Making Movies on iPad, iPhone

The iPad is a content-consumption device. The Macintosh, in all its variations - tower, desktop or notebook - is for content creation. We know that because Steve Jobs said so.
Either he has changed his thinking or iPads 1 and 2 have developed minds of their own and want to be creation devices. And, indeed, they are.
The iPad's mind, in this sense, is the army of developers who have crammed the iTunes App Store with apps of a creative nature. And Apple has been doing it, too.
Last week we talked about GarageBand, a creative application on the iPad; it's great for making music to use for almost anything, from backgrounding an iMovie to keeping neighbours awake.
Thus we come to the mobile version of iMovie, which first appeared on the iPhone 4 and the latest iPod Touch. Small though those screens are, some remarkable work is being done on them, not only shooting movie footage but also editing it on a timeline only a fraction of the width of a finger.
YouTube has heaps of little amateur movies made on iPhone 4s, some of really nice quality. See examples at tinyurl.com/3rcdjqu, tinyurl

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BlackBerry Limits Next Week

Emirati authorities are pushing ahead with plans to impose tighter government restrictions on the most secure BlackBerry services next week, according to the CEO of one of the Gulf nation's phone companies.
But Osman Sultan, chief executive of the telecommunications firm Du, told reporters Monday he doesn't expect the shift May 1 to cause problems for customers, who will still have access to email, Web browsing and messaging services.
His company and its rival Etisalat — both majority owned by the government — are required to implement the new policy, which would limit access to the Blackberry Enterprise Server to companies with 20 accounts or more.
That system provides the most secure communication on the handheld devices and is used by many international companies and government agencies.
Others users would need to rely on a less-secure system known as the BlackBerry Internet Service that experts say could be easier for authorities to monitor.
"I don't see any reason for frustration for customers," Sultan said. "You can still access your corporate email via BIS. ... I don't see what really is the issue."

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Death of The SMS?

Mobile text messaging could become extinct within a generation as millions of young people turn to other forms of electronic communication.
Teenagers are increasingly using instant messaging from mobile phones and social networking sites such as Facebook. Experts predict the amount of texts sent in the UK will drop by 20 per cent in the next two years.
It comes as teenagers and students are increasingly using BlackBerrys instead of iPhones and other smartphones because the device has a free BBM messenger.
Sales in the phone, that was once the preserve of the corporate boardroom, have increased six-fold during the past year, mainly due to being taken up by 16 to 24-year-olds.
A study for broadband provider TalkTalk found only 51 per cent of Britons in their teens or early 20s say email is their first choice of communication. Industry experts believe that if this trend is followed into adulthood then text messaging could disappear within a generation.
Instant messaging is extremely similar to texting, but faster and cheaper. It is free on BlackBerry phones even for ‘pay and go’ customers and is used by 39million people across the world.

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Apple iPhone Secretly Records Owners' Every Move

Security researchers have discovered that Apple's iPhone keeps track of where you go - and saves every detail to a secret file on the device which is copied to the owner's computer when synchronised.
The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone's recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner's movements using a simple program.
For some phones, there could be almost a year's worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple's iOS 4 update to the phone's operating system, released in June 2010.
Pete Warden, one of the researchers, said: "Apple has made it possible for almost anybody ... with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you've been."

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Computer Demand Shrinks amid Tablet Craze

Figures released on Wednesday showed that the personal computer market shrank for the first time in more than a year due to frugality and a tablet computer craze led by Apple’s hot-selling iPads.
Global personal computer (PC) shipments declined 3.2 percent during the first three months of the year in the first slip since the recession ended some 18 months ago, according to industry tracker International Data Corporation.
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 84.3 million units during the quarter in a 1.1 percent drop from the same three months last year, according to figures gathered by research group Gartner. Weak demand for consumer PCs was the biggest drag on the market, according to Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa.
“Low prices for consumer PCs, which had long stimulated growth, no longer attracted buyers,” Kitagawa said.
“Instead, consumers turned their attention to media tablets and other consumer electronics.” After Apple’s second-generation iPad was released in February, many consumers either switched allegiances or simply held back from buying PCs, according to the analyst.

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Glasses-free 3D Comes to iPad 2, iPhone 4

A team of French researchers has brought glasses-free 3D to the iPhone and iPad in an ingenious piece of visual trickery that offers a similar effect to the new Nintendo 3DS handheld games console.
Jeremie Francone amd Laurence Nigay, from the Engineering Human-Computer Interaction research group, harnessed the front-facing cameras on the iPad 2 (video) and iPhone 4 (video) to track the user's head, thus allowing their software to deliver 3D experiences without the need for glasses.
Clips of the technology - dubbed "head-coupled perspective" - in action have begun going viral on YouTube, garnering hundreds of thousands of hits so far.
"It is based on a efficient head-tracker that uses the front-facing camera of the device," the researchers explain on their website.
"We use an off-axis projection in order to adapt the perspective of the 3D scene according to the head's position of the user."
The pair did not respond to requests for an interview at the time of writing but on their YouTube posting they say they were inspired by the work of Johnny Lee, who used similar head-tracking technology to create a 3D hack for the Nintendo Wii.

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Acer Iconia A500 Tablet

 

Adam Turner

If you've been waiting for Android tablets to catch up with Apple's iPad, the wait might be over.
I wasn’t overly impressed with the first batch of Android tablets. They reminded me of the early Android smartphones like the HTC Dream - brimming with potential but not quite ready for the big time.
After spending some time with the sleek new Acer Iconia Tab A500 running Android 3.0 “Honeycomb”, I feel it’s safe to say Android tablets have come of age.
For now Acer is selling the 16GB wifi-only A500 for $579 and the 32GB wifi-only for $678 - impressive pricing compared to the first-gen Android tablets. The A501 wifi/3G models should be available in May.
The 10.1-inch A500 is a thing of beauty and makes a striking first impression. It’s just as slender as the original iPad and is only a tad heavier at 765 gm compared to the iPad’s 680 gm. The A500’s tapered edges help emphasise the feeling of slenderness and the extra weight isn’t really noticeable at first.
After a while I found myself resting the A500 on my lap more than I would with the iPad, so I guess you start to feel the weight after a while. That doesn’t bother me too much because I’d say the A500 is designed more for using on the couch than the train.
If you’re looking for a smaller and lighter travel companion, keep in mind Acer will also offer a 7-inch A100 - unlike Apple’s one-size-fits-all approach to tablets. The A100 features a pretty meagre 8GB of storage, but the other specs are good and it will most likely be the cheapest entry-level Honeycomb tablet.
Getting back to the A500, it utilises an aluminium shell with your standard tablet design but hiding a few surprises. Holding it in portrait mode you’ve got the power button and headphone jack across the top right, with volume buttons and a rotate lock switch down the right side. Below this is a plastic cover which comes away to reveal the microSD card slot and a gap which will take a SIM in the 3G-capable models.
Across the top left you’ve got a micro-HDMI slot - the first indication that the A500 has a few impressive tricks up its sleeve. Half way down the left side you’ll discover a docking port, which works with the optional charge cradle.

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