Evan's Shared News
The Wrath of God This Weekend [Data Visualization]
This weekend's Chilean earthquake was 8.8 magnitude, among the most powerful in recorded history. This is how its 66.6 exajoules of energy spread across the Pacific, as shown by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The earthquake—which so far has resulted in more than 700 dead people— was the equivalent of the explosion of 15.8 gigatons of TNT. That's 316 Soviet Tsar nuclear bombs—at 50 megatons, the most powerful ever created—dropping at the same time in the same place.
As NOAA's graphic model shows, it generated a huge tsunami that wiped the Pacific, fortunately weakening before it reached other populated coastal areas at the other side of the ocean, like Hawaii or New Zealand. Sadly, the Chileans were not that lucky. [NOAA]
Dayta: Keep Track of Almost Anything
Sahil Lavingia has created an application called Dayta (in a week!) that allows you to track almost anything! The app gives you the freedom to choose the unit of measurement for your data log, leading to an almost endless variety of potential uses for the app.
Dayta is a unique application to the App Store because it doesn’t focus on tracking just one item. The only limit to what you can track is your imagination. Participants in the test group tracked data such as days absent from smoking, kill to death ratio in Call of Duty and even how many words they have memorised in Japanese.
In this review, we’ll be taking a look at how to set the application up, and how the process of inputting and tracking your “data” works.
SetupIt is very easy to set up your data log in Dayta. You simply click the ‘+’ button on your dashboard – much like you would do with any app. From here you fill out the name, icon and unit that this data will use. For example, for my car milage data log, I used ‘Distance Travelled’ for the name, a tyre for the icon (Dayta comes packaged with a large array of icons) and Km’s for unit. Once you have added in your data log, you can start inputting your information right away.
New Data Log
Once the data log has been set up, you can drill down into some more ‘advanced’ options. You can rename, change the icon, or even the measurement of unit that you put in before. In addition to this you can clear the data log immediately, email it off in a text format or in a .csv (comma-seperated values) file – used for Excel, and Numbers. If necessary, you can set it up so it resets to zero daily, or even consolidates all your data by day (e.g. if you drive around a lot and want to log your hours per trip, but want it all calculated by day).
A great feature of Dayta is the ability to add in a goal for yourself. We all have goals, and all know the power behind how tracking a goal helps us to improve. Think of it as a simple way to keep yourself motivated and raise your skills in Japanese?
Data Options
TrackingOnce you have added all your data logs you will see them on your Dashboard (the first page the application opens up to). From here you can add, edit or glance of your data.
Dashboard
Once you have tapped on your data log, a new window comes up with a very nice interface that allows you to add in your information very easily. You can tap the + or – buttons, or if it is a large number, swipe across and enter it in manually. As data is added, it goes to the recent history table beneath. If you want a full view, simply click on the arrow to the top-right of it.
Data Log - Sleep
If you click on the Visualization button beneath it, you can see a graph of your progress. You will notice it has a very simple, similar style to that of the Google Analytics graphs. The goal that you set will also come up as a red line across your graph so you can have a visual representation of how you are going.
Viewing as a Graph
ConclusionDayta is very flexible and allows you to track a lot of data. It is great to use as an all-in-one tool for measuring distance travelled, sleep had, weight lost, etc. It has a simple and beautiful interface and is utterly amazing for just one week’s development.
At the very cheap price of $0.99, it is definitely worth checking out to see what data it can track for you. I’d love to hear what you use it for, so please feel free to comment below!
Why Flash Is Fundamentally Flawed On Touchscreen Devices
An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Roughly Drafted:
"I'm a full-time Flash developer and I'd love to get paid to make Flash sites for the iPad. I want that to make sense — but it doesn't. Flash on the iPad will not (and should not) happen — and the main reason, as I see it, is one that never gets talked about: current Flash sites could never be made to work well on any touchscreen device, and this cannot be solved by Apple, Adobe, or magical new hardware. That's not because of slow mobile performance, battery drain or crashes. It's because of the hover or mouseover problem. ... All that Apple and Adobe could ever do is make current Flash content visible. It would be seen, but very often would not work."
