AR.Drone.com USA: Augmented Reality Quadri-Copter with iPhone interface.
I’d call it the ‘Vertibird’ of today. For those who don’t recall the reference, further info. You will be struck, however, that the past toy was focused on rescue, while the modern equivalent is focused on pursuit and destruction.
SEO By The Sea: Google’s Acquisition of Myriad Group Phone Patents.
“The patents cover a range of methods used on a mobile phone, starting with a predictive model that guesses what the next keystroke might be by a phone user, scrolling for zoom displays, linking and bookmarking and application launching through a mobile browser, as well as a number of approaches to optimizing browsing on a smartphone. Here on the patent filings that have been assigned to Google, according to the USTPO assignment database ...”
WSJ: IPhone and Android Apps Breach Privacy.
Guardian.UK: Mobile phone masts linked to sharp rise in births.
“Do mobile phone towers make people more likely to procreate? Could it be possible that mobile phone radiation somehow aids fertilisation, or maybe there’s just something romantic about a mobile phone transmitter mast protruding from the landscape?” Researching potential positives, instead of the usual negatives?
Technorati: Smartphone Users Are Royal Pain to Retailers.
“Thanks to smarty-pants apps on Android and iPhones, customers just have to scan bar-codes on products and they can figure out where to buy the product cheaper, know where it’s on sale, and sometimes learn what the inventory is at close-by stores. It’s enough to send a merchant into shock.”
Rob Galbraith DPI: A first look at ShutterSnitch 2.0 for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
Cute, but limits you to jpegs.
ReadWriteMobile: W3C Releases Best Practices for Mobile Web Apps.
Coding Horror: The Dirty Truth About Web Passwords.
NPR: End Of Days For Bookstores? Not If They Can Help It.
“I think that it’s possible that the Kindle could turn into the Betamax. [snip] That’s my nasty wish, because they won’t share with other people. You need to buy your book through Amazon in order to use your Kindle. [On] all of the other readers you can work with the Google editions [of the books], and so I think that’s going to be the next thing.” Perhaps. It’ll only take a software update to change the Kindle’s behavior, however.
NY Times: Out of Our Brains.
“But we seem to be entering an age in which cognitive prosthetics (which have always been around in one form or another) are displaying a kind of Cambrian explosion of new and potent forms. As the forms proliferate, and some become more entrenched, we might do well to pause and reflect on their nature and status.” Such as, what do you do when you can’t charge your batteries.
Mashable: Amazon to Unveil New Kindle Web App Tomorrow.
As old Tao master Zhuangzi said, those who try to draw boundaries around the boundless will fail. Amazon will have to widen their range of usable ebook formats, or else hemorrhage users to other platforms in a gradual (and costly) trickle. We’ve seen this before, countless times, on the internet.
CNet: iPad 2 to ship next February.
I suppose one should wait now, if considering an iPad.
Macworld: Carcassonne Review.
Hmmm. When you actually pay attention to the history of Carcassonne, this game seems a little ... macabre. The elimination of the Cathars was also a huge, bloody land grab.
The Coolist: Pantone iPhone Cases.
Don’t do much for impact, but they sure look nice.
Smashing Magazine: A Study of Trends in Mobile Design.
Linked for my own reference.
NY Times: Art Gets Unmasked in the Palm of Your Hand.
Bittersweet. This is what we wanted the Apple Newton to do, eons ago.
Wired: Will iPad Knock Out Kindle? Numbers Aren’t Pretty for Amazon.
Given that most people don’t read, this isn’t surprising. I’ll have more comments on the tablet-vs-ereader breakdown shortly.
Valet.: The Gadget Saver - Bheestie Bag.
Sounds like a godsend.
booq: iPad bags.
Never thought I’d want a man-purse, but if I end up with an iPad, I’d surely like one o’ these.
Question.
Seeing as how I only work by myself at this point, I haven’t really spent much time in version control. A recent project has made keeping track of changes a nightmare, so I’ve purchased Versions.app and am programming a great deal in Coda. Question for you version control experts: is there any drawback to using Dropbox as an SVN repository, rather than a charge-for online SVN service? I just want to be able to track changes as effectively via laptop as I can on my home system. I’m not out and about in the coffee shops *that* much, but it’s a feature I’d like to have.
I’m sure someone will push Git at me. If you can make a strong case for a solo programmer tracking changes through Git, let me have it. SVN seems to be built in to more of my programming environments (Coda, BBEdit, etc.).
The Nook’s got an update.
Barnes & Noble just sent out an announcement of the version 1.5 upgrade. I’ve been kicking the tires on a Nook for a client, and I’ll have some comments about it in the future. I have to throw away all I’ve written and start over ... the damned thing’s much faster now!
[For those of you who think this is a sign of the apocalypse, that *I* would be using an e-reader, bear with me. I’ll explain my interest later on.]
3GStore: Nexaira iPhone Tethering.
Make your iPhone a Wifi hotspot without jailbreaking.
New Scientist: Storytelling 2.0: Open your books to augmented reality.
Yeah, yeah. Have you seen, on an iPad, the Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross? It just scratches the surface of what can be done, but it is certainly groundbreaking and incredible. Much better than the much-touted “Alice.”
