Hot on the heels of the iPhone 4S officially being revealed barely two days ago, Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, has died. He was 56 and had spent over half a decade battling a rare form of Pancreatic cancer.  Say what you will about the man, but there is no denying the impact the products his company created have on the PC, mobile, and MP3 player market – aside from the rest of the world. With all the amazing thoughts and creations he has injected in to our world over his career, the world is going to be a far less colorful place without him.

R.I.P Steve Jobs, you will be missed.

VIA Apple, MSN, the world.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

With all things considered last year was a big shock to iPod Nano fans due to the complete redesign Apple threw at it and this year it would appear that Apple is sticking to its guns with the last year design, with a leaked iPod Nano part (or chassis) being leaked online.

Most notable about this image above is that the part clearly has a camera cut out, which would lead one to presume that Apple may be considering including a camera within the next generation portable, reverting back from the prior generation which in fact included a camera anyway.

Having a camera in a device so small is a feature which I personally am not looking forward to using, and I would expect it to be clumsy.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Apple has just released their brand spanking new iOS software update for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, bringing with it a number of bug fixes and new features to your beloved Apple logo encrusted device, the most exciting of which (for us, obviously) being a new Safari Javascript which boosts performance considerably and new AirPlay features so you can use your all in one printer from anywhere.

So what are the ‘hard’ features this update brings to the table? I’ve provided the exact ones below for you guys:

• Personal Hotspot*
  Share iPhone 4 cellular data connection with up to 5 devices (combination of up to 3 Wi-Fi, 3 Bluetooth, and 1 USB)
• iTunes Home Sharing
  Play music, movies and TV shows from a shared iTunes library on a Mac or PC (requires iTunes 10.2)
• New AirPlay features**
  Play videos from the Photos app including the Camera Roll album, iTunes previews, enabled third-party apps and websites on Apple TV
  Play slideshows from Photos on Apple TV using transitions available on Apple TV
• Faster Safari performance with Apple Nitro JavaScript engine
• HD video out using the Apple Digital AV Adapter***
  View 720p HD videos from Videos app, iPod app, Photos, YouTube, Safari, Keynote, and enabled third-party apps on an HDMI display
• Ping features
  Push notifications for comments and follow requests
  Post and Like songs directly from the Now Playing screen
  Parental controls
• New Settings
  Messages setting for number of times to repeat an alert
  iPad side switch setting to lock screen rotation or mute audio notifications and sound effects
  Single tap conference call dialing with a pause to send a passcode
• Bug fixes

*Requires iPhone 4 with tethering data plan
**Requires Apple TV (2nd generation) running software version 4.2 or later
***iPhone 4, iPad, iPod touch (4th generation)

Let us know how your download goes on Twitter, and if you are loving the the new Personal Hot Spot features (Y).

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

We all want to protect our gadgets the best we can, but what about actually improving on an exisiting product in terms of usability and playability?

Well Mophie has shown off a prototype of its Pulse game grip case for the 4th-generation iPod touch at CES, which features a rather serious looking  battery-powered front-facing stereo speaker duo and haptic feedback by Reflex Technology.

Engadget managed to get their hands on the Pulse, and it looks immense. The  iPod touch itself interfaces with the Pulse via the 3.5mm headphone jack, and there is a toggle on/off switch on the bottom left edge which turns the haptic feedback on / off.

In true Mophie style there are four LED’s at the back of the case telling you the current battery status of the case and whether it needs charging, and naturally, one would assume that being Mophie the Pulse Haptic Game Grip will also double as an external battery when not in play.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

A lot of newspapers have great technology journalism and newspaper articles, and some newspapers cover great technology related events to showcase to the world. However on the 2nd of September, and within ‘The Sun’, an article crossed my eye entitled: APPLE UNVEILS SPACE-AGE iPod.

