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ICYMI: Firework autocannon, Sony drone, and manga noodle bots
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-431403{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-431403, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-431403{width:630px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-431403").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Today on In Case You Missed It, we showcase a double-barreled fireworks cannon that's just slightly less dangerous than that personal flamethrower you've had your eye on. We've also got Sony's first drone prototype -- it's a little remote controlled Harrier! And if you thought that explainer video from Snapchat's CEO was terrible, just wait until you see this Alienware unboxing. Finally, an enterprising noodle shop owner in China got his hands on a refurbished Ultraman assembly robot and converted it into, what else, an automated noodle slicer. If you come across any interesting videos, we'd love to see them. Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag @engadget or @mskerryd. And if you just want to heap praise on your handsome guest host, feel free to hit him up @mr_trout.
Toyota begins public testing of its Segway killer, reminds us Segway was a thing (video)
Originally teased five years ago, Toyota's Segway-killing Winglet is finally taking to the streets of Japan for public testing. While the original device was designed to be steered by users' knees, the revamped edition now contains a familiar steering pillar-and-wheels combination. The trials are due to run through March 2016 with the aim of proving that the Winglet is safe, functional and will save shoe leather on your commute to work. Those curious to see what the Japanese version of infamous Segway fan George Oscar Bluth Jr. (or, you know, Justin Bieber) looks like, head past the break for the video.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: A personal tribute to Paragon Studios
When I started my career at Massively, I wasn't hired to be the City of Heroes guy. I wasn't hired to be the anything guy, although I quickly earned a reputation. It was a few months after I got hired that I got the opportunity to start doing a pair of weekly columns, one on City of Heroes and one about the online Final Fantasy installments. This was due to the fact that my affection for City of Heroes was well-known on staff, and I was already knee-deep in the game, so... It wasn't quite three years ago, but it was close enough. And I've said many times that my professional career has been tied in directly with City of Heroes because of that. As I've grown as a writer and a journalist, I've been working alongside City of Heroes. So today I'm not going to talk as much about the game itself. I'm going to talk about the people of Paragon Studios, some of whom I had the good fortune to interact with over the years and all of whom seem to be absolutely astonishing human beings.
Google dives into personal analytics with new Account Activity feature
We recently saw Stephen Wolfram reveal what he called the personal analytics of his life (built from decades of meticulous data collection), and it looks like Google is now going some way towards making that easier for you to do yourself. It rolled out its new Account Activity feature today, an opt-in tool (still technically in beta) that tracks your activity across Google's services and delivers a report each month on your internet use. That includes things like the number of emails sent and received, your most contacted email addresses, information about your search history (if you have it enabled), stats from Google Latitude, and the different browsers and devices you've used to sign into Google services. What's more, that's apparently just the beginning -- Google says it plans to incorporate even more services over the next few months.
Get productive for less with the ProductiveMacs bundle
It's a great time of the year to find software deals. Yesterday we mentioned the MacUpdate bundle, and today we're looking at the ProductiveMacs bundle, featuring (as you'd expect) a bunch of stellar productivity apps. Included in the bundle are some of my personal favorites, like Default Folder X (our coverage here) and LaunchBar (our coverage here), plus the truly awesome BusyCal (which we've covered) and the superlative Fantastical (our story here). I've never used Cashculator or Home Inventory, but they look good, and Notebook from Circus Ponies is something I've wanted for years -- and it normally costs $20 more than the bundle. Our own Brett Terpstra and Mel Martin swear by Tags. Yep, that's 8 productivity apps for just $39.99. The bundle goes away in 5 days, plus there's a bunch of software prizes being given away, so buy these now and save a ton of money with a chance to win even more great software. I'll point out that these apps are not coming from the Mac App Store, so if you prefer to get your apps via that channel, you won't be able to do that with a bundle as Apple doesn't really allow it. That said, these are full versions of powerful apps that continue to update alongside their MAS brothers, so you're not buying abandonware. In fact, you're looking at saving over $200, which I think is worth it if you like getting things done efficiently on your Mac.
