Apple has recently revealed that their upcoming operating system iOS 8 have lot of fantastic features to surprise users but the most amazing feature is credit card scanning. The feature enables you to use the iPhone's camera to scan your credit-card when prompted by a website during online transactions.
The feature of passwords and auto fill option already available in iOS 7, which allows you to store credit card details for future purchases online. The new feature uses character recognition to translate the image of your credit card into distinct numbers on your iOS device, according to 9 to 5 Mac.
There is also another less-publicized feature of iOS 8 is that it generates random media access control (MAC) addresses when scans for Wi-Fi networks, a dynamic that will make it slightly more difficult for marketing companies to track you via your MAC address. Given the many changes in iOS 8, a few more surprises will likely crop up in the coming weeks.
Electronic devices have their fair share of negative impacts to our planet. Frequent and excessive charging, using power-inefficient peripherals, and purchasing plastic-based accessories are some of the common practices associated with using too many electronics.
If you can’t leave without these gadgets but want to stay true to your green living goals, then we have six of the most eco-friendly accessories and gadgets you can use with your iPhone.
1) iBamboo iPhone Speaker
The iBamboo Speaker is a one-of-a-kind audio device and iPhone stand made entirely from a single piece of bamboo. It’s crafted with a small dock or opening to hold your Apple device in place, as you listen to your favorite tracks in an amplified sound. It doesn't require any electricity source in order to function.
Once your iPhone is mounted on the speaker, the bamboo’s hollow interior will naturally amplify the intensity of the sound coming from your iPhone’s speakers. It doesn't give you extra loud bass beats similar to a full-fledged speaker set, but it provides you with enough volume to fill a standard-sized room.
2) BioLite Camp Stove
If you are fond of nature-hiking and camping activities, the BioLite Camp Stove combines a charger and a burner in a single device that you can transport with ease. Its small stove is ideal to cook food, to create a warm and cozy bonfire, or to boil water.
It’s lightweight, durable, and 100% safe. It only uses small scraps of wood and dried leaves to start a fire. This useful machine comes with a $129.95 price tag.
3) Kinesis K3 Wind and Solar Powered iDevice Charger
Solar and wind electricity have become the two most popular renewable energy sources in the energy industry, especially as prices to generate and transmit the energy have been steadily dropping for the past few years. The Kinesis K3 is a portable tool that combines both technologies into one.
It includes a wind-propelled tiny fan that functions as a turbine. On its body, there’s a tiny solar panel to capture the sun’s energy. Just let it stand in your balcony as you charge your phone using an adapter cord. Its rechargeable battery holds up to 4,000 mAh of charge and has a maximum output of 1 amp. Priced at $57.89, this one is a keeper.
iPhone and iPod Touch owners can now take a 360-degree videos without having to move or even rotate their phones, thanks to a new device called Dot.
Manufactured by New York-based company Kogeto, Dot lets the iPhone capture immersive, fully navigable, panoramic video in real-time. The portable lens attaches to the iPhone to snap 360-degree panoramic video.
Image courtesy: Kogeto
To capture the video, you can place the iPhone on any surface or carry with you on street to capture a continuous panorama.
The Dot comes with a dedicated iOS app, Looker, which captures the footage and combines the individual clips into a fully navigable panoramic video. Looker is available at free of cost on Apple's App Store; however, some advanced features, will be provided on a subscription-basis.
It weighs just 15-grams and doesn’t require any additional battery power or memory beyond standard camera use. Made out of lightweight polycarbonate plastic, the device allows the custom optic to automatically align with the built-in iPhone 4 camera without adding significant bulk to the iPhone's sleek design. The gadget can stay attached to the phone without obstructing its normal functions.
Image courtesy: Kogeto
"We wanted to give users a way to capture their environment that simply isn't possible with an ordinary camera," said Jeff Glasse, CEO of Kogeto. "Dot is not only sleek and easy to use, it puts a whole new kind of video capture into the hands of everyday people."
Needless to mention that the gadget will be of great use in case of an event like party or any other function where you want to capture the environment in all its vigour.
Dot is available for presale on Kickstarter for $99.
Just as you thought that two-way mobile video calling is approaching the mainstream, voice and video chat app Fring has rolled out 4-way mobile video calling service between Android and iOS devices.
Following a private beta testing period, they’ve just opened up the feature to anyone with an iOS 4+ or Android 1.5+ device.
Fring’s group video calling supports up to 4-way video chat, which means you can call up to three people on your iPhone or Android device. Calls are supported over Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G, although video quality will depend on your connection speed.
Besides group calls, users can also avail of free calls to other Fring users and text chats as well. The four-way video chat facility makes Fring the first company to offer group conference calls across smartphone platforms.
