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).
Dear readers, it is not so easy to write an interesting post with a one day old iPhone. Let me give you just one link manually this time: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114290609/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
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)
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. 
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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. 
