Software developer Mike Matas shows off the first full-length interactive book created with iPad technology in mind. The book—Our Choice, Al Gore’s follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth—features user-friendly, swipeable video and animation and interactive infographics. Information overload or the future of reading?
Via TED.
AirServer is a Mac app that turns your computer into a receiver for AirPlay. We have seen this kind of thing before, in the shape of Banana TV, but AirServer works better, and adds in some functionality not found in Banana TV.
AirPlay is what lets you throw content from an iPad or iPhone wirelessly to speakers or your TV. To do this, you need to have an AirPort Express next to your speakers, or an Apple TV hooked up to your TV. Bluetooth speakers show up in the list, too. What you can’t do is beam movies from your iOS device direct to your big-screen iMac.
AirServer is a $3 app that adds in this last piece of the puzzle. With it running on your Mac, a new entry will show up in the AirPlay popover of any iOS device on the same network, as you’d expect.
Music just appears magically from your Mac’s speakers, or whatever speakers are hooked up to it. Movies open after a second in the Quicktime player, and it’s on-screen controls let you play, pause, scrub and change volume on the Mac itself.
Both of these (usually) work just fine in Banana TV (although that app can also use its own video viewer). The difference is with photos. With AirServer, you can not only view individual photos, but you can also run a slideshow. Pick your album in the Photos app, choose slideshow and a popover will pop, erm, over to let you choose a destination. You need to select a photo in that album to see the popover, and the promised transition is replaced by one photo simply appearing to replace another, but it works.
via Wired
The iTablet Thumb Keyboard is being marketed as an accessory for Android and iOS cellphones, and for the iPad. It might be better to focus on its ability to hook up to the Xbox 360 or media-center PC, though, as it is almost spectacularly ill-suited to mobile devices.
The keypad is similar in form to a console gamepad. You hold it in two hands and type on the QWERTY ‘board with two thumbs, as God intended (if God had been a teenager obsessed with texting). Round the back is a trackpad that you tickle with your fingers, and above that are the left and right mouse buttons. A function and caps-lock button on the front panel complete the lineup.
The Thumb Keyboard also has backlit keys and communicates via Bluetooth.
But even the greatest hater of on-screen keyboards would’t want to use this. First, you have to prop your phone up somewhere you can see the screen. Then you need to go back and forth between typing and touching the screen (the trackpad input obviously can’t be sent to a phone that lacks a mouse pointer). This is bad enough using an iPad at a desk with a proper stand and keyboard. Add in a device you have to hold and it becomes a nightmare.
For a media-center PC, though, it looks perfect, barely bigger than a regular remote and easy to just toss onto the sofa when you’re done. The marketing sure is ass-backwards on this one.
Apple announced that its second-generation tablet PC, iPad 2, will be available in India from April 29, Friday, just over a month after the company started selling the updated version of its popular tablet device in the United States.
The device, priced between Rs. 29,500 and Rs. 46,900, will be available through authorized resellers from 9 a.m. local time on Friday, Apple said in a statement.
Pricing (including VAT)
16GB model: Rs. 29,500
32GB model: Rs. 34,500
64GB model: Rs. 39,500
iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G will be available for a maximum retail price of Rs 36,900 for the 16GB model, Rs 41,900 for 32GB model and Rs 46,900 for 64 GB model.
Apple’s iPad was, it’s fair to say, awaited with the kind of breathless anticipation usually reserved by nubile nymphets for rakish rockers.
But even as consumers rave about it, the technoscenti are already looking ahead ─ to a product that could make the iPad seem outdated, and, what’s more, is completely Made in India.
India is, of course, regarded as a software superpower but hasn’t really made waves in IT hardware so far. That could soon change, thanks to the Adam tablet PC of Hyderabad-based Notion Ink. Adam has generated enormous buzz on tech websites and gadget blogs ever since an early prototype was first demonstrated at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show), the world’s largest consumer tech trade show in January this year… Continue reading on Time of India
With Apple launching its iPad it has become clear that ereading is going to be a serious business in coming years. To me iPad currently is nothing more than a GIANT iPhone which Apple would use to sell Books on the same lines as that of iPod, remember the iTunes store? iPad has a new application called iBooks which includes iBookstore, which allows users to purchase content that will be displayed on their virtual bookshelf. Apple announced deals with five major book partners, including Macmillan and HarperCollins.
Amazon on the other hand wants to bring the iPads multi touch to the Kindle. To do so they have bought Touchco, a startup of around six employees and Amazon plans on incorporating both the new personnel and technology into its Kindle hardware division, named Lab126, which is located in Cupertino, Calif. – also home to Apple.
Amazons purchase of Touchco can be thought of as a direct response to Apple’s iPad, and the technology acquired could be included in the next iteration of its Kindle e-reader. Amazon has been looking to compete with Apple on other fronts as well. Last month, it announced plans for a Kindle applications store and an effort to get developers to create the same breadth of programs for the Kindle that they have created for the iPhone and, soon, the iPad.
Amazon has also decided to charge less for e-books in part to make the purchase of its Kindle e-book reader more palatable and create reader interest in a new format.
There has been a new entrant in the battel filed the “Pi”. A homegrown company has introduced its own e-book reader that, at least by the looks of it, has what it needs to take on the biggies in the business.This is by far India’s first attempt at making an e-book reader of our own that has actually materialized and the product is ready for “consumption”. The Pi is made by shopping portal Infibeam which currently offers over one lakh books for Indian readers via its portal http://infibeam.com. The Pi gives its users a cool option to upload their own content via a USB. In future, you can also expect a lot of newspaper and publications to the list of reading materials. The Pi, apart from being just an e-book reader, also happens to be a music player. It has 512MB of ROM and supports upto 4GB of memory with SD cards.
Amidst all this hassle there has been no major update from sony who were the first to come up with digital ink and epaper format and the very first to launch a ebook reader based on the same technology. One thing has always been clear about Sony’s line of e-readers: they’re arguably the sleekest and most elegant dedicated electronic-reading devices out there today (in a pre-Apple Tablet world, at least).
Sony launched Reader Daily Edition PRS-900, Sony’s first e-reader to include built-in 3G wireless service for accessing e-books wirelessly from Sony’s Reader Store. The move to wireless is a big deal for Sony, because it allows the company to compete directly, from a features standpoint, with the Kindle and other e-readers like the Barnes & Noble Nook, which bundle in “free” cellular connectivity.
We would like to know about our readers’ opinions, what do you all think about it? Please leave your comments.
Coming soon: a comparison of all four.
While Apple is being lamented here and there for not supporting Flash on its shiny new iPad – boy does Cupertino have a strong dislike for the platform – Adobe has already responded to the news on the official Flash Platform blog.
The blog post, unambiguously titled “Building iPad Applications with Flash”, is mostly just to remind people of the company’s Packager for iPhone product, which will enable developers to make Flash apps function on the iPhone / iPod Touch through a work-around whereby Flash apps can be easily converted into iPhone apps using Creative Suite 5 (CS5). Adobe also published a post on its Adobe Flash Platform blog addressing the apparent lack of Flash support in the iPad.
