I have been able to update my iPod with the latest App for Facebook. It’s really nice and since leaving my blackberry behind I find this app even more intuitive to use than the the blackberry one.
I have not noticed any great new features but the layout is much nicer and what I want to happen does so more often than not.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Continuing my on-going hands-on review of this amazing phone (my first post is here), I want to talk briefly about the case I just bought.
After lots of searching on google and ebay, I settled on this crystal case and screen protector pack
The screen protector isn’t the highest quality available (I will probably upgrade to one of these awesome protectors
Sometimes I feel like even more of a nerd for using a case on my phone, do you use one? Or do you ride bareback?
Popularity: 27% [?]
So thanks to a loop-hole I have been released from my contract with Orange early and was able to get myself a new handset. I settled on the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music I have had the phone a couple of days now and I am really enjoying using it.
As a non-techie geek I thought it would be nice to write how I feel about the phone, without trying to immitate professional reviewers.
Right now here are the things I love about my phone:
Here are things I don’t like (these aren’t huge problems though);
For the moment, that is all I have to say… I will add some other reviews about Twitter clients, email clients and cases soon.
Popularity: 11% [?]
With all the problems of unemployment across the globe, it looks like spies might be the next on the chopping block. Researchers with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, for those that don’t want to say that mouthful of a name), are working on ways to systematically produce creatures affectionately known as cybugs. Essentially, these are just regular insects with circuitry embedded in them that allows humans to control them. 
Previous research has demonstrated that it is possible to control a moth’s flight path with such circuitry. The goal would be to be able to hook a unique chip up to the brain of any insect, such as a moth or grasshopper. This chip could then be used to transmit video or audio of secret enemy meetings or even just fly through enemy camps.
How this process will work exactly still remains a mystery to researchers. However, they have recently discovered that it is far more cost-effective and efficient to embed the chips into the creatures as they develop. To illustrate, the military could harvest cocooned caterpillars and then carefully implant the chip so as not to disturb the process. As the metamorphosis happens, the idea would be that the neural activity would naturally mold around the chip making all the “connections” easier. As pointed out previously, this is far more efficient than capturing a live insect, sedating it, and then performing the surgery. The immobility of a cocooned caterpillar makes it possible to achieve an assembly-like process.
One might ask: why not actual robot insects? The problem is that insects represent somewhat of an engineering marvel. To imitate a butterfly mechanically would likely take a tremendous amount of work and ingenuity. Even then, you’re almost certain to have technical difficulties and, due to the precision required to make one, they’re also guaranteed to be very expensive. Natural insects are free of charge and in easy abundance, thus making it much easier to just augment a pre-existing creature rather than re-create it.
Unfortunately for any paid spies and assassins, their job just kind of became obsolete. All you need is one guy to control the insect into the enemy territory to capture the data or make the insect fly on to the person to inject a poison. I’ve read many comments with regards to this article, but unfortunately I’m not sure people understand the seriousness of an invention like this. Because each one of these cybugs will behave identically to their real-life counterpart, they will be almost impossible to defend against. Imagine 20 flies with an apparatus with a poison and the remote-control mechanism. How does anyone defend against this? The only way would be for everyone to carry a technology that detects all wireless signals within the vicinity to pick up on the remote control. Then you’d have to have another technology that pinpoints where the insect is. And finally, even if you do know which ones are the cybugs, how do you defend against it? Guns won’t work and the attack is sure to include too many cybugs for fly swatters. Everyone will need to carry around their own personal flamethrower now.
Although this technology is obviously cool, I’m always weary of how far this blending of biology and mechanics is going. It’s interesting stuff to read, but when you really think about it, between increased nuclear weapons and technology like this, it seems like the world is becoming less and less safe to live in by the day…
Popularity: 4% [?]
With all the latest gadget releases, it’s hard to believe sometimes how much they cost. A good example of this was Apple’s release of the iPhone 3GS to which AT&T had to come in and offer better upgrade plans or fear customer’s wrath. Without a contract, the latest development from Apple costed about $600. The cost of components to make? $179.16 according to market research firm, iSuppli. Factor in some labour costs and you still have to figure that Apple is making over 100% profit on each iPhone sold.
Of course, that might lead some Apple haters to cite how bad the Apple tax really is, but it’s becoming almost standard across the board. Consider that the Palm Pre only costs about $138 to make yet costs $200 (with $100 mail in rebate) and requires a service agreement with Sprint. I guess only Sprint knows how much Palm is getting per phone. Furthermore, the Blackberry Storm costs about $200 in parts, but is retailing for $500 without contract from Verizon Wireless. Even factoring a $100 per unit for R&D and labour still leaves a margin of 80% or so.
Truth be told, cell phones fall into a very unique market category. They are both viewed as essential and status symbols. If you want to surf the internet really well, then you pretty much have to buy a really expensive smartphone. Yet surfing the net on the go isn’t a luxury, it’s viewed as essential by many people. What I mean is that smartphones are not subject to the same market as say, Rolex. A cheap $20 watch can technically function just as well as a Rolex, although it won’t have the look or the status attached with it. Or consider the Amazon Kindle, which has a 100% margin but due to its non-essential status, has had less than stellar sales. In contrast, in the smartphone market, perhaps due to the large R&D, it’s almost essential to have a “Rolex” phone (Apple, Blackberry) if you want quality surfing (essential to many). Surfing-on-the-go is just one example of an essential service that smartphones provide, albeit internet anywhere is definitely one of the top desires.