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant
A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Robots To Clear the Baltic Seafloor of WW-II Mines
An anonymous reader writes "A Russian company is building a massive natural gas pipeline that will run across the Baltic Sea floor. But first, they must clear some of the 150,000 unexploded bombs sitting at the bottom of the sea, left there by the Russian and German armies in the 1940s. About 70 of these mines, each filled with 300 kg of explosive charge, sit in the pipeline's path, mostly in its northern section just south of Finland. And so the company contracted to remove the mines is bringing in robots to do the dirty work. Here's how it will work: A research ship deploys the robot to the seabed, where it identifies the exact location of the explosive. After sounding a warning to surrounding ship traffic, scaring fish away using a small explosive, and then emitting a 'seal screamer' of high intensity noises designed to make the area around the blast quite uncomfortable for marine mammals, Bactec's engineers erupt a 5 kg blast, forcing the mine to detonate. This process ensures the safety of humans plus any animals living in the surrounding environment. The operation concludes with the robot being redeployed to clear up the scrap of the now-destroyed bomb."
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A History of Media Technology Scares
jamesswift writes "Vaughan Bell at Slate has written an interesting article on the centuries old phenomenon of hysterical suspicion surrounding new media and the technologies that enable them. 'A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both "confusing and harmful" to the mind. The media now echo his concerns with reports on the unprecedented risks of living in an "always on" digital environment. It's worth noting that Gessner, for his part, never once used e-mail and was completely ignorant about computers. That's not because he was a technophobe but because he died in 1565.' The best line comes near then end: 'The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting, and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion.'"
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Phishing Flow Chart Highlights Red Flags in Dangerous Emails [Phishing]
The average Lifehacker reader is rarely taken by a simple phishing scam—you're a techno-literate bunch—but a little refresher never hurts. Besides, this flowchart is perfect for showing to relatives who have no idea when to raise the phishing red flag.
The above image is a companion image to the guide at LoginHelper on how to identify phishing attacks, but for a quick and easy refresher and way to explain to less than techno-savvy relatives what to look for to defend against a phishing attack it's a great stand alone aide.
If you're in educate-the-relatives mode make sure to check out our previous article: The Complete Guide to Avoiding Online Scams (for Your Less Savvy Friends and Relatives). It's a great starting point for opening the eyes of friends and family that give the sincerity of foreign princes a little too much stock.
Have a great visual aide or guide to help people become more security conscious? Share a link in the comments below.
The Phishing Flow Chart [via gHacks]
Google Maps Get Labs With 9 Cool New Features
Here’s a nice surprise from Google’s Maps team: Just like Gmail, Google Maps now also has the Labs feature (it’s the little green vial in the top right menu), which introduces experimental new features for you to try out.
Right now, you can try out nine new features (all disabled by default):
Drag ‘n’ Zoom – lets you zoom in on a specific part of the map by drawing a box.
Aerial Imagery – gives you rotatable, high-resolution overhead imagery, but it’s only available in certain areas. Google plans to add more over time, though.
Back to Beta – OK, this one is a little weird. It lets you have a beta tag on Maps (just like Gmail). Only for hardcore Google users.
Where in the World Game – test your geography knowledge by guessing the names of countries from satellite imagery. I lost days playing a similar game on Facebook, and I forgot everything I’ve learned. Sigh.
Rotatable Maps – north facing up is just one way to look at a map. Now you can rotate it any way you like.
What’s Around Here? – adds a second search button that searches for “*”, returning the top results in the current view. I’ve actually been waiting for this for a long time; it makes searching for certain POIs within some area a lot easier.
LatLng Tooltip – see the exact latitude and longitude next to your cursor.
LatLng Marker – drop a marker anywhere on the map, showing the latitude and longitude of that location.
Smart Zoom – stops you from zooming into an area if imagery is not available.
