Amazon CEO Patents Airbags for Smartphones

Yes, you read that headline correctly.

We all know that sickly feeling that rises in the pit of the stomach when a precious iPhone falls to the ground. You can’t do anything other than watch helplessly as your expensive piece of hardware hurtles towards the floor.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos knows that feeling all too well, and he’s come up with a rather interesting way of protecting falling devices: the phone airbag…
While you rush off to check the date — no, it’s not April 1st — allow me to explain how this rather wacky patent intends to work.

Most phones these days come equipped with accelerometers which allow the handset to know when it is being moved. The new patent filed by Bezos and his Amazon co-hort, VP Greg Heart, suggests that this accelerometer knows when a phone has been dropped, and tells software to deploy tiny airbags. Those airbags then cushion the phone’s fall.

Apple already uses a similar accelerometer notification system in its Macbook line of notebooks. When one of the machines is dropped, the accelerometer tells the machine to stop the internal hard disk from spinning, helping to reduce the risk of data loss.

Will this new patent eventually find its way into real phones? We somehow doubt it, but you’ve got to give the guy an A+ for effort!

Add a Homepage Button in Mobile Safari with This Tweak

I’ll be the first to admit that Safari’s mobile browser in iOS isn’t the greatest. It’s lacking some serious features that you’ll only find in third-party applications. However, it is the stock browser, and for that reason alone it’s the most popular.

Luckily, the jailbreak community is really good at tweaking stock iOS apps to make up for missing options. Such is the case with this next tweak, which adds a homepage button to the feature-starved browser.
Home Button in Safari is a pretty straightforward utility. It allows you to access a homepage within Mobile Safari. The site can be set in the Settings app, and can accessed from the Share menu in the native browser. The tweak also works with Home Page in Safari.
While I kind of dig the idea of having iDB as my homepage, I’ll probably just end up keeping it bookmarked. If you want to check it out for yourself, Home Button in Safari is available in the Cydia Store for $0.99.

Facebook Fires Back at Google+, Launches New Features for Facebook Games

Yesterday we brought to you a news that Google+ has just gotten its first batch of games which includes popular titles such as Angry Birds and Bejeweled Blitz. It is quite clear that by launching its gaming platform, Google is ready to kick it into high gear with Google+. Not to be outdone, Zuckerberg and Co. unveiled a couple of new features for Facebook games just hours after Google+ games went live. So is this the start of the inevitable social media war?
The first feature announced by Facebook for its gaming platform is called the Game Ticker. This transforms the right-most panel where the Facebook Chat is located into a newsfeed dedicated for your friends' game activity. The Game Ticker will be displaying information such as the games your friends are currently playing as well as the usual achievements, milestones, high scores and so on. Facebook designed Game Ticker with social elements in mind which means that if you click a particular story in your newsfeed, it will take you the game that he or she is playing so you can join and play together. And just like the normal Facebook newsfeed, you should be able to customize what stories will appear in your stream or not.
Aside from Game Ticker, the social networking behemoth also introduced a new expanded screen mode exclusively for games. Ever feel that Facebook's screen space for games are too limited? Well good news for you because with Facebook's new expanded screen mode, you get to have a bigger sized screen for attacking your enemy's empire or harvesting your crops. And then the final addition to Facebook games is the ability to bookmark your favorite games or applications so you can quickly and easily launch them from the newsfeed.

Personally while I think that it is great that Facebook's gaming platform is getting some attention, it seems that these features are rather rushed. Based on the screenshot, Game Ticker isn't all that intuitive and only serves to clutter your screen when you all you want is just to play games. In my opinion it doesn't look that good and can be very distracting. Expanded screen size for games is definitely a positive but its benefits could be offset by Game Ticker.

