Dyme Def – I’m Gone

This is what you get when you combine 3 of LeftRight’s most favorite things: Hip Hop, Seattle, and the iPhone 3GS. Word.

Sparsh Multitouch Display

Sparsh is an interactive multi-touch table made by using FTIR techniques, or Fourier Transform Spectroscopy – or infrared light. Pretty geeky sounding, huh? Multi-touch is an interactive experience where the interface is controled by simple hand gestures, similar to what you’ve seen on the iPhone. It’s tricky designing for these experiences because they are fairly new, and require a lot of user input as to what works. A simple swipe to move a photo out of the way, a double-tap to pop up a dialog… the possibilities are endless.

After watching that video, you may think this is a direct ripoff of Microsoft Surface. Well, not only does Microsoft have billions to advertise thier ‘innovative’ technology, but this Sparsh Multitouch Display was built by a group of engineering students from India using open-source technology.

The great thing about open-source technology is that it is technology for the people, by the people. There are many software systems that allow computer users to download, copy, distribute and improve their software regardless of their language or disability. There are a ton of up and coming open-source technologies including those used in the Sparsh prototype, Ubuntu, jquery, Azureus and Wordpress – the very software I am writing this blog on.

A combination of open-source technology and products like multitouch could very well end up in every classroom, concierge, airport and even home office in the very near future. You can even build one yourself!

iPhone 3G HACKED!

The geniuses that make up the iPhone Dev team have once again shocked (not really) the mobile device market by hacking and jailbreaking the new iPhone 3G. Prior to the release of the new iPhone, Apple claimed that the new iPhones were “unhackable” and would decrease the amount of hacked iPhones used for third party carriers, like T-Mobile.

This means on an unlocked iPhone or iPhone 3G, you can update iTunes and the actual hardware device to version 2.0 and have access to all the cool official and unofficial third-party applications without having to sacrifice yourself to the brick relationship that is the iPhone and AT&T.

Now, I’m no genius, but if you tell people, say for example, hackers, that they can’t do something, there’s a 99.9% chance that they’ll figure out how to do it. But that’s just me.

Here’s a hip-hip-hoorah to the dev teams, and another hip-hip-hoorah for developing a pretty GUI to rub it in. Amen for plug-and-play.

2.0 Demo from iphonedev on Vimeo.

Originally posted on WIRED.

iGuess?

image borrowed from Mobilecaster News

I was going to write about the recent madness surrounding the iPhone release, but after thinking about it I decided against it. Unless you live under a rock you have already read plenty about the damn thing. Short story is it’s cool, not totally worth the upgrade if you have the original but still sweet none the less. I was one of the idiots who stood in line for hours on Friday, but only because I fell out of a kayak on the Fourth of July and lost my iPhone to the sea. One too many “beverages” I suppose led to my capsize but after some mourning I moved on. It’s good to have my little iBuddy back though I will say.

One thing I thought I would share with you though is a movie I just watched that was really crazy. It’s called The Bridge. Not for the kiddies. A film crew spent a year camped out by the Golden Gate bridge and filmed the large number of people that come there to end their life. The movie is super heavy and at times hard to watch but it’s not as gruesome as it would seem. They do a good job of making it tasteful and it dives more into the story of the jumpers and interviews their friends and families. Check it out.

Now put the iPhone down and go outside, it’s too nice to be on a computer. Cheers.

New 3G iPhone unveiled at the WWDC

The good folks at Mahalo Daily compressed Steve Jobs’ 107 minute keynote presentation to just 60 seconds. The video unveils the new iPhone 3G, with tons more improvements and a faster connection speed than any other phone on the market. With a $200+ price drop (with a new 2-year contract) and a $10 increase in data/minute plan, will it be worth it?

In the past few years, productivity on mobile devices has skyrocketed. Tech consumers are looking for full qwerty keyboards, Microsoft Office, Exchange server integration, GPS, etc. Apple has nailed all of the aforementioned features in their new slim, sexy “Jesus 2.0″ phone.