Tags: Google Maps, labs, trending
When Will AI Surpass Human Intelligence?
destinyland writes "21 AI experts have predicted the date for four artificial intelligence milestones. Seven predict AIs will achieve Nobel prize-winning performance within 20 years, while five predict that will be accompanied by superhuman intelligence. (The other milestones are passing a 3rd grade-level test, and passing a Turing test.) One also predicted that in 30 years, 'virtually all the intellectual work that is done by trained human beings...can be done by computers for pennies an hour," adding that AI "is likely to eliminate almost all of today's decently paying jobs.' The experts also estimated the probability that an AI passing a Turing test would result in an outcome that's bad for humanity...and four estimated that probability was greater than 60% — regardless of whether the developer was private, military, or even open source."
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
30 Unintentionally Hilarious Political Signs
Filed under: Humor, In Real Life, News / Politics
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Oh boy. It's been a big couple of months for signs here at Urlesque. First, we brought you ridiculous hacked stop signs. Then, we introduced you to the "God Hates" signs phenomenon.Take a deep breath, because there's more. You guys know how they have elections? No no, I'm not talking about the reigning high council of I Can Has Cheezburger? (succession there is handled by fights to the death) or the governing board of Facebook (the board is just Mark Zuckerberg maniacally sobbing to himself), I'm talking about the United States government.
Well, they have elections for it. People (you, ideally) vote for candidates. These people (again, you?) vote based on issues (or wild emotional impulses). Sometimes they make signs about said issues. Sometimes those signs are unintentionally hilariously stupid.
Here are 30 such signs.
1. Amensty
2. Competnce
3. System of Running an Economy FAIL
4. Marridge
5. Truth FAIL
6. Thinkg
7. Sactity of Marriage
8. Washinton
9. Offical Language
10. Your/You're FAIL
11. Not Being A Violent Psychopath FAIL
12. Understanding The Modern Combustion Engine FAIL
13. Your/You're FAIL #2
14. Understanding Jesus FAIL
15. Arithetic
16. Birth Certifict
17. Juice/Jews?
18. Amesty #2 With Bonus
19. Morans!!
20. Hugh/Huge
21. Obama Is A Muslin
22. Mavrik
23. Amnety #3 (Honk for English)
24. Lanaguage
25. No Excetions
26. NO Pubic Option
27. Respect Are-Country
28. Stundents 4 McCain
29. Commander And Theif
30. Keep Us Infromed
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- All photos via:// About.com, 11 Points, Huffington Post
- related:// Intentionally Hilarious Political Signs
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Apple puts limits on location-based advertising in the App Store
Filed under: Software, Apple, iPhone
Apple's excited about mobile advertising (and it certainly seems like they're setting up a plan for local ads), but to devs, they say, "not so much." Apparently they've sent out a message that says location services should only be used to provide "beneficial information," not targeted advertising. Any apps that include ads targeted to where you and your iPhone are will be rejected posthaste, says Apple.There's a few things going on here -- Mobile Entertainment wonders just what "beneficial information" means. Certainly apps like Foursquare and MyTown provide business information based on your iPhone's location, and Foursquare especially is working on local deals with places that you've checked-in to -- is that considered advertising?
And a few developers, including our friend Craig Hockenberry (MacNN messed up Chock's name in their post) say that Apple wants location-based ads for themselves. Kind of a jerk move by Apple, but if that's where the money is, I guess you can't blame them.
TUAWApple puts limits on location-based advertising in the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Beware the Breast Implants of Death
Generally, I refrain from linking to WorldNetDaily. But squint your eyes a bit and pretend you're reading the National Enquirer (it's not hard) while digging this article about Muslim terrorists using breast and butt-cheek implants as bomb hideyholes. Belongs with a BatBoy photo spread. (via Danger Room)
The cost of health care around the world
Health care cost per person per year on left, life expectancy on right.
Related: a futile attempt to use logic to convince teabaggers to stop hurting themselves.
Health care cost -vs- life expectancy chart from National Geographic.
Wii Balance Board Gives $18,000 Medical Device a Run For Its Money
Gizmodo highlights a very cool repurposing effort for the Wii's Balance Board accessory. Rather than the specialized force platforms used to quantify patients' ability to balance after a trauma like stroke, doctors at the University of Melbourne thought that a Balance Board might serve as well. Says the article: "When doctors disassembled the board, they found the accelerometers and strain gauges to be of 'excellent' quality. 'I was shocked given the price: it was an extremely impressive strain gauge set-up.'" Games controllers you'd expect to be durable and at least fairly accurate; what's surprising is just how much comparable, purpose-built devices cost. In this case, the Balance Board (just under $100) was compared favorably with a test platform that costs just a shade less than $18,000.
