Though just a proof of concept for now, this clip shows the hack-friendly Nokia N900 dual-booting Maemo and Android. It's only a taste, but as the dual-booter Brandon says, "its real and it could be spectacular." [Brandon's Posterous via jkOnTheRun]
This generation of Android phones is faster, more powerful and generally awesome-er than anything before. But for whatever reason, they don't have one thing other smartphones take for granted: multitouch. Here's how to fix that, and so much more.
Google's Nexus one and Verizon's Motorola Droid are, in a sense, miles ahead their competitors in terms of hardware specs, but moreso because they've got much newer versions of Android's software, with 2.1 and 2.0, respectively. In the midst of a slew of new software features and despite base-level hardware and software support, Google, who has always been cagey about the multitouch issue, continues to leave it out of their core apps.
This is especially weird in the cases of the Droid and Nexus One, which don't just support multitouch on a hardware level, but fully support it on an OS level, too. It's really just the apps, like the browser, the photo gallery and the maps app, which exclude support for multitouch gestures such as pinch-zooming. Why can't all Android users have use the same gestures that iPhone, Pre and HTC Hero owners can, if their phones can already accept multi-finger input? Only Google knows. But there's something you can do about it. Actually, there are two things:
Rooting is most intensive method, and can actually do a lot more than add multitouch to your phone. What this does, basically, is give you deep, system-level access to all your phone's software and parameters, which lets you run unsanctioned tethering apps to writing apps to your SD card (by default, Android phones restrict you to the device's limited, onboard memory), modify the device's stock apps, and most importantly, swap your phone's software out completely, with what's called a new ROM. To get native multitouch apps on your phone, you can opt for an entire flash ROM, or just a more narrow set of hacks. But you will need to root your device.
So here's how to get multitouch on your new Android phone, natively:
Now, if the above instructions seem like overkill for a relatively minor feature, don't have any need for the other goodies that rooting promises, or aren't satisfied with the current state of Nexus One and Droid homebrew, you have another, easier option:
As I mentioned before, the Droid and Nexus One's shared dirty secret is that they support multitouch out of the box, but don't support include the gestures necessary to get any use out of it. This means that unless you're willing to hack your phones, as seen above, you're not going to be able to get multitouch in your native browser, or for that matter any of your native apps. The easy solution? Download Dolphin, a browser that include multitouch gestures (and a lot more cool stuff, like swipe gestures, RSS feed subscriptions and a built-in Twitter client.
For photos, try Multi-Touch for Gallery, which is a full photo gallery replacement, or PicSay, which is a combination gallery/photo editor. All you've got to do is search for these apps in the Android Market, install them, and designate them as your default web and photo browsers.
There are other mulitouch apps in the App Market, from games to utilities to simple tech demos. Drop your favorites in the comments, and I'll add them to the post.
That's pretty much it! If you have any tips to tricks for getting the most out your phone's hardware, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides. And if you have any topics you'd like to see covered here, please let me know. Happy pinch-zooming, folks!
Apple patents come a dime a dozen, but these two seem both practical and implementable. The first outlines a solar powered iPod and the second details more specific gesture-based input methods, including scoops, nudges, and tilts.
The first patent, published last week, details a system in which an iPod draws power from solar cells covering the device. It includes a description on how constant voltage could be maintained even with the user's hand obstructing some of the cells and explains how the solar power could be used in conjunction with traditional batteries. The less I have to plug my stuff in the better, I say. Check!
I was initially skeptical of my MacBook's multitudinous multitouch, but I was quickly converted and now I'm swishing and flicking like a Hogwarts First Year. Apple's next patent expands on gesture-based input, detailing an input device with the ability to sense force and velocity. These sensors allow the hardware to register more more complex and more specific gestures, giving the user more precise control over their devices.
The patent names a few such gestures: "brushing motions, scooping motions, nudges, tilt and slides, and tilt and taps." Sounds like fun to me. Check! [MacRumors via Engadget]
PALAOA, the Perennial Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean, listens to the waters below Antarctica for the sounds of whales and other marine mammals amidst a soundscape of constantly shifting ice. Here's what they're hearing right now.
PALAOA's Livestream page has links to the audio stream in both MP3 and OGG-Vorbis.
