Following Matt Cutts’s tweet I am now writing my blog post using the CrossOver Chromium browser which is a Mac and Linux port of the open source Chromium web browser. Google Chrome (Windows-only so far) is built with open source code from Chromium that means I have now a functional Google Chrome clone under Leopard on my MacBook. This is almost the same experience just like 2 weeks ago. I can use the omnibox, the new home tab and the very clever tab arhictecture amongst others but first of all the browser is now more or less integrated into my customized OS X environment and that is a big advantage. There are of course, inconveniences like crashes and problems with the shortcuts due to the Windows – Mac crossover solutions (which can be modestly modified with Preferences).
The title question is my million (not billion yet) dollar question for this year. Arthur Levinson is a board member of Google (Apple too) and in his leftover time he is the CEO of the most successful biotech company so far, that’s Genentech. I would be curious to hear about his biotech-related activity as a G board member from my readers even in the form of guesses. Maybe he is teaching biotech classes to Googlers after both Genentech’s and Google’s investment into 23andMe or just sitting around sometimes at the nice cafeterias at the Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View and explaining knockout technology to coders.
According to the Wikipedia approved rumor by the AT&T boss: “A new version of Apple’s iPhone will be introduced in 2008 that is capable of operating on faster 3G cellular networks.” Besides the 3G support I have some other expectations (at least 6 should be satisfied) too in order to become a next generation iPhone upgrader:
hardware:
- built in RFID reader/writer: because I’d like to buy and order without standing in line. Also a bit experimental RFID hacking with things around me, like opening the hotel room with a cream cheese box must be fun. (I would wire the RFID modul in the place of the Bluetooth modul on the motherboard) see: Will the Apple iPhone be RFID powered?
- video out to use the iPhone with projectors: giving presentations on science conferences and seminars with my SciPhone and watching movies back at home with my wife.
- GPS (although I am quite satisfied with the Google Maps Mobile): in the car and on the bike.
So far science videos on the iPhone were restricted to YouTube and subscribed, previously downloaded science-related vlogs on iTunes due to the lack of Flash, Windows Media Player, etc. support. But now with a new web app called vTap a bigger range of (science) videos are available and can now be played in the iPhone’s native QuickTime player in a good quality (screenshots made on a MacBook, the iPhone view is different.) I wonder when can we watch say JoVE or SciVee videos on the iPhone…
From the iPhone Atlas: Dubbed “vtap,” the service lets you search for videos from around the Internet, then — get this — encodes them on the fly and puts them in a format that can be played on the iPhone (H.264). vtap searches YouTube, MySpace, Dailymotion, news sites like the Associated Press and Reuters, even ESPN.
I’ve activated my iPhone in a prepaid mode exactly for the reason of being flexible and switch to another network provider ASAP. So I do not have a 2 year contract with AT&T and I am happy to say that. The AT&T network and coverage is almost non exisiting in the 2 crucial places of my current life in New Orleans, United States: a., at home and b., at work. At home I must go to the street if I want to make a valid phone call with my iPhone, at work I must go to a special corridor at the edge of the building for the same reason. Next week I am going to England and it would be good to use my iPhone as a phone there. Nevertheless my iPhone is an integrated, hacked and essential part of my life. So what shall I do? Well, there are options it seems.
Something really new and interesting is happening, please read the links:
In our lab there are seminars almost every day, and I started to use my iPhone’s Notes function to record some information and thoughts I found interesting during the seminars. I am really not experienced in typing the iPhone keyboard yet so here are my first 2 trials first as screenshots and then the texts themselves. Problem: in order to use the Notes texts in a normal text editor you have to send it to yourself as an email attachment.
I like Google and Apple products, but my expectations are focusing on how these products can help and facilitate me as a scientist, especially as a biomedical research scientist. With the Science on the iPhone test series I’d like to examine in details how proper and user friendly is the iPhone as an ultimate portable, mobile, convergent handheld gadget (or at least the first version of that line) for scientific purposes based on real experience. Briefly: can we use it as a SciPhone?
Amongst others I’ll concentrate on the following: the passive, science consuming opportunities like text reading, photo, presentation and science video watching and the active, science-making issues like writing texts, making photos and giving presentations.
Also I’d like to take a look on how the iPhone fits into the frame of the present scientific web, and how good is for scientific communication. (Photo: my bench this afternoon.) Read the rest of this entry »
Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Joshua Mason, members of the software security team at Independent Security Evaluators had discovered a vulnerability within two weeks of part time work and “developed a toolchain for working with the iPhone’s architecture (which also includes some tools from the #iphone-dev community), and created a proof-of-concept exploit capable of delivering files from the user’s iPhone to a remote attacker. The exploit is delivered via a malicious web page opened in the Safari browser on the iPhone.” Delivery vectors of the attack could be: an attacker controlled wireless access point, a misconfigured forum website, a link delivered via e-mail or SMS.
