If you’re an Apple fan and you’re looking to geek out your front porch in a fun way, grab one of these iOS inspired “Slide to Unlock” doormats for your front door! Or the back door, or the office, or anywhere, that’s OK too. It’s just like the screen you’ll find on a locked iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, except, of course, it’s a door.
There’s a few variations of this thing snazzy doormat floating around, the two of the nicest ones are black or brown and made of natural fibers like a traditional doormat, the other is black and a bit hardier made from rubber. Like most great things online, you can get your hands on one of these great Slide to Unlock doormats right now from none other than Amazon and have it shipped to you ASAP.
Once apps are in the sidebar, if you click on them they will launch, which makes desktop windows serve a dual purpose as both file manager and a quick application launcher.
An upcoming iteration of iOS may include further abilities to respond and react to environmental stimuli, according to a patent granted to Apple. The patent describes sensors that make a device aware of its speed, direction, temperature, and orientation on Earth, in addition to utilizing a microphone and camera to detect changes in the surrounding environment, and more importantly, adjust items on display based on these factors.
The patent was discovered by PatentlyApple, who describes the feature as “Chameleon-like” and suggests these adjustments could be geared towards fashion, of all things:
Apple’s patent covers systems, methods and computer-readable media for displaying dynamic tags or screen savers that change based on detected characteristics of the user’s environment. In particular, the patent covers dynamic tags that could serve as a fashion accessory by changing based on characteristics of the user’s environment.
PatentlyApple then elaborates on how the camera could detect colors and then adjust items on the screen accordingly:
…the electronic device could dynamically change the appearance of the tag based on the evolution of the sensor outputs. For example, if the electronic device determines from the camera that the color schemes of the user’s room have changed, the displayed tag could adjust to reflect the new detected colors.
The patent goes on to provide a description of the technology in use, describing a raindrops screensaver that adjusts its behavior based on environmental factors. The patent drawings clearly show a device that looks like an iPod nano (on a side note, this indicates that future iPod nanos may include cameras) but PatentlyApple says that other devices are clearly specified (emphasis mine):
It should be noted that while Apple’s patent illustrations are all related to a future version of an iPod nano, the fact is that the patent states that their invention will also apply to the iPhone, iPod Touch (PDA), iPad (tablet) and other devices which includes a laptop, gaming device and even medical equipment.
Can you imagine these kind of reactive features being used in future screen savers, apps, and games across Apple’s entire portable lineup? Some apps already take limited cues from things like the microphone, and many apps use the built-in accelerometers to adjust behavior on screen, but this looks like it has the potential to expand on these reactive concepts dramatically.
PatentlyApple is on a roll today, first finding a patent for futuristic virtual Apple keyboards that puff air to emulate the feel of pressing buttons, and now with this. Pretty impressive stuff, assuming Apple ever implements this technology in upcoming products.
Apple has patented a very unique keyboard design that uses micro-perforations to shoot air at the users fingers upon touch, providing tactile feedback to whoever is typing. What makes this patent even more interesting is that not only could it apply to standard keyboards, but also virtual keyboards on iOS devices, as PatentlyApple elaborates:
flowing of air could also be implemented in a virtual keyboard, wherein each key location is merely a defined region on a solid surface, where contact with that surface region will generate a defined input signal.
Such virtual keyboards may have no moveable surfaces. In such configurations, notwithstanding the absence of a moveable surface, the flowing of air through apertures in the surface may be used to provide a tactile resistance to a user’s actuation motion and/or to absorb at least a portion of the actuation force.
In other words, typing on future Apple touch screens may actually provide a sensation of typing on a real keyboard, thanks to little puffs of air hitting your fingers as you touch the display. Other interesting aspects of the patent indicate that the tiny perforations could also be used to illuminate the keyboard with LED backlighting, and that the entire system could also apply to deformable, flexible keyboards and surfaces (future mouses?).
How amazing is this, even as a concept? One of the biggest gripes about virtual keyboards are the lack of tactile feedback, making it much harder to touch-type at any speed with much accuracy. This patent looks to be trying to solve that problem.
As always with Apple patents, don’t get your hopes up, this could be a long ways out if it ever makes an appearance at all.
Twitter developers have a compelling new reason to update to Twitter 2.1 for Mac: the developer console!
You can enable the developer features through Preferences > Developer tab > “Show Developer Menu”. Unfortunately for tinkerers and those just looking to casually poke around, you’ll need Twitter apps API keys to actually use and access the dev console.
