9to5 Staff

Ha!

 

via Pocket-Lint

Apple’s iPhone may be in the ascendant, but competing players continue to face problems in the space, with Research In Motion shares falling 11 per cent on the pre-market this morning and the recently-introduced Palm Pre Phone this morning discounted to just $100 on Amazon.

Palm Pre carrier, Sprint, recently cut the cost of the Pre to $150 (after rebate on a 24-month contract), but Amazon today discounted that. That’s a $400 saving on the original retail price…and probably not a pretty sign for Pre…

Palm was in the news a lot this week, with market rumours speculating Nokia may make a bid to take over the company emerging at the same time as Palm issued a major tranche of new stock options in an attempt to pull in cold, hard investment cash.

The company also took a hit this week when the USB Forum declared it in the wrong to establish iTunes syncing on the Pre, and demanded to know why it was using Apple’s USB Vendor ID number in order to achieve this without Apple’s permission. The company now has only a few days to explain itself.

Over at Research In Motion, strong device sales in the just-gone quarter couldn’t hide Wall Street’s disappointment at the company’s confession it expected to miss analyst targets in its Q3 cycle.

Net profit declined 4% from this time last year to $475.6m on sales of $3.53bn (up 4% y-o-y). But analysts weren’t convinced the company could maintain momentum, particularly as it chases the low-end markets, with Goldman Sachs, Raymond James and Deutsche Bank all issuing downgrades, driving a sell-off in company stock.

Holy augmented reality, clever Japanese developers are putting together an iPhone-based technology for cyclists that uses a heads-up display to help them get to where they’re going as they hit the road.

The Scalar T3-A display connects to your iPhone to grab mapping data which it them shows in a visual display held at the corner of your eye. This display is retractable, though we’re not sure of the iPhone position – the contraption currently requires the device be mounted on the top of the helmet. (Oh, and also lets you receive phone calls hands-free, which we don’t really recommend any cyclist do on a busy high street).

That positioning means your iPhone is exposed to the elements and is in easy reach of any passing taller vehicles. No protection has been developed for this system yet, but as it’s a prototype, we don’t expect this salient point to be missed out. No final shipping details have been announced.

The system joins a range of augmented reality apps currently wending their way to Apple’s mobile platform.

In recent months we’ve seen the debut of the NY Subway Map system which uses augmented reality tech to help you find the nearest subway. This then developed itself into Bionic Eye, which we told you about earlier this week, helping you find fast food joints, hotels, WiFi hotspots and more.

And earlier this month we let you know about the Vuzix video eyeglasses featuring a see through video technology which enables you to see what’s going on around you while also using applications such as Google Maps.

We’ve waxed eloquent on this before, and Starbucks is in the vanguard in making this a reality – your iPhone will become your wallet. This video is proof.

Starbucks introduced new iPhone apps this week, one of which enables you to pay for your coffee using your Apple device. Sure, this is early days, and sure, the system’s only being tested in 16 locations in the US, but it is a step in the direction.

At the beginning of the video, the reporter is asked, “so, why pay for your coffee with your iPhone,” to which he responds, “because the iPhone is cool”. C’mon, there’s a better reason: you can protect your iPhone with a PIN access code, so if you lose it or it is stolen, a miscreant will have to figure out how to break that code…

Now, we know there’s ways to do this, but it will take any miscreant time. That’s precious time in which you can get to a computer (Mac or PC) in a local office, friend’s place or internet cafe, log onto your .Mac account and wipe the phone. You don’t need to wait for the bank to cancel your credit or payment card and propagate that information. You can kill fraud on your account faster on your own.

We know this is the tip of the iceberg, we know there’s been moves – for years – to nurture some kind of a cashless society. Ignoring the political meanings of that (someone somewhere profits in some way by you not carrying cash, think, for example, of the impact on grey market economies and taxation), but once systems like this become established on mobile platforms, that notion will become more possible.

Rest assured Apple’s already considering this idea. After all, it already holds the account details of 100 million iTunes customers, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs observed earlier this month.

Tie those accounts up to payment processing systems and 100 million people would feasibly be able to use their iPhone (or iPod touch) to pay for goods and services at any participating outlet.

And in case Apple doesn’t intend becoming a bank, there’s a hubbub of activity around the concept of bringing payment systems to the platform. Banks, retailers (such as Starbucks) and sundry development companies are attempting to pull together an elegant – and secure -system for such transactions.

