AirCassette is a $1.99 iPhone app that mimics the look of an audio cassette tape while playing (including the handwritten script of a label sticker).
“The reels actually spin and you can create and share mix tapes with your friends via e-mail or Facebook, just as we used to do back in 1986,” reports The New York Times.
The AirPlay-compatible app is from Finnish programmer Majasalmi, known for its “Russian Roulette” iPhone game, and features its own iTunes music interface.
The app includes multiple cassette designs that resemble popular blank tapes of the audio cassette era.
“Watching a cassette tape spin on the iPhone’s high-resolution display is oddly calming and, thanks to digital compression, the audio is far superior in AirCassette than it ever was on my Sony Walkman,” comments John Biggs in Gadgetwise.
Twitter quietly added new features to its interface recently, designed to help users easily search relevant content.
“Twitter’s website now includes a featured ‘Top News’ section at the top of search results to showcase relevant recent news articles about a certain topic,” reports GigaOM. “The site also has a new ‘Top People’ window that similarly showcases Twitter users that correspond with search queries.”
Twitter is quietly testing the new features on some of its users.
“It’s a nice move for Twitter, which has been working to position itself as a place for people to consume all kinds of news,” suggests the post. “Twitter has established itself as a great platform for crowdsourced information and citizen journalism, but these new features should help to make the site equally useful for finding stuff from traditional content producers such as news organizations.”
RED Digital Cinema has officially released its Scarlet-X pro video camera with Canon EF or PL mount. Panavision, Anamorphic, and Nikon lenses are also compatible.
According to the company’s press release: “With burst modes up to 12 fps at full 5K resolution alongside 4K motion capture from 1-30 fps, the camera allows professional photographers and cinematographers to simultaneously capture motion footage and still content…The addition of HDRx reaches up to 18 stops of dynamic range, bringing digital images closer than ever to the natural perception of the human eye.”
The $9,750 Scarlet-X is available for pre-order on RED.com, while the $14,015 Scarlet-X AL Canon Mount Package includes a power adaptor, 5-inch touch LCD, and a hand grip.
“Launched the same day as Canon’s new EOS C300 Digital Cinema Camera, clearly the folks at RED have put some thought into their spec-list and price point,” reports Digital Photography Review. “Whether an amateur or professional film-maker should use the C300 or Scarlet (or perhaps Canon’s forthcoming 4K DSLR) will become an interesting debate in the coming year.”
Canon has announced its new Cinema EOS C300 professional camera system.
The company is introducing five new lenses for the system, all available in an EF mount: “The lenses are designed to outlast the camera, as they are each rated for use in 4K productions…The zoom lenses will also be made available in PL mount versions,” reports PCMag.com.
Its 8.29-megapixel sensor is the same size as Super 35 film. It records MPEG-2 with 4:2:2 color sampling and a maximum bitrate of 50Mbps. Frame rate support includes 60i, 50i, 30p, 25p, and 24p.
Canon also announced an unnamed DSLR, optimized for cinema use, which is currently in development: “It will sport a full-frame 35mm CMOS sensor and support 4K video acquisition at 24p using Motion-JPEG compression, although the field of view of its lenses will be cropped to APS-H dimensions when recording at full resolution.”
CEO John Lasseter answers New York Times readers’ emails as Pixar Animation Studios turns 25 this year.
Lasseter on Walt Disney: “The films take me to other worlds through the amazing stories and characters…He really inspired me to do my life’s work and to try to entertain audiences in that same way.”
On his favorite animated feature: “‘Dumbo’ is my favorite film for many reasons. It’s very tight storytelling. It’s amazing to have a main character not speak at all through the whole movie.”
On CalArts: “The original instructors were all these amazing Disney artists that had gone into retirement, and so they came out of retirement to teach us.”
On advice for aspiring animators: “Every young person gets so excited about new software packages and new technology. Technology never entertains an audience on its own. It’s what you do with the technology.”
Steve Jobs during the making of ‘Toy Story’: “John, you know at Apple when I make computers, what is the lifespan of this product, two years, three years at the most, and then about five years, they’re like a doorstop. But if you do your job right, these films can last forever.”
