Author: Rosa Golijan

The compound sketched here is acetaminophen. Most wouldn’t know that offhand and might struggle through messy Google searches in an attempt to find out. But what if our computers understood the sketch and we just had to voice our question?

Some folks at MIT figured out a way to turn what sounds like a sci-fi fantasy setup into reality. You grab a tablet computer, a smart whiteboard, or another device which allows for stylus-based input and draw out a molecule, a compound, or a circuit design. Then you ask your computer whether such an object exists anywhere in a database or on the Internet and if so, to identify it. Your trusty pal will not only be able to interpret your sloppy sketch and convert it into a query, but it will also be able to adjust to additional questions or demands for modification—even if you’re simply pointing at the screen. What if you added an element here? What if this wasn’t here? Is there something similar?

There’s still plenty of work left to be done on this software—currently chemistry is its main topic—but we should soon see it developed further and adapted to other fields such as electrical engineering. I just can’t wait for the day when I can doodle instead of trying to figure out how to Google search for “that thing with four triangles and a hexagon-like thingie on the side with the squiggly tail.” [PopSci]

We often post items from our #tips box, but sometimes things are so weird that we can’t even stick them into our remainders. Things like talk of freaky ads on Craig’s List, free boob job offers, and pure flattery.

We’re sharing all those silly things with you because you’re such lovely people.

Doesn’t that feel nice to hear? The #tips box wasn’t exactly designed for it, but sometimes a bit of flattery doesn’t hurt. Granted, to most commenters it’s about as amusing as seeing someone confusing the tips box with the search box or making an accidental comment in the wrong spot (which can even happen to our old timers like otko).

Speaking of confusion, I can’t figure out whether PN – gooapplesoft‘s random remark about post counts is a #compliment or a #complaint.

I’m pretty sure that the shouts of “Netflix is down!” are a bad thing though, but at least they keep everyone notified of when sites relevant to them fail. So thank you for letting us know.

No thanks to the fellow who shared a website which aggregates the most desperate and freaky people on Craig’s List by city. I’d rather spend hours and hours looking at old memes and funny Google suggestions.

It’s not all about silliness in #tips though. Sometimes tipsters will point the way to some good causes or borderline #dealzmodo offers—such as ways of accumulating some kind of points to earn free boob jobs. Ok, so maybe that’s a bit silly after all.

I’ll let you browse through the remaining #tips on your own, but I will share what I consider the gem of the week in the #tips box: Code Organ, a website shared by zensflare which lets you hear what other sites would sound like. It’s pretty nifty and for what it’s worth, this edition of Gizmodo’s Tips Box was written to the sounds of Google.

We’re proud of our comment system and commenter community. In fact, many of our posts come from items submitted to our #tips box. Gizmodo’s Tips Box is a regular feature to show the funny, scary, and freaky things we just couldn’t post, but want to share.

First we lost the ability to make boobs jiggle, then we lost most of our sexy iPhone apps (about 5,000 of them), and now we can’t even shop for swimsuits using an app-based catalog? Well, at least we still have Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit app to keep us amused.

As part of its crackdown on all things sexy, Apple has removed an app by swimsuit retailer Simply Beach—an innocent app with content no more sexual than a Sears catalog—yet they somehow managed to leave Sports Illustrated’s and FHM’s apps in the App Store. How’s the decision process set up here? [Cult of Mac]

Dear Apple, we get that you’re taking away our almost naughty iPhone apps, but why are you denying us the iTouch My Friends app? There’s no violence, no sexual content, and nothing sexy other than silly avatars getting dressed up.

You can see a demo of what the iTouch My Friends app does with our very own John Herrman as the guinea pig right below. Note that the developers have actually removed any references to alcohol in an attempt to get the app approved:

In essence you’re just making goofy animated videos using your friends’ faces—not really different from another app which lets you push similar avatars down stairs. There doesn’t seem to be any objectionable content in the app, but this is what the developers encountered while going through the approval process:

We never offered sexual content as part of the iTouch My Friends experience, so we set to work stripping all content from the app that was violent or referenced alcohol. We removed a number of props, effects and movies (including bottles of beer, samurai swords and the vomit effect) that seemed to be against the policy. We added replacement props and movies featuring dances and superhero themes, and resubmitted the application on February 2.