You can check out the awesome promo video of Fring below and if you want to go ahead and start video chatting with some of your friends on an Android or iOS device, download Fring.
“Fring leap-frogs sluggish, expensive PC Group Video Calling solutions by giving users the world’s 1st mobile Group Video service, free. There is no reason why users need to run home to their PC in order to have a ‘spontaneous’ video call with their friends and family. Users love seeing all their friends at the same time, on one screen, but want to be able to do it, when and where they want,” said Avi Shechter, Co-Founder & CEO of fring.
“Just as Fring was the 1st to liberate video calls from the PC back in 2009, we are the 1st to give users the ability to see all their friends on their phone at the same time, anywhere. This video call revolution lets fringsters be free to get together, wherever.”
To use it, go to the nearest app market for the software update to join the fun.
Features:
You can call your Fring friends from anywhere
Do a Video Chat either from your iPhone or Android device.
Add up to Four Friends(with the new DVQ™ technology) in this Video Chat.
You can use 3G,4G or WiFi.
More clear Voice and Video Experience with Fring 5.0.0.52.
The only free mobile Group Video Call service in the world!
Video call/Call any other iPhones, iPod touches, Android, Nokia
See your friends real-time status; you can chat with your friends before video-calling them
Apple has finally broken its silence over claims that it was tracking the locations of iPhone users in a hidden file, stating "Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone.”
“Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so," the company said in a statement.
Apple said it is planning to rectify "bugs" that resulted in location data being unencrypted and stored for up to a year.
According to Apple, the iPhone was not logging a user’s location but instead gathering location information to maintain a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in the user’s vicinity to “enable an iPhone to rapidly calculate its location when requested.” It said that its approach can slash the process of calculating a phone's whereabouts to a few seconds.
Apple’s statement comes in wake of researchers raising privacy concerns that that iPhones and iPads were storing latitude and longitude coordinates along with a time stamp. It said the location as seen by the researchers is "not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone's location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone."
It says that all location data sent to Apple is in an anonymous and encrypted format, and that it cannot identify the source of this data.
The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly Apple blamed it is on a software bug for storing as much as a year of location data, and planning to fix it shortly with the release of a free iOS software update. It said the update will reduce the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, ceasing backing up this cache, and deleting this cache entirely when the Location Services function is turned off.
Apple admitted that users should be able to turn off the location logging feature on their phone when they disable location services on it. But a bug prevented this, the company said.
Apple has been at the center of a privacy debate that’s sparked lawsuits from consumers and drawn inquiries from US Congress about whether their products breach privacy rules by tracking and storing users’ locations.
Troubled Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen now has his own mobile application.
The app, called “The MaSheen”, which is now available for iPhone, iPad, and the iPod Touch, is being dubbed as "the mind of Charlie Sheen in your pocket."
The MaSheen features 17 short videos, a fortune teller and games. To use the digital fortune teller, just think of a question and ask it out loud to your device, now shake your iPhone or iPad around, and your fortune will appear clenched within the jaws of a tiger.
"Great news, world; my new app is finally up and running. it's epic! #MaSheen the others are ALL FAKE! this one I designed. your welcome," Sheen twitted.
Apple gave final approval to the App on April 15 allowing Sheen to add content anytime in the MaSheen app, which will cost $2.99.
It’s an interesting and creative way adopted by Charlie Sheen to reach his public without tweeting. But it is now up to them how they take it.
Users of iPad can now access Clear Channel Radio’s popular iHeartRadio service through a new app. This is certainly good news for the iPad users who earlier had to make do with the iPhone and iPod Touch version of the app.
With this free to download app, a user can now listen to company’s 750 online stations in the US, in addition to its additional online commercial-free stations. You’ll also get Airplay support which allows you to stream audio from your iPad to another device like an Apple TV. Stations are streamed in ACC format.
The company claims the app to be top free music app at the App Store and number five on the overall list of free apps.
In a press release Clear Channel Radio said with this new app, the iPad users can now take advantage of:
Sharing stations and videos via Facebook, Twitter and email;
Displaying a station’s Twitter feed when users listen to the station;
Previewing what a station is playing by pressing its logo;
Enabling users to save favorite stations and songs;
Conducting a slideshow of artists as their songs play;
Searching for a station by location, name or music genre.
Robert Pittman, Chairman of Media and Entertainment Platforms for Clear Channel said the app takes advantage of iPad’s screen size and wonderfully simple and intuitive interface. “The iHeartRadio App for iPad is the most complete and engaging digital radio experience possible – it recasts the radio experience in a compelling visual way, and enables users to engage more deeply with their favorite stations and favorite artists,” he said.