Mexico City-based Cinepolis, the world’s fourth-largest theater chain, has plans to extend luxury cinemas to Southern California.
The luxury chain has seen success in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, and has already “expanded to about 150 screens across Latin America,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
The company has invested $8 million in its Del Mar facility, “where patrons can kick back in a leather recliner and press a button to order teriyaki beef skewers, sushi rolls or a glass of Thomas Hyland Chardonnay.”
The all-digital theater features a lounge area with sofas, a full bar serving specialty drinks, and a cafe with coffee and desserts. Touch screen monitors in the lobby show upcoming movie trailers.
Tickets cost as much as $19.50, a hefty premium for this economy, but the concept may become an attractive alternative for consumers looking for a new experience.
Three theaters are planned for Carlsbad (under construction), Laguna Niguel and Rancho Santa Margarita, while deals are underway for additional locations in Westlake and Westwood.
Nippon Electric Glass Co. Ltd. is developing an “Invisible Glass” film with the intent of combatting reflection and glare issues often so problematic with electronic devices.
The concept, recently demonstrated at the FPD International conference, is placed on the front and back sides of the glass substrate to minimize reflections from various light sources.
“Usually, glass will allow 92 percent of light to pass through it and reflect 8 percent back to the viewer,” reports Gizmodo. “The Invisible Glass film allows 99.5 percent of light to pass through it and reflects only .5 percent back at the viewer.”
According to Tech-On: “For the two anti-reflection films, the company used a total of 30 or more layers. And the thickness of each layer is controlled in increments of nanometers.”
No word on how close this concept may be to commercial release.
Apple’s new retail store app for iOS is expected to launch today, and will include two major features: 1) Online ordering with retail store pick-up, and 2) Self check-out at retail locations.
The new services have already started at a number of Apple locations in California and New York City.
A customer will be able to order an in-stock product online and pick it up approximately 12 minutes later — skipping lines and registers, then simply picking up and signing for the product.
If customers order an item that is not in-stock, they’ll be a given a pick-up date right after the online purchase is completed. All products sent to an Apple store will include free shipping.
With self check-out, customers are encouraged to launch the Apple Store app on an iOS device to purchase in-store items. “You scan the product with the camera on your device in the app, click purchase, and it will charge whatever credit card is associated to your Apple ID,” reports BGR.
The company expects the new program will generate a 30 percent increase in sales.
Republic Wireless is a new hybrid cellular voice and VoIP service launching November 8. It will offer unlimited voice, SMS and data service over Wi-Fi, and will switch back automatically to regular cellular connections depending on location.
The new service will be offered through Bandwith.com, a North Carolina-based company that has been involved with Skype, Google Voice, Twilio and others.
“The company’s extensive VoIP infrastructure handles much of the heavy lifting for these services, and it also offers some of its own products, like Phonebooth, a premium VoIP service for businesses,” reports TechCrunch.
Other carriers are reportedly in talks, but Sprint is the first on board to serve as the “fallback” cellular network.
According to GigaOM, the $19 per month service will require a special Android handset and “includes unlimited voice and text messaging. It also includes unlimited data without any bandwidth caps.”
Shall I Buy is a free iPhone app with the goal of combining instant social feedback for shoppers to make better purchasing decisions and possibly combat buyer’s remorse.
A shopper can share a video, picture, price and location to engage potential followers and incite comments, and allows sharing of links through Facebook and Twitter.
“The app is done simply, taking heavy styling cues from Instagram, but in doing so it’s effective and easy to use,” reports TheNextWeb.
The post cites two potential downsides: 1) By default, users receive a great number of push notifications, and 2) It would be helpful to have “a way to configure notifications inside of the app itself,” rather than going to the website.
Robert Scoble equates it to “Foodspotting for everything else.”
Nokia unveiled its Kinetic Device smartphone prototype at the recent Nokia World Conference in London.
The screen of the concept phone “is controlled by the way that it is bent or twisted or flexed, not by the way it is touched,” reports The Huffington Post.
The video shows how bending the phone inwards and outwards controls zoom and twisting it controls volume and playback.
