Hacking your iphone

If you haven't learned by now it's no question that people are starting jail break their iphones, droids, ipods, and everything that you can possibly jail break.

jail breaking is when you install a special software on your device, can be easily found online, and alter it so that you can get free apps, fast speed, and better connection.

But this is illegal and people fail to realize that.

Now you can just search "jailbreak iphone" and get a step by step process to jailbreaking your online on google.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=jailbreaking+iphone&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Currency exchange

although this isn't a new app, it's a very interesting app on iphone that could be great for people who like to travel, are businessmen working internationally, and people interesting in the money value in countries.

The app is called currency exchange. you can put in any amount of money in any country and it will translate to you the worth in another country. for example, dollars to pesos.

It's an app that can help people save time and "money."

http://rates.speedymarks.com/

Zapd

I found this when I was looking through interesting apps, and it was interesting to see that an app actually could improve other apps or sites.

Zapd is an app that lets you create more cool, interesting, and fun apps and sites from your iphone.

This could work great for people on the go who can never have time to play on their computers, or even people using this app for business purposes.

A new update is about the come out.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zapd/id426955081?mt=8

Control Your Kid's "Sexting"

Mobile carriers are going to be able to offer more than just Family Locator options where parents know and control where their children are. But in the near future, U.S. carriers will be able to offer tools that will allow parents to stop their children from texting while driving, stop "sexting" with others and stop those children from communicating with "unwanted parties."

Parents will have access to the content in their childrens texts, and will be able to preview photos that are going to be posted on the internet or are going to be sent to friends.

They will also be able to specify what types of applications their children can get and when they can be allowed to use them.

Although I think this is a potentially good way for parents to sensor their children from a lot of unwanted activities, in consideration of how much kids become involved in their phones and connections, this may be the takeover of their lives. Micromanaging to the extreme even, depending on the parent and the kid.

Link: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/parents_rejoice_new_technology_will_end_sexting_driving_while_texting_and_more.php

Is Android beating out the iPhone?

It looks as though the Army has jumped onto the Android bandwagon. Does this mean that whatever iPhone has to offer isn't cutting it for America?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/04/22/first.army.smartphone.android/index.html

Identifying Tourists

There's work of new technology at a University in Canada that's working on emotion-reading, biometrics to tentatively be used in airports. The imaging-system that is developing is getting a lot of attention world-wide because of what it may imply for airports.

Airports are hoping to use this technology in the future to use facial expressions in order to flag people for a possible terrorist suspect when they pass cameras or other places.

The idea came from a recent research project that won the top honour at the third Indian International Conference on Artificial Intelligence. The idea was a system that could read emotion through faces, and it was ranked as the best scientific paper out of 800 submitted.

In Montreal, Canada, this work is meant to spot people for potential threats by analyzing their facial expressions in order to possibly "stop terrorism." They say the system is years away from being fully-functional at airports.

Some people don't want to use this technology towards security, and would rather use it to create robot companians that can read facial expressions and catagorize them, responding in a more realistic way than ever before.

Security advancements or robot companions, it looks as though this technology may be incredibly widespread in the future.

Link: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=2a9cd5d1-f43c-42ae-8c21-65be738fdb2e

Mind Control Helmets

DARPA is now helping an Arizona State University neuroscientist to develop a chip to put in helmets. I have no idea what they would want to do this for, but it's probably not a good thing. Now that DARPA is helping the research, it might be a faster process to getting these things into people's heads.


http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/14/darpa-seeks-out-remote-controls-for-soldiers-minds/

Iphones secretly tracking users without knowing.

Based on the discussion in class, it is very scary to be tracked by strangers without knowing. If you have an iphone or want one soon, how do you feel about your locations being stored as data where anyone can access it? And maybe your home being one of those locations? Researchers found that there is a hidden tracking file in the iphone that I am guessing users were not suppose to know about it. The researchers who found the tracking file posted it online and you can now see where all the locations you have been since you got the phone! SCARY right?
"Cell phone providers collect similar data almost inevitably as part of their operations, but it's kept behind their firewall. It normally requires a court order to gain access to it, whereas this is available to anyone who can get their hands on your phone or computer, "By passively logging your location without your permission, Apple have made it possible for anyone from a jealous spouse to a private investigator to get a detailed picture of your movements."

