“iPod, iPad and Xbox are source of distraction” – Obama

In an address to the Hampton University graduates, President Obama bemoans the iPod as a distraction, and that information has become a distraction posing problems for the democracy.

He stated,  “You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter,” he told the students. “And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.”

What the president wants to convey is that these are toys as compared to the laptops. Let me tell you, the iPad has various educational applications , which educate the users, if not distract them. And there is only one benefit by using these gadgets.  The ipad can revolutionize the education system. Imagine, in a class where you don’t have to write in the text books, and use the iPad instead. The information could me immediately updated.

The White House has already rolled out an app for iPhone, called The White House App, so that people can directly watch the stream of the live President’s public events at the White House. Firstly, they roll out the application , then they say they are distraction.

Simply put , iPads are next generation notebooks, and calling them distraction, isn’t limiting their use. Time will tell if the iPad becomes just another distraction or, rather, more of a reading platform and educational tool.

There goes my cursor : How to Use Magic Mouse with your iPad

For all those old-schoolers who still have not been able to recover from the dazzlement of MultiTouch, here’s a trick that will get the traditional pin and point cursor back to your iPad.

With this magic app called BTstack Mouse  you will be able to use the Magic Mouse or any other Bluetooth mouse right on your iPad. My Grandfather would probably love this.

You can get this app in the Cydia store but before that make sure your iPad has a jailbreak done already. Rest all falls in place! Video down below. (Via RedmondPie)

New Google is better, dont beg for the old one.

Change is constant, and change is the only thing that makes people from around the globe, to be connected via the world wide web and keep them glued to their screens. Google , last week upgraded its view from a classical one to modern.

And, as we all know, the most common homepage is Google’s, so any change to that, will catch attention.The new rolled out model, has three columns, if you search for any option, you get a result page, which is what I think similar to Bing.

There is a middle column consisting of the results, there is a right column consisting of the ads, and the left column for the advanced search options. The newer interface allows us to get multiple results at once, without going for the advanced options in the top left options row in the classical model.  Simply put, the new Google layout is good, user friendly.

In the Google forum, there are ,variety of people complaining of the design and want the old one back in. But Google is not going to listen to them, The google spokesman Nate Tyler confirmed by stating : “We’re not offering a way to revert back to the old design.” That is expected, Google has had changes in the past, and there come a bunch of people who hate the change in the first place and then going on to be liking it. People can use the search preferences page to control number of results shown, popping-open search listings in their own windows, enabling subscribed links and other options. For people who desperately want the old design back, they can bookmark this site.

The move to a permanently three-column design sees Google following in the footsteps of Ask.com, which pioneered the look back in 2007. Bing and Yahoo followed the three pane trend in 2009, and now it has effectively been given the stamp of approval by search giant Google itself.

Facebook Evolution : It sucks more than it actually should

I am not a corporate guy with bags of pie charts and stats to explain vividly simple stuff any layman would understand with just words. I am just a school student with eyes to observe things going around me and being a web developer gives a bit more insight into how things work online.

Hottest thing up everywhere – Facebook. For some reason or the other, those doctors call Facebook, “treacherous”, and i don’t think Facebook will ever need to defend itself, it’s got 400 million users with nothing else but to do that.

Social Media is the big thing right now, but it’s more ugly than it looks like, esp. with Facebook being a key game changer in this. The original concept behind the 20,000 + server stacks that run Facebook is simple – Networking.

The truth is that it’s passé. Facebook has grown into what it should not be. Most adversely affected are the USERS. Damn it.

A decade back, when camera’s were every gadget geek’s wish, which is probably not so today-ish, people did stuff to enjoy it. Today with every piece of digital crap having image capturing lens (except iPad!) blows its reach to a much much huge market. It includes kids, who do make up a huge part of the Facebook population. What Effect I am talking about is simple, people do things just so that they can capture it with their $10 worth lens, create the fuss on facebook (so called “likes and comments”) and get lost.

The mind concept being generated in today is bull s***. I just can’t digest it, if I am going on a cable car ride to some peak couple of thousand meter high, why shall I stick my face to the window, just do all types of trials and have the scenery fit in with my face in that damn picture made of pixels, all so that I can upload it and make others burn about it? Yuk.

This way, your missing out on the actual fun, and if you don’t know what I am speaking about your probably one of those facebook-take-a-pic-and-upload-it-addicts.

Misery Songs, I hear them a lot these days on Facebook, don’t you? Unless you’ve got Russel Peters as your friend on Facebook you are most probably to hear them from “Depressed Souls” on Facebook. Negativity keeps flowing in from those dull statuses, comments and to some extent, even pictures. A Social Network is there for you to connect and not to viralize your sadness!

Bullying, Fights, and all. This one screws my head. Wars, who loves them? Ah yah, some bullies do who can ramble with words and flaunt their skills harassing people with better jobs to spend time answering their shit. Man, Network? Where do fights fit in?

