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Filed under: Hardware, OS, Software, Odds and ends, Snow Leopard

We’re well into 2010 (OK, 4 days), but there’s still a few more lists and “top tens” of the last decade to clean up. One of the more interesting Apple-related wrapups is this list by Fraser Spiers, showing off Apple’s best technical feats of the past decade. There’s certainly tons of technical innovations by Apple in “the naughties” to choose from — it was the decade of the iPod and the iPhone. But Spiers’ list actually avoids direct mention of either of those, instead choosing to highlight some more Mac-based technical feats. Bonjour is in there, as is the great Time Machine and Snow Leopard’s Grand Central Dispatch system. Webkit is probably an obvious choice, given all the places it’s shown up in Apple’s various releases.

And there are some more interesting picks on the list as well, including Aperture, the underrated Exposé, and even the unibody laptop design. Some might argue that a few of these aren’t necessarily Apple’s innovations (I wouldn’t necessarily credit them with DVD burning and encoding in the 2000s), but it’s true that all of these were brought into a widespread, acclaimed form by Apple. If nothing else, a list like this shows just how much Apple has done for personal computing in the last ten years — we tend to think first, these days, of their handheld accomplishments, but they’ve had plenty of other technical feats as well.

[via Michael Tsai]

TUAWApple’s top technical feats of the decade originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Peripherals, iPhone

In 2007 I thought that my 8GB iPhone was as large as I would ever need. Two and a half years later and I’ve already filled up the 16GB storage of my iPhone 3GS. Enter AirStash, an expandable flash drive (via SD memory) that you will be able to access from your iPhone. Simply plug AirStash into your Mac, drag and drop some files to the mounted volume, and head then out the door with AirStash and iPhone in your pocket.

How the technology works is currently unclear (expect to see a demo at CES 2010), but a logical solution would be that AirStash automatically syncs its contents with an off-site server — similar to what Dropbox does today. If it truly is as portable as that, it will obviate Dropbox’s (and MobileMe’s) need to install any client software if you are, for instance, using a friend’s computer. Personally, I’d like to see Apple purchase Dropbox and turn MobileMe’s cloud storage into something usable; but in the interim, I’m excited by the prospect that AirStash provides.

[via Engadget]

TUAWAirstash brings wireless storage to iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fire up your updaters (after you uninstall patches and themes, natch), for Palm has pushed out webOS 1.3.5.1 the Pre and Pixi on Sprint. The update is for one purpose and one purpose only, if the release notes are to be believed: fixing that nasty Exchange 2010 bug we’ve been telling you about and that Palm acknowledged earlier.

This release fixes an issue in which the Calendar app displayed no events for any account after a user synchronized Calendar with an Exchange account. With this update, Calendar events now appear correctly after an Exchange sync.

Good on you, Palm, for the quick turnaround on a critical bug. Next time, though, let’s leave the "bug / quick-turn-around" step out, mmkay? This  wasn’t the first time we saw Exchange busted (or the second, even), let’s make sure it was the last.

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

[Thanks, Joe]

Google Nexus One support page goes live, quickly dies again originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case there was any sliver of doubt that the so-called LX610 Lotus Elite from LG was a real device ready to fill the original Lotus’ unusually wide shoes on Sprint, feast your eyes on this: a giant billboard covering the side of a Las Vegas hotel pimping the Chocolate Touch, the eXpo, and — yes, that’s right — the Lotus Elite. To be fair, there’s no name mentioned here, but we’ve got a feeling it’s right considering the rest of the intel has ended up panning out. Stay tuned.

LG Lotus Elite’s appearance on a billboard suggests it’s probably real originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tila Tequila (real name: Tila Nguyen), 28, confirmed the tragic news on her Twitter Monday evening:

“Everyone please pray 4 my Wifey Casey Johnson. She has passed away. Thank u for all ur love and support but I will be offline to be w family”

See this touching tribute to other celebs who passed away before their time

Johnson was also mother to a three year-old girl, Ava. Johnson adopted Ava in Kazakhstan in 2007, but the little girl is now in the custody of Johnson’s mother, Sale Johnson, in Manhattan.