This is so scary.. and it invades privacy!

"This is a map of everywhere I've been for the last months. Everywhere," he writes on that tech site. "I didn't carry around a tracking device. The FBI isn't sending goons in unmarked vans to track me. All I did was use an iPhone."

source: CNN

General Mills can't get the kids attention

According to the New York Times, kids are unaffected by the ads they are seeing on websites. The Banner ads that have interactive games as a way to draw attention to them are going unnoticed. Sure the kids still play the game but can they tell you who or whats its for? A study showed out of 112 kids only 10% of the kids were able to identify what the brand was in an ad. 34% of the kids thought a celebrity had created the ad.


http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/children-fail-to-recognize-online-ads-study-says/?ref=technology

Library in the palm of your hands

Looks like driving to the library to check out books are going to be in the past, the kindle is starting to take charge and allow users to check out books through a service called "Library Lending". Not only that, but it will allow you to take your own notes on while using the book on your kindle such as margin notes and highlighting text. This can be a big help to the more frequent library users, as well as users in general because the worry that a certain book you want is currently checked out is no longer a problem.

Source Article:

http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/04/21/6506792-soon-youll-check-out-kindle-books-from-your-library

Excuse me waiter? Can I use your tablet?

Today I found an article that talks about a company called E la Carte that is starting to introduce the usage of tablets in restaurants that would ultimately replace the need for a waiter. I find this to be pretty interesting because the tablet would offer customers an easy way at ordering food, paying the bill, and keeping them entertained while waiting for the food. It is a smart way to keep service going at restaurants by eliminating the middleman, and there are dozens of times I remember waiting around for the check. Having these tablets would allow me to pay and leave almost as soon as I finished eating. However, this does kind of kill the social aspect of going out to eat, where you get to have a light conversation with the waitress or converse with your friends instead of staring at a tablet playing video games.

Source Article:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/04/20/server.tablet.mashable/index.html

yellowBird: 360 degree video

I stumbled upon (literally. I used the application "StumbleUpon" to find this) a very interesting video recently. It advertises what a company called "yellowBird" uses: 360 degree, panoramic video. Basically, it looks like a pretty basic youtube video of a snowboarder at first, but when you click it and actually load the video, it becomes something much more. It is a 360 (count em, three hundred and sixty) degree video recording where you can literally click and drag all around the perspective of the camera.

The video starts off with the camera-man simply standing at the top of the mountain for a few seconds to, I presume, get the viewer familiar with the click and drag mechanism. Then, it cuts to daytime where a bunch of snowboarders immediately come into the picture. You can click and drag and keep track of one snowboarder if you'd like, or move the perspective to see all the other snowboarders doing their tricks and antics, or you can even just face forward and admire the mountains in the far background. This type of video really is quite revolutionary, and it makes viewing the ride down a mountain very fun by creating an interactive way to watch the video!

The official yellowBird website is a very simple site where it basically has some little information pieces on it. It looks like yellowBird is a company that will come and film events using their 360 degree technology. They don't elaborate much on how the video camera(s) work, but with my handy-dandy google gadget I was able to break their silence and figure out that the company uses a 6-lens camera that is much like what the Google Street-view cars are equipped with.

I think that this technology is a really interesting idea. Basically, any computer that has Adobe flash can play the videos and watch from whichever angle they choose. I can see it being extremely useful at sporting events or anything that is extremely mobile. The snowboarding video is a great example of it being used.

The official yellowBird website is at: http://www.yellowbirdsdonthavewingsbuttheyflytomakeyouexperiencea3dreality.com/

Quite a long URL.

I think the company is doing some interesting stuff with the technology. I'm interested to see this sort of thing used more widespread in the future at large-scale events and become more accessible to the public. The website has a cool looking feature that notifies you of yellowBird's LIVE demos, which I can only assume would be a 6-lens camera set up at some sort of event where people can live stream and view it, which would be incredibly cool.

At the moment it doesn't seem like there are any other companies that are offering this sort of service, but I imagine in the near future more will pop up and maybe even a consumer product that allows people to make these videos on their own. Now that would be something!

