David Winograd
Articles by David Winograd
Manage your Seton Hall University Education with SHUMobile
Seton Hall University (located in New Jersey) and Blackboard have developed the SHUMobile (free) app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It's also available for Blackberry, Android, and Nokia devices. SHUMobile provides a student portal to a wide variety of what Seton Hall has to offer. In effect, it's one stop shopping for managing your education. The app is quite well designed and provides eight categories at present, including: A searchable phone directory Athletics, which allows you to drill down to each sport and break them into men's and women's teams, with a scrolling list of stories about each. Also provided are options to search for game schedules and scores. Listings of events of the day, which are broken down into the following categories: Academic, Athletics, Campus Tours, Conferences, Exhibits, Film, Lectures and Readings, Performances, Receptions, Religious, Student Government, and Workshops. A daily listing is provided along with an easy way to move forward or back by a day. Choosing one brings up a screen with specific information on that event. A pinch and stretch campus map that uses GPS to locate your position on campus A scrolling list of videos Seton Hall news (broken into categories) A searchable listing of 250 images of people and campus life The entire course catalog, which drills down to times, dates, instructors, and location
Found Footage: AXA Equitable presents an innovative ad
AXA Insurance and Financial Services (a company that just hired my son this morning) has come up with a very creative iAd* to introduce an app for their Belgium based auto insurance division. Their advertising agency, Duval Guillaume of Antwerp, has created a story that integrates newspaper advertising with an iPhone. The video explains it quite well, but the gist is that you come upon an engaging picture in print and are asked to place your iPhone on a blank space on the page which brings the story to life, and keeps eyeballs on the iAd for a full minute. At the end of the ad, you are brought to a link to download the free app which doesn't seem to be for the American market. The app will allow you to handle car insurance claims. This is really thinking outside the box and embeds a fast moving story right into the presentation. I think the idea is quite impressive. What's your take? [via 9to5 Mac] *Hats off to semantics. While AXA touts their effort as an "i-Ad," it is obviously not a part of Apple's iAd platform (for example, it requires the user to open a website on their iPhone). We imagine that AXA's enthusiasm and recognition of Apple's love of the letter "I" prompted the misleading label. Our apologies.
CineTap brings a great Netflix frontend to the iPad
CineTap for Netflix (US $0.99) is the newest and nicest Netflix management app that I've seen so far. It won't replace the Netflix app, since you still need to have that installed in order to instantly watch movies. But CineTap adds some great features to the experience that the Netflix app doesn't include. The app is amazingly fast and absolutely gorgeous, taking full advantage of the iPad's screen real estate. Instead of lists, it uses posters to represent movies that can be scrolled left or right, or if you tap the Show All button, the line expands to fill the screen with posters that can then be scrolled up or down. In Show All mode, you'll see 20 posters plus a navigation bar in landscape mode, or 25 posters in portrait mode with an optional navigation bar that covers up some of the posters, which is no big deal since it's easily dismissed. %Gallery-103411%
HMH Fuse: California tests a full year Algebra course on an iPad app
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a major textbook company, has launched a year long pilot project with the HMH Fuse: Holt McDougal Algebra 1 full year algebra course on an iPad. The course mirrors all the content of the Holt McDougal Larson Algebra 1 2011 textbook currently being used in many schools. The pilot project includes 400 eighth grade students in the San Francisco, Long Beach, Riverside, and Fresno, California school districts. One group is using the HMH Fuse app, and a control group is using the standard text. As far as we know, this is the first time a full year subject matter course has been rolled out as an app. The study will be conducted by Empirical Educations Inc. an independent testing group, and it will measure differences and similarities in areas of achievement and attitudes about learning. They also want to learn about how and if the students use the app the way it was intended. Each teacher in the pilot project will teach one random class section using the app and another using the book, which may help account for differences in teaching style and his or her influence over the class. According to the testing agency, the study will eventually roll-out to 1200 students, with test reports due in the Fall of 2011. The hope is that it will be available to all California school districts in January, 2011. %Gallery-102158%
Proloquo2Go gets a major update
Proloquo2Go (US$189.99) is the most fully featured augmentative and alternative communication device (AAC) we've yet covered. It provides iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad owners who do not have the ability to speak well enough to be understood (and that number is estimated to be 2.5 million Americans alone) a fully functional and quite customizable solution that rivals stand-alone devices that can cost up to $8,000. This is a universal app, and as such, it takes full advantage of the iPad screen. It's really quite a marvel. Its developer, AssistiveWare, was one of the first to release apps for the assistive technology community, and they do a great job of listening to their customers and providing support. This attention has paid off with the first major revision to Proloquo2Go taking it to version 1.4, which was released earlier this month. The update includes many new enhancements and features, including: Optimization of over 7,000 graphic symbols to take advantage of the Retina display of the iPhone 4 and new iPod touch The addition of higher quality voices The ability to backup the user customized vocabulary through iTunes File Sharing on the syncing computer (as long as the mobile device is using iOS 3.2 or better) Faster conversion of text to symbols Much quicker uploading of the saved vocabulary from the syncing computer to the app via Wi-Fi. and many other under-the-hood bug fixes. These changes make a marked difference in the feel and flow of using ProloQuo2Go. It now seems quite a bit more responsive. The update is free and results in making an already remarkable achievement that much better.
