News Topic - iPhone

iRoticNET.com Launches For iPhone 3G - Unlimited Access to Hundreds of Adult Movies For Just $9.95 Per Month
LOS ANGELES — July 22, 2008. Just in time for the launch of the all-new iPhone 3G, iRoticNET announces the immediate availability of iRoticNET.com, the premier adult video destination designed specif... [WebWire - Tuesday, July 22, 2008]
WebWire  –  Jul 22, 2008 4:09 PM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Top Stories: Press Releases

PanfobiA set to become iPhone's first RPG
Pocket Gamer writes: "We can see how it's important for a game publisher to say they were the first to do something, but it's really an inconsequential matter for the ground floor gamer. If it's a rubbish game, being the first makes no difference – we still won't buy it."
N4G.com  –  Jul 22, 2008 1:39 PM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Technology: Video Games

Naomi Alderman: Why Microsoft makes us want to scream 'Exterminate!'
We human beings get nervous if we don't know what's going on. It's the rule for creating scary stories: the unknown is always more frightening than the known. Think of The Turn of the Screw, or M. R. James ghost stories. They're frightening because, even at the end of the story, the reader still doesn't know quite what happened. And the opposite is true too: once something has been explained, the fear is gone. This is why childhood shows like Doctor Who are paradoxically so comforting: at the end of each story, all the scary things that had us cowering behind the sofa are explained and thus made safe. People respond to technology in much the same way. Most of us don't really know what's going on inside the black boxes of our computers, games consoles or mobile phones. We entrust to these devices our data, our entertainment, our ability to communicate, but we don't know how they're doing what they're doing. Which makes us afraid. To reduce that anxiety, we need to be given the impression that we do understand, that we can see inside the black box. We like to see a progress bar, a loading screen, or a transition animation. But when putting these elements in place, developers have to take account of some very peculiar quirks of human perception. Take Windows Vista. In many areas, it outperforms Windows XP, but it doesn't feel that way. In fact, Vista often feels more sluggish. Why? Because the designers at Microsoft haven't addressed the user's perception of Vista's performance. Human beings, it turns out, don't perceive time in a perfectly linear fashion. We perceive that things are progressing more quickly if that apparent progress is smooth, and if it speeds up towards the end. Because the Vista copy progress bar doesn't move smoothly, and slows down toward the end, it's perceived as slower than it really is. Gmail has done better. Its developers have recently included a loading screen with a progress bar. The transition from the login screen to this intermediate screen makes the load-time feel faster, even if it isn't. Of course it's not news that human beings are irrational. The peak-end rule of memory formation, for example, says that when we're evaluating experiences in our memories, our evaluations are based purely on how good, or bad, the experience was at its peak, and how it ended. In a similar fashion, when we evaluate software performance, we don't focus on the average response time; instead we focus on the slowest 10% of response times. It's unfair on developers, but if their products are really slow only 10% of the time, users will perceive them as constantly slow. This is one thing that Apple gets right. When a user clicks an application icon on the iPhone, the phone's graphics unit performs a short transition animation in which the application icons whoosh out of the way before the chosen application is brought up. This gives the impression of quick performance: because we can see that something is happening, the anxiety is reduced. We feel we know what's going on. Apple may not make perfect systems. It has hardware problems, and distribution problems. But there's a reason that people spend a whole day in the queue to get a new iPhone: Apple understands what makes us happy.Related StoriesPaul Lewis on why Bluetooth technology is raising fears about privacyNetbytes: Girl Power blogger takes Singapore by stormAnother view: Roboticist Noel Sharkey on Wall-EDas Wikipedia - online resource goes into printBSkyB and Universal to launch digital music service
The Guardian  –  Jul 22, 2008 1:02 PM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Technology

Sybase extends Lotus Notes, Exchange support to iPhone 3G
Sybase said Tuesday that it has launched its iAnywhere Mobile Office software for the iPhone 3G with connections to Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange email. Sybase has been on the iPhone bandwagon since earlier this year, but does bolster the enterprise app lineup available for the iPhone...
ZDNet  –  Jul 22, 2008 11:33 AM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Technology: Software

Highlights from the Apps Store
With more than 500 programs available on Apple's new Apps Store, new iPhone owners may need help with overload. Here are our Best-Of picks:
The Globe and Mail  –  Jul 22, 2008 10:19 AM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Top Stories