After resubmitting, another Apple representative informed us that there was a bug in their submission system, and held our application out of review. Finally, after contacting them many times in an attempt to resolve the issue, iTouch My Friends was put back into review on February 9. Again we anxiously began preparing for the launch of our application.

Last Thursday, February 18, exactly one month after our initial submission to Apple, iTouch My Friends was again rejected. This time, Apple has not contacted us or given a reason for the rejection, the app has simply appeared in the rejected state on Apple’s submission tool. We have tried contacting Apple on all official channels for an explanation. So far we have not gotten anything out of them except for the red icon telling us our app is not going to see the store any time soon.

At this point we are unsure how we should proceed. As far as we know iTouch My Friends does not violate any of the rules of Apple’s store. It is a large and complex app, so it’s possible we overlooked or missed some detail that Apple does not like. Like we did with the objectionable content, we are willing and eager to bring the app to a conforming state, but without knowing what we are doing wrong it is impossible for us to know what we need to fix.

So what’s wrong with this app and why wouldn’t an even tamer version fly through the approval process? [Toga Pit]

I’ve always thought that even robots secretly have active sex lives, but this shirt shows just how dirty those piles of metal and screws can be after the kiddies go to bed.

The shirt is appropriately named “While the Kids Are in Standby Mode” and you can have one for $18. Just don’t expect to ever look at plugs and outlets the same way again. [Go Ape Shirts via Fashionably Geek via Technabob]

Your iPhone’s specs explain that it should survive through temperatures from -20 to 45 C just fine. Good news? That appears to be true. Bad news? Cold temperatures may cause your iPhone’s moisture indicator to imply liquid damage.

Polish website Moje Jabluszko decided to run a few tests on iPhones to see just how winter temperatures affected the devices. They were particularly interested in whether the moisture indicator—or liquid sensor—located in the headphone jack of an iPhone would turn red—indicating moisture—due to temperature changes.

While their testing may not be entirely without flaws and doesn’t account for air humidity in the first place, it does suggest that the liquid sensors are a bit inaccurate and may change color at -11 C instead of the -20 C indicated by the device’s specs. Of course, one must keep in mind that condensation may play a large role in all of this.

Entirely scientific testing or not, the point remains that the liquid sensor is intended to indicate spills or dives into water, not a simple winter outing. [Moje Jabluszko via Slashdot]

It’s the 20 year anniversary of Adobe Photoshop and we’re feeling nostalgic about images that have made us laugh and cry. We’re also curious about what your favorite (and work safe!) photoshopped images are.

I’ll confess that some of my favorite images come from Fark.com and our Photoshop contests, but sometimes there are these random gems that keep you giggling or staring in awe. Let’s see those and please keep things safe for work.

To add an image to a comment, all you have to do is hit the little photo button on the entry box:

From there you can select whether to upload an image or add it from a URL. I recommend just uploading images as it’s a bit rude to hotlink someone’s images and it doesn’t really take you any longer to select an image file from your computer.

Image by Pierre Beteille

Wonder what happens in that weird #whitenoise section? I braved the insanity to bring you an overview of the laughable rumors, pancake fanboys, and something about a leggy dude in a dress. (Don’t worry, the picture’s hidden behind another link.)

I say that #whitenoise is insane, but really it’s a blast. There are silly commenters who make a game of guessing the heights of the Gizmodo staff members. (Hint: Frucci is surprisingly and pleasantly tall.) They play other games, too. Lots and lots of games.

But it’s not all about being silly. The #whitenoise regulars give great advice to anyone in need. (Though heads up, sometimes you’ll face some sarcasm before the truly good advice comes.) They even discuss deep bra-related issues.

Speaking of staying on your toes and watching out for sarcasm, #fakerumorthursday is a great weekly tradition in #whitenoise. Even when it causes panic with things like this:

In ever demanding response to using Sausages for stylii in Korea (and possibly elsewhere), Apple will announce next month that they too will create edible stylii made of meat. It will be extra shiny, and will never expire thanks to a new nano-polymer-bots. It is, however, expected to cost $199 for the 8 stick pack, and $399 for the 8 stick pack with international flavorings.

Scary, but I suppose it’s a nice way to get out the energy after a lazy #wednesdaybookclub meeting and before celebrating pancake-centric holidays.

Mmm. Speaking of food. #whitenoise is full of cooking suggestions and recipes. Guess it’s what those folks do between name-calling and name-making.