This newspaper article caught my eye for two reasons, number 1 being that Apple did not unveil anything like a space age product at their annual music event not long back and number 2 being my own curiosity of exactly ‘which’ iPod they were rattling on about. Dwelling further, to my horror, the newspaper article simply got worse and worse.

“APPLE is launching a Star Trek-style iPod Touch which makes free video calls to other iPod and iPhone users over a Wifi connection”

And

“There is also a NASA-style iPod Nano worn on the wrist or clipped to clothes which has touch controls instead of buttons.”

The above are some of the worst word spins of a product I have ever heard. First of, there is nothing about the iPod Touch which is anything like any device on any Stark Trek programme ever made.  Whats more, how on this earth is the new iPod Nano ‘NASA-style? It is a square consumer electronic which has stepped back 3 years in time to a place where a rear camera is out of the question, video playback is unheard of and guess what, people have real watches.

Anyway, this is a short post and is not intended to be a rant but in my opinion, I’d love to be able to remove newspaper articles.

J

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

The Novac MV-CM001U  will convert your old cassettes into MP3, WAV and WMA files with no hassle at all. Each cassette takes (and I quote) around the same time as your average ten track 3 minute per song CD takes to rip to your PC. That means that, within the space of six minutes you can have your old tapes with those ‘golden oldies’ slapped on to a machine, which is then synced to your Mac / PC via USB and then slapped on your iPod / Mp3 player..

Pretty nifty huh? The Supplied Software also allows to split tracks manually or automatically. The Novac also features an RCA input/output terminal, which, when using the RCA input with a VCR, or game controller, you can directly convert the recorded audio to digital format.

Here are some specifications;

Specifications

- Available Media Compact cassette
- Wow and flutter 0.3%
- S / N ratio 40db
- Frequency response 100Hz – 8KHz
- Input and output terminals RCA plug
- USB terminal Inherited a B type connector
- Power / Power Consumption AC100V 50.60 HZ / 8W
- Size / Weight 165 (W) x 135 (D) x 143 (H) mm / Approx 1.4Kg

There seems to be a huge uprise in the number of these things coming to market lately – which suggests that manufacturers are actually selling these things. If they are, then that means that somebody out there is still rocking the polyester tracksuit and brick sized Sony Walkman cassette player out there. That is unacceptable, and so if you are that person and reading this, you’ll be happy to know that the Novac is out now and available for purchase.

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This has been a quest post by Stephen Highe – A highly creative business student with a knack for intelligent writing.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

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Buying an iPod automatically means for most that they have to be committed to iTunes – a music player which, although not bad on Macs, genuinely is very bulky and most of the time very slow when running on a PC. People generally say that Apple can not write software for toffee when it comes to PC’s – and so if you are one of these people, or are just sick of iTunes, then there is a solution. In fact, there are quite a few direct alternatives to iTunes which are completely 100% compatible with your much loved iPod, and these direct alternatives will also not run down your PC one bit (unless you use a netbook for managing your music) – and have not upgraded the RAM.

All of the alternatives listed below have their own perks and advantages as well as their own disadvantages. This list is also not supposed to be comprehensive, but I have tested all of them out for a minimum of 3 days each across the space of a few months. And so each jukebox has not just been added from what other people say, but from experience.

Media Monkey

Who is it for?

Media Monkey is for people who have loads of files which are unorganized. File hoarders galore, Media Monkey is perfect for frequent taggers and multi format users; FLAC and Ogg support are standard.

I liked

I liked the advanced and automatic tagging feature Media Monkey comes with, as well as the fact that the test iPhone 2G was fully compatible along wih the iPhone 3G and iPod Nano 3rd gen. I also liked the fact it was skinnable, and that it has an unholy amount of plug-ins and a podcast catcher. Another pretty cool feature was the ability to generate HTML reports.

I disliked

I disliked the fact that anybody who is not particularly technology savvy would be hard pressed to understand Media Monkey at first glance. An annoying feature Media Monkey also has is the inability to manage videos which, if you have videos, renders Media Monkey a little useless. There is also no Mac version, so it is PC Windows only.