If you're expecting to tune in and instantly hear glorious, crystal-clear whale song, you might be disappointed. As the page explains:
Please note, this transmission is not optimized for easy listening, but for scientific research. It is highly compressed...so sound quality is far from perfect. Additionally, animal voices may be very faint. Amplifier settings are a compromise between picking up distant animals and not overdriving the system by nearby calving icebergs...A constant hiss pervading the signal is partly due to electronic noise as we push the hydrophone amplifiers to their limits, but also the natural ocean background noise made audible here through the use of ultra sensitive hydrophones. Additional broad band noise caused by wind, waves and currents adds to it on occasion. There a three sources of click-like interference: switching relais, electrostatic discharges caused by snow drift, and sferics produced by thunderstorms ten thousands of kilometers away.
Still, the idea is undeniably cool and there is some impressive technology that makes it all happen.
Two hydrophones capture the underwater audio outside a wind and solar powered observatory on the Ekström ice shelf. The data is transmitted wirelessly to another base in Germany and then beamed to listeners worldwide via satellite.
If you're looking for some ambient noise to listen to while you do some work or drift to sleep, it's hard to think of anything more amazing than this. [PALOAO]
Caleb Larsen's "A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter" isn't quite as menacing as its name makes it out to be, but it's definitely a flighty little fellow: it continually creates new eBay auctions for itself via a built-in Ethernet jack.
No owner is quite good enough for this big-headed piece. Larsen's "Tool," a shiny, black cube with an Ethernet jack, pings a server every ten minutes to determine if it is listed for sale on eBay. If it's not, it creates a new auction. Mind you, this isn't only a conceptual function of the piece; it really is constantly auctioning itself and being purchased by new owners. You can view the current auction at http://atooltodeceiveandslaughter.com/.
The going price for the current auction, ending in five days, is $4,250. The piece has been in circulation since 2008.
"A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter" isn't for art collectors with fragile egos. It will leave you. Unless, of course, you forget to plug it in. [Caleb Larsen via Make]
There's no shortage of portable, wafer-thin speakers for iPods, iPhones and other pocketable media devices. But the "oh-look-at-me-and-my-cool-case" Card Speaker, designed by IDEA International, has the trappings to make it stand out from the pack.
The Card Speaker is about the same size as an iPod and shares its design principles, too: simple and clean. The company claims it "puts most every mp3 accessory to shame with its good looks and crisp fidelity." The former may be true, though the latter remains to be seen.
Still, if its packaging is any reflection on the Card Speaker's sound quality, it could live up to its description. The portable speaker comes in a handsome case with space for a short 3.5mm cord and a USB cable for charging. The Card Speaker's battery lasts up to five hours on a charge, certainly enough time for a stranger to notice your portable audio set up and compliment you on its elegance.
The $75 Card Speaker comes in silver or black and can be had at The Ghostly Store. [Unplggd]
Yesterday Google updated their Google Voice extension for Chrome, allowing Voice-heads to call numbers directly from their browsers. If you love Google or hate retyping phone numbers, this one's for you.
One of the great things about upgrading to a smartphone years ago was that all numbers were links. The updated Voice extension for Chrome allows for a similar streamlining in your browser.
The extension basically just turns phone numbers into clickable links, eliminating the need to cut and paste them across windows. It also adds a phone icon to Chrome, letting you quickly place calls and choose the number from which you do so. While it's a nice step towards a lazier future, there are some caveats. Mac users, for example, will need to install the latest Chromium build, not just the regular old Chrome, to gain the functionality.
Some people might find this capability insignificant, but anything that makes it easier to order food from places I find on Yelp is worthwhile in my book. [Google via TechCrunch]
These lathed oak jar lamps, designed by Noon Studios, are an exquisite marriage of form and function. Removing all buttons and switches, a simple twist of their tops allows more or less light to spill from the jar.
Most lamps looks like something you'd build with an erector set. London-based Noon Studio's Jar Lamps go for something a little softer, a little simpler, and a lot more beautiful. Instead of shining light directly on your desktop, these desk lamps throw a nice even glow on your workspace.
There's no information on availability, as is often the tragic case with objects of beauty you find on the internet, but check out Noon Studio's site to see more of their work. [Noon Studio via NOTCOT]
George Hotz, the young gun who first hacked the iPhone 2G, has claimed to have compromised the Playstation 3. On his blog, Hotz wrote:
I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip.
Hotz hasn't revealed the exact details of the exploit, so nothing's confirmed quite yet, but interested PS3 users should stay tuned to see how this unfolds. [iHackintosh]
We've covered how technology has shaped relief efforts in Haiti and shown how it has affected our perception of the nation's continuing tragedy. CNN is now offering new perspectives of the devastated nation with three interactive, immersive videos.