The whole reason behind this lengthy post is – What Social Media was meant for and What we’ve made it. I just wanted to propel difference between these two. If doesn’t sounds as sick yet, wait till your hit by this hurricane OR Avoid It.

With Guitars Made Up Of Mobile Phones, Geeks Rock On Too!

It won’t be long time since you see geeks rocking up music concerts with their very own designed equipments made up of awe-some geeky gadgets.

The trail blazer, Steffest strapped few Android and Windows Devices and a iPod Touch and wrote the same music application in three different languages – Objective C, Java and C# and here we have “must-have-geeky-guitar”! Hell lot of work? Seems so.

The Web designer has managed to make the instrument mending a Speaker to the huge line of mobile devices. Check out the device in hot action. Video Down Below!

Source : Engadget

Winterboard coming soon to an iPad near you!

For all those who wanted to revamp and dress the current iPad Homescreen, here’s some good news. Winterboard, the famous app for iPhone themes from Cydia is soon coming to iPad, as tweeted by Saurik (The guy who made all this!).

With Winterbaord you will be able to overhaul the current looks of your iPad (with Jailbreak) to something what you would like at leave it at the mercy of awesome theme developers. I am sure they will find some good decorations for the 10″ screen!

Here’s a snap of how it looks.

Sony isn’t the Enemy, Apple is : Nintendo

It’s not been an eon since Nintendo last claimed it’s enemy : Sony. Big N didn’t take time calling Sony a already defeated enemy after looking at sales figures which are well above it’s Microsoft and Sony Counterparts.

Major sellers, Nintendo Wii took a 21% decline in sales, and financially a drop of about Y51 Billion while maintaining it’s supremacy over other consoles. Lastly Nintendo called the iPhone OS premature for game developments, but Nintendo’s CEO himself came over to state Apple as it’s future enemy.

This is quite visible because the developers fleeing to the app store to have their own share in the gold rush. With over thousands of gaming applications, Motion Sensing and HD support make iDevices a complete blockbuster pack for family gaming. iPad crossing a million sales in meagre amount of time could have hurt Nintendo’s sentiments because, not now but in future it obviously meant the Cupertino guys were coming to raid the gamers market too!

Nintendo is looking forward to revive the “surprise” level amongst it’s products and bring back the magic. Waiting to see what they’ve got next.

[Via Engadget]

Yahoo! calls Google’s homepage “A Button and a Box”

Last thing you would have ever pondered would be Yahoo! taking over the web and becoming homepage to everyone. Google’s phenomenal success scares a lot of tech companies, Yahoo! esp. as it’s business’s are continuing to be shot down one by one. Yahoo! search has shrunk rapidly and simultaneously Google has grown to take a large part of the Search cake.

Both the companies have different philosophies. Big “G” believes in simplicity and it’s homepage is a mark of it, while at Yahoo! they want the homepage to be your eternal lookout for everything, yes Twitter, Facebook, Search, News, Entertainment, Everything. Yahoo! constantly stresses that Google needs to “diversify” if it wants to retain it’s market, and that’s what Yahoo is doing with multiple partnerships with leading social networks, portals and lot more.

Here’s a piece of Yahoo’s 85 Million Dollar marketing campaign, the commercial is straight from Yahoo!’s heart. BTW i kinda like the tune they’ve used! Video down after.

How to : Use iPad to read external USB HDD

Not long since iPad got it’s first jailbreak than did the App shower started. Voice Control, Texting and a couple lot of apps poured into Cydia’s store making the iPad capable of thing Apple would have allowed – not.

One thing which major iPad users lamented was the incapability to read 3rd party external storage devices. Pack it up, we’ve got an hack for that.

What you need for this hack

  1. iPad (Jailbreak required)
  2. Camera Connection Kit
  3. External Harddrive
  4. Mac (Not sure if you can do it with windows either)

With all this and after following Max Shay’s simple steps, you’ll be checking out pictures from you HDD, iPad style.

People, Google isn’t copying from others. Get it?

Few days back, Google flaunted it’s new design to it’s 286 Million daily users. Guess what most of them said? It’s a copy of Bing, or some even said it’s a copy of Yahoo!’s search engine. Bull S***.

Whenever some new product is released, critics compare it to other stuff on the market and just tag them as a copy of this and that. This seriously pisses me off.  Remember Apple Vs. Microsoft ten years back? Apple charged Microsoft of copying it’s Graphic user interface and the mouse and there was something that Bill Gates quoted over it, that if a car has a steering wheel no company claims it as it’s invention.

This is what it is all about. Moving forward. No use comparing, because we know as long it’s competition companies are going to strive even harder for innovation. You just pick up whats good in front of you and move ahead. This is a whole process or learning, improving, and getting better. I don’t get it, why do people just say it’s COPIED? Steve-o-phoebia?