The Inquisitr » Apple

Apparently Apple is voiding warranties of smoker’s computers

Steven Hodson — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:15:30 +0000

Now just to clarify right off the top – there is no official word out about whether or not Apple is voiding the warranties of computers owned by smokers but if the news as being reported by the Technically Incorrect even approaches fact then Apple has definitely crossed a line.

Chris Matyszczyk tells of two separate people who have taken their machines in to an apple store in the case of Derek in Des Moines and an authorized Apple repair center in the case of Ruth. In both instances they were informed by staff that there would be no work done on the machines because they had come from homes where some-one was smoking and this voided the computer’s warranty.

One, named Derek, recounts the tale of his overheating black MacBook. He took it into the Apple store in Jordan Creek, West Des Moines.

He told The Consumerist: “Today, April, 28, 2008, the Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that has voided the warranty and they refuse to work on the machine, due to ‘health risks of secondhand smoke’.”

[...]

Then along came Ruth, who took her son’s iMac to an authorized repair center. After five days, they apparently told her they couldn’t work on it because it was contaminated with cigarette smoke and was therefore a bio-hazard.

When Ruth appealed to Jobs’ office, she said she was told by someone named Dena that nicotine was on OSHA’s list of hazardous substances.

Source: cnet News – Technically Incorrect

Now given that Ruth actually got someone in Apple itself to say this and confirm that the warranty was indeed void shows that even if the practice isn’t an official policy it sure seems to be a condoned one.

If this is indeed the case then I’m sorry but Apple is putting its nose in where it doesn’t belong and this is flat out wrong.

[image courtesy of anythingbutipod.com]

Cisco iPhone App Can Check Website Reputations On The Fly

James Allen Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:19:34 +0000

The newest iPhone App from Cisco is perfect for internet security experts looking to protect their devices and ultimately the personal and business information of their companies employees. The program provides users with internet traffic and e-mail monitoring alerts and even allows IP addresses to be entered for specific websites and servers so users can check the site or servers “reputation.” Those risks are determined base on various factors including traffic volume and location.

The program probably won’t do standard users all that much good, Cisco is aiming the program at IT managers and security experts and is providing SIO TO Go abilities which provides various security news feeds, a Cisco Risk Report, access to the companies security blog, Twitter feeds and other information that may be of use when determining company protocols and blacklisting certain locations.

To gather information the program uses Cisco’s own email monitoring technology, while also access popular information gather options include the WhoIs directory for determining where a site is located, what type of traffic it gets and any reports of malware and other potentially harmful software the sites and server may be distributing.

The program is free to use and is rather intuitive for first time users with simple entry forms and excellent data output. [iPodNN]

iPodRip Gets Direct Response From Steve Jobs, Immediately Changes Name

James Allen Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:49:32 +0000

John Devor, co-owner of the Apple software company “The Little App Factory” received an email from Apple Lawyers telling him to change the name of his iPodRip program or face trademark infringement over the iPod name. In response to that letter Mr. Devor sent a message directly to Steve Jobs pleading his case.

Here’s Johns letter to Jobs and the response he received back:

Dear Mr. Jobs,

My name is John Devor and I’m the co-owner of a small Mac shareware company named The Little App Factory and a long-term Apple customer and shareholder. I doubt you’re aware but we recently received a letter from a law firm working on Apple’s behalf instructing us that we had violated several of Apple’s trademarks in our application iPodRip and asking us to cease using the name and Apple trademarks in our icons.

We have been distributing iPodRip since 2003 with the aim of providing a method to recover music, movies and photos from iPods and iPhones in the event of a serious hardware failure on their Mac which leads to data loss. Our goal has been to provide the highest quality product coupled with the highest quality service in a bid to resolve some of the angst that is generated by such an ordeal; service befitting of an Apple product. In this department we think we have succeeded as we have approximately 6 million customers, many Apple employees, music artists and other notable people in society. In fact I’d argue that our customer service is the best of all competing applications in our niche as many of them are scams and frauds that leave Apple customers with a terrible taste in their collective mouths. We fear very much that tens of thousands of Apple customers looking to recover their own music and having heard of our product via word-of-mouth or otherwise, will instead find a product produced by one of our competitors, and will wind up the victim of a scam (one closely-named competitor charges a hidden monthly fee, for instance).

