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| Make an iPad Case With Your Instagram Photos | |  There are a number of ways to display the photographs you take with Instagram, from the tangible (think photo books and gallery-wrapped canvas prints) to the virtual. Now, you can also plaster your favorite Instagram photos on the back of your iPad or iPad 2. Casetagram, which began offering Instagram-covered iPhone cases for $34.95 last fall, is now vending iPad cases made out of photos you've uploaded to Instagram. Covers come in black, white and transparent and can be used in conjunction with Apple's screen-protecting smart covers. Photos can be laid out in a same-size grid (above) or "Mondrien" format, where some photos appear larger than others. They cost $54.95 including the price of shipping. I haven't seen one of the cases myself yet, but I did test a Casetagram iPhone case (disclosure: Casetagram paid for it) and was pleased with the quality. |
| Meet the Guy Who Made the Iconic iPhone Globe Image [VIDEO] | |  That familiar image of a bright blue globe that greets you when you power up your iPhone actually has a story behind it. Dubbed the "Blue Marble," the photo is a composite of thousands of images taken over the years, starting with the first in 1972 from Apollo 17. Robert Simmon, a data visualizer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and his team of engineers sort through 1.7 terabytes of information downloaded from orbiting satellites daily. To put that in perspective, that's enough information to fill about 3,000 CDs, all from which the NASA team has to dig through and turn out images. The first computer-generated Blue Marble was completed in 2002, after 30 years of downloaded satellite data. But it was Apple's usage of the photo that made it truly famous. SEE ALSO: Retina MacBook Destroys Regular MacBook: 15 Eye-Popping Examples "The summer of 2007, I bought one of the first iPhones. At that time, you had to plug the iPhone into your computer to set it up," Simmon recalls. "Literally the first thing that came up was screen with the Blue Marble." Since then, the team has released several updated, higher-quality images with a scale of roughly one kilometer per pixel. The latest Blue Marble, which came out in 2012, is a composite of the Western Hemisphere. The satellite that pulled the data orbited the planet six times over the course of 8 hours (not including the time it took engineers to crunch the data). Image courtesy of NASA public domain |
| 6 Inventor Father-Son and Father-Daughter Duos | | 10:25:48 AM | InnovationNewsDaily |
|  Can inventiveness run in the family? In honor of Father's Day, InnovationNewsDaily found examples of inventor-or-discoverer fathers whose daughters or sons followed in their footsteps. Many families worked together, such as the Curies, who built on one another's discoveries in radiation. One dad-daughter pair had far different interests, but the daughter, Marion Donovan, had become an inventor at a young age with the encouragement of her father. Inventor or not, all dads can give their kids a sense of curiosity, creativity and support for projects both big and small. |
| Wozniak: Siri Was Better Before Apple Bought It | | 10:14:27 AM | Todd Wasserman |
|  Are you frustrated with Siri? Steve Wozniak feels your pain. The Apple co-founder, known both for his devotion to and his unfiltered criticism of the company, told a reporter for the Times Union in Albany, N.Y., that he was an early fan of Siri, but the app has gotten worse since Apple bought it. Wozniak said he used Siri as an iPhone app. Siri initially won him over when it successfully answered the question, "What are the five largest lakes in California?" Then it correctly answered the question, "What are the prime numbers greater than 87?" (91). "It's incredible," said Wozniak. "It's like it understands 'greater than.'" Those answers were based on Wolfram Alpha, the online service that bases its answers on structured data. However, since Apple bought Siri, the app is not directly linking to Wolfram Alpha, though, as Wozniak notes, you can access it by saying "Wolfram Alpha," which he believes consumers shouldn't have to do. For whatever reason, the query about lakes in California calls up links to lakefront properties and the question about prime numbers yields results related to prime rib, Wozniak says. When asked why Siri got worse, Wozniak answered, "I'd like to know. I was very disappointed...It should be smart enough to look at the word you say and know what you're asking and if you say 'five largest,' it should know 'I can't use a Google search, I have to use a Wolfram Alpha search.'" Wozniak's not the only former Apple employee to take issue with Siri. In a recent Fortune profile of Apple CEO Tim Cook, an unnamed "former Apple insider" (who could conceivably also be Wozniak) told the publication that "People are embarrassed by Siri. Stevewould have lost his mind over Siri." Nevertheless, Wozniak wasn't completely dismissive of Siri. He ended the interview by saying that voice-recognition systems like Siri will "get better and better." What do you think? Was Woz on the mark about Siri or too harsh? Sound off in the comments. |
