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Posts tagged with "iPad"

The Future: Thought-Controlled iPad

When I was a kid and I tried to imagine what “the future” would look like, I have to admit I could only think of flying cars, spacecrafts and thought-controlled objects. As I grew up and realized flying cars were a no-no and the year 2000 didn’t bring anything new except for a weird computer bug people were scared of, I lost my faith in space exploration (well, at least in the short term) but I kept hoping for thought-controlled gadgets. Because I knew manufacturers and scientists were playing around with the idea and a few prototypes had been demoed at, say, videogame-related conferences.

So what does this have to do with Apple? Fair enough, good question. At the latest CES, InteraXon (a Canadian company) has announced and demonstrated a headset that can connect to iPhones and iPads and allows you to control apps and games with your mind. There, I said it. Technically, this custom EEG headset pairs with a thought-controlling framework that has been added to the popular iPad game Zen Bound 2 game, letting users control the wooden shapes on screen with their brainwaves.

Now the real question is: are you willing to put a headset on to control stuff with your brain? Doesn’t it look a little bit, well, weird? The project is in its early stages, we have time to put some thought on it. Literally.

Video after the break. [via iSpazio]

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The Daily Won’t Be Announced Next Week

Looks like we called it: citing “sources familiar with the companies’ plans” All Things Digital reports that The Daily, the joint venture between Apple and News Corp. for an iPad-exclusive newspaper, won’t be announced next week:

Apple and News Corp. have made a joint decision to push back next week’s planned launch, according to sources familiar with the companies’ plans. The delay is supposed to give Apple time to tweak its new subscription service for publications sold through its iTunes platform.

Plans to hold debut the iPad newspaper at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art next Wednesday have been tabled “for weeks, not months,” I’m told.

As we expected, the issue seems to be lying in app subscriptions for iTunes, which aren’t ready at the moment. And with such a feature supposedly being scheduled to ship with a software update to iOS, it appears that we’ll have to wait for weeks before actually reading The Daily. iOS 4.3, in fact, was released as “beta 1” only yesterday.

News Corp. PR confirmed the delay, and Apple declined to comment. Apple is reportedly tweaking the iTunes subscription feature that will allow publishers to push new content to users automatically, with recurring billing in iTunes.

Gameloft Brings Interactive World War II Archive To The iPad

With their latest release for the iPad, Gameloft has temporarily decided to put games on the shelves and focus on a more historic subject like World War II. And instead of re-creating the conflict through another first-person shooter videogame, Gameloft created a completely interactive and immersive 56-page book filled with photographs, maps and fac-simile documents.

The app, War in the Pacific, features a foreword by Senior Military Advisor Dale Dye and was curated by Richard Overy, Professor of History at the University of Exeter. As you can see in the promo video below, the app (which also happens to be a 463 MB download, not exactly “lightweight”) comes with original video footage from 1945 detailing the battles against the Japanese Empire and sports some neat multi-touch gestures to navigate between pages, move documents on screen and re-arrange content. There are also animated maps showing the most important events in the Pacific and, overall, the photo archive really looks impressive.

War in the Pacific is available exclusively for the iPad and will cost you $9.99. I wonder if in the future we’ll see, for example, schools adopt this kind of single-subject interactive publications as a way for kids to learn faster, in a new way. Read more

First Leaked Image of “The Daily” for iPad

The Daily by News Corp. is one of the hottest rumors in the Apple tech sphere these days. Initially rumored to launch in December 2010 alongside iOS 4.3 and now apparently scheduled for a late January official announcement (with iOS 4.3 now out in beta), The Daily has been making the rounds also thanks to speculation that Steve Jobs might be directly involved in the realization of the iPad-exclusive newspaper. The Daily is also expected to bring a new feature based on “app subscriptions” that would allow users to set up automatic, recurring payments within iTunes. Read more

App Is 2010’s Word Of The Year

The American Dialect Society has chosen “app” as 2010’s word of the year, which isn’t surprising considering the media’s focus on all things “apps.” Apple took the phrase and injected it straight into the heart of commercial marketing as they continually aired commercials for both the iPhone and iPad showcasing apps available on the App Store, while Verizon’s Droid Does commercials showcased the “limitless potential” of the Android Marketplace. 2011 will continue this trend as devices like the iPad introduce more powerful gestures, and as the iPhone penetrates Verizon for the first time. If 2010 wasn’t the year of apps, do you think it would have been the year of the iPad? I think so.

[MSNBC via TUAW] Read more

References of New iPhones and iPads Spotted in iOS 4.3

A new OS comes along, and with a bit of digging into its code it reveals the secret of the next devices to come out from Cupertino. Engadget took a look inside the latest iOS 4.3 SDK and discovered mentions of new iPhones and iPads:

  • iPhone3,3
  • iPhone4,1
  • iPhone4,2
  • iPad2,1
  • iPad2,2
  • iPad2,3

To recap, iPhone3,1 and iPhone3,2 are the current models on AT&T and Verizon, respectively. While iPhone4,1 and iPhone4,2 point to the next-generation device known as “iPhone 5”, the 3,3 code reference suggests a new iteration of the iPhone 4. Perhaps the white one?

Oh, and about the iPads? We’re pretty sure those 3 models are for the iPad 2 in its GSM, CDMA and Wi-Fi only versions.

Next iPhones and iPads To Lose Home Button? Not So Fast

Jonathan S. Geller over at BGR reports that, according to his sources, we may see Apple removing the Home button from the next-generation iPhones and iPads, to be released this year:

We have exclusively been told that the reason Apple just added multitouch gestures for the iPad in the latest iOS 4.3 beta is because the iPad will be losing the home button.

In addition to the home button disappearing from the iPad, we’re told that this change will make its way over to the iPhone as well. Our source said Apple employees are already testing iPads and iPhones with no home buttons on the Apple campus, and it’s possible we will see this new change materialize with the next-generation iPad and iPhone devices set to launch this year.

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