EPISODE 376
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Watch out, Citizen Connect: Complaints about this light-up ad campaign turned into a huge mess for Boston two years ago.
(Credit: Boing Boing)The city of Boston has launched an official iPhone application for residents to file complaints about "neighborhood nuisances--nasty potholes, graffiti-stained walls, blown street lights," according to The Boston Globe. Called Citizen Connect, the app will let Bostonians send pictures and tips right to City Hall.
The app was built with the help of a New Hampshire mobile development firm called Connected Bits. It hasn't made it into Apple's iTunes App Store just yet, but when it does, it will be offered for free.
The Boston Globe says that Citizen Connect is the first app of its kind, but other cities have also been turning to new technology to make the minutiae of municipal government run more smoothly. In New York, for example, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has set up NYC 311, a non-emergency hotline for residents that now has Skype and Twitter presences as well. The city also now accepts photo and video submissions for 911 and 311.
But the iPhone app has a few advantages. Per the Globe: "The application, which will be free to download from Apple, will allow residents to use the global positioning system function on their iPhones to pinpoint the precise location of the problem for City Hall. After submitting a complaint, users will get a tracking number, so they can pester city officials if the problem persists." Ooh! Pestering city officials sounds like fun!
That said, the idea of a complaint-filing iPhone app for Boston is particularly hilarious: The most famous instance of Boston municipal complaints in recent history was when people started calling in concerns about suspicious-looking devices that turned out to be an ad campaign for the cartoon flick "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." This fact, however, did not come to light until the city had already shut down all traffic on the Charles River.
Or, as one blogger has pointed out already, the system could easily get flooded with photos accompanied by captions like "Please send a cop over to make these Yankees fans leave this bar."
Udon combo in Tokyo.
(Credit: Dave Rosenberg)Just when you thought your noodle waterslide was the height of Japanese food gadgetry, a ramen shop in Minami-Alps, Yamanashi, Japan, is gaining popularity for its robot chef.
Technically the robot doesn't make the noodles, instead assembling the bowl, including the customized flavor options. Customers place orders on a computer, customizing aspects such as the levels of soy sauce and salt, and richness of the soup. Shop owner Yoshihara Uchida says there are 40 million different flavor permutations.
The noodles themselves are cooked by a human, with the robot creating a perfectly blended soup which is then delivered to the human chef via a conveyor belt, who adds the noodles and toppings. The whole process takes only about two minutes, a minute shorter than instant cup noodles.
The robot was completed in December 2008 after five years of trial and error, including computer crashes caused by spilled soup. Uchida wants to mass produce the robot in the future and "leave my mark out there," which means one day you too can have a ramen robot.
Previous and related noodle news:
Gadget watch: Noodle waterslide
The best of Japanese food technology: Ramen Radar
Woman eats 383 bowls of soba in 10 minutes (video)
Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.
CNET News Poll
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)What's wrong with you?
Doesn't everybody have at least one of these things? I'm just curious, is there anyone out there who flat-out refuses to buy an iPod or Zune or whatever? Are you just bucking the trend? Oh, and please tell us how old you are. I want to know if there are any iPod-less kids reading the Audiophiliac.
Amazon is set to ship the Oppo BDP-83 on July 6 for $500.
(Credit: Oppo)Over the years Oppo's developed a following for its impressive upscaling DVD players, so a lot its fans were wondering when its much-anticipated BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player would finally show up after being announced last year. Well, it's finally here, and the official price tag is about what we expected: $500.
The idea behind the Oppo BDP-83 is that you're getting a high-end Blu-ray player for mid-range money. Oppo touts the Anchor Bay video processing and the player has support for both SACD and DVD-Audio and is loaded with connectivity, including 2 USB ports, an Ethernet jack for BD-Live content, and 7.1 analog audio. However, it lacks any sort of streaming video service, such as Netflix.
Anybody excited the BDP-83 is finally here?
Additional reading: Oppo BDP-83 early look
Just as America gears up to celebrate Independence Day comes news that iPhone 3GS owners are getting some freedom of their own.
