Jordan Kahn

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Real Racing 3: EA officially announced the next title in its Real Racing series, which is now being handled by developer Firemonkeys (recent merger of Firemint and and IronMonkey), and also released the rather impressive announcement trailer above featuring pre-alpha footage. More info is coming later this year but there is additional Porsche footage on the game’s Facebook page if you can’t wait. A little bit of what to expect from Real Racing 3 below:

REAL CARS

Gamers will enjoy graphics that have been meticulously hand crafted to produce photorealistic visuals as they zoom around in cars from manufacturers like Porsche, Dodge and Audi.

REAL TRACKS

For the first time in the series, Real Racing 3 will also include a full lineup of real world tracks from the top names around the world including Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Silverstone. With a 22 car grid, gamers will be able to pit themselves against 21 other drivers in one race.

REAL RACING EXPERIENCE

Fans can experience the glory of championship racing on real tracks recreating the full race-day pressure and environment in a game that harnesses the full power of mobile hardware to produce a beautiful racing environment.

Twitter version 4.3.2: The Twitter iOS app was updated today with improved pull to refresh and infinite scroll “in enhanced events experience,” unfortunately we still await an update to the official Mac client while the Tweetbot for Mac alpha received a ton of new features in its latest update last night.

Wash Post version 2.0.0:The Washington Post’s official iPhone app received a big update today with a brand new design and tons of new features including live weather conditions, 7 day forecasts, weather alerts, real-time traffic updates, metro arrival times and schedules for the DC Metro area, and more. Also included is Retina display enhancements for all full links within articles, graphics, and galleries.

HopStop Transit Directions version 1.2.1: We told you about an update to the HopStop iPhone app for transit directions in NYC, Boston, Chicago, and San Fran, and today its app with support for 100’s of cities throughout the US, Canada, and Europe was updated with the London Underground map and support for the following new markets:

– Arrive by Directions and Schedules Search!

– New markets: Palm Springs, Burlington VT, Fresno, Missoula, Orlando

– London Underground map has been added

– Various bug fixes and improvements

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In May, we got a look at what reports claimed was a next-generation iPhone front panel compared to the current iPhone 4S on video. ETrade posted a much more detailed comparison of an iPhone 4S today and what it called an “iPhone 5” front panel. While the longer display was evident in past leaks, ETrade gave xact measurements on the difference. It reported the 4.065-inch panel is 0.1mm thinner, and it has a 0.3mm smaller home button, while the area surrounding the entire home button area shrinks from 18.00mm to 15.40mm. The area surrounding the earpiece on the opposite end of the display also shrunk, allowing Apple to minimize the overall size of the iPhone while increasing the display size. Also noted in the analysis: ETrade reported improved light transmittance for the next-gen panel and improved scratch resistance.

First of all let’s see the display screen. From the picture, we can see that the iPhone 5 glass lens is 90.25mm long, 51.60mm wide, while iPhone 4S is 76.65mm and 51.60mm. The display area enlarges from 3.61 inches to 4.065 inches. The LCD screen can be a little smaller, and that will be around 4 inches. What’s important, the resolution ratio of iPhone 5 glass lens is around 16:9, which will be a big change for iPhone.

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LaCie introduced the RuggedKey this week. It is an IP-54 water and dust resistant USB 3.0 key that provides speeds up to 150 MB/s and a bumper that offers protection from “heat, cold, and 100-meter drops.” The RuggedKey is now available in Apple stores or from the company directly starting at $40 for 16 GB, but LaCie also announced today that it updated its entire USB 3.0 portfolio with optimizations specifically for Apple’s latest lineup of MacBooks. LaCie said it re-engineered its USB 3.0 products for Lion and Mountain Lion by taking advantage of USB-attached SCSI Protocol support in Ivy Bridge Macs:

Thanks to UAS (USB Attached SCSI Protocol), people with the latest Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and Macbook Pro with Retina Display will experience maximum USB 3.0 performance… Everything from cables and USB keys, to professional RAID storage solutions have been re-engineered for advanced performances. LaCie’s recently announced RuggedKey achieves top speeds up to 150MB/s in 32GB of flash memory – making it one of the fastest USB keys on the market. LaCie’s popular Rugged Triple, and Porsche Design P’9223 and P’9233 have also been optimized for Mac and are available in Apple retail.