And what's up with Facebook adding new features, the same day that Google did? It's a good thing that Facebook continues to release new content for its improvement but why so abruptly? Something tells me that this is just the start of the fierce competition between the two social networks. [via Mashable]

Google+ Finally Gets Its First Batch of Games; Angry Birds, Zynga Poker and More

The social media industry just got more interesting as Google announces their new social network called Google+ just a little more than a month ago. The search engine behemoth's new social platform offers a lot of features for your everyday social media aficionado but there's one aspect of social entertainment that hasn't been addressed yet, games. One could argue that one key element of Facebook's success is the huge plethora of games it supports. If you are a Google+ fan and is feeling left out due to the lack of games, you don't have to feel that way anymore. Google is now bringing its first wave of games into Google+.
So what games will Google+ for its first batch? Probably the most notable one is the highly ubiquitous Angry Birds along with other familiar ones that are also found in Facebook like Bejeweled Blitz, Sudoku, Zynga Poker, Dragon Age Legends and many more. All in all for its first wave, Google+ will be getting 16 games in total. According to Vic Gundotra, Google's Senior Vice President of Engineering, rollout of games will be gradual so expect more games to be available soon.
In Google+, you can play games in such an unobtrusive way. You will find the "Games" button at the top of the screen just next to the "Circles" icon. Clicking on the "Games" button will take you to the Games page where you can see all the games available for you to play along with other statistics. This particular feature is not yet available for everyone but Google promises that they working on it.

When you’re ready to play, the Games page is waiting—click the games button at the top of your stream. You can see the latest game updates from your circles, browse the invites you’ve received and check out games that people you know have played recently. The Games page is also where your game accomplishments will appear. So you can comfortably share your latest high score—your circles will only see the updates when they’re interested in playing games too.

If you have been a longtime Facebook user, then you know that one of the annoyances of the social network are the endless wall posts of your friends who loves their games too much. And the only way to make it stop is to manually block each application. In Google+, you  are provided means where you can easily ignore the games if you don't like them. This is because games won't extend their reach beyond the previously mentioned Games page. So you can easily ignore these games without manually blocking them.

For its first step of populating Google+ with games, Google partnered with Zynga, developers of the insanely popular FarmVille and all other Ville-esque games. For now Google is limiting its partners rather than open the platform for everyone. This is one way that Google will be able to ensure that all the games that hits the platform are all high quality. Although they are also encouraging other developers to build games for Google+, just go to the Google+ developer blog.

It still remains to be seen if this particular feature will alienate current users of Google+. But since they are provided with a way to completely ignore the feature, then this should be a non-issue. This is however a good news for those who have been craving to play games on Google+. So will the addition of games in Google+ help maintain the interest of its users? [via OfficialGoogleBlog]

Snoop Dogg and Adidas Team Up to Make this Case for the iPhone 4

Yesterday, it was unofficially announced that rap artist and mega star “Snoop Dogg” had teamed up with Adidas Originals to produce a super-limited iPhone 4 case.

Adidas Global Director of Entertainment & Influencer Marketing dropped the news on Twitter, and Snoop/Adidas fans are sure to rejoice.
“Snoop – puttin this ltd edition #adidas x @SnoopDogg in the mail to you tomorrow”

The tweet also included a picture of the iPhone 4 case featured above.

This case seems to be made of pure wood, with the Adidas Originals logo engraved on the back, and the Snoop Dogg logo just beneath it. At first look, the case looks beautifully crafted , also not forgetting to mention it comes with a wooden case of its own. (That’s right, a case for a case.)

When asked for a copy to review, the Adidas employee replied:

“sorry man super limited…”

What do you think of the case? Does Snoop Dogg love his iPhone so much that he needs his own, hand crafted, personal case? And will we see this case available for sale, or will Snoop keep the luxury all to himself?

Share the iPhone love, Snoop.

Meet iTableous – A Tabletop-Sized iPhone 4

There seems to be one thing that folks can agree on that Apple does exceptionally well: product design. Dating back to the original iMac, Apple products have exuded a gorgeous styling that is instantly identifiable.

Not only have Apple’s creations inspired the competition, they’ve also seemed to invigorate furniture-makers. And while we’ve seen iPhone 4-influenced tables before, we’ve never seen anything like the iTableous…
No, it isn’t a large multi-touch surface for playing life-sized games of Angry Birds. iTableous is actually a large TV set, built to look exactly like a white iPhone 4. Every detail is accurate from the SIM card slot to the antenna markers.