Tim Cook: my first-person impression of Apple's new CEO
After yesterday's news, I was originally going to title this post "Relax. Apple's new CEO Tim Cook is gonna do just fine." I was going to push back on the conventional wisdom that nobody can lead Apple as Steve Jobs has with facts about how Tim Cook has stepped in multiple times to help Apple navigate the roughest economy in at least a generation with stunning success. I was going to write about how Tim Cook is considered by many to be an operational genius and a fair but tough negotiator. I was going to write how he came from Compaq and IBM before that. I was going to write about all that. But you can read his history anywhere. Everyone is writing about him now. So instead I'm going to tell you about the first time I met Tim Cook and why, from that day forward, I have never once worried about Apple post-Steve Jobs. I was in my third year of a five year stint with Apple the first time I met Tim Cook. Steve Jobs had made waves earlier that year with his Stanford commencement speech, where he discussed his cancer diagnosis; Wall Street and the tech industry were still worried sick about who could possibly lead Apple when Jobs no longer could. I knew one thing for sure: it wasn't me. In the grand scheme of things at Apple, I was nobody important. I was just a sales guy that had flown out to Cupertino with other sales people one September for the annual sales conference. And though my numbers were great, I knew that I was replaceable -- just like most employees at large companies can be replaced. I could leave Apple tomorrow and the company would be just fine. I was no Steve Jobs. No matter what your position is in the company, however, from intern to executive staff, it's always great being on Apple's campus. You see cool things, meet interesting people, and have some great food (and a few good games of volleyball) to boot. But on this particular day we were herded into one of the meeting rooms you sometimes see when Apple holds smaller press events on the campus -- the auditoriums with the projector screen the size of one you'd see in a 1950s movie theater and a stage with a small podium with some metallic stools near the front. On this day there were about 300 sales guys and their managers in one such auditorium watching presentations from the iLife project managers about what the latest iteration of Apple's digital lifestyle suite was going to deliver. Though the presentations were interesting, you could see everyone in the room fidgeting a little as if they were restless. You see, we had been notified that Steve Jobs' #2 man, COO Tim Cook, might be dropping by for a visit. The day went on as we explored the new iLife suite; then, sometime halfway through the iDVD presentation, a woman who worked for Apple who I had never seen before entered the auditorium and simply announced, "Excuse me. Three minutes!" There was a shuffling on stage and the project managers halted their presentation as a murmur ran through the room. The woman who had spoken loaded something from a USB drive onto the Mac behind the podium. Three minutes later (to the second) Tim Cook entered the auditorium, flanked by his entourage. Cook walked down the steps and onto the stage. The room was completely silent. And it remained that way for maybe half a minute as Tim Cook slowly took a few steps back and forth. He shuffled the presentation remote around in his hand. He looked out at us and smiled, but still didn't speak. Then he clicked a button on the remote and a large image of a padlock appeared on the screen behind him. "The details of everything we talk about after this slide changes stay in this room," he said in that Southern drawl some of you may be familiar with if you've ever heard him speak on one of Apple's financial conference calls. At the time I had never heard his voice before, and it was such an odd contrast to what you expected to come out of a Silicon Valley executive's mouth. "It stays with Apple. With us," he said. