Author: Rosa Golijan

Maybe I’ve been watching too many Stargate reruns or maybe the AirMouse hand-mounted input device was really inspired by Goa’uld technology. Either way, I’m skeptical about its ability to prevent repetitive stress injuries.

The wireless device is made of a “lightweight durable fabric that seamlessly aligns itself with the ligaments of your hand and wrist” and will supposedly go for a full week without charging. If you want one though—be it for computing or for some evil deeds—you’ll have to wait six to twelve months and spend about $130. [AirMouse via Gizmag via Make]

Look at these bullets. They’re rubbery, less lethal,”almost incapable of penetrating the body,” and happen to resemble Koosh balls—a popular toy. Getting shot with these must be fun.

I’m kidding. I don’t really think getting shot by anything would be fun, but it’s really difficult to believe that “[t]his may be the most intelligent way to defend your family against home intruders.” Especially when the “WARNING: Keep out of reach of children” is distracting me.

Either way, rubber projectiles like these have been used by law enforcement agencies for ages, but now they’re available to consumers. I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing. [Wired]

Based on an SDK which doesn’t differentiate between the iPhone and iPad, folks at Engadget say they’ve confirmed that the iPhone OS 3.2 has “rudimentary” support for video calling and file downloading. Too soon for any excitement at all?

File downloading and local storage in the browser could be great. Just imagine finally being able to grab a song off the Internet and actually save it on your iPhone. The daydreamer in me wants to believe that files downloaded in such a manner would be accessible by all applications. I’d download a cheesy tune from an artist’s website, attach it to an email to my lover, upload it for posting on Twitter, and force my musical preferences onto the whole world without ever needing to set down my iPhone.

The suggestion of multitasking comes from the fact that there appears to be a function to run video calls in “either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen.” Engadget is interpreting this as meaning that you’ll be able to “chat and do other things at the same time.” We suspect that it’s more likely that this function is related to the manner in which a new call comes in. Just as a contact’s picture can pop up with a call, a video chat could begin in partial-screen mode. Debate about the actual potential features aside, what’s the point of video chat capabilities in devices without front-facing cameras anyway?

With all this way-too-early excitement, an important thing to keep in mind is that the SDK this information is being pulled from is the same for the iPhone as it is for the iPad. It’s tough to tell which features would apply to which device. That and the fact we’re talking about an SDK and potential options. There’s no guarantee that we’ll see any of this in the iPhone OS 4.0. Or ever. [Engadget]

As if there weren’t enough iPad jokes already, it turns out that there’s a Japanese product—a high-tech adult diaper—called the Aipad. You can guess the pronunciation by the fact that I’m even writing about this.

The Aipad has apparently been around for a while and has “2 lines of aluminium [which] can be connected by clip with a small sensor unit. When the diaper soaked, the sensor notifies it via radio waves.” Basically it lets people or their caretakers know when it’s time for a diaper change.

Oh, and according to Jason, “ai” means “love” in Japanese. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be some sort of comfort or not. [Aipad—Warning: PDF via Asiajin]

There are times when I let my voicemail fill up to the point of callers getting the “Sorry. Mailbox is full. Please try again.” message. This is why.

Click on the image for a closer look.

Look, I’ll return missed calls even if you don’t command me to do so, I promise. Unless you’re annoying. [Doghouse Diaries]

Russia’s been testing its new T-50 “Sukhhoi” stealth fighter jets and so far they’re a success. This video shows the first test flight and is supposedly also the very first time the public is getting to see the bird.

With the T-50’s “basic specs” including “greater agility, sustained supersonic-flight capability in non-afterburning mode, low radar visibility, low heat signature, as well as enhanced take-off and landing performance,” I wonder what the upgrade options are. Either way, this successful test flight makes Russia the only country aside from the United States to have fifth-generation fighters—if you don’t count the Joint Strike Fighter and it’s multi-country financial backing. [Ria Novosti]

Matthew Delorey’s business idea was to sell hacked Comcast modems which allow free Internet access. He just forgot to avoid FBI agents, conspiracy, wire fraud, and $250,000 fines. Now he may get 20 years in prison to rethink things.