The videos were shot over the last week in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital and largest city, the third of which captures the destruction most strikingly. The technology comes courtesy of Immersive Media, a company that specializes in interactive 360 degree video and helped provide much of the data that powers Google Street View. Their website already had demos of their unique videos, in which the viewer has full control to pan and zoom even as the video plays, but it's good to see the technology being applied to a very current event and displayed on as visible a platform as CNN.com.
The situation in Haiti remains in many ways unfathomable, no matter how many reports or photos or statistics one consumes. But this type of project shows how technology is constantly providing new ways to experience and understand the world. [CNN via Boing Boing]
If simply flying your RC plane isn't quite giving you the thrill it used to, it could be time to upgrade your firepower. The plug and play Quanum bomb system might be just the bad idea you were looking for.
Looking disturbingly realistic and being dangerously easy to install, the Quanum RC bomb system could spell trouble if found in the hands of the wrong remote control pilots.
Though RC bombs aren't exactly a new idea, Quanum's $17 kit seems simple and effective. The system sticks onto the underside of any RC aircraft, size .25 or larger, and can be triggered by an extra servo channel in your receiver. The bomb itself is made of a durable nylon. You can fill it with any payload your fiendish heart desires. Packing it with chalk powder results in a nice plume of smoke; filling it with strawberry jam results in hilarity of some sort.
The system includes an extra release plate so you can design and drop your own custom armaments: a bouquet of flowers for an unsuspecting loved one or maybe some fertilizer over your pumpkin patch. JUST KIDDING. Load that sucker up with a water balloon and then it's bombs away. [Nerd Approved]
Pinch to zoom? Nah. Try unfold to zoom. The Map2, a "zoomable map on paper," is a clever invention that packs more detailed maps underneath its folds.
With GPS and map software ubiquitous on every smartphone, it's a sad reality that paper maps have fallen by the wayside. With location-based searching, powerful zoom capaibilities, and a GPS chip tracking your every move, it's hard to deny the advantages of digital maps.
But there's still something satisfying about squinting your eyes, pointing your index finger, and finding your route on a good old paper map. Enter Map2, a high tech, low tech map that lets you zoom in to a more detailed view without going digital.
From the original fold, each of the four quadrants can be unfolded to reveal a more detailed map of that area; the Map2 is essentially five maps in one.
If you're looking for a compromise between the comforting exactitude of digital maps and the old-fashioned thrill of not knowing exactly where you're going, the Map2 might be just the ticket. The $13 map is currently only available for the City of London, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this solution roll out for other cities in the near future. [Wired]
It's no secret that Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Yahoo are always expanding their reaches, slowly but surely adding new products and services into their line-ups. The New York Times's Nick Bilton took a step back and surveyed their empires.
It doesn't come as much of a surprise to see how much these four behemoths overlap, and I doubt anyone will be surprised when these companies continue to fill in this grid in 2010.
Looking at the empty spaces reveals where we might look for these companies to grow. There have been grumblings of a Google music store for a while, and it seems entirely possible that Apple's Tablet will at least in part emphasize its capabilities as a gaming device.
As the companies stretch and grow, some of their endeavors will prove more successful than others, but until then this chart is an interesting reminder of how vast their reaches already are. [New York Times Bits]
The recent Apple craze led John Markoff of the NY Times to contact Beat-era poet Gary Snyder and ask him to pen a poem reflecting on "the milestones of the digital age". The result is a delightful read.
You can read more about Snyder in the NY Times article and I recommend that you do, because the man sounds even more fantastic than his poem:
Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh
By Gary Snyder
Because it broods under its hood like a perched falcon,
Because it jumps like a skittish horse and sometimes throws me,
Because it is poky when cold,
Because plastic is a sad, strong material that is charming to rodents,
Because it is flighty,
Because my mind flies into it through my fingers,
Because it leaps forward and backward, is an endless sniffer and searcher,
Because its keys click like hail on a boulder,
And it winks when it goes out,
And puts word-heaps in hoards for me, dozens of pockets of gold under boulders in streambeds, identical seedpods strong on a vine, or it stores bins of bolts;
And I lose them and find them,
Because whole worlds of writing can be boldly laid out and then highlighted and vanish in a flash at "delete," so it teaches of impermanence and pain;
And because my computer and me are both brief in this world, both foolish, and we have earthly fates,
Because I have let it move in with me right inside the tent,
And it goes with me out every morning;
We fill up our baskets, get back home,
Feel rich, relax, I throw it a scrap and it hums.
