easy personal computers

Multi-Touch Page Flipping eBook Concept Shown on an iPad

The KAIST Institute of Information Technology Convergence
has posted this video demonstrating their patented eBook interface prototype.

The prototype is implemented on an Apple iPad but reportedly uses private Apple APIs, according to the video description. The use of private APIs would prevent the app from being approved for the App Store, but the video shows a number of novel ways to navigate eBooks besides the simple "page flip" motion found on Apple's iBooks app.

The new gestures shown include:

- Page Flipping, by spreading pages and then flipping through
- Page Flipping with finger bookmarking
- Multiple page turning using multiple fingers
- Faster swipes turning multiple page
- Longer presses, then swiping can turn multiple pages
- Writing the page number

Interactive eBooks have been a big topic of discussion over this past week, since Apple's launch of iBooks 2
with their new electronic textbooks. (via Reddit
)
Apple Expected to Adopt 802.11ac 5G Gigabit Wi-Fi This Year

AppleInsider claims
that Apple is planning on incorporating support for the new faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi specification into products this year.
The new 802.11ac standard achieves much faster wireless networking speeds than the existing 802.11n specification (in use on the latest Mac, AirPort and iOS devices) by using 2 to 4 times the frequency bandwidth (from 80 to 160MHz), more efficient data transfers through sophisticated modulation, and more antennas (up to 8; existing standards support up to 4, while Apple's Macs currently use up to 3).
This "Gigabit WiFi" offers speeds 3 times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks can with speeds of over 1 Gigabit per second.

Despite the specification not being finalized, Broadcom
has already announced a family of chips supporting 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The final specification is expected to be certified in the second half of this year.

Apple and other manufacturers have been known to deploy un-finalized wireless technology in the past. Apple deployed 802.11n in new AirPort base stations years before the official standard certification.
UpNext Releases Impressive 3D Mapping App for iPad [iOS Blog]

Mapping company UpNext has released a new iPad app
with its 3D mapping technology. The app shows uses points of interest and friends Foursquare check-ins to help users navigate on a 3D representation of close to 50 cities. TechCrunch, writing about the app
, says:

I am seriously impressed. The resolution is great and the onscreen update speed is amazing. It offers the best of services like Google Maps alongside real city imagery, allowing you to use the map to orient yourself in 3D space. A blinking dot on a 2D street-scape works, but a 3D dot in a 3D city works even better.

The app boasts what UpNext calls "enhanced 3D" for 22 cities, with rich building and road detail:

Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Honolulu, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Paul, Washington DC
UpNext HD Maps for iPad is available free
on the App Store. [Direct Link
]
Ten One Design Releases Magnus Magnetic Stand for iPad 2 [iOS Blog]
Ten One Design, makers of the Pogo Stylus
, have released a magnetic stand
for the iPad 2 that is nearly invisible when in use, by repurposing the magnets designed for use with Apple's Smart Cover.

Magnus is first machine-crafted from pure aluminum and then hand-finished using the latest manufacturing techniques. After that, customized magnets are installed into the base, and rubberized feet are fitted to the bottom surface.

Our designers targeted a reduced silhouette. Viewed from the side, you see only the iPad's tilt, and a flat plate on the desk. From there, the engineering took over.

Magnus may look like it's defying gravity, but it feels like a permanent attachment. You may need two hands to separate Magnus from your iPad.

The Magnus stand is $49.95, available from Ten One's website
. It begins shipping later this month.
McGraw-Hill CEO Credits Steve Jobs' Digital Textbook Vision Amid Evidence of Pre-iPad Interest
AllThingsD share some thoughts
from McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw, who during a Q&A session following yesterday's iBooks Textbooks media event described how the development was part of Steve Jobs' vision for what textbooks should be like.
Sitting and listening to all of this, I wish Steve Jobs was here. I was with him in June this past year, and we were talking about some of the benchmarks, and some of the things that we were trying to do together. He should be here. He probably is [gesturing up and around]. This was his vision, this was his idea, and it all had to do with the iPad.
Jobs' interest in textbooks is of course now well-known, with Jobs himself being quoted in Walter Isaacson's authorized biography as wanting to revolutionize the textbook industry
and as having had conversations with publishers such as Pearson about the possibilities.

Part of Peters' 2008 iContest presentation on digital textbooks
One other interesting tidbit on the history of digital textbooks at Apple was shared yesterday by a former Apple intern. As related to The Wirecutter
, former intern Joseph Peters proposed the idea of digital textbooks back in 2008 as part of an "iContest" in which Apple interns gathered to pitch ideas to mid-level executives for feedback. The textbook ideas suggested by Peters and his group were well-received by Apple's judges, with the team being awarded a free MacBook Air and a meeting with higher-level management to discuss the ideas.
Anyway, we presented and answered the Q&A pretty flawlessly. I mean they said they really liked it and every other presentation received mostly sarcastic remarks.

I remember answering a handful of questions and getting the impression that the exec's were totally on board. It was a pretty awesome feeling. [...]