Delorey wasn’t doing anything insanely difficult. He was just modifying modems’ MAC addresses to match those of modems whose owners were old-fashioned and actually paying for Internet access. He would’ve probably gotten away with selling them for a while longer had some of his buyers not been undercover FBI agents. Whoops.

The resulting conspiracy and wire fraud charges held up in federal court and a ridiculously huge fine and prison sentence were suggested. Yeah, the guy’s a criminal—a stupid one—but come on. 20 years and $250K are just a bit overboard. I hope the final sentence and fine are a bit more reasonable. [Computer World via Crunch Gear]

Pictured modem is probably not one of the hacked ones. It’s a picture by chaunceydavis818

To rally developers into searching for potential bugs in its Chrome browser, Google is offering $500-$1337 incentives for reporting vulnerabilities. The first person to file each bug using the Chromium Bug Tracker will be eligible for the bounty.

Google’s approach is similar to what Mozilla has done in the past and frankly, I think it’s a great way to reward the developer community. [Read Write Web]

We’ve heard songs which were gradually put together by people around the world before, but this particular one is the result of a “virtual jam session.” And it’s simply beautiful.

Scientists have discovered that they can coax a tobacco plant into growing temporary solar cells by injecting it with a genetically engineered virus. Freaky, but the process may provide us with cheaper synthetic photovoltaic cells once quirks are sorted out.

At a quick glance, “hacking” tobacco plants to grow these solar cells sounds like it’s full of benefits:

Using live organisms to create synthetic solar cells has several advantages over traditionally made solar panels. No environmentally toxic chemicals are required to make biologically derived solar cells, unlike traditional solar cells. Growing solar cells in tobacco plants could put farmers back to work harvesting an annual crop of solar cells.

There’s just one rather big catch:

[S]cientists haven’t even demonstrated that the cells can turn light into electrical or chemical energy yet. But they hope to do soon.

They can grow the cells, but they can’t do too much with them yet. Geez. Let’s hope they get around to sorting that part out, because until that happens this will be yet another way-too-good-to-be-used-in-real-life concept. While waiting around for that to happen though, you can read more about the details of the process over at Discovery and Treehugger. [Discovery via Treehugger]

Yesterday a change to the iPhone SDK allowed for VoIP over 3G and we heard about the first app which’ll offer the functionality. Today another iPhone app, Fring, has begun allowing video and voice calls using Skype over 3G.

You don’t need to update your version of the Fring app as it was simply a matter of Apple lifting some restrictions on its end. You can now freely make Skype calls without being connected through Wi-Fi—assuming you’ve got decent reception.

Still no word on when we’ll get an official app from Skype though. [Fring via Pocket Lint via Engadget]

It’s tough to pitch a perfect baseball game. It’s supposedly even tougher to pitch a perfect videogame. Or at least so we’re told by 2KSports who’s offering $1 million to the first person to do it.

Apparently all you need to do aside from mastering Major League Baseball 2K10 on either an XBox 360 or PS3 is to submit recorded proof of your perfect game to 2K Sports. Their folks will then somehow verify the authenticity of your achievement and send you a check for a million if you’re the first success story. It’s a nice marketing gimmick, but part of me suspects that there’ll be quite a few individuals who’ll spend weeks attempting to perfect their virtual baseball skills. [2KSports via Neowin]

The watch this guy’s wearing was made by Armatix, the same company who designed his high-tech gun. Poor fellow can’t ditch the ugly accessory though, because the $10,000 weapon won’t fire without it.

Basically the gun is disarmed and a red LED lights up unless the corresponding watch is close enough to send a wireless signal. While I really don’t see a high demand for it, Armatix’s .22cal weapon will be shipping next month for 7,000 euro, which is just under 10k in Washingtons. The watch is probably included. [Wired]

The folks at the national Ignition Facility decided to demonstrate fusion by focusing the energy of 192 super powerful lasers onto a tiny target. They certainly proved their concept by producing a one megajoule laser shot. Yeah, that’s pretty powerful.

