I remember watching Star Trek and wishing I had something like what they were using. Thanks to the iPad, I actually do. Woohoo!
This is a great overview of how the devices in Star Trek came into being. You have to really admire the vision of the Trek producers, they almost hit the nail right on the head with their PADD devices.
One interesting characteristic of Star Trek: The Next Generation—one that separated it from the original series and most of the early films—was its widespread use of smooth, flat, touch-based control panels throughout the Enterprise-D. This touch interface was also used for numerous portable devices known as PADDs, or Personal Access Display Devices. These mobile computing terminals bear a striking resemblance to Apple’s iPad—a mobile computing device largely defined by its smooth, flat touchscreen interface.
To understand the thinking that lead to the design of the Star Trek PADD, we spoke to some of the people involved in production of ST:TNG (as well as other Star Trek TV series and films), including Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler. All three were involved in various aspects of production art for Star Trek properties, including graphic design, set design, prop design, visual effects, art direction, and more. We also discussed their impressions of the iPad and how eerily similar it is to their vision of 24th century technology, how science fiction often influences technology, and what they believe is the future of human-machine interaction.
From “electronic clipboard” to PADD
The Star Trek films, beginning with 1979′s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, had sizable budgets for set design, props, and special effects. However, the original Star Trek series from the 1960s didn’t have the resources to fill starships with buttons, knobs, and video displays.
According to Michael Okuda, original Star Trek art director Matt Jefferies had practically no budget. “He had to invent an inexpensive, but believable solution,” he told Ars. “The spacecraft of the day, such as the Gemini capsules, were jammed full of toggle switches and gauges. If he had had the money to buy those things, the Enterprise would have looked a lot like that.”
Because Jefferies was forced by budget restraints to be creative, however, the original Enterprise bridge was relatively sparse and simplistic. “Because he did such a brilliant job visualizing it, I think the original Star Trek still holds up today reasonably well,” Okuda said.
Similar budget constraints meant creative solutions were required for ST:TNG as well. “We had a much lower budget than the feature films did,” Okuda told Ars. “So, for example, I looked at the production process of making a control panel, and I said, ‘How can I make this as inexpensive as possible?’ Having made those decisions, ‘now what can I do to make it as futuristic as possible?’”
Ars has a very detailed review of the Motorola Droid X. I’d considered getting one, but ultimately went with an iPhone 4. I’m still glad to see that Ars’ take on it is positive, I want Apple to have strong competition.
Motorola’s Droid X is an impressive new contender in the emerging category of large form-factor touchscreen smartphones. The device’s high-end hardware specifications and massive 4-inch touchscreen set it apart from the rest of Motorola’s current product lineup. Although the Android-based device has much in common with HTC’s recently launched EVO 4G, the Droid X succeeds where the EVO fell short—by matching an excellent feature set with all-day battery life.
The Droid X comes with a new iteration of Motorola’s custom Android environment, which offers tightly integrated social networking functionality. It has outstanding power management features and the best support for messaging that we have ever seen on an Android handset—characteristics that make up for the rough edges that are present elsewhere in the user experience.
In this review, we’ll take a close look at the Droid X and see how it compares to its rivals. Due to its numerous similarities with the EVO, this article will often reference issues that were discussed in our recent EVO review.
And here’s the final take on the Motorola Droid X.
The Droid X is an impressive device that delivers a lot of compelling functionality. It couples outstanding hardware specifications with a great battery life and some useful software customizations. The product’s weak areas are in the incompleteness of its custom software stack, its general lack of polish relative to other custom Android environments like HTC Sense, and its noisy camera hardware and user-unfriendly camera software.
Although the X lacks some of the polish of alternatives, regular consumers will likely find that the product’s many strengths far outweigh its weaknesses—especially if the Android 2.2 update resolves the performance issues, as expected. The phone’s power management framework and superior messaging capabilities put it in a class above competing Android-based products.
The large screen may not be palatable for everyone, however, and may not offer enough practical value to offset its awkwardness. Users who are looking for a physical keyboard or a less monstrous form-factor may be better off waiting for the upcoming Droid 2.
Motorola has some excellent ideas and is heading in the right direction with its Android platform customizations. The Droid X really showcases the potential of Motorola’s custom software, despite the weaknesses that mar the current implementation. With further refinement, Motorola could easily take the lead in the Android customization space. The Droid X isn’t quite there yet, but it’s an impressive product and a pleasure to use.
StarCraft II continues the epic saga of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy, as each faction struggles for survival.
Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company’s world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game.
Fast-paced, hard-hitting, tightly balanced competitive real-time strategy gameplay that recaptures and improves on the magic of the original game
Three completely distinct races: Protoss, Terran, and Zerg
New units and gameplay mechanics further distinguish each race
Groundbreaking single-player campaign
Vibrant new 3D-graphics engine with support for dazzling visual effects and massive unit and army sizes
Full multiplayer support, with new competitive features and matchmaking utilities available through Battle.net
Full map-making and scripting tools to give players incredible freedom in customizing and personalizing their gameplay experience
Whether you just want to balance your checkbook or you need to track the finances of a large global corporation, you can find open source software to do the job. For our list of open source financial tools, we cast a wide net and included applications related to enterprise resource management, point-of-sale and even employee time tracking. Not to mention traditional accounting and financial management tools.
One trend worth noting — a huge number of the open source tools on this list, particularly the business applications, are now available on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis. For businesses, this model seems to make sense, as it gives them access to support and reduces the need for in-house staff to deploy and monitor applications. It also enables a more mobile workforce and keeps costs low. And of course, this model is also great for open source vendors as it gives them another way to monetize their open source projects.
Without further ado, here are fifty open source applications that might be able to replace the financial software you currently use for your home or business.
The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is a robust application for editing and manipulating digital images. Because it’s open source software, any developer is allowed to modify and extend it with even more features. In this article, you will learn how to get started with the GIMP code, how to build the project from the Git repositories, and how to find your way around the code tree. And you will build an example application that creates a whole new painting tool for the program.
One of the most compelling reasons for using free or open source software is that it provides an opportunity for the user of the product to add whatever features he wants or needs. But the ability to add features is constrained by a project’s size and complexity, and the nature of available documentation. So, while GIMP is one of the most well-known and successful open source software projects, its huge code base can be intimidating.
To follow along, you should be familiar with the C programing language. You should also know or be prepared to learn about the Git versioning tool. The example in this article was created using GIMP V2.7 on a Linux® environment (note that V2.7 is a development branch and not a stable release). The spring 2009 version of Mandriva Linux was used in this article, but any version of Linux should work fine (see Resources).
You will be creating a tool based on an existing painting tool. The tool created in this article is purely for instructional purposes. For it to become an actual project that would be used as part of the GIMP distribution, it would have to be thoroughly vetted by the core GIMP developers and the UI architect.
Which is the better mobile OS: Apple’s iOS 4 or Google’s Android OS 2.2? The InfoWorld Test Center decided to find out, based on the capabilities of interest to business and professional users. This deathmatch compares the operating systems, not specific devices using them, examining the OSes apart from the physical differences from device to device and network quality differences from carrier to carrier.
I used an HTC Nexus One for Android testing and an iPod Touch 3G for iOS 4 testing, as they’re comparable in their performance capabilities; I used only Wi-Fi for network testing to factor out carrier cellular network differences. Note that HTC and Motorola offer additional capabilities in their devices through UI overlays and custom apps; the focus here is on the native Android OS 2.2 capabilities furnished by Google.
Which one won? Well it’s not really a surprise. iOS took the crown.
The winner: It’s not even close. Of the two, only iOS 4 can meet corporate security and manageability requirements. Small businesses and independent contractors can probably get away with using Android OS 2.2 — if they keep a tight rein on their servers, passwords, and so on.
The overall winner is …
There’s no question which is the better mobile OS: iOS 4 beats Android OS 2.2 in almost every category.
But Android OS 2.2 does offer a strong core platform whose UI may be inferior to iOS 4 but is good enough for most users. Android OS 2.2′s other major deficits center around security and manageability and around corporate apps. Should Google get serious about these areas, Android could easily tie with iOS. After all, it was only a year ago that iOS (then called iPhone OS 3.0) started to take corporate needs seriously, and only last month (with iOS 4) that the necessary foundation was in place to do so.
In the United States, the flawed AT&T 3G network continues to give users a reason to want an alternative to iOS, thanks to the carrier’s lock on Apple, and that fact just adds fuel to the Android fire. Android’s momentum with users and the support from developers and device makers alike give it a real opportunity to catch up to iOS at some point. No other would-be iPhone-killer can make that claim today.
While I really enjoy using iOS on my iPhone 4, I’m still rooting for Android. Apple needs competition and it would be truly awful if Android fell by the wayside. I’m hoping Google will bring Android up to speed and catch iOS as quickly as possible.
