Using Verizon's forthcoming iPhone as a mobile hot spot is going to cost subscribers $20 a month--that's on top of the required data and voice plans subscribers will already be paying for.
The fee, which is in line with what Verizon charges for mobile hot spot service on other smartphones, was confirmed today to Macworld by Brenda Raney, Verizon Wireless' executive director of corporate communications. The hot spot feature comes with a 2GB data allowance, but if users go over that limit, they will be charged $20 per gigabyte.
The personal hot spot allows up to five Wi-Fi devices at a time to connect to the Internet using the Verizon iPhone's 3G data connection as a wireless router. The feature was highlighted during Verizon's January 11 event announcing iPhone's imminent availability on its network, but pricing for the service was not revealed at the time.
Earlier today, Verizon announced it would keep its $30 unlimited data plan for the iPhone, but the plan will only be offered for a limited time before the company moves to a usage-based billing model.
The new Verizon iPhone is expected to be a hot seller when it goes on sale February 10. Verizon executives have not provided exact projections for iPhone sales, but they say that analyst estimates of 11 million new subscribers for the iPhone are likely accurate.
AT&T, the only other carrier offering the iPhone, currently allows only a single device to be tethered to the device via USB or Bluetooth. However, the hot spot feature will reportedly be available to all iPhones capable of running iOS 4.3, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, a beta of which was recently released to developers.
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Verizon's iPhone hot spot to cost $20 a monthThe top 10 toys requested by children for the 2010 holidays, according to the Duracell Toy Report, are all Apple products.
Kids want iPhones, iPads over toys for holidays
Back in 2007, Time Magazine named the Espresso Book Machine one of its inventions of the year. The Espresso, now on version 2.0, costs around $150,000 and is an on-demand printing press that features some nifty robotics. It can output a professional-looking paperback book in about four minutes (see the video below).
On Demand Books, founded in 1993, has been slowly making some headway with its product, even if the current machine costs a good deal more than Time said it would in its 2007 article. The blog Publishing Perspectives has an interesting piece on how the University of Texas Co-op--the most profitable independent college bookstore in the United States--has purchased an Espresso Book Machine and is aiming is to "revolutionize how the store does business and interacts with the local community." About 15 other university bookstores have bought the compact printing press, which looks like an elaborate copy machine.
Where the machine comes in most handy is for "narrow interest" titles or important out-of-print and low-demand backlist titles that it doesn't make economic sense for a small press to print. PDFs of those books are stored on a server and can be printed out on request for a much more affordable price. Many of these books are textbooks that would normally retail for well over $50.
The University of Texas Co-op is also looking into marketing its Espresso--dubbed B.O.B. (Burnt Orange Book machine) for the color of the Co-op's Forty Acres Press logo--to local authors for use in self-publishing ventures.
Chad Stith, who runs the newly founded Forty Acres Press, says that "recent history for booksellers has shown that you can't afford to put up enough inventory to have an enormous selection of books. The frontlist is just not selling enough to support much investment in a backlist. So this might be an answer to that. Now you can walk into a bookstore, search through a computer's catalog of books, and while you drink a cup of coffee, the book you want is printed on demand...a sort of book ATM."
Of course, those who argue that e-books are the real future, would suggest that the Espresso Book Machine, while impressively modern and forward thinking, is actually destined to become a relic before it has a chance to realize its potential. That said, for those looking for a more cost-effective alternative for printing and selling paper books--particularly the kind that only sell hundreds of copies--this "robot" may represent a much-needed lifeline.
Can this 'robot' help save publishing?
An updated version of Frash, an app that permits the otherwise banned Adobe Flash technology on Apple mobile devices, has been released. At the moment, however, it's only capable of handling relatively basic Flash animations (including, for example, the cult-classic Flash cartoon "Trogdor the Burninator"). The device in question must also first be "jailbroken," or hacked to remove protections and restrictions put in place by the hardware or software manufacturer.
Comex, the development firm that created Frash as well as the JailbreakMe tool, initially launched the app in a limited test that was first only accessible via the Safari browser on the iPad. The updated Frash, Comex says, also works on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and third-generation iPod Touch.
Last month, the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that jailbreaking is technically legal from a copyright standpoint. Apple objected to the ruling, and has said that jailbreaking nevertheless violates its user terms of service, but at the same time there has never been an instance of the company pressing legal action against a customer who jailbroke a phone.
Will the wider ability to add Flash to an Apple mobile device through jailbreaking make Apple crack down on the practice? Apple's relationship with Flash manufacturer Adobe grew quite hostile this spring, with Adobe's Flash evangelist writing a blog post that read "Go screw yourself Apple" in the wake of Apple's decision to keep non-approved third-party APIs off iOS 4. That policy change had cut off a back-door approach that had let Flash, which Apple says it doesn't permit for security and performance reasons, onto Apple mobile devices without jailbreaking.
New app brings Flash to jailbroken iPhones
Shooting panoramic photos with a mobile phone can be difficult. Often times it requires doing all the work in a software app when you get back from wherever you are, as well as trying to make sure that the phone's camera does not change its white balance or exposure between shots.
Occipital, the creators of the popular RedLaser scanning app (which wassold to eBay last month) have a new iPhone app debuting on Friday called 360 Panorama, which is attempting to change that. For $2.99, users can simply move their phone from left to right to capture a photo panorama. The end result is a single, panoramic photo that requires zero post-processing.