myFry: Stephen Fry's second autobiography becomes an interactive app
I've been following actor, all around wit, and Apple enthusiast Stephen Fry's career since I saw him play the wonderfully droll and brilliant butler, Jeeves in the English TV series Jeeves and Wooster back in the early 90's. Hugh Laurie, probably better known as Dr. House, played Bertie Wooster over the four seasons of tales from the P.G. Wodehouse's books. Since (and before) then he's done an amazing amount of work, from appearing in V for Vendetta to narrating the English versions of the Harry Potter Audiobooks books. The second volume of his autobiography entitled: The Fry Chronicles has been released in England as a hardcover book (UK£20.00), AudioBook, iBook (£12.99) and an iPhone app titled myFry (£7.99) in the British iTunes store. It's not yet available in the US store. The digital versions are enhanced with seven videos. The myFry app looks quite intriguing. Instead of linearity, (which is so passé) these days Fry opted for a color wheel that can take you to any themed section of the book where you can read sections of that theme. So the book isn't meant to be read in any particular order, at least on the iPhone. Without seeing it, (being a bloody Yank), I can see this working, since Fry's writing is quite anecdotal and randomly breaking it up might be just the thing. I can't wait to get my hands on it. [via 9to5 Mac]
Psystar is dead. Long live Quo Computer
While we all know the story of Psystar, the company that crashed and burned by loudly selling non-Apple Macintosh computers with OS X installed, a much quieter and more polite company named Quo Computer seems to be doing just fine. Their mission is to get computers that can run the Macintosh OS into as many hands as possible, and they go about it in a much more reasonable way. Although their PR waxes eloquently about the virtues of using a Mac, Quo creates computers that can run any operating system, be it Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, or any combination of the three. In June of last year, they opened up a store located at 2401 West Main Street, Alhambra, California as a small mom and pop operation in a section of town that is going through revitalization. At the store, they offer classes including one on how to switch from a PC to a Mac. Their site speaks of getting free computers to low-income neighborhoods and offers to train teachers and work with them in order to get computers into more classrooms. They seem like nice people and not as litigious as some other company we know.
Found Footage: Project 2000 from 1988 on the direction of computing
This video has been around for quite a long time, but my guess is that you haven't seen it. It posits how future computers will used for education and literacy. Watching it you'll be taken by how much they got right and how other concepts got short shrift. One surprising thing is that it focuses almost totally on voice input and doesn't mention the concept of a touch screen interface. Instead it displays a trackball-type device with four buttons that doesn't presage multi-touch devices. A good deal of the footage was taken from 1987's Knowledge Navigator video which got a lot more play at the time. Project 2000 includes interviews with: Steve Wozniak on the start of computing in education and personal agents Diane Ravitch, the past director of the Encyclopedia Britannica, on using computers to motivate students and the challenges of adult literacy Alan Kay on computer simulation and visualization Alvin Toffler, most known as the author of Future Shock, on text translations Ray Bradbury on a variety of subjects The most talked about topic is hypermedia, the most integrated concept in modern computing and a major building block of the World Wide Web which was six years old at the time, however the WWW isn't mentioned. Oops my mistake. The World Wide Web starting with the Mosaic browser didn't happen until 1993. This is illuminative viewing and if you haven't seen it, I'd recommend you do so. The differences between what the speakers saw as the future and how things turned out is quite enlightening. Thanks Eric for sending this in.