There’s nothing worse than one company dominating a market segment too much (remember how Windows stagnated after Microsoft owned the desktop?).
There’s no kind way to say it: Windows Phone 7 will be a failure. Announced to much bravado in February as the platform that would breathe life into Microsoft’s mobile ambitions, Windows Phone 7 looked based on very early previews as if it might bring something new and exciting to the table. Back then, I noted that I was impressed by what I saw — with the caveat “so far.”
No caveats now: Windows Phone 7 is a waste of time and money. It’s a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with. Microsoft should kill it before it ships and admit that it’s out of the mobile game for good. It is supposed to ship around Christmas 2010, but anyone who gets one will prefer a lump of coal. I really mean that.
Wow. Definitely not an upbeat take on Windows Phone 7. I don’t disagree with it though. Why would anybody care about yet another mobile OS from Microsoft? Between Android and iPhone, there are already two powerful competitors in the smart phone space. There’s just not much reason to care what Microsoft does at this point. That company had years to come up with a compelling mobile OS and failed totally to do so.
I suspect they’ll continue to throw millions and millions of dollars at it though. But I doubt they’ll get anywhere.
Kindle for Android is now available. Great news for Android users. I love Kindle on my iPhone.
Read Kindle books on your Android phone
Get the best reading experience available on your Android phone. No Kindle required
Access your Kindle books even if you don’t have your Kindle with you
Automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices with Whispersync
Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle, computer, or other Kindle-compatible device
Read in portrait or landscape mode
Tap on either side of the screen or flick to turn pages
Shop for books in the Kindle Store optimized for your Android phone
Buy a book from the Kindle Store optimized for your Android phone and get it auto-delivered wirelessly
Search and browse more than 600,000 books, including 109 of 110 New York Times bestsellers. If you are a non-U.S. customer, book availability may vary
Find New York Times® Best Sellers and new releases from $9.99
Get free book samples. Read the beginning of books for free before you decide to buy
Books you purchase can also be read on a Kindle, computer, or other Kindle-compatible mobile devices
Kindle newspapers, magazines and blogs are currently not available on Kindle for Android
Kindle for Android is currently available for customers in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States
Technical Details
Requires Android OS 1.6 or greater
Download a copy of the new version of VLC, if you haven’t already.
What’s new?
Ready for HD
GPU decoding on Windows Vista and 7, using DxVA2 for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2
GPU decoding on GNU/Linux, using VAAPI for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2
DSP decoding using OpenMax IL, for compatible embedded devices
Improved support for MKV HD, including seeking fixes, and 7.1 channels codecs
Support for new codecs, like Blu-Ray subtitles, MPEG-4 lossless and VP8
NB: so far, on Windows for GPU decoding, VideoLAN is recommending nVidia® GPU, until ATI® drivers are working with VLC architecture, and until the VLC developers get access to some Intel® hardware supporting GPU decoding.
Extensions
New add-ons and script framework so one can personalize its vlc.
Written in lua
2 main types of scripts:
content add-ons, integrated in the playlist
functionnalities extensions, like metadata searching on the web, or subtitles look-ups
Very Simple
Web improvements
Support for WebM decoding and encoding
Improved web plugins
Better streaming capabilities
Check out this great comparison between iPhone 4 and iOS versus Android. It covers hardware, desktop and cloud services. Excellent for those trying to decide whether to buy an iPhone or an Android based phone.
With the fourth generation of Apple’s smartphone nearing release later this week, some buyers might be curious about alternatives that use Google’s Android OS, including the Motorola Droid, HTC/Google Nexus One, HTC Droid incredible, and HTC EVO 4G. Here’s how they compare in terms of hardware, part one of a series.
Smartphone platforms from Apple and Google reflect the two company’s home territories: Apple is firmly rooted in selling the Mac with iTunes as a digital hub for iPods and iPhones, while Google’s base is web centric, focusing on web search and advertising. Here’s how iOS and Android compare in terms of desktop and cloud services, including support for Exchange Server in the enterprise, part two in this series.
Google Chrome is fast becoming the browser of choice for many. With its ever increasing user base, the safety concerns related to this comparatively new browser is also increasing. Here, we enlist the 6 most useful extensions/plugins for a much safer browsing experience with Google Chrome.
