Gadgets Blog

For those of you who just can’t get enough of Google, well now you can get it on the go! Well, “on-the-go” meaning if you drive a BMW.

Germans have already been using this functure for over a year, but starting in 2009, American BMW owners will now get the luxury of browsing the web and using Google maps thanks to the help of AT&T. Most BMW blogs think the the cars will be on the GPRS network, rather than Edge, but there still isn’t any official word. Plus, all the new BMWs are going to include this new Google function apparently, except for the X3 mini-’Ute, and at $199 a year, drivers will get the Google maps integration and more.

Despite the high $200 service fee, at least you’ll get the standard BMW Assist functionality, like locating your car if gets stolen or dispatching an ambulance if you’re in a horrible accident.

Or if you don’t care to call an ambulance, at least you can Google the nearest one!

Source: Engadget

If you thought Google Maps and iTunes was something to rave about on your new iPhone, then you haven’t seen anything yet.

Remember when E.T. said he wanted to “phone home,” well, it looks like Apple is going to make it possible.

Due out this September, the new iPhone, iMartian, will finally allow those who want to, to call Mars.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. Why would you need to call Mars? But I’m thinking exactly how the guys at Apple are: Why not!?

Jared Johannson of Louisiana picked up a trial version of the iMartian as part of a select group to test out the new iPhone and had this to say about it.

“I swear, I dialed “11” and a number and someone up there (pointing up) picked up,” said Johansson. “Yep, that’s right. It was mostly static and clicks and a few beeps in there, but I know I heard him breathin’ and speaking a few words of English in there. Well, maybe not English, but it was something.”

But while he may be happy with his new discovery, some other iPhone customers aren’t as excited about the out of this world reception.

“I don’t care if they can reach Pluto with the iMartian,” said AT&T user Mallory Swanson of Toluca Lake. “I want to know why I can’t get reception to my mother’s house across the street with my iPhone. “More bars” means nothing if the bars don’t work!”

When Apple was contacted about the iMartian’s new out of this world discovery, their office released this official statement.

“We know that the public will really love the new iPhone, the iMartian. Although not everyone will be able to pick up a transmission, at least they have the ability to try. But, if you buy our new, upgraded model, the iGhoul, for an extra $100 due out next fall, you’ll probably be able to reach the dead. But you won’t know until you buy one. You win some, you lose some.”

And one more thing: April Fools!

Time Magazine has announced that Apple’s iPhone is this year’s invention of the year. Why you ask?

Simple. Here are the five reasons Time chose it as the coolest thing of 2007:

1. The iPhone is pretty
Most high tech companies don’t take design seriously. They treat it as an afterthought. Window dressing. But one of Jobs’ basic insights about technology is that good design is actually as important as good technology. All the cool features in the world won’t do you any good unless you can figure out how to use said features, and feel smart and attractive while doing it.

An example: look at what happens when you put the iPhone into “airplane” mode (i.e., no cell service, WiFi, etc.). A tiny little orange airplane zooms into the menu bar! Cute, you might say. But cute little touches like that are part of what makes the iPhone usable in a world of useless gadgets. It speaks your language. In the world of technology, surface really is depth.

2. It’s touchy feely
Apple didn’t invent the touchscreen. Apple didn’t even reinvent it (Apple probably acquired its much hyped multi touch technology when it snapped up a company called Fingerworks in 2005). But Apple knew what to do with it. Apple’s engineers used the touchscreen to innovate past the graphical user interface (which Apple helped pioneer with the Macintosh in the 1980s) to create a whole new kind of interface, a tactile one that gives users the illusion of actually physically manipulating data with their hands flipping through album covers, clicking links, stretching and shrinking photographs with their fingers.

This is, as engineers say, nontrivial. It’s part of a new way of relating to computers. Look at the success of the Nintendo Wii. Look at Microsoft’s new Surface Computing division. Look at how Apple has propagated its touchscreen interface to the iPod line with the iPod Touch. Can it be long before we get an iMac Touch? A TouchBook? Touching is the new seeing.

3. It will make other phones better
Jobs didn’t write the code inside the iPhone. These days he doesn’t dirty his fingers with 1’s and 0’s, if he ever really did. But he did negotiate the deal with AT&T to carry the iPhone. That’s important: one reason so many cell phones are lame is that cell phone service providers hobble developers with lame rules about what they can and can’t do. AT&T gave Apple unprecedented freedom to build the iPhone to its own specifications. Now other phone makers are jealous. They’re demanding the same freedoms. That means better, more innovative phones for all.

4. It’s not a phone, it’s a platform
When Apple made the iPhone, it didn’t throw together some cheapo bare bones firmware. It took OS X, its full featured desktop operating system, and somehow squished it down to fit inside the iPhone’s elegant glass and stainless steel case. That makes the iPhone more than just a gadget. It’s a genuine handheld, walk around computer, the first device that really deserves the name. One of the big trends of 2007 was the idea that computing doesn’t belong just in cyberspace, it needs to happen here, in the real world, where actual stuff happens. The iPhone gets applications like Google Maps out onto the street, where we really need them.

And this is just the beginning. Platforms are for building on. Last month, after a lot of throat clearing, Apple decided to open up the iPhone, so that you, meaning people other than Apple employees, will be able to develop software for it too. Ever notice all that black blank space on the iPhone’s desktop? It’s about to fill up with lots of tiny, pretty, useful icons.

5. It is but the ghost of iPhones yet to come
The iPhone has sold enough units, more than 1.4 million at press time, that it’ll be around for a while, and with all that room to develop and its infinitely updatable, all software interface, the iPhone is built to evolve. Look at the iPod of six years ago. That monochrome interface! That clunky touchwheel! It looks like something a caveman whittled from a piece of flint using another piece of flint. Now imagine something that’s going to make the iPhone look that primitive. You’ll have one in a few years. It’ll be very cool. And it’ll be even cheaper.

Source: Time Magazine