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At the WWDC 2008 conference, Steve Jobs announced the next generation iPhone. Called the iPhone 3G, it will feature:

• The next version of Mac OS X is indeed called “Snow Leopard”
• In the first 95 days of the SDK being available, over 250k people have downloaded it.
• iPhone 2 features:
• Push email
• Push contacts
• Push calendar
• Auto-discovery
• Global address look-up
• Remote wipe
• WiFi features:
• WPA/WPA2 Enterprise
• 802.1x authentication
• LEAP
• PEAPv0, PEAv1
• 35% of Fortune 500 are in the iPhone beta program.
• Top 5 commercial banks
• Top 5 securities firms
• 6 of 7 top airlines
• 8 out of 10 top pharmaceutical firms
• 8 out of 10 top entertainment firms
• Developers are demoing their iPhone software
• Sega’s Super Monkey Ball will cost US$10 from the App Store
• Native eBay application
• Loopt – a location-aware social network
• TypePad – Free easy blogging / photo application
• Mobile News Network – AP’s free location-based news application for iPhone
• Enigmo, a physics-based game and Cro-Mag Rally, a 3D racing game that uses the iPhone itself as the steering whee, from Pangea Software. $10 each.
• MLB – today’s baseball games with live scoring and real-time video highlights.
• Modality – Transforms and distributes premium content for handheld devices (their site is currently down.)
• 2 medical-based applications - one is educational, the second (MIMvista) is for viewing medical imagery.
• #1 request has been background support - but its bad for battery life and performance
• Apple will offer Push Notification Service in September. “When the user quits the application, Apple will push updates from their servers to the iPhone. The developer’s servers push the notifications to Apple. These updates can include badges, sounds, and custom messages. This requires just one persistent connection and is extremely scalable.”
• New features in iPhone 2.0:
• Contact search with live searching
• Full iWork document support
• Complete support for Office documents (Word, Excel, and now PowerPoint)
• Bulk delete & move for messages
• Ability to save received images
• New calculator with scientific mode when you rotate the iPhone
• Parental controls
• Temendous language support
• Asian language support, including character recognition
• iPhone 2.0 will be available in early July
• Free for iPhone owners, $9.99 for iPod Touch owners.

Apple Store:

• Developer sets price
• Developer gets 70% of revenue
• No credit card or hosting fees
• FairPlay DRM
• No charge for free apps
• Wireless download support
• Automatic updates
• Apps under 10MB, it can be downloaded through the cell network. Otherwise, it requires WiFi or iTunes
• MobileMe (Me.com)
• Everything stays in sync between iPhone, Mac, and PC
• Data gets synced automatically both ways
• Works with Mail, iCal, and Address Book on Mac (Outlook on PC)
• Web 2.0 application for Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and Gallery applications
• Photos are synced OTA too
• iDisk is supported
• A 60-day free trial available with iPhone 2.0
• software in early July
• MobileMe replaces .Mac
• .Mac subscribers will automatically be upgraded.

“Introducing the iPhone 3G“

• Thinner
• Black plastic back
• Solid metal buttons
• (Same display & camera)
• Flush headphone jack
• Improved audio
• 3G – 2.8X faster than EDGE
• Battery life: 300 hours of standby, 2G talk-time: 10 hours, 3G talk time: 5 hours, 3G browsing: 5 to 6 hours, Video: 7 hours, Audio: 24 hours.
• GPS support
• Available: July 11 in 22 countries.
• Price:  US$199 (8GB), US$299 (16GB)
• A white 16GB model will be available

The iPhone will be available July 11th in 22 countries. The 8GB model will be $199 (black only), and the 16GB model will be $299 (black or white), with a new 2-year rate plan (sold separately).

Source: Zdnet Blogs

Mary Jo Foley, a blogger @ Zdnet Blogs says:

I’ve been puzzling over transcripts of a couple of recent speeches by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates where he discussed his vision for the end of phone numbers. But it wasn’t until today, when I learned more about Microsoft’s “Echoes” services platform for telcos that I began piecing together how Gates & Co. thinks Microsoft can do this.

This is from one transcript of an early May speech Gates gave in Japan:

“Right now the mobile phone, the desktop phone, the e-mail that you have on the PC, or instant messaging, these are all very different things, and the issues about how much of your information or your schedule, your current activity you share with people who communicate with you is not well designed…. By bringing together all of these kinds of communication, we can greatly simplify them. We can get rid of phone numbers, have it so when you say you want to contact someone, based on who you are and where that person is, they can decide whether to take the call or take a message about that, and so a great efficiency improvement that can be made there.” (emphasis mine)

So how does Microsoft propose getting rid of phone numbers? Here’s an overview, from the same source who originally tipped me on Echoes:

Starting with Echoes Wave 1 — the first iteration of Microsoft’s services platform for telco providers that is due out this summer — Microsoft plans to synchronize contacts. In other words, Live Messenger contacts will appear in a mobile user’s address book (if the carrier is using Echoes). The contacts will be synced via Windows Live Messenger, so duplicates are eliminated.

Messenger contacts will automatically appear in users’ phone address book, so that even if they  don’t know one of their Live Messenger contact’s phone number, they still will be able to call it. Numbers will be able to ring simultaneously on multiple devices/systems. On the flip side, Echoes will help insure instant-messaging-to-SMS continuity. A user can send an IM to any mobile contact, and the contact can respond via a text message.