Other notable changes in Twitter 2.1 are some significant UI tweaks, font size adjusting, AppleScript support, the ability to spin tweets off into new windows, and of course various bug fixes. It’s a worthwhile upgrade, even if you aren’t a developer. You can download Twitter for Mac directly from the Mac App Store, it’s free.
If you’re a Safari user, you can also play the new full featured web version of Angry Birds for free directly from your browser. This is because both Safari and Chrome are based on WebKit, which allows Chromes web store free version of Angry Birds to, theoretically at least, play on any other webkit browser.
Ironically, several users are noting that problems with graphics or audio in the Chrome version are resolved when playing in Safari. I tried it out and everything works fine in Safari 5, so give it a go… if you’re curious like I was, it does not work on the iPhone or iPad, because the game requires the Flash plugin for audio, otherwise it’s mostly HTML5 goodness.
Don’t want to dig out the Terminal or Activity Monitor to relaunch the Finder? No sweat.
Hold down Option and then right-click on the Finder icon in the Dock. You’ll now see an otherwise hidden “Relaunch” option, select it and Finder will quit and relaunch. It only takes a few seconds to reload.
Relaunching the Finder is sometimes necessary for troubleshooting reasons, but it’s also required for many Mac OS X interfacetweaks to take effect, including many defaults write commands.
On the other hand, if you’re already in the Terminal with a defaults write command, maybe it’s easier to just type the standard:
killall Finder
This also causes the Finder to relaunch, as does killing it in the Activity Monitor… but if you don’t have to leave the Finder, why bother?
Whether you’re just trying to update iOS firmware, downgrade, or jailbreak, it’s not terribly unusual for an iPhone to get stuck in Recovery Mode. You’ll know you’re stuck because the phone displays the classic USB to iTunes logo, and iTunes gives you the Recovery Mode detected message. Sometimes you can escape just by hardbooting the phone, but if that doesn’t work you can use a tool like RecBoot.
If you’re video chatting at night or in an area with limited lighting, you can brighten your face by opening up a blank white web browser window. This is obviously a really simple tip, but it’s kind of fun to see how surprisingly useful blank browser windows can be (like speeding up Safari on the iPhone 3G).
The simplest way to create a blank browser window is to open up about:blank which works in every modern browser.
The idea is probably taken from Photo Booth, which uses an all white screen as a virtual flash of sorts to brighten your mug when you take a picture (you can disable that by holding down the Shift key). I’m guessing it won’t be long until some developers start creating wrappers for FaceTime, iChat, and Skype to have this in some form of native app.
Sick of Angry Birds yet? Too bad, because now you can download and play Angry Birds completely for free with the Chrome web browser. This was just released at Google IO 2011, and the game should run on any OS with the Chrome browser. If you somehow avoided downloading Angry Birds, Rio, and the 56,000 other variations for Mac, iOS, Windows, Android, and whatever else, now you have no excuse to not be assimilated.
You’ll need to be using the Chrome (or Safari!) web browser to download and play this. The game is practically the same although there’s an extra set of Chrome specific levels for some new gameplay. Angry Birds Chrome plays reasonably well although sound doesn’t appear to work (in Mac OS X at least) and if you have more than a few browser tabs open the gameplay gets choppy, but for a web game it’s pretty good and it does make sense to exist in a browser. Happy gaming.
You can run multiple instances of any application in Mac OS X with a little command line magic. Using the ‘open’ command to launch GUI apps from the Terminal, we can run a new instance of any app, even if it is already running.
TenFourFox is an essential web browser for any Mac OS X user that is still using a PowerPC machine. It’s a fork of Mozilla that is practically identical to Firefox 4, the only difference is that it includes support for PowerPC chips, meaning you’ll get all the CSS3 and HTML5 support that Firefox 4 comes with, and perhaps more importantly, most Firefox add-ons are supported.
The developers have a pretty funny attitude about the project, here’s part of their explanation as to why TenFourFox was created:
…we were horrified when Mozilla delivered the one-two punch of dropping both support for Tiger and our beloved Power Macs from Firefox 4. A quad 2.5GHz G5 isn’t worth using to surf the web? Really? And you guys still support Windows XP?
Sure sounds ridiculous when they put it like that, doesn’t it?
TenFourFox is completely free and has builds optimized for PowerPC G3, G4, and G5 architecture.
System requirements to run TenFourFox are a PowerPC G3, Mac OS X 10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.8, 100 MB of disk space, and 256MB of RAM. Performance is apparently really fast, although they do caution that video playback will be poor on PowerPC Macs that are slower than 1.2GHz.
