From 148 folders:

“I hate to say it, but most of real life is boring. Sure, sometimes people go to concerts, or go to great dinners, or some kind of vacation, but the majority of life is spent doing dishes, remembering tasks and walking the dog. Most people have great intentions when they wake up, and may even make it to work with them, but then get sucked into leveling up a character on their favorite RPG or Facebook game.

Instead of furthering yourself into this self-dug hole of despair, you will soon be able to download EpicWin. “EpicWin is an iPhone app that puts the adventure back into your life. It’s a streamlined to-do list, to note down all your everday tasks, but with a role-playing spin. Rather than just mentally ticking off your chores, completing each one improves and develops your character in an ongoing quest to level-up, gain riches, and develop skills.”

“Doing the laundry is an epic feat of stamina so why not get stamina points for it?!”

Hopefully if you find joy in leveling up your own life, you’ll actually start getting things done again. Hell, maybe now we’ll finally be able to get someone back to the moon (it’s not like we don’t know how). According to their website, Epic Win will be “coming soon”. Hopefully real soon.

Enjoy the promo video below… it’s the best one I’ve seen in a long long time.”

Find our more and see the trailer here:

http://www.EpicWinApp.com/

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2299960,ihnatko-google-io-tv-android-052110.article

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Two major announcements from the second day’s keynote. Three, if you include the loudest subtext: “Steve Jobs can kiss our freedom-loving butts.”

It was relentless. They barely missed any opportunity to take a swipe at Apple. The keynote was as much about differentiation and market positioning as it was about Froyo or GoogleTV.

“Apple are the bad guys, who want to control everything everybody says and does and impose its will upon the world,” so the message goes. “Google is the friend of the proletariat and sits at the right hand of Freedom and Liberty; yes, you see, Freedom is facing one way and Liberty is facing another, so it totally works. Anyway. We’re getting off-track, here. Stand with us! Throw down your iPhones and arise as free men and women! … Please?”

Which is unfortunate. It’s marketing; nothing more. And it’s kind of a glib position to take.

It’s true that Google doesn’t want to control what you do. That’s not where they make their money. They make money by watching what you do. They want to watch it, record it, analyze it, and then monetize it by serving ads to you.

Let’s re-interpret Google’s keynote highlights through the perspective of the paranoid. Tinfoil hats on:

Google wants to make sure that every part of your life happens under their searchlight. They don’t want you to use desktop apps; they want you to use apps on the Web, so that they can observe how much time you spend at each task, and get at least a vague sense of the data you work with.

They want you to use their mail service, so that they can better understand your relationships with other people.

They don’t want you to send data to your phone via a secure, user-controlled cable. They want you to do it through the Internet, so that they can note the sort of music you like, the locations you’re interested in, the places you’ve been.

They also want to be able to “push” apps onto your device that you might not want, and let websites push data into specific apps. They want the ads they push onto your device to have an unusually close level of interaction with your phone hardware and the data therein.

And Google wants to know what you do in your living room. What shows do you watch? What shows do you record? Once you’ve recorded them, how long until you watch them? Do you watch them all the way through? Did you pause during a commercial? What did you do during that pause? Did you visit a site or search for a keyword? What was that keyword?

OK, tinfoil hats off. That’s hot stuff, eh?

I’m not suggesting that Google is this devious. What you’ve just read is simply what happens when you run the pages of Google’s two developer keynotes through the same software that interprets all of Apple’s motives as sinister, controlling, anti-freedom, and anti-innovation.

In truth, both companies have ambitious goals for themselves and want to create two things: Priority 1 is immense positive cash-flow. Priority 2 is terrific products and services, which lead to successful accomplishment of the first priority. If their own goals collide with another company’s, that’s not their lookout.

It has loads of very cool new stuff, so I really hope it turns out to be genuine.

Check out the details here:

http://gizmodo.com/5520164/this-is-apples-next-iphone

Adobe blasted Apple for this, largely as the ability to develop using Flash to re-purpose the app as an iPhone app was a flagship feature of the just announced Adobe CS5 software suite. While I can see this is a major blow to Adobe (one of their Adobe evangelists wrote on his blog that Apple could go scr*w themselves!!) Apple have no compunction to help Adobe sell copies of the hugely expensive CS5.

In fact, Apple have at least two very good reasons why they are right to deny Flash developed apps in the app store:

1. Apple require that native development tools be used. This is to ensure the quality of apps rather than just having poorly transcoded Flash apps fill up the apps store. Apple are all about the quality of the user experience.

2. If a large percentage of apps end up being developed within Flash then when Apple announces new OS features for the iPhone (and iPod Touch and iPad) as they have just done with OS4 (which includes multi-tasking), they would be relying on Adobe to incorporate these features in their Flash development tools so that developers could use them before the benefits would be seen by users. This would be terrible for Apple and also iPhone users.

Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 has been widely publicized as being the first version of the company’s runtime that will enable mobile devices to play most of the Flash content originally designed for playback within web browsers running on the PC desktop.