It is quite obvious that we mean Apple no harm with the use of the name iPodRip, or of the inclusion of trademarked items in our icons, and in fact I believe that we have been providing an excellent secondary service to Apple customers that has potentially caused you many repeat clients. In fact, we are quite aware that Apple support and store staff have recommended our software on numerous occasions as far back as 2004 so we have felt that we were doing something right!

With this in mind, we are in desperate need of some assistance and we beseech you to help us to protect our product and our shareware company, both of which we have put thousands upon thousands of hours of work into. Our company goal is to create Mac software of the highest quality with the best user experience possible. I myself dropped out of school recently to pursue a path in the Mac software industry, and you yourself have been a consistent inspiration for me.

If there is anything at all you can do with regards to this matter, we would be most grateful.

Best,

John Devor

After receiving the letter here’s the response Steve Jobs sent back to Denver:

Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

The App is now called iRip, just don’t read too much into the tone of Jobs response, his point was clear, concise and simple. [Gizmodo]

Magellan iPhone GPS App Launches Today With Turn by Turn Directions, Additional Features

James Allen Johnson — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:06:18 +0000

GPS device manufacturer Magellan today announced the release of their own iPhone App, named RoadMate 2010. The program like most iPhone GPS options provides turn-by-turn directions, offers bookmarks and spoken navigation cues and even lane guidance.

Users can also use the programs “pedestrian mode” and a “find your car” setting which will allow you to set a market before you walk a way from your car and find it at a later time, a great option for parking in big city are really large mall parking lots.

The iPhone App also has the ability to display highway signs and gives access to 3D landmarks as a means to reference where you are, although not all major landmarks are included at this time. Users can also access their address book to find contact addresses which makes for simple navigation abilities.

The North American edition of the program will run you $80 and includes US, Canada and Puerto Rico mapping. The program also supports several languages which include English, French and Spanish voices. Although according to iPodNN street names can only be read out loud in English and French.

Apple Black Friday Ad 2009 Rumors Surface, May Just Be Real

James Allen Johnson — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:07:45 +0000

The team at BFAds recently announced several possible Apple sales for Black Friday and if they prove to be true it could be a great time to be an Apple fan with deals up to 30% off some of the companies hardware and software offerings.

The rumored deals include 30% off all iPods (minus the Shuffle), 25% of Macs and 15% off accessories, software and hardware.

It’s hard to tell if the advert is real, BGR first posted the deal and it’s a simple flyer that doesn’t look all that professional in terms of it’s overall makeup, then again Apple drums to their own beat.

While I hope its real, I know my wife isn’t going to let me buy a second Macbook Pro, but perhaps a mouse pad is in my future.

The War of Giants – coming to a web near you

Steven Hodson — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:02:01 +0000

This has to be one of the few times that I find myself agreeing with Tim O’Reilly but his post today over at O’Reilly Radar touched on something that I’ve been thinking about for some time now. He started out with how Facebook seems to be messing around with links people are posting to their feeds. The short of it is that Facebook was removing the links from the posted URLs.

It turns out that this might have been more of a bug than anything intentional from Facebook. Tim used this though as his jumping off point to explain why he thinks we could be headed into some really troubling times on the web.

I’ve outlined a few of the ways that big players like Facebook, Apple, and News Corp are potentially breaking the “small pieces loosely joined” model of the Internet. But perhaps most threatening of all are the natural monopolies created by Web 2.0 network effects.

One of the points I’ve made repeatedly about Web 2.0 is that it is the design of systems that get better the more people use them, and that over time, such systems have a natural tendency towards monopoly.

And so we’ve grown used to a world with one dominant search engine, one dominant online encyclopedia, one dominant online retailer, one dominant auction site, one dominant online classified site, and we’ve been readying ourselves for one dominant social network.

But what happens when a company with one of these natural monopolies uses it to gain dominance in other, adjacent areas?

Near the end of his post he comes right and suggests that we could very well be facing a war for the control of the web.

It could be that everyone will figure out how to play nicely with each other, and we’ll see a continuation of the interoperable web model we’ve enjoyed for the past two decades. But I’m betting that things are going to get ugly. We’re heading into a war for control of the web. And in the end, it’s more than that, it’s a war against the web as an interoperable platform. Instead, we’re facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amazon as the platform, where big companies slug it out until one is king of the hill.

