Archive for the ‘ipad’ Category

Gadget Lab Podcast: Verizon iPhone, Hot Spots and The Daily

In this week’s podcast, Brian X. Chen and Dylan Tweney discuss the Verizon iPhone, AT&T’s new tethering and hot-spot features, and News Corp.’s new iPad newspaper.

First up is our review of the Verizon iPhone, which really does have better coverage based on our tests. Suddenly, the iPhone is a phone, Brian says — although when you can get a signal, the AT&T iPhone has much faster data download and upload speeds.

We talk about the Verizon iPhone’s hot-spot feature: For an extra $20 per month, you can share your wireless connection with up to five devices via Wi-Fi. That compares to AT&T’s tethering option, which costs the same amount but only lets you connect one other device.

AT&T now offers a hot-spot feature too, but on an HTC 4G smartphone coming later this month. It has also improved its tethering plan by adding an extra 2GB of data.

We talk about News Corp.’s new iPad-only newspaper, The Daily. It will cost $1 per week or $40 per year. While the content is promising, the app is a little sluggish, and we have some doubts about the business model.

Finally, we talk about how the internet is running out of space. The last IPv4 addresses were handed out this week, and over the next few years, we may see slowdowns and glitches as companies start transitioning to a different version of the internet’s basic protocol.

—

You can listen to the audio-only version of the show here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #102
http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0102.mp3

Or download the OGG version of Gadget Lab podcast #102.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, subscribe to the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds

How Flipboard Turned Web Noise Into iPad Gold

Every day from morning to night, Maria Popova hunts for digital gold on the web.

Some of her finds: A neuroscientist explains how brains feel emotion. A lost, unpublished Dr. Seuss manuscript resurfaces. An infographic breaks down the economics of the hamburger.

Under the Twitter handle @brainpicker, Popova shares every nugget she can find with her 37,000 followers. But as interesting as all this content may be, her Twitter.com profile, like everyone else’s, is little more than a pile of plain links and text.

And this is why the Flipboard app for iPad is a godsend for readers, and why we’re excited that Wednesday’s new software update adds several new features. It grabs photos, text or video from links in a Twitter stream like Popova’s and stitches them into a magazine-like layout with neatly arranged panes, lots of white space and beautiful typography.

So when looking at Popova’s Twitter feed on Flipboard, you see part of the burger infographic she mentions, alongside an excerpt from the interview with the neuroscientist and a clip of the lost Dr. Seuss book. Swiping your finger across the iPad screen flips to another page of her content (left goes back chronologically and right takes you forward).

When you launch Flipboard, the main screen displays a grid of nine large tiles, each one representing a section (see picture at top of the post). The Facebook tile loads a Flipboard-ized version of your friends’ status updates; tapping the general Twitter tile shows content from people you follow in the same magazine fashion. You can also add sections for specific Twitter feeds you’d like to read (like @wired), and it’ll do its magic.

The new version of Flipboard that just went live in the App Store adds the ability to magazine-ify content from your Flickr stream, Google feeds and Facebook groups.

It’s all extremely easy to set up; you’ll be flipping around in minutes.

The end result is a visually rich magazine that’s alive — breathing with content posted by people you care about on the internet. (Hell, Flipboard looks so good you’ll start appreciating photos and comments from people you don’t care much about, too.)

If only the web could be this much fun on its own. In fact, a superior browsing experience is exactly what gave rise to Flipboard.

“One of our first thought experiments was, how would you re-imagine a web browser?” said Evan Doll, an ex-Apple engineer and co-founder of Flipboard.

“We love magazines,” he added. “There’s something great in terms of the graphic design, typography and emphasis on the visual side. And there’s also the fact you have editorial — someone filtering down the new stuff, telling you what’s important, interesting and worthwhile. Both those things we wanted to try to marry with social.”

The wedding is generating a lot of buzz. Apple last week named Flipboard as the best iPad app of the year. That same week, the startup announced partnerships with major media outlets including The Washington Post, Bon Appetit and the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Flipboard team is only a year old, and it has already received $10 million in funding from stars like Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and actor Ashton Kutcher.

That’s a good thing, but it also means that Flipboard is going to have to make money — not easy for an app that’s free in the iTunes App Store.

Doll says the team is still hatching a plan to rake in cash, which could involve embedding advertisements into Flipboard pages or splitting micropayments with content creators. And it’s not just creators, but also prolific content sharers like Popova that Flipboard would like to help earn money.

“She should be able to do that as her full-time job,” Doll said of Popova. “She’s a one-woman magazine.”

Flipboard download link [iTunes]

Price: Free

Category: Media

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Netflix CEO says consumers just aren’t interested in long-form video on portable devices

We were undeniably excited about Netflix coming to the iPhone and iPad, but according to CEO Reed Hastings — who spoke on the subject during a Web 2.0 Summit panel discussion — that move has actually had little impact on the company’s business. In his mind, these results indicate that consumers just aren’t interested in streaming long-form video on mobile devices and instead prefer the experience on bigger screens. To support his conclusion, Hastings cited how Netflix integration on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Mac significantly grew its subscriber base. While we personally disagree with his judgment on mobile and grant him honorary captain obvious credentials for his bigger screen preference remarks, we’ll still entertain the possibility that Hastings may know somethings we don’t. That’s not to say the phrase correlation does not imply causation isn’t tickling the back our throat though. But what about you, reader? Are you taking advantage of the little red app on your Apple portable devices or even on your new Windows Phone 7 handset? Hit the poll to tell us what’s up.

View Poll

Netflix CEO says consumers just aren’t interested in long-form video on portable devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 04:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer Plans to Launch Tablets In November

It’s the year of the tablets as electronics makers rush to get one of the hottest gadgets of the year into the hands of users. Acer is the latest to announce it will launch a new line of tablets.

The devices will be introduced in New York on November 23 and will be priced ranging from $300 to $700, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report.

Acer tablets will join a crowded and extremely competitive market. Since the launch of the Apple iPad in April, most major electronics makers have announced their own devices to take on the iPad. So far, Apple has sold more than 4.3 million iPads.

In June, Dell launched a 5-inch tablet called Streak, while Samsung recently debuted a 7-inch device called the Galaxy Tab. Meanwhile, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion’s tablet Playbook is expected to hit stores next year.

Separately, T-Mobile has said it will offer the Samsung Galaxy Tab for $400 (after a rebate) and with a two-year service agreement. It is similar to Sprint’s pricing for the device. Verizon has said it will sell the Galaxy Tab for $600 without a contract.

Acer might try to ink a similar deal but it will have to do more in terms of product features to stand out. Acer hasn’t said if the new tablets will be based on Windows or Android OS.

But one thing’s likely–Acer is going to find it hard to see the same kind of success in the tablet market that it has with netbooks.

See Also:

• Tablet Catalogs Rethink Casual Page-Flipping
• Why 2010 Will Be the Year of the Tablet
• Why India’s $35 Tablet May Be Just a Dream
• Build Your Own Tablet for $400
• How the Tablet Will Change the World

Photo: Acer Aspire in slate form (arabani/Flickr)

iPad projector concept displays objects in 3D

N-3D DEMO from aircord on Vimeo.

Tonight seems to be the night for 3D. A design team released a proof of concept video showing how it’s possible to use an iPad to project a 3D image to the naked eye. It requires some special hardware, but it’s still pretty damn amazing. Check out the video after the jump.

Currently, viewers can move around and view an image as if it was an object literally floating in space. Of course, right now it’s just a proof of concept, but if the team at Aircord Labs can pull it off, this has the chance to be an amazing bit of technology.

[via Gizmodo]

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