iPhone Savior featured this short video clip this morning by Scott Patrick showing how to use an inexpensive Contour iPhone case and some common hardware to make an iPhone tripod mount.

There are two impressive points about this mount; first, by using the Contour case, you know that the iPhone is going to be held securely (my wife used one for over a year and never had it inadvertently open up), and second, Scott made it so it will work with any standard tripod camera mount head.

With the tripod Scott is using, it would be simple to flip the camera 90° to put it into a landscape configuration. This should work well for both still photography with any iPhone or video work with the iPhone 3GS.

[Thanks to TUAW reader Michael for pointing us to this video]

I was at the Aspen Grove Apple Store in Littleton, CO today for the annual iPhone event, and shot some video while I was there.

In contrast to 2007 and 2008, the lines were much shorter. It appeared that everyone was walking away from the store happy and with an iPhone 3G S in their hands.

I will return later today (or early tomorrow; it depends on how long it takes to activate the new phone) with another tradition -- the unboxing video. Be sure to check back for some unboxing fun!

If you caught the Copper Robot show on Sunday or any of our recent talkcasts, you may have heard me yammering at length about the possibilities for using the iPhone 3G S in enhanced or augmented reality applications. After the dynamic demo of compass-enhanced Google Street View on the Android Dream, the news of a magnetometer included with the 3G S -- allowing the phone to determine its direction with respect to the real world, along with position (GPS/SkyHook) and orientation/acceleration (accelerometer) -- starts to make geeks drool with eagerness for practical heads-up displays or browsable views of the world.

Here it comes, folks. As noted over at 9to5Mac, the Layar app from Dutch developer SPRXmobile will get Android phones into the realm of science fiction X-ray specs when it comes out at the end of this month. Point your phone across the street to see what houses are for sale, which bars are offering happy hour specials, or where the nearest ATM might be. A live, animated overlay points out the key locations and moves with your camera view. It's tough enough to describe, so I've got the video in the second half of this post -- but the effect is impressive. The previously-announced Wikitude app gives a travel guide the same augmented treatment for Android.

The guys at IntoMobile have given Layar a good once-over and come away quite awed. I can't wait to see this app, or one like it, make it over to the App Store. Add some social networking features from Brightkite or foursquare and iPhone users will jump all over this -- but they'll have to be careful not to walk into lampposts.

[via MacRumors]

Although the Power Mac G4 Cube is one of the all-time classic cool-looking Macs, wouldn't it be even cooler if your Cube could transform into a robot? TUAW reader W from thinkingbricks.com used a LEGO Mindstorms NXT kit and a Cube body to create a Cube-bot with both autonomous and remote control modes. The following video is one of four on thinkingbricks.com that show the 'bot in action.

Here's a challenge to W: could you take an old original Mac case and do the same? It would look a lot like the walking Mac of Bloom County comic strip fame...

Thanks to a little Twitter birdie named Guy Kawasaki, we learned about this little humanoid robot (Robochan!) who has an iPod touch as a brain, user interface, and "face".

It appears that Robochan might have a slight drinking problem (he falls over when he walks), and we're not quite sure about whether the elevator music playing in the background is emanating from his speaker or not, but this is a very cool use for an iPod touch.

Inquiring minds want to know: are any TUAW readers hard at work on a fembot with an iPhone for a brain?

iPhone developer Emanuele Vulcano pinged us with a note today telling us about a free file transfer app for the iPhone. Since most file transfer apps are a real yawner, I was dubious...until I watched the video.

What makes Mover (click opens iTunes) so cool is the way that it does the transfer. When you want to transfer an image or a contact card to another iPhone, you just launch the app on both devices, grab the image or card, point an arrow on one screen to match up with an arrow on another iPhone screen, then flick an icon representing the data you're sending. It moves off of your screen, and onto the other iPhone's screen, and the data is saved automatically. Very cool, and very iPhone-like!