Even Apple’s iFund partners are interested in this evolution. Representatives from the venture capital fund handling the $100 million iPhone developer ‘iFund’, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, took a look at yet another such solution, which is being developed by Billing Solutions last year.

Working in the other direction, various apps already exist which enable retailers to use their iPhone to take credit card payments.

 

The EU preparing to pass new laws that will limit the maximum volume of iPods, iPhones and other MP3 players to an even lower extent than the current volume limitations.

Meglena Kuneva, the European Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, will unveil an EU mandate for all firms producing personal music devices.

It will state that in future all devices will have a built-in default level, said to be around 80 decibels. That’s 20 decibels lower than the 100 decibel maximum demanded by the EU be set on iPods which already ship in Europe.

As per usual, this new law is designed “for your protection”. Specifically, to protect hearing, following many warnings from multitudinous deafness charities, and recent evidence from a scientific committee which claimed up to 10 per cent of personal music player users risk permanent hearing loss by listening daily at high volume settings for five years.

The plans will be unveiled at a joint briefing by Commissioner Kuvena and the deaf charity RNID.

The announcement is expected to be made next week.

Intel offered an interesting tech preview of a new technology, Light Peak optical device interconnect, at IDF this week. The technology enables a computer to drive a greater-than-HD display while saturating an SSD RAID – all over one single cable.

This new tech seems pretty likely to interest any high-end video or graphics professional, and is the kind of interconnect we kind of anticipate will be of use in the future digital home…but what makes this demo interesting is the operating system that’s being run on the hackintosh machine – Mac OS X…

 

Seems like poetry to us: After all, we know that Apple had OS X running on Intel processors inside its deepest, darkest, most secret labs for many years before the Intel transition. Now it suggests PC makers may even now have OS X running on their machines, hoping always Apple will one day liberate its operating system from its hardware. And while that seems unlikely, it’s nice to know there’s always that possibility for Apple to rapidly expand its OS market share.

(Equally, of course, it could be a Mac-based development system used under license to test what the Mac excels at – graphics cabability…)

Via: Engadget

Steve Ballmer dished some device numbers to Techcrunch this evening.  Included in here was the wisdom of Microsoft not making its own branded phone because..

What does Apple sell every year of iPods: 30 million, order of magnitude, something like that. What is the whole video game market is maybe 30 or 40 million in units a year. But when you get these categories that are 300 million, 500 million, a billion, a billion-five a year, the truth of the matter is you’re gonna want multiple points of manufacture, with a lot of innovation around it whether its supply chain, for geographic diversity, and our basic play with our software is to try and be super high volume. So I think you can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that’s gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that’s sold by somebody who doesn’t make their own phone. And, we don’t want to cross the chasm in the short run and lose the war in the long run and that’s why we think the software play is the right play for us for high volume, even though some of the guys in the market today with vertically oriented solutions may do just fine.

Great points all, especially when Microsoft’s branded Pink phones were outed this week.  Maybe these phones are so secret that no one told Monkey Boy of their existance.  Check the video out below:

 

Apple has updated the environment section of its website to address concerns about the lack of reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.  Apple hopes to focus the public attention not only on the cost to the environment of making products but also putting a spotlight on how energy efficient and environmentally friendly their products are in the long run.  Unlike most other vendors, Apple’s products include a great deal of recyclable aluminum and glass.

New additions to Apple’s website include: Life Cycle Impact, Product Usage Impact, and Product Environmental Reports. There is also a new section section dedicated to  environmental updates which is both a news feed and a timeline of Apple’s history of green-ness.

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Bionic Eye(iTunes link) is the reincarnation of Nearest Subway, that cool augmented reality app we showed you back in July.  Not only does it have a new name, it does a lot more.  Fast food, Subways, Hotels, Wifi hotspots and more are all mapped out and included.  You’ll need an iPhone 3GS to play, more details below.

It is available for $.99 in the iTunes store for the US, the UK, France and Tokyo.  Yes, we’ve already bought it.

Bionic Eye covers all US cities.

 

Bionic Eye is a new application specifically developed for the iPhone 3GS that enables you to visualize Points of Interest (POI) located in your nearby environment in the US, thanks to a unique Augmented Reality functionality using the iPhone camera.

 

POI databases include restaurants, WiFi hotspots, subway stations (New York Subway, Washington Metro, Chicago L Rapid Transit), etc. Over 100.000 POI are already included in this application. Elements located at a distance less than 1km (0,621miles) only will be displayed on the screen.

