The IEEE-1394 protocol better known as Firewire or i.Link gets an update. The S1600 and S3200 specifications are now approved by the, you know, IEEE. The two specs are the logical successors of the currently used S400 and S800 specs (Firewire 400 and 800). The new specs allow speeds of up to 3.2Gbps (about 400MB per second).

The new specs will become available in October this year. A little earlier than the new USB 3.0 spec (you can read more about it here).

Source: Engadget

Not long ago, Phil Lu of Genoco came up with an idea to bring your iPhone and a visit in Starbucks together. The idea was to get your Starbucks coffee quick and fast in ordering and paying just with your iPhone in your palm. The cool thing, Phil’s idea involved a payment solution with semacodes, which are commonly used in other countries for underground transportation and so on.

This time he shows us another design mockup called Transfer. It is about an application that holds all the features you need as a photographer in just one place, again your iPhone. This application consists of five major functions, which are: Remote, have full control over your camera via a remote connection. Trigger is also like a remote function with the ability to control your camera over the internet, anywhere you are. The Transfer function allows you to store and backup your data wirelessly over several storage locations. The Preview category let’s you preview your images in multiple ways and the Storage function lets you save your images directly on your iPhone.

What’s so special about these design mockups? Well, it’s the way Phil presents us his ideas. I like his mockups because there’re clean and clever made. It would be cool to see one of his mockups making it into a real application.

Zojirushi comes up with a new gadget, the i-Pot CV-DA22, a hot water supply, as we all know it and love it. But this new model has wireless capabilities. If you are going out of home, just push a designated button on the machine, and you can track the usage of the supply from your mobile phone when you’re on the road. This can be especially very handy for parents and old folks. Nice one, Zoji!! Now, where the rice cooker with wireless capabilites and remote control (or is there already one)??

Source: Slashphone

Yes, you read it right. The iPhone SDK ist not just for Developers who want to develop native iPhone applications. It’s also for Web Developers who want to take the capabilities of the SDK to write code for their web apps. Apple did a fine work here enhancing Dashcode, the Environment for programming Dashboard Widgets on Mac OS X, with a new feature to directly build your web apps in Dashcode. In Conjunction with the iPhone Simulator you now can, preview, debug, optimize and build your web applications all in Dashcode. Apple also put online an introduction video into iTunes (note: you must have an ADC membership account) which describes new technologies like advanced JavaScript functions, native SVG support, CSS effects, offline data support, full screen mode and gesture events.

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Today, Apple held a conference in where Apple CEO Steve Jobs among others talked about new enterprise features for the iPhone such as full Microsoft Exchange integration, Push Mail, Push Contacts, More VPN procotols and others. Also, they talked about the new iPhone SDK that is released today and is free for download.

The SDK is available from today and is aimed at developers to develop applications for the iPhone. Apple will release a new firmware version 2.0 for their mobile phone via Software Update in June including the App Store, where developers can distribute their apps and customers can than buy them.

Enterprises can apply for a beta program, where they can try out a new beta firmware already including the above mentioned enterprise features.I am sure, there will be some great applications for the iPhone released. Gonna wait and see.

Apple’s got a new patent up and running. Seems, this patent is laying around since July 2006, but now officially published. You can get more info here. Gizmodo just came up with a nice image up on their website (or see above). This would be in fact a very nice idea.  Again, one more coin for the Apple rumor mill! 

 With thanks to Lokesh Dhakar for the idea, here is my list of books I am currently reading: 

• Mac OS X Support Essentials 2nd Edition 
• Desktop and Portable Systems 3rd Edition
• AJAX Hacks
• PHP5 Cookbook 2nd Edition
• Japan after Japan
• CSS Praxis 4th Edition

Now in its 6th iteration, Greenpeace released their ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ showing the top 18 electronics companies ranked after its policies regarding toxic chemicals and recycling. Interesting here is Nintendo at the very last point and Sony Ericsson and Samsung ranked at the top.

Source: Engadget 

Yes, now you have an idea about how much energy is used everyday on the computer and surfing around the web.
About a 1/20 of the global Energy is used on the net, which makes astonishing 868 billion kilowatt-hours per year! My guess: Most of the energy is used by the World of Warcraft users.

File photo shows the green streak of a meteor cutting across the sky. Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.”
Or so the thread says. People getting sick and vomitting,lol. Checkout the links here and here.

Maybe we’ve got a new kind of flue from the aliens.