So what is it about Echoes that will enable this magic? This is the source’s explanation:

1. Echoes will assign a local mobile number to each Windows Live contact

2. Via its Address Book sync capabilities, Echoes will push these new new contacts into any mobile phone (no client required)

3. The user will be able to compose an SMS or place a voice call to these contacts

4. Echoes will ensure text messages are delivered to Windows Live contacts as chat conversations, and replies will be sent back from Messenger as SMS

5. Voice calls can be connected through Echoes directly from the mobile to the Windows Live Messenger user’s PC

6. As the mobile user will appear always “online” to friends (using Echoes client emulation server), conversations also will be able to start from the Windows Live cloud, pushed to the  mobile as SMS

So what do you think? Does Microsoft’s plan sound workable? Is this something you’d want to use in the next year or two (which is when Microsoft is encouraging carriers to push the Echoes functionality out)?

Source: Zdnet Blogs

It’s take 2 for the One Laptop Per Child project–version XO-2 of its laptop geared for children in developing countries features two side by side screens. The XO-2 is expected to arrive in 2010.

Some highlights of the new laptop, according to a blogger at Zdnet, Larry Dignan:

• OLPC is betting that new developments in hardware, software, display and processor technologies will lower the XO-2’s price tag to $75.

• OLPC is going with the 1 watt power consumption target so XO-2 can be powered by a hand crank.

• The XO-2 will feature dual-touch displaces for the e-book.

The most interesting new feature is the two 16:9-ratio touchscreens, one of which can be used as a touch-sensitive keyboard. ZDNet’s John Morris compares it to a cross between an Apple iPhone and an oversized Nintendo DS. OLPC will market it as a feature packed e-book reader capable of holding up to 500 books.

The first generation XO laptop started off with a bang–but sales have fallen below expectations.

Nicholas Negroponte, leader of the OLPC project, wants the new laptop to be half the size and weight of its predecessor.

ZDNet’s Christopher Dawson wonders if the XO-2 could be vaporware.

In contrast, former OLPC partner, Intel, wants its second generation Classmate PC to go a different route beyond the emerging markets and into the mainstream.

Source: Zdnet Blogs

“The day may be getting a little closer when robots will perform surgery on patients in dangerous situations or in remote locations, such as on the battlefield or in space, with minimal human guidance.”

Engineers at Duke University believe that the results of feasibility studies conducted in their laboratory represent the first concrete steps toward achieving this space age vision of the future. Also, on a more immediate level, the technology developed by the engineers could make certain contemporary medical procedures safer for patients, they said.

For their experiments, the engineers started with a rudimentary tabletop robot whose “eyes” used a novel 3-D ultrasound technology developed in the Duke laboratories. An artificial intelligence program served as the robot’s “brain” by taking real-time 3-D information, processing it, and giving the robot specific commands to perform.

“In a number of tasks, the computer was able to direct the robot’s actions,” said Stephen Smith, director of the Duke University Ultrasound Transducer Group and senior member of the research team. “We believe that this is the first proof-of-concept for this approach. Given that we achieved these early results with a rudimentary robot and a basic artificial intelligence program, the technology will advance to the point where robots – without the guidance of the doctor – can someday operate on people.”

The results of a series of experiments on the robot system directing catheters inside synthetic blood vessels was published online in the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control. A second study, published in April in the journal Ultrasonic Imaging, demonstrated that the autonomous robot system could successfully perform a simulated needle biopsy.

Advances in ultrasound technology have made these latest experiments possible, the researchers said, by generating detailed, 3-D moving images in real-time.

The Duke laboratory has a long track record of modifying traditional 2-D ultrasound – like that used to image babies in utero – into the more advanced 3-D scans. After inventing the technique in 1991, the team also has shown its utility in developing specialized catheters and endoscopes for real-time imaging of blood vessels in the heart and brain.

In the latest experiment, the robot successfully performed its main task: directing a needle on the end of the robotic arm to touch the tip of another needle within a blood vessel graft. The robot’s needle was guided by a tiny 3-D ultrasound transducer, the “wand” that collects the 3-D images, attached to a catheter commonly used in angioplasty procedures.

“The robot was able to accurately direct needle probes to target needles based on the information sent by the catheter transducer,” said John Whitman, a senior engineering student in Smith’s laboratory and first author on both papers. “The ability of the robot to guide a probe within a vascular graft is a first step toward further testing the system in animal models.”

While the research will continue to refine the ability of robots to perform independent procedures, the new technology could also have more direct and immediate applications.

“Currently, cardiologists doing catheter-based procedures use fluoroscopy, which employs radiation, to guide their actions,” Smith said. “Putting a 3-D ultrasound transducer on the end of the catheter could provide clearer images to the physician and greatly reduce the need for patients to be exposed to radiation.”

In the earlier experiments, the tabletop robot arm successfully touched a needle on the arm to another needle in a water bath. Then it performed a simulated biopsy of a cyst, fashioned out of a liquid-filled balloon in a medium designed to simulate tissue.

“These experiments demonstrated the feasibility of autonomous robots accomplishing simulated tasks under the guidance of 3-D ultrasound, and we believe that it warrants additional study,” Whitman said.

The researchers said that adding this 3-D capability to more powerful and sophisticated surgical robots already in use at many hospitals could hasten the development of autonomous robots that could perform complex procedures on humans.

The research in Smith’s lab is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Other Duke members of the team were Matthew Fronheiser and Nikolas Ivancevich.

Source: News.Duke.Edu