The entry of Clear Channel Radio is sure to heat the music streaming/subscription services market on the iPad as till now two major players namely Pandora and SiriusXm. What goes in favour of the company is that app is free to download.
Infinity Blade is one of the most coveted and coolest games you can have on your iPad (or iPad 2). Developed by Epic Games, makers of the best-selling games like Unreal and Gears of War, the best part about this game is its jaw-dropping graphics. Infinity Blade is a 3D action Role-Player Game, where you take the role of an armour-clad warrior, entering a big fortress to avenge the execution of your father at the hands of a powerful warrior monarch.
At each level, you have to enter into combat against numerous giant monsters, ranging from nimble assassins to hulking metal golems, and slay them to make your way into the Big Dad's castle for a one-on-one showdown. To reach ahead, you have to kill those monsters, and on course collect treasures and spend it on your armour and weapons upgrade. These monsters enemies attack wildly, and when wounded, often become enraged. You can defend their attacks through block, but it weakens your shield to eventual breaking point and then you have to adopt a different defensive strategy.
Most of the gameplay is occupied by these battles, combining defence and attack. Its different sections are powerful enough to settle you down into the game’s rhythm. Enemy hit chains must be broken by shield blocking, dodging, or parrying using touch-screen motions that are intuitive and simple. Press your thumb at the bottom right of the screen and you will dodge right and press the bottom left and you’ll dodge left. To block you can press the shield icon in the center to block. For attacking you have to swipe your finger across the screen. Parrying is a difficult move to execute, but parrying attack chains daze your enemy, giving you a larger window to attack.
The game is quite appealing from the strategy point of view as during the gameplay, you have to be responsive and intelligent to ‘break’ the enemy’s attack. The game requires you to think most of the time, and to coordinate and time your attacks. For beginners, developing tactical skills may prove to be difficult but as you play the game extensively you’ll see improvement in every single level. During the course, you may also witness magic and special attacks. By tapping the icon, you can initiate special attacks, but these magic attacks must be “cast” by gesturing a particular symbol with your finger. The battles are challenging and exciting and are fast paced enough to make your pulse racing.
Overall, it is simple and enthralling game that can keep you glued for hours. To reach to the final Big Boss you can expect up to two hours (or less) but slaying him would require some more time. The game involves a compelling story with marvelous graphics, exciting combat and a well-developed character progression.
Spotify, the popular European online music service, has said it is making major changes to its free services. The company plans to cut the amount non-paying account holders can listen to from 20 hours to 10 hours.
Moreover, each track will be available to play five times ever, before being greyed out and made unplayable. However, such restrictions are not applicable to the premium service.
Spotify, which is also looking to launch a service in the United States, typically lets users stream the 10 million songs on its service for free under its basic Spotify Open service.
Analysts see the move as an effort to convert free users to paid subscribers for Spotify Premium or Spotify Unlimited, given the huge cost of its music label licenses. Reduction in free music could also help the start-up reduce the amount of funds it is spending as of now.
However, analysts feel that the action taken by the company could eliminate a lot of users who have become used to accessing the free service of the company.
Founded in 2006, Spotify is one of the world's largest streaming websites and is available only in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands because of copyright issues.
Two year back the service reached one million total users and n July last year, it had about 500,000 paying users.
Spotify users can stream music for free from the service in exchange for listening to advertising, but can also pay five or 10 euros ($6.9 or $13.8) to gain ad-free access to the service.
Have you recently tried searching for the world [tilt] using Google from your iPhone or Android phone. You’ll find that the search results displayed are slightly tilted to the right.
It’s nothing new! Google has a long history of doing special things on their search results. There’s regular strangeness on the Google homepage. And we love it most of the time.
Have you recently tried searching "tilt" on Google using your iPhone? Let iPadfanzz know your comments.
The 2011 Major League Baseball (MLB) season is here and there’s some good news for diehard baseball fans.
If you are following the game via the popular iPhone/iPad app called “At Bat” then now you can take advantage of watching streamed video content of each out-of-market game though MLB.TV during April without any cost. It means once you buy the At Bat app, you can watch any game live (again, out of your home market) without being an MLB.TV subscriber for that month. Volvo is sponsoring the promotion.
The MLB At Bat 11 iPad app is one of the three best sports apps available for watching games on the go.
The partnership between the Volvo and MLB.com is a strategy adopted by Volvo to build awareness of the brand among a sports-oriented audience.
The MLB.com At Bat 11 app, which went on sale on March 30 must be purchased for $14.99 to access the offer. The free trial is supported only on Apple devices.