| Ace Your Workout With This Bluetooth Wristband [REVIEW] | | 10:14:22 AM | Amy-Mae Elliott |
|  In addition to Nike's ever-popular "+" system, numerous accessories are available for iOS and Android device owners who want to monitor their exercise. Specifically, Scosche Industries' myTREK offers a particularly interesting feature set. The myTREK is a Bluetooth-enabled wireless, real-time pulse monitor, so its main focus is your heart rate. It syncs with your iPhone or iPod touch to keep an eye on your heartbeat so you can tailor your exercise regime -- and crucially, its intensity -- to suit you. Whether you walk, run, cycle or do aerobics and you want to burn fat, endurance train or push yourself to your maximum cardiovascular limit, you can use the myTREK. The system contains a wireless monitor, which you wear strapped to your arm (a much more comfortable solution than some rival systems' chest straps) and a free app. You have to turn on Bluetooth to use the device, as well as keep your phone nearby, so consider these factors if you're weighing whether the myTREK is best for you. Once you're set up (an easy process we detail in the gallery below) you can start your first workout by tailoring the settings to your personal data -- such as age, weight, resting heart rate, etc. Then, tell the app what type of activity you're performing (yoga, running, etc.), your target training zone (burning fat, performance, etc.), what you're looking to achieve and the type of workout (timed, distance, calories burned, etc.). When you have entered those simple options, hit the "Start Workout" button and the armband will instantly begin monitoring your pulse. It will also let you know which performance zone you're in, giving a little chime as the zones change. If you're in a lower zone than you want to be, the app will encourage you with commands. If you need to slow the pace a little, the app will inform you of that, too, to ensure you stay in the specified zone. We found the voice commands motivating. The app also shows relevant data on the display (again, more info in the slideshow), but Scosche obviously realizes that most people will use this app with their device in an armband or pocket, so it's not a must-view. SEE ALSO: 10 Best iPhone Armbands The myTREK has another neat trick -- it can wirelessly control your music from easily accessible buttons on the armband, a much handier method than fiddling with controls through a case. After your workout you can instantly view a graph that charted your progress. These graphs save to the app, so you can look back and review progress over time. They display info such as pulse, calories burned, approximate distance, speed, pace and workout duration. There is also the option to share your workout data to social networking and social fitness services. At $99.95 (£99.95/119.95 Euros), the Scosche myTREK isn't cheap, but it's easy to use and comfortable to wear. For anyone whose focus is workout intensity, or for anyone who needs help understanding what different intensities mean for maximizing success, it's a nifty fitness system that we expect will gain a fair few fans. |
| A Hard-to-Hack Password Contains Just 4 Words | |  June has already been a bad month for getting hacked. Professional networking site LinkedIn, dating site eHarmony and streaming radio site Last.fm all reported the theft of users' passwords, altogether involving 8 million accounts. If it hasn't happened to you already, your chances of having a password stolen in the future are high, but there are new tricks to keep an account safe even if hackers do get your password data. All three companies advised their customers to change their passwords -- LinkedIn went so far as to disable compromised accounts, forcing users to create new passwords -- but that isn't enough. Because attackers have new strategies, many companies have responded with better protection methods. Combined, these two factors have changed what it takes to make a safe password. In the "old" days, cybercriminals ran dictionary programs to reveal passwords. A piece of software could try billions of combinations every second to enter an account. That's why you've been warned not to use "real words" found in a dictionary. Maybe you don't even use words, just a string of random letters, numbers and a special character thrown in to comply with so-called strong password standards. However, technology has advanced so that even seemingly random strings can be generated in a fairly short time. Even that hasn't proved efficient enough for some cybercriminals. By breaking into online company records, they