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Ski resorts busted by iPhone app
Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store
Want to see past a ski resort's lies? There's an app for that. The iPhone's ability to track snowfall at ski resorts has been well publicized (it even showed up in an official Apple commercial), but apparently there's been an unintended consequence: ski resorts are actually losing money. The UK's Globe and Mail reports that before iPhones existed, people would just call up to the slopes to ask them if there was snow on the trails -- and the ski resorts would more often than not reply that there was, in order to pull in some more weekend customers. It was usually just white lies (no pun intended) -- they'd usually say there was about 20% more snow than actually existed. But now that the iPhone provides a much more objective look at exactly how much powder there is up there, resorts are finding that they can't push that weekend boost any more. And that's cutting into their yearly profits as a whole.Now, you may argue that resorts being held accountable is a good thing, and according to the article, most of the resorts themselves would agree with you: they weren't in it to outright lie to people, because telling people that there was a foot on the ground when you can see grass would have an even worse effect on their business. But hearing from someone on the phone that the slopes are plentiful is a much different experience than seeing a number in an iPhone app, and it's interesting that the difference is directly affecting resort profits in many cases.
Not that resorts have too much to worry about, especially the ones who have plenty of snow anyway. It just shows you how much the iPhone is still changing all kinds of industries in strange ways.
TUAWSki resorts busted by iPhone app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Enough already with the draconian NDAs, Apple
Filed under: Bad Apple, Apple, App Store, SDK
Yo, Apple. February's coming, and likely with it, the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK. And you know what? We're totally over this infuriating ducking NDA thing when it comes to the iPhone software development kit. NDAs refer to nondisclosure agreements. They are contracts -- in this case, between Apple and would-be developers -- that prevent those who have been granted beta access to early releases of Apple's software development kits from discussing any aspect of the SDK in public forums.
Apple has pulled this NDA on us a few times before, for iPhone SDKs that anyone and their brother could download and look at freely. I'll say it for the record: NDAs on new iPhone OS SDKs are a bad, bad thing.
These NDAs provide no protection against competitors discovering Apple's proprietary secrets. Apple places no restrictions on who may sign up and access those materials. At the same time, they limit developer discourse outside of Apple's rather minimal members-only developer forums.
Under past NDAs, TUAW could not publish how-to articles or code samples, which was frustrating. The fundamental problem is not limited to this site, though. Developers couldn't tweet about their experiences, write about them on developer e-mail lists or otherwise engage in the kind of productive peer support that makes a development community thrive. Limiting discussion to a vendor-approved site where posts can be modded and/or deleted at the vendor's whim does not exactly cultivate open discourse.
Of course, we're talking about Apple. As avowed "Gearhead" Aleksandr Milewski puts it, "It's Apple. They'd NDA their customers if they could." So you can take it as likely that once again Apple is going to slam down an NDA on our collective selves. At least unless enough people proactively stand up and say: "We're mad as hell about NDAs and we're not going to take it any more."
So what can you do? Add your voice to this post. Leave a comment and express exactly how you would feel about Apple NDA'ing the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 SDK. Tweet it. Status wall it. E-mail it to your friends and to Apple. File a bug report at bugreport.apple.com. Give some unofficial feedback. Post about it on your own blog and leave a link in the comments.
It's time to be heard. We're tired of REDACTED and we want change.
TUAWEnough already with the draconian NDAs, Apple originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Dear Apple: What we want to see for iPhone 4.0, part 1
A week ago we asked you, the TUAW reader, to help us tell Apple what you want in the next iPhone: the OS, the apps, the hardware. Within two hours, I had over two hundred emails in my inbox. Within four days, the email total topped 1,100. As I was shifting and sorting through all your suggestions, one thing became clear: you love the iPhone, but you want to see it better, more intuitive, and more versatile - and you know how the iPhone can accomplish those goals.This is the first of a series of letters to Apple on your behalf, telling the gang in Cupertino what would make their wonder-phone even more wondrous. This letter strictly focuses on the iPhone OS in general - the home screen, navigation, and settings. Future letters will deal with hardware and applications.