 

Fast Food (POI)

– Mcdonald’s

– Subway

– Taco Bell

– Burger King

– KFC

– Wendy’s

– Johnny Rockets

– Arby’s

– Carl’s Jr

– Panda Express

– Hardee’s

– Fatburger

 

Restaurants (POI)

– Domino’s Pizza

– Pizza Hut

– Hooters

– The Cheesecake Factory

– Hard Rock Café

– Chili’s Grill & Bar

 

Coffee, Pastry & Ice Cream (POI)

– Starbucks

– Ben & Jerry’s

– Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

 

Leisure (POI)

– WiFi

– Tourist locations

– Apple Store

 

Accommodation (POI)

– Holiday Inn

– Best Western

– Marriott

– Hilton

– Ramada

– Super 8

– Motel 6

 

Subway stations (POI) (available via in-app purchase)

– New York Subway

– Washington Metro

– Chicago L Rapid Transit

 

The Augmented Reality functionality is only available to iPhone 3GS users. Bionic Eye works fine with all other iPhone / iPod Touch models via Google Map system within the application.

 

– Vertical position: 360-degree view of all POI nearby your location, updated in real time as you walk in the streets. 

 

– Horizontal position: List of all nearest POI. When a POI is selected, a blue arrow (compass) is displayed to show the direction and the distance to that POI.

 

– The application is fully compatible with Google Map. It is possible to locate the nearest POI from your position on Google Map within the application.

 

We are already working on a new update of Bionic Eye to reduce loading time. Indeed, the application includes a lot of POI covering all US cities, they are accessible without any network connection, so this may take a few seconds to load. Of course, the new update will be free for Bionic Eye users. Thank you for your comprehension.

 

Thank you for taking the time to report any bugs or to request an enhancement to Bionic Eye Application. Feedback is very important to us. We will do our best to answer queries. Email us at support@presselite.com

 

 

Appleinsider has heard that Apple will refresh its iMac line in the next few weeks.  They cite unnamed sources who say unnamed upgrades will be coming.  They do think that the iMacs will become thinner (why?) and "classier" (what?).  They speculate that there will be Blu-Ray and some audio improvements (Dolby surround?) as well.  Their source seems eerily similar to Wedge Partner’s report earlier this month.

All iMacs are currently selling with an under 24-hour lead time at the Apple Store and only command a $30 or so discount at Amazon.

 

 

We always like these – thought we’d share.

There’s been a lot of Tom-Tom chatter this morning, as the TomTom Car Kit for iPhone 3GS made its debut on the Apple Store overnight, being listed as available for pre-order…well, looks like you can put your credit cards right back into your pockets, because, erm, the product has been removed from sale on the Apple site. In the UK, the product is still listed as one of the Staff Picks when you visit the online Apple Store, but clicking on the link provided takes you to an error message saying the page is unknown.

TomTom Car Kit for iPhone 3GS was listed on the UK store as costing £99.95, with a note warning the device won’t ship for 2-3 weeks.

Sine those original reports, the product has disappeared and is now not available on the UK, French, or German sites. (Like the UK, the German site still lists the product among its Staff Picks, but the link is no longer active). The product never made a debut on the US Apple Store, lending us to believe the whole affair has been an iTunes Store listing “accident”.

However, if £99.95 (or €99.95) sounds a bit steep for what is really no more than a GPS positioning system, why not cut across to Amazon and take a look at the wide selection of alternative solutions listed there….

Update: OK, this is another fake. Google Spell check didn’t catch the "Tree easy steps" part. Neither did we. And that tweet was from the Unofficial Chrome developers account.

Google’s ChomeOS was announced a few months ago as a mainstream operating system for Netbooks (and tablets?!).  Today, via unofficial Tweet, Google is showing off the first video of the operating system. 

Update: OK, this is another fake. Google Spell check didn’t catch the "Tree easy steps" part. Neither did we. And that tweet was from the Unofficial Chrome developers account.

Google’s ChomeOS was announced a few months ago as a mainstream operating system for Netbooks (and tablets?!).  Today, via unofficial Tweet, Google is showing off the first video of the operating system. 

The OS is mostly just a log on to Google services (and it looks like it has a touch screen/tablet component to it).  We also see Skype, video camera and a music applications there in that super-exposé mode as well.

Steve Jobs cited growing competition between Google and Apple as reasons why Eric Schmidt had to be removed from the Apple board of directors.  This would be that competition.

