Greg In The Desert

Apple announced their worst kept secret, their Apple tablet computer called the iPad. It’s exactly what what it was rumored to be, a oversized iPod Touch. The iPad will run all the apps the iPhone and iPod touch will run but it’s missing a camera and GPS. Apple says they got 10 hours of use out of it, it will come with WiFi but a 3G cellular data option is available (and unlocked).

I think every rumor, including the prototype pictures at engadget and interview with McGraw-Hill’s CEO and President (Update: McGraw-Hill might have been punished for making the comments about the iPad before it was released), were all sanctioned by Apple. It was just enough to keep the hype and Steve Job’s reality distortion field in place but not enough to actually reveal the device.

I can’t imagine I will purchase an iPad as soon as it comes out (which is not for another 60 to 90 days) I do hope that parts of it make it into Apple’s laptops before my next laptop purchase. I also was hoping for an iPhone OS 4.0 and iLife 2010 announcement.

Having flown a lot in the last few years I been able to fly many airlines. Anymore I pretty much won’t fly unless I can fly Southwest. It has less to do with ticket fares and more to do with how much hassle I get and Southwest gives me the least amount of hassle.

The Southwest iPhone app can alert me to their Ding deals using the notification system which very helpfull. The application can also book flights and check in, I was already doing that through the web interface. The web didn’t always work for me and I hope to have better success with a dedicated app.

Southwest Airlines is Free on the iTunes App Store.

Traveling with Southwest Airlines is now even more convenient with our first iPhone app. Make reservations, check in for flights, and access your Rapid Rewards account directly from your iPhone. Plus, our iPhone app has DING! functionality built in, giving you instant access to exclusive, limited-time-only air fare deals. When a DING! fare is made available, you’ll be notified immediately on your iPhone.

So now there’s no need to boot up your laptop or make a phone call to prepare for your next trip. Just pull out your iPhone to:

· View & book the latest DING! deals
· Book or cancel air reservations
· Book or cancel rental car reservations
· Check in for your flight
· Check flight status
· Review flight schedules
· Access your Rapid Rewards account
· Access helpful contact information

With many of southwest.com’s most popular features now in the palm of your hand, traveling on Southwest is more convenient than ever before.

• Business & Technology | Starbucks to close 130-worker call center in Seattle | Seattle Times Newspaper – Starbucks said Thursday it will close a 130-worker call center at its Seattle headquarters and rely on an outside company in Albuquerque, N.M., to handle customer feedback.
• AMD posts first profit in 13 quarters – AMD's revenue jumped 42 percent year-over-year to $1.626 billion, handily beating Intel's (also impressive) 28 percent jump. The chipmaker's quarterly profit, $1.288 billion, is mostly thanks to the $1.224 settlement with Intel.
• Ex-IBM Employee reveals TV Abandoned Analog Band to Make Room for RFID | qbit.cc – According to a former 31-year IBM employee, the highly-publicized, mandatory switch from analog to digital television is mainly being done to free up analog frequencies and make room for scanners used to read implantable RFID microchips and track people and products throughout the world.
• How to Survive in Federal Prison – wikiHow – If you have been sentenced to federal prison, you will become the property of the Bureau Of Prisons (BOP) and this will be the end of life as you know it. As with most federal sentences, you will most likely have many years during which to deal with this new life. This article will offer some advice so you can prepare and survive.
• Al Jazeera English – Africa – Huge ransom paid to Somali pirates – The ransom delivered on Sunday is believed to be between $5.5m and $7m, according to unnamed sources interviewed by the Reuters news agency.
• GM Corn & Organ Failure: Lots of Sensationalism, Few Facts | 80beats | Discover Magazine – On Wednesday, we covered the overreaction by a few important online sources to an International Journal of Biological Sciences article claiming to find “signs of toxicity” in three varieties of genetically modified (GM) corn produced by Monsanto. We posted some caveats that made us uneasy about the study, such as the funding sources, the unknown quality of the journal, and the fact that the toxicity claims rely on reinterpreting statistical data that Gilles-Eric Séralini and his coauthors themselves note is not as robust as it needs to be.
• Infant sealed in concrete by a Brooklyn couple charged with enslaving hooker mom was beaten to death – The infant boy sealed in concrete by a Brooklyn couple charged with pimping out his enslaved hooker mom, was beaten to death, the Daily News has learned.
• News : Developers envy the pace of Rio Rancho’��s ‘��Lego Man’�� – Rio Rancho Observer – At 58, Larry Winchell of Northwest Albuquerque is anything but a kid – and his expertise with Legos gives him good reason to dub himself the “Lego Man.” His life could’ve taken almost any direction, given that he came from a broken home, had 18 residences in a span of 18years and didn’t start turning his life around until he joined the Air Force. A self-proclaimed East Village hippie “back in the day,” he later used the G.I. Bill to finance his education, later serving as a college teacher and planetarium curator.
• Intel uses iTunes for performance benchmarking – iPod owners already know that the Windows version of iTunes is anything but an advertisement for good or stable application design, so as a benchmark of how a processor can help matters no matter what software is running this could prove quite informative. Unsurprisingly, the newer i5 processor was much quicker to finish the task than the older Core II Duo it was matched against.
• The killer app that busted ski-resort snow jobs – The Globe and Mail – The deceptive advertising has been decisively busted by the internet, where skeptical skiers can now check a skireport.com application on their iPhone to vet the resort-supplied snow tally against first-hand accounts from the slopes and lifts.