could steal passwords and associated user information en masse. Why hassle with a one-at-a-time approach when you could get a list of millions, ready to exploit? Today many companies don't store account holders' passwords at all because it's too risky. Instead they "hash" the passwords, using algorithms to change a simple password into a long string of numbers. The next step is to "salt" the hash. If breakfast comes to mind, you're on the right track. You add salt to boost flavor, and companies add extra characters to hashed passwords to increase security. (As it turned out, LinkedIn neglected to use the salting technique.) But the real problem for companies lies in the practice of using out-of-the-box programs to protect data. Duplicated security makes it possible for sophisticated criminals to decode stolen data. And that can be a problem for you. What can you do? Security experts urge people to dump their eight-character passwords and consider 12 characters as the new minimum. Here's the difference. An eight-character password means there are 722 trillion possibilities for cybercriminals to try, based on 26 upper-case letters, 26 lower-case letters, 10 numerals and 10 special characters (such as the asterisk). A 12-character password increases the possible combinations to 19 sextillion (19 followed by 21 zeros) — a number that for the time being is too big to get through. Length won't necessarily make your new password harder for you to remember. Any four common, unrelated words that add up to more than 12 characters is now considered one of the most secure password configurations. Use an entire sentence if the site will allow it; the longer the better. But one safety rule that hasn't changed is to never use a password for more than one account that contains sensitive information, such as your online banking account. It's unlikely that a criminal could do much with your LinkedIn password -- these types of passwords sell for $1 or less on the black market, compared with the $850 that a bank account password can sell for, according to security firm Symantec. But if you've used your LinkedIn account password for your bank site, you could be in big trouble. Those cheap passwords are relatively easy to steal and are routinely used by cybercriminals to try to unlock accounts on more lucrative sites. That's why you should use a unique password for each. "Through 20 years of effort, we've successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember but easy for computers to guess," Randall Munroe wrote in his now-famous cartoon on the blog xkcd.com last year. So pick four words that are easy for you to remember, and you'll be safer than you are today. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, zmeel |
| New Dropbox for iOS and Two Other Stories You Need to Know | |  Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting stories. New Dropbox iOS App Brings Automatic Uploads The latest version of Dropbox for iOS (1.5) brings several important updates, including automatic uploads of photos and videos, either using Wi-Fi or cellular data plan. By using this feature customers can earn up to 3 GB of extra free space. Also, users can now see all the photos and videos they've uploaded to Dropbox in Gallery view. Get the latest version of Dropbox for iOS devices here. BBC Brings Euro 2012 Matches to Mobile Devices BBC has enabled users to watch all the Euro 2012 matches broadcast by the BBC on their mobile devices, both live and on demand. Video is available on both 3G and WiFi connections, and highlights from games are also available. To access the service, open BBC Sport on your mobile or tablet, or go to BBC's new mobile sport homepage. Apple to Launch 13'' Retina MacBook in October Sure, we've seen (and embraced, and loved) the new Retina-display 15'' MacBook Pro, but what about its 13'' cousin -- will it also get the Retina treatment? AppleInsider quotes analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI who thinks it's bound to happen by October 2012. It's certainly plausible, but at this point, it's nowhere near confirmed. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mattjeacock |
| Turn Your Google+ Hangout Into a YouTube Party | |  We've all been to parties where someone grabs the laptop and starts showing everyone this latest cool YouTube video. Eventually, everyone gathers around the computer, firing off their favorites, and the party turns into a YouTube party. If you love this form of entertainment, you'll be glad to know that Google has launched a YouTube app for Google+ Hangouts which lets all participants share and watch YouTube videos. To try it out, start a Hangout and have all users load the YouTube app at the top of the screen. Now, everyone can start adding videos, drag and drop them to change the order in the playlist, as well as skip forward or backward. Participants can also share a video that's playing with their Google+ circles at any time, or save the playlist (as public or private) to their YouTube account. The app is available worldwide in 60 languages. How do you like the idea? Any thoughts on possible improvements? Sound off in the comments! |