Found Footage: Last week's SteveFest in three minutes
We're all busy people, and I'm sure that many of us missed the iPod/Apple TV SteveFest on the first. Once again, Neil Curtis, master of cutting to the chase, has created a three-minute version of the 75-minute presentation. Previously, Neil did a very short version of the adjective enhanced iPad rollout; he's very good at this sort of thing. This little video (making wonderful use of music) only mentions stores "with people" in them, the new iPods, the Game Center, Ping, and the underwhelming new Apple TV. I've been through the full video a number of times, and nowhere does Steve mention just what resolution he's talking about when he says HD. In my opinion, this is a bag of hurt...but maybe that's just me. There's also some Lady Gaga in the video. So, don't expect anything about iOS 4.2 or anything iOS related. It's worth a look and will probably give you a chuckle or two. Keep up the good work, Neil.
iWeb updated to 3.0.2
The iWeb component of iLife '09 has just been updated to version 3.0.2. Apple hasn't provided much information on what the new 186 MB update will do outside of saying it addresses assorted minor issues and more serious issues when using it to publish to MobileMe, but it's available now via Software Update. So go grab the new iWeb update and tell us what you find. Note after posting: The iWeb update also cleans up support for searching podcasts and blogs. It requires 10.5.6 or better to run and outside of Software Update, you can download it from Apple's Support Website. Thanks Macworld UK for the additional information
Notre Dame embarks on a paperless course with iPads
The University of Notre Dame's yearlong study of eReaders in academics is starting the school year with a bang -- a course that will use the iPad as the only textbook students need. The course is entitled Project Management, and each of the 40 students enrolled will be given an iPad to use in lieu of textbooks. The students will be encouraged to integrate their borrowed iPad into their life by syncing their iTunes library, games, and anything else they would like, and to report their findings. Project Management is a required undergraduate course for students majoring in Management Consulting, IT Management and Entrepreneurship as part of the management curriculum of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business. Participants will come from a wide variety of orientations including: Business, Law, IT, Arts and Letters, Press and Institutional Equity. After the six-week course, the iPads will be given to another set of students and the second group will be studied through surveys, observations and interviews. Corey Angst, the course professor, makes the important point that the iPad will not be considered a thing unto itself, but rather one piece of of an ever increasing toolkit of resources that students will add to throughout their coursework and their lives. Therefore the study will start out as a consideration of eReaders, but organically morph into the discovery of other uses of iPads and other such devices. There will be wiki-based discussions about what the students have found to be useful and to share their discoveries with others in the class. It's quite exciting to see this sort of research being done and I'm sure that the results of this (and other studies yet to come) will make major inroads into a wide range of fields including: business, sociology, IT and literature, just to name a few. You can follow the progress of this study on a blog that has been set up for just this purpose.
The silly season: No Comment on The iBottleopener
Now I've seen everything. To give lie to the meme that there's an app for that, perhaps a new and upcoming meme will be that there's a case for that. The iBottleopener (US $19.99) is a case for an iPhone 3G or 3GS that has a bottle opener on the back. The video, that you've probably just seen, sets a new standard for cheesy adverts. The tagline of the ad campaign is "a party in your pocket." At least they didn't use "a party in your pants," which shows that the manufacturers do have a modicum of restraint. I'm sure that The iBottleopener is the perfect back to school gift for any college student. And iPhone 4 owners won't be left out of the party, or the pants for that matter, since a case to fit the newest iPhone is on its way. For adding a beery note to your iDevice lifestyle, this case deserves a hearty No Comment. Thanks Zack (I think) for sending this in.
DashPad brings the Dashboard to the iPad, sort of...
DashPad (US$9.99) takes a unique approach to putting a Dashboard on your iPad. Instead of using an app, (which would never get approved by Apple), or jailbreaking, it uses Safari to serve an iPad specific page that contains eight widgets. More widgets will be coming, according to DashPad's developer Pixlcreations. Here's how it works. First you're taken to Paypal to tender your payment which triggers an email containing a username, password and a link to the site. After entering the information DashPad opens the Mobile Safari page where you'll find eight widgets: Clock, Calendar, Calculator, Unit Converter, Sticky Note, Yellow Pages Search, Google Search, and Weather. This is presented just as you'd expect it, with the widgets on the bottom regardless of how you hold the iPad. The rest of the screen is a white field. Just like Mac widgets, you tap on one to activate it and tap on it again to dismiss it. The widgets can all be moved around on the screen. A button shows or hides the widget bar. When you leave the app, it remembers the position of your widgets and the contents of the Sticky Note. It also allows you to put an icon on your iPad's desktop for quick access, which of course you can do with any Safari page. This is fine if you've become really accustomed to using widgets on your Mac and miss not having them on your iPad. It's a really neat idea, but after using it, I found quite a number of limitations. You can't install your own widgets, since they are a part of the Mobile Safari page, however when new ones come out, they will be there the next time DashPad is run. After not using Dashpad for a day or so you will have to put in your username and password again. This, I'm told, is a security measure and they are working on a way to delay authentication longer. This alone kills the idea of a quick and easy way to get bits of information all at the same time and I would consider authentication at this frequency a deal-breaker. You are only allowed one Sticky Note, which can be as long as you want and is scrollable. More will be coming, but one is what you get now. The Weather widget, which requires your zip code, doesn't remember it upon re-launch. The Google Search isn't useful since it does exactly the same thing as the search bar already showing in Safari. It brings up a new page. Of course hitting the usual icon brings up the screen showing your last six Safari pages and you can easily get back to DashPad, but this brings nothing to the table that you already don't have. It does have potential though and you might like it, but to find out you'll have to pony up the $9.99. I consider paying first bad marketing, especially since it would be possible to let you try it out for a few days and if you didn't pay up, the authentication would stop working. Personally, I don't think it's worth the price -- but if you're really enamored with your Dashboard, you might think differently. TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page.