There were so many suggestions, I needed to whittle them down. To do that, I tabulated how many times a feature request was made. If more than 50% of you mentioned it, it made it into the letter. If you guys want to see the others (most were one-offs or had less that 15% of you requesting it), perhaps I'll add an extra letter onto the series at the end of its run.
Remember, if you made suggestions about any of Apple's built-in apps (Mail, Maps, Stocks, Calendar, etc) or hardware, you won't see those here, but in an upcoming letter dealing specifically with those areas.
I hope Apple is listening, because the readers of TUAW have spoken, and this is what they have to say:
Dear Apple,
While it's clear the iPhone is the best smartphone on the market right now, you have a lot of competition creeping up. We want to help you blow them out of the water with the iPhone OS 4.0. Here are our suggestions:
1. The lock screen needs to change.
90% of us want a new lock screen. We think the current screen that only shows the date and time, and only the most recent missed call or SMS, is not particularly helpful. If you get a text message, then a calendar alert, and then a push notification, the only one you see is the push notification message. Being able to swipe through them or have a table list would be far more useful. But even then, we still have to enter our four-digit unlock code to see if we've received any new emails. From the new lock screen we want to see all the calls we've missed and the number of new emails and texts we have. We want to see which apps have sent us push notifications, and what appointments are coming up. We want a brief overview of all the new data we've received to be presented to us before we have to enter our unlock code.
Let's extend the features of that new lock screen to ...
2. A new home screen. The iPhone is the smartest phone on the market. Make it smarter. Introduce a location-aware home screen.
Over 90% of us also want a new home screen - and we want it location aware. Let's say we live in London, but travel to continental Europe many times a month. We'd love to turn on our iPhones in the country we just landed in and see the local weather, currency, transit maps, and news displayed right on our home screens. Not only would it save us time and money, it would save something just as valuable to an iPhone owner - battery life. If all these things were displayed on the home screen the first time you turn on your phone, you wouldn't have to open five different applications to get what you want.
Imagine a 'Genius Location' feature as well: the iPhone would show you (through an app like Yelp - or a new Apple-branded app) what restaurants or businesses are around based on your 'likes' in your home town. We know you were granted a 'Transitional Data Sets' patent for a location-based home screen back in February 2008 - let's hope this sees the light of day in iPhone OS 4.0.
3. That new home screen? Let us access it by vertically swiping.
Imagine this: no matter what home screen page you're on, if you swipe up you are presented with a 'feeds screen' that works much like an RSS page. This feeds screen could be set based on in-app preferences so we could fully customize it. Ours might show our latest Facebook posts, last five emails received, our To Do notes, our Mint.com balance, missed calls, text messages, and upcoming iCal events. The guys at teehan+lax have a pretty cool mock-up of this feeds screen, but the killer feature would be how you could access it from any app page - by vertically swiping.
4. Overhaul app navigation.85% of us think it takes too long to swipe through all our pages of apps. Even though iTunes 9 made a step in the right direction by allowing the user to organize apps and home screen pages visually, there has got to be a better way. Swiping through ten screens to get to the last apps page is tedious.
Wouldn't it be cool if you could press the home button and see all the home pages on one screen? The guys at Ocean Observations think so. Check out this concept video of what this feature would look like (their 'Cover Flow Multitasking' concept is quite cool as well). Don't want to do it their way? Give us stacks, give us folders, give us App Store-like category views. Just give us something that makes it easier to get around our deluge of apps.
5. 85% of us want multitasking and 3rd party background apps (but not at the cost of battery life).
There's not much more to say on this matter, but Palm does it, and if you can find a way around their battery drain, we want it!
6. Almost 80% of us want Flash, even if it's a bad idea.
No, not camera flash (we do, but that's for the next letter). We want Adobe's Flash Player, though Flash on the Mac is a giant performance and stability headache. Get your heads together with Adobe and make it happen (and fix the Mac version while you're about it, please).