Behind the scenes the app is actually using the iPhone's video camera, which means that users will need a 3GS or the newer iPhone 4 to use it. The app also takes advantage of the iPhone 4's gyroscope hardware to help judge how quickly you're rotating, so it can figure out what needs to be captured and where you've already been. As it records imagery, it stitches together an image based on your movement, which you can see and track to make any angle corrections.
Some modern day point and shoot cameras like Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-W370 are able to do the same thing, though with a larger end result.
If you want to see how it works while using it, you can see it in the company's demo video below:
The larger problem is the distortion, which Occipital co-founder Vikas Reddy told me is made worse in indoor situations. His team is working on ways to make it better in a future release, but in the meantime shooting outdoors provides for a much smoother and less jaggy experience.
Being in the urban jungle of downtown San Francisco, I wasn't able to fully test how well it would work on something like rolling hills or a forest, but as you can see from the shots above it does a fine job until you hit perfectly straight lines where the software is forced to make a stitch by guesswork.
These issues aside, 360 Panorama is an incredibly neat, and genuinely useful app. It may have no business taking over the job of a good crisp, and low distortion still image, but if you want to quickly capture an incredible amount of detail of the world around you, it's tough to beat.
360 Panorama does instant, awesome panoramas
Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, along with a team of engineers, have transformed a Toyota 8-Series lift truck into an autonomous bot capable of working alongside human supervisors using voice commands or hand gestures.
The 3,000-pound-capacity lift truck from Toyota Material Handling (TMHU) is capable of locating, lifting, moving, and placing supplies while traversing just about any type of terrain. It was demonstrated last month at an event hosted by the U.S. Army Logistics Innovation Agency at Fort Lee, in Virginia.
"Robotic forklifts have the potential to protect both military and civilian personnel working in high-risk environments, such as hazardous material storage facilities, said Brett Wood, president of TMHU.
The demo included a review of the robot's safety features, sensor capabilities, and human-robot interface.
The researchers and engineers developed a complex network of systems to enable the lift truck to navigate real-time conditions faced by lift truck operators (navigating obstacles and interacting with other moving vehicles, for example). To do this, they added a camera, sensors, laptops, servomotors, Wi-Fi, and a PDA.
"We chose the internal combustion Toyota lift truck because it can be operated outdoors on packed earth or gravel and because, with mini-lever control some of its functionality can be controlled electronically rather than solely mechanically," said MIT Professor Seth Teller, who headed the project.
The modified vehicle wirelessly exports video from its own point of view, so the human supervisor, even if hundreds of miles away, can see whatever is nearby (provided there is network connectivity between the lift truck and supervisor's tablet).
In September 2009, for example, the team demonstrated the lift truck operating autonomously at MIT, in Cambridge, Mass., while under the supervision of an operator in Washington D.C.
The lift truck uses sensors and perception algorithms to form an internal representation of its surroundings; a human-robot interface to determine what task the operator wants completed; and planning algorithms to plan a set of vehicle motions and fork actions to satisfy the task, engineers explained. The fork lift then autonomously executes the plan while algorithms monitor for unexpected situations so the scheme can be changed on the fly. The robot also listens for shouted human speech, and will pause if it concludes that a human is yelling a warning.
The lift truck's system was designed to operate outdoors on uneven terrain such as gravel, and alongside people on foot and other vehicles that may block or cross its path.
Over the course of the two-year project, MIT worked with BAE Systems and Lincoln Laboratory in collaboration with the LIA; the Combined Arms Support Command Sustainment Battle Lab; the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and the Director of Defense Research and Engineering.
Robot Toyota lift truck performs unmanned tasksSouth Korea's military has deployed machine-gun-toting robots along the heavily fortified border with North Korea, and a related promo video delivers more shock and awe than Kim Jong-Il singing the blues.
Samsung Techwin and other firms developed the SGR-1 robots, and they have been installed on a trial basis at a post in the central part of the Demilitarized Zone, Yonhap News quoted military officials as saying.
The $200,000 SGR-1s are remote-operated sentry bots that work in tandem with cameras and radar systems. They can detect intruders with heat and motion sensors, and challenge them through audio and video communications. The bots can also fire on targets with 5.5-millimeter machine guns and 40-millimeter automatic grenade launchers.
The officials didn't say how many bots were set up, but they will be installed throughout the 160-mile DMZ if the trial, which runs through the end of this year, is successful. Tensions along the DMZ are already high following the sinking of the South's warship Cheonan in March.
"Human soldiers can easily fall asleep or allow for the depreciation of their concentration over time," Samsung Techwin spokesman Huh Kwang-hak was quoted as saying by Stars and Stripes. "But these robots have automatic surveillance, which doesn't leave room for anything resembling human laziness. They also won't have any fear (of) enemy attackers on the front lines."
Huh said the robots cannot automatically fire on targets, and require human permission to attack, adding, "The SGR-1 can and will prevent wars."
Indeed, the robot comes off as an almost godlike hero in the high-budget action video below, which is outstanding for its screaming hype and cheesy acting (best line: "What is that monster??").
Whoever created the vid was clearly channeling Team America. What would Kim Jong-Il think?
Korean machine-gun robots start DMZ duty 
