We all knew it would happen eventually, but I certainly didn’t expected it to happen so soon: Siri has been used for home automation.
It’s a rather complicated process, and it was only used to turn on a fan, but it’s still pretty neat and I’m sure there’s more to come.
The programmer, Christoper Deutsch, gives a detailed account of the process on this blog.
The internet is filled with stories of cheating spouses done in by their social networking accounts, but Apple may have set a new record for the fastest breakup due to an app. Merely four days after its release, info from the new Find My Friends app is being claimed as evidence in divorce proceedings.
Find My Friends (FMF) is like a blend of Facebook and Google maps: you send someone a request through the app and, once they accept, you can see their location on a map. It sounds a little creepy to me, but Apple’s description makes it sound rather benign and even useful (assuming everyone you know also has an iPhone). Their examples include things like keeping track of traveling companions or making sure your kids got home from school. You could probably also enlist the app to track down a lost or stolen phone or, you know, just stalk someone…not that Apple would ever condone that.
Still, FMF will undoubtedly be used for amateur sleuthing and may have already been used to catch a cheating spouse. A man posting on the MacRumors’ forum claims that he secretly put FMF on his wife’s phone when he started to suspect that she was having an affair and used it to catch her in a lie.
“I got my wife a new 4S and loaded up Find My Friends without her knowing. She told me she was at her friend’s house in the East Village. I’ve had suspicions about her meeting this guy who lives uptown. Lo and behold, Find my Friends has her right there.”
There are a lot of problems with this story and many people doubt it’s even true, but it’s still an interesting look at the role technology plays in our life.
The true measure of a smartphone isn’t how great the camera is or how many apps it has—it’s how durable it is when dropped.
And it will be dropped. No matter how careful you are, it is the fate of every expensive gadget to be dropped (or worse) at least once in its lifetime.
Luckily there are people out there who get a kick out of “testing” to how much abuse certain gizmos can take before they bust. Here’s SquareTrade’s iPhone 4S vs Samsung Galaxy S II drop test.
This might be a little painful to watch for technophiles, but remember that it’s all done in the name of scientific experimentation.
Spoiler: The iphone doesn’t fare too well…but it’d almost be worth it if Siri was programmed to say “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
Apple sold 4 million of their new iPhones in three days, smashing the already record sells of the iPhone 4.
It’s no surprise that people are excited about Siri, Apple’s AI assistant, voice-control has been on consumers’ home automation wish-list for a while. If Siri proves to be a success and not just a gimmick, we’ll no doubt end up seeing the technology used on a larger scale.
Stuff.tv has a neat demo of the iPhone’s voice-controlled personal assistant, Siri.
The general consensus seemed to be a that people were disappointed the iPhone 5 turned out to be the iPhone 4S, but that hasn’t stopped Apple from selling one million of them in 24 hours.
Apple says that this is the fastest selling first day for any Apple product, ever, beating the previous record holder, the iPhone 4, which sold 600,000 units on its first day.
Maybe Siri, the iPhone’s new voice-recognition assistant, will prove to be a killer app after all and may find some usage in home control…or a precursor to Skynet.
Firemint’s Real Racing 2 and Real Racing 2 HD aim to take advantage of everything the iPhone 4s and iPad have to offer in their next major update. The new update will not only add AirPlay functionality a new cooperative mode in the form of Party Play.
Party Play takes AirPlay to the next level of iOS gaming, facilitating wireless local multiplayer for up to 4 players simultaneously in a split screen display output to your HD TV using an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S as the host. Play in the comfort of your own home and experience the joy of championship racing with iOS 5.
Could be a good time if you have enough iPhones to go around.
A new iPhone model was announced at Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event, but it was the iPhone 4s instead of the anticipated iPhone 5.
The iPhone 4s has many of the features that people predicted would be in the iPhone 5 but no new design. The iPhone 4S also uses the A5 chip that is inside the iPad 2, which means big advancements for graphics in iPhone games.
Another new feature is Siri:
Phone 4S also introduces Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. Siri understands context allowing you to speak naturally when you ask it questions, for example, if you ask “Will I need an umbrella this weekend?” it understands you are looking for a weather forecast. Siri is also smart about using the personal information you allow it to access, for example, if you tell Siri “Remind me to call Mom when I get home” it can find “Mom” in your address book, or ask Siri “What’s the traffic like around here?” and it can figure out where “here” is based on your current location. Siri helps you make calls, send text messages or email, schedule meetings and reminders, make notes, search the Internet, find local businesses, get directions and more. You can also get answers, find facts and even perform complex calculations just by asking.
A good number of our customers ask about voice control in home automation, so it’ll be interesting to see the response Siri gets.
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