As Seen Through PeriVisioN

Now this is useful.  I know full on that when I shoot video with my iphone it’s not always the most stable in the world. And although there are desktop apps I can use to fix it, it would be nice to do that on the phone directly.

Well welcome to Smooth Movie.  I have not tried this myself because I have not made the jump to the iphone3Gs, but based on the sample video’s from the site, its pretty darn good. Not perfect, but for an iPhone, good.  Now this will not fix major jolts or camera darts, but it will smooth out small bumps here and there and it does make it easier on the eye.  I’m actually bummed I cannot get this for the 3G, but I guess the frame is not good enough to work with the smoothing algorithm.

Read the rest of this entry

I’ve been using tablets for years.. Years!  So when the Kindle first came out, my first reaction was, meh.  Partly because of the price point, and partly because I knew that something that focused on text and ignored rich media was simply too one dimensional of a device.  I have friends that have kindles, and they like them well enough because, well, unless you have a netTablet (which does not exist yet) then that’s you best choice.

But just because that is your only choice does not mean its your only choice forever..  And thus onto the scene comes the iPad, various Android devices and (perhaps) the MS courier. So a new report from ChangeWave comes out saying less then 50% of the people who bought an ereader would have bought that same ereader again if the iPad was available. No kidding. The graph from this report is at the end of this post.

However, I don’t think the iPad is going to dig THAT much into the Kindle and other ereaders mostly because the iPad is too big for easy transport and its display is not optimal for long reading stretches.  So who will come out with a netTablet the size of a kindle?  I don’t know, although it looks like the courier is gunning for that position.

Read the rest of this entry

The hype pad, or iPad as its called, is ready for purchase on April 3.  I do not expect the madness that the first iPhone created, more like when the 3gs came out.  I think you will have some overnightsers and I would expect a good set of lines on the first day since April 3 is a Saturday. However, give it a week and you should be able to walk into any store and grab one.  Assuming they made enough because its quite likely they will ‘again’ deliver around 90% of what they expect to sell just to be sure there are some shortages somewhere.  It may not seem like it, but that’s actually good marketing there people.

And that’s ok, although I found this line in the press release pretty funny..

“iPad is something completely new,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

Magical and revolutionary eh??  Sell it Steve!

Despite my general lack of interest in this device at the current price point (although you KNOW I will be checking this out) I think the next version should be pretty

Read the rest of this entry

Ever since back in the early days of jailbreak; we had drums, and guitars and (kinda) keyboards mixed in with a few other instruments.  Then came the wind apps, by blowing into the speaker,  a few karaoke apps and then voice autocorrect. They were all fun and all, however, this app EverydayLooper really shined when I saw this video from Les Clips de Ed.com.  Video at the end of the post.

And its not so much the technology that is impressive, although it is pretty cool, its the live performance that I really liked.  Remember Daft Hands?  Or the one take videos?  Its cool on that level.  I’m sure this tool some SERIOUS practice, and less scatting like that takes talent, but still..  Get on it people, lets see some more!!

As for me, sorry, I’m an old fashion studio type that

Read the rest of this entry

This just came in via email:  Seems that in Jamaica, a large number of laptops are being stolen out of cars by thieves using cheap wifi finder fobs.  It works like this.. The go to malls, or other places that business people may do a quick dash into to get something.. But not TOO fast.  The hope is you had your laptop on within the last 30 min and simply closed the lid.  If this is the case, you wifi is still on, and even though you hide the laptop from sight, they can find it using a wifi fob.  The big win is finding a Corp laptop because not only can they sell the hardware, there could be good data on there to sell also.

This would apply to iphones, androids, well any smart phone really; however I can not see people leaving their phones in car.  But in your purse while your back is turned? Perhaps.

I have not heard much about this in the US or UK yet, but just a matter of time I would think, so as a matter of good habit, ANYTIME you take your laptop out of the office or the house, make sure that closing the lid puts the machine in to hibernation (and you have wifi set to off during hibernation).  That or try to remember to turn wifi off even if you are leaving the laptop in the car for ‘just a bit’.

That is all… you can go back about your business.

