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Turn iPhone into a Number keypad for your Mac

James Kendrick — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:38:08 +0000

The best utilities are often those that do just one thing but do it very well. That’s the premise behind Numberkey for the iPhone that turns your phone into a wireless 10-key numberpad for your Mac. That’s it, that’s all it does but let me tell you it does it very, very well indeed. You download and install the Mac utility on the system you wish to augment with Numberkey and do the same for the iPhone version which will set you back a cool $1.99. You fire up Numberkey on the iPhone and then on the Mac and bingo, you now have a skinnable 10-key for your Mac. I have been playing with this for a while and it is simply brilliant in its function and the utility it provides. Well done all around and highly recommended if you need a 10-key.

(via Gizmodo)

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Google Voice Search: not just web search but Contacts too

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:17:18 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/v/y3z7Tw1K17A&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1

News broke last week that Google would be adding voice search capabilities to the iPhone and the app is now appearing in the iTunes AppStore. I gave it a download earlier this morning but want to clarify one bit. The application isn’t a standalone app that solely provides voice search capabilities. You’ll want to download the Google Mobile App, which is the suite of Google Apps that includes: Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Talk, Reader, GOOG-411, News, Notebook, Photos, orkut, Translate, Maps, YouTube, and Google Earth.

I tested around a dozen voice searches with the app and came away pretty impressed in terms of usage and accuracy.

There’s no need to press a button to initiate the voice search asthe app can be configured to use the iPhone’s motion sensor to initiatelistening. It’s the same sensor that turns the display off when you’reon a call so that you don’t accidentally disconnect a call using yourcheek. You just hold up the phone and once the motion sensor detectsyour face, you’ll hear a beep. Speak your search and that’s it.Although I think the use of the motion sensor is clever, you do have tohave the application running… which means that in a sense, you dohave to press a button to get things going.

Regardless of that limitation, it’s a great implementation of voicesearch. I usually search for our site as a test simply because"jkontherun" isn’t a common word and voice engines usally turn it intosomething funky like "salmon run" or "chickamuaga" for some reason.Google’s voice search didn’t fare all that much better until I sloweddown my speech ever so slightly. When I did that, it returned "jk onthe run" in the search box and of course returned the proper searchresults.

Once a search is returned, you can interact with the results as you would normally. If you press the little magnifying glass icon next to the search term, you get options for where to search: iPhone and Web, Maps, Images, News, Shopping, and Wikipedia.

The iPhone and Web option caught my attention simply because it’s not just "Web". It looks like there is or will be some way to search your iPhone for data. In fact, in the configuration settings under Searchable Items, I see an option for Contacts, but I never received any contact results when searching for someone by name. At first, I though that Contacts refers to Google Contacts and not local iPhone contacts, but Google says that it’s searching your address book. I take that to mean my local address book.

Since a voice search didn’t work for any contacts, I began to type "James Kendrick". The app’s auto-suggest started to populate results with contacts on my phone and even shows an icon to tell me that these are contact results and not web results.

All in all, pretty nifty and if you allow the app to use yourlocation, it provides localized search results when it can using the My Location feature. Note thatin the settings you can turn screen rotation on, but it’s set to off bydefault. Setting it to an "on" position disables the motion sensingused for voice search. Google has made this to be slick and effective tool. And it’s free.

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Android phone opens garage door when owner (and phone) come home

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:51:22 +0000

And this my friends, is the sweetness that comes with a more open platform: cool hackery! I wouldn’t have the programming chops to pull this off, but Brad Fitzpatrick has his G1 handset automatically open the garage door at his house whenever he comes home. Since his phone knows all about his home WiFi network, the device recognizes when Brad gets home and shoots an HTTP request to a webserver that controls his garage door. Brad can either start his application manually on the ride home or simply have the Android handset sniff around for his home network every few seconds.

The source code is available so if you have a G1 and webserver that controls your garage door, you’re in business! I’ve been looking into home automation for a bit now and I’d love to have some type of "proximity detector" on my phone for things like this. You know… something that starts the coffee when I come downstairs in the morning. Maybe have the stereo start up to my favorite tunes when I sit in my comfy chair. Something to put the seat down when I leave the…uh… well, you know… everyday kind of things. ;)

(via Hackszine)

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A 3G USB modem as small as a WiFi adapter: VZW USB760

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:29:03 +0000

If I wanted to shave a half-inch and some weight from my USB727 3G adapter, I’d say the USB760 would be a strong contender. Verizon Wireless will be offering this diminutive EV-DO adapter in about two weeks: customers can find them in stores starting on December 1. What jumped out at me is how small this adapter really is. It reminds me of WiFi adapters in terms of size and weight since it measures in at 2.24" x 1" and weights less than an ounce. It’s not enough of a difference from my current adapter to upgrade, but new customers wanting a small 3G adapter should give this a look.

Like the USB727 I use today, the new USB760 includes a microSD slot that supports cards up to 8GB in capacity. I find that this slot comes in handy when pairing the USB adapter with a netbook or other device that has a card reader, but doesn’t natively support the small microSD cards without some type of adapter. The device also includes the drivers and software for both Windows PCs and Macs running OS X, so you don’t need to carry around an installation CD.

The USB760 will set you back $99 from Verizon Wireless after rebate and with a qualifying data plan commitment. I’d be extremely curious how a 3G adapter this small captures a signal… the smaller these get, the better the antenna likely needs to be.