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't an order. The "us" he spoke of, the tone he used, conveyed a sense of kinship. It showed the confidence and trust he had in every single Apple employee packed into that auditorium. We were Apple and Tim Cook appreciated us for that. Even though it's been five years since I worked at Apple and my NDA has long since expired, I'm not going to divulge the specific details he talked about, but I do want to relate the experience. During his time on stage, Cook spoke to us about numbers and metrics, about Apple and the state of the tech industry as a whole. He spoke in that long drawl at a controlled pace, but that drawl and pace had nuance to it that conveyed passion in slow tones. Then Steve Job's #2 guy did something many corporate higher-ups never do. He stopped speaking and asked to hear from us -- from the front-line sales people at Apple. He wanted to hear our questions and ideas. And that's when I found myself raising my hand and the next thing I know Tim Cook pointed at me and smiled. "Yes. You, please," he said. And as I was getting ready to speak I caught my boss out of the corner of my eye. He was sitting about five seats away from me in the auditorium and wore a nervous look on his face. And I knew that if he could have spoken to me in confidence then, my boss would have muttered, "Don't you ask him a foolish question! Don't you know who this is? He doesn't have time for silliness! He is a Very Important Person!" I ignored my boss's look as much as I could and asked Cook what he thought about the direction of a certain software company whose products were closely tied to the Mac; about their lack of support for certain applications Mac users were clamoring to have. Cook's answer was detailed and thorough, and everything he said about the company in question, every prediction and outlook, ended up coming true in the two years that followed. But the fact that he was dead right about the future of that company wasn't why I remember his answer to my question so well. It was because he took his own sweet time answering it. Tim Cook is one of those rare people who stop and think before speaking. Standing in the same room with him I realized that he's comfortable with silence as long as that silence is productive and appropriate. He's not like other tech execs who ramble almost immediately and incoherently at any question lobbed at them, as if doing so will convince others they know everything about everything. Tim Cook is a person who has confidence in his position as a leader, sans ego. Ego doesn't take pauses. It's rapid-fire. And it's that confidence and lack of ego that allows him the time to examine the issues and questions at hand, no matter how lowly or silly others may think them, and address them appropriately. But Cook's confidence, his answer to my question, and his knowledge about the industry isn't why I left the auditorium that day pitying the people on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley who were needlessly worried sick over who would lead Apple. I left the auditorium that day knowing the post-Steve Jobs Apple would be fine because of the way in which he addressed me -- the sales grunt. My boss's worried glances were for nothing. For Tim Cook there are no dumb questions. When he answered me he spoke to me as if I were the most important person at Apple. Indeed, he addressed me as if I were Steve Jobs himself. I know that's a big statement to make, but that's what it felt like and I've spoken with others who have told me the same thing. One just has to experience it to fully understand it, I suppose. His look, his tone, the long pause was evidence enough that he genuinely gave thought to the concern I brought up. And that's the day I began to feel like more than just a replaceable part. I was one of the tens of thousands of integral parts of Apple and it was Tim Cook's raw leadership ability, confidence, and subtle charisma that made me realize that. No one can ever replace Steve Jobs, the man, the genius. But Apple is not only Steve Jobs, no matter what anyone thinks. Apple is the interns and executive assistants; it's the retail employees and the designers; it's the marketing and PR departments, it's Scott Forstall and Jonathan Ive; Bob Mansfield and Phil Schiller; it's the dozens of other names you see on all those Apple patents that we talk about every week. Apple is not any single one of these people. It is the sum of them all, run by a leader who possesses enough wisdom to know that everyone in the company matters, that everyone's concerns are valid and deserve attention. Tim Cook is such a leader. So relax everyone, will ya? I said it yesterday, but I'll repeat it again. Apple is one of the best-run companies on the planet and it's got years of growth ahead of it due to the incredible talent assembled by Jobs and Cook. People are not going to stop buying iPads and iPhones because Steve Jobs is now only the Chairman of Apple and not its CEO. And other companies are not going to suddenly make killer products that make Apple's look like last year's castoffs. Tim Cook has the reins firmly in hand; I only wish others who doubt me could spend two minutes in the same room with him. Apple's got the right CEO to carry it into the post-Steve Jobs era, and the company will continue to thrive.