Tila spoke to UsMagazine.com Dec. 22 about her relationship with Johnson. “She’s just the most beautiful person I’ve ever met.” The reality star said they gotten engaged “a couple weeks ago,” and that she planned to adopt young Ava.
Socialite CASEY JOHNSON has died, aged 30.
The body of the heiress to the Johnson & Johnson empire was discovered on Monday morning (04Jan10) in Los Angeles.
The tragic news comes just weeks after Johnson was arrested for grand theft.
She hit the headlines in December (09) when bisexual reality TV star Tila Tequila announced she was engaged to Johnson.
Details about the heiress’ death were not available as WENN went to press.

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Ooh hello! Photo Rumors has come across what appear to be the specs of Panasonic’s six newest cameras along with their pictures. And they’re as lovely as can be.

The line up includes the Lumix FP1, FP3, F3, FH3, and FH20—a bunch of ugly names for some pretty decent cameras—several of which boast that they’re ultra-compact and include an “advanced Venus Engine IV image processor.” Check Photo Rumors for more on the specs and check back here for more once we check these babies out at CES. [Photo Rumors]

I don’t know what’s going on over at Samsung, but as PMPs die, you’ve got to come up with some way to differentiate your product—and I guess a see-through screen is as good a way as any.

Samsung’s PMPs are among the best out there—I love the P3—but their design has been only slightly quirky in the past. All the crumbly gingerbread cookie widgets in the world wouldn’t compare to the utter Korean weirdness going on in the IceTouch (which recalls the SE Pureness) and the MyFit.

The IceTouch is a 16GB player with a 2-inch AMOLED touchscreen, but what a freaking weird touchscreen it is. First, it looks like it has a sliding blue sheath of some kind that covers the touchscreen. Why? Who knwos? But Samsung didn’t stop there—the screen is transparent. The player itself isn’t made of plastic or metal, but tempered glass, and features Samsung’s usual sound enhancements and top-of-its-class video compatibility. It also has (eep) a brand of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI called Sweep. You might remember TouchWiz from when it thoughtlessly murdered any hope the Omnia II had. Samsung’s PMPs have mostly escaped TouchWiz’s sinister, all-reaching grasp, and hopefully the IceTouch survives as well.

Pricing and availability haven’t been announced yet. [Samsung]

IceTouch 16GB Transparent AMOLED Touch-Screen MP3 Player

In addition to the full-color transparent AMOLED touch screen, the IceTouch features a high-performance CPU and Samsung’s own “TouchWiz Sweep” interface, which is designed to provide a comfortable grip and give users new options for interacting with their player.

Audio purists will appreciate the device’s new 5.1-channel sound enhancement technology and support for the MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, AAC, M4A, WAV and MP3HD audio codecs, and video hounds will love being able to playback MPEG4, WMV, H.264, Xvid and Divx files. The player also continually analyzes and adjusts audio levels to reflect the producer’s intended sound.

The AMOLED screen casing is constructed using a dual-injection molding process and tempered glass and results in a smooth, durable and scratch-proof surface that is aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable to the touch. The IceTouch, which comes in white, can also be individually customized through separately sold color skins in pink, blue, purple and gray.

My favorite books have something very special between their pages: Inscriptions and autographs. Unfortunately, that special quality can’t be replicated with ebooks or readers. Not exactly, at least, but Danie Ware has an idea that might almost work.

Danie Ware, a PR gal for comic book store Forbidden Planet, describes her plan to capture the collectible nature of old-fashioned books with readers as follows:

Removable, collectable vinyl covers – plain, a selection of colours, maybe they can be stylised by your favourite art toy designer – but ultimately, they’re there to collect signatures. Take one to a Convention, keep it on you, it protects your Kindle, it looks cool – and you get to show off all the autographs/sketches you’ve collected.

