Along with the introduction of the iPhone in January 2007, Apple also announced the iPhone Bluetooth Headset, a small, sleek-looking wireless earpiece that cost $129 and featured automatic paring with the iPhone. It originally shipped with a travel cable and dual dock, both of which allowed it to be simultaneously charged along with your iPhone.
In July last year, Apple stopped bundling the dual dock with the headset and dropped the price to $99, perhaps in an attempt to bolster disappointing sales. It didn’t seem to have helped, though, since the product has now been discontinued.
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More Bad News for Newspapers
At least 120 newspapers in the U.S. have shut down since January 2008, according to Paper Cuts, a Web site tracking the newspaper industry. More than 21,000 jobs at 67 newspapers have vaporized in that time, according to the site.
‘What Will It Take To Make The Switch?’
From Newton Poetry:
There are still Newton-like features missing on the touch screen platforms: a wide-open application base, handwriting recognition, innovative file system, and kick-ass battery life. Newton users never have to worry about Apple rejecting a great app, or of losing service thanks to AT&T’s sub-par network.
But still. Eventually, Newton users will have fewer and fewer excuses not to make an upgrade of some kind. If the very thing Newton die-hards are looking for - a bigger iPod Touch with full PIM capabilities - comes out in the next few months, will a lack of handwriting recognition be enough to hold off on making the purchase? What will be left lacking?
‘Virtual Apple 2’ Brings Old Games and Apps Back to Life Inside the Browser
Despite the typo in their name, the “Virtual Apple 2” is a very slick project. Here’s the info straight from the horse’s mouth:
Virtual Apple ][ is a site which will take you back to the 1980’s through its collection of more than 1250 game disks online. Play and enjoy old Apple ][ (Apple2) and Apple IIgs games and other disks through your Internet web browser. You will find games like Oregon Trail and Number Munchers which many of you played as kids, as well as games like Tetris, Battle Chess, Leisure Suit Larry, Choplifter, Archon II and Kings Quest.
Not Surprising At All
IE 8 does have more problems than mere JavaScript engine speeds. It scores a 20/100 on the Acid3 test, the lowest of the major browsers, and the installation process still requires a reboot. There’s no default “smart” location bar that many other browsers have, although you can search your history and most visited pages from it.
Sure, there is a lot more that goes into a browser that makes it a great browser, but doing well on the Acid3 Test is one for me.
Still Falling
Palm has reported losses in the last seven quarters. The company, which introduced the pioneering Pilot device more than a decade ago, said on March 3 that sales declined because of dwindling orders for its older models.
Man, I bet those guys are really hoping the Pre takes off when its released later this year.
Flying Cars Are Keeping Our Childhood Dreams Alive Even Today
Ever since The Jetsons, every child dreams of flying cars. Well, our dreams are coming true. Engadget:
We’re definitely psyched to hear that the “roadable aircraft” went airborne in a super-secret test flight that took place in the early hours of March 5th at Plattsburgh International Airport. The vehicle left the ground for a good thirty-seven seconds, traveling some 3,000 feet. At a press conference today, the company’s CEO Carl Dietrich remarked that “with this achievement, Terrafugia has set the stage for personal aviation.” Which, considering how folks light up I–95 on an average workday, might at first blush seem somewhat unsettling – but to each his own, right? According to the company, more than forty people have put down the $10,000 deposit for the new aircraft, which – if all goes according to plan – will be hitting the road sometime in 2011.
Apple Stores Replacing iPhone Displays
A friend of mine recently had a bright blue pixel show up - and stick - on his iPhone 3G’s touchscreen. He told me about it, and I recommended he go to his local Apple Store and see if the Genius Bar would swap the device, as it is still under warranty and had no damage.
In the past, they would have simply swapped it, but instead, a Genius took the phone into the back room and replaced the glass (which includes the LCD display) while he waited.
New Way to Look at March Madness
Via @danfrakes: a NCAA bracket based on the median salary of the schools’ graduates.
Memphis loses in the first round of this bracket.
Should App Store Developers Jailbreak Their Devices?
According to the iPhone dev team blog, the 3.0 OS firmware is jailbreakable on all devices. They have not yet issued a 3.0 jailbreak, but signs are promising for a release sooner than later. A jailbreak would open up the iPhone’s Unix chroot jail, allowing read-write access to the entire file system. Doing so on the iPhone lets users install BSD Unix tools, the Debian APT package management system, and OpenSSH.
Holding My Feet to the Fire
In my recent interviews with Cornfedtech, I discussed the origin of the name “ForkBombr” and neglected to tell the whole story, as I was just reminded of by Kevin Lipe. Here’s the crux of the matter:
Well, I have to admit that “logic bomb” sounded cooler to me, but I figured “Fork Bomber” would make a better blog title. I was right. This was about the time that Flickr and a few other “Web 2.0” sites were first starting to pop up, and they were all missing vowels from their names. I figured I’d be a smart aleck and call my blog “Fork Bombr.**” The site went live. Eventually I got a tumblelog and decided to move Fork Bombr there. I got a hosting account and registered the domain name a couple years later and started blogging there in the summer of 2007.
Microsoft Releases IE 8
New features in IE8 include right-clicking on addresses or other Web features to go straight to a map or put into a blog or other website, which Microsoft calls an “accelerator”. Users will also be able to put in keywords in the address bar to recall sites visited related to that word.
The new browser also has enhanced security protection, for example warning users if they are about to download something from a site known to be a source of malicious software, or “malware.”