RoboDynamics Luna: the 5-foot tall personal robotic platform (update: video)
It's a new era for personal robotics. Meet Luna, the fully-programmable robot companion platform that will ship this year. As a platform, RoboDynamics -- a Santa Monica-based company previously grounded in telepresence -- is trying to position Luna as the 5-foot tall "beige box" of modern robotics. She comes with her own one-click Luna App Store, eight "Luna Expansion Ports" (think 12/5 volt USB for robots), and Luna CloudNet where third-parties can sell additional functionality like face recognition to app developers. The robot ships with a number of personality packs and features an 8-inch touchscreen, two cameras, wireless connectivity, a three-mic array, and a variety of sensors. Oh, and she's portable. Remember, Luna's not a prototype, but a real working robot that you can actually take home for the price of an entry-level fully-loaded laptop. Update: While $1,000 is the ultimate target price, the initial batch of limited edition Luna robots will ship in Q4 for $3,000. General availability will begin in the second half of 2012 with final pricing coming later this year. %Gallery-123302%
Pandora mobile app found to be sending birth date, gender and location information to ad servers
We still haven't heard much more about that Federal Grand Jury investigation into Pandora and other mobile apps over privacy concerns, but an independent security firm has now gone ahead and taken matters into its own hands. According to an analysis done by the folks at Veracode, Pandora does indeed seem to be sharing more information about you then it lets on. More specifically, they found that the Android app (they haven't yet gotten around to the iOS version) "appears" to be sending information about users' birth date, gender, Android ID and GPS location to various advertising companies -- bits of information that the firm notes could be combined to determine who someone is, what they do for a living, and even who they associate with. For its part, Pandora is simply declining to to comment at the moment, and we're guessing that's unlikely to change anytime soon given the aforementioned investigation. Hit up the source link below for Veracode's complete findings.
iAds uses iTunes history, location information to target advertising
We've heard about this before, but now that it's up and running, this is probably worth a revisit. Apple's iAds system actually uses lots of your information, including your iTunes purchasing history, location data, and any other download or library information it can suss out about you, to determine what ads you see. So say a few marketing firms working with the large companies now buying and selling iAds. A recent series of ads for soap was able to target "married men who are in their late 30s and have children." That's very specific, and when Apple rolls out the full program, it'll even be able to use things like iBooks purchases and iTunes movie and TV downloads to target you with advertising. Is there anything wrong with that? Not really. Apple isn't running the only targeted advertising network, of course, and the whole problem with analytics firms like Flurry is that they were tracking and sharing this information anyway through third-party apps. Apple also isn't sharing your personal information; it's just connecting you with advertisers who want to speak with you, not actually telling those advertisers who you are. Apple knows what you've purchased in iTunes, but that information isn't necessarily communicated to Nissan or Best Buy. If you're still worried about iAds, though, Apple does offer a way to opt-out of sharing your location or purchase information; you can go to https://oo.apple.com/ in your iOS 4 device's browser and register to opt-out of that kind of targeting. You will still see iAds, but Apple won't use your personal information to choose them for you.
Droid Incredible saves browser screenshots to internal memory, turns into a privacy nightmare?
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gadgets/Droid_Incredible_saves_browser_screenshots_to_internal_memor'; June must be the month when privacy issues leave their hibernation and return to trouble our fragile minds. First we had Flash going loco, then AT&T's airwaves exploded with iPad users' email addresses, iPhone 4 pre-orders started sending people to the wrong account, and now this. Boy Genius Report has come across a rather worrying "feature" of the HTC Sense bookmarking widget on the Incredible, which takes sporadic screenshots of your browsing sessions. That wouldn't be so bothersome in itself, but try to remove said pictures, and you find where the problem lies. Ending the browsing session, deleting your history, and even a full reset to factory settings failed to eviscerate the indiscreet imagery. You have to manually discover their location and delete them by hand. Considering the high likelihood of Incredibles being sold and resold for years to come, this could turn the phone into a little cache of treasure for the proactive identity thief. And since it's a Sense issue, it might be affecting other HTC handsets as well. Wunderbar.