Helping autistic children with iOS devices
Autism is a developmental brain disorder that, in some manner, plagues one out of every 110 children (according to the Centers for Disease Control). It's usually discovered by the time the child is three years old. Varying medical and scientific authorities characterize the condition in different ways, but scientists generally agree that autism spectrum disorders (ASD) manifest themselves in social, communication, and behavioral challenges. The SF Weekly recently wrote about a number of families with autistic children and how the iPad is proving to be quite useful in helping them. A number of studies have been done on the use of iPhones and iPods as aids for the autistic. One such study was titled iPod Therefore I Can: Enhancing the Learning of Children with Intellectual Disabilities Through Emerging Technologies, and it tracked the progress of 10 autistic children who were using iPod touches in Australia. The results were quite encouraging. In one case, a child who could not wash his hands was exposed to photos (combined with voice-overs) of a child doing it successfully. Through this method, the correct behavior was reinforced, and in short order, the child was able to wash his hands by himself. About 60 percent of the goals of the study were achieved. The results of this and other studies have been encouraging, but a major problem for 60 to 80 percent of autistic children is poor motor skills, including poor motor planning, which makes using the small buttons on an iPhone or iPod touch quite difficult. Because of the larger size of an iPad, it can be much more accessible to a larger number of autistic children.
You Can't Always Get What You Want: Great book, lousy app
You Can't Always Get What You Want (US$4.99 until the end of August, to celebrate Jerry Garcia's birthday), is one of the best Rock and Roll books I've ever read. It is written and read by Sam Cutler, the tour manager of the Rolling Stones and later the Grateful Dead in the late 60's and early 70's. The centerpiece of the book is the free concert at the Altamont Speedway in Northern California that took place on December 6, 1969, which was made into a gripping documentary film titled Gimme Shelter by Albert and David Maysles. The line up included: Santana, the Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead, who later decided not to play since it was too dangerous. What most people remember about the concert is that during the Stones performance, quite near the stage, Alan Passaro, a Hells Angels member, stabbed and killed Meredith Hunter after Hunter pulled out a gun. Although horrible and headline grabbing the full story is much more gripping and is only one part of the book. Sam Cutler, is a gregarious guy who was smack in the middle of the rock scene at the time. He's a great story teller, and has the perfect voice to tell his story. He reads his book in a grizzled and sometimes tired English accent that gives instant credibility to his words. He knew everyone and remembers everything in amazing detail. Naming the cast of characters would go on for pages, but Sam was there at the start of arguably every English rock and roll band at the time and later knew just about everyone in the San Francisco music scene.
Change Case uses OS X Services to expand TextEdit
Mac OS X Services have been around for a while, but not many people use them. Under the title of any Cocoa program in the upper left of the menu bar, you'll find an option for Services. This brings up a pull-down menu of services that are appropriate to the program at hand. They can be a real time saver. I use TextEdit for writing my TUAW posts, and it's always running. Recently, I found a neat service that works wonders for TextEdit and (I'm sure) a bunch of other text editors. It's free for the downloading from Ron Fleckner in Melbourne, Australia. What you'll get is a ZIP file that expands into a little, 86KB application file called Change Case. Once installed, select some words or sentences, go to Services, and you'll get a screen like the one above. It's pretty self explanatory; ALL CAPS, All lowercase, and Toggle Case do just what they say. Word Capitals capitalizes each word in a sentence, and camelCase (which you might know as InterCap) is mostly used for brand names. It turns something like " My Program" into "MyProgram." While it's true that a few of these options are available in TextEdit under the Edit-> Transformations menu (namely: Make Upper Case, Make Lower Case and Capitalize), the Services menu is easier to get to, and Change Case does more.
