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Thursday, December 24, 2009
Apple Patent Application Hints at a Tablet With Tactile Feedback
Some of Apple's recently revealed patent applications may spoil the surprise over how we'll interact with the Apple tablet. According to Apple Insider's speculations, the patent applications imply that we'll have a multi-touch gadget with tactile feedback.
Apparently this batch of patent applications is for a dynamic surface which can "create physical bumps or dots for the user to feel when it is in keyboard mode." In theory, such a surface would allow you to orient your fingers better on the touchscreen for typing, but never interfere with other actions.
As usual, this is yet another neat tease about the lovely tablet which will fit into my handbag one day. Let's just hope it's soon though, because all the rumors, speculation, and gossip are starting to drive me nuts. [Apple Insider]
Stem Cells Cure Blind Man
Tis the time to be amazed: A 38-year-old man has regained vision in his blind eye thanks to a new stem cell therapy. It won't cure all blind people, but it's a giant leap. Here's how it works.
Englishman Russell Thurnbull got attacked with ammonia 15 years ago during a street fight. As a result, he got an extremely painful condition called Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency, which resulted in blindness in one eye. After much medication, he became a lab rat for all kinds of treatments until a team from Newcastle's North East England Stem Cell Institute got the miraculous cure he was waiting for.
First, the team took a minuscule sample of stem cells from his healthy eye's cornea. This millimeter square of cells was placed on a amniotic membrane, which was placed inside a liquid made from his blood, glucose, insulin, and hydrocortisone. The cells will grow in that solution until taking all over the membrane, which then is used to replace the damaged cornea.
The result: He completely gained eyesight after only eight weeks of the operation. It is not Christopher Reeve walking, but if this is not the future ringing the doorbell, right here, right now, I don't know what it is. [Channel 4]
Friday, December 18, 2009
Video of the Week – First Video of a Volcanic Eruption 4,000 Feet Underwater
This year a research expedition sent a remotely operated vehicle 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean and within ten feet of an exploding volcano. Today the first video footage from that expedition was released. Ka-boom.
Ok, maybe there's no ka-boom because there's no sound, but just looking at this video makes me imagine all that water wooshing by as everything begins to shake. Simply stunning. [Physorg]
Screenshots of Samsung's Bada OS Leak
The details about Samsung's Bada OS have been scarce, and while even these leaked screenshots don't tell us much that we didn't know, we can at least look forward to an eye-pleasing interface design.
It's a shame that these screenshots don't really reveal much aside from social media integration, a music player, a dialer, and the obligatory Twitter app. That aside, is it me, or is there something familiar-feeling about the interface? [Engadget Germanyvia Unwired View]
The Ten Netbook Positions of Exquisite Pain
I revisited this summer post from Core77 by Dave Malouf. I must have missed this amazing piece of research that explains the different positions one can use a netbook in and the corresponding points of pain and stress each causes.
Researchers found that "a conventional small clamshell laptop is most comfortably used lying down in bed with the device on the thigh when the knees are kept up."
I spent months working in that very position after a bad motorcycle wreck in my twenties, and I concur that the best ergos I ever experienced, were in this position. (Could have been the vicadins, though.) I miss this working stance; I need a desk chair that somehow emulates a bed. Or a bed that emulates a desk.
The study is part of an entire class taught by Malouf, sponsored by Freescale, investigating the form factor of the netbook in its entirety.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Top 10 iPhone Games To Look Forward To In 2010
The announcement of GTA: Chinatown Wars for the iPhone was proof, if ever there were any needed, that the time for debating whether or not the iPhone was a bonafidee handheld console was officially over. Irksomely, the original Q4 2009 release window is perilously close to slipping and with no comment forthcoming from Rockstar, it seems very likely that the title will fall back into 2010. Still, gives us something to look forward to in the new year - here’s hoping Rockstar manages to harness the best of the iPhone’s interface options to make it nice and simple to play. Here's the trailer of the DS version to whet your appetite.
The trailer for this epic looking dino-themed effort doesn’t give much away, but Ukranian developer, Tatem, has revealed that you will be able to sneak up on the cold blooded prehistoric giants, before offing them with one of six different weapons. Presumably those weapons are going to be devastatingly powerful and based on what looks like an open world environment, Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunter may well offer something that other developers haven’t dared try yet. Definitely one for meat eaters.