Tim finished off his post with an interesting prediction that given his past opinions caught me off guard.

P.S. One prediction: Microsoft will emerge as a champion of the open web platform, supporting interoperable web services from many independent players, much as IBM emerged as the leading enterprise backer of Linux.

I find the idea that he believes that Microsoft will end up being our champion of the open web absolutely fascinating, and one that I have believed for sometime now. It is incredible that the company derided at one time for being the most evil thing that happened to computers is now looked upon a more open company than its two main competitors.

I might not like the idea that we could be headed into troubling times on the web but on this I have to agree with Tim as well as have a great big chuckle over the changing opinion about Microsoft – even by O’Reilly.

Please Apple, don’t destroy my illusions about you

Steven Hodson — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:11:48 +0000

We all understand Apple to a large degree, even those of us who don’t bow at the alter of Jobs.

We understand the egalitarianism of the Apple ethos.

We get that normally intelligent people can become raving fanboys at the drop of a new Apple gadget.

We realize that Apple gave the world a different way to look at those beige boxes we used everyday.

We understand that Apple has forever changed the way we perceive our mobile devices and how they are suppose to look and behave.

The problem is that none of this is inherent evil or anti-consumer. If anything it is ultra-consumer albeit in the vision of Jobs but even at that Apple has given us an alternative way to interact with our electronic devices.

Then we come to the iPhone App Store and the first inkling of evil or anti-consumer behavior. Nominally questionable apps, whether by design or intent, are being approved others that seem to run counter to some line of acceptance get tossed. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason but even with all the bitching we chalk it up to Apple being .. well .. Apple.

So it is with all this understanding and high hopes that Apple will still keep its ethos, its ability to turn sensible people into kool-aid sippers and think twice about ever using the most insidious idea for advertising delivery ever wrought on mankind, and yes even those lost Windows user’s souls.

I am, of course, speaking of a patent filed last year with Steve Jobs listed as one of the co-inventors (this has only happened four times in the history of the company) and made public last month.

Filing a patent application, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean that the company plans to use the technology. But the application shows, at the least, that Apple has invested in research to develop what it calls an “enforcement routine” that makes people watch ads they may not want to watch.

Its distinctive feature is a design that doesn’t simply invite a user to pay attention to an ad — it also compels attention. The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing.

The system also has a version for music players, inserting commercials that come with an audible prompt to press a particular button to verify the listener’s attentiveness.

Source: The New York Times

As anal retentive as Apple maybe this is not the sort of things your loyal loving devotees expect from their pie-in-the-sky company, and yes even us lost souls of the Windows world would expect better of you.

So please Apple, for all that is holy please re-consider ever using this patent. Lock it away within the bowels of Cupertino never to see light of day. It would be curse upon all mankind that could never be taken away if used.

Please Apple think of mankind like you never have before.

Bye-Bye Psystar it was nice knowing ya until Apple chewed you up and spat you out

Steven Hodson — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:21:42 +0000

Like we didn’t know that this wasn’t going to happen.

Yesterday, November 13, 2009, Apple won its expected victory over pain in the ass Psystar Corp. when Judge William Alsup agreed with Apple that the little company that wished it was did indeed violate Apple’s copyright and just for good measure the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as well.

Judge Alsup sidestepped Psystar’s claim that it was protected by the first sale doctrine, which generally gives the buyer of a protected work the right to resell it without the permission of, or any payment to, the copyright holder. The judge said first sale only applies to legal copies and that the way in which Psystar had modified the software to let it run on clones meant that the copies did not meet this standard. The judge rejected out of hand Psystar’s claims that it made legal use of Apple’s trademarks and that Apple has misued it copyrights.

Source: BusinessWeek – The Tech Beat

A hearing on remedies is scheduled for December 14 at which point the brothers behind Psystar had better be ready to kiss their financial asses good-bye.

PhoneSuit Primo Battery Pack Debuts For iPhone And iPod Devices

James Allen Johnson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:44:40 +0000

PhoneSuit has just announced their newest gadget, the Primo battery pack, a simple bottom loaded battery that delivers 800mAh of power via a lithium-ion battery pack.

The Primo Battery Pack offers 45 additional iPod Nano audio playback minutes and 3 hours of talk time on 3G networks for both the iPhone 3G and 3GS models.