We’re beginning to warm to Microsoft’s Windows 7 marketing schema – it’s a gift that just keeps on giving, though unfortunately, unlike the XP-Vista-Win7 transition, in marketing there’s no V.2.0 upgrade. And this one’s a doozy…

Take your mind to the streets of Paris: the food, the art, the music from the rooftops, the mix of languages, the landmarks, Crazy Horse Club, Moulin Rouge, the culture and the cafes…Ask yourself, what’s a struggling software giant going to do to get tuned into the Parisian zeitgeist? Read on to find out…

Sure, we know they plan some parties; we know they’re poaching Apple staff to talk knowledgeably about the need to buy an Internet Security package with every PC; we know they plan to open their own chain of Microsoft shops…now it seems, Microsoft’s making an early stage move to diversify its business (and take on another Seattle native, Starbucks), opening its own coffee shop in Paris. Zut alors!

Techcrunch has images of the new coffee shop, situated in the city’s busy heart at 47 Boulevard Sebastopol. There tourists rub shoulders with French natives, exchange a few colloquialisms, chatter idly as they enjoy life in the clutch of cafes there.

Microsoft’s “Windows Cafe” will only be open for a few weeks starting October 22. Inside, you’ll be able to buy snacks and drinks and play on a few Microsoft products, including an Xbox – though you won’t be able to buy any Microsoft stuff. You can already sit on the street outside and enjoy free WiFi access.

We kind of wonder what the coffee will be like, it being Paris and all. Has Microsoft poached some hapless Starbucks employees to serve that hot beverage from an astonishingly confusing list of variations on the theme? Will there be a Microsoft Guru there to deal with the sundry PC systems as they fall over and require rebooting?

We know WIndows 7 is the OS Microsoft hoped Vista would be, but we’re far more curious to read user reviews of the coffee. Will that too need virus protection with every purchase??
 

AT&T is at Red Alert as management and technical staff scurry in an attempt to make Friday’s iPhone MMS messaging roll-out as flawless as possible, as the company seeks to answer network critics.

The carrier knows that having had months in which US customers haven’t enjoyed the same facility as iPhone owners outside of the country, users won’t take kindly to any network flakiness – the company has had plenty of time to get it right, after all.

DSL Reports cites sources who say AT&T expect a flood of iPhone users sending pictures and video clips will generate a 40% rise in network traffic load in the first few days, and the carrier is rushing to beef-up its infrastructure in preparation. Some users started seeing MMS functionality working last week.

From the report: “Starting at 10AM Eastern (on the 25), AT&T will send out a mass text to a group of iPhone users telling them that MMS now works on their phone," says one source familiar with AT&T’s MMS plans. "They will keep doing groups of phones on the hour throughout the day" assuming all goes well, says the source.

“AT&T is "very" nervous about the launch and is requesting their MMS aggregator partners provide hourly updates on any message delays or problems. AT&T and its MMS partners are already seeing "record traffic during peak hours of the night" with just the users selected for testing.”

The iPhone in Korea story grew yesterday on news the device has been approved for use in the country, this morning we learn that mobile carrier KT will launch the device there in November, once it has finalised pricing discussions with Apple.

Critics warn that price may be the decision-maker as to whether the iPhone is a success there, as it may also be in China, where iPhone is expected to ship next month.

The developer behind BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac has published extensive documentation for the must-have app, saying release of the software is “just around the corner”.

BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac lets BlackBerry owners sync various kinds of content with their Macs, including music in some cases.

Various improvements in this release include support for syncing with multiple computers, and the capacity to choose where to store any required music or media files (on an SD card, on the phone’s internal memory, etc).

Within the Device Options menu, users can choose whether their BlackBerry smartphone should be backed-up automatically and what data should be included in the backup file.

Users can sync their BlackBerry smartphone with the iCal application, Address Book, Apple Mail (for notes) and any other software that can talk to Apple’s Sync Services. For example, to sync with Microsoft® Entourage users simply need to check the option to sync with Sync Services in Entourage preferences.

“Because sync is one of the most important features in this release of BlackBerry Desktop Software, our focus was on making it rock solid with an intuitive set up,” the developer writes. “We wanted to ensure users have all the key options and information when setting up their sync preferences, while at the same time keeping the interface clean and simple. For this reason, all information categories are listed on the left, and the right panel reflects the settings for each category. The alternative of having everything on the same page and listed sequentially seemed a bit cluttered to us.”

If you are a Mac user with a BlackBerry, now may be a good time to sign up to be notified when the new software is released on www.blackberry.com/mac.
 