Clever idea, but then you’re left with a shelf full of book covers and at that point you might consider collecting regular books again. It’s a workable solution, but still not perfect. How will autograph collectors cope in the age of ebooks? Or will they just never make the jump from paper to e-ink? [Danie Ware via Futurismic]

Photo by UggBoy

The MyFit is a pretty good idea taken unexpectedly to the extreme. A workout player, sure, that’s a good idea. But wait, this doesn’t just count calories, it measures your fat and forcibly tells you to drink water.

The MyFit is an 8GB workout player, and while it likely won’t be cheap or durable enough to displace the Sansa Clip+ as my workout player of choice, it’s definitely more feature-packed. It has fat and stress sensors, a customizable exercise management program that selects music based on workout, calorie counter and jogging control—all great. But it also has a water intake manager to tell you when to take a water break, and something about “smoking cessation,” presumably to yell at you for smoking. How does it know if you smoke? Who knows? As a PMP, it’s got the usual attributes, including an FM radio and decent codec support. It’ll be available sometime in the first half of 2010, and no price has yet been announced. [Samsung]

MyFit Wellness Promoting MP3 Player

As the world’s first portable media player to integrate wellness management tools, such as stress and body fat levels and customized workout guides, MyFit helps users achieve wellness while enjoying their favorite music tracks. MyFit transcends basic playback of music and videos and enters the realm of wellness information and monitoring. Its unique features reflect the functional and stylistic nature of music enthusiasts while incorporating important applications and information for a fully-customizable device that encourages a healthy lifestyle. Music can be collected into a jogging playlist and a simple Tapping Control Jogging mode makes it easy to change to the next song without interrupting a workout.

Breaking ground with the world’s first fat and stress sensors located on the top of the player, MyFit measures a user’s wellness indicators and contains an exercise management program to keep people on target with their fitness goals. A built-in accelerometer automatically tracks calories burned while jogging, and users can record their caloric consumption per meal with the included food calorie database. Additional wellness applications built into the MyFit include a water intake manager and smoking cessation utility.

But more than helping to make consumers healthier, MyFit is a full-featured portable music player that features an FM radio tuner and Samsung’s DNSe 3.0 sound enhancement technology, which helps to overcome the inefficiencies and limitations of compressed audio files and generate a more realistic stereo sound. Media playback includes high quality compressed and lossless audio formats, such as MP3, WMA, OGG, and AAC, as well as MPEG4 and WMV video formats.

In 1995 the Garden Writers Association of America initiated the Plant A Row for the Hungry (PAR) 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Over the last 15 years of PAR, gardeners in the U.S. and Canada along with plenty of volunteers have made donating over 14 million pounds of produce possible.

The Plant A Row program encourages gardeners to grow an extra row in their personal garden or community garden plot then donate that row to local soup kitchens and food pantries serving the homeless and hungry. You can plant any foods you like in your row then simply deliver the harvest to a local food agency in your area.

Businesses can take it one step further and sponsor PAR, contribute “in-kind” donations or even organize a company-wide PAR campaign. Individuals can also organize bigger efforts in their community with the local campaign brochure.

Right now, many garden companies are supporting the 2010 campaign with special seed deals. Territorial Seed, for example is giving away one free “plant a row” package of carrot seeds with all 2010 purchases. Check with other garden and seed shops to see if they’re offering free seeds as well.

Visit Plant A Row for the Hungry for more info.

Post from: Blisstree

Plant A Row for the Hungry Campaign

State-versus-state competition is unhealthy

Editor, The Times:

Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon lays out a case for Washington being more business friendly to create jobs [“How to keep Washington jobs from flying south — again,” Opinion, Jan. 3]. To do this he suggests less costly unemployment insurance for businesses.

Thank goodness the state Legislature repealed such reductions in 2005 or the many using that insurance now would be in far more desperate circumstances. I challenge Reardon to work federally and to not enlarge the already toxic state-against-state competition.

He says Washington ought to be the cheapest state for business and not the most expensive. That’s an untenable moving target! What if the thinking got bigger? What if federal law started to end the South Carolina versus Washington kind of battles for business?