Both iPhones need to be on the same WiFi network; there's no current way to do this over Bluetooth or a cellular network connection. Emanuele has made his code open source under the BSD license, so other developers are welcome to take a look at how he did this.

Check out Mover here (now with the correct embedding info):

Take one radio-controlled airplane or helicopter, add a Wi-Fi router and some custom software, then mix in an iPhone's accelerometer and touch interface. What do you get? An R/C aircraft controller.

Joshua Ziering loves to fly radio-controlled 'copters and planes, and he describes exactly how he went about developing an app and the associated hardware to control their flight by tilting his iPhone and moving throttle controls on the screen in a post on his blog. Check it all out in the video below.



Gary Z. at MacMost.com -- thanks for the tip!

When it comes to screen pathos, nobody does it better than Shatner and Montelban in the classic confrontation Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. Now the twisted minds at the SciFi Network's Dvice blog have taken a wonderful cinematic moment, full of overwrought line readings, and handed it over to the voice-synthesis capabilities of the Amazon Kindle 2 and the iPod shuffle via Talking Gadget Theater. "Buried alive... buried alive..."

This isn't the first screen collaboration for the two gadgets; they also did a rendition of the interrogation scene from Blade Runner -- clip in the 2nd half of this post.

Now, if we can get the iPod shuffle to convincingly say "I'd like to thank the members of the Academy," we'll be on to something.

If you were intrigued by last week's review of Marketcircle Daylite 3.9, Daylite Server, and Daylite Touch enough to purchase the application suite or download the trial, you might be at the point now where you're feeling a bit overwhelmed with how to install, configure and use the applications. Don't worry, there's a MacAngel available to help you!

Marni Melrose is a La Jolla, California-based Mac consultant who has made Daylite her life's work. She not only knows the application and its technical requirements in detail, but she's also an expert on using Daylite to get things done.

Under the name The MacAngel, Marni has developed a number of training videos about Daylite over the years. She's recently completed an amazing 93 minute tutorial that goes through the process of setting up Daylite 3.9, Daylite Server, and Daylite Touch, and then continues on to teach you the MacAngel Method.

The MacAngel Method is Marni's creation, taking David Allen's GTD principles, stirring in the ideas of Stephen Covey and other authors, and then using her experiences implementing Daylite for businesses for over 7 years to show how Daylite can help you drive your business forward.

I'm a Daylite Certified Partner, but after watching The MacAngel Method GTD for Daylite 3.9 & Touch, I felt that I really knew a lot more about how to organize my work and personal life with Daylite than I did from struggling through teaching myself by trial and error. In her video, Marni does a phenomenal job of showing you exactly what to do and, more importantly, why you're doing it.

You can view a 29 minute "trailer" to see how the training works, and then purchase the full video for $45 if you find it as useful as I did.

TUAW readers know that I'm a sucker for good iPhone user interface design; that's why I love the apps from Tapbots so much. I also have a soft spot for steampunk, so when we received a tip about the 3 Numbers "traveler's multicalculator" (click opens iTunes) today, I immediately clicked through to watch the demo video.

3 Numbers is the brainchild of Berlin developer Halle Winkler. It's not just a converter application, it's an adventure! Visiting the 3 Numbers website, you find that this mysterious polished brass device filled with glowing vacuum tubes and spinning gears was "found" by the developer in an old dusty box in the attic.

3 Numbers is more than just a pretty face, though. It has some unique features, such as being able to keep up to 3 numbers in a holding area for future use, writing notes to accompany calculations, and being able to access those notes from any Bonjour-enabled computer on your wireless network.

Please enjoy the developer's video demonstrating this US$4.99 app, accompanied by the lovely strains of Elgar's Enigma Variation #10.

In anticipation of the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference coming up June 8 - 12 in San Francisco, Apple has posted four videos highlighting developers who are creating apps with the iPhone SDK.

Each video shows how the developer is creating a unique app with the iPhone SDK, using the tools and frameworks, and then selling the app through the App Store.

