Eye Scope Adds 8x Optical Zoom To Your iPhone

If you’ve ever wished you could spy on your neighbor’s house or simply take better photos of distant objects with your iPhone (yes, we’re going to pretend your never thought of spying on people using an Apple device), you might want to consider the Eye Scope, a $45 (£29) accessory that can add 8x optical zoom to the iPhone’s lens.

Available for iPhone 3G / 3GS / 4 owners,the Eye Scope is basically a case with an attached optical lens that promises to cover 246 meters ahead of you and your iPhone. Not bad, huh? In the package, you’ll also get a tripod mount and a lens cloth to keep everything clean and well focused.

If you want to go ahead and buy it, the Eye Scope for iPhone is available on online retailer Firebox. [via Ubergizmo]

iHealth: An Apple A Day Will Keep The Doctor Away

Apple iDevices are finally being prescribed more and more for medical applications. Last week we told you about the iphonECG and now there’s the iHealth, a blood pressure monitoring system that uses a special dock and your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad to monitor and track your blood pressure wherever you may be. Looking at the iHealth website, the UI looks clean, simple and easy to use. You can look good and feel better (hopefully) about your health at the same time, ha!

The iHealth unit will be available sometime today on their online store for $99.95 plus a free iOS app that will be available any day.

[via Engadget]

Firemint Acquires Puzzle Quest’s Infinite Interactive

Looks like iOS game company acquisitions are the new “Google has acquired”: in an unexpected turn of events, popular game studio Firemint (creators of award-winning iOS titles such as Flight Control or Real Racing) has acquired the company behind Puzzle Quest, the Infinite Interactive team. Both companies are based in Australia, and a press release went live last night to announce the deal and the fact that “Firemint is welcoming Steve Fawkner”, founder of Infinite Interactive in 1989. As you can see in the graphics above, the companies are already joking about the games that will come as a result of this acquisition, whether or not we’ll be able to put our hands on “Puzzle Control” or “Flight Quest”.

A curious detail is hidden in the press release (which we’ve embedded below): apparently, Firemint’s Rob Murray and Steve Fawkner are long-time friends, and Fawkner showed Murray an early prototype of Puzzle Quest in 2003, receiving feedback from him. Now, he will be able to get feedback on a daily basis and who knows – maybe we are really going to see a more RPG-oriented Real Racing or puzzles in Flight Control. The idea sounds awful, I know, but game designers can usually make awful ideas happen. Read more

Clickfree Unveils $249 Time Capsule Alternative

Looking for an unofficial, cheaper, black-er Time Capsule alternative? Perhaps you just don’t want your Time Capsule to die prematurely while you were just getting to love it? You’re in luck. Amongst CES fever, new gadgets and weird round-shaped televisions, Clickfree has announced a wanna-be Time Capsule competitor that’s basically a hard drive with a built-in 802.11n radio that automates backups from your Macs and PCs.

If you’re familiar with Apple’s Time Capsule, or like me you own an AirPort Extreme with an attached USB external drive, you know how it works: in your Mac’s System Preferences you set the external network drive as a Time Machine destination, and backups will happen wirelessly in the background all the time. It’s unobtrusive, smart and pretty damn awesome. Clickfree is showcasing the product at CES as we speak, and they say no software is needed to run the backup system after an initial setup. One of the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme advantages is the AirPort Utility app Apple gives you to configure almost anything in the device, so I don’t know about Clickfree’s approach. Maybe it’s one of those things that really just works without manual setup.

The Clickfree Wireless comes in two flavors: a 500 GB one that retails at $179, and a 1 TB one that can be yours at $249. [via Engadget]

Fling, A Tactile Game Controller for the iPad

One of the main criticisms of gaming on the iPad (or any iOS device) is that there is no tactile buttons for games that feature a directional pad, or virtual joystick; one example is Super Mega Worm. iOS Gamers rejoice! Ten One Designs came out with Fling, a tactile game controller for the iPad.

Snap Fling onto the iPad glass using the suction cups and starts gaming. It’s clear plastic, offering only a slight obstructed view of what’s underneath. The part that actually touches the screen is made of a conductive material, similar to your finger tips.

It won’t work with all your games, but for only $25 it could make your gaming experince a little more rich. The Fling preorder opens on January 6 so get your credit card ready.

Video and FAQ after the break. Read more

Why Is Saudi Arabia Blocking MobileMe?

As noted by 9to5mac and Arabic website Apple-wd, it’s currently impossible to access MobileMe’s web interface available at www.me.com from the web browser in Saudi Arabia. Since a few hours, the webpage returns an error and a message asking if “you think the requested page should not be blocked”. No word yet from Apple on this, but apparently thousands of users in Saudi Arabia are experiencing the issue.

MobileMe’s web interface allows users to check on email accounts and calendars, contacts, iDisk and even the Find my iPhone feature, which is Apple’s tracking service for stolen or lost iOS devices. Some users are reporting that only the http:// version of Me.com is blocked, while the https:// is working just fine. Others claim both http:// and https:// are being blocked. Direct links to MobileMe’s services (me.com/mail, for example) are reportedly unavailable as well.

In October, Saudi Arabia was one of the countries that didn’t get the FaceTime functionality on the iPhone 4. As of today, it’s still unknown what the real cause of the block was.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary App Adds Dragon Voice Recognition

Merriam-Webster launched a free, ad-supported iPhone dictionary app in mid-December. The dictionary app can pronounce words by pressing the speaker icon in the red button but did you know that you can speak a word for it to search for too? A few weeks ago, they updated it with voice search, first for a free iPhone dictionary app. Just press the microphone in the blue button next to the search text box and it activates the new voice search.

The built-in voice search is powered by Nuance Communications’ very popular Dragon voice recognition technology and it’s very accurate but you would expect nothing less from Dragon. Simply look up a word by speaking it directly into your iPhone. You don’t need a connection to the internet, so it’s very iPod Touch friendly. The UI is polished and the ads don’t distract you too badly; Reader Mode is very cool - it shows you a definition in full screen, landscape or portrait, hiding both the header and the footer.

Voice search is an example of the kind of innovation that Merriam-Webster has been bringing to the dictionary business for more than 150 years,” says President and Publisher John M. Morse. “And with the mobile platform being the fastest growing part of our business, we’re pleased to bring our content to wherever our audience happens to be.

Read more

HandBrake Updates To 0.9.5 In Time For Post-Holiday DVD Ripping

If you’ve been stuck in airport with a luggage case full of DVDs, you might be happy to be returning home to a brand-spankin’ new HandBrake. PowerPC users will no longer be supported from this version on, so don’t update if you’re still toting an old PowerBook. Intel users now have available some delicious new features like dragging and dropping videos onto the main window for scanning, mp3 audio support in mp4 files, improved DVD Main Feature detection, and BluRay disc structure support. Our friends at TUAW noted the latest update wasn’t accessible through the app’s built in updater, so you can check out the remaining release highlights along with a download-link by clicking right-here. You can also check our source below for more information (a commenter noted subtitle-support was still wonky).

[Handbrake 0.9.5 via TUAW]