Feel slightly bad for the folks at Marshall Aerospace out on the tarmac, using forklifts or putting planes together who got used to listening to ambient or Vegan-a-Go-Go podcasts while on the job.
Following the advice of a health and safety expert, the 1,500 employees of the Cambridge, UK company have been banned from using iPods at work.
“There have been no particular incidents,” said an unnamed spokesman in a press release. “But on our site there are aircraft, forklift trucks and so on moving around - and we are a precision engineering firm. We feel that people should always be concentrating fully.”
He added: “We don’t get middle-aged employees wearing iPods but we do see employees in their 20s who listen to music while working.”
Comforting to know the young ‘uns won’t be distracted on the job.
What other professions should be banned from using iPods at work?
Unfortunately this is bunk, but it’s worth posting anyway because, well, I guess a ton of other websites will publish it.
A new non-slip rubber case for the “Apple iPod Touch 3″ on a junk accessory website hints that the soon-to-be-updated device will have a camera. The rubbery red case has two holes on the back, presumably for a camera.
The third-generation iPod touch is expected in September, and is rumored to include a camera, which would be an obvious upgrade for the device.
However, the tip came from a reader “Jenny,” who has also tipped off CrunchGear and I4U News. Best guess is that Jenny represents the accessory website, Uxsight.com, and is trying to drum up traffic and Google juice.
In her email to CoM, she makes sure to mention the case’s low, low price. “Can’t vouch for the
creditability of the source,” she writes, “but I guess $1.69 is not much of a risk.”
Plus, why are there two holes — one bigger than the other? And why two versions of the case, one with the camera on the left, the other with the camera on the right? UPDATE: As readers kindly point out, I’m as blind as a bat. That’s the inside and outside of the case.
Sony Wednesday introduced two iPod speaker docks with Wi-Fi streaming. The NAS-Z200iR (shown) includes a hand-held remote allowing media to also stream from your PC, PlayStation 3 or the Internet.
Along with Wi-Fi streaming, the networked Sony unit includes a CD player, AM/FM radio plus USB inputs.
A more streamlined unit, the CMT-Z100iR, provides what’s described as a “stealth” display, providing rear access to controls.
Apple has pulled Hottest Girls, the first iPhone porn app. Inappropriate apps containing pornography will not be approved in the future, Apple says.
Apple has spoken on the issue of porno iPhone apps, and it’s, ‘No way Jose.’
An Apple spokesman says the company will not approve iPhone apps with “inappropriate” content, especially pornography, despite the iPhone 3.0 age restriction system.
The question of porno apps arose after Hottest Girls appeared on the iPhone app store — the first app to feature saucy photos of naked women. Promising “2200+ sexy bikini babes and lingerie models,” the app is decidedly softcore. (The app disappeared for a few hours on Thursday, apparently because Apple had pulled it, but the developer had removed Hottest Girls voluntarily because of the strain on the image servers.)
Thanks to age restrictions in the new iPhone 3.0 OS software, mature apps can be blocked from download from the App Store. Many observers expected the App Store to be flooded with pornographic apps, especially because mobile porn is turning into big business. Juniper Research estimates the mobile porn market to be worth $3.5 billion by 2010. Growth will come from streaming video and video chat. The biggest market will not be the U.S., but Western Europe, Juniper said.
But now Apple says categorically it will not approve porno apps now or in the future. In a statement received by Cult of Mac, spokesman Tom Neumayr said:
“Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.”
Help plant a tree to offset carbon emissions from your iPhone or iPod is the green idea behind AcornHq, a London-based company.
The brainchild of a couple of New Zealand transplants, John and Sarah Lewis, the company asks 20 Apple device owners to give $3.50 per device — iPhone or current and older iPods — to plant a tree to counteract the effects on the environment from manufacture and use.
Those oak trees take root on a New Zealand planting farm, where Lewis hopes Acorn donors willing to trek that far will be able to visit soon.
After the jump, details on how it works from John Lewis.
A 14-year-old British girl owes her life to her iPod earbuds, which took a 300,000-volt surge when lightning struck.
Sophie Frost and her boyfriend huddled together under a tree near Essex during a storm when a bolt of lightening hit. Doctors say that Frost and her beau were saved because the massive surge took the shortest route to the ground — through her earbuds.
The four-day-old iPod (a gift from her grandmother), may have saved her life, but she still suffered severe burns that left tie-dye like patterns down her torso and legs and a perforated eardrum.
The teens were knocked unconscious by the jolt and hospitalized for burns but doctors believe they may heal without permanent scars.
Dr. Ian Cotton, a reader in electrical engineering at Manchester University, told the Daily Mail Sophie could have been saved by her iPod:
“If lightning hits a person it can do one of two things. It can go down the outside of the skin, which is more likely if someone is caught in a storm and their body is wet. Or it can puncture the skin and go into the body. Potentially a metal wire, which is highly conductive could divert the electricity away from the heart and save someone’s life.”
There have been some reports of iPods directing currents and harming wearers in storms, this seems to be the first time it saved someone’s life during a blitz.
The latest iPod shuffle is arguably too small to need a case to keep it from harm, but the folks at Scosche devised a case with external controls — so you can plug in other headphones instead of relying on the originals.
Available in black or white in early July, tapStick slips over the iPod and, though the design doesn’t do much justice to the original, it allows you to control the device sans headphones. Tapstick also comes with a three-foot aux cord, for playlist goodness in the car.