| Apple Patent Filing Has Swappable iPhone Lens | |  A patent filing published Thursday shows an interesting concept for an iPhone with swappable camera lenses. Filed by Apple, the application, Back Panel for a Portable Electronic Device with Different Camera Lens Options was originally filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in late 2010. Currently, the iPhone and other iOS devices don't allow users to change the camera optics or lens. But the application outlines a system that would bring swappable optics to portable devices. "It would be desirable to provide a structure for a compact device that allows the end user to reconfigure the optical arrangement of the device while retaining the benefits of assembling the device using a pre-assembled digital imaging subsystem," the filing reads. Instead of a non-removable backplate like in current iOS devices, the application details a removable back plate that would expose the camera optics. AppleInsider relays some possible uses for the system. First, with a removable IR-cut filter on the backplate, photographers could capture black-and-white images in extremely low-light conditions. Also, the system could allow for a close-up lens that would allow for extreme macro photography. Third-party options like Olloclip already offer similar functionality for iPhone shutterbugs by providing a fisheye, wide-angle and macro lens. But a built-in system would be much easier to swap out and would let an iPhone retain its portability factor. While it doesn't look like it will appear in the new iPhone, the swappable lens idea could help Apple make an even bigger dent in the portable camera market. Image courtesy of United States Patent Application 20120147193 |
| Australian Retailer Threatens to Tax IE 7 Users (But Really Won't) | | 4:12:29 AM | Christina Warren |
|  Australian online retailer Kogan wants its users to stop using old versions of Internet Explorer and it isn't afraid to threaten a little taxation to get there. The company claims that it will levy a 6.8% tax on any user that attempts to checkout using Internet Explorer 7. Kogan says that keeping its website compatible with IE 7 is costing it lots of money. To offset those costs -- and encourage users to download a more up-to-date browser, Kogan says it will charge users an extra 6.8% tax -- 0.1% for each month IE 7 has been on the market. Kogan CEO Ruslan Kogan told the BBC that "the amount of work and effort involved in making our website look normal on IE 7 equalled the combined time of designing for Chrome, Safari and Firefox." While hate for IE 7 has never reached the levels of Internet Explorer 6, it has become a frustrating target for web developers. The browser, which was released in October 2006, has less than 5% global marketshare. IE 7 is still in use by some government institutions, but all machines running IE 7 should be capable of running the much more up-to-date IE 8. In January, we reported that Facebook Timeline doesn't support IE 7. The WordPress team has also contemplated dropping support for IE 7. Not a Tax, Just a PR Stunt We can certainly appreciate that keeping websites compatible with older browsers can be an expensive and time-consuming process, but an IE 7 tax? Really? Well, no. Despite the boisterous claims on the Kogan website, users who attempt to buy products using IE 7 won't actually be taxed. If you visit the site using IE 7 (or in our case, set your user agent to identify as IE 7), an additional tax of 6.8% is added to each item in your cart. This tax is then carried over to the "enter your name and address" part of the checkout process. Users Are shown a 6.8% IE 7 Tax When Adding an Item to Their Cart The Tax is Still Shown On the Shipment Details Page At the Actual Payment Screen, the Tax is Deducted From the Final Price When it actually comes time to pay for your item, however, the 6.8% tax disappears. Chock this up to a PR stunt. While kind of humorous, the problem with this sort of trick is that it makes it difficult for actual shoppers to decipher how much they are being charged. Kogan is famous for pulling these kinds of marketing stunts. In 2009, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ordered the company to modify its advertising because of potentially misleading conduct. Kogan's blog post on the matter has already generated several thousand shares on Facebook and Twitter, with many users responding positively to the "news." So what do you think of this marketing stunt, is it brilliant or lame? In the comments, share your thoughts. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, cruphoto |
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