This is the site for purplera1n, which enables the installation of third-party software not approved for Apple's App Store.
George Hotz, who you may recall as the teenage hacker who originally unlocked the iPhone, has let loose a jailbreaking app for the iPhone 3GS code-named purplera1n. It enables the installation of third-party software not approved for Apple's App Store.
For now, purplera1n is Windows-only (but not Windows 7) and requires the latest iTunes installed, as well as an iPhone 3GS with the 3.0 firmware. In a Friday blog post titled "I make it ra1n," Hotz says a Mac version is "coming shortly."
Hotz notes that he normally doesn't make tools for the general public and would rather wait for the iPhone dev team to do that.
"But guys, what's up with waiting until 3.1? That isn't how the game is played," he chides on his blog. "We release, Apple fixes, we find new holes. It isn't worth waiting because you might have the 'last' hole in the iPhone. What last hole...this isn't golf. I'll find a new one next week.
John Biggs over at CrunchGear is among those who have already given purplera1n a go and declares the jailbreaking process "amazingly simple."
Why do we get the sense jailbreaking is going to be part of a whole lot of Fourth of July agendas? But take note: Hotz does caution that purplera1n is in beta and suggests backing up your data before running the app.
The haptic feedback patent, if approved, would bring the iPhone in line with rival handsets that provide localized tactile feedback.
(Credit: CNET )Three patent applications by Apple were published Thursday, and they cover technologies including haptics, fingerprint recognition, and RFID.
The haptic feedback patent, if approved, would bring the iPhone (and possibly other Apple devices) in line with rival handsets, which already provide localized tactile feedback in, for example, an onscreen soft keyboard.
Haptic technology gives people sensory feedback--in the form of a vibration or pressure--when they use a touch screen. Essentially, it makes touching a key on a touch screen more akin to pressing a real button.
The fingerprint recognition patent does not really have to do with authentication and security, but rather with identifying which fingers are in use, so as to associate different functions with different digits.
The RFID reader patent would see RFID-communicating circuitry integrated with the circuitry behind the touch screen itself.
All the above are just applications, though, so it could be a long while before we see any of this functionality built into iPhones or other Apple devices.
David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.
CNET News Poll
Happy (almost) Fourth of July!
Two hundred thirty-three years ago, our nation's founders declared independence from Great Britain. But nailing down a final version of the Declaration of Independence took time, with the writers (or more likely their couriers) flitting about on horses with drafts, as the authors debated phrasing and passed edits around.
That got us thinking: which tool of the Digital Age would have had the greatest influence on the course of American history? Vote in our poll, and as always, chime in with your own ideas in the TalkBack section below.
Sometimes, in order to grow, you need to take a step back and look with adoration and respect to the things you took for granted as a child. It also helps to mock them incessantly.
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EPISODE 144 |
“Grease” game coming to Nintendo
6 high-tech ways to upgrade your barbecue from start to finish
Pretttttyyyy (Jason edition)
Vacuum-tube chess set
What the hell?
The Microsoft vomit ad saga
Kill Me
The most expensive 16 gigabytes on the planet: The Mnemosyne USB cube
Tool Time
Video mask allows you to film underwater hands-free
Gender gap
thereifixedit.com
It’s about time (childhood nostalgia edition)
iPod clock terrorizes hobbits
Back when we first saw the Duet D8 on the Beyond E-Tech Web site, we pegged it as an iPhone clone. After all, it looked a lot like Apple's device so we were intrigued by what it might offer. But after some study, we realized someone had photoshopped the iPhone's menus into the D8's frame and our interest began to wane. And now after putting the D8 through its paces, we can report that it's not worth much of a look at all.
Like the Duet D888, the D8 offers the welcome ability to make calls from two separate lines, but its average feature set and middling multimedia performance left us wanting more. Even more importantly, it fails the usability test because of its clunky touch screen and tiny virtual keyboard. Read our Duet D8 review for the full story.