7. We love that you introduced landscape mode across virtually all apps in iPhone OS 3.0, but 70% of us want the ability to selectively turn it off.
Give us a setting to switch off the automatic "turn to landscape mode" when the device is turning. Why? When we lay in bed on our side we can't read our mail. The app is always turning and that's really annoying. A system-wide 'ignore orientation' switch would be a good start; app-by-app options would be better.
8. When we leave an app, we want it to remember where we were.
If we click on a link in an app that takes us to Safari or if we switch apps to copy/paste, 70% of us want the app to remember where we were in it when we come back to it. Some apps do this, some don't. Make this an OS-level feature so they all do it.
9. 65% of us want the ability to remove Apple-branded apps.
That Stocks app? Cute, but the Yahoo! Finance [iTunes] app is so much better. We don't need both on our phones.
10. 60% of us want a universal "documents" folder.
We want one location, accessible to all apps, to store documents on the iPhone. Whether we need to send that PDF via IM through Nimbuzz or via email through the built-in Mail app, it's no problem. Either one can do it because the docs are all stored in one place, accessible to all apps. (We realize this breaks the sandboxing model that prevents one app from blowing away data belonging to another one, but we have every confidence you can make it work.)
11. Better Support for Codecs and Add-ons.
It's not just Flash, you know. WMV and AVI still rule on lots of sites. Let us see them (60%).
12. The iPhone is a hard drive with a screen, so....
Give us Disk mode in the OS. 50% of us want to use our iPhone as an external USB/Wi-Fi hard drive.
FYI, Apple, this is just the start. We've got so many more thoughts to share with you about the next iPhone's hardware and apps. So get ready, and thanks for listening. You'll soon be hearing from us again.
Sincerely,
The loyal readers and iPhone owners of TUAW.
TUAW Readers: The next letter will be published one week from today on Sunday 1/17. We'll be telling Apple what we want from the next iPhone's hardware. Want a different enclosure? Camera flash? RFID? OLED? Email me at tuawiphone [at] me dot com (by mid-day, Friday, January 15th at the latest)!
A big thanks to the 1100+ of you who contributed to this article. iPhone homepage sketch by reader 'Fab.'
TUAWDear Apple: What we want to see for iPhone 4.0, part 1 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
New Apple touch display patent
Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, Apple
Patently Apple has the news that Apple has filed for another touchscreen display patent, but here's the catch: this one's probably not for a tablet! Or at least, not for the tablet we're expecting. The patent, which covers the idea of a thinner and brighter touchscreen display by combining the touch and pixel display elements (basically including the capacitive and pixel elements in the same hardware), could actually be used in any of Apple's devices, from the iPhone and iPod touch, to future versions of their laptops. And yes, it could be used in a potential tablet, but really, this is more of a way to create touchscreens anywhere rather than specifically a tablet-only function.Note that this is also different from the dynamic tactile display Apple patented a little while ago. Personally, I'd rather see the much more inventive tactile display used in the hopefully soon-to-be-unveiled tablet -- I'd love to finally get some touchable feedback from touchscreens. But of course Apple will use what they think is best. Having a quicker and brighter display to go along with a multitouch screen wouldn't be a bad thing, either.
Thanks, Mitch Wagner!
TUAWNew Apple touch display patent originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
iTablet rumors: March arrival, Verizon 3G, UI learning curve
The countdown to a supposed unveiling later this month is bringing all sorts of Apple tablet rumors out of the woodwork. Here's a roundup of some of the juicy tidbits that have come out this week.
Several sources have reported that the product will be announced in the last week of January (though there is some disagreement about whether that will happen on Tuesday or Wednesday of that week). A source for Bloomberg is corroborating that an Apple tablet will be unveiled at the end of the month. Echoing a report from Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Bloomberg's source also says that the as-yet-unnanounced tablet will go on sale in March, so consumers shouldn't have much of a wait to get their hands on the device.
iPhone Becomes a Universal Remote this February
A new third-party accessory and software combo announced at CES will allow you to turn your iPhone or iPod touch into a Universal remote capable of controlling all of your home theater equipment.
Evan Lovely likes