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Apple May Soon Let You Talk to the Hand

Apple's supply chain has clearly sprung a leak since Steve Jobs' passing: Every few months, it seems, a rumor or report from unnamed sources at this or that supplier makes the rounds. The current rumor is that Apple is hard at work at its next innovation -- and it's not a television set or a smart remote control. Instead, it is a watch.

The crux of the report is this: Intel has teamed up with Apple to build a Bluetooth-enabled iOS watch that sports a 1.5-inch screen from which users can make calls. The news was first reported in the Asian tech press. U.S. publications including Mobilegeek and TheNextWeb translated the reports and unearthed the details.

Apple did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

The Pebble Example

Certainly the demand for smartwatches is there, said Rob Walch, host of Today in iOS, pointing to Pebble's success on Kickstarter earlier this year.
Indeed, Walch expected Apple to announce a smartwatch in September, he told MacNewsWorld. Instead the company rolled out its upgraded iPod nano with a 2.5-inch multitouch screen.
Eventually, Apple will make a play with a smartwatch, he maintained, although the timing is less than clear.
"I guess it is like those people who keep predicting Apple will launch a smart TV. Sooner or later it will -- and if you keep on saying it, you will be eventually right," Walch said.

Something Is in the Works

Apple is clearly at work on something along these lines, Daniel M. Ladik, an associate professor of marketing at Seton Hall University, told MacNewsWorld. Whether it is a smartwatch or an Apple TV -- or possibly both -- remains to be seen, of course.
However, it's likely that the world will know sooner rather than later what Apple has up its sleeve, he said.
"Think about the state of Apple at the moment," continued Ladik. "Eighty-five percent of their sales in the latest quarter are from products they released in the last 12 months. When you think of the total revenue of a company the size of Apple, that has to be a record of some sort."
Also, Apple has changed its normal innovation cycle, he pointed out. The latest iPad arrived with the iPhone 5 in October -- with only six months between update cycles -- and the iPad mini came in November.
"Something new has to be happening in 2013," Ladik said. "There is no other reason to push a new iPad out that fast, as well as release the new mini iPad all within the same four-to-six-week window of iPhone 5."
It could be an Apple TV, but a smartwatch is not out of the question, he added. "Wearable computing is a hot trend, and Apple cannot let Google have all the fun with Google glasses, right?"

Ruminations on Functionality

Perhaps the most interesting question is what kind of functionality this alleged smartwatch would offer. The gadget could be little more than a Bluetooth accessory, displaying essential bits of data such as email or incoming phone calls for the user's quick reference, Walch suggested.
Or it could be a more elaborate play on Apple's part, offered Ladik. Users could speak to a Siri-powered smartwatch to access such content as music, stock information, a calculator and so on. Down the road, Apple could develop a whole new market for mini apps for a watch.
"I'm not sure what the price point will be for an Apple watch," he said, "but it has to be cheaper than what Google is suggesting its glasses might price at."

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NASA Shares Earth's Nighttime Glamour Shots.

NASA released a composite photo of the entire planet Earth, cloudless, at night, which it's calling the "Black Marble." Aside from a source of pretty images, the data set collected will give researchers lots of fodder to study humanity. "It's a breakthrough for us," Erle C. Ellis, associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "The nighttime products we have are pretty poor quality compared to this."

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In 1972, we marveled at the beauty of our planet in a photo taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on its way to the moon. Dubbed the "Blue Marble," the iconic image depicted a blue-and-white globe floating in the blackness of space. On Thursday, we were treated to a different view of Island Earth, one with the undeniable stamp of humanity on it.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) unveiled what's being called the "Black Marble" -- high-resolution photos taken of the dark side of the earth. That planet differs from the one captured by the camera of the astronauts because it shows how the human race transforms the earth by illuminating it at night. The NASA-NOAA photo was also more difficult to create than the one snapped by the astronauts. The photo and an accompanying animation are composites from data gathered by a satellite operated by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership over nine days in April and 13 days in October.
The photos are available for viewing and download at NASA's Earth at Night 2012 page.
To get a clear shot of every parcel of land on the planet's surface, the satellite had to circle the earth 312 times and collect 2.5TB of data.

Clouds Get In The Way

Composite photography is used to create a cloud-free view of the Earth, explained Chris Elvidge, a physical scientist at the NOAA who has been studying day-night band data for more than 20 years.
"There are always clouds in any image that you collect over the earth. There are very few areas that are cloud-free," he told TechNewsWorld. "We have a cloud detection algorithm, and we combined that with low-light imaging so over time we can accumulate enough cloud-free images to make a seamless mosaic that is a cloud-free view of the Earth at night," he observed.
Elvidge's group has been working on producing night photos of the Earth since 1994, but the tools used to create this latest batch of night images have allowed the scientists to hugely improve on past efforts with better spatial resolution and dynamic range.
The new instrumentation is so sensitive that it will detect terrain features on nights where there is no moonlight present, Elvidge explained. Because the new tools are an order of magnitude stronger than the old ones, they're detecting terrain illuminated by "sky glow."