Blogs for Print Nerds: Zine Fest Flaunts Camp and Crafts
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.comSAN FRANCISCO – More than 100 zine-makers packed the County Fair building in Golden Gate Park over the weekend to celebrate San Francisco's annual Zine Festival.The two-day conference featured a wide variety of DIY arts and crafts, zines, comics and a gypsy-like atmosphere. Attending noobs were also treated to hands-on workshops, from bookbinding to illustration and Q & A sessions with accomplished self-publishers.For zinesters, zines are like the blogs of the print world. They're an essential part of offline geek and underground culture and their DIY aesthetic has influenced an entire generation of designers and writers. Click through the gallery for highlights from this DIY ComicCon. Left: Festival-goers browse through the plethora of independently published zines and books.: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.comJonathan Fetter-Vorm, one half of the production company Two Fine Chaps, displays an array of his self-published work. His work ranges from a large, full-color illustrated book of the poem Beowulf to a very small, hand-made, three-dimensional pop-up fable titled The Clockmaker's Joy. "I wanted to make books that are fun to hold, interesting to read and beautiful to look at," Fetter-Vorm said.: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.comRani Goel's Typecritters zines feature letter art made from mirroring and layering type. Her booth also displays her Servings zine, which tackles the issue of body image and our cultural obsession with weight and food. "There's something about someone's handwriting, something more real about it than a MySpace or a blog, something raw," Goel said. "And there's room to be messy, it doesn't have to be perfect.": Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.comJennie Hinchcliff (left) and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler, of Pod Post, model their zine merit badges. "We wanted the merit badges to be about something we care about," Hinchcliff said. "Merit badges for book and zine making." "Instead of cookie selling," Wheeler adds.: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.comAmy Martin, a cartoonist, gets a little work done at her booth and perhaps a head start for next year's festival. "Last year was the first [festival] I did," Martin said. "The shows are great and you get to meet lots of people.": Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.comMatt DeLight, illustrator and co-producer of several comics, described his work as autobiographical, funny and tragic. "It started with a love of comics as a kid," DeLight said. He stumbled upon an issue of Too Much Coffee at 16 that detailed how to make your own mini comic. "It blew my mind to think that I could go to Kinko's and make my own comic.": Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.comThe 2008 SF Zine Festival moved to the SF County Fair building in Golden Gate park this year in anticipation of more exhibitors and a larger crowd than ever -- twice the size of last year's.: Emily Lang/Wired.comKelly Lee Barretts (right) mans her street-photography mini-book booth with Jon LaSalle (middle). "I had taken a bunch of photos and was rolling around with them on the floor of my room one night and decided to make a book out of it," said Barretts, a UC Santa Cruz graduate. Barretts has books available in three different sizes, from the miniscule to the pocket-size.: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.comLori Stein (left), author of Ranger Strange Bunny, shares table space with professional Yo-Yoer and ziner, Doctor Popular. Doctor Popular peddled his zines, hand-made iPhone cases and yo-yos. "Three things keep me alive: yo-yoing, crafts and tailoring," Popular said. "Some of that is represented here."
Wired News  –  Jul 22, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Technology

New iPhone sales superhot; Apple reports profit up 31%
Apple Inc.'s iPhone 3G is sold out at almost all the company's U.S. retail outlets, 10 days after the company put the faster, cheaper upgrade of the mobile handset on the shelves.
Newsday.com  –  Jul 22, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Business

Apple: IPhone Coming to 20 More Countries Aug. 22
Even as it struggles to meet demand in existing markets, Apple plans to introduce the iPhone 3G to new countries next month...
PC World  –  Jul 22, 2008 03:59 AM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Technology

Apple Reports $1.07 Billion on Strong Mac, IPhone Sales
Apple on Monday posted a profit of US$1.07 billion on revenue of $7.46 billion. The company shipped 2,496,000 Macintosh...
PC World  –  Jul 22, 2008 03:59 AM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Technology

Review: IEnvision for IPhone
In addition to billions of pages of text, the Web is awash in images--more than 50 million desktop images, more than 3 million...
PC World  –  Jul 22, 2008 03:59 AM [GMT]  ¦  comment?
found in Technology