The question remains though: does this trend continue upwards, or does it level off somewhere? Is double the manufacturing cost to be continuously expected for smartphones, or will we see a point where the technology as a whole has stabilized enough to allow prices to come down? Only time will tell, but it’ll be interesting to track margins in the coming years. After all, if Apple can release a best-selling iPhone with 100% margin on manufacturing costs in a recession, think of what they can do in boom times!
Inspiration: http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/107263/consumer-electronics-teardowns.html
Popularity: 3% [?]
New tests are confirming what iPhone fans all across the world have known for quite sometime now – the iPhone 3GS is truly the best mobile gaming platform out there. Cheap and easily accessible games are now accompanied by some truly impressive hardware. Recently released OpenGL tests confirm that the 3GS obliterates the competition in the graphical arena. To give you a taste of the specs, the new iPhone could perform a linear texture filter test at 5,214 kTriangles/s whereas the original iPhone could only do 572 kTriangles/s and the venerable N95 could do 601 kTriangles/s.
Reports are also surfacing that the iPhone is only one of two consumer level phones that use the Cortex-A8 processor. Evidently, ARMs official specifications put it at over double the speed of the ARM11 – the processor used by the 3G. With regards to graphics, the new chipset is a version of the SGX which supports both shaders and OpenGL ES 2.0. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help much because the SGX has a wide lineup from the 520 model which is about 7x as powerful as the 3G to the 555 which has better specifications than the PSP. There have been conflicting reports recently although the general consensus seems to be that the new 3GS is using the SGX535, which can do 28 million polys/s, just 5 million shy of what the PSP can do.
That makes the iPhone one mean gaming machine that would appear to far excel any phone on the market, although the list of phones included in the benchmarking site is somewhat slim. Still, there’s no question about it in my mind: the iPhone is by far the best phone on the market if you want to play games. At this stage it’s a little bit like blending the PSP and a phone together which is a wicked combination for any avid gamer.
Check out the comparison here.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Being handicapped just got a whole lot better. Toyota recently debuted their new thought-controlled wheelchair which can, as the name suggests, have its movements controlled via a person’s brain activity. So if you’re thinking about moving left, the chair will move left. If you’re thinking forward, it’ll move forward, and so on. Aside from just being a cool innovation, this chair has many obvious practical benefits. The wheelchair is very responsive, requires no hand motion, and also requires no clumsy voice commands that may or may not work.
Although exact details of how this chair will operate are vague, it is known that this system monitors brain waves every 125 milliseconds. Now, I’m sure that it could be adjusted to be faster if need be, but at the present moment, that means that if I’m thinking about moving left, the chair will respond within one-tenth of a second. Accuracy of thought-reading is also a pretty big concern, but Toyota is reporting that all thoughts are translated into movements with about 95% accuracy. Presumably to increase this accuracy percentage, the R&D guys at Toyota also appear to be working on an artificial intelligence algorithm that will learn user tendencies. Anyone who’s still scared of using this chair will be happy to know that there is a fail-safe stop mechanism – a puff out of a cheek will stop the chair entirely.
To be quite honest, even though this invention is really amazing, it’s a little freaky as well. Mind controlled devices seem to be the second holy grail of technology (as was mentioned in a previous post here on FlipCurve, the first is probably wireless electricity). We’re seeing a tremendous number of advancements in “reality-changing” or augmented reality devices. And while these are great inventions that truly help people, it’s scary to think what could be done with them. What if mind controlled devices also uploaded data on where you were at all times? Furthermore, what happens when the lines between virtual and “real” become so blurred that teens have a hard time distinguishing why violence is fun in a game but not in real life?
Now, you’re probably thinking that this is a far stretch from a mind controlled wheelchair. And that is true, but it’s the ability to read our thoughts that’s becoming disturbing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that advancements like these are not excellent for handicapped people. Rather, I’m saying that the people at Toyota should be commended for their excellent engineering skills, but that – to borrow the line from Spiderman – “with great power comes great responsibility”. We as a society need to always keep devices such as these as a means of helping people, not spying on them, or recording their movements.
Popularity: 3% [?]
One of the holy grails of technology has always been wireless power. I’ve long believed that the first person to invent wireless electricity will probably be the first trillionaire. I mean think about it, imagine no more plugging in wires to charge devices. No matter where you are, your gadgets and other electrical devices will charge. While this is certainly very convenient, it also has some life-saving applications as well. Wireless power would mean that you wouldn’t have to worry about your phone dying in the middle of a 911 call. Or if you’re stuck somewhere and need directions, your cell would always have the power to make the call.
Nokia has made one step closer to realizing this potential by introducing a wirelessly powered device. Now, it certainly doesn’t have enough power to charge while making calls or anything, but it is thought to be able to generate (harness is a better word, I suppose) enough electricity to charge itself slowly while in standby mode. Although the details are a little sketchy, it appears to be using ambient radio waves that are certainly plentiful no matter where you go. The way the technology is being initially marketed is that if you leave your phone on overnight in standby mode, it’ll be charged when you wake up. Heavy users will probably have to still charge their phone via wires every once in a while, but for casual talkers, this is truly some excellent news.
I really like the prospect of this technology as it may work to reduce the chance of a cell phone dying during a 911 call. Even if this technology could extend the call five seconds, that may be just enough to state your location or the symptoms you’re experiencing. Remember that in these types of situations, a few seconds here or there can make the difference between life and death.
Nokia is expecting to be able to unveil this technology commercially within the next three to five years although I really hope they can do this a little sooner. It’s really amazing to think that one day we may never have to worry about charging cell phones or laptops again!
Popularity: 6% [?]
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