Between this poem and the old-school gadgets, I'm getting lost in a nostalgic daze today. And absolutely loving it. [NY Times]
Picture by blakespot
It could have been worse. He could have been an unlicensed plumber caught with hallucinogenic mushrooms while playing...well, you know.
Down old mangrove way in Florida, our new favorite criminal allegedly stole a 1998 Dodge Durango (for reasons that escape us—a '98 Durango? Really?), which was then found outside a house, miles away. Inside, the suspect was sitting on his couch, playing Grand Theft Auto. He was then, appropriately, charged with grand theft auto (and a few other things, to be fair). You are now encouraged to chuckle. [CNET]
Why carry a jack, tent and sleeping bag on your back when all these items can fold into one, wearble 3lb bundle?
The JakPak is a three seasons tent built into a sleeping bag built into a jacket. Constructed of breathable but waterproof urethane coated ripstop nylon/polyester fabric, through the miracles of velcro-secured chambers, the jacket portion of the JakPak can unfurl to the body bag you see in the lead shot—complete with no see um netting and armpit ventilation!
The JakPak will be available this March for $250 and seeks to eliminate homelessness as we know it. [JakPak]
Like many of you, many of us are huge Star Trek fans. It not only shaped everyone's view of technology from a young age, it's arguably one of the driving forces of technology today. And now you can live it.
Here's a quick intro to what Star Trek Online is all about. It's about 30 years after the last Next Generation movie. You play an ensign that gets promoted (like new Kirk) to Captain because every officer above him gets killed. It's a hell of a way to climb the rankings, but it leads to you being placed in command of your own starship, but still being green enough to require tutelage into how everything works.
You spend half your time controlling a ship and half the time on the ground with an away team.
This is by far the more satisfying part. Who hasn't wanted to sit in Picard, Kirk, Scott Bakula or any of the lesser captain's chairs and order people to fire everything? Who can say that they haven't wanted to smoothly say "make it so" and have something—besides your wife giving you dirty looks—happen? This is that.
Although the main philosophies of the Star Trek universe revolve around exploration, and peace, and diplomacy, blowing shit up has always been the reward for sitting through Picard's flute playing. And this is supremely satisfying. Phasers and photon torpedoes fire with the correct sound effects, Klingon cruisers explode with a bass-rattling pppptththhhbbffffooooo, and maneuvering the cruise ship-like vessels feels natural, not clunky.
And here is where the developers need more work. The bugs are evident, from the fact that you sometimes materialize on the ground as a starship, or when your away team fails to beam down with you, or when certain mission objectives are gone entirely. The game's still in open beta, which is why we're giving our impressions now, so there's time to get everything in better shape before launch.
On the whole, the ground portion feels like a more Star Trekked version of City of Heroes, which was made by the same developer, Cryptic. It's tolerable (fun, even), but going on away team missions wasn't exactly the funnest part of the show. It's what Picard sent Riker to do while he sipped tea in his ready room.
We'll go more in depth about how the mission structure works, how leveling up/advancing in rank gets you more access to ships, and how closely the game stays to the established Trek "feel" that everyone is used to. Plus, what pre-order bonuses you should get in on.
If you want more coverage, check out Kotaku's Star Trek Online page. We're going to mostly focus on how the game appeals to Star Trek fans, but if you want more info about how the game is as a game, Kotaku's got you covered.
You know what, this analog version of facebook looks a lot cleaner and more user friendly than the real deal. Besides, there is still something to be said for putting pen to paper.
Unfortunately for those that prefer an old school form of data entry, the design is only a concept. [Laura Balboa via This Isn't Happiness via Technabob]
Meet Bashful, an older brother of the upcoming Apple tablet. Unlike the Newton, this tablet didn't go past prototypes whipped up by an industrial design firm, but at least we have some pictures to sate our curiosity about the device.
Frog Design, the company who created these prototypes along with some for an Apple phone on Steve Jobs' request back in the 1980s, has shared a few images to give us a peek of what could've been an Apple tablet—attachable keyboard, floppy drive, stylus and all:
Despite only being 27 years old, this gadget almost feels like an archeological find in comparison to what we think we might see in the upcoming tablet. Yet for some reason I still can't stop smiling over this look into the past. [Frog Design]