On top of Apple stores, the redesigned lineup of LaCie USB 3.0 products is available through LaCie stores. The company’s full press release is below:

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At the beginning of the week, we reported Samsung leaked slides to the press that Judge Koh excluded as evidence in the Samsung-Apple trial currently underway. Judge Koh was not impressed with the move, despite much of the information in the slides being public knowledge, and today we get an update from FossPatents on Apple’s response to the situation. According to the report, Apple filed a letter with the courts today claiming fines would not be a severe enough punishment for Samsung and it requested a judgment in its favor:

“The proper remedy for Samsung’s misconduct is judgment that Apple’s asserted phone design patents are valid and infringed. Through its extraordinary actions yesterday, Samsung sought to sway the jury on the design patent issues, and the proper remedy is to enter judgment against Samsung on those same patents. It would be, to be sure, a significant sanction. But serious misconduct can only be cured through a serious sanction—and here, Samsung’s continuing and escalating misconduct merits a severe penalty that will establish that Samsung is not above the law.”

Apple also outlined an alternative set of sanctions, requesting “the Court should (i) instruct the jury that Samsung engaged in serious misconduct and that, as a result, the Court has made a finding that Samsung copied the asserted designs and features from Apple products; and (ii) preclude Samsung from further mentioning or proffering any evidence regarding the ‘Sony design exercise’ for any purpose.” FossPatents said Apple’s requests could mean big problems for Samsung moving forward:
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There are more than a few hardware camera kits and peripherals on the market that extend the capabilities of the iPhone’s built-in cam. We recently reviewed the Olloclip camera lens kit that provides three external lenses for iPhone 4S. Today we introduce you to another that has just been announced by Mophie and combos with a dedicated companion app for managing and sharing footage. According to Mophie, the goal of its new action sports “Outride” camera kit, which integrates a wide-angle lens with 170 degrees viewing angles and a waterproof, impact resistant casing, is to eliminate “the need for a dedicated device such as a GoPro or Contour camera.” The kit will also include several custom, quick-release mounts for attaching the device to a variety of sports equipment and capturing footage at various angles.

To go along with the camera kit, Mophie will also launch the Outride iOS app that provides users with a profile and the ability to capture and share footage with other users:

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We have been getting some interesting bits and pieces from the Apple vs. Samsung trial this week, and most, of which, are related to early iPhone prototypes referenced in pre trial briefs by Samsung’s lawyers who alleged Apple was inspired by Sony products when creating its initial iPhone concepts. We get some more insight on Apple’s original iPhone plans today thanks to a deposition of former Apple designer Douglas Satzger, as discovered by Network World in recent court filings. Satzger, current VP of Industrial Design at Intel, held various roles at Apple from 1996 to 2008 including Industrial Design Creative Lead and Industrial Design Manager. In the deposition, Satzger claimed Apple had “strong interest in doing two pieces of shaped glass,” while referencing the 0355 model prototype pictured above.

He continued to explain how Apple ultimately chose not to utilize curved glass mainly due to cost:

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The Philips FWP3200D 300W Mini Hi-Fi System, often simply referred to as the “Party Machine”, is essentially a set of rotatable iPhone docks (made to look like turntables) atop a 300W speaker system that includes two speakers boxes and packs a 2-inch tweeter and a 5.25-inch woofer. The turntables do little more than allow you to rotate the docked iPhones to either side of the system, providing a traditional DJ setup from behind the speakers or a more casual setup when docked in front. As for the controller itself, the majority of your DJing will be done from the iPhone’s touchscreen via the supported Djay iOS app. While it is not as feature-filled as your typical DJ controller, it does provide physical controls with a 13-key remote for fast reverse/fast forward, play/pause, repeat, etc., and a number of other features you will not find in your average docking station…

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Update: AT&T seemed none-too-pleased with the allegations and gave us the following statement:

The idea that we would steer any customer away from a particular device couldn’t be more farfetched.  Our reps do what it takes to align customer needs with the best device for them.  iPhone remains one of our most popular devices, which doesn’t happen by steering people away from it. Our reps are encouraged to try all devices so they are more knowledgeable on our industry-leading smartphone lineup.