There is no question that the iPhone has been an amazing success and only its At&T appendage has slowed it down from even further adoption. As great as the hardware is, just as much if not more of the credit has to go to the OS. Even after 2 years the iPhone OS is still the reference point of great design and the benchmark that all other mobile OS’s are measured. And yes, I can hear the cries of Android fan boys saying how much better Android is over the iPhone, but lets be honest here, for the average users, there is nothing Android is offering that is that is a quantum leap over the iphone OS.

Image from Business Insider

So now we have the tablet (iPad) and the OS is basically the iPhone OS with I’m sure modifications here and there. BTW, after its out I’m going to give it 2 weeks before its jailbroken. We can also expect a second generation of ipad out in the next year.  But what about other devices?  Could we imagine the Apple’s iPhone OS on devices from other manufactures?

Read the rest of this entry

Augmented reality apps on mobile has been news off and on over the last few months. There are have been a series of cool apps, and I even posted part of an article I write for iphoneLife here. But even with the parade of cool new apps, we have only just touched on the possibilites.  But creating a AR app is not that easy.  Well now its became just a bit easier. A company called Unifeye has created an AR API layer for the iphone, Windows Moble (WinMobile) and Symbian.  What no Android?? 

From what I read, the SKD looks pretty straight forward although I do not think the winmobile version will ready for version 7 yet. Now this SDK not just for mobile devices and most of the demos are on a PC, but that is a plus in my mind, a kind of write once almost deploy anywhere.  Hopefully we should see a string of cool new apps coming out.

Now check out this video..

Read the rest of this entry

What if you were in a bar, and someone showed you an iPhone and said it was only 25 pounds?  AND then the things actually worked?? As well as common IPhone apps?  Well, clearly its a rip off copy, but still.. the things was working!!  And running Java on top of that?  Well according to Steve Cassidy on PC Pro (pcpro.co.uk) this happened.  Well, he didn’t buy the iphone copy, only saw it for a bit, but close enough.

From PC Pro

Seems there are a number of these clones running around, commonly referred to as the SciPhone. Although the post was interesting, (and I really want to check one of these out), it was the comments that really got me thinking.  So lets say you can find for around 30 quid, around $50 US or so.  My first thought was, no way.. You cannot produce them cheap enough.  Well based on the comments, that is not the common opinion.

Read the rest of this entry

That’s right, carry that 3D animated character around with you!  Course, this is not a real tattoo, but instead just good pen work, but really, you do not need much graphic skilz. Although viewing AR through graphic code recognition is still in its infancy, its coming into play fast, and with the new crop of 1gig phones already on the market, its coming faster then you think, perhaps on the iphone4.0?

Now the next step is to have your 3D character evolved over time. What the viewing device would do is look at your Symbol and find your 3D character, and not only display it, but interact with it.  And remember those interactions! The only problem here is, EVERYONE would need a unique symbol!  For now, the only solution is to have the viewing device go to a website where your symbol is registered and select it that way, but how cool would it be if somehow we could get that address into the symbol itself!  AR standards?? Hello? 

Now, check out the video, again, nothing new as far as technology goes, just plain geeky goodness.

Read the rest of this entry

My how things have changed.  I just got a tweet from Andrew Stone that his app Twittelator got approved in 7 hours!!  Wow, a new record.  Well, ok, perhaps not a gold metal type new record, but that is still pretty fast. So the question is; how?

Well lets think about it.  What if Apple has a rule that says anytime a preexisting well know app get an update, it put on the fast track.  New or lessor known app are on the slower track.  And there could be more then two tracks.  Then that would make sense wouldn’t it?  And further, what if Apple keeps a copy of your source code and simple does a code compare and only looks at the newer code?  Well, that would go even faster wouldn’t it?

Now is the actually, how they are doing things? I have no idea.  But to get approved in 7 hours, it would have to be.

.. and that is a good thing.  The idea of having to wait a few weeks for a simple update; as happened during the first twitter apocalypse definatly pointed out a weekness in the apple store approval process.

So Kudos to you Apple for improving.  I know I like to bash you quite often, but I have to call Win a Win.