On Point is one of the simplest iPhone GPS apps available, which is why I like it. There’s many times I just want to know which direction to go to a saved location. There are several low ratings for the app but no reviews, so the developer has temporarily made the application free to get more feedback.

On Point is free from the iTunes App store
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On Point allows you to determine the direction and distance to a chosen location simply and easily.

Have you ever forgotten where in a large parking lot you left your car? Have you ever agreed to meet your kids at a particular spot in a theme park and then lost track of where exactly that was? Have you ever been wandering in the woods and lost track of which way led back to the trailhead? Then this application is for you!

The free download allows you to test the capability with a set of demonstration points. Full Capability to add your own locations is available via an in-app purchase.

NOTE: On Point allows you to use both the iPhone 3GS compass and iPhone GPS heading for bearing direction. The 3GS compass allows you to view direction without moving, but is also somewhat inaccurate. While using the compass, a red arc displays the estimated accuracy of the compass readings. If using the iPhone GPS heading, the user must be in motion and holding the TOP of the iPhone in the direction of motion.

Application Features:

* Simple arrow points the direction to the target location without the need to interpret compass points or maps.
* Allows user to save multiple targets easily for future use.
* Uses either the 3GS compass or the GPS heading.
* Uses metric or imperial units.
* Displays margin of error in reported location and estimated directional error.
* Automatically adjusts reporting profile to user movement to conserve battery life.

If you do not have a 3G iPhone, this app is NOT FOR YOU. GPS is required to determine precision location and use on non-3G iPhone will yield large margins of error.

A bonus iPhone app of the week is released by AT&T. The app lets the user provide feedback to AT&T, dropped calls, voice quality and etc, along with GPS coordinates.

AT&T Mark the Spot is free from the iTunes App Store.

AT&T Mark the Spot is an application that provides customers a means to provide feedback on network user experience to AT&T.

Features

- Simplicity of operation
- Submit a real time report capturing local GPS coordinates at time and place of event
- Submit a report after the fact when a customer is not at the place of event
- Submit a report of dropped call, failed call, lack of coverage, data service failure, or poor voice quality
- Submit optional specific comments about an event
- Receive an SMS acknowledgement that the reported event was sent and received successfully

AT&T is committed to providing its customers with the best network experience possible.

This application will help contribute towards this goal and its utilization is greatly appreciated.

This is one of those iPhone apps that does nothing more than display text when you push a button. At least it’s free and entertaining. As far as I can tell, there’s isn’t a paid version.

Pickup Lines Free is free from the iTunes App Store.

This is the original “iPickupLines”

Shake your iPhone and get a new pickup line.

It’s a great way to start a conversation with a girl!

Don’t forget your iPhone the next time you are visiting a bar or a club.

This app is so ridiculous and pointless it’s awesome. Actually I think something like this is a great way to promote yourself if your are an iPhone developer.The Ted is free on the iTunes Apps Store.

The Ted is a mystical man who knows all and is wise beyond his years. His widsom has been sought by Kings, Queens, mythical creatures, mob bosses, and small children. The Ted is now here to help you.

aSmart HUD +SpeedCams will indicate where speed cameras are as you drive down the road. I especially liked the heads up display interface of this application. aSmart HUD +SpeedCams is $.99 on the iTunes App Store

aSmartHUD+ is simple and clear vehicle digital dashboard featured by HUD mode and FIXED SPEED CAMERAS DATABASE.