At the end, they announced that we won, they gave us all a MacBook Air and it was great (for interns anyway). I was more excited about the opportunity to talk to more people about the idea. They scheduled a meeting with John Couch, head of Education a few days later. We met John and a few the people on his team in a small board room and we just gave the same pitch as before.
Peters does not suggest that his group's idea was the genesis of Apple's textbook plans, but it does provide interesting insight into a bit of the intern experience at Apple and reveals that Apple was indeed interested in the textbook idea as far back as 2008, more than a year before the debut of the iPad.
New Samsung Ad Targets iPhone's Lack of Built-in Turn-by-Turn Directions [iOS Blog]
Samsung is continuing its string of Galaxy S II television ads
directly targeting the iPhone with a new commercial highlighting the iPhone's lack of built-in turn-by-turn directions. The ad contrasts that with the Galaxy S II (and other Android devices), where the functionality comes standard through Google's mapping services.

The new commercial uses the familiar scenario of devoted Apple fans waiting in line for the launch of a new iPhone that looks just like the previous model, only to encounter a passerby carrying a Galaxy S II.

In the commercial, Samsung coins a new usage for the company's name, turning it into a verb to describe how the company has surpassed Apple's iPhone in features and functionality. In the words of one of the Apple fans depicted in the commercial upon learning about the Galaxy S II's turn-by-turn directions, "We just got Samsunged."
'Absinthe A5' Brings First Untethered Jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad 2
Noted iOS jailbreak author pod2g has teamed up with the Chronic Dev Team to release "Absinthe A5"
, an enhancement to the popular Greenpois0n jailbreaking tool which adds the ability to perform an untethered jailbreak of the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 for the first time.

A related effort from the iPhone Dev Team will include a command-line tool for more control over the jailbreaking process and to assist with diagnosis and repair. Absinthe is currently available only for Mac OS X, although versions for Windows and Linux are set to follow shortly.

Jailbreaking is the process by which users can open up their iOS device systems to load third-party software and hacks not authorized by Apple. Procedures for jailbreaking iOS devices are typically divided into two categories: "tethered" tools that required the device to be connected to a computer each time it is booted, and "untethered" tools that allow the device to be booted independently.

Untethered jailbreaks are obviously the more highly desired of the two forms, and Absinthe represents the first of these untethered jailbreaking tools for iOS devices such as the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 that run Apple's A5 system-on-a-chip.

Device and iOS version combinations that can be jailbroken using Absinthe include the iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0 (9A334) and 5.0.1 (9A405 and 9A406) and all models of the iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 (9A405).

Apple warns that jailbreaking can void a device's warranty, and users should be aware of the potential implications of jailbreaking their devices, but most issues can be resolved using common jailbreak tools and devices can be reverted to their non-jailbroken states if necessary.

Update: The Greenpois0n site is currently seeing intermittent availability issues undoubtedly related to high traffic coming from the new release.
Publisher Touts 20-Point Boost in Student Performance with Textbooks for iPad
With Apple announcing its iBooks Textbooks initiative
yesterday, the company has been pushing its view that the iPad can help revolutionize education by keeping students engaged with unprecedented levels of interactivity.

In an attempt to assess the effect of iPad textbooks on student performance, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) performed a year-long pilot program
using an iPad version of the company's Algebra 1 textbook for middle school students. The study, conducted at Amelia Earhart Middle School in Riverside, California, saw 78% students taking the course using the iPad textbook rank as "Proficient" or "Advanced" in the subject, compared to only 58% of students using the traditional print textbook.
The first assessment of the pilot? Riverside's district Algebra benchmark ?took place during the second trimester of the 2010?2011 year. Students using HMH Fuse scored an average of 10 percentage points higher than their peers. The app's impact was even more pronounced after the California Standards Test in spring 2011, on which HMH Fuse students scored approximately 20 percent higher than their textbook-using peers.
Educators noted increased motivation on the part of students using the iPad app, as well as the personal level of interactivity, as factors contributing to student success. Students also found the iPad experience more natural and put them more in charge of their own learning, factors that increased student interest and engagement.

One important consideration is that the iPad textbook offered by HMH was not an official iBooks Textbook as introduced by Apple yesterday. The publisher's Fuse program
has offered iPad versions of its Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry textbooks as apps in the App Store since last year. The apps are currently offered as free sample downloads with the full textbooks available via in-app purchase at $59.99 each, considerably higher than Apple's maximum price of $14.99 for titles in the iBooks Textbooks program.

HMH was the only one of Apple's three main partner publishers to not release any iBooks Textbooks at yesterday's event, with Pearson and McGraw-Hill each releasing a small handful of titles to kick off the program. It seems that HMH may now be working to transition its Fuse program to iBooks Textbooks, accounting for the later launch of its titles.
Camera-free iPhone 4 and 4S Now Officially Available in Singapore [iOS Blog]
Last week, we noted
that several carriers in Singapore were working to offer camera-less iPhone 4S models for users whose professions prevented them from carrying camera-equipped mobile phones. With Singapore requiring all male citizens and many permanent residents to serve up to two years in the military, there is a significant market for camera-less phones in the country.

CNET Asia now reports
that Singapore carrier M1 has officially gone live
with its camera-less iPhone 4 and 4S models on its website. As previously reported, the devices are standard iPhone 4 and 4S models which have seen both front and rear cameras removed by the carrier. The camera-free versions carry a S$49 premium over their standard counterparts, covering the camera removal process. The camera removal process also voids Apple's warranty on the device, and M1 is offering users the ability to purchase a separate one-year warranty through a third-party vendor.

MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - All Stories Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:59:48 PST

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