The professionals suggest 3 practices to diminish the iPhone’s vulnerability:
On Friday we went to a Harry Potter Midnight Magic party at the Uptown Tulane Campus. There I met Noah from Michigan, who was videoskyping on his MacBook Pro with his brother in Los Angeles. Our 3 minutes talk was an excellent exemplar of what I call “fast networking”: Facebook confirmation, iPhone presentation, blog introduction, useful information exchange. When leaving I took a shot of Noah scanning Pimm’s Architecture of the scientific web post (see second picture). Without the gadgets we might not have started to talk.
The 2 main drawbacks to reading PDFs on the iPhone are the must-send-it in email in order to store and open “solution” and the user-unfriendly, landscapeless left-right scrolling reading mode. Not anymore. Both problems can easily be overcome with the help of a Safari browser hack using the almost forgotten data: URI schemes. From now on you can store and open your PDF files (and many others) in the iPhone’s Safari browser even in the Wi-Fi- and EDGE-less airplane mode and you can read PDFs in a landscape mode with only 1 one pich (that fits a column) and significantly less left-right scrolling in a much more satisfying, although not yet perfectly manner.
Here I show you in 4 steps how to do so.
1. Convert your source PDF file (by encoding an uploaded file from your folders or from URL) to a valid data: URI format with the help of a converter. I used the online The data: URI kitchen encoder but others are available too, you can even use a Perl script (and run it with Terminal under Mac OS X, thanks Mike). This will generate a very long and ugly URI line. (Sample PDF: Proposition 71 of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine)
2. Copy/paste the long and ugly URI code into Safari and add it to your Bookmark Bar.
3. Sync your iPhone’s bookmarks with your Mac’s Safari bookmarks via iTunes, with that you can create a direct link for the PDF on your iPhone’s Safari bookmarks.
4. You’re ready, open the PDF file from the bookmarks and read it with a 1 pich landscape mode.
Just the mainstream actors of my niche STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. I am not too experimental when it is about new podcasts without any recommendations based on simply trial and error, although it is not the best attitude. I hope this attitude will change due to heavy iPhone usage as the time distributed to podcasts is increasing.
As in the case of my old iPod, I’d like to use myPhone to access the scientific world and web from everywhere, not just as a tool of coolness. (Warning: Macbook shots, bad quality pictures on a good quality experience).
I just got back to my Uptown New Orleans apartment from the 5300 Tchoupitoulas St. Cingular store, where I was unable to buy the last 4 gig iPhone. Why? I do not have an American social security number yet as I’ve just arrived to the States 2 weeks ago and applied for the SSN last week and it takes about 30 days (don’t ask me why) to get one. And without an SSN you are nothing in the United States of America in the eye of an administrative person, or for a Cingular shop assistant. From the web it seemed to me, that an SSN is not compulsory for an iPhone, and as good capitalitsts Apple and Cingular only care about my money. But there are deeper considerations here.
So I had been there at the store at around 5.45 PM. and I was the 42nd in the line. Rumor was that only 40 iPhone had been shipped to that store and the rumor turned true. Read the rest of this entry »
News: “Both Jobs and Gates are slated to jointly discuss the digital revolution’s history and future at The Wall Street Journal’sD: All Things Digital conference on Wednesday.”
Comment: Instead of Mr. Gates I’d be eager to see those 2 guys on the right discussing the future of all things digital (especially the future of biotech and biodata) jointly with Jobs on the same stage.
Google Desktop Beta search for the Mac is now downloadable, which is a viable alternative to the built-in Spotlight for searching any files on OS X with gmail, web integration. You can reach it from a widget-like app (left) or from the Firefox browser as a tab (right). It made my life easier since I am not adapted well to Finder and Spotlight.
1 hour ago a new battery moved into my old first generation MacBook, and it’s now in Cycle One. I replaced the old guy (10 months old), because its Current Battery Capacity was constantly under 80% comparing to the Original Battery Capacity measured by mAH (Milliamp Hours) and worse the whole OS X was shut down (49 times out of 50) at around 30% Current Battery Charge when AC power is off. I was told, that when the Capacity of a MacBook battery under 400 complete load Cycle is constantly under 80% of the initial state, then it must be replaced by the manufacturer. Left are some saved data measured with battery information app Coconut Battery. You can also check the status of your Battery, the Full Charge Capacity (=Current Battery Capacity) from the OS X System Profiler, right is a screen on the new guy with a 97% (=5094mAh). From now on I’ll publish here the inner life of my MacBook sometimes, because it deserves the publicity due to the interest of Mac Users.