Existing mobiles that say they run Flash really only support old versions of the runtime (such as Sony’s PlayStation Portable, which runs Flash 6 from 2002, or the legacy Palm OS, which runs a very old version of Flash 5 from a decade ago) or Adobe’s “Flash Lite,” a version that does not even aspire to playback the same content as desktop versions (it is based on Flash 8 from 2005). Symbian and Windows Mobile are limited to Flash Lite playback.

Adobe’s problems in delivering a real version of Flash for mobile platforms is complicated by the fact that most Flash content is not well suited to play on a small screen, and particularly not in a multitouch environment where desktop browser conventions of a mouse pointer and mouseover events are simply not present.

Flash is also hampered by the memory and processor limitations inherent in mobile devices. The upcoming 10.1 version of Flash for mobile devices will demand a fast Cortex A8 processor, which means it won’t run on anything but the highest-end Android, Palm, Blackberry, and Symbian phones sold over the last several months. Even if Apple wanted to bundle Flash 10.1, it would only minimally work on the iPhone 3GS and newer products.

Full article here - http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/18/adobe_slips_mobile_flash_player_10_1_to_second_half_of_2010.html

When I saw the videos of the iPhone I thought they were very cool, but actually using one for the first time completely blew me away. Apparently it is the same with the iPad – you don’t really get why you have to have one until you hold one in your hands and use it. Watching the videos is getting me very excited – maybe better to be safe and avoid temptation and not pick one up!

Check out the videos here (there is one short video for each application):

http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/

A dog thinks: Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me… They must be Gods!
A cat thinks: Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me… I must be a God!

I went to a seafood disco last night and pulled a muscle

One evening in Transylvania just as the sun was setting, two nuns were deep
in conversation as they drove down a quiet country lane.  Just as the sun
dipped below the horizon they were startled as a vampire landed on the
bonnet of the car.  As the nun driving tried to control the car and knowing
something about keeping these creatures at bay, she cried out to the other
nun, “Mary, Mary, show it your cross!”  Without hesitation the second nun
wound her window down, leant out and shouted. “Oi you prat!  Get off the
bl**dy car!”

After examining his patient thoroughly, the doctor said, “I really can’t
find the cause of your problem, though I suspect it’s due to heavy
drinking” The patient replied, “In that case, I’ll come back when you’re
sober”

A man goes to the doctor with a piece of lettuce sticking out of his bum.
He tells the doctor he’s a little concerned and asks for an examination.
After a little probing, the doctor turns to his patient and says, “it’s
worse than I originally thought – “that’s just the tip of the iceberg”

A policeman came up to me with a pencil and a very thin piece of paper.  He
said ” I want you to trace someone for me”

Apparently 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese.  And there are five
people in my family, so it must be one of them.  It’s either my mum or my
dad.  Or my older brother Colin.  Or my younger brother Ho-Cha-Chu. But I
think it’s Colin.

A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Clingfilm for shorts.
“Well” says the shrink.  ”I can clearly see you’re nuts”

Five best things to say if you’re caught sleeping at your desk:
5. They told me at the Blood Bank this might happen.”
4. “This is just a 15 minute power nap they raved about in the time
management course you sent me to.”
3. “Whew! Guess I left the top off the Tippex. You probably got here just
in time.”
2. “Did you ever notice sound coming out of these keyboards when you put
your ear down real close?”
1.  Raise your head slowly and say “…in Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

What did the Spanish fireman call his two sons?
Jose and Hose B

The survey carried even more good news for Apple, as 92 percent of iPhone users said they are satisfied with their purchase and would likely make their next smartphone another iPhone.

Users of the Google Android mobile operating system were also satisfied, with 87 percent saying they would buy another Android handset. In addition, 34 percent of BlackBerry owners would strongly consider buying an Android phone if they were to make an immediate purchase.

The study also found that 97 percent of iPhone users would recommend the product to their friends, and 52 percent of BlackBerry owners and 51 percent of other smartphone users would recommend the iPhone to others.

For the full article (with a pretty chart!) see

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/16/39_of_blackberry_owners_say_theyd_switch_to_an_iphone.html

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/11/apple_sees_98_iphone_growth_as_microsoft_google_prepare_for_battle.html

Insiders report that Apple this summer will go a long way towards silencing critics and catering to one of the most prevalent demands of its iPhone user base, when it introduces a multitasking solution through the handset’s 4.0 software update that will finally allow several third party apps to run concurrently and in the background. The current OS on the iPhone does allow selected multi-tasking – the system’s phone, SMS, email, iPod, voice recorder, Nike+, and certain other bundled apps can continue in the background while the user launches another app. However, third party titles obtained from the App Store (including apps from Apple, such as Remote or iDisk) can not be launched at the same time.

This behavior is prevented by the iPhone OS’ security model, which is designed to close the current app whenever the user returns to the Home screen or accepts an incoming call. This design prevents apps from being able to run in the background without the user knowing, and therefore erases any real potential for spyware, adware and viruses.

People with a proven track record in predicting Apple’s technological advances tell AppleInsider (see below for link) that the Cupertino-based company has developed a “full-on solution” to multitasking on the iPhone OS but offered no specifics on how the technology would optimize resource conservation and battery life — two of the most critical issues surrounding the matter, alongside security.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/11/apples_iphone_4_0_software_to_deliver_multitasking_support.html