This demonstration is being proclaimed as a “key step towards nuclear fusion” by the National Nuclear Security Administration. After all, this is apparently the first time such a level of laser energy was reached. More experiments will occur in the summer of this year, but you can start with the pewpew jokes now. [Physorg]

Laser beam pictured is not the 1 megajoule beam, instead it’s a picture by Daily Galaxy

Dell’s Adamo is a beautiful, slender machine with girly guts. But now it’s coaxing you to ignore the sissy insides with its distracting new $999 base price tag.

If you prefer your Adamo more beefed up, there’s always the more powerful Desire model, but that one will run you about $1800. Yikes, at least the basemodel, Admire, is now a reasonably cheap catch. [Dell via Engadget]

Finally! Someone took those “Slate of the Union” jokes seriously and made a ridiculous yet kinda hilarious mash-up of President Obama’s State of the Union address and the iPad presentation. [Barely Political via Get Whirled]

As soon as I saw Samsung’s BD-C6900 3D Blu-Ray player, I desperately wanted to preorder one—awkward product name aside. $400 just seems like a small price to pay for 3D-induced headaches in my very own living room.

There are plenty of other Samsung products popping up for preorder on Amazon today, such as the BD-C6500 with a price $300 and a boot-time of only 15 seconds—though that player is limited to two dimensions. Like my TV. [Amazon via 3D-Display-Info via Engadget]

The Withings scale is great. It keeps track of your weight, BMI, and more to graph everything for an at-a-glance review of how fat you’re getting. Now it’s got Google Health integration for better—and slightly creepier—health records.

The Google Health service has been around for a while and allows you to maintain an online health profile. In theory this would aid doctors and family members in keeping track of your health history. By integrating a device like the Withings scale, the service could theoretically be used to help keep a health or fitness plan on track. After all, it’s kinda tough to fib if your scale tells on you—not only to Twitter, but to Google and your doctor.

Withings Announces Integration with Google Health for its WiFi Connected Body Scale

Issy-les-Moulineaux, France – January 28, 2010 — Today, Withings, maker of the world’s first WiFi connected personal scale, is announcing its integration with the Google Health service. As of today, the Withings WiFi Body Scale can provide updates to a user’s Google Health profile wirelessly in real-time using its built-in WiFi connection.

Google Health, launched last year, is a personal health record that allows users to store, organize, and manage health information all in one place. It organizes a user’s health information and allows them to share that information with family members, caregivers and doctors. Now, the scale will automatically update the user’s weight and fat mass to their Google Health profile.

“It’s exciting to be one of the early hardware devices to integrate with the Google Health service,” said Cedric Hutchings, Withings General Manager. “Keeping your doctors and caregivers informed on all aspects of your health is important in maintaining a consistent health plan, so being part of Google Health’s effort to make this possible is thrilling.”

The WiFi Body Scale is a unique product that automatically records the user’s body weight, lean & fat mass, and calculated body mass index (BMI) to his/her secure webpage and/or free Withings iPhone application, WiScale [more info on the scale here]. Also, if enabled by the user, the scale can automatically “Tweet” information in order to get motivation from the user’s followers [more info on that feature here].

The scale is currently available on www.withings.com for $159.00 USD. For more information on Withings, go to www.withings.com . To request additional information or images of the WiFi Body Scale, please contact PR representative Jessica Darrican at (305) 576-1171 ext.16 or [email protected].

About Withings:

Withings is a French start-up established by three executives from the technology and telecom industry. With a focus on the innovation and design for everyday products, Withings introduced in September 2009 its first-of-its-kind WiFi Bodyscale in the United States. For more information on Withings, visit www.withings.com.

[Withings]

Today’s remainders are the leftovers tidbits from the big iPad day such as a comparison between Judas and the Apple device, ownership of ipad dot com, imaginary cameras, and silly Steve’s price switcheroo.

Judas, Brutus, and the iPad

The fantastic Murray the Nut decided to share his feelings about the Apple iPad in comic form. I’m not sure if I agree about feeling betrayed, but I somehow do feel a bit letdown after all the crazy rumors that flew around before the event.