I am just right now in the the wonderful Apple Store in New York City. Earlier I took my girlfriend, Anna (left, bottom) for a little video Skype tour to the place and she shot this picture. Unfortunately we did not install yet the code with which high-quality video calls are enabled through Skype with iSight.
Read this nice and brand conscious weekend off story on Official Google Mac Blog. Scott Knaster, Mac Team Technical Writer at Google organized a trip for a “gang of new Mac fans at Google“ from Mountain View to Apple headquarters, Cupertino. At the Caffe Macsthey were eating a Google-like terrific food, but not for free, when suddenly “we noticed a slight disturbance in the room, as if all the air had rushed to a single place, over by the salad bar. As you have probably guessed, it was Apple CEO Steve Jobs, grabbing some lunch with Jonathan Ive, Apple’s industrial design guru. As the two moved across the room, there was no great commotion — after all, this probably happens just about every day at Apple — but our Google group and many other folks stopped eating long enough to follow the two rock stars around the room for awhile.” Sounds like a sitting ovation.
Anyway, it would be good to know the ratio of Mac-Windows-Linux users at Google. Guess what? I think Sergey Brin is using a Mac.
I don’t know what happened to me today, but I am constantly repeating in myself one of the first sentences of the Steve Jobs iPhone Keynote: “Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything”. Is this some delayed, and programmed effect leading to verbal addiction that attacks the sensitive minds? Are there any human experiments in Cupertino under progress? Hope tomorrow I’ll be alright and be back to my average biotech days. I had a big presentation today from my Cambridge experimental experience, maybe that’s why I am tempted to…
There was a nifty product introduced in this week’s Macworld at Frisco: the Pen-it® NOTES. It is a digital pen that converts hand-written analogue information created using “pen and paper” into digital data, enabling the data to be utilised in various applications. When you used the pen on a special patterned and dotted notebook, the pen transfers the information via Bluetooth to the Mac in vector data form for further editing. I am looking forward to a world where lab protocols and records are instantly made digitally with an application like Pen-it. For that a bigger protocol format (A-4 not A-5) is needed.
Now we are after the Steve Jobs Keynote introducing the iPhone at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. I don’t know if the iPhone line will be the ultimate portable digital device everybody is dreaming about, but I do know, that when partial immortalization as a technology will be first introduced it will be by definition the ultimate one concerning the end result, an adult human being indefinitely fixed by continuous regeneration treatment in a constant physiological age. Of course the technology will be under perpetual improvement, but this end goal never changes, preventing and fixing all the aging related bugs, set the overall cellular turnover. This is the deepest PR problem of any healthy maximum life extension technology: even if it has worked on a human being, ie. there is a man, whose all organ and tissue were regenerated at least one time via systemic regmed, even if it is the case how do you present it to the public??? Because all they will see is a healthy adult human being standing on the stage and appears to be in a common chronological age, say 40.
So Ladies and Gentleman, let me show you how iPimm or indefinite partial immortalization works on one man….
All the apps you need are integrated into one complete regeneration treatment completed in every 25 years, for example a new tissue engineered liver and kidney made from the artificial protein scaffold XYZ and predifferentiated amniotic stem cells with the revolutionary iVitro technology:
Incredible and supercool, the first immortalized man ever and as easy to make another leg module with the 3D live printer as make a steak. You can upgrade and gradually replace your cerebellum with 150 million hematopoietic turned neural stem cells just within half year with the iBrain drag and drop transplantation technology. Read the rest of this entry »
I borrowed a Mindstorms NXT complete 8527 kit for 1 month from one of my friends so there was a little gadget gathering today at my girlfriend’s apartment. Currently Intel Macs do not support the computer to NXT Bluetooth ability so it is a chance for my old iBook to get involved. Photo by Anna.
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I am not too experimental when it is about new podcasts without any recommendations based on simply trial and error, although it is not the best attitude. I hope this attitude will change due to heavy iPhone usage as the time distributed to podcasts is increasing. 
1 hour ago a new battery moved into my old first generation MacBook, and it’s no
w in Cycle One. I replaced the old guy (10 months old), because its Current Battery Capacity was constantly under 80% comparing to the Original Battery Capacity measured by mAH (