Those are some of the fun discussions going on this week, but I can’t end this without sharing my favorite part of #whitenoise which is one commenter’s crazy #mondayvent. Yeah, sometimes he pokes fun of us all, but after sharing pictures of himself in a dress, I’d say he’s earned it.

We’re proud of our comment system and commenter community. A great display of the sheer insanity and brilliance of the gals and boys who make it so wonderful is our open forum, #whitenoise. From Whitenoise is a regular feature to show the best of the best and the weirdest of the weird.

Picture by love♡janine

Photoshop 1.0 is old—20 years old to be exact—but it looks brand-spanking-new and fan-freakin’-tastic on an iPhone. Forget the newest version of the image editing software, because after seeing this teasing demo, you’d be happy with 1.0.

This demo is all we’re getting for now as the app was only made available to about 50 people who attended the Adobe Photoshop anniversary event, but that won’t keep us from feeling nostalgic and desperately wanting to edit images with it.

Adobe Photoshop 20th anniversary iPhone app created with Ansca Mobile’s Corona SDK

San Francisco, CA | February 18, 2010 | A limited-edition Adobe Photoshop 20th anniversary commemorative iPhone app was released to select attendees today at the Photoshop 20th Anniversary Event organized by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP).

The Photoshop 20th Anniversary app was spearheaded by Russell Brown, Adobe’s Senior Creative Director and one of the original Photoshop team members. The app itself is a replica of Photoshop 1.0, which Adobe debuted in 1990 exclusively on the Macintosh.

“I really wanted to do something special to commemorate 20 years of Photoshop, and the best thing I thought of was a nostalgic iPhone app,” said Brown. “Since I had less than two weeks to make it happen, I came to the best iPhone team I knew, who were able to use their Corona SDK to pull it off with utmost speed and faithfulness to the original product.”

To build the app, Brown enlisted the help of Ansca Mobile, creators of the Corona SDK. The Ansca team utilized Corona to bring the essence of the original Photoshop to the iPhone.

“With Photoshop 20th, we were able to bring a legendary product to the fastest growing platform today,” said Ansca Mobile co-founder Walter Luh. “Given the extremely short timeframe, we knew the only way to offer the image manipulation features from the original Photoshop was to use Corona.”

The Photoshop 20th Anniversary app incorporates the definitive feature of the program’s first release. Users can fully adjust the white/black levels and gamma of their photos, including separate red/green/blue channels, while working in a faithfully reproduced 1990-style Photoshop 1.0 interface – all from their iPhone.

Video of the Photoshop 20th Anniversary app being demoed by Brown himself can be seen at tinyurl.com/ps20app. The Corona SDK can be purchased for an introductory price of $99 directly from Ansca Mobile.

About Ansca Mobile

Ansca, Inc. (http://www.anscamobile.com) empowers anyone to create mobile applications. Led by an award-winning team of former Adobe mobile software engineers, Ansca Mobile creates innovative products which allow developers of all backgrounds to unlock their imagination. Ansca Mobile’s Corona platform enables designers, engineers, and non-traditional developers to quickly create and share applications designed for the Apple iPhone.

Yesterday we got excited over news that Avatar would be coming to 3D Blu-ray before the end of this year, but Fox wrote in to inform us that otherwise:

3D is in the conceptual stage and Avatar will not be out on 3D Blu-ray in November.

Guess that means a liveblog is out of the question, too.

Celebrity Cruises knows that you want to buy a MacBook and take a course on using iPhoto and iDVD while on a cruise That’s why they’re putting Apple-centric Internet cafes dubbed iLounges on their ships.

Inadvertently named after a blog, the iLounge is supposedly the first of it’s kind and will consist of three areas:

A series of 26 contemporary workstations where guests can check their e-mail, retain their social media connections, or print boarding passes; a retail space offering cruisers the opportunity to see and try out the latest MacBooks®, iPods® and accessories; and an enrichment center where certified staff will offer guests tips on Mac or iPod usage.

The Celebrity Eclipse will be the first ship to contain an iLounge and will set sail in April of this year, so schedule your cruise accordingly in order to sate any gadget addictions. [Celebrity Cruises]

Remember the Wobble iPhone app? It let you add some—ahem—rather realistic jiggle to your photos. Unfortunately it’s been removed from the App Store for “overtly sexual content” despite only using imported photos and not actually providing sexual content.

