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Nintendo keeps things PG on the 3DS, kills off Swapnote's internet messaging
It's no secret that the 3DS' Swapnote app makes it easy to exchange salacious images, but that's apparently news to Nintendo. The company has shut down internet-based SpotPass messaging in Swapnote after discovering that online forum goers were using the feature to trade in "offensive material." The move will keep children safe and provide a friendly environment for everyone, Nintendo says. We're surprised that it took so long for the gaming giant to shut down a Swapnote feature that was risky by its very nature, but the closure is at least coming in time to reassure legions of gift-giving parents.
Could this be Apple's solution to the iPhone letterboxing issue?
As things stand, empty voids at the top and bottom of an iPhone or iPad display come as standard with every widescreen video you might care to watch -- a problem that almost persists with the iPhone 5, since that phone's elongated panel is still a few pixels off 16:9. However, judging from paperwork recently filed with the USPTO, which mentions both mobile and TV displays, Cupertino thinks it has a general workaround: using a Photoshop-style technique to copy colors from each frame of video and use them to sympathetically fill in the letterbox bars, mimicking the appearance of full-screen footage. The latest application -- filed in January of this year -- actually builds on an earlier one that Apple first submitted in 2006, when the original iPhone was in development. Since then, various other companies have had success with similar display-extending ideas, such as Ambilight on Philips TVs and the illuminated strip on an Xperia U smartphone, but nothing exactly like this smart-fill concept has so far taken off. Ultimately, the question is whether messing with the borders of a video clip in this manner would look better or just plain awkward. As yet, thorough testing in our mind's eye remains inconclusive, but it's almost easier to imagine this curing letterboxed apps (of which we'll soon see plenty on iOS) rather than video.
FOX starts framing the NFL in 16x9 and letterboxing the laggards
If you love football and HD as much as we do, then you know the pain we feel when we watch a game with lots of empty space or the times when you can't see the linebackers. This is because we are HD snobs in an SD world and while football has been presented in 16x9 for close to 10 years, with few exceptions it is still framed for 4x3. Well tonight FOX changed the way we'll watch football forever. The Patriots vs Falcons game on Thursday August 19th was the first to feature the Ultimate Experience which features a new less obtrusive score bug and is framed for 16x9. This of course means that SD viewers will have to watch it letterboxed. We suspect that despite some marketing efforts by Joe Buck and Kurt, that FOX will receive quite a bit of flack about this, but honestly with the HD household penetration breaking 50 percent, we have to say it is about time. Of course the majority doesn't always win against the vocal minority, but we have are hopes up that they do this time and this trend takes hold in all HD sports. A few more screen captures and embedded video after the break. [Thanks, @Loomis2]
Widescreen Plugin for Leopard Mail brings 2-line preview
A while back we posted about Letterbox, a plugin for Tiger's Mail.app that brought a widescreen format to Mail by moving the preview pane to the right of the subject listing. Letterbox isn't working in Leopard (though the author says he is working on it), but a new plugin for Leopard has been released that not only brings a widescreen 3-pane format to Leopard Mail.app, but also introduces a very useful two-row subject preview similar to Entourage.WidescreenMailPlugin is a free download from daneharnett.com (though donations are requested).[via Hawk Wings]
The widescreen iPhone -- not so widescreen
You know how Steve Jobs and Apple like to boast of the iPhone's ability to function as a "widescreen iPod?" Well, anyone who sat in Moscone Center to witness the holy unveiling surely noticed the screen cropping (letterboxing) that occurred when Steve played Pirates of the Carribean. That's because the iPhone isn't "widescreen" as the term is customarily understood outside of the reality distortion field -- it is not a 1.78:1 (16x9) aspect ratio. Rather, the display utilizes a 1.5:1 aspect ratio. That puts the iPhone somewhere in the proprietary zone between the NTSC or PAL television standard 1.33:1 (4x3) and a proper widescreen 1.78:1 (16x9) aspect ratio like that thrown off Apple's new Apple TV. As demonstrated during the Jobsnote, true widescreen videos can be zoomed to fill the iPhone's screen but only at the expense of cropping the left and right-hand side video. Will this, uh, clarification or other nits prevent the first batch from selling out? Oh hells no. But at least now you know the truth.