It visualizies your
- current speed
- average speed,
- time,
- heading,
- altitude,
- maximum reached speed (during the current trip or all your trips), maximum altitude and maximum distance to the starting point of your trip.

Also it shows
- color coded distance to the nearest known fixed speed camera;
- it’s speed limit (if known);
- it’s position, relatively to your moving direction, what gives you an idea is the camera in front or behind you;

On approach aSmartHUD+ will give you sound and visual warning. Warning also will be given in case your speed exceeds the speed limit set for that camera.

The database includes an information about 21500 cameras in Europe, 2500 in USA, in 1400 Canada, 1200 in Australia.

NOTE: It’s not guaranteed all speed cameras in your area are included into the database. However, we will release database updates right after the new information will become available.

Tapping the “HUD” icon mirrors all the text, so if you position the iPhone horizontally under your car’s windscreen you can see perfectly readable half-transparent reflection of the picture displayed. We love this mode! We found it much more convenient compared to traditional car dashboards (especially on the roads of Western Europe, which are full of speed cameras and where you need to watch your speedometer all the time). And last but not the least – it just looks cool. 
NOTE: this mode works pretty well at night time and twilight, but on direct sunlight the screen brightness can be insufficient.

- “aSmart HUD+” can keep track on 4 speed limits, giving a warning (sound and visual) each time you crossing it. Normally, it’s legal speed limits within cities, local roads and high-speed motorways. “Never exceed speed” is the speed you should not exceed under any conditions. For example, it can be a technical limit of your vehicle or the point where government can arrest your driving license.

- “Camera” icon on the “compass” circle indicates the position of the nearest camera;
- Speed history log chart is placed on the bottom of the screen.
- Landscape and Portrait screen layouts supported.
- Location Info (longitude and latitude, GPS measurement precision) and some more data is available on separate screen. You can adjust transparency of the “Location Info” screen to use both views at the same time.
- “Records” screen (left upper button on the Location Info screen), where you can see your maximum reached speed (during the current trip or all of your trips), maximum altitude and maximum distance from start.
- Tap the speed indicator to switch into speed fullscreen mode. Cameras info is available there as well;
- In Preferences, you can specify different measurement units (miles per hour, kilometers per hour, knots and meters per second), display color scheme, speed log chart refresh rate and chart style (bars or dots).

IMPORTANT: for more screenshots and details visit the http://atoll-ordenadores.com website.

Limitations

- The program is running only on GPS-enabled iPhones 3G (second generation or higher) with iPhone OS 2.2 or higher. No iPod Touch, 1st-generation iPhones 2G or minor OS versions supported.

- The precision is affected by the satellite signal quality. On open-sky spaces it’s pretty good, but under other conditions can noticeably decrease. Also, after startup it requires some time to locate the necessary satellites, so during first minutes of running the measurement can be less effective. If unsure, use the program only for reference, don’t rely on it for 100%.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions about additional functionality, there is a big chance they will be implemented in next version. Please forward your requests or bug reports to requests@atoll-ordenadores.com or share your opinions at http://www.atoll-ordenadores.com/forum/.

Since the iPhone has been out on AT&T for nearly two years, they finally release appllication that lets users view usage and pay bills. Good job AT&T. myWireless Mobile is free on the iTunes App Store.

Use the AT&T myWireless application to manage your AT&T wireless account from your iPhone.

With this application (portrait view only), you’ll be able to manage account functions including

viewing and paying your bill
viewing voice minutes and data usage
adding or removing features

Note: You must have an active AT&T Mobility account that is registered for online account management to use this application. If you’re not already registered, visit www.att.com/mywireless to register and then return to download the AT&T myWireless application.

Not just Galaga for the iPhone, but the orginal version and an updated version. Galaga REMIX is $5.99 on the iTunes App Store. There is also Galaga REMIX Lite available for free as a demo.

Shoot your fighter’s missiles to blow away waves of incoming enemy aliens in this classic stage-based shooter. Gameplay is very intuitive. It’s easy to pick-up and play!

Rediscover Galaga’s trademark “dual-fighter” power-up system, in which shooting ability is enhanced by rescuing captured fighters. This high-risk, high-reward feature has thrilled generations of players. Test your abilities with the interleaved “challenging stages”.

“Galaga Remix” offers play of both the original 1980’s arcade game, and an enhanced remix version with extra features including intense boss battles, 9 power-ups types, and a variety of background images illustrating your fighter’s journey from Earth to the Galaga system.