Apparently Wobble’s developer received this not-so-sexy note from Apple regarding the app a few days ago:

Dear Glentwood pty ltd,

The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately.

We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the necessary changes so that Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored) complies with our recent changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.

Sincerely,
iPhone App Review

Again, this app doesn’t actually appear to provide any content and only uses images you import into it, so its removal feels similar to that of ForChan, an innocent image browser. It’s a sad day when Apple not only forbids me from downloading pervy pictures, but also from making my own boob pictures jiggle. A sad day indeed. [Mobile Crunch]

Ever plugged your gadget into someone else’s computer for a quick charge and helplessly watched as your data started to sync? It’s an annoyance and wastes time, but with the Sync Blocker cable it’s optional.

The Sync Blocker cable is a USB to Micro USB cable with a small switch that allows you to choose whether you want to sync data or just charge your gadget. It goes for ten bucks which is about equal to regular cables which force syncing. [USB Fever via CrunchGear]

It’s not always about high-tech. Sometimes it’s the simplest of things that make our lives better and less painful. Like pot holders which keep our delicate fingers from getting burnt as we giggle over cheesy puns.

Gama-Go, lovers of wordplay and makers of the classy Keytars are behind the Pot holder. The kitchen product will set you back a mere $8—which has gotta be worth it for all the potential puns. [Gama-Go]

If you weren’t content with just seeing Avatar in 3D in theaters, don’t worry. According to James Cameron, we’ll be seeing a 3D Blu-Ray version of the movie before the end of this year:

We’ll do the Blu-ray and the standard def DVD April 22nd, that’s our plan as of right now, and that’ll be pretty much bare bones. And then we’ll do a value-added DVD and a 3-D Blu-ray in I think November sometime.

Oh, and I hear that Jason Chen might even do one of his infamous movie liveblogs if there’s a director’s commentary version. [WSJ via Engadget]

First we got to check out previews of iPhone apps through our browsers, now we can view a full listing of available apps the same way. Not sure if there’s much use for this feature, but it is nice to be able to browse through the app catalog without having to deal with the slowness of iTunes. [Apple via App Advice]

I don’t save any sensitive information or photos to flash drives—even if they’re encrypted. I’m just too paranoid about losing them. Corsair’s Flash Padlock 2 USB drive might change my mind though with it’s clever hardware based encryption.

The Padlock 2 not only has a physical PIN pad, but it also has 256-bit AES data encryption. Combined this makes it one rather secure 8GB flash drive. There’s no pricing information yet. [Corsair]

It may have taken the USPTO ten years to approve the original application, but they’ve finally granted TiVo a patent on “what looks like “season pass” prioritization, conflict resolution, and recording.”

The patent description covers:

The invention correlates an input schedule that tracks the free and occupied time slots for each input source with a space schedule that tracks all currently recorded programs and the programs that have been scheduled to be recorded in the future, to schedule new programs to record and resolve recording conflicts. A program is recorded if at all times between when the recording would be initiated and when it expires, sufficient space is available to hold it. Programs scheduled for recording based on inferred preferences automatically lose all conflict decisions. All scheduling conflicts are resolved as early as possible. Schedule conflicts resulting from the recording of aggregate objects are resolved using the preference weighting of the programs involved. A background scheduler attempts to schedule each preferred program in turn until the list of preferred programs is exhausted or no further opportunity to record is available. A preferred program is scheduled if and only if there are no conflicts with other scheduled programs.

Of course this may sound like something that most DVRs on the market at this time do and one might wonder if TiVo will get lawsuit happy, but Engadget’s resident legal nut Nilay Patel remarks that the patent is fairly narrow. So save the popcorn for the recorded shows instead of legal battles. [USPTO (Warning: PDF) via Zats Not Funny via Engadget]

Neurologists have built an ultrasound device which uses focused sound waves to destroy stroke-causing blood clots in brains. The procedure is non-invasive—requiring no drugs or surgery—and is already being tested on patients.

The machine and procedure allows doctors to “surround the head with an array of transducers that can focus ultrasound beams on a single spot in the brain without damaging the skull.” This means that diseased tissue could be destroyed without any collateral damage or risky surgery. [Technology Review via Pop Sci]