How AT&T Handled iPhone Onslaught At SXSW 2010
AT&T was criticized by iPhone users for the poor network coverage at South by Southwest (SXSW) last year.
However, we are getting reports that AT&T’s network was extremely stable at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) technology and music festival in Austin, Texas.
MG Siegler of TechCrunch reports:
ClayTracker Scores Another Hit as Staff Favorite on iPhone App Store
Wilmington, North Carolina – EXPOGO, Inc. the developer of the first clay target “Digital Scorecard” for the iPhone and iPod touch announced today that ClayTracker has been chosen for the second time by Apple to be featured on the App Store. Version 2.0 was recently released and now includes scoring for American, English and International/Olympic Skeet.
“ClayTracker has received great reviews from shooters worldwide, and It was great to see it featured again so soon.” said Tom Carter, president of EXPOGO Displays & Graphics, the company that created the program. “It was added to the “What’s Hot” list in December, so it is an honor to see it chosen again since there are now over 150,000 apps on the App Store.”
ClayTracker simplifies scoring of shotgun sports by eliminating the need for pencils, scorecards, and adding totaling scores after the round. Shooters can instantly view their totals and standings, then begin scoring another round with the touch of a button. ClayTracker combines multiple round totals, tracks shooter rotation and also prompts the “Option” shot upon scoring the first “lost bird” in American and English Skeet.
10% Of Microsoft Employees Use iPhones; But Hide Their Phones At Work
Perhaps one of the strongest indicators of the success of a product is how much the competition uses it.
The Wall Street Journal recently carried an interesting piece substantiating the fact where it noted the heavy usage of iPhones among Microsoft employees.
In the article, author Nick Wingfield notes that in the past one year, close to 10,000 Microsoft employees had accessed the company’s employee email system via an iPhone. This equals 10% of Microsoft’s global workforce. Redmond also has some high profile iPhone users on its rolls. J Allard; Microsoft’s chief experience officer for the entertainment and devices division who is popular for his contributions towards the creation of the Xbox gaming console is known to be an avid iPhone user. Wingfield’s report points out that iPhone users are pretty conspicuous in the cafeterias, lobbies and conference rooms of Microsoft’s Seattle campus.
GDC 2010: The Parrot AR.Drone’s augmented reality
We actually got to play with the iPhone-controlled Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter back at Macworld a little while ago, but we didn’t get a chance to see the “AR” part of it (augmented reality, of course) until GDC last week. Parrot pulled out the AR targets for us, and while the games they had running were very rudimentary, we did get a good feel for the action.
The verdict? It works, but it’s not that fun yet. Sure enough, when the Drone’s cameras picked up the weird pattern of black and white dots and/or the striped tube that the company attached to the top of a second Drone, the iPhone displayed a lock-on target or the weird robot that you can see above (that’s the iPhone’s video running out to a television, something that’s technically a no-no under the current SDK). And when the drone moved around it, the display faithfully showed the 3D model — it didn’t look actually real, but you could fly around and interact with it. And after you blasted it with enough missiles, it exploded.
TomTom for U.S. and Canada updated with real time traffic and more
We told you it was coming, and now it has arrived. The popular US$59.95 TomTom app is ready to hit the road with real time traffic available as an additional in-app purchase.
Included with the 1.3 update at no additional charge is Google local search, revised map data, music fading, automatic day and night mode based on your location, and the ability to add locations from other applications.
The real time traffic option has some nice features. Updates are received every 3 minutes. If a delay along your route is found, you will get notification from the app and automatically be re-routed. The not-so-great feature is that the traffic info will set you back $19.95 for 12 months of information. By contrast, when I reviewed the live traffic option on the Navigon app in November, it was a one time price of $19.95. The Navigon app itself is 10 bucks more expensive than the TomTom app that includes the U.S. and Canada, but those yearly fees from TomTom can add up.