Among other features, MLB has also added an enhanced, re-designed Gameday pitch-by-pitch feature that includes realistic ballpark renderings from all 30 MLB parks. Moreover, you get access to in-progress video clips, black-out games and full access to watch previous 2011 season games on-demand.
If you have $8 million and want to spend on one of the most expensive and exclusive gadgets in the world, then iPad 2 Gold History Edition is just for you.
Designer Stuart Hughes has come out with a special edition iPad 2 model made from gold, diamonds, dinosaur bone and pieces of Ammolite, costing a whooping £5 million (or $8 million).
The iPad 2 Gold History Edition comes with 53 individual 12.5 carat diamonds formed in an Apple logo which are encrusted in a 24 carat gold rear. Stuart Hughes used 2 kilograms of 24 carat gold to build iPad 2.
Another very interesting feature that has gone into the making of this device is that the designer has used 750 grams of Ammolite stone sourced from Canada. The rock was used to form the front of the iPAd. The rare rock has been mixed with 57 grams of shaved 65 million year old T-REX Dinosaur thigh bone.
The home button of the ultra-luxurious iPad 2 has been fashioned out of a single cut 8.5ct flawless diamond which is surrounded by 12 outer flawless diamonds. Luxury goods fanatics will be saddened to hear that only two models of the device are available.
The computer tablet market is on fire. Apple Inc’s latest version of iPad has already created so much excitement and hysteria around gadgets and gizmo buffs that other companies too are keenly eying a large pie of the growing tablet market.
In a latest development, Motorola Mobility says it will start selling a Wi-Fi-only version of its Xoom tablet computer at a price tag of $599 from March 27 across the United States. The Xoom tablet will come with WiFi connectivity, no monthly wireless contract, and 32 GB of storage, just like the $599 version of the iPad 2.
The Xoom will ship with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system, 32GB of memory, and a 1GHz processor. The device will be available at Amazon.com, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Sam’s Club, Staples, and Walmart.
The arrival of Xoom becomes especially important given that Apple has not been able to fulfill early supply of iPad 2. Estimates put iPad 2 sales at anywhere from 1 million to 1.2 million. An expert said: “Apple left a lot of money on the table when it could not deliver sufficient launch volumes for its new tablet.” The wait time for an iPad 2 is up to five weeks at Apple.com. So many see it as a good chance for Motorola to putting Apple off balance.
One of the drags that Motorola may face is that it hasn’t still fixed some of the issues prevailing with the Xoom, and moreover, the 3G version still costs more than the equivalent iPad. Though Xoom does have better cameras and more RAM memory than the iPad 2, but Apple's tablet is much thinner and lighter.
The Xoom is a prominent competitor to Apple Inc.'s iPad. A version with cellular broadband access went on sale through Verizon Wireless last month for $800, or $600 with a two-year contract.
The iPad 2 and Xoom both have fast dual-core processors and two cameras. But the Motorola Mobility Inc.'s tablet runs Google Inc.'s Android software, while the iPad runs a version of the iPhone's software.
A study conducted by mobile-website–optimization company Blaze.io, involving over 40000 downloads of web pages belonging to the Fortune 1000 companies recently revealed that Android browsers are 52 per cent faster than iPhone’s.
The company tested the Samsung Nexus S (Android 2.3), Samsung Galaxy S (Android 2.2), the iPhone 4.3 and iPhone 4.2 by downloading more than 40,000 Fortune 1000 company websites using a Wi-Fi connection. The phones loaded each Fortune 1000 website three times.
On average, Android phones took 2.1 seconds to render non–mobile-optimized web pages, while the iPhone took 3.2 seconds.
The study also found that the much-touted JavaScript improvements in the latest versions of Android and the iPhone had little real-world effect on these web pages. Howeve, when it came to loading mobile web sites, the two platforms performed the same with download speeds averaging around 2 seconds.
Apple, however, called independent tests by Blaze Software to be "flawed." It said that speed enhancements introduced for Safari do not include the embedded version of the browser, therefore the results are biased towards Android.
“The sluggish iPhone took about 52 percent longer than the Android to load new web pages. Another important study finding: JavaScript improvements in the newest iPhone and Android don't have significant effects on page-load time. (JavaScript is the Web's native programming language that governs functionality on many sites.) Though the findings might be dispiriting for iPhone fanatics, all hope isn't lost: the Android only beat Apple in 84 percent of the trials. And both operating systems had almost the same load time – two seconds – for web pages designed specifically for mobile browsing,” Blaze.io said in a statement.
The Mobile Web browser usage is exploding with estimates suggesting that 44.1 per cent of US citizens will leverage mobile Internet by 2014.