The Wedgepad bean bag stand for the iPad
The Wedgepad ($27 shipping only to the US), taking a cue from Veronica Belmont's Cat stand, is a comfortable iPad stand comprised of a wedged bean bag and four white elastic straps. It's very light, weighing in at only five ounces. The straps hold your iPad securely and its pliability and microsuede bag make it feel quite nice on your lap, where it's meant to be used. When attached, it seems to become part of the iPad. I've been playing around with one for a few days and haven't taken it off my iPad yet. It only works in landscape mode and can be used in a 30 degree mode which stands the iPad nearly vertically. That's not a great angle for your lap but it's okay for viewing on a table, especially if you are watching a movie and don't need to tap any buttons. I've used it mainly in the 45 degree mode, which is a perfect viewing angle when on your lap. My only complaint is that the white straps make it look a bit cheap, and it appears that it's holding your iPad hostage, but that's nothing that a black Magic Marker can't fix. You may remember it being announced in May and then tumbling into obscurity. There were production problems, and a small number got shipped, but now there is adequate stock. Pick one up now and you'll get free shipping, too, at least until the end of August.
Digit-Eyes identfies everything for the blind without breaking the bank
The Digit-Eyes Audio Scanner and Labeler (US$29.95) from Digital Miracles is a remarkable Assistive Technology (AT) app for the iPhone and iPod touch geared to the blind and visually impaired community. What it does is fairly straightforward once you get the big idea, but the implications of its uses are fairly mind-boggling. The app does three things. The first and simplest is, using the built in camera, scanning UPC and EAN codes found on most everything. Taking advantage of the VoiceOver accessibility capability built into the iPhone/IPod touch, it searches a database, brings back the results and reads it to you. There is also a button to search Google for more information. That's really no big deal since a variety of barcode scanning apps such as Red Laser can do roughly the same thing. You need an Internet connection for this since you are referencing the Digit-Eyes database. The second thing it does, is more compelling. Once you register for a free account on their site, you can create text labels for printing on over 50 sizes of standard Avery labels. Select a type of label and a template page is displayed full of empty boxes representing labels. In each box, type in up to 100 characters of anything you want the label to say. Once done, all your text is transformed into a .pdf page of QR (quick recognition) codes like the one shown in the upper right corner of this post. Print the page on the Avery label stock, and stick each on whatever you wanted the label to say. For example, if you typed in "Blueberries bought on July 31st", you would stick that corresponding label on a container of blueberries. Then using the Digit-Eyes app, scan the label on the container and the screen will display and a voice will read back "Digit-Eyes label read: Blueberries bought on July 31st". The database of what's behind each label is stored on your iPhone so you won't need an Internet connection to access the information. %Gallery-98575%
The American Museum of Natural History's Explorer app for the iPhone and iPod touch
The American Museum of Natural History on New York City's Upper West Side has released AMNH Explorer (free) for the iPhone and iPod touch. This app, funded by Bloomberg, is a tour guide and personal navigation system that allows you to easily traverse the museum's huge collection. You can search for an exhibit by popularity, exhibit hall, or an alphabetical listing, and the app will use the museum's free Wi-Fi to give you step-by-step directions to your intended destination (using either the stairs or elevators). You can also get directions to the closest restroom or exit as well as information about restaurants and gift shops. %Gallery-98499% If you want to know more about an exhibit, tap its card to see more detail. After you've seen an exhibit, you can mark it as visited, which puts a banner on the exhibit's information card. You can also bookmark exhibits, which will send you an email that details what you've bookmarked as a record of your visit. There is also an option to send exhibit information to Twitter or Facebook.
Civil War: America's Epic Struggle comes to the iPad and iPhone
Civil War: America's Epic Struggle (US$4.99) from MultiEducator Inc. is a full history course in an iPad and iPhone app. It contains at least as much information as most textbooks on the Civil War at a fraction of the cost, while adding elements that no textbook can. There are 24 multimedia presentations, some as long as nine minutes, a nice selection of music popular during the Civil War, and a wonderful navigation system that just makes sense. When starting the app, information can be sorted 18 ways, from a changing Categories bar including Battles (sorted either chronologically or alphabetically), Multimedia Presentations, Statistics and topics like Navy, Economics, Railroads, Music, etc. Depending upon where you are in the app, tapping on Categories brings up a contextual listing of what you can see. For example, tapping on Major Battles Chronologically changes the bar to a listing of battles grouped by year. Tapping on a battle such as Bull Run, brings choices of a text summary of the battle, a five minute multimedia summary, seven text articles on aspects of the battle, 20 photos or drawings, most of them taken from the Matthew Brady Archives, and full color maps. Depending upon the battle there is more or less information available, but this is done for 26 battles in total; clearly, there's a phenomenal amount of information in the app, plenty for even a Civil War buff to peruse. %Gallery-98490%