Category: Computers, Internet & Technology

iPhone 4 found in the wild

Waiting for the new version of the iPhone. Someone found one in a bar and Gizmodo took it apart. Nice enhancements.

But the design isn’t the most important part that’s changed.

They’ve delivered many of the features people have been waiting for—that damn front camera!—while at the same time upgrading everything else. Flash, better back camera, better battery life and another microphone for better voice clarity. People who bought the 3G two years ago and are now in the perfect position to upgrade and get a dramatically different, and better, phone. If confirmed this summer, and if it performs as we expect, this next-generation iPhone looks like a winner.

Don’t buy an iPhone

If you’re thinking about buying an iPhone 3GS right now, here’s some very simple advice: wait. Based on not only industry rumors but also historical patterns of iPhone releases, it’s widely expected that Apple will debut a new iPhone in less than two months. While we don’t know anything concrete about the next iPhone, it seems obvious the next iPhone will have more storage, a faster processor, and possibly even more RAM than the current iPhone 3GS. All of that equals better performance, and it’s likely the prices will remain exactly the same as the current models — meaning you get more bang for your buck.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has more.

Sorry, Natalie.

Yeah, I’m wondering how long the line is, too

From The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, an excerpt from “An open letter to the people of the world.”

The truth is, all over the world, across every culture, there exists a sense of yearning. A kind of malaise. An emptiness. At the risk of sounding like Dr. Seuss: There is a hole in your soul. That is what we’re addressing at Apple. That is the hole we aim to fill. Sadly, as you may have begun to suspect, that hole can never really be filled. The truth is that modernity, the condition of living in our modern world, has inflicted terrible wounds on your inner self. These wounds can never be healed. They can only be treated. At best we provide palliative care. Not a cure. Because, my dear fellow human beings, there is no cure for what ails you. The products we create provide only temporary relief. Their magic eventually wears off. The sense of childlike wonder they impart will, over time, begin to fade. And then you need a new product. Think back to July 29, 2007. Do you remember the rapture? The wonder of iPhone? The magic? Now that is gone, but here we come with another shot of digital Dilaudid. Sleep well, my friends. Sleep deeply and rest, cradled in the arms of my electronic medicine.

The best rule of the day

Farhad Manjoo at Slate Magazine asked readers to propose “a concise, easy-to-remember rule that we could all consult when deciding whether to reach for our phones.”

And his readers responded.

If you’re in a situation where you’d excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, you should also excuse yourself before reaching for your phone. Otherwise, go ahead without asking. Either way, don’t play with your phone longer than you’d stay in the bathroom.

Follow the link above to read all about it. And to discover the “one area where readers were in absolute agreement.”

Thanks to Nora for sending the link.

Nora knows an individual who is confused. That individual uses the cell phone IN THE BATHROOM.

Test your Broadband

As part of the National Broadband Plan, the FCC is providing tools to measure your connection.

The purpose of the Consumer Broadband Test (Beta) is to give consumers additional information about the quality of their broadband connections and to create awareness about the importance of broadband quality in accessing content and services over the internet. Additionally, the FCC may use data collected from the Consumer Broadband Test (Beta), along with submitted street address, to analyze broadband quality and availability on a geographic basis across the United States.

About the Consumer Broadband Test (Beta) – Broadband.gov

FCC Mobile Broadband Test for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

Some might wonder at giving the government your address. Don’t be an idiot. Trust me, they already know where you live. You get mail don’t you?

Here’s the background.

Above image my results. Below my iPhone results, left wireless, right 3G, bottom Edge. Ugly!

 

Progress

I have a desktop computer I bought 12 years ago this month that I am finally getting around to recycling. I was checking through the documentation (to see if there was any personal stuff) and noticed the technical specs.

RAM: 48MB
CPU: 66MHz
Cache: 32KB
HD : 6GB
Modem speed: Up to 56kbps
Graphic memory: 4MB
Windows 95

By comparison, my newest computer, bought two years ago this month has:

RAM: 4GB (83X)
CPU: 2.4GHz (36X)
Cache: 3MB (94X)
HD : 200GB (33X)
Modem: Wireless 802.11n Up to 300Mbps (5357X)
Graphic memory: 256MB (64X)

The newer computer was cheaper, too.

132 years ago today

… Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph and ultimately music changed forever.

The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison’s work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape…This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kreusi, to build, which Kreusi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, “Mary had a little lamb.” To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him. …
It didn't look much like an iPod

The invention was highly original. The only other recorded evidence of such an invention was in a paper by French scientist Charles Cros, written on April 18, 1877. There were some differences, however, between the two men’s ideas, and Cros’s work remained only a theory, since he did not produce a working model of it.

Source: Library of Congress

It didn’t look much like an iPod. Click image for larger version.