Speak No Evil

A team of UK scientists has developed a headset that can bring voices back to those who have lost their speech due to injury, cancer, stroke, and other maladies. The prototype uses magnets positioned in the user's mouth or tongue to take the place of low-tech solutions like throat valves, which have the tendency to get clogged. When the subject speaks, changes to the magnets' movements are detected by the device, which associates specific facial movements with corresponding words (the device currently has a vocabulary of about 50). The device is still not completed yet, but the developers are working to make it the size of a Bluetooth headset.

U.S. Military Chooses Android

The Defense Department has just chosen the Android phone to develop an app for "use in tactical operations by the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps". Weighing two pounds, the Joint Battle Command-Platform (JBC-P Handheld) is going to essentially become an android phone for the military. By entering information of an enemy that has been spotted, the information will be transfered to the other team and warn them, as well as giving them all the information. "We're trying to set this program up so that it can rapidly adapt and maintain relevance to the current warfighting generation," Daniels said.

Link:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Army-Marine-Corps-Android-Phone,news-10946.html

The internet and energy

I found an article from cnn.com called "Greenpeace: Apple has the dirtiest data". This article explained how internet companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, ect) are using alot of energy. The internet by itself uses as much energy as many countries in the world. We seldom think of the internet when we think about reducing our energy use, but the internet is quickly becoming a large part of the global energy crisis. Apple especially gets most of its energy from non-renewable sources, such as coal and nuclear energy. Google ranked among the top for "clean" energy. They get alot of energy from solar and wind power plants making them more earth friendly. Check out the article to find out more. 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/22/greenpeace.apple.dirtiest/index.html?iref=NS1

Synthetic Brain Synapse

This article talks about how engineers at the University of Southern California have succesfully created a synthetic brain synapse out of carbon nanotubes. They can actually imitate brain functions but this isn't an artificial brain. This is just a stepping stone to creating an artificial brain. It shows how human technology is constantly striving forwards to obtain the unthinkable. Imagine if they succesfully create a synthetic human brain. What could be next after that?

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-04/synthetic-synapse-constructed-carbon-nanotubes

Heard of Bobsled on Facebook?

This new app by T-Mobile allows users of Facebook to make voice calls to people on their friends list. To use this tool, just log into your Facebook account and go to the Bobsled app page and follow the instructions. Once the app is installed, you can make a call to anyone of your friends from the chat list. Even if a friend does not have the app installed, they could click on a link that will allow them to answer your call. The great thing is that this app is free and with just a click of a button, you’re able to talk to friends. Additionally, if the friend does not answer your call, this app allows you to leave a voice message with the option of it being private or public.

Source:

http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/04/19/6495721-how-to-make-free-voice-calls-through-facebook

Eye tracking

Eye trackers can be used for all kinds of things. A new study using eye trackers reveals website design tactics. What part of a website is looked at most? what is the best way to design a webstie?
www.directcreative.com/blog/eye-tracking-websites

Obama and Facbook

President Obama visited the Facebook campus in order to sit down with their Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, along with a thousand onlookers, as he took questions both in person and via Facebook. He made a couple of small jokes initially, but when more serious issues were brought into question, such as the economy, immigration, and health care, the president gave sincere answers with his plans and ideas. A large issue that was not introduced into the conversation was the legalization of marijuana, which in previous interviews such as this, dominated the community-voted questions aimed at the president. Apparently, at this forum, there was more restriction on what questions would be allowed to asked of the president. Still, the integration of Facebook into this event created a much more expansive conversation, in which ordinary people were able to speak with their president, and the president could respond openly, creating more of a dialogue rather than a simple Q and A. If you're interested, here's the link! http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20055777-281.html?tag=topTechContentWrap;editorPicks

Photosynth by Microsoft

Remember we talked early in the class about how we can use our ipad to click pictures in various angles and then translate it to an application in Virtual Reality. This might be one of the first such things we will see out there.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/microsoft-photosynth-app-april-2011/1ii4ck7pi?from=sp&fg=shareObject&src=FLCP:sharebar:embed

But i am sure more companies will include this in their phones and it will soon become an inbuilt feature on the smart phones.