Techubbub

Saturday, 20 April 2013

The world's most expensive iphone

What would you do with a rare black diamond? Well, according to CNN a Chinese business man “Joe” hired English craftsman Stuart Hughes who designs luxury mobile phone to replace his iphone 5’s home button with his family treasure, a 26-carat black diamond.

Hughes claims on his website that the device includes a solid 24-carat gold chassis, 600 white diamonds, and 53 diamonds that make up the apple logo on the back of the phone, and it took 9 weeks to make. This iphone is estimated to be worth £10 million ($15.3 million) which makes it the world’s most expensive iphone.

I would say it is the iphone with the world’s most expensive button considering that only the home button has an estimated value of $14.5 million, I wonder if this Joe guy is the kind of person who always loses mobile phones.

Saturday, 2 March 2013

Rovio announces "Angry birds toons"

We first saw them in video games, then clothes, stationery, toys... Well, now the most famous birds in the world will get their own series, Rovio has announced last Tuesday on its blog “Angry Birds Toons” an all-new animated series coming on March 16^th.

These episodes will last each about 3 minutes and will be available online only. Rovio confirmed a Ukrainian TV channel will begin transmission of the entire series next month, according to digitaltrends.

I guess more TV channel will soon be interested in transmitting a series about these characters that became an international phenomenon, so it seems a matter of time before these funny birds turn into TV stars, and to top it off, movie stars as the company has announced before to be working on Angry Birds the movie, expected to be released in 2016.

Wednesday, 13 February 2013

Apple developing smartwatch "iwatch"

A few months ago I published a couple of posts Google Glass Project and

TshirtOS about wearable technology, well, this seems to be becoming fashionable; Techradar has been told wearable computing is the next big thing Apple is working on. This time the device is a watch obviously called iwatch.

At the moment there is no much official information but there are certainly some leaks circulating on the internet and the press; The Telegraph wrote that fresh leaks suggest that the device is far more advanced than previously thought and Bloomberg wrote that a team of 100 Apple staff headed by senior executives has been assembled to work on the product.

Some other rumours suggest that iWatch will incorporate a curved glass display which wraps around the users wrist increasing the potential screen-size. It will be able to connect with an iPad or iPhone to receive text messages, social networks and it might even make calls. It is likely to include a GPS sensor and could include a heartbeat monitor.

I wonder what is coming next, iglasses? ikeyring? ishoes? I would truly like to see this stuff.

Sunday, 10 February 2013

The world's first bionic eye to go on the market

This reminds me of an American television series “The Six Million Dollar Man” about a former astronaut with bionic implants, I used to watch as a child. On Wednesday news.discovery.com posted that after years of research, the first bionic eye will soon be available in the United States. We may not see a bionic superhero saving the world, but it could certainly be the beginning of a bionic humans era.

According to Discovery this bionic eye, the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System, created by Second Sight Medical Products has already benefited 60 people in Europe and some of them were completely blind. "The way the prosthesis works (is) it replaces the function of the photoreceptors," Brian Mech, the California-based company's vice president of business development told AFP.

The system consists of 60 electrodes in the retina and a pair of glasses with a mini camera. Argus II is meant to benefit people with retinitis pigmentosa, unfortunately not everybody with this disease will be able to afford this bionic implant since Mech claimed "Argus II is already available in several European countries for 73,000 Euros (£61,800 / $97,500)" and he believes the price for the US would be higher, what makes me think of a bionic millionaires era?

Tuesday, 25 December 2012

Facebook releases self-destructing messages app

Facebook on Friday released the “poke app” for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The new app allows users to log into their Facebook account and send pictures, 120-character messages and 10-second videos which will self-destruct after being sent within a set period of time (1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds). Users need to press and hold the message to see it, and once the message gets expired it cannot be retrieved by either party.

Facebook said in a blog post "With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you're up to in a lightweight way"

"When time runs out, the message disappears from the app"

Saturday, 22 December 2012

NASA releases video "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday"

The idea that the end of the world would take place yesterday was based on an interpretation of the ancient Mayan calendar which has a cycle of 5125 years that ends on 21 December 2012. However the world didn’t end and NASA released a video explaining why it didn’t happen.

Sunday, 16 December 2012

Google launches Google Maps for iphone

After Apple launched its own maps app in September, the system was criticised by users due to blurry satellite images, missing towns, wrong location and misspelled landmarks. CEO Tim Cook offered a public apology and advised users to go to Google Maps through the mobile Web browser.

Cook wrote "We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers, and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better," Also he replaced the executive in charge of Apple’s mobile operating system.

Google on Wednesday launched the new Google Maps app for iphone which features 3D pictures, turn-by-turn directions and public transit maps. The new mapping tool became the most downloaded free app in Apple app Store just a few hours after its release.

Google wrote on its official blog "People around the world have been asking for Google Maps on iPhone. Starting today, we're pleased to announce that Google Maps is here, rolling out across the world in the Apple App Store,"