The videos highlight:

• Dr. Ge Wang of Smule, the developers of Ocarina and Leaf Trombone: World Stage (clicks open iTunes), among other apps. He is an assistant professor at Stanford who researches
• Christina Wick, who is part of the Mac software team for AOL (parent company of Weblogs Inc. and TUAW). Christina's team is using the SDK to develop iPhone versions of many of the AOL Mac applications, including AOL Radio
• Werner Jainek of Stuttgart-based Cultured Code, the developers of Things for Mac and iPhone. Things (click opens iTunes) is an amazing task management app that is a favorite of several TUAW bloggers.
• Steve Demeter of Demiforce is a lifelong gamer who saw the potential of the iPhone as a gaming platform and who has had great success with his app Trism (click opens iTunes).

In this cynical world, it's great to see four people who are so positive about the iPhone platform and the SDK.

It seems that Hollywood is beginning to miss Steve Jobs almost as much as we are. This is especially true for two of NBC's hit comedy shows; "30 Rock" and "Chuck." Both were new this week and overflowing with appreciation for Stevie J.

For most Apple fans it is easy to spot when many TV shows and movies feature Apple gear. The most recent episodes of "30 Rock" and "Chuck," however, go above and beyond featuring a shameless homage to the man himself, Steve Jobs -- in 30 Rock's case, doing a great take on a worldchanging Apple announcement from the not-too-distant past. I won't get into the details of the episodes themselves but I have posted the clips after the break. In case you missed it, both episodes online over at Hulu.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

[via Gizmodo and Crunchgear]

Apple Mac malware: Caught on camera from Sophos Labs on Vimeo.

It's not every day that you can watch Mac malware in action, but the team at Sophos Labs has put together the demonstration video above; it shows a malicious installer downloaded from a site pretending to serve up an HD video player, which actually carries the RSPlug-F trojan. Even though Mac users would still have to provide admin credentials to install the application (unlike Windows users, who might catch the Zlob malware just by visiting the webpage), it would be perfectly natural to go ahead and authenticate after downloading an installer... but not a good idea in this case. The fake site and bogus application are appearing in two versions, one billed as MacCinema and another trying to steal the goodwill of a legitimate Windows app called HDTV Player (the real app is from blazevideo.com).

RSPlug-F does try to change your DNS settings to point at bad-guy controlled servers, which could conceivably result in you being redirected to malicious or phony sites; however, if your ISP is on the ball, those bogus DNS servers are already blocked. The only way to catch this bit of malware is via the installer, but it's easy to see how an innocent Mac user might be fooled by the convincing-seeming download site.

[H/T Ars Technica Infinite Loop]

Remember the ebay auction of an iPhone prototype? Well here's a video of another prototype from Germany -- although it looks very different from the one in the auction. The UI, still very rough, at least looks more "Apple"-ish in the German video.

There are a few interesting moments too, like seeing a Terminal button (makes sense) and a little demo of the iPhone trying to track a finger as it moves across the screen. While we wait for iPhone OS 3.0 it's interesting to see the pre-1.0 release and realize how much has changed in such a short time.

[thanks to Timothy for sending this in]

Here's a short video from SXSW with DiggNation hosts Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose, where Rose goes through a laundry list of iPhone 3.0 features that will allegedly be announced tomorrow during the Apple Press Event.

This video sounds rather alcohol-fueled -- at least it appears that the audience members, who are screaming out their most-wanted features for most of the video, were rather drunk -- and Rose has a somewhat checkered past with his Apple predictions, but his description of cut & paste on the iPhone sounds quite realistic.

He also states at one point that the point of the 3.0 release is to bring the iPhone's feature set to the level of the Palm Pre. If that's the case, then we should also hear about Bluetooth tethering and integrated MMS messaging for the iPhone -- which I, for one, seriously doubt. Of course, we'll all see what's coming tomorrow, and you can get your coverage of the event here on TUAW. Note that the video contains words that may be offensive to some people.

[via Engadget]