News tagged ‘sed’
Square Enables iPhone to Handle Credit Card Purchases
Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, launched the new service named Square (still in beta) that allows you to make or take payments using your iPhone.
All this happens through an accessory able to process credit cards that is connected to the the device.
User just need to enter the amount, the security code and the signature directly on the touchscreen. There are no charges of any kind, except a U.S. cent on every transition, which is donated to charity.
The system is able to display a bill with lots of information: the map, the amount, the number of times that we used this system of payments in that particular store, and much more.
The system is currently being tested in the US. Maybe one day we will all use it everywhere.
Speech recognition software for iPhone
Dragon Naturally Speaking is a popular speech recognition software application for PC/Mac. Soon it will be released for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The program for the iPhone will capture a clip of about 20-30 seconds and turn into text everything that was said. Then you can send your dictation via email or SMS.
Here is a video demonstration:
Fring for iPhone Gets Updated With Video Calls
Fring has added video calling support to the iPhone and iPod touch via Skype. This is a huge step further. iPhone became a videophone!
It works on Fring to Fring, and Skype to Fring. Unfortunately, it's not bi-directional. You would be able to see whoever is calling you from a desktop, but you won't be able to transmit your image. The reason is because the iPhone doesn't have a front camera, so you can't do face to face. The application will support two-way video calling if the iPhone and iPod touch gain front-facing cameras in the future. The company already supports two-way video calling on several Nokia phones with such cameras.
A promotional video highlighting the new video functionality has also been released:
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Apple Takes Control of 'TabletMac' Trademark
A couple of years ago, a company called Axiotron announced an aftermarket modification for the MacBook that converted the Apple laptop into a tablet. The modification remains for sale at $699 and takes a stock MacBook, removes the keyboard and screen, and adds a Wacom pen-based screen to give the device a tablet form factor.
Axiotron originally began marketing the devices as a "TabletMac" and filed a trademark for the term. Sometime in the past year, however, the trademark was transferred from Axiotron to Apple, and Apple is now listed as the owner of the trademark:
Now Apple could potentially release a product called the TabletMac. So what name? iTablet, MacTablet, TabletMac or maybe MacBook Tablet?
Apple has begun testing the next model of iPhone (3.1)
iPhone developer Pandav informed MacRumors that they, thanks to the scripts of statistics included in their application, have managed to record tracks for a new iPhone model, not yet released.
PinchMedia, which offers a system of statistics and analysis on the use of software, has noticed the same thing and the new device is identified with the code iPhone3,1. The last iPhone released to the public was the iPhone 3GS which carries the identification string iPhone2,1. Apple similarly began testing the iPhone 3GS (iPhone2,1) back in October of 2008 about 8 months ahead of its launch.
The next generation iPhone might include a multi-core processor and Verizon compatibility. It might be released as early as mid 2010.
App Rejection: a website about applications rejected by Apple
App Rejection is a new portal where the AppStore applications that are rejected by Apple are collected.
The site can be used by developers to understand all those unwritten rules that lead to rejection. In other words you can learn from the mistakes and adopt your app to make it to the AppStore. To access the site just click
Apple has finally reached a 50% share of the global smartphone ad request market
AdMob has released their latest October 2009 October Mobile Metrics report with details on devices and platforms requests ads from AdMob network. The iPhone and iPod Touch platform (iPhone OS) has a comfortable 50% share of worldwide traffic and 55% of US traffic. In terms of top handset models, Apple’s iPhone accounted for 22.4%/24.1% (up 5.5%/5.2%) and iPod touch for 9.8%/11.4 (up 1.4%/2.3%).
Apple nearly reached the milestone back in May when it hit 49%, but the company's share temporarily dropped back over the next several months before beginning a sharp climb again in September.
You can read the full report in PDF
Apple partially automated the app review process
More and more developers complain about the rejection of their applications in the AppStore. There's a good reason behind all this.
It seems that Apple has created a tool that can automatically review applications and APIs that are used. According to the rules of the SDK, the developers can not use private API. If this initial test is passed examiners begin to manually check the app.
So the advice is quite simple - follow the rules of the SDK.
Apple Releases Two New iPhone Ads: 'Song' and 'Gift'
Apple today posted two new iPhone commercials to its ad gallery and also began airing them on prime-time television. Here is a list of applications, that are used in these videos:
Song
- Jamie Oliver's 20 Minute Meals [
- Credit Card Terminal [
- Facebook [
- The Sims 3 [
- Redfin Real Estate [
- Shazam [
Gift
- Target [
- ColorChange [
- The Snow Report [
- Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition [
- HotelPal [
- Zipcar [
Watch the videos:
A countdown to "at the end of the world"
There is an app for about everything. iMaya is an iPhone application that shows a countdown clock until time X of 2012.
