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Daily iPhone App: 5K Runmeter impresses with options and functionality
We did make a mention of the 5K training version of Runmeter when it first arrived on the App Store a little while ago, but it's worth yet another mention, I think, if only because this is the best running app I've ever used. 5K Runmeter, as it's called on my iPhone's home screen, offers all of the functionality of the standard Runmeter app (and that's quite a bit), with the addition of full training plans for 5K, 10K, half-marathon and even marathon runs. I've been using it for the last 11 weeks to train for my very first half-marathon next month, and I've been nothing but impressed at how well this app works to provide feedback, motivation and running insight for those who like to beat feet. You'd have to pick up the app and look through it to see just how much functionality there is here, but as an example, here's how I use it. I am on the half-marathon plan, so every week on any given day, the app has a set distance or speed run for me to do, and I simply press start and then follow the app's directions in my headset as I run. I've set up the app so that I get split times and pace information through voice every mile, and I just recently also set up the app to let me know when I hit every 30 minutes (as my runs have gotten longer, it's nice to have that perspective injected into the music I listen to as I go). The app of course tracks my GPS movement as I run (and that map can be exported out into email or shared to Facebook or Twitter if I want), and because I've put my pertinent fitness info into the app, I also get full calories spent, pace, timing and distance information when I'm done. In short, this is an excellent all-in-one way to monitor and track your running, and while the app is compatible with any number of fitness sensors, I haven't even needed those. If you're an expert runner, you can take advantage of interval training or even track your shoe usage (and like the standard Runmeter, the app even works for other exercise like biking). And if you're a beginner runner, you can't go wrong with the Couch to 5k plan -- it's exactly how I started running as a couch potato a few years ago, and ended up losing almost half my body weight and finding a new and exceptionally healthy passion. I did that just by following the plan on a treadmill, but the Runmeter app will guide you through that very same plan. In short, no matter what your level of running experience, 5K Runmeter is the best running solution I've seen. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Nissan pins Leaf's WattStation charging woes on a software bug, works on a fix
GE and Nissan had previously ruled out GE's WattStation as the cause of a few Leaf charging failures, and that story of EV tragedy looks to be winding to a close with a more definitive explanation. As the two tell us, a bug in the Leaf's on-board charging software can damage the relevant hardware under a perfect storm of conditions: if a drivers uses a specific (but not necessarily GE) charger, an undervoltage or similar power crisis can bring the Leaf to its knees. Nissan says it's hurrying towards a remedy, although we're working to confirm just what that entails. In the meantime, the automaker is asking owners to be cautious and avoid plugging in when there's lightning or brownouts in the making.
PSA: Resetting your phone risks upsetting Google Wallet, unless you do it right
Spare a thought for Google Wallet users who have learned this the hard way, but at least you won't have to fall into the same little-known trap. Essentially, if you have a Galaxy Nexus, HTC EVO 4G LTE or any other compatible handset and you perform a factory reset, there's a high chance you'll spoil the secure element that is designed to protect your NFC chip from tampering. This disables Google Wallet and it seems there's no fix once that happens, other than calling up a friendly (and hopefully interactive) customer service agent. However, there is a way to prevent it: before factory resetting, you have to go into the Google Wallet app, choose 'Menu' then 'Settings' and 'Reset Google Wallet'. There it is -- simple enough, but evidently not advertised enough by Google or the phone manufacturers themselves.
Verizon sidesteps Galaxy Nexus antennagate, claims signal indicator is to blame
This is just hilarious. Remember when Verizon Wireless stated rather unequivocally that its Galaxy Nexus suffered from a "signal strength issue" and that a fix was coming? Worry not, dear readers, because the company now claims that it's identified the issue: apparently, there's really no problem at all. According to Big Red, the Galaxy Nexus doesn't suffer from poor reception, but simply reports its reception poorly. To resolve these 'perception' issues, the carrier states that it will deliver a software update that "will adjust the signal strength indicator to more closely match other Verizon Wireless devices." So, whether or not there really is a problem with the Galaxy Nexus (LTE), one thing is for certain -- very soon, its owners will have more bars to look at. Huzzah, indeed?
Verizon confirms Galaxy Nexus 'signal strength issue,' says a fix is in the works
Well, there's good news and bad. Per usual, we'll kick it off with the latter. The LTEified version of the Galaxy Nexus has signal problems. Or, more specifically, a "signal strength issue." According to Verizon Wireless' Support account on Twitter, the issue is currently being investigated, and while there's no ETA at the moment, a software update is "being developed" to remedy it. We haven't seen a flood of gripes regarding the call quality (or lack thereof) with this particular handset, but it's not exactly uncommon for carriers to work on these types of things soon after a hero device hits the masses. Naturally, we'll keep you abreast of any release details.