After being buried by an avalanche of mediocre imitators, EA’s larger than life snowboarding franchise is well overdue for a comeback. And what better platform than the iPhone to use as a test bed. Not much is known about what sort of form the game will take, but with Shaun White Snow Boarding getting the jump with a release last month, the pace has now been set. The SSX series has always thrived on multiplayer so fingers crossed there will be some decent online modes.
Low Grav Racer 2
An early App Store darling is now set to reappear courtesy of talented Scottish developer, Cobra Mobile. With no release date announced as yet, a 2010 release is pretty much assured. The game has never made any secrets about its love of the excellent Sony Liverpool series, Wipeout, so it will be interesting to see how Cobra Mobile attempts to go head to head with the world’s premier anti-grav racing franchise. We’re expecting more tracks, tarted up visuals, an online mode and maybe even a souped up 3GS version. If you’re reading Cobra Mobile, please, make it so.
After the fantastic Need for Speed: Undercover, it’s hard to imagine that the sequel will be anything less than fantastic. Adopting an innovative cockpit view and sporting an updated car roster and HUD, Need for Speed: Shift could well dominate the racing genre on the App Store from early in the new year. Though still thoroughly of the pick up and play variety, Shift is positioning itself as more of a sim type driving experience than its predecessor, so petrol heads can get elbow deep in tuning options between races. There are head to head online races mooted too - the only thing we don’t like is that it isn’t out now.
Sketch Nation Shooter
Now this is a very interesting idea. Sketch Nation Shooter allows you to draw your own characters, which you can then photograph with the iPhone’s camera and play with in the game. The technology that developer Engineous has developed for the title is very impressive and is set to be put to use for a range of different releases throughout 2010, that go beyond the initial shoot-em-up set up. Looks like it could be something very special - here’s hoping the game doesn’t succumb to being a mere tech demo.
With a razor sharp narrative from promising outsourcing company, Pure Square Go, as well as an engine from Psychoz Interactive that defies all expectations of what is graphically possible on a standard iPhone, Project Forgotten Memories is definitely one to watch for 2010. Plot details are currently scant, but we do know that it is set in a hospital and that the project has attracted talent that has worked on the likes of Far Cry 2 and Killzone 2. Are we excited about this one? Yes. Will we be scared by it? Almost certainly.
Though it stringently denies such criticisms, it’s clear that Gameloft isn’t shy about taking cues from the biggest home console franchises for its roster of titles. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery however, so if the developers working on N.O.V.A. are as keen on the Halo series as they appear to be, then this FPS is going to be a winner. It’s a graphical powerhouse, even if it is splattered with luminescent toyland hues and heart-stopping set-pieces are promised. There’s a ten mission campaign and an online deathmatch mode already confirmed. Could N.O.V.A. be the title that finally makes FPSgames fun on the iPhone? We’ll have to wait till 2010 to find out.
UPDATE: It seems Gameloft has locked and loaded faster than we thought and NOVA is out now (Dec 17th). First impressions are good and we are working on a review now. Check back later to get the full lowdown on one of the iPhone's most keenly anticipated shooters.
Most flight games on the iPhone have been centred around modern aeronautical technology. Indeed, by cutting it’s teeth with the fantastic (and hugely successful) modern dog-fighting title, F.A.S.T., developer SGN is already experienced with the intricacies of the genre. By sticking to the battles, locations and aircraft of World War II, Skies of Glory could do for dogfighting on iPhone what Medal of Honor did for FPS games on the PS2 way back in 2002. The video is certainly impressive and showcases a variety that’s often lacking in this type of game. It should be coming in to land early in 2010 so get your flight jackets at the ready.
Who wouldn’t want another opportunity to hang out with Faith and her rooftop antics? The iPhone version of the game looks gorgeous, though in order to accommodate the device’s interface, has adopted a new side-scrolling perspective. All that glorious free running is in there though and so long as the controls are kept simple and fluid, there’s no reason why this franchise shouldn’t become a recurring fixture in the iPhone’s revolving door release schedules. One more thing, EA, if you’re reading, do makes sure you don’t go in too high with the price for this one. You can try 2D flash version of this gamehttp://mirrorsedge2d.com
Zune HD Twitter App Won't Let You F#&$ing Swear
In the most random and unfortunate act of censorship we've seen since the iTunes Ninjawords debacle, the Zune HD Twitter app automatically whitewashes any bad words that show up in your timeline.