The unit, as pictured above, features a front-loaded LED battery charge meter and a miniUSB port for quick attachment to your devices.

The pack is now on pre-order for $35 and will officially release on November 23rd.

AppStand Turns Your Sophisticated iPhone Into A Picture Frame

James Allen Johnson — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:54:39 +0000

Okay, I’ll bite, the AppStand after all looks very sleek compared to many of the iPhone and iPod docks currently available on the market, but that’s all it does, docks your iPhone with a nice viewing angle.

The AppStand is setup in such a way that the phones screen, microphone and speakers are exposed, allowing users to take advantage of the phones main features, while at the same time allowing for a simple method to show your phones display.

There are a bunch of uses for the frame, for example you can use it as a clock display on your desk at work, display your loved ones on your iPhone screen, or even offer a simple stand so you don’t have to hold your phone the entire time you’re using it.

The AppStand will be available for a very reasonable $20 starting on December 1st.

Here’s a video of the stand in action:

Apple Passes Nokia To Become Most “Profitable” Phone Manufacturer In U.S. Market

James Allen Johnson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:38:43 +0000

Apple in just three short years has went from their first ever Smartphone to the most profitable seller of phones in the U.S.

According to current reports, Apple iPhone sales constitute 2.5 percent of market sales, however that share has generated a profit of $1.6 billion from this past summer alone, while Nokia reported an operating profit of $1.1 billion.

Electronista quoted analyst Alex Spektor in regards to Apples success:

“With strong volumes, high wholesale prices and tight cost controls, the PC vendor has successfully broken into the mobile phone market in just two years.”

Nokia, unlike Apple has focused largely on low and mid level phones which sell in large amounts, but typically at very small profits. Nokia also focuses much of their efforts outside of the U.S. or independent of carrier contracts which oftentimes leaves U.S. customers buying high end phones at ridiculously high prices.

Verizon “Misfit Island” Ad Attacks iPhone By Attacking AT&T 3G Network

James Allen Johnson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:29 +0000

I have to admit I’m loving that Verizon is finally stepping up and taking on the iPhone attachment to AT&T and what they call their lousy 3G nationwide coverage. Their commercial, released this week, shows the phone on Rudolph’s Island for Misfit Toys where it’s left because of bad 3G connections and its associate with AT&T.

Honesty, AT&T covers just about every major and even small city in the U.S., it’s just that Verizon covers the backwoods of Kentucky just as well as the big cities of Chicago and Santa Monica, which gives Verizon some nice bragging rights.

The commercial was also smart in its attacks, at no point did Verizon Wireless attack the iPhone, actually they praised it, instead poking fun at the AT&T network which really has no grounds to attack Verizon.

With Droid attacking the iPhone and this ad attacking the AT&T network, plus a bevy of low, middle and high end phones being released before Christmas, it looks like Verizon has come out of their three year long iPhone hibernation with all guns firing.

Here’s the iPhone Misfit Island commercial:

iTunes Users Reporting “Network Connection Timed Out” Error Message

Duncan Riley — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:24:13 +0000

Apple may be having service difficulties with iTunes Sunday with some users reporting the popular music player is offering a “iTunes network connection timed out” error message.

According to previous instances of the error message, it usually occurs when a search is being undertaken by a user in the iTunes store. There is no word yet as to whether users are experiencing broad iTunes problems, or just with iTunes search.

Previous advice on the issue has suggested that an old version of iTunes may be causing an issue, however a number of people receiving the error more recently have noted that it happened after they upgraded to iTunes 9.

If you’re experiencing the problem, let us know in the comments. Better still, if you know how to fix the “itunes network connection timed out” problem, please share.

Louvre gets France’s first Apple Store

Kim LaCapria — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:24:35 +0000

Is the Carrousel du Louvre getting a Wok n’ Roll and Spencer Gifts, too?

A month after McDonald’s announced plans to besmirch the Carrousel du Louvre, the “upscale shopping mall” became home to France’s first Apple Store. Much like a chubby bunch of yanks outside a Walmart on Black Friday, throngs of French shoppers lined up outside the Louvre’s Apple Store, and just like when they’re obstructing Starbucks in SoHo and congregating en masse at the Broadway/Lafayette subway station, French people still have those big obnoxious backpacks when they’re still in France. Who knew?