Winamp

Who is it for?

Winamp is the perfect choice for anybody who has the desire for loads of features from their jukebox. Flexible, good looking and fairly easy to use, Winamp is pretty much perfect for anybody.

I liked

I liked the flash video support, as well as the ability to monitor multiple folders. I really liked the ability to copy media from the iPod to my laptop, which kills the need for an external hard drive if you buy a new computer. I also liked the visualizer, built in web browser, the fact it is skinnable and enjoyed the auto tagging function. I also liked the multi language support.

I disliked

The prompts to constantly upgrade to the Pro version. The skinning can be a bit overwhelming, and the features which allow you to really Tweak Winamp are tucked away at the bottom of the cupboard, which could confuse some. I also hated the lack of any good photo management, and the fact there is no Mac support.

Songbird

Who is it for?

Anybody who owns a Mac and hates iTunes. It is also perfect for anybody looking for an easy to use and intuitive UI. Songbirds minimalistic approach makes this jukebox perfect for anybody.

I liked

I liked that Songbird is not just PC only and that the Mac version ran very well.  Songbird also has an attract GUI which is skinnable, and I particularly liked the free downloadable music Songbrid comes with, which is updated regularly by Hype Machine. The built in web browser was also good, and the plug in support for Flickr made for a good all round jukebox.

I disliked

There was not much to dislike about Songbird. Really. In fact, the only gripe I had with Songbird was the fact that if you have a large library (I have over 10,000 songs) then Songbird can be a bit slow to update. If you have between 1000 and 3000 songs though this shouldn’t bother you. One other small thing that bugged me was the fact that there was no search and destroy for duplicates.

Floola

Who is it for?

Floola is perfect for anybody who has no administrative rights at their computer. Floola is perfect for people who, for instance, live at home and share a computer with their parents. Easy to install and completely un system heavy Floola is good for anyone.

I liked

I liked that Floola worked on both Mac and Ubuntu configerations. I loved the fact that Floola launches itself when the iPod has been plugged in, and also that Floola converts videos with surprising ease from the web.  I also found the drag and drop interface really functional.

I disliked

I hated not being able to rip CD’s directly from Floola. I also found it pretty ugly to look at, and the fact that you get prompted to ‘donate’ everytime you close the application. I also found syncing the original iPhone to be a bit annoying – because it refused to locate. But it was fine with the 3G – mind, that could be down the my original iPhone test model packing up lately.

J River

Who is it for?

I saved the best until last. I didn’t want you guys to just see the first alternative, download it and then close my post lol. No, seriously, J River is perfect for anybody. Much more than a jukebox, J River manages all media perfectly and seamlessly.

I liked

I loved the fact J River will soon have Mac support. It was a breath of fresh air to be able to rip and burn CD’s after Floola, and I also liked being able to convert my own files. I like the duplicate search and destroy function, and J river is also very nice to look at. Whats more, audio format support is next to endless.

I disliked

Nothing. Zilch. Zero. I would recommend J River to anybody, in fact, the only thing you have to bare is the download speed which is slower than Media Monkey – but for that wait you get one heck of a lot of features.

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©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

And so with the 27th Jan event coming up in just 3 days, I thought I would share with you a concept design created by Isamu Sanada.

The design is lovely, very sleek and has that ‘cute’ appeal which the iPod Nano naturally comes with. The device itself would be fitted with an aluminium back, a frontal camera for video calls and the same camera currently integrated into its big brother.

As this is a concept no price range can be identified, however it would most probably be free on an 18 month contract at £30 ($35) a month, and if an iPhone Nano did come out I would expect it to be around £280 sim free.

Perhaps Apple will bring out an iPhone Nano to extend its product portfolio, but if they did I’m sure they’d wait until the next generation.  As for this concept it gets the thumbs up, I’d certainly consider buying one – as would a lot of people I know.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.