Instagram CEO hints at video sharing
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt in Beijing last week, and hinted that video sharing would be coming soon to the popular mostly iOS-driven photo sharing service. "We really want to go after something bigger than filtered photos," he said, explaining that the service really wanted to let users share their entire lives, not just photos. That's likely music to many Instagram users' ears -- there are more than 9 million people using the app already, and it's been praised quite a bit for its ease-of-use and excellent interface. And while, yes, there are plenty of ways to share video from the iPhone and the iPad as well, lots of users already have Instagram built into their social flow, so having video available on the service will be that much easier. Unfortunately, Systrom said that while video is in the plans, it may be a while -- obviously including video on the service would require major upgrades to both the app itself and of course the servers running it. But hopefully such a service would be worth waiting for.
Online gamers solve microbiology puzzle, contribute to anti-HIV solutions
Hey guys, look! Gamers are good for something! After struggling for some time to successfully map the structure of M-PMV, "a protein involved in a virus that causes a form of simian AIDS," scientists decided to hand the task off into more capable hands. Unfortunately, the only hands they could find were those of online gamers. Always willing to rise to a challenge, however, the gamers didn't disappoint. Through the use of a program called Foldit, which takes the mapping of molecular structures and transforms them into a sort of puzzle game, gamers (particularly a group calling themselves the Foldit Contenders) were able to successfully map the protein. Scientists hope that the crowdsourced solution can be used to design new drugs, such as treatments for HIV. Way to prove our worth to society, folks. You've made us proud.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 now syncs with your Mac, updated Kies software to thank
You heard right -- Samsung's slimmest slate yet is now on speaking terms with OS X, well over a month after the first ones slipped out to developers at Google I/O. Oddly enough, it looks as if Android File Transfer is still stuck in yesteryear, with Samsung itself pushing out a revised build of Kies to enable Tab-to-Mac relations. If this discussion is relevant to your interests, the source links below will be as well.
Piracy is a problem of 'global pricing,' not enforcement, claims new report
The smart cookies at the Social Science Research Council have spent three years researching media and software piracy in so-called emerging economies -- countries like Brazil, Russia, India and Mexico -- which has this past week resulted in a comprehensive report aimed at establishing the trends and causes of the unauthorized consumption of intellectual property. The major theme of the report is that ever more stringent enforcement of IP rights has proven ineffective in countering the growing tide of content piracy, and it is instead a problem of "global pricing" that needs to be tackled first. Content distributors' primary concern is argued to be the protection of existing pricing structures in the honeypot nations of Western Europe and North America, which has resulted in prices in locales like Eastern Europe and South America being artificially inflated relative to the purchasing power of their population. Consequently, squeezed out of buying media the legal way, consumers have found themselves drawn to the, erm, grayer end of the market to sate their entertainment needs. There's plenty more to this report, including a proposed solution to fixing these broken economics, but you'll have to check out the links below for the full scoop.
Skyfire being rereleased into App Store 'in batches,' coming to other nations in due time
Good news, sick-and-tired Safari users -- Skyfire's back! Sort of. After hitting the App Store and subsequently crashing / burning under the load, the company yanked it in order to get its server situation under control. Now that it has had 48 hours to pony up for extra bandwidth (a wild guess, there), it looks as if it's ready to cautiously let even more people join the fun. The CEO has confirmed via a blog post that Skyfire will "open batches of downloads for new users over the coming days," with the first batch hitting right about now. It'll be first come, first serve, so you know what to do there. In related news, he also affirmed that it's still available to US downloaders for now, but that "additional country support" would follow shortly. Huzzah! [Thanks, Ankur]
Rubik's Cube solved in twenty moves, 35 years of CPU time
The term "God's number" refers to the minimum number of moves that it takes to solve a puzzle like the Rubik's Cube. Because, you know, if God truly is omniscient (and not a node in a vast satellite network, à la Philip K. Dick) you can bet your bubby that it would be able to solve such a puzzle in the minimum number of moves -- and it would have nothing better to do all day than solve puzzles. According to a team of engineers and some thirty-five CPU years worth of idle computer time (supplied courtesy of Google) it has been established that of any of the cube's 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 potential positions, a solution can be found in twenty moves or less -- making God's number twenty. And we're guessing that any of those solutions has to be more satisfying than our Uncle John's own Rubik's Cube solution (which he taught us in the early 1980s), removing the stickers and putting them back on in the proper sequence.