Video below shows the hordes of French people waiting, the red-shirt-clad Apple Geniuses running into the store and high-fiving customers like a winning baseball team, and the massive crowd counting down (en Francais!) to the Apple Store’s grand opening fete. Interestingly, the store in Montpelier was ready to open first but waited in deference to the Parisian flagship.

Le Target can’t be far behind.

[Image]

Apple whacks the Hackintosh

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:15:04 +0000

Those of you running a Dell Mini Hackintosh, Apple would like you to know that you are not a Mac.

The trend of using non-Apple computers to run Mac OS X has been increasing alongside the prominence and availability of netbooks, a category into which Apple hasn’t forayed. Poor people, plebians and tightwads have been flouting Apple for a while, running Apple’s precious shiny silver operating system on Dells and HPs, but it looks like Apple’s planning on throwing a wet blanket on these shenanigans.

OS X Daily reports that Snow Leopard update 10.6.2 is going to prevent it from running on computers that use Intel’s Atom CPU. If that turns out to be the case, then most netbooks will essentially be rendered incompatible with the update. Although it’s not clear that this was necessarily Apple’s intent, it will certainly solve Apple’s Hackintosh problem.

While blogs and commenters bicker about whether Apple should be all up in this or just leave people alone and try to make money off everyone who wants to run Apple software, this dude offers the following advice for Hackintosh upstarts:

A) Stay with Leopard 10.5.8 (10.5.9 might have the same effect as 10.6.2)

B) Stay with Snow Leopard 10.6.1

C) Upgrade to 10.6.2 and use either the stock 10.0.0 kernel or use modded Snow kernels

[Image]

Apple TV Subscriptions? Oh man I really hope so!

Steven Hodson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:19:27 +0000

There is a rumor being floated around the web today that Apple has been approaching the television networks with an eye to creating television subscriptions through their iTunes service. Word has it that the price of the subscription will be around the $30.00 range.

Sure you can already get complete seasons of individual shows through iTunes but this is a totally different beast. You would be getting the networks whole output of network programming.

All I can say to this is – I sure hope they pull it off.

While Martin Bryant at The Next Web points out that network executives might be a tad reluctant to walk down the same path that the music industry has with Apple this would be a big win for the consumer and in the end it could be a win for the networks.

However there’s a real big problem that would need to be overcome for this to be a major game changer in the television industry and it all boils down to one word.

Geotarding.

For those of you who may not have heard of the term before it basically boils down to being able to view or listen to content based on your geographical location. The best example to give regarding geotarding would be Hulu for video and Pandora for music. With either service if you live primarily outside of the US you are shit out of luck.

Now recently Hulu has been making deals with broadcasting companies outside of the US principally England and I understand that Pandora is continually trying to work deals to expand their user base in other countries.

Sure we might like to yell and scream at companies like Hulu and Pandora for doing this geotarding but in reality it’s not totally their fault. In many cases it is a combination of country laws and copyright laws that stop us from being able to access these services.

I can’t talk about other countries but I know here in Canada that when it comes to both television and radio, which companies like Hulu and Pandora would fall under, our country has some exceptionally archaic laws that were enacted back in the 1970’s. These laws were originally intended to protect our cultural identity by forcing Canadian radio and television companies to carry a certain percentage of Canadian made content.

For example any US television networks that wants to make it’s content available to Canadians has to sell it, or go through, a Canadian broadcaster. If a cable network wants to show it’s content in whole above the 49th parallel then it must have a Canadian company. This is why you have Discovery Canada, or SyFy opening up in Canada as Space TV, it was also the reason why CourtTV (before changing their name to truTV) got yanked from Canadian cable and had to open up CourtTV Canada.

When it gets to music things get a little murkier as it becomes a combination of regulations and copyrights. When it comes to the copyrights part it is important to remember that in most cases there is no one single global copyright system – each country has their own copyrights so for a US radio station to play music in Canada they need to pay for Canadian copyright licence on top of already buying a US copyright license.

In the case of Pandora they tried to do this but the Canadian copyright holders were asking such exorbitant amounts of money that Pandora had to walk away from the table. No multiple this problem for all the countries in the world where you want people to be able to hear your music or see your video.

So what does all this have to do with Apple?

Well it all boils down to what a good friend of mine refers to a might makes right. In the case of music Apple is the current powerhouse that everyone in the industry knows that they will have to play with. As much as I may not like Apple they have brought a leveling of the playing field to the downloadable music business. The consumer for the most part has been the big winner in this.

