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danger posts

Filed under: Hacks, How-tos, iPhone

Dangerously driving a car with an iPhone

by Tim Wasson (RSS feed) on Nov 10th, 2009

Here at TUAW we've seen lots of uses for the iPhone as a remote control, but if you were watching and thinking that those projects were way too safe, then the guys at Waterloo Labs have got you covered. They approached the project with a low budget and DIY attitude, building a low-cost (relatively speaking) car that is controlled by a first generation iPhone. Not content with just building the car, they also chose to car-surf on the hood and roof, Teen Wolf style, while testing their handiwork.

While we at TUAW do not condone such dangerous behavior, we can recommend that you watch this other video by Waterloo Labs as a more in-depth instructional video on how to build your own vehicle.

Tags: car, danger, how-to, iphone, remote control, RemoteControl, waterloo labs, WaterlooLabs

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Enterprise, Odds and ends, Internet, MobileMe

The T-Mobile Sidekick data failure, and what it means to iPhone users

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Oct 12th, 2009

You may not have heard about the recent loss of data for T-Mobile Sidekick users; after all, this is an Apple-focused site and there probably aren't as many Sidekick owners out there as there are iPhone users. I'll explain the situation, and how it could happen to anyone depending on cloud-based data stores for their mobile devices.

The Sidekick is made and supported by Danger, which since April of 2008 has been owned by Microsoft. As such, all of the personal information on the Sidekicks was stored on servers owned and operated by Microsoft. During the last week, Danger / Microsoft had hired Hitachi to do an upgrade to their Storage Area Network (SAN). That's usually not a problem, as the owner of the data (Microsoft in this case) performs a backup of all the data in case of an issue.

Well, something went wrong, and it appears that Danger / Microsoft did not have a backup in place. The result is a catastrophe for Sidekick users. T-Mobile sent out a statement last week explaining the situation, and placing the blame directly on Microsoft and Danger: "Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger's latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device -- such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos -- that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."

Continue reading “The T-Mobile Sidekick data failure, and what it means to iPhone users”

Tags: backup, cloud computing, CloudComputing, danger, iphone, microsoft, SAN, sidekick, t-mobile

Filed under: Humor, Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

Even more LETHAL!

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Apr 23rd, 2009

Remember LETHAL? It's an app that can keep you awake at night by telling you about all of the dangerous things that can kill, maim, or at least injure you. The good thing is that LETHAL does it in a humorous way.

We did a review of LETHAL a few months ago, and now the development team at Elany Arts has taken the app to a new level. Not only did they significantly upgrade LETHAL, but they also dropped the price of the app from US$1.99 down to US$0.99.

What's changed?
  • LETHAL now gives a risk ranking for every US and Canadian town or city with a population over 100,000, plus all Canadian National Parks. If you're within a large metropolitan area, you can watch your LETHAL index change as you drive around.
  • More disasters! More dangerous animals!
  • The crime information is more specific, with new updated crime data from the FBI database.
  • You can view rankings for all locations from most dangerous to least (or vice versa) for all indexes and specific risks. Want to find the #1 area to get killed by a grizzly bear? LETHAL can help.
  • Speaking of animals, they're now displayed with their relative risk based on prevalence in the area and confirmed attacks (I griped about this in my earlier review, since they showed mountain lions as a big risk in my suburban neighborhood).
  • Disasters are also displayed with their relative risk based on prevalence and confirmed incidents.
LETHAL (click opens iTunes) is a fun and fascinating app, and the new lower price and extra-chunky feature set makes it even more worthwhile.

Tags: app store, apps, AppStore, danger, iphone, ipod touch, IpodTouch, lethal, software

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