RIP Steve Jobs
Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks – including death itself. His speech never fails to inspire me, and with his recent passing away it’s never been more poignant. RIP Steve Jobs.
New Apple Office Space – Cupertino
Steven Jobs the CEO and founder of Apple presented Apple’s plans for their new office complex to the Cupertino City Council. The new Apple office space will remain in Cupertino and will be of epic proportions. It is intended to hold all 12,000 of Apple’s employees and will draw inspiration from the form of a spaceship. Apple purchased about 100 acres from Hewlett Packard in 2010 and added it to the 50 adjacent acres it already owned.
Apple plans for 80 per cent of the area to be landscaped and for the campus to have its own energy centre as a main power source, as well as an auditorium and research and development centre. Apologise for the grainy pictures but that’s the best out at the moment.
Interesting facts about the future Apple campus:
- The building will function as its own power source
- Most of the parking will be underground
- There is a courtyard in the middle and curved glass all the way around
- the building will be four stories high
- Part of the campus will be an auditorium, fitness centre and R & D buildings
- Cafeterias will seat 3,000 people at the same time
The new Apple office space
Apple's current office space
The new Apple building has been compared to the British intelligence head office in Cheltenham
Cool iPhone App
If you own an Apple iPhone you will understand the benefit of this concept app by Andreas Hellqvist. His idea is to, in my opinion, vastly improve the way notifications can be managed within Apple’s iOS.
“Hellqvist proposes a method of handling the apps that would use all existing iOS design elements, but would get rid of the annoying, one-at-a-time method of displaying and dealing with notifications. Rather than having to deal with each notification in each app, all notifications could be centralized within a single “notifications” app – much as they are aggregated on Android and put onto a separate screen.”
iPad 2 3D Display
As we recently reported, the new iPad 2 has been mounted with a front facing camera. Apart from allowing individuals to video chat with ease, Apple also gave developers access to the camera in the hope that they create new and exciting apps and games.
With such access a team of researchers at the Grenoble Informatics Laboratory in France have recently developed a 3-D style interface for the iPad 2. The researchers use the camera to track the user’s gaze, allowing the iPad to change the image on the tablet’s display to shift its perspective. They call this a “spatially-aware mobile display.”
HTC Flyer
HTC has just revealed the HTC Flyer which is rumored to go on sale as early as April. There have been reports that the tablet will cost in the regions of £600, but this is just speculation as no official announcement has been made. What’s more, it’s not uncommon for prices to change pre-launch.
So with the iPad 2 already out in the USA, and soon to be out in the UK, how does the HTC Flyer compare? Can it compete with the current king of tablets?
The HTC Flyer has a 7-inch Super LCD touch screen, one which is stylus enabled. The tablet will also have digital ink technology which will allow you to take notes and draw straight onto the tablet, a very innovative feature which distinguishes it from competitors. The HTC Flyer also has the advantage of supporting flash and allowing more user customization by running Google’s Android operating system. It will also have a standard USB port.
HTC Flyer Spec
- CUP Speed – 1.5 GHz
- Memory
- 32GB internal storage (can be expanded via the microSD slot)
- 1GB Ram.
- USB – the HTC Flyer will feature a USB, something which is lacking in the Apple iPad.
- Camera
- 5 megapixal rear camera with auto focus
- 1.3 megapixel front camera
Video
Check out this short teaser video for a more interactive look.
Apple iPad 2
Apple has finally unveiled the much talked about iPad 2, with the new device getting some substantial upgrades. There were many rumours flying around as to what new features the device will have, and despite big improvements there are those that are still slightly disappointed. Personally I think the new iPad 2 is a great improvement and that this version should have been the first one Apple came out with!
The iPad 2 will be thinner, at only 0.34inches, with major upgrades to the back camera and an inclusion of a front one. The battery is a 25 watt- hour rechargeable lithium-polymer which lasts up to 10 hours for Wi-Fi surfing or 9 hours of 3G surfing. It will be available in the usual 16gb, 32gb and 64gb storage capacity and feature a Wi-Fi only or 3G version.
The new iPad 2 will be available March 11th in the United States and March 26th everywhere else.
Main Specs
Display:
- Same as the old iPad, it will be 9.7inch with a resolution of 1024×768.
- Dissapppointing that the iPad 2 won’t have the Retina display technology which has proven so popular on the iPhone 4
Chip:
- 1Ghz dual-core A5 Chip.
- The graphics on the iPad 2 are supposedly 9x that of the current model. This promises to open up new gaming potential.
Camera
- Back Camera – HD video recording and 5x digital zoom.
- Front Camera – VGA Video Recording and FaceTime enabled.
Sensors
- Three-axis gyro technology, as seen in the iPhone 4.
Skype Video Calling for iPhone
Skype has just announced the addition of video calling for the iPhone Skype app. The app has been updated and is a very popular free app in the Apple App Store, working on the the iPhone, iPad and iPod devices which connect over WiFi or 3G connections. The front and rear camera on the iPhone 4 makes this a great tool for conducting business calls on your iPhone.
Is it better than Apple’s FaceTime? Facetime requires a WiFi connection, but Skype supports Skype to Skype video calls over both WiFi and 3G, and works equally well over both connections. FaceTime also requires that both parties be on an iPhone, but Skype only needs a Skype account, allowing you to connect with desktop users along with your iPhone friends. What are your views on the new Skype app?
The iPad Pillow
The iPad pillow was created by the Dutch designer Stein Bakker in an attempt to make tablets more ergonomically friendly. Though tablets allow us the freedom to work and play on the go, offering the ultimate in portability, they are often difficult to use for long periods of time. Therefore the iPad pillow seeks to solve this problem by allowing you to view your iPad in various different angles without having to hold onto it continuously. The pillow also has a slot to place your iPad into, allowing for the upright placement of the device – perfect for presentations or movie watching. The iPad pillow costs around £30.
The New MacBook Air
Apple released its new Macbook Air on the 20 October. At its thickest point it is .68-inch and weighs just 2.9lbs. It uses a complete unibody aluminum construction, has a full sized keyboard, full sized glass trackpad which is touch enabled, 13.3-inch LED display (1440×900), Core 2 Duo processor (1.86GHz or 2.13GHz ) , NVIDIA GeForce 320m and Facetime camera. Apple is also releasing a 11.6-inch version which weighs just 2.3lbs – the specifications are comparable yet the screen has a 1366×768 resolution.
The old MacBook Air was 0.76-inches thick and weighed 3lbs. Battery life on the new machine is 5 hours for the 11.6-inch model, and around 7 on the 13.3-inch model. There is no hard drive or optical drive – Apple has moved to flash storage – solid state. This means “instant on”.
The release of this new product reaffirms the importance of the Macbook to Apple. It was disclosed today that Macbook sales account for around 33% of Apples profits, at around $22 billion per year. To put this into perspective, if the Macbook was a standalone company of its own it would be 110 on the Fortune 500 list!
Check out this video for more information:
Notepods are iPod Notepads
Son, since you’ve been so good in school this year and done all your chores I’ve decided to get you an iPod- notepad. “Dad you suck”. “Work on your penmanship, kid. Here’s an expensive pen I’ll give you as a gift that you’ll never use”. “Thanks Dad. Mommmmmm, can I get an iPod? Puhhlease.”
Really as far as notebooks good, these are pretty freakin’ cool. Look, I wrote my own app- it’s called Tic-Tac-Toe. I’m going to be a paper app store Apple millionaire. Here’s another free app for your Notepod called “shopping list”. I’m still working in my Doodle app. Ok, I guess if you really were an application designer, you could sketch out some ideas on these but what about the rest of us?
source: CraziestGadgets