In April, I got terribly excited about Flight Control, an air traffic control arcade-oriented ‘management’ game. The premise is simple: drag aircraft to landing areas. The reality is an intense arcade game where game over is a blink of an eye away.
Recently, I’d heard rumors of updates. But with the original game such a fantastic, simple and polished production, there was the worry that it’d be ruined under a pile of new features. That worry went away on playing Flight Control 1.2, which keeps the original’s gameplay intact but introduces two new airfields and new craft.
The beachside resort is the first new airfield, adding water landings to the mix. Initially, this seems little different to the original game, but the number of craft ramps up rapidly and the revised landing layout is tougher than the original’s.
The real star, though, is the intense and absurdly tricky aircraft carrier level. Military jets move just a tad faster than anything else, and you’re soon not only juggling that, but also a surprising twist when you realise what happens to landing areas on a moving ocean… Frankly, we’ll be shocked to see 10,000+ landing scores on this map for some time to come.
Overall, this is a triumphant update—a classic iPhone game made even better. The fact that it’s still under a dollar [App Store link], for a game that betters most other handheld titles out there, just goes to show what great value Apple’s platform can be for gamers.
TIPS: If you’ve any tips for dealing with the new airfields and getting high scores, please post in the comments below.
Hacker Nathan Seidle has rigged his car so that his Nike+iPod pedometer unlocks the doors wirelessly as he walks up to it.
“I hate keys,” he writes. “I am on a mission to dispose of them all.”
Seidle already uses keypads and wireless RFID cards to get into his home and office — the last key in his pocket is for his car.
So Seidle took a Nike+iPod sensor — the pedometer/transmitter that normally goes into your running shoe — and rigged up a simple proximity sensor inside the car to detect when it approaches. The Nike+iPod sensor is constantly transmitting a unique ID, which the car uses to identify Seidle and unlock the doors. He keeps the Nike+iPod in his pocket.
Seidle made the proximity detector inside the car from the Nike+iPod receiver (the part that normally plugs into the iPod) and an Arduino Pro Mini microcontroller board, made by his company, SparkFun Electronics, plus a few other bits and pieces.
The system, which Seidle calls the iFob, is an intermediate hacking project. He’s posted a detailed tutorial on the SparkFun website.
Unfortunately, the iFob doesn’t start the car; it just unlocks the doors.
“The system now works great!” Seidle writes. “When you’ve got a handful of stuff, it’s great to know the doors will automatically unlock as you approach. However, I still have use a key to start the car. The next step is get a big red button wired up for button start so that I don’t have to carry my key. Someday.”
Microsoft will release a Web-surfing, HD-video-playing, multitouch Zune in the fall to compete with the iPod touch — and the hardware actually looks pretty cool. But as Apple well knows, the gadget is one thing, the software and services are another.
Sporting a sexy metal case, the Zune HD will have a 3.3-inch, 480 x 272 OLED capacitive touchscreen display (16:9 widescreen); a built-in HD Radio receiver, and WiFi. The “HD” refers not to the touchscreen, but the HD radio and HD out (720p), though that’s only available with an optional cradle. Pricing was not released, and release is “early fall.”
Maybe old iPods turned into sequencers only sound good at 2 am, as the guys who made these one late night admit.
But maybe not. This nifty 16-step sequencers with sounds from iconic video game Mario + bass use pdPod on iPodLinux; if you want re-purpose your old iPod this way, check out the re-ware project, then let us know if your sounds are worthy of daytime broadcast.
Consumer Electronics Show (CES) organizers have supersized the iPod and iPhone showcase at the January 2010 event. The next iLounge Pavilion will offer over six times the floorspace dedicated to Apple accessories and software sellers, from 4,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet.
In a press release, Jeremy Horwitz, Editor-in-Chief of iLounge.com and co-sponsor of the iLounge Pavilion said the 525% space increase is due to the surge in iPhone and iPod touch popularity from the App store. It also probably has to do with Apple’s decision to pull out of Macworld and Macworld’s move to February.
Signed up companies so far include Griffin Technology, Scosche, Incase Designs, iSkin, Incipio Technologies, Jaybird Gear, MusicSkins and AAMP of America.
Despite touting its green credentials in new TV ads, Apple is ranked fairly low in Greenpeace’s latest survey of green electronics.
Greenpeace’s quarterly green scorecard was released on Wednesday, and while Apple got high marks for reducing toxic chemicals, it got low marks for not supporting global recycling initiatives or using more recycled plastics.
Overall, Apple scored [...]
Counterfeit iPhones have come a long way. They’re now almost identical to original iPhones, fooling bargain hunters on sites like eBay.
Look at the video below from Dana Stibolt, founder of MacMedics, who was given a fake iPhone bought on the auction site.
At first glance, it’s almost identical to current models, from the touchscreen to the [...]
In a move that’s a bit like thumbing his brush at the lawyers who sent a nastygram when we mistakenly reported David Hockney’s gallery artworks were created on his iPhone, the artist is offering free downloads of three wallpapers made on his device.
The unsigned trio of flower paintings from the 72-year-old pop artist maestro — [...]
Remember when Lonnie told you about an easy, fool-proof way to turn on iPhone tethering in the US? Well, there’s a way, way easier method, and it’s much, much more foolproof.
Simply point Mobile Safari to http://help.benm.at, select your country, download the profile for your carrier, and install. The settings menu will add an Internet Tethering [...]