“It’s built entirely out of plastic, which includes the bendy and attractive AMOLED display up front, and contains only the hardware required to power it and to sense user input,” explains This Is My Next in a related post. “It all looks somewhat unwieldy when you’re observing it, and it’s not all that easy to describe, but adapting to the control scheme takes only a few seconds and once you know what you’re doing, it becomes extremely natural. Honestly, bend-to-zoom is miles ahead of pinch-to-zoom in terms of intuitive human interaction.”
No word yet on whether Nokia has plans to develop a commercial version.
“Do you have files scattered over Google Docs, Dropbox and Box.net and look for a way to manage them all using just one platform?” asks TechCrunch. “Then Joukuu, a file management solution supporting said services, might do the trick for you.”
Joukuu serves as a centralized platform that allows users to access and edit their files from multiple cloud storage accounts including Google Docs, Box.net, Dropbox, Sugarsync, Huddle and Skydrive.
“What’s interesting is that it’s possible to use Joukuu to search for specific files or folders across accounts plus share and collaborate on documents with others across different service providers,” explains TechCrunch. “Joukuu is fully integrated with Google Docs, meaning you can share or collaborate on files with anyone across providers, without uploading any files to Google Docs.”
Currently, there is a Windows-only desktop application ($30 for the Plus version, free for Lite) — and a smartphone app is in the works. For Mac users, the Web version is free for a single account and $40 per year for multiple accounts.
Viacom’s NextMovie.com has attracted more than one million viewers in its first 12 months, according to comScore. This week the site will add MovieTracker, developed with social intelligence platform Trendrr.
The new add-on is designed to track and quantify related social activity by ranking “the top 25 films according to social buzz for movies in production, coming soon or in theaters,” indicates The Hollywood Reporter.
“There isn’t really another product quite like this for movie fans,” explains VP and general manager of NextMovie Scott Robson. “The MovieTracker isn’t based on box office performance, which is how most movie rankings are compiled. Instead, it’s driven purely by the social conversation around movies. It’s the first time that what movie fans say — on Twitter, on Facebook and in the blogosphere — really matters in a quantified way.”
The feature is expected to be available early next year as an app for iOS and Android, allowing mobile access.
“The MovieTracker will launch initially on NextMovie.com, but it will appear soon after across multiple Viacom Media Networks properties, including MTV.com, VH1.com and the Logo sites,” says Robson. “It’s also possible that versions of the MovieTracker at some point will appear on air, on the MTV Radio Network and more.”
Viber Media is a provider of iPhone and Android apps that enable free text and talk capabilities over 3G and Wi-Fi networks. GigaOM points out that the apps are “built upon a foundation of the MongoDB NoSQL database running atop the Amazon Web Services cloud.”
According to a MongoDB press release issued this week: “Viber enables users to talk and text for free with other Viber users without having to sign up, create a separate account, or log in. Once the app is launched, the user simply enters his or her cell number and is automatically part of the community.”
“MongoDB manages the intercommunity data exchange that enables users to call and text one another,” adds the press release. “Each time a Viber user connects a cell phone to the network, MongoDB receives call-related information.”
Viber’s 130 nodes handle a reported “11 million minutes of calls daily by Viber’s 18 million active users.” GigaOM suggests Viber can be viewed as the “prototypical case study for both NoSQL and cloud computing.”
CodeNow is a non-profit initiative for early technology education, launched in February 2011 by social entrepreneur Ryan Seashore.
According to the organization: “CodeNow works with underrepresented youth to develop the next pioneers in technology by teaching foundational skills in computer science and programming to narrow the digital divide. Creating a fluency in this language spurs innovation and opens doors for our youth, while creating a pipeline of talent for American companies.”
“Coding is the language of the future. If we want our youth to be competitive globally we need to teach them be tinkerers and look under the hood of technology,” explains Seashore. “Though we are a non-profit we function more like a start-up. We take a ‘lean’ approach to our work and are in constant beta. It’s been an amazing experience.”
The organization earned some government recognition when director of the Office of Public Engagement Jon Carson recently discussed CodeNow on the White House blog: “Ryan got me thinking about ways that we could engage non-profits around the country and the ways we could share their incredible stories. I am happy to announce a new weekly blog series highlighting non-profits dedicated to improving their communities. It felt appropriate to have CodeNow inaugurate the series.”
