The lack of voice controls on the iPhone is a pain sometimes. Especially since the phone has a touch screen. In order to do anything on the iPhone aside from switching it to vibrate or turning up the ringer volume, you have to take to phone out, unlock it, and look at the screen. A good set of voice control applications could really solve a lot of these problems.
AT&T is developing a set of applications that use voice recognition tech. However, as of now the apps will only apply to newer mobile phones and the 3G iPhone since they need the faster data to connect to AT&T’s servers. Also, the tech will only work with web applications such as the one demoed on the video. This means that other 3rd party apps wont be supported. That mean no voice dialing yet folks, and as of now this whole program is still in the works.
[Video via Apple Insider ]
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Remember that promise Microsoft made about launching a very expensive ad campaign to “strike back ” at Apple for their arrogant switcher ads and protect its money maker, Vista? Looks like the boys from Redmond have actually been working on the campaign, and we not seeing the first in what I assume will be a series of ads. This one makes a joke attacking the mass markets perception of Windows Vista, and the fact that just because everyone is saying it, doesn’t mean it is true. Groupthink has been a huge problem for Vista as the majority of bloggers have been unfair in their assessments of the product, and the general public has, for the most part, jumped on the ill-conceived bandwagon.
I hope this is just a teaser for the campaign, because this ad reminds me of the awful “Wow Starts Now” ads from the earlier days of Vista marketing. Microsoft needs to be aggressive here.
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I have to say that of all the things I am excited for coming to the 360 later this year, the Netflix thing has to be at the top of the list. It is going to let you as a Netflix subscriber with a plan of $9.99 and up (which I am not, but will become when this gets closer to happening) you will have access to your instant que live and streaming over the net to your Xbox 360. Looking forward to it. Are you?
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Sure we all use some cloud computing nowadays. Whether you simply browse to your web mail every once in a while or swear by using nothing but open source, cloud based alternatives for everything you possibly can, cloud computing is here to stay. The term refers to how web applications can run remotely and store information in the “cloud” or essentially off site. While many of us use a few cloud based applications, there aren’t any machines sold yet that are designed with cloud computing in mind. The CherryPal looks to change all of that.
Here is what you don’t get with this portable hard drive sized PC. No optical drive, no operating system. What you do get is 4GB of flash storage, 256MN of RAM, and a 400MHz processor. For ports you are looking at 2 USB, 1 VGA (monitor) out, and of course ethernet to go along with its 802.11b/g wireless. From the looks of it, this thing runs using only a small AC adapter.
The really stunning part about this thing is of course the price. It is set to launch at just $249. For that you get open office, iTunes, some CherryPal branded media and chat application, 50GB of free online storage, and some more applications. That might not sound like much, but remember, all of your data/work/memories/whatever should be living in the cloud anyway.
So what do you think? Is cloud computing far enough along to warrant the purchase of a machine that relies on it?
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The Pwnage 2.0 tool has been officially released by the iPhone Dev Team. This application simplifies the process of jailbreaking and unlocking your iPhone to run 3rd party applications, and to allow your iPhone to be used on non-approved carriers. This is just for iPhones and iPod Touches running firmware 2.0, and right now the toll cant actually unlock the 3G iPhone, however that last step is the Dev Team’s highest priority right now.
I used the original Pwnage tool to unlock my iPhone back when it was running 1.1.4 I believe. It works great, and finally let me use my iPhone for more than Apple intended which at the time was very little. It was also great for my friends who weren’t on AT&T, allowing them to use their iPhones. Great, but why do we need this anymore?
The only versions of the Phone/Touch are 2.0+ so iPod Touch owners of the hardware who are capable of running 3rd party applications via the app store already. These apps are professionally developed and the majority of them are free. Then there are some very high quality paid applications as well. What more do we need from the jailbreak anymore. Like I said, I appreciated the work these guys did when I had no other option, they were amazing at what they did. All I am saying is that I don’t think the demand is going to be there anymore. Most of the best apps that I actually used from the installer (like twinkle) are either already on the App Store, or close to release. They are still free, and they are better quality. Also, the 2.0 firmware is buggy enough. I am not really looking to add to the problem by hacking it.