With all the talk of laptop refreshes from Apple then Mac users should digest Intel’s recent official launch of its new quad-core Core i7 chips for portable computers, with Apple expected to launch its own quad-core Mac notebooks in early 2010, if not before.

Developed under code-name Clarksfield, the new chips are available in several breeds, including one which can run at up to 3.2GHz in Turbo mode. The new chips got their public debut at Intel Developer Forum.

The quad-core processors share the same Nehalem architecture and 45 nanometer process as the desktop part but are designed to consume much less power. They support hyperthreading, which makes for performance improvements, most Core i7 models ship with 8MB L2 cache.

Features such as Turbo Boost Technology and Hyper-Threading Technology deliver performance when users need it. Turbo Boost Technology can accelerate the processor clock speed up to 75 percent to match workloads, as well as offer better performance on highly threaded applications with the power of Intel Hyper-Threading Technology.

The processors also include two-channel DDR3 1333 MHz memory support and full 1 x16 or 2 x8 PCI Express 2.0 graphics.

One beneficiary of Appe’s move to Intel processors has been that the company can now compete with other manufacturers on chip speed and time to market, which makes it interesting to reflect that systems carrying Intel’s new processors are already available from Alienware and Toshiba. However, Apple is expected to use a dual-core Arrandale Core i7 processor in its future designs, as reported by Electronista.

Below is some of the Intel-sanctioned hype, which, while it doesn’t refer to the Mac, could suggest how powerful future Apple systems will become, bearing in mind the advanced Mac OS X they will run…

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So a guy sees the the Windows 7 Party video (Is anyone really throwing this kind of party anyway?) and wonders what happens when you bleep out Windows 7.

Hilarious.   Thanks Jim!

Not quite the show-stopper of yesterday, today Gizmodo unveiled Microsoft’s Pink phones.  Yeah, we already told you about them, but they have big strong lawyers and posted pictures.  You aren’t going to lose sleep over these guys:

That’s Turtle ^

That’s Pure below

Microsoft is no match for the Apple rumor mill ;)

 

Call your broker!  The FASB has changed its accounting rules this morning, allowing Apple to realize the revenue from its iPhones and AppleTV devices at purchase rather than slowly over two years.  It also allows Apple to stop charging nominal fees for iPod Touch software updates – when it doesn’t necessarily want to.  AAPL is up almost 4 points on the day.

Apple Inc. is expected to be one of the major beneficiaries of the change, since it would dramatically change how the company reports revenues from its iPhone [and AppleTV]. Currently, Apple recognizes iPhone revenue over a two-year period, and said recently that overall revenues and earnings in its latest quarter would have been much higher if it didn’t have to defer revenues for the iPhone and its Apple TV product. An Apple spokesman couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

 

It’s not just Apple and AT&T who have problems delivering the needs of mobile users, both Google and Palm have also let the ball slip in recent days.

Strike one: Google, which yesterday introduced real time “push” Gmail sync for the iPhone. Seems too many iPhone users wanted this feature, with Dan Frommer helpfully pointing out a deluge of frustrated user comments on Google’s blog pages and Twitter.

Set-up, Frommer reports, runs smoothly, “but emails simply aren’t being pushed to our phone in real-time — we need to wait several minutes and/or manually check the mailbox before they show up, which defeats the purpose of push,” he writes. Google, presumably, is working to ramp up its infrastructure to support this new service.

Meanwhile, over at Palm (in the news a lot today as it issues millions of dollars in new shares in an attempt to put together some investment capital), there’s a similar problem – the company’s application approval team can’t keep up with the apps they’re being asked to review (remind you of anything?)

Responding to developers complaining at lengthy delays and opacity in getting their apps approved, Palm Developer Community Manager Chuq Von Rospach posted the following on Palm’s developer discussion boards:

“We got more applications than we could handle well, which is a good problem to have. Unfortunately, it means we dropped some things on the floor, and that’s bad, but with the impending "stuff" that’s coming, this is all going to get a lot easier for everyone and a lot more transparent.

“If you didn’t get a response in a timely manner, let me apologize to you. We should have done a better job on this, and I apologize for this. I’m working with the people I work with on this to try to make sure we do a better job of this moving forward. Good news is we’ve hired some people — one’s started, one starts next week, and the third starts the week after that, and that’ll give us some great people and some new resources to make sure this gets fixed and works properly.”

We wonder if Palm and Google will be pilloried quite as much as Apple and AT&T have been for similar infrastructure and approval shortcomings?