GadgetReview

Ahhh….Techie new parents are going to love this one.  A new iPhone application entitled The Cry Translator is on its way that will effectively tell you what your gurgling baby is crying about.

The app will listen to a whining child and determine through pitch, volume, tone, and inflection, what the deal is.  Ten seconds later that app will tell you whether the child is hungry, sleepy, stressed, annoyed, bored, or has to let go of a mean steamy (omit that).  From there the app offers advice as to what to do with the translation in order to appease your baby.

Developed by Biloop Technologic, they claim that through clinical testing these translations  are 96% accurate, and the age of the child does not waver the results.  On sale for $10 on November 11th.

But will it work with sputtering brain dead alcoholics?

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Okay, admittedly, sometimes you really want just the right skin for your iPhone or iPod.  Your skin says a lot about who you are, how you feel about stuff, and junk.  And of course, you definitely want the coolest one you can find.  And maybe you can’t find a skin with your favorite supermodel on it, or with a sharp enough resolution image of the Klingon Empire’s sigil.

Now, you can make your own.  Thanks to the iaPeel (like eye appeal, only Apple style) you can print off gadget skins for your Apple portables in whatever format you want.

The iaPeel kit will set you back a mere $21, and comes with some basic design software and five skins that’ll work with your inkjet printer of choice.  Plus, you can make your Apple gear into total clotheshorses and make multiple skins, for different occasions or even days of the week.  Imagine the fun you’ll have with your friends when you whip out your iPhone and say, “This is my Thursday skin.”

Of course, if you actually do try that, you may not have friends much longer….

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So a strange development took place on Sunday–a Dutch hacker is currently holding what amounts to several jailbreaked Apple iPhones.

Just in case you’re wondering about the terminology here, a jailbroken phone is basically a hacked iPhone that allows you to install software from other sources besides Apple’s App Store.  The need for jailbreaking has fallen off somewhat in recent days, but there are still plenty of phones out there already that have been jailbroken.

But when you jailbreak an Apple iPhone, you force the resetting of a password that controls remote access to the general password coded in at the factory level.  Now, if you’re smart, you’ll quickly change that password to something you know well.  But a lot of people either got lazy or busy or just plain forgot, because they left their iPhones in the ORIGINAL PASSWORD SETTING.

And that’s where the Dutch hacker swung in.  He changed the passwords, effectively locking people out of their own phones until they pay him a ransom of five euros via PayPal.  Meanwhile, Apple considers jailbroken phones to have voided their warranties, so it’s pretty much either pay off the hacker or lose your phone until he’s arrested and forced to confess.

So if you’ve got a jailbroken Apple, you may want to switch that password around before the Dutch hacker gets you…if he hasn’t already.

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If you’ve ever had a Genius Bar appointment at the Apple Store, than you’ve surely noticed that an employee has checked you in using an iPod touch.  If you’ve also ever bought something like an iPhone you’ve noticed they use Windows CE-based handhelds to complete your transaction.  Not for much longer.

Soon enough all Apple Store Employees will be able to deal with all purchases, returns, iPhone activations, through debit/credit cards and cash while using an iPod touch.

A new case and proprietary software is on its way that fits the Touch and is capable of being a magnetic stripe reader, barcode scanner, and can accept signatures using a stylus.  All sounding pretty cool, will it have a positive effect on the customer service experience?

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THIS DEAL ENDS 11/30.  Macmall has the Apple MC118LL/A 15.4-inch MacBook Pro Notebook for a $100 mail-in-rebate deal.  This laptop has a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 250GB hard drive, DVD burner, Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, 15.4″ LCD, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics.  It’s …Continue reading: Apple MC118LL/A 15.4-inch MacBook Pro Notebook – $1,607 Shipped

A reliable source in the past,  China Ontrade has just released this picture of what appears to be the body casing of a iPhone 4G.  While none of this is official by any means, it will surely churn out some decent comments from people in the know.

A 4G iPhone is expected to be released in 2010 and will be the biggest Apple news of the year.

Let’s hope the new iPhone uses some of these recent Apple patents to increase battery life.

Should we expect the same design factor?

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Capable of mounting directly to your handlebars or fastening to your belt loop this waterproof speaker case by Sanwa may be a nice choice for those of you who like to ride your bike in the rain.  If you happen to live and ride in Portland Oregon, it could be essential.

I prefer riding with earphones, but for those who want to be able to hear the 18-Wheeler coming from behind them, this is a great alternative.  Your MP3 player fits inside the case and the volume controls are on the outside.  I used to have a SkullCandy backpack that had speakers mounted in the shoulder straps that sounded pretty good, but I question how good this thing sounds.

I mean part of the fun of listening to music was so you didn’t have to hear street noise as you rode, right?  It could be cool off the bike in places like the beach or pool, though.  On sale now for $44.

[via CoolestGadgets]

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Would you pay $30 a month for access to TV programming on your computer?  Apple hopes so, or that’s how the rumor goes.

According to an industry insider, Apple is in talks with many of the networks to deliver an all you can eat TV service via their iTunes software.  Users would pay $30 a month and be able to stream shows from an assortment of channels as long as they had Internet access.

While it would be difficult to supplant the cable companies over night due to their relationships and contracts with the networks, it is a feasible proposition since more and more channels are looking to take their content online.  Many news sources are pointing to Disney as the ginny pig since they already have close ties with Apple, but at this point it’s all just speculation.

Keep in mind that a rumor recently emerged stating that Hulu might be switching some of their content to a pay model, which actually throws this Apple rumor a curve ball because I doubt those two (Fox and NBC) would want to share revenue when they could be selling it direct.  Then again, since Apple’s iTunes has an install base of 65 million, it might just be feasible.

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Consider this a cautionary tale against trying to fix your iPod or your iPhone yourself.  Recently, a guy over in Sussex (like the European Sussex) tried fixing it.  And he’d checked online, and discovered that the repair process was not what you’d call difficult.  So he started in, and got the first couple of screws out, but discovered that that glass face plate wasn’t exactly the easiest removal in the instruction set.  So he goes at it with a knife.

You can about imagine what happens here, but let’s just say: explosion, glass shards, eye.

You can connect the dots from there.

So he got himself to the hospital and discovered he’d damaged the protective layer covering his eye.  Now he’ll be wearing an eye patch for the next several weeks, and imagine the shock and horror he felt upon coming home and seeing the shattered iPhone, right where he left it.

Consider yourselves warned.

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Once again, Apple has blown us all away with its relentless flood of gadgetry, as a new patent has emerged.

It’s about what you’d get if you managed to combine an iPod Shuffle with a Bluetooth headset, and what it’s being called right now is a headset MP3 player.

You can see one of the patent design figures at left, but where this is amazing is that it can function on its own.  Yes, it functions as a wireless headset to a device it’s linked to, like a Bluetooth, but it also has the capability of storing its own MP3s within the headset itself.  And, as if that weren’t enough, your headset could also become a recording device at the touch of a button, allowing you to make your own MP3s of conversations you’re having.

These are all still somewhat speculative points, being as it’s still in the patent stages, but it’ll likely be another market-buster when it comes out.

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