Technology Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Treehouse Labs tracks objects with your iPhone via BiKN

by Mike Schramm (Jan 17th, 2012)

Treehouse Labs was one of a few companies at CES hosted inside the booth of a semiconductor company, because Treehouse is using that company's chips for its own products. Treehouse's main product on display was something called "BiKN" (pronounced "beacon"), which uses relatively tiny RFID tags ...

How the iPad is succeeding in healthcare

by Mike Schramm (Dec 5th, 2011)

Wired has posted a profile of one Afshad Mistri, an Apple employee whose goal is quite focused. As the medical market manager, he's tasked with connecting medical professionals and Apple's technology. Mistri couldn't chat with Wired for the article itself (Apple's less-than-press-friendly ...

Students and iPads: ACU study shows positive results

by Brett Terpstra (Oct 3rd, 2011)

The first time I mentioned Abilene Christian University, it was because it was handing out iPhones to students. The next time was a year later when I followed up with an interview about the school's methods and research findings. Its approach to incorporating technology into education was ...

'Bring your own device' programs give Apple a boost in the enterprise

by Michael Rose (Sep 25th, 2011)

Programs that offer corporate some latitude and personal discretion in their technology choices are growing, said the NYT on Friday, and while the relaxing of IT standards mandates means there are plenty of market losers (HP, Dell, Lenovo, RIM and other enterprise-centric vendors), there's one big ...

Apple gains momentum in government, while BlackBerry stumbles

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 31st, 2011)

Federal agencies are undergoing an internal upheaval that threatens RIM's stranglehold on the government smartphone market. According to an article at the Washington Post, the Obama Administration is relaxing its rules on technology upgrades. Rather than old BlackBerry handsets, the modern ...

eBay's mobile app strategy shared at CES

by Mike Schramm (Jan 11th, 2011)

When I went to meet up with eBay at last week's CES conference, I went to a booth run not by that company, but by a company called RedLaser. Started by two U of Michigan grads, RedLaser is an eBay acquisition that has released a barcode scanning app for the iPhone that will scan your products and ...

OpenFeint's promotional app now called Game Channel

by Mike Schramm (Dec 17th, 2010)

Social gaming network OpenFeint has had its own app for a while now, offering up news and information for players playing games with the technology built-in. But the app recently underwent a re-branding of sorts -- it's now called Game Channel (not to be, or possibly to be, confused with Game ...

Apple patents "Exciter" technology for devices, including a "cyclocomputer"

by Mike Schramm (Aug 11th, 2010)

Patently Apple has news of a new patent filed by Apple for a technology that it calls the Exciter. At present, wirelessly trading information between iPhones can be a bit of a hassle, since both phones have to find each other and then sync up. But the "Exciter" technology would simply keep an eye ...

Apple patents another haptic feedback solution

by Mike Schramm (Jun 25th, 2010)

AppleInsider reports that Apple is still bouncing around ideas for a screen that allows for haptic feedback on its iOS devices. A new patent filed this week outlines a system of screens on a device designed to not only detect touch and protect the underlying technology but also provide physical ...

TUAW's Daily App: LaDiDa

by Mike Schramm (Apr 21st, 2010)

LaDiDa is a strange little app that came out a while back. It's basically a "reverse karaoke app," in that, instead of playing music that you can sing along with, you sing, and it'll play the music back to you. The technology seems based on the same idea as Microsoft's MySong -- you hit record on ...

$1000 iPhone law exam review app sends traditional publisher running for cover

by Mike Schramm (Feb 16th, 2010)

You readers were skeptical that BarMax, the iPhone app that offered up a full law prep system for $1000, would make too big a splash in the law prep community. But apparently that's exactly what happened -- three weeks later, BarBri, one of the more traditional competitors to the new app, has made ...

Taking a Bite off the Apple

by Patty Bowers (Feb 9th, 2010)

I grew up a "PC." Literally! My father was a computer genius who worked with computers for a living. By the age of 2, I had my own system. When people say they've had a PC since they were 10 years old, they have nothing on me. My dad set its beautiful, at the time, DOS interface up with game titles ...

Apple wins two new patents including tablet proximity detector

by Mike Schramm (Jan 26th, 2010)

Expectations and excitement are at a fever pitch for the hoped-for tablet announcement, but that hasn't stopped Apple's lawyers from earning their keep. Just in the past few days, they've nailed down two more patents, one of which has to do with tablet-style technology. That's a "proximity ...

Doonesbury covers the tablet release

by Mike Schramm (Jan 26th, 2010)

Cartoonist Garry Trudeau is of course no stranger to the constant expectations and travails of being an Apple fan -- he famously skewered the Newton years and years ago in his comic strip Doonesbury. And with the Appleverse on high alert for what could finally be the "second coming" of a ...

Nearest Tube's augmented reality on the iPhone 3GS

by Mike Schramm (Jul 7th, 2009)

This (extremely loud, be careful) video has been making the rounds lately -- it's a demo of a new app called Nearest Tube that isn't quite in the App Store yet, but uses both your location information along with the iPhone's compass and video camera to show you an augmented reality picture of where ...