My on-again, off-again Apple relationship
With TUAW's Your First Apple series, we let you get a glimpse of our own histories with the Mac. My own history with Apple's computers has been a bit convoluted. The first Apple computer, in fact the first computer of any kind I remember using, was an Apple II+. I was in kindergarten in Saudi Arabia at the time, so I don't really remember much about those early experiences. Like many people of my generation, when I returned to the US I went to schools that had computer labs crammed full of Apple IIe computers. Of course, the only programs that were ever run on my elementary school's Apples were marginally "educational" games like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Odell Lake, and the massively popular Oregon Trail. Meanwhile, my family had a KayPro PC at home, which meant my dad had to teach an eight-year-old kid how to navigate through the amber-lettered jungles of DOS -- something I'm glad I'll never have to do with my own kids. The Apple IIe was the only computer I used in school through 1990. I spent most of seventh grade cooking up little text-based adventure games in BASIC, and I even learned some rudimentary drawing and audio programming, all of which I forgot long ago. In mid-1990, the school revamped our computer lab with brand-new Macintosh Classics: the first Mac I ever used, the first machine I used that had a hard drive, and the first time I ever used a GUI to interact with a computer. Oddly enough, despite the huge leap in capabilities the Mac Classic had over the Apple IIe, we spent half of eighth grade using the Mac to learn how to type. I guess I should be thankful I learned to touch-type way back then, but spending several months on typing tutor software was a hard sell after spending the previous year doing actual programming. After that first year with the Mac, my experiences with Apple's computers went through some rollercoaster-like ups and downs. Click "read more" to find out why.
Your first Apple, or how it all began...
This week, while a good part of the TUAW team is at Macworld, it's worth considering for a moment how we all came to start using Apple products. The "Switcher" campaign morphed into the "I'm a Mac" campaign, but really the idea is the same: rarely do you see people switching *back* to Windows after using a Mac. Then there's the halo effect from the iPod/iTunes ecosystem, the iPhone, and before all of that there was Apple's dominance in the educational markets and later in the design, publishing and other creative fields. But we all came to Apple in a different way. On the following pages we've published some stories from our Seed contributors on how they came to start using Apple products. For me it began in the late 70's when my dad bought an Apple II in a bike store. There were no computer stores at the time, so this bike shop had a computer hobbyist corner, complete with Altairs and other blinking-light computer systems. He was intrigued by the keyboard, the cassette system and the color TV output. I wrote a review of the Apple II "red" manual last year. In fact, I still have that Apple in my office, complete with paddles, tape deck and a bunch of cassettes. One gem: AppleSoft BASIC by a little company called Microsoft! What's amazing is that the thing still boots up, although I had to dig up an ancient analog TV to hook up to the thing. Now I'm hoping the Disk II drive will still read my copy of In Search of the Most Amazing Thing. We'd love to hear your first Apple story, so leave it in the comments. Over the next few weeks we'll also bring you the stories of TUAW bloggers and how they began as lifelong Apple customers. My First Apple, and Why It Rocks The story of a happy Apple Macintosh convert My First Apple Computer: The Start of A Love Affair
UK T-Mobile customer data sold to cold callers, responsible staff to be prosecuted
Let's be honest, who here is actually surprised that underpaid and overworked data workers would sell on our details for a few extra quid? Given the number of uninvited calls to our unlisted phone numbers, we know for a fact that somebody has been dishing our personal contacts to those Nigerian princes and caring loan consolidators, so it's no shock to learn that T-Mobile employees have been fingered for committing the deed and are now facing prosecution. We're told that inappropriately leaked information made its way into the hands of brokers, who then "cold-called the customers as their contracts were due to expire" without T-Mob's knowledge. Disappointed by the failure of current fines to discourage such illegal information trade, British Justice Minister Michael Wills has even called for "custodial sentences" to be levied against the poor slobs responsible. So, if you're scoring at home, that's now two black eyes for T-Mobile when it comes to keeping our data safe. For shame.
SOE says no private info was included in EQ2 research logs
Sony Online Entertainment released a statement today concerning the buzz surrounding their database research for EverQuest 2. Apparently this information is not entirely true, according to SOE, as the personal information in these logs was not included. What does this mean for those concerned players out there? It means you have nothing to worry about.According to the official statement, which can be found after the jump below, none of the information in these logs was connected to any real names or what's known as Personally Identifiable Information (PII). In addition, no player chat logs were shared with the researchers. Even in the situation where players voluntarily participated in a blind survey, the private information of those volunteers was kept confidential as well. Follow along below for the complete official statement from SOE.
