Filed under: iPod Family

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen new iPod ads featuring the old silhouettes. Well, after taking a break from them, Apple has decided to release a new silhouette ad. It was shown on TV in the US today and can be seen by going to the Apple iTunes page and clicking “Watch the new ad” underneath the “Featured on iTunes” section. The music is apparently “Shut Up and Let Me Go” by UK band the Ting Tings.

Thanks for the tip, Bren.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Details are fuzzy right now — and what details there are have been officially denied — but the Japanese press is having a bit of a field day over the possibility of a Sanyo selloff to Matsushita / Panasonic. Apparently Goldman Sachs, Sumitomo, and Daiwa own some 67% of Sanyo’s equity, and as Japanese paper Yomiuri reports, are looking at the possibility of transferring said equity to or otherwise forming a partnership with Matsushita. Again, both Matsu and Sanyo are denying the report as of now, so it’s all still up in the air as the salarymen figure out whether to combine both companies to make a corporate entity larger than even Hitachi (which currently sits at the top of Japan’s heap).

[Via Engadget Japanese, thanks Theirry]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share This

Filed under: iPod Family, Rumors, iPhone

Our anonymous iControl tipster has returned and tells us that a new XMPP framework has been spotten in the latest iPhone firmware. XMPP refers to the open source standard developed by the Jabber community for instant messaging. Remember back in March when Apple announced it would support native instant messaging? In a nutshell, it looks like Apple’s new iPhone-based chat will be built on Jabber/XMPP.

Unfortunately, we’re told that this XMPP support remains in a private framework and will not be available to 3rd party SDK developers. Apple has made a strong commitment to sand-boxed development, allowing developers little access to the underlying OS and frameworks. Single-purpose apps like games should thrive in this development environment while less bounded utilities like social networking apps may struggle–or at least have to depend strongly on web-based servers.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: iPod Family, Tips and tricks, iPhone, iPhone 101

Over at MacTips they have a nice tip which I figured would make for a good iPhone 101. If you find yourself needing to type an accented character (acutes, graves, umlauts, etc.), all you have to do is hold down the relevant key for a couple of seconds and voilà a nice pop-up menu will appear with the available choices. The trick works for a number of different characters besides the vowels (e.g. ‘z’ and ‘?’) and seems to function as well on the iPod touch.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share This

Filed under: iPod Family, Rumors, iPhone

An anonymous tipster tells TUAW that according to code found in the latest firmware release, Apple is working on a new iPhone application called iControl. Like Apple TV and other remote controllers, it would allow the iPhone to connect wirelessly to local iTunes libraries and browse through and play media from those sources.

TUAW is told that a media navigator will allow you to view videos, play podcasts, listen to music and even support shuffle playback. The screenshot shown here shows some of the localizable strings for the iPhone-based application. There’s obviously no timeline for release, but since the SDK event back in February, it’s been rumored that Apple would release some official iPhone apps of their own, and iControl might be the first.

Update: The data is so thin on the ground that it’s hard to respond to readers who have asked whether this will be a “Back to my iTunes” application. Just having local Bonjour support wouldn’t be all that useful. Apparently a screenshot of the bundle (not apparently a real application) here

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

While there’s a plethora of products out there meant to log your running miles, Seiko’s looking out for those who’d rather jump rope or do some heavy lifting rather than placing a beating on their knees. The adequately minuscule Slimstick (15-grams; 2- x 6.4- x 0.89-centimeters in size) is meant to reside in the pocket of a given exerciser and track calories burned along with an “overall workout value,” which can be benchmarked against one’s goal. To do so, it packs a dual-axis accelerometer and a decent amount of fairy dust, and yes, it promises to do all the things your paltry (or lazy, as it were) pedometer simply won’t. Your next fitness buddy is available now for just ¥5,775 ($55), or ¥6,980 ($67) with a presumably supreme “strap set.”

[Via technabob]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone

A recent Engadget post suggests that Apple may be licensing haptic (or force-feedback) technology for the iPhone; this would allow users to ‘feel’ button presses or other interactions with our favorite touchable UI. Immersion is the company speculated to be bringing this technology to the iPhone, as they’ve added this kind of feedback tech to the entire Nokia lineup.

Immersion had some interesting news of their own this week, as one of Apple’s former executives, Clent Richardson, was appointed as Immersion’s president and CEO. Executive swapping doesn’t always lead to close collaboration, but it can’t hurt.

Original Post by Palluxo

[via Engadget]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

NVIDIA’s been on a hyper-competitive tear lately, and while the latest rumor isn’t quite on par with Roy Taylor saying that the Intel CPU is “dead,” it reinforces the company’s new win-at-all-costs attitude. Seems ATI’s upcoming RV770-based Radeon HD 4800 might threaten NVIDIA’s dominance of the high-end graphics market, and that’s just not acceptable — so the company is planning on pushing up the release of the GeForce 9900 to July. That’s one billion transistors and GDDR3 memory, if you haven’t been memorizing rumored graphic card specs — we’re guessing that blue screen of death will render mighty fast on that rig.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Alright, we’re loving this new hyper-aggressive, sorta-nasty version of NVIDIA. Not only has CEO Jen Hsun-Huang promised to “open a can of whoop-ass” on Intel, the company has been touting its new sub-$45 integrated platform as far superior to Celeron-based systems, and now we’ve got VP of Content Relations Roy Taylor sending out emails saying that “a war has started” and pronouncing the Intel CPU “dead.” Roy says Intel is “panicking” because CPUs have “run out of steam,” and that they “no longer make anything run faster.” According to Roy — whose nickname is “Big Pipe,” no joke — the only thing that needs to get faster is the GPU, and NVIDIA’s going to make it happen. That’s some brash talk, all around — let’s hope NVIDIA’s ready when Intel brings Nehalem out to play. Check out the whole email at the read link.

[Via TGDaily]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It’s been a hot minute since we’ve seen a flashy new pen tablet from Genius, but the outfit is getting set to unload a new duo onto the market for artists looking to get their penmanship directly onto the LCD. The G-Pen M712 and M609 both arrive with Vista / Mac-compatible software, sport 4,000 LPI resolutions and come with rolling pads at the top for scrolling, zooming and adjusting volume. As for the M609, expect a screen size of 9- x 5.5-inches (wide) / 7.25- x 5.5-inches (standard) and 26 hot keys, while the M712 offers up a bit more real estate at 12- x 7.25-inches (wide) / 9.5- x 7.25-inches (standard) and includes 34 hot keys. Look for ‘em both to land real soon for $195 and $249, respectively. Full release waiting after the jump.

Continue reading Genius introduces G-Pen M712 / M609 pen tablets

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This