The other benifit for this application is that it can unlock iPhones as well. This is, however, another service we don’t need anymore. Firstly, it cant unlock the 3G iPhone, and the old version is no longer for sale, so what exactly does this application unlock? Even when it does start to unlock the iPhone 3G, there is no way to get the things out of the store without already activating on AT&T. I hear that eventually there will be iPhone 3G’s sold with no contract, but at a lovely premium.
Again, no knock to all of the hard work done by the Dev Team. They really are doing amazing things for the community, I am just very pessimistic about how widespread jailbreaking/unlocking is going to be post App Store. Are you going to be Pwning your iPhone?
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Given that this film ia directed by Christopher Nolan, the fact that The Dark Night is so incredibly grounded in reality comes as no surprise. Batman has always been a very gritty, realistic world, and Nolan’s style fit the bill perfectly. We saw it in the original, and he does it again in the sequel. There are scenes that clearly could have been handled with CGI, however, you can also tell that they weren’t. Its all of those little bits of real stuff, that gives this world we are taken to an amazingly realistic sense. Unlike some of the batman movies to come before, this movie never lets characters, even over the top ones like the Joker, begin to feel to far from reality.
Speaking of the Joker, I would like to take a minute to discus Heath Ledger’s performance as the crazy villain. This was one of the places I was most ready to be disappointed with the movie. I just couldn’t see Heath Ledger as this Joker character from watching the trailer. In actuality there is only one word I can use to describe Ledger’s performance: Brilliant. He takes this well known villain from the Batman world and completely grounds him in the style of this set of films. Every aspect of his character, the fright, and the funny work perfectly with the film. As far as I am concerned, this is the Joker (sorry Jack) as he was meant to be portrayed.
If you haven’t seen this movie, you are missing out. I wasn’t able to see it in Imax, but I have heard you should see it that way if you can, and if not, see it anyway. If you were a fan of the first, you will not be disappointed with the second. This film sets the bar very high for what super hero movies have the potential to be. Movies like Spiderman fall way short as far as making the world of the comics seem real in out own reality. In fact, even a blockbuster like Ironman has a thing ot two it could learn fro The Dark Night. Put plainly, “The Dark Night” is the best superhero movie ever made.
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After realizing that yellow sticky note “to do” lists were consuming his life, animation filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns decided to visually self-reflect on his filmmaking journey by animating on the same sticky notes that caused him to ignore major world events for the last nine years. Animation meditation is blended with image, text, and an original musical score by Genevieve Vincent through the creation of a classically animated experimental film that was drawn straight ahead with only a black ink pen on over 2300 yellow sticky notes. Order a DVD at www.hapanimation.com
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Amazon has been rethinking its Unbox service that launched around a year and a half ago. The service allowed for rentals and purchases of movies and TV shows for Windows only. These were downloaded to the hard drive via a proprietary download service and they could be viewed in a variety of ways. I personally used this service a few times, and the overall experience was pretty good. Quality really wasn’t an issue, and neither was download times. The only real problem aside from the fact that the service was Windows only were the fact that the library was limited on selection and there was plenty of DRM on the files. I personally got the filed integration into Windows Media Center and even playing over the Xbox 360 extender, but when I switched PC’s 2-3 times in a year, Many of my purchases were lost to DRM.
Amazon’s new Video on Demand service takes after Netflix’s instant access program where you can actually stream titles over the net, and this time it is Mac and PC. Amazon will be adding 40,000+ titles (both tv and movie titles) to the service and allows customers to watch any of them instantly online. Launching Thursday, Amazon hopes this serivice may gain more ground in the online video marekt than unbox did. While unbox was a pretty solid service, the market for online movie downloads is still not large enough to support many other players aside from iTunes. With the update to Apple TV earlier this year, iTunes rentals and purchases have gained more market share. This brings up a flaw in Amazon’s service thus far, channels of distribution. The reason these services fail is because no one wants to watch movies on their computer. Especially since they require an internet connection to stream. While Amazon has made a deal with Sony to stream their library to Bravia televisions (with a $300 extention), that is still one high end distribution channel for their content. Unlike iTunes, which has Apple TV to push movies to any TV, Amazon has a lot of work to do to get their on demand videos into consumer’s living rooms.
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