When Seesmic met Evernote
Evernote has announced Seesmic integration over on its blog -- often while reading Twitter on my iPhone, I'll see people tweeting links to videos or long pages that I just don't have the time to check out over my EDGE connection. In the past, I've favorited the tweets, but that's not an ideal solution, especially since anyone on Twitter can see my favorites (and thus see what I've been reading). Enter Seesmic and Evernote: now, when you see a tweet on Seesmic, you'll be able to send it directly into Evernote, and save it there along with the rest of your clippings and notes on the service. Then, when I go back to my MacBook, I can pull up those saved tweets, and read whatever I missed. There are lots of other uses for a connection like this, I'm sure (and a few other ways to solve my problem -- Tweetie and Instapaper is another solution). But if you're a regular Seesmic and/or Evernote user and are looking for a way to more easily integrate Twitter into the "outsourced memory" that is your Evernote database, it's your lucky day.
Comic Zeal 4 for the iPad previewed
We've mentioned Comic Zeal on the site here before -- it's an iPhone app that allows you to read comic book .cbr files on your iPhone. Of course, it's exactly the kind of app that you'd hope to bring itself right on over to the iPad, and that's exactly what developer Bitolithic has done -- they're provided an excellent preview of the Comic Zeal iPad app over on their blog. It looks great -- there's a full-screen view, of course, but the navigation has been tweaked, and there's no real separation any more between selecting a book and seeing it. While the iPhone's smaller screen meant they had to compartmentalize those two functions, the bigger iPad screen means they can just put a pop-up in and do the whole thing all together. Also interesting to note is that they've placed controls at the top of the screen rather than at the bottom -- they say that when the iPad is sitting in your lap, it's awkward to hit buttons at the bottom as you usually do on the iPhone. And this version will be called Comic Zeal 4, not Comic Zeal iPad or HD, because eventually most of the features in this version will find their way back to the iPhone version as well. Comic Zeal looks like a great comic reading solution on the iPad, and it's awesome to finally see some apps.
Case-Mate's Hug allows induction charging on the iPhone
There are a few features that I'd love to see added to the iPhone's hardware (an IR transmitter would be nice, for one thing), but first and foremost among those is probably an induction charger. It's a little lame to have a device that so easily goes wireless, and then have to come back and plug it in again after usage. Of course, Apple will take their sweet time adapting new technologies, so until then, I might have to make do with Case-Mate's Hug solution. It's a $100 case that slides on the back of your iPhone and allows the unit to charge without ever plugging in a cable -- just stick it on and wait. Which sounds good, but then you notice that the case actually blocks the iPhone's dock completely, so you have to take the case off anyway to do your regular syncing. And of course it also adds size and heft to the phone, which is probably more than you want to pay to just have a phone you can stick on a charger. Looks like Apple's reasoning in leaving the technology out of the hardware is pretty solid. Nevertheless, if you can't wait to "give your iPhone a Hug" (clever but cloying), the case is available now.
GDC 2010: From concept to Top Paid with Unity iPhone
Unity Technologies hosted the sponsored lunch panel during GDC 2010 today, and their "product evangelist" Tom Higgins gave a quick rundown of the software platform that enables developers to assemble and release games extremely quickly on multiple platforms. The company was actually founded in Denmark, but has since expanded around the world with just two products: Unity Pro and Unity iPhone Pro. The second product, as you might imagine, allows developers to put together an application that can then be exported out into an Xcode project and released on the App Store. Higgins said that they've had over 90,000 people download the software since it was released for free last fall, and that more than 500 games in the App Store were authored by Unity. He also ran a short demo of the software at the panel. While some of the coding got a little technical (the system allows you to create and change variables on in-game objects even while the game is running in the engine), the coolest feature was the way they simulated iPhone controls: by using a real iPhone as a remote. They've released a free app on the App Store that will connect via Wi-Fi with a copy of the development tool running on your Mac, and as you touch and turn the iPhone, the editor reacts, and sends the (slightly lower resolution) output to the iPhone's screen. You can also make changes to your code as the game runs in that mode, so you can be playing and coding at the same time.