I’ll completely forgive Apple when they build an iPad with a real kickstand though. [Murray the Nut]

iPad Dot Com

Curiously enough, it seems that Apple doesn’t own any of the top level domains for the iPad. From iPad.com to iPad.net, Pad.biz, Pad.info, iPad.fr, iPad.de—deep breath—iPad.es, iPad.eu, iPad.se, iPad.cn…the list goes on and on. TechCrunch points out that Apple also doesn’t own iBook.com, iBooks.com, iBookstore.com or any variations of those domains.

It’s rather odd that the company didn’t snatch up these rather significant domains and it’ll be interesting to see whether money or court papers will be exchanged in the process of Apple acquiring them. [Tech Crunch]

Camera, What Camera?

To the surprise and dismay of many, the Apple iPad does not have a built-in camera. While we were all crying about this fact, some clever devs dug through the iPad emulator included in the SDK tools and noticed that there appears to be a mysterious “add photo” button in the iPad’s contacts application.

Maybe this was intended for a built-in camera which was killed or maybe it’ll work with some kind of accessory, who knows? I’m secretly hoping that there’ll be a surprise secret feature when the iPad launches. [Crunch Gear]

What Happened to the $499 Price Tag

$499 flashed across the screen and a handful of people scowled and growled as everyone else cheered. Those people had apparently been “working with Apple on iPad-related products and services” and were told that the price would be one hundred buckaroos less. That’d be “low enough to stupefy the world and nuke the netbook market,” as Ryan Tate puts it.

No one knows what happened with the pricing scheme, but we’d sure like any info if you have it. Was there really a talk of a different price or was that just a rumor wrapped around speculation encased in excitement? [Gawker]

An update to the iPhone developer SDK brings us VoIP calls over cellular networks. Few iPhone applications have that feature built-in, but it won’t be long before updates come. Will we get to use this feature on the iPad though?

We know that the Apple iPad has all the tools needed for VoIP calling—a built-in microphone, speaker, 3G, Wi-Fi, and apps—and now it’s starting to feel a lot more likely that we’ll get to actually use these features and look awkward while calling people.

Apple Lifts 3G VoIP Restrictions, iCall with 3G Support Available Immediately

iCall VoIP services for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch are now available for use over 3G networks such as AT&T wireless.

GREENWICH, Conn., Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ — Apple Computer, Inc. has updated the iPhone developer SDK to allow VoIP over cellular networks. iCall is the first and only VoIP application that functions on the iPhone and iPod Touch over cellular 3G networks.

iCall is a market leader in desktop and mobile-based desktop calling platforms, including its highly popular version for the Apple iPhone. Until today, restrictions imposed on developers prohibited VoIP functionality on any 3G network.

VoIP on the iPhone has been the source of many debates with companies such as Google being denied access to the platform and the FCC inquiring as to the restrictions in the Apple App Store; iCall is one of the few VoIP applications that has been permitted by Apple to operate on the iPhone platform.

With the latest revisions Apple has made to the iPhone developer agreement and Software Development Kit, iCall for the iPhone and iPod Touch now enabled unrestricted free local and long distance calling over 3G data networks. iCall with support for VoIP over 3G networks is now available in the App Store for download. iCall is the first and only VoIP application available for the iPhone platform that allows use over 3G networks. iCall for the iPhone and iPod Touch may now be downloaded from the App Store here.

iCall CEO Arlo Gilbert is quoted as saying, “I applaud Apple’s decision to allow iCall to extend its functionality beyond Wi-Fi and onto the 3G networks. This heralds a new era for VoIP applications on mobile platforms, especially for iCall and our free calling model. I hope that now more developers will begin using our VoIP as a platform to integrate VoIP into their applications.”

About iCall, Inc.:
iCall is a privately held company providing a free and low-cost VoIP calling platform that is currently available for your desktop PC, iPhone and iPod Touch. iCall saves consumers money on phone calling through ad-supported calling.

iCall was founded in 2005 by Arlo Gilbert and Andy Muldowney with the goal of providing low and no-cost calling services to consumers. In January 2006, iCall first released its iCall Free Calling desktop application. iCall’s free calling network now boasts over more than 4 million unique downloads.
In addition to consumer products, iCall offers wholesale VoIP solutions and a developer platform through iCall Carrier Services. iCall’s private network carries over 350 million minutes of voice traffic per month to destinations around the globe.

[PR Newswire]