Archives for July 2010

John Morrell is a researcher over at Yale University who is working on a system which is able to warn drivers of dangers by vibrating a car seat.

The system uses a bunch of cell phone vibration motors attached to the underside of the seat. The system vibrates each time a car approaches allowing drivers to know when to look more closely for dangers that might be lurking.

While driving the motors are going all the time at a slow speed and when a car approaches the motors speed up. As well as speeding up the system detects what side of the road the car is coming at you. For example, if a car is pulling out of a drive way then one side will vibrate more and if a car passes on the other side of the road the other side of motors will vibrate more to let you know where the danger is. [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] has launched Google App Inventor. The software allows users to create apps for Android based smartphones by using an easy to use user interface to drag and drop elements on to a page.

The system uses blocks which you drag and drop on to a virtual phone screen. When the functions are on the page you can then edit actions and so forth to create interactive applications.

The application is not just limited to simple apps either. The App Inventor software gives users access to sensors and other functions of the phone allowing them to create more in-depth applications. [Read more…]

For those of you who still have the trusty T-Mobile G1 kicking around, you are now in for a treat as Cyanogen has released an Android 2.2 Froyo build for the smartphone.

Running Android 2.2 on a G1 apparently works well although it does lack a few features such as Adobe Flash 10.1 and it does on occasion see the Force Close box pop up which might put a few people off. Either way, it’s an early build and one that will be updated we assume over the next month to iron out a few remaining issues.

It’s certainly a good step in the right direction as many people said that the G1 was stuck on Android 1.6 and laughed last year at the idea of even 2.0 running. We then of course saw 2.1 and now see 2.2. [Read more…]

Yesterday Fring launched an update to it’s iPhone app for those using iOS 4 and in particular, the iPhone 4 it’s self. The new update allows users to make video calls to other devices such as Android, Nokia and anything else running or connecting through Fring. Video calls were enabled via 3G or WiFi.

Thanks to a huge amount of people uploading and testing video calling from their iPhone 4, Fring has had to take down support for Skype temporarily. When logging on to Fring today you may have noticed that Skype contacts are gone as well as the small square login box for Skype found on the Add-Ons menu. [Read more…]

The HTC Desire Android 2.2 update is a few months away yet. However, if you are willing to root your HTC Desire now, you can grab the unofficial update that has just been launched.

The good news with the HTC Desire Android 2.2 update is that it works very well according to those at XDA Developers with only a small amount of bugs. These bugs include no wallpapers, geolocalization not always working well and sometimes a reboot for unknown reasons. Although the last could be a problem, it seems like it isn’t that often to cause worry and it would get you Android 2.2 on your Desire now.

Details of the Desire Android update include…

* Android 2.2 Froyo (FRF-85B)
* Kernel 2.6.32.15
* New Radio 32.41.00.32U_5.08.00.04
* New Base v2.04
* 720p Video recorder
* Native APP2SD
* App Sharing
* Car Panel
* Plurk
* Torcia
* Wi-Fi Hotspot
* ..and much more!

[Read more…]

Another iPhone 4 jailbreak is being teased. This time it’s done by Geohot who has provided jailbreaks in the past.

The downside right now is that the iPhone 4 jailbreak probably wont come from Geohot for some reason that we are not sure of.

The picture above simply had an opening line of text saying… “Got one of these in the mail today and figured I’d give it a shot.” [Read more…]

The OS from Google [GOOG] called Android is making quite an impact in the smartphone arena.

Numbers indicated that the Android platform grew 44 percent between February and May. The three months prior to that saw Android taking about 9 percent share of the US smartphone market. With the Android OS growing 44 percent the three months after that, the market share jumped up to 13 percent.

Thirteen percent isn’t a huge number, but at the same time the four percent increase over a quarter shows the rate at which Android is moving. If the growth rate keeps up, which it can due to the sheer number of high end handsets being launched, then this time next year will show Android with a larger market share. [Read more…]

The new iOS 4.0.1 (or whatever it’s called) could be delayed due to the iOS 4 jailbreak that is pending release.

It appears that Apple [AAPL] need a little more time to figure out the security hole to prevent the jailbreak from working. The information doesn’t come from an official source though and instead comes from a tweet of someone who spoke to an Apple [AAPL] store worker…

Guy in Apple Lakeside seems 2 think 4.0.1 is delayed as they r doing a fix 2 stop jailbreak that they have found. Dunno if true?

[Read more…]