Microsoft tells IE faithful on Windows XP to avoid F1 key
Still hanging around on Windows XP? Perfectly acceptable. Still using Internet Explorer to browse the world wide web? Just a wee bit less forgivable, but we understand that some of you simply can't get around it. If we just rung your bell, you might want to rip the F1 key right off of your keyboard (at least temporarily), as a recently discovered vulnerability in VBScript -- which can only bother Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 -- could allow malicious code to weasel its way right into your life with a single keystroke. As the story goes, some ill-willed web sites are encouraging users to smash the F1 key in order to access a Microsoft Help file, and when said key is depressed, "arbitrary code could be executed in the security context of the currently logged-on user." Microsoft has promised to fully investigate and resolve the issue in due time, but 'til then, we'd highly suggest avoiding your F1 key like the plague switching to Firefox.
iPhone as TV remote coming to CES
It's kind of a shame the iPhone didn't include an IR port at all. While it's not a necessity (certainly the device has sold plenty of units without one), I have quite a few devices in my house that still require an old school IR remote to control -- it's 2010, but my TV still isn't hooked up to Bluetooth or WiFi. That's why this accessory looks interesting -- it's an IR transmitter that plugs into the iPhone's port and turns the device into a touchscreen-based universal remote. It's made by a company called L5 Technology, and they'll show it off at CES later this week. Previous systems have required you to connect up your television (or other device) to expensive controllers so the iPhone can access them via WiFi, but this seems like a much more sensible solution. They're asking $50 for it, which sounded expensive at first, but that's relatively cheap when it comes to high-end universal remotes. Assuming that the accompanying app is well-designed and full-featured enough to compare to some of the other offerings out there, it might end up being a nice solution for combining all of your various remotes into just your iPhone or iPod touch. [via Cult of Mac]
Palm and Sprint issue statement acknowledging Profile backup issue
Even in a world full of racket, it seems that the squeaky wheel still gets the grease. In yet another blow to this whole "cloud" agenda, a vocal segment of Palm users began to notice that information transferred from their online Palm Profile was only a fraction of what it should have been. Today, both Palm and Sprint have issued a joint statement acknowledging the issue and promising to work much, much harder in order to avoid having something like this ruin your life once again. To quote: "We are seeing a small number of customers who have experienced issues transferring their Palm Profile information to another Palm webOS device. Palm and Sprint are working closely together to support these customers to successfully transfer their information to the new device." Between this mess and the T-Mobile fiasco, we're pretty certain we're being forced to stay on the manual backup bandwagon for the foreseeable future. [Thanks, Mike]
Breakfast Topic: The ninja problem
The new LFG system is certainly great, but there's one problem with random PuGs that I'm sure it won't fix, and that is of course the problem of ninjas. As long as random people are getting into groups (and with the new rewards system in place, there'll be plenty of that), some of them will always find the loot more tempting than keeping their reputation clean. So what's the solution? Obviously, over on Guildwatch, we've been covering people shouting out names and guilds on the forums for a while, but as we've also reported a few times over there, that barely helps -- even if people do remember a ninja on their server, one name change later and they're gone. A few guildleaders over on Jubei'thos have tried putting a site together to track known ninjas on the server, but even that has issues; it's tough to avoid false positives, even if you do require screenshots. But surely there must be a solution, so let's put our heads together: a debuff? Something like the group vote-kicking system that's coming in patch 3.3? If Blizzard wanted to really go for fair, they could just take the Need-before-Greed system and turn it into straight Need: if an item matches your class and spec, you get a roll (with items everyone can use giving everyone a roll), and the best roll always wins. You can turn it off (for a Master Looter-style raid), but for PuGs, why even bother with a Need/Greed difference? What do you think?
Solving the mathmatical tangles of ArPen
Armor penetration is probably one of the most misunderstood stats in the game, for a number of reasons. First of all, it's only become popular lately -- while it's been in the game since 1.10, it's only started showing up regularly on items in Wrath. And even then it's really only a meta-meta stat: the core abilities like Strength and Agility are easy to understand, the next level of abilities are things like hit rating and crit rating, and then armor penetration, you could argue, goes another level after that: it's a stat that affects a stat affected by a stat. It's for that reason, then, that Xanthan argues we need a more elegant solution.Armor penetration basically allows you to hit an opponent as if they're wearing less armor than they really are. That's not to hard to understand -- if you have a certain amount of armor penetration, then the opponent armor number in the equation that determines damage done is lower (edit: by a percentage, not a number) than it would usually be. But the confusion comes in when you see how armor penetration scales. It actually scales exponentially, not linearly -- if you have no ArP and you increase it by a little bit, you only get a little extra damage increase. But if you have a lot, and you add a little more onto that, then you'll get a bigger damage increase, due to the way the math works (I'm bad at math, but Xanthan has an excellent, clear description of the calculations in the forum thread, and we've posted some explanations before as well). Blizzard recently capped ArP at 100% (so you could never get into a place where you're reducing armor below the amount of armor that's there), but it's still possible to have the amount of armor reduced equal the amount of armor on a target, causing the equation of armor vs. armor penetration to divide by 0, and at that point, things get wacky, and terms like "infinite damage" come into play.