Maybe relocating businesses ought to pay the state they threaten to depart — perhaps reinvesting tax credits accrued — the way a baseball team must compensate a competitor when it acquires a player from that team. Maybe what business is already doing ought to influence how to level the playing field so that no state, and I mean no state, is left adrift.

— Rev. Bill Kirlin-Hackett, Bellevue

Federal statute worsens problems

Why is it that all of the public officials who get media space or time to decry what Aaron Reardon refers to as “Washington jobs from flying south,” without exception, neglect to even mention the transcendent federal statutory abomination that provides corporate management with the irresistible motivation to move south? The fact that Reardon uses the word “south” in the headline of his article suggests that perhaps he does not understand that the phrase he should use is “right-to-work state.”

Section 14(b) of the Taft Hartley Act is a 44 word provision that was inserted into the act in 1947 by a group of conservative Republicans and Dixiecrat Democrats whose motives were merely to inhibit the growth of the American Labor Movement. Since 1947, 14(b) has morphed into a terribly unfair advantage that allows each state to enact a law that guarantees to employers an employment environment where compensation will be low, benefits minuscule and employees will have no enforceable rights.

It is urgent that a debate be ignited to illuminate the harmfulness of Section 14(b) and the feasibility of its repeal.

— Daniel M. Mahoney, Mercer Island

Obvious step: Obama needs to fulfill $2 billion promise

Thank you for Hal Bernton’s story about Julia Bolz and her struggle to help Afghan girls get an education [“Building a future for girls amid war,” page one, Jan. 3]. The story ends with the haunting quote: “Now, what do we do?”

Given that there are more than 75 million primary-school-aged kids and more than 225 million secondary-school-aged kids around the world who are not in school, the first step seems obvious. Saudi Arabia has been happy to fund Madrassas — religious schools teaching radical fundamentalism and developing Jihadists. While the President has committed 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion, he has yet to fulfill his promise to begin a Global Fund for Education at a cost of just $2 billion.

That fund would be supported by the developing world and help bring education to kids — particularly girls — who currently have no chance for education and no hope for the future. This would be money well spent and a chance to make a long term difference in the communities and countries benefiting from educated children.

— Bob Dickerson, Seattle

Seattle children educated as well

Thanks for the excellent article about Julie Bolz and her efforts to build schools in Afghanistan. As a parent of two children who became involved in Julie’s project through her collaboration with Coe School, I can tell you that the children in Afghanistan are not the only ones being educated through her efforts. Seattle children have been fundamentally changed by knowing Julie and the students in Afghanistan she has introduced them to.

Despite Julie’s efforts, it remains difficult for our children to comprehend that 75 million children around the world have never set foot in a primary school and may never will. Afghanistan is a prime example of the ways in which a largely uneducated population is easily recruited for terrorist activities and the country stagnates economically without an educated work force.

It is in the United States’ best interests to fund primary education and we can do so by creating a Global Fund for Education, much like the fund that has been successful in coordinating efforts of developed nations to address the AIDS epidemic. Funding global education isn’t a matter of charity. It’s about creating the kind of stability that allows our children — and all children — a chance to coexist and prosper.

— Marsha Hedrick, Seattle

Overcrowded classrooms a problem

Hal Bernton’s compelling article makes the case why a Global Fund for Education is needed. In my visit to Kenya this fall, I observed many classrooms with 60 to 80 students.

During the election campaign, President Obama pledged to budget $2 billion for a Global Fund for Education and catalyze a global movement. This focus on education is critical if we are serious about eliminating poverty, extremism and injustice.

— Linwood Carlson, Seattle

Apparently the University of North Dakota thinks that you should spend four years in flight school and then never actually get off the ground. That’s because they’re offering a new degree in flying UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles.

The four-year undergraduate program already enrolled its first 12 students and there’s even talk of a graduate program being started up. Whatever happened to plain ol’ regular pilot school? [Discovery via Pop Sci]