For quite some time, using your iPhone or iPod Touch on Linux was a challenge. There were two options – jailbreak it, and connect over wifi – this would let you upload and download music, but not much else. Alternatively, you could run a Windows in a VM and do it that way – not really using it with Linux at all really. However, a project libimobiledevice allowing Linux users to use their iPhones on their OS of choice has reached the 1.0.0 release. This doesn’t mean that you can do everything on Linux with the iPhone that you can do with iTunes, but it’s getting there, and the key things are there, namely:
File system access
Music Sync with Rhythmbox or GTKPod
One way PIM (contacts, calendars etc) sync – device -> computer
USB internet tethering
SSH tunneling (if device is jailbroken)
Installing, uninstalling and archiving apps
Manage Springboard
SJVN notes that somebody is trying to keep KDE 3.5 alive. I’m not a KDE guy, I usually use GNOME. But I like the idea of keeping KDE 3.5 viable, at least for a while.
I love it. KDE 3.x, which has always remained my favorite Linux desktop interface, is making a come back. A tiny group of open-source developers from Pearson Computing is trying to bring KDE 3.x from the grave in a project that they’re calling Trinity.
I’m not sure how much will come from this project. The group behind Trinity seems to be quite small and the Web site has been swamped to the point where it’s been unusable. Still, the very fact that someone is trying to keep KDE 3.5 alive is good news as far as I’m concerned. After all, I am the guy who suggested that KDE be forked into KDE 4 and KDE 3 branches back when KDE 4.1 was the newest KDE desktop.
Specifically, according to the lead developer, Timothy Pearson, on the KDE 3.5 Maintainers page the project is meant to support “KDE3.5 for Ubuntu Intrepid and above. Emphasis is placed on keeping KDE3.5 as a viable Ubuntu desktop environment, easily installed and used alongside others, just like Gnome, XFCE, and KDE4.x.”
The No. 1 online action game in the world, Counter-Strike: Source, is now available for Mac OS X via Valve’s Steam distribution platform, and is free for those who already own it on Windows.
“CSS is a Steam Play title, so if you own it on the PC — you own it on the Mac,” the company said in a press release. “Besides PC Vs. Mac cross-platform play, this update also adds achievements, stats, engine updates and more.”
To celebrate the launch of Counter-Strike: Source for Mac, the title is being offered on sale, with 66 percent off its regular price on Steam, Valve’s online digital distribution storefront. Counter-Strike: Source can be had for both Mac and Windows for $6.80.
New features for the title include match and lifetime player stats and summary screens that allow players to track their kills and deaths, and compare themselves against other players. More than 140 unique achievements have also been added, covering everything from defusing bombs and winning pistol rounds to dominating a first foe.
I got my iPhone 4 yesterday, so I’ll be grabbing this shortly. Should be a lot of fun, I like the video on my iPhone 4 a lot so far.
The $4.99 application weighs in at 30.6MB and requires a new iPhone 4 running iOS 4. Early reviews have been positive, with most purchasers giving the application five stars.
“Make beautiful HD movies anywhere with iMovie, the fun, feature-rich video editing application for iPhone 4,” Apple said. “Create a video postcard of your day at the beach and publish it to the web — without ever leaving your spot in the sand. Or make a movie if your child’s birthday party and send it to your parents — while the party is in full swing. With iMovie for iPhone, you can start several projects and finish them whenever you want and wherever you want.”
Apple introduced iMovie earlier this month, when it debuted the iPhone 4 with its new 720p-capable HD video camera. The software takes advantage of the 5 megapixel lens in the iPhone 4, which is capable of recording high definition video at 30 frames per second.
IOS 4 has been released for iPhone and iPod Touch. You can download it in iTunes; the file is about 292MB. I’m downloading it right now. The download rate isn’t particularly fast, I suspect the iTunes store is already getting hammered for this update.
Like clockwork, Apple has once again offered up numerous improvements to the iPhone’s software in a June release. Although all eyes were on the new iPhone 4 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference two weeks ago, the new smartphone would be just a stylish chunk of stainless steel and glass without iOS 4, the new operating system that arrives today.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been running Apple’s newly minted iOS 4 to find out whether it, like previous OS updates, breathes new life into the iPhone lineup.
While the overall look and feel of the iPhone’s operating system remains unchanged, Apple has built in steady and solid improvements that add features users have asked for since the last big update a year ago. Instead of changing things for their own sake, Apple tends to focus each major iOS release on a few well-implemented features. This year’s release — which iPad users will get this fall — shows that the development teams at Apple have delivered, among other things, limited multitasking for third-party applications, better application sorting and management, and improved e-mail functions. The end result is an updated operating system that makes using the iPhone a much more polished experience, all without sacrificing battery life.
iOS 4 (previously iPhone OS 4 or iPhone 4.0) continues Apple’s relentless yearly mobile OS update cycle. If 2007 was the mainstreaming of the multitouch user interface, 2008 all about the App Store, and 2009 was filling in the feature list, then iOS 4 promises to be… well, that’s why we’re here.
