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Ustream Releases iPad App with AirPlay Support

Ustream, the popular web service to broadcast and interact with live events, updated its iPhone app back in March to unify the broadcasting and chatting features in a single package that allowed users to record and engage in conversations in the chat room at the same time, providing additional social features for Facebook and Twitter sharing as well. With a new update released today and now available on the App Store, Ustream is bringing native support to iPad owners with a brand new app that’s been completely redesigned to take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen. The update is universal, so you’ll need to update your existing Ustream iPhone app to get the iPad version.

Just like the iPhone app, Ustream for iPad will let you broadcast and interact with your audience from a single interface that, on the iPad, lays out video, audio, chat and social controls in a semi-circular overlay control popup similar to Grazing’s slidepad. You can flip cameras and adjust audio, or if you want to see what’s happening online, head over the social stream to hear what people are saying on Twitter and Facebook about your show, or simply pop into the chat room dedicated to your broadcast. Obviously, you can also watch live shows and participate in the chat room – Ustream’s iPad app lets you check on popular, live and featured shows right from the homepage, so if you’re a heavy Ustream user you’ll always have something to tune into. Among the new features, Ustream also touts “Airplay support for true social interactive viewing of the chat and social stream”.

Ustream already had a very solid iPhone app, and this new iPad version contributes to making the service a complete solution that works on any web browser, and now iOS devices as well. Get the app here for free.

Face Detection Technology And APIs Make Their Way Into iOS 5

After doing some digging in iOS 5, 9to5 Mac today reported that Apple is planning to open up face detection APIs to developers. It appears from what they found that Apple will bring similar face detection techniques that Photo Booth on Lion currently employs to iOS and allow developers to build different apps that utilize the APIs.

These claims come after 9to5 Mac found the ‘CIFaceFeature’ and ‘CIDetector’ APIs within a recent beta build of iOS 5, which they say are “very advanced” APIs. The first of the two can be used by developers to locate where a person’s mouth and eyes are, whilst the latter is used when processing those images for face detection. Apple’s Developer Library online also already has some notes on the new APIs for developers to take advantage of.

Obviously at this point there is only speculation as to what these purported APIs could be used for – an obvious stretch is that the iPad version of Photo Booth may add the new effects added to the Lion version that take advantage of the information of where a person’s facial features are. It is also claimed that Polar Rose, a company that specialized in facial recognition software and was purchased by Apple last year, played a role in the development of these technologies within iOS and Lion.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

All You Need To Know About Quick Look In Lion, Plus Some Handy Tips And Tricks

We briefly touched upon the improvements to Quick Look in our Lion review last week, speaking of the improvements made to it in broad strokes. But we felt as though it was worth a second look because there have been quite a few improvements, including many that are subtle but really nice touches.

New Look
The biggest change is of course the refreshed look, which Cody described in the review as “painted in a new white lacquer compared to the smokey previews in Leopard and Snow Leopard”. The reaction to this change has been both positive and negative, but broadly speaking we think it’s a good change, it feels cleaner and more refined – gone is that thick and wasteful bar at the bottom of the Quick Look window.

Read more

Miscellaneous Lion Tips and Tricks, Part 2

In our first “Miscellaneous Lion Tips and Tricks” article we collected the best tips we received soon after Lion’s launch on the Mac App Store last Wednesday. Lion was being welcomed with positive reviews, Mac users finally got their hands on the much anticipated upgrade, and people started digging deeper into the OS to discover functions and tricks not publicized by Apple in its marketing material and Mac App Store description page. Less than a week into Lion, the web has exploded with new Lion tips, Terminal hacks, and app tweaks. Once again, we have collected the best tips sent to us by our readers and Twitter followers in an article that will (hopefully) help you discover new things Apple didn’t talk about at its developer events or in Lion’s promo video. Jump after the break for a second list of Lion tips and tricks you can try right now. Read more

Apple Posts OS X 10.6.8 Supplemental Update And Other Revisions

Earlier today, Apple posted a series of revised Mac OS X 10.6.8 updates aimed at both desktop and Server users to fix a number of bugs and issue from the previous 10.6.8 release, and ease the transition to Lion. The “Mac OS X 10.6.8 Supplemental Update” – showing up now in Software Update and available on Apple’s website – brings audio fixes when using HDMI or optical audio out, resolves issues with certain network printers and improves the transfer process of personal data from Snow Leopard to Lion, something that Apple also addressed with a separate Migration Assistant update last week.

The supplemental and combo updates for Snow Leopard are all available on Apple’s website, or directly through Software Update. The updates are recommended for all users running Snow Leopard, presumably looking to upgrade to OS X Lion in the near future. Direct links below.

- Mac OS X Server v10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1

- Mac OS X 10.6.8 Server Supplemental Update

- Mac OS X Server v10.6.8 Update v1.1

- Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1

- Mac OS X 10.6.8 Supplemental Update

- Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update v.1.1

Shred on your iPad or iPhone with Griffin Technology’s StompBox

Us iOS users don’t want to brag or anything, but we’ve got a library of sound ready to be unleashed from our iPads and iPhones thanks to iShred Live, allowing us to mix and match a host of virtual effects pedals so we can create crunchy sounds without carrying a suitcase of heavy stomp boxes (just bring a cable). And when we get home, we have the convenience of plugging into Griffin Technology’s StompBox, transforming our previous mobile set into a working pedal board, which works with your guitar, bass, or electric violin.

The StompBox, available now for $99.99 at the Apple Store or at Griffin’s storefront, sports four switches that can be assigned to any effects of your choice, comes with a 1 meter cable for connecting to your iPad or iPod touch, and accepts additional pedals through a 1/4” jack. A three pronged cable hooks up your headphones, your guitar, and an amp so you can rock out without a dozen wires hooking the system together. Griffin’s effects rig is simple to hook up, is totally stomp-worthy, and ready to crush those metal jams with your favorite iOS device.

If you’re looking for even more options, well, Griffin probably has you covered here too.

Apple Releases iOS 4.3.5 [Direct Links]

Apple has just released iOS 4.3.5 in iTunes. The new firmware should be available now if you check for updates. iOS 4.3.4 was released on July 15th, and as you can see from the screenshot below this new update “fixes a security vulnerability with certificate validation”. The direct links to the OS haven’t been posted yet, and we’re hearing several users are getting timeout errors in iTunes when trying to download the new firmware. Build number of iOS 4.3.5 is 8L1, whilst a separate iOS 4.2.10 version for the CDMA has been released as well with build number 8E600.

We’ll update this article with more details on iOS 4.3.5 as we get them.

Direct links below:

My Weekend with Prowl

For some reason, I never considered Prowl as a viable alternative to the apps that let iOS devices communicate with a Mac. Prowl has been around since 2009 and, as the name suggests, it is an interface for Growl, the popular Mac notification system that’s getting a major revamp in version 1.3 for its Mac App Store debut. Basically, Prowl is both an iPhone app and a Mac plugin that will send Growl notifications – those Growl notifications you see every day – from your computer to your iPhone in seconds, via push notifications. On the Mac’s side, the app is entirely configurable: in spite of the fact that it’s listed under the Display Options of Growl – and so you could think it’s just a theme – its control panel comes with detailed login and notification settings to keep using a Growl theme you know and love, but at the same time build a bridge between your computer and the aforementioned Prowl for iPhone, which is a list of desktop notifications sent to your phone over the air. Prowl mirrors Growl notifications to your iPhone. Read more