ReplayTV launches Personal HD tuner kit, plays nice with iPod / iPhone
We've seen a number of USB tuners that make converting files for handheld viewing a lesson in simplicity, but ReplayTV is givin' you one more alternative. The Personal HD kit includes a USB 2.0 ATSC / NTSC hybrid tuner, an antenna, wireless remote (which fits nicely in a spare PCMCIA slot), a free year of ReplayTV Electronic Program Guide (EPG), and bundled software that features native iPod, Apple TV and iPhone support. This "all-in-one" solution for getting OTA content on your device of choice is set to ship this November for $99.95.
First steps into the Burning Crusade beta
Yesterday, I rolled a blood elf. I didn't exactly plan to, but what else is one supposed to do while waiting for high-level characters to transfer? And besides, they're so pretty.I found myself alone -- but for fifty paladins -- on Sunstrider Isle, armed with nothing but a dagger and some lurid green clothes. For the first time in months, I didn't know what to do next -- and I liked it.
Get a head start and design your own Mii
Nintendo's quirky little "Mii" service may or may not incite a tingling sensation in your gamer glands, but chances are that you'll be making a little digital avatar of yourself before long. At the Nintendo press event, the lengthy creation of an avatar of Samuel L. Jackson was shown, which paged through just about every menu in the software. A programming demon of a fanboy (thanks, Yann!) decided to faithfully and painstakingly recreate the entire process in a flash-based applet, and thus you now have the ability to create your future Mii from the comfort of Nintendo Wii Fanboy. How convenient!We were able to recreate reasonable facsimiles of ourselves, but only after quite a bit of playing around. Does this feature need more options? We say yes ... unlockables through gamer achievements, anyone?[via Joystiq]
'Hardcore' raiding, one month in
"Because you're not hardcore unless you live hardcore" I've always considered myself a casual player; although at times I may live and breathe WoW, it's not all there is to life, and if something better comes up in RL I'm happy to pause PvP or say no to raiding. While epics are nice, I tend not to measure my worth in purples, nor do I min/max my spec to flatter damage meters. However, all this talk of Naxx recently led me to feel I was missing out. I'd been in the endgame a while, and although I knew some instances all too well, there were other parts of the level 60 experience that I had never seen. I'd never set foot into Blackwing Lair, never seen Onyxia up close, and certainly never had a point of DKP to my name. So, when I was invited by a friend to apply for a spot in her raiding group, I did.
Many used phones sold with personal data intact
When upgrading to that 750wx or Q, squeezing a few bucks out of that used handset always sounds tempting -- but we're guessing most folks would be thinking twice if they knew their address book was going with it. Security firm Trust Digital tested nine garden variety devices purchased off eBay for the presence of sensitive information and hit the jackpot on all nine, finding "personal banking and tax information, corporate sales activity notes, corporate client records, product roadmaps, contact address books, phone and Web logs, calendar records, personal and business correspondence, computer passwords, user medication information," and other juicy bits you may not have meant to pawn off to the highest bidder. The problem is apparently rooted in the average user's misunderstanding on the process necessary to hard wipe the device's flash memory; that is to say, your average reset simply isn't going to cut it. In particular, Trust Digital recommends that owners of RIM and Palm devices consult the manufacturers for instructions on how to kill the memory for reals -- either that, or you might want to consider throwing that next discarded Treo off a bridge.[Thanks, Josh]
Moneydance 2006 - cross-platform finance management
Moneydance 2006 (awkward name and all) is a well-rounded personal finance app with a nice selection of features including: online banking and bill payment, budget management, recurring transactions, investment tracking, report generation, Quicken/Money import, database encryption and a whole lot more. It might be missing a few features when compared to big dogs like Quicken 2006, but it's priced accordingly: a license is $30 no matter what OS(es) you need it for, and when I say cross-platform, I mean it: Moneydance 2006 works on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Solaris, OS/2, and Unix.A fully functioning demo is available that allows for entering up to 100 transactions - so what are you waiting for? Go grab a copy and stop making excuses for ending up budget-less and broke every month.