Here is a quick story about this Maya calendar. Maya civilization had several different calendars, the longest one, The Long Count, identifies a date by counting the number of days from the Mayan creation (August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 in the Julian calendar). But instead of using a base-10 (decimal) scheme like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40.
The Maya name for a day was k'in. Twenty of these k'ins are known as a winal or uinal. Eighteen winals make one tun. Twenty tuns are known as a k'atun. Twenty k'atuns make a b'ak'tun. Confused? Don't panic. 1 B'ak'tun is about 144,000 days or 394.3 years.
The date December 20, 2012 is simply the last day of the 13th b'ak'tun. And here is the big misinterpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. There is a belief, that this date is the basis for a New Age and for a big cataclysm. For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle. But that is not the end of the Long Count because the 14th through 20th b'ak'tuns are still to come. So we need to wait for another 7 b'ak'tuns (> 2700 years), when this Long Count calendar will end.
The app costs $0.99 and is available in AppStore (
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Apple Launches Web-Based iTunes Preview
Apple has launched iTunes Preview, a feature that shows what music is available on iTunes from the convenience of your Web browser. iTunes Preview lets anyone browse through the entire iTunes catalog’s worth of music, info, and user reviews for any region.
You can access iTunes Preview in one of two ways, either through
For now, this feature only works with music. Hopefully someday it will be be extended to movies, TV shows and the AppStore.
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NASA works on a chemical sensor for iPhone
Several NASA scientists are working on a project called Cell-All - compact, low-cost, low-power, high-speed nanosensor-based chemical sensor for cell phones.
The device is about the size of a postage stamp and is designed to be plugged in to an iPhone to collect, process and transmit sensor data. The new device is able to detect and identify low concentrations of airborne ammonia, chlorine gas and methane. The device senses chemicals in the air using a "sample jet" and a multiple-channel silicon-based sensing chip, which consists of 16 nanosensors, and sends detection data to another phone or a computer via telephone communication network or Wi-Fi.
Update: Here are new cool photos:
via
Unlock utility Ultrasn0w updated to version 0.92
Today DevTeam released an ultrasn0w update that fixes a bug for those who run it on firmware 3.1 and 3.1.2 with the 04.26 baseband. This bug was about a missing carrier name in the upper left-hand corner of your home screen. The update is avaliable in Cydia (repository http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com).
We remind you, that ultrasn0w 0.92 doesn't work with baseband 05.11.07!
[Update]: if your 3G or EDGE connection isn't working try manually clearing and re-entering your APN.
[Update 2]: Carrier logo fix confirmed (by order of tweet):
USA, Thailand, Austria, Trinidad, Germany, China, Kuwait, Serbia, Poland, France, Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Ireland, UK, Turkey, Sweden, Switzerland, Malaysia, Hungary,The Netherlands, Bahamas, Jamaica, India,
Israel, Belgium, Canada, Portugal, Denmark, Costa Rica, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela, UAE.
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Gigabyte fixes iPhone Syncing Issues
Many users are unable to sync their iPhones on PCs equipped with Windows 7 and Intel P55 Express chipset. Gigabyte is the first company who fixed this issue. They've released a beta BIOS that addresses the problem. Asus and MSI, which also use the P55 express on their motherboards, haven’t issued any updates yet, but hopefully will soon.
BlackSn0w Unlock For 05.11.07 Is Now Available
Geohot has released his BlackSn0w utility. BlackSn0w is an unlock for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. It supports the latest firmware 3.1 and 3.1.2 with baseband 05.11.07 and enables official tethering. Available for both Windows and Mac.
Here is a quick tutorial:
If you havn't done the jailbreak: go to
If your device is already jailbroken - run Cydia, add repository blackra1n.com and install blacksn0w. That's it!
The latest version of blackra1n is RC3. It now has hacktivation support, 15 second speed improvement, Tiger+PPC support.
PS: If you just bought a new iPhone 3GS or have one that was made recently (approximately after 40th week after iPhone 3GS release): your device has a new BootROM. Unfortunately it is impossible to run regular jailbreak with this new BootROM. There is a sloution - tethered jailbreak. Everything including unlock will work fine. However every time you restart your iPhone, you need to plug it to a computer with blackra1n installed.