Humanity's Footprint

Sky glow is created by a chemical reaction in the upper atmosphere that's faintly visible at night. "Sky glow is much, much dimmer than moonlight," Elvidge said. "How to filter out features lit by sky glow will be one of our biggest challenges as we go forward to improve our products."
The military has been taking photos of the Earth at night for some time now, but this is the first time this quality of data has been available to civilians, according to Steve Miller, a senior research scientist and deputy director at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University.
Nighttime photos offer a wealth of information unavailable in photos taken during daylight hours.
"What we're seeing here is the human footprint on the nighttime side," he told TechNewsWorld. "We're seeing centers of population. We're seeing how these areas correlate to economic activity, fossil fuel emissions, light pollution and emerging demographics."
In daylilght, "there are only a few things in terms of man-made items that you can bring out," he said. "We can see quite a bit more in terms of human activity at night."

Research Avenues Opened

When NASA releases the data behind the Black Marble photos, it will be a boon for researchers, according to Erle C. Ellis, associate professor for geography and environmental systems at the 00000University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

The United States at night

(click image to enlarge)

"It's a breakthrough for us," he told TechNewsWorld. "The nighttime products we have are pretty poor quality compared to this new one. There's no real way to observe human activity from space. You can only see secondary effects. For example, if a forest disappears, you don't know if someone cut it down or it burned down."
Because the data behind these photos is of a higher quality than has been available in the past, it will be easier to unravel the sources of light in the photos, he added. That will create a mine of riches for researchers.
"You can bet they'll be a lot of research projects built on this," he said.

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All Things Appy: Top 5 Android Shopping Tools.

By Patrick Nelson
TechNewsWorld
12/01/12 5:00 AM PT

Scan barcodes from your groceries and pantry items. Fivefly's Shopping List app then provides a master list with check boxes, and you simply check a box when you've replenished supplies. Simple. TechNewsWorld thinks this checkmark system is superior to apps that make you scan or enter the product label text each time.

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Welcome to All Things Appy -- TechNewsWorld's analysis of the best apps proliferating on our devices today.

Indicative of the superiority of portable geo-friendly apps over Web search and Web browsing is the Shopping genre.
Here are TechNewsWorld's suggestions for the top five store-agnostic free killer tools on the Android platform.
About the Platform
Google's Android OS is a mobile environment geared toward multitouch. Apps can be downloaded from the Google Play store.
From the device's app drawer, click on the Play icon. Then perform a search for the desired app.
No. 1: Barcode Scanner

The Zxing Team's Barcode Scanner boasts 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 installs, according to Google Play. It has an average rating of 4.2 out of a possible five from 305,129 reviewers.

Keep things simple with Barcode Scanner.
Scan the product barcode wandering the aisles and read up on the product via a Google Web search or Google's shopping Web pages.
That's it.
It's super useful when showrooming, in-store browsing, price-matching, or looking for independent reviews and specifications.
Barcode Scanner is No. 1 on our list because it's the fastest way to gather product intelligence, and it provides something previously unattainable.
No. 2: Shopping List

Shopping List from Fivefly is a shopping list manager with 500,000 to 1,000,000 installs, according to the Google Play store. It has a 4.3 average rating out of a possible five from 7,448 reviewers.

Scan barcodes from your groceries and pantry items. Fivefly's Shopping List app then provides a master list with check boxes, and you simply check a box when you've replenished supplies. Simple.
TechNewsWorld thinks this checkmark system is superior to shopping list apps that make you scan or enter the product label text each time.
Shopping List also features sharing and syncing, so family members don't duplicate purchases.
It's No. 2 on our list because it provides syncing and paperless efficiency.
No. 3: Coupons & Shopping -- GeoQponsShopping List

Coupons & Shopping -- GeoQpons is a coupon aggregator from publisher Most Useful Shopping App with 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 installs, according to the Google Play store. It has an average 4.4 rating out of a possible five from 6,655 reviewers.

GeoQpons is a highly comprehensive selection of retail and restaurant coupon links, as well as weekend newspaper-style specials ads. Don't go pounding the sidewalk locally without checking this app.
It contains many of the classic ads and coupons that clutter up our snail mail boxes and newspapers -- but with the advantage of app-driven favorite store alerts, search and geo-functions.
It's No. 3 on our list because this app saves you cash. However, be aware that some of the ads may need printing out.
No. 4: ShopSavvy Barcode Scanner
ShopSavvy Barcode Scanner from publisher ShopSavvy boasts 10,000,000 to 50,000,000 installs according to Google Play. It has an average rating of 4.2 out of a possible five from 89,590 reviewers.

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