What are you waiting for? Breathe new life into that old Mac. Long live PowerPC!
While some web ads are unobtrusive, others are really annoying. If you’re tired of seeing web ads, you can install adblock extensions in every major web browser and never see another ad again.
Obligatory notice: blocking ads prevents web publishers from supporting themselves, ad revenue is what pays the bills for websites like this one and countless others. Read on for responsible ad blocking tips.
Computer scientists from Harvards School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have come up with an incredibly unique use for the iPhone; finding landmines. Actually, it’s an iPhone app, and it works by using audio signals from traditional metal detectors to create a visual image of metallic objects in the ground, making it easier for minesweepers to differentiate between a deadly landmine and a harmless piece of metal.
Some of the most secure passwords you can use are those that are randomly generated. From the command line, you can randomize potential passwords in a multitude of ways, which can be used as secure passwords of generated characters.
We’ll cover several primary methods of generating random sequences and then show you how to combine commands to make the generated passwords even more random.
How AT&T Detects Unofficial Tethering from the iPhone
So how does AT&T know you are tethering in the first place? Apparently it’s very easy to detect from iPhone users, as AndroidPolice explains:
Jailbroken iPhones typically use the same tethering technique as a standard iPhone, the one that’s already present in iOS. This method exposes tethering activity quite readily, because the iPhone, when in tethering mode, sends traffic through an alternate APN (AT&T access point/router) for the express purpose of identifying the traffic as tethered data. This makes it extremely easy for AT&T to identify whether or not an iOS device is utilizing tethering, and just how much of their data is consumed via tethering.
In other words, AT&T simply looks at who is using tethered data through these APN’s, and then they cross-check these user accounts to see if they’re paying for a tethering plan. It’s that simple.
A few months ago, AT&T began cracking down on unofficial iPhone tethering usage by sending warning messages to account holders. The message was simple; if you’re using tethering but not paying for a tethering plan, you will be automatically upgraded to a tethering plan. Now AT&T is making good on that promise, and has started to automatically update user accounts that they suspect of using unofficial tethering methods.
Those who use a tethering app such as MyWi or PDANet are being notified of their plan changes through text messages:
AT&T Free Msg: We’ve noticed you’re continuing to enjoy the tethering feature with your smartphone. Your plan has been updated to a tethering plan ($45/mo incl. 4GB) and you’ll soon see this change reflected on an upcoming billing statement. Visit att.com/dataplans or call 866-679-7136.
Outside of having your data plan updated and including a new monthly tethering plan fee of $45, there does not appear to be any repercussions or animosity from AT&T. The biggest complaints from users about the AT&T crackdown pertain to data usage rights, with many suggesting that once they pay for wireless data they should be able to use it as they wish. Furthermore, grandfathered unlimited data accounts that are automatically updated to a tethering plan lose their unlimited data capability, and instead receive a 4GB transfer limit.
For some users this could be seen as good news, since the original iPhone and iPhone 3G are not capable of using official wireless tethering through Personal Hotspot due to the inability to update to iOS 4.3. While AT&T hasn’t specifically OKayed the usage, this suggests old iPhone owners can use wireless tethering through MyWi and PDANet without incident, assuming they pay the standard tethering fees to AT&T.
MyWi and PDANet are both apps available exclusively on the Cydia store to users who jailbreak their iPhones. Jailbreaking is not illegal, but it is frowned upon by Apple.
Apple is the most valuable brand in the world, with a brand value of a staggering $153.3 billion. Perhaps more impressive than the overall value is that Apple’s brand valuation grew a whopping 84% year over year.
Other Notable Findings from the brand valuation report:
Google is #2 at $111.4 billion, down -2% from the year prior
Microsoft is #5 with a brand value of $78.2 billion, up 2% from 2010
AT&T is #7 with a brand value of $69.9 billion, I’ll go ahead and speculate that this is helped by their long-running iPhone exclusivity
Verizon Wireless is #13 with a brand value of $42.8 billion, who recently started carrying iPhone
China Mobile, #9 on the list, has been in talks with Apple to bring the iPhone on their network
Unsurprisingly, Bloomberg contributes much of Apple’s brand growth to the success of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac lineup.
You can see the full top 100 brands list at MillwardBrown.com. I find it interesting that some of the other top brand entries are either direct competitors to Apple (Google, Microsoft, Blackberry, etc), or carriers and resellers of Apple products (AT&T, Verizon, Walmart, Target, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, etc).