There is no denying that our copyright and governmental regulations surrounding are behind the times and desperately need to be changed. The problem is that the way it is now is benefiting everyone except the consumer.

So here we have Apple, the powerhouse that has help to change the music industry, now interested in getting into provide television network programming at what has to be admittedly a reasonable price. If anyone could possibly influence change in at least the copyright part of the problem it would have to be Apple. Definitely the regulation part – especially in Canada would be the hard nut to crack.

However in this move I am definitely rooting for Jobs and company to at least start the roller coaster of change that would come about with an iTunes TV subscription.

In the end it could be a big win for the consumer.

note: I got Martin’s name wrong but have now corrected it. I knew it wasn’t Michael especially since I had his post open at the time of writing. Sorry about that Martin.

Apple ad bombing Windows 7 on Google

Steven Hodson — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:18:37 +0000

If there is one thing you can say for the Apple marketing department it is that they love nothing better than taking subtle swipes at Microsoft. While their television and web ads have been doing this for some time much to the glee and satisfaction of Apple fans around the world it seems that they are adding another area to their arsenal.

Alex Wilhelm over at The Next Web points out that Apple has begun taking out Google AdWords that are centered around Windows 7. The ads are showing up in searches for `download windows 7`and `windows 7 download`as you can see from the image below (thanks Alex)

Talk about a fine example, and funny, of guerrilla advertising.

Quick Hands On Video With Apple TV 3.0

Duncan Riley — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:50:55 +0000

Apple released a major update to its little loved (by Apple that is) Apple TV this morning, and despite some nifty new features, it still doesn’t offer nearly as much as it should.

Apple TV 3.0 includes a massively redesigned main menu that offers a vertical menu with subsections below it. Oddly the change only applies to the main menu, but you can’t have everything. The update also offers Genius mixes for the box, and on a positive note (and something I’ve wanted since I purchased mine) internet streaming radio. Support is also included for Apple’s new iTunes Extra album…..yawn….format….yawn.

The update was free and quick on my 40gb nearly two year old Apple TV over a 24mbps ADSL 2+ connection in Australia, although naturally it killed the Boxee hack. It’s hard to qualify with solid numbers, but play for streaming content appears to be noticeably quicker as well.

A quick hands on video with Apple TV 3.0 as follows; did intend to do a longer video, however as is typical someone came to the front door as I was filming it. Video via an iPhone 3GS, although the YouTube quality isn’t great. I’ll try uploading it again, so apologies in advance.

Inquisitr Giveaway: Win A Free iPhone 3G/3GS iFrogz Case

James Allen Johnson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:22:54 +0000

The Inquisitr has teamed up with the eXpansys-USA team to give away 3 different iFrogz iPhone 3G/3GS cases. These are high quality cases that provide ultimate protection for your iPhone devices.

The cases provide a hard shell plastic casing that’s still very sleek with it’s metallic facade, yet they offer a “velvety soft touch.”

With the iFrogz iPhone 3G Soft Touch Crystal Case Luxe you’ll still have access to all of your phones buttons, ports and sensors, while having the piece of mind you want when protecting your device. The case also comes with a screen protector for added protection.

We have one of each color to give away: Blue, Red And Green (as pictured).

How To Enter The Contest: (Sorry but only U.S. visitors for this contest)

Just leave us a comment on this page telling us why you want the case and what color you want. We’ll announce the winners in one week (November 4th). Please don’t comment as “Guest” as we have no way to contact you.

Again, a special thanks to eXpansys-USA for providing the free wares.

NASA iPhone App Ready For Free Download

James Allen Johnson — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:57:23 +0000

The NASA iPhone app is the closest most of us will get to ever visiting space. The program provides users with a real time location finder so we always know exactly where the International Space Station and other spacecraft are located by using mapping software which features border information, satellite imagery and satellite images overlaid onto various maps. While the application also provides pictures from the most current missions and updates about those missions.

The software also provides the mainstays of the NASA page including the “image of the day” database, the official Twitter feed of Nasa, Videos and any available countdown clocks.

The iPhone App is free to download for nerds everywhere and features a decent interface that’s fairly intuitive and inherently full of beautiful shots from space. [GadgetCrave]