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IRL: Motorola's Droid RAZR M and the SignEasy digital signature app
Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment. You can ask Dana which phone she uses, but don't act all surprised when you find out it's a $99 mid-ranger. You can also ask Darren what he thinks of SignEasy's digital signature app, but he might talk your ear off. Straight ahead: lots of talking, and one long defense of a phone with a mediocre camera and tiny little battery.
EasySignMobile enters the Facebook fray for iPhone and iPad
Need to sign a contract, like, now? There's an app for that. Several actually, but the folks who create EasySignMobile have gone and made their service a bit more accessible to the unwashed masses with an updated version that supports Facebook authentication. The new feature is currently available only for iOS, although we'd imagine Android users will find similar love in the near future, as the company released its first version for Google's platform last October. Also on deck for iPhone and iPad fans, the latest version of EasySignMobile offers integration with Dropbox and Box.net for easy file storage and retrieval. So next time you need to make your mark, perhaps you can reach into your pocket rather than rummage for a pen. Those interested will find the full PR after the break.
Ten One Design licensing Autograph signature capture to developers
Ten One Design started the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad stylus market singlehandedly with the Pogo stylus. Now it's hoping to jumpstart development of apps that capture signatures by licensing its Autograph iOS Library. The idea is simple. Rather than re-inventing the wheel when writing apps that capture signatures, Ten One Design's library -- which works with Xcode, of course -- can be purchased by developers for US$99 for a single one-time use or for $499 for an unlimited site license. This is the same code used in Ten One's Autograph app ($6.95), and a free demo version of the library is available to developers who would like to test-drive its capabilities. The Autograph iOS Library is used in apps to capture digital signatures on the capacitive displays of iOS devices. The Library allows users to customize the stroke color and width, as well as the size of the signature, and provides smoothing for accurate signatures. The velocity of a writing stroke varies the width of the digital ink, and this capability supports biometric verification to capture signature details. Users can undo or redo their signatures with a three-finger swipe, and the Library can also offer a unique security hash watermark for signatures for security and tracking purposes. The applications of signature capture are huge, from getting signatures from patients in the medical world to having customers sign an app to take delivery of a package. By making the Autograph iOS Library available to developers, Ten One Design is hoping that you'll be signing your name on many more iPads and iPhones in the near future.
NEC tech detects illegal video uploads in seconds, MPAA swoons
Surely by now you've come across something on YouTube that was flagged for copyright infringement, a process that's surely powered by massive teams of elves and other mystical creatures who watch each and every video uploaded to the site. NEC is looking to put them all out of work with a system that, with just 60 frames worth of video (about two seconds, typically) can identify copyrighted video with 96 percent accuracy and a false alarm rate of one in 200,000 -- even if it was copied from digital to analog or had captions added. This process is now part of the MPEG-7 Video signature tool, apparently the international standard, and works by creating signatures for copyrighted video that are just 76 bytes per frame. That's small enough for a desktop with a single core, 3GHz processor to churn through 1,000 hours of questionable video in one second, looking for matches all the while. Unless you freelance for the MPAA this isn't software you'll be running, but if you're a fan of the torrents there's a good chance that someone you know very indirectly will be.
Mint Studio hands-on and impressions
Digital Signature's new Mint Studio iPod dock may not look all that different than the company's previous Mint 130 model on the outside, but it's gotten a few fairly significant upgrades to its internals, which was enough to get us interested in it again. The biggest of those are some improved wireless capabilities, which still rely on the same tried and true 2.4GHz band as before, but promise an increased range of up to 100 feet (up from 45 before), and less interference from other devices thanks to some new channel-hopping technology. The real kicker, however, is that the wireless transmitter is able to support up to three of the systems simultaneously, making the Mint Studio a cut-rate multi-room audio solution of sorts -- although anyone looking for anything close to Sonos-level functionality will want to look elsewhere. Read on for our full impressions. %Gallery-75129%
iTunes 6.0.3: "the digital signature for this package is incorrect?"
I'm no software expert, but if you receive an error similar to the one I have pictured here when trying to install the iTunes 6.0.3 update that Dave Caolo just mentioned, I wouldn't recommend following through. I have no idea what this could mean or what could have caused it, but I think this is one time I'm going to shelve the early adopter in me. We'll post more details ASAP.