We've reached out to Zune to see if there's a way to adjust settings to switch it off, but if that's how Microsoft rolls, well, what a b%tch move. [Engadget]
Water World Found Just Around the Corner
This is how I imagine GJ1214b, a super-Earth discovered only forty light-years away from us, orbiting a red dwarf star in the constellation of Ophiuchus. The good news: It's three parts water. The bad news: The beaches are too hot.
400 degrees Fahrenheit, that's how hot. But still, there are signs which indicate the planet has a gaseous atmosphere. GJ1214b itself is composed mostly of water and other ices, with one fourth of it being rock. As Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics' graduate Zachory Berta puts it: "Despite its hot temperature, this appears to be a waterworld. It is much smaller, cooler, and more Earthlike than any other known exoplanet."
The other good news is that it was discovered by an array of eight 16-inch optical telescopes using Apogee U42 CCDs, a kind of sensor which is used by amateur astronomers all over the world. The array is part of the MEarth Project, which monitors 2,000 red dwarves for signs of planetary activity.
The next step would be to direct Hubble to the planet—which orbits the star in only 38 hours—and analyze its atmosphere. After that, we will send Kevin Costner in a one-way spacecraft. [Eureka Alert]
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Canon DSLR Suffers 3,000-Foot Fall AND Lives to Tell It's Tale
A photographer strapped a Canon Rebel XT to his helmet while skydiving, but instead of capturing some great airborne shots, it fell off his helmet and plummeted 3,000 feet to the ground. Unbelievably, it survived.
According to a friend of the photographer:
Amazingly, the Rebel survived the fall and my friend is still using it to this very day. It has a crack in the plastic body and the kit lens is a little jerky when zooming, but functional. I'd like to know if there is a similar story or something close to this but I doubt. It might be a world record indeed (for the height of a camera drop which survived).
Photos show that the camera is remarkably intact—the viewfinder is still functional, both the camera body and lens are pretty much fine. Not that we recommend you heave your DSLR out of a low-flying plane, but it's nice to know that if you do, there's a chance it'll be just fine. [FredMiranda via Canon Rumors via Crunchgear]
Apple Nemesis Psystar Permanently Banned From Selling Mac Clones
I feared that the Apple vs Psystar battle would just fizzle out, but it's ending with a strong punch as Apple Insider reports that Apple has been granted a permanent injunction against Psystar, marking the end of shady Mac clones.
Apparently Psystar has until the final second of this year, midnight on December 31, to cease all of these activities:
• Copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing or creating derivative works ofMac OS X without authorization from Apple.
• Intentionally inducing, aiding, assisting, abetting or encouraging any other person or entity to infringe Apple's copyrighted Mac OS X software.
• Circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access MacOS X, including, but not limited to, the technological measure used by Apple to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers.
• Playing any part in a product intended to circumvent Apple's methods for controlling Mac OS X, such as the methods used to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers.
• Doing anything to circumvent the rights held by Apple under the Copyright Act with respect to Mac OS X.
It's noted that those rules laid down by judge William Alsup may not apply to "Psystar's Rebel EFI software, a $50 application that allows certain Intel-powered PCs to run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard," so this may not be the last we hear of the company. For now though, we can enjoy a few moments of quiet after this legal knockout. [Apple Insider]
Control Your Mac With an iPhone, the Patent
A newly unearthed Apple patent application describes a process in which an iPhone could control a MacBook or iMac, remotely.
Essentially, the iPhone establishes a connection with the computer, then it can control the OS in a similar manner to a TV remote. Using a virtual d-pad, users navigate through apps, open them remotely and even print. But what's possibly more promising that buttoning around an OS is that voice commands could be deployed to skip many of these navigational hassles.
Apple's Remote app, which allows the control of iTunes over a local network, is still one of my favorite apps on the iPhone. If Apple were to evolve that app into what we see in this patent, it'd only become more handy. [Patently Apple via 9to5Mac]
Google working with D-Wave on what may or may not be quantum computing
BMW-designed Thermaltake Level 10 Scores Breathless Review
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
WTF, why aren't we doing this now!
The Millennium Falcon Xbox has been floating around the web, like a phantom, for some time. But now you can build your own, assuming you have a dremel and the 1979 Kenner model. [instructables via craziest gadgets via ubergizmo]Now for my next novel, How to kill a MacBook…damn!