(And yes, iOS. That’s the new name Apple has licensed from trademark-holders Cisco to represent the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — and maybe soon the Apple TV and who knows what else — family.)
Back on April 8 at the sneak preview event, Apple promised 7 “tent-pole” features and 100+ general user features overall, along with 1500 major new API for developers. We’re going to walk you through the ones that matter most.
Note: this is an updated version of our original beta walkthroughs, based on the GM (gold master) seed released at WWDC 2010. If anything changes in the general release slated for June 21, we’ll update again.
This guy modded his iPad so he could use it on Verizon’s network instead of AT&T’s. Not a bad idea, if you don’t mind your warranty being voided. He might have also used something like MyWi and simply used his iPhone as a wifi hot spot for the iPad.
There is one major flaw with the iPad that’s been bothering me about it since day one: AT&T. As revolutionary and awesome as it is, the iPad deserves–and needs–a good internet connection, hence the reason Sprint and Verizon have been pushing the use of MiFi with the iPad.
Firstly, yes, my warranty is long gone. Secondly I’ve lost GPS. But, what did I gain? Only a killer, reliable and speedy network. Not to mention my iPad is now a WiFi Hotspot!
All in all, it was a pretty crazy idea–and an even crazier execution. But, the bottom line is that IT WORKS and I couldn’t be more satisfied with the results.
Besides, if it could be done here, It could be done anywhere!
The biggest reason why I decided to upgrade my aging iPhone 3G was that I’m tired of carrying around a separate camera. I really want a decent camera in my phone. It makes it so much easier when you want to take some pics or video. There are times when I’ve forgotten my Panasonic camera and been stuck using my iPhone 3G’s crappy camera. Ugh. The pictures did not come out well.
The iPhone 4 has landed in the hands of a Czech who has managed a test of the phone and its camera, including HD video. Swenak explained that the phone feels good in the hand, isn’t prone to slipping, and is relatively fast both in wide use and in getting a GPS lock-on. His only misgivings expressed to Jablí?ká? are around the plastic frame between the metal and the glass, which he believed could get minor scratches over time.
The phone’s thinner profile is much easier to fit in a pocket, Swenak added.
In testing the camera, still photos appear to have the quality of a typical point-and-shoot camera, though with relatively little visible noise or fringing artifacts. Video at 720p is sharp at its native size and has audio quality similar to an iPhone’s with a comparatively quiet scene.
The original iPhone launched with a fixed-focus lens and a paltry (even for 2007) 2 megapixel sensor. The camera didn’t get any improvements with the iPhone 3G, but gained another million pixels, autofocus, and a “tap-to-focus” system—which links the focus control and autoexposure system to a specific point in the image—with the iPhone 3GS. It also gained the ability to shoot video, though it was limited to VGA resolution. Despite the improvements, many critics remained unimpressed with these updates.
When Apple announced the iPhone 4 at WWDC 2010, however, the company ticked off nearly every box on the wishlist: more megapixels (though as ever, there are people for whom no amount is ever enough), better low-light sensitivity, an LED flash, a wider angle of view, 720p HD video recording, a front-facing camera, and more. An iPhone 4 isn’t going to replace a DSLR or a high-end point-and-shoot, but for all but the most devoted pixel-peepers, the hardware is capable of some very nice images.
Let’s start with a look at the image sensor itself. The iPhone 3GS has a 3.1MP, 1/4″ CMOS sensor from OmniVision. That sensor has 1.75µm pitch individual pixels. Rumors coming out of Taiwan late last year suggested that OmniVision would supply Apple with 5MP sensors for the next iPhone, and we speculated that Apple would use one of OmniVision’s 1/4″, 5MP sensors as a drop-in replacement.
The increase in pixels alone means more detail and potentially sharper images, especially when printed. 3.1MP images can usually be printed up to 5 x 7″ at “photo-quality,” while 5MP images can be printed at about 8 x 10″—big enough to be framed and put on the wall. To be fair, though, something like 99 percent of the photos taken with an iPhone are going to end up on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, or on the iPhone’s 3.5″ screen—in many cases, the extra resolution won’t be readily apparent.