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Mouse Gesture app launcher, free today only. Good for Tablet PCs?

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:47:07 +0000

Giveaway of the Day is featuring a Windows application launcher today and normally, I’d skip this type of utility over. What caught my eye though is that the software brings up your customized application list through a mouse gesture. I presume it would work with a Tablet PC and pen and/or a quick touch gesture on a touchscreen device as well. It looks simple to use and it’s free today only so if you need a diversion as we start the work-week, this could be a good one for a few minutes. You’ll need a Windows XP or Vista machine for the 6.21MB download.

Here’s how the Mouse Gesture Application Launcher works: you record a mouse gesture in the application. Any time you replicate that gesture on your desktop, an application launcher with up to ten of your program or folder shortcuts appears and you just tap or click on what you need. Sure you could just put the shortcuts on your Desktop, but who likes a cluttered Desktop? Besides, this makes for a good party-trick and conversation starter. ;)

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Recently on jkOnTheRun

James Kendrick — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:20:15 +0000

Road trip! That started the week where we saw a lot of tech news that was exciting. Here are the top stories on jkOnTheRun in case you missed them:

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AMD to enter netbook market

James Kendrick — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:17:16 +0000

I attended an online press briefing this morning where senior management of AMD outlined their strategy going forward. Mobile nut that I am I was especially looking for news about their mobile computing intentions and in spite of stating in the past that they had no aims on the netbook market they do indeed plan to enter it. Their netbook processing chipset, code-named Yukon, will be introduced in the first half of 2009. What is a bit confusing is that the power footprint they quoted for the Yukon is 25 W TDP. When you consider that the competing Intel Atom has a 2.5 W TDP you wonder how this will work exactly. The Yukon offering combines both the CPU and the graphics and that contributes to the high power requirements but even if you combine the Atom requirements with that of Intel’s 945 chipset you only get 8.5 W. Expect more information as it becomes available down the road.

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Dell offers $100 instant rebate on Palm Treo Pro in U.S.

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:43:22 +0000

Some Black Friday deals are already trickling out on netbooks and we’re hearing that Apple will continue their tradition of holiday discounts as well. [I'll need someone to hide the car keys or I just might end up with a new MacBook.] If you can’t wait until late November for a deal and you’re considering a Palm Treo Pro smartphone you’ll want to hit up… Dell?!? Yup, that’s right, Dell.

The computer retailer is long-known for selling non-PC products ranging from overpriced UMPCs to HDTVs and they’ve got a deal on the unlocked Palm Treo Pro, which normally sets you back $550. Treonauts caught word of a $100 discount code, which gets you Palm’s newest GSM smartphone for $449.99, which includes a free 3-5 day shipping option. Here’s the catch: it looks to be U.S. only and you can’t wait until Black Friday for this deal as it expires next Wednesday, November the 19th.

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Microsoft increases SkyDrive to 25GB of free cloud

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:01:44 +0000

It’s been interesting to watch Windows Live SkyDrive mature in terms of capacity. When Live Folders was revamped as SkyDrive last August, Microsoft was willing to dole out 500MB of online storage. February of this year brought expanded availability to 35 countries and upped the ante to 5GB. Now, Redmond is going all-in with 25GB of free storage, not to mention some new features. Although I have a SkyDrive account, my usage of it has been minimal since there are so many competiting storage and synchronization services, with most offering far more capacity.

The SkyDrive team promises more to come in terms of functionality, but there’s some useful tidbits in the most recent offering, especially for digital photographers:

Larger photo thumbnails for those of us with big thumbs. I kid… the photo sizes are increased.
A web-based slideshow function that works on "any browser" but is optimized on machines with Silverlight installed. I didn’t test the any browser claim… but I’d expect this to function fine on IE, Firefox, Opera, and Safari at a minimum. Previously SkyDrive worked on PCs and Macs with IE 6/7 or Firefox 1.5 and up.
You can tag people in your photos, something I didn’t enjoy doing until I started to use the function on Facebook. Makes it easy to find friends in pics.

There are additional features in the new release of SkyDrive as well, some geared toward data control. You can now move and copy files between folders and there’s a handy download as .ZIP file feature. SkyDrive might not be as advanced as some other services out there, but it’s worth a look, especially with the expanded capacity. I’m hoping that Microsoft gets SkyDrive pulled in to Live Mesh or at least starts blending similar services together and some seamless storage and playback of media files would be useful on a netbook in my opinion. For the moment though, with so many similar but not quite the same services, there’s still too many clouds overlapping in Redmond.

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ARM to enter netbook fray

James Kendrick — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Intel has been coasting along fat and happy in the current netbook craze, pumping out as many Atom processors as they can. It’s not been enough though given their recent financial picture and things may get a bit rockier for the chipmaker as rival ARM has told Laptop Magazine they intend to enter the netbook market. ARM processors have long been used in smartphones and PDAs so the netbook segment is not that big a stretch for them. They plan to have a version of Ubuntu optimized to work with their chips and hit the market next year.

ARM chips are very low power consumers so we could see a netbook with a near all-day battery life which just might get some folks excited. We’ll have to wait and see how much an ARM-based netbook would cost compared to Intel powered ones as current netbook prices are already about as low as they can go and maintain full computing capabilites.

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