[tweet https://twitter.com/leewalker10/status/230703524634300416]

We heard reports in the past that retail employees at other carriers were instructed by higher-ups to push Android and other alternative smartphone options to customers interested in the iPhone. However, BGR claimed today that AT&T’s slow 3 percent growth of iPhone activations in the second quarter was likely the result of a similar strategy. Although iPhone activations made up roughly 73 percent of smartphones in AT&T’s Q2 report, the initiative has apparently been confirmed by three independent sources:

Regional retail sales managers at AT&T have been instructing store managers to pump the brakes on Apple’s iPhone. Instructions handed down from corporate state that customers seeking smartphones at AT&T retail stores should be steered away from Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and towards Android phones or Windows Phone handsets like the Nokia Lumia 900 instead. BGR has confirmed the directive with three independent sources

[tweet https://twitter.com/rjonesy/status/230700916075020289]

The report also claimed that one source indicated iPhone sales dropped from 80 percent to 50- to 60- percent of smartphone sales, at least in one region, since the initiative began. BGR also claimed retail staffs at AT&T in some regions are forced to choose an Android or Windows device over the iPhone for their company phone. We reached to AT&T for a comment and will update this post shortly when we hear back.

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For Americans, coverage of the Olympics in London is mainly limited to NBC’s video stream offerings. Unfortunately, the network’s coverage, especially online, is receiving a ton of complaints as witnessed by the #nbcfail hashtag on Twitter. Fortunately, there is a way to bypass NBC altogether and take advantage of the BBC’s official live stream coverage from inside the U.S. of almost every major event. There is not much to it; all you have to do is use a DNS routing service to get around the BBC’s region blocked streams. Below is a quick guide courtesy of Lifehacker that uses the Unblock Us service. It is free for a week, and then it is $5 for the month.

[tweet https://twitter.com/MiaFarrow/status/230373185923710976]

First, you will have to sign up for the service on its website. Once that is finished, you can configure the service for BBC using the steps below:

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A new Wi-Fi scanner tool is in Mountain Lion’s refreshed Wi-Fi Diagnostics Utility, allowing users to easily discover Wi-Fi networks within range and view related data not available from Apple’s Wi-Fi menu bar item. Comparable to third-party Wi-Fi stumbler tool iStumbler, the scan tool provides data for BSSID, band, protocol, channel, signal strength, security, and more. It also has Active and Passive scan modes.

From the window, you can see what networks are in your area and their strength. Some maneuvering of base stations can increase coverage to the outermost areas of your house, and it is much, much easier to see slight differences in numerical signal vs. noise strength over those four waves Apple uses in its Wi-Fi menu.

Additionally, by looking at what Channel (1-13) your base station is on, compared to your neighbors (or other base stations in your house), you can often find the least used channel in your area to improve reception.

If you are interested in using the new Wi-Fi scanner tool, OSX Daily provided the necessary steps for quick access:

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Today’s noteworthy apps and updates list kicks off with the recently released iPad version of iTranslate Voice. As always, we will update the list throughout the day as more apps hit the store…

iTranslate Voice HD: iTranslate Voice is a great new iPad app, as it is one of the most unique pieces of word translation software on the market. Instead of typing words into an app, you talk in your language, and then the app will respond in the language of your choice. The entire thing is powered by Nuance—the same company that powers Apple’s Dictation on the iPhone 4S, new iPad, and Mountain Lion computers. So you know it is reliable. We have used the app for a while, and it is super helpful and easy to use. For those who are not a fan of voice, text-based translations are available. Thirty-one languages work in the app in addition to word defining. Sharing is also present. We highly recommend this iPad app. An iPhone version has also been available for some time, and it recently received a big update with new gestures and languages.

Twittelator Neue version 2.1:The popular iPhone twitter client Twittelator Neue and Twittelator Free were both updated today with the following new features and improvements:

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In a lengthy piece, titled “Microsoft’s Lost Decade”, Kurt Eichenwald of Vanity Fair profiled CEO Steve Ballmer and his role in the company’s steadily decreasing dominance. The piece includes interviews with current and past executives of the company, thousands of internal docs and legal records, and, not surprisingly, Apple’s role in the decline of Microsoft makes up a large part of the story:

Truly, for senior management, the problems didn’t make sense. Microsoft had some of the smartest people in the technology business. It had billions of dollars at its disposal, and the ability to throw that money into any project the executives chose… Current and former executives said that, each year, they tried to explain to Microsoft’s top executives why the company was struggling in the quality of its innovation compared with Apple… Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft… One Apple product, something that didn’t exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975. In the quarter ended March 31, 2012, iPhone had sales of $22.7 billion; Microsoft Corporation, $17.4 billion.

One anecdote covered in the story comes from emails that circulated around Microsoft following the introduction of Tiger:

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