Engadget spotlights this interesting project from Benjamin Bachmeier. The oversized gadget contains a custom built computer with 4GB of RAM, a 500GB internal hard drive and runs Mac OS. Oh yeah, and the 5 MP camera actually works, and records in 720P video.
The coolest part about the iTableous has to be the fact that it rotates to act as a big screen TV. As you can can see in the video, Bachmeier has a PS3 hooked up, as well as a wireless mouse and keyboard.
While the iTableous might be a dream gadget for Apple fans, it’s not quite ready for production yet. Is there really a market for something like this? Or is it more or less a cool piece of art?

iPhone Owners More Ad-Happy Than Android Users

It’s always fun to compare iPhone and Android smartphone users across a variety of different metrics, though for the life of me I can’t quite work out why. Is it because we’re all pre-programmed to initiate competition in just about anything, or is it because we iPhone users possess a slight air of superiority?

No matter the reason, we have a new set of statistics, this time comparing the regularity with with the two camps and those mobile ads we all know and love…

The new stats come courtesy of ad company Jumpstart, who discovered that iPhone users are indeed more likely to tap ads than their Android-toting counterparts, and by some margin.

The stats break down thus: with the industry standard click-through rate of 0.52%, iPhone users come in considerably higher, at 0.78%, while Android owners are just below the average, at 0.47%.

The competition, BlackBerry, Symbian and WebOS all also lag behind the iOS platform, according to the graph above.

Jumpstart believes that the iPhone’s consistent user experience and the improved browsing account for the higher percentage, though it could just be that we iPhone owners are just so susceptible to a good ad!

Why do you think iPhone owners tap more ads than Android fans?

Weird iOS Glitches Allow You to Fake FaceTime Calls and More

Apple’s iOS platform is considered to be one of the safest mobile operating systems in the industry. A major reason for that is how strict Steve Jobs and company have been with their mobile ecosystem.

There’s very few bugs or glitches in iOS, and ones that are found get patched fairly quickly. That being said,  JailbreakMe 3 creator Comex tweeted a couple of interesting links yesterday that make iOS do some weird  stuff when accessed through Mobile Safari…
The first URL, facetime-accept://*, launches a fake FaceTime call when accessed from a FaceTime-compatible device. The cool part is that you can customize the caller by replacing the * with whatever name you want to show up. “Excuse me, I have to take this. It’s my duck Waffles.”
The other link, tellock://, will instantly force an iDevice to its lock screen — well, sort of. The weird thing about it is you can exit the “lock screen” by simply pressing the home button. Though the 2 glitches aren’t much more than novelties, they may provide you with a few moments of entertainment.

Were you able to get the links to work? Thoughts?

iWindows: A Simple Windows 7 Simulator for Your iPhone

A lot of folks jailbreak their iDevices to add functionality to iOS. Maybe they do it to download SBSettings to access toggles quicker, or to install Xpander to save time typing. For the most part, though, people tend to jailbreak for productive reasons.

But Cydia also has a lot of non-productive apps. Not just games, but entertainment-type apps that are more likely to be used in a round of “look what my phone can do,” rather than actually used. Now that I’ve preempted what category this one falls into, here’s iWindows…
If you’ve ever wanted the Windows 7 experience on your iDevice (for some reason), this is probably your best bet. iWindows is a simple Windows 7 simulator that turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a virtual version of Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system.

Don’t mistake iWindows for a theme or a skin, it’s an application. Once launched, you are taken to a full screen app that resembles the Windows 7 desktop. From there you can launch a working (although limited) web browser, or a barebones text editor named NotePad.
Those are currently the only 2 functions available, but the developer promises to quickly add more features. Although this isn’t something I’ll be keeping around, I’m sure there are Windows fans who’ll find it entertaining. iWindows is available in Cydia, in the default repos, for free.

Have you tried iWindows? What do you think?