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| Apple to Introduce "GarageBand for E-Books" [RUMOR] | |  Apple is scheduled to host an education-related event on January 19 - shrouded with a veil of mystery, as always. A new report from Ars Technica says the company is about to unveil a set of tools to create interactive e-books. Previous rumors said that Apple will show no new devices, and that the event will center around Apple's new partnerships with textbook publishers. If this new report is true, the event might turn out to be much more significant. Ars Technica's sources say Apple's about to present new authoring tools described as "GarageBand for e-books," making it easy for everyone to create interactive digital books. The company also plans to expand its platform to distribute these e-books to iPhone and iPad users. Apple, who currently supports the ePub 2 e-book standard (with some additions) is also expected to announce support for the ePub 3 standard for iBooks. This venture is described as the pet project of Steve Jobs, who - according to Walter Isaacson's biography - believed the textbook industry is ripe for "digital destruction." According to Ars Technica's sources, Jobs was very closely involved on the project and has worked on it for several years. Mashable will be reporting from the event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City on Jan. 19. |
| This Headgear Puts Your Moves On-Screen [VIDEO] | | Monday, January 16, 2012 7:13 PM | Lance Ulanoff |
|  LAS VEGAS -- Motion control was a pretty hot topic at this year's CES, and though the buzz centered around Microsoft, Samsung and Tobii, they aren't the only companies with ideas for how you can use your body to guide on-screen activity. Enter AikenLabs. Its new technology can motion-enable virtually any interface. Its Immersive Motion Sensory System makes you look, admittedly, a little silly when you wear it. It consists of a headband with a small plastic box on the front and two smaller, similar bands and boxes -- one for each hand (you can actually wear up to eight of these sensors). Inside each box is a collection of motion sensors, including a magnetometer, accelerometer and gyroscope. They combine to read the exact position and movement in space of your head and hands. All deliver their readings to a special, wireless server box, which is then connected to your PC. Using AikenLabs' software, programmers and users can connect any number of pre-defined real-world actions to on-screen activity. I used it to play a rudimentary PC game. When I looked around in the real world, my view on screen changed. I could look left, right, up and down in the CES show hall and my on-screen view looked all around in the virtual world, as well. With the two sensors on my hands, I targeted virtual trees with one hand and pushed them over with the other. It made me feel just a little bit like a Jedi Master. AikenLabs will be selling the Pro Server, two wireless sensors and the programming software for $499 sometime this spring. They're also offering a desktop version for consumers and $149 Bluetooth-enabled motion sensors for use with smartphone games. Do you want to control your computer and with your body or are you satisfied with a good-old-fashioned mouse and keyboard? Tell us in the comments. Bonus: The 30 Most Memorable Highlights of CES |
| Cheap Eats: 5 iPhone Apps for Frugal Foodies | | Monday, January 16, 2012 6:24 PM | Joann Pan |
|  Being two weeks into the new year, maybe it's time to stop downloading all those iPhone diet and calorie-tracking apps. It's time to embrace a good, hearty meal again. And every meal tastes better when it's free (or really cheap), right? These days, entertainment and going out can be expensive -- and we appreciate all the help we can get. That's why we sought out these free food and restaurant discovery apps to help you get the most for your cash. You'll never believe the great meals you can have on the cheap, discovering other great foods all along the way. Think Cuban grilled corn smothered with cotija cheese and chili mayo, Ethiopian seasoned chickpeas with berbere sauce, rosemary olive oil ice cream (not as bad as you think) and let's not forget the pumpkin ravioli with parmesan fondue and caramelized balsamic sauce. Salivate. Now, wipe the drool off your face and download your very own stash of frugal foodie iPhone apps that will help you find great food and discounts. 1. Scoutmob Scoutmob is the first on our list of iPhone apps for frugal foodies. Eat for free or try new restaurants in your area using 50% off deals. Every restaurant we've been to per ScoutMob reviews has been a delicious experience. What we like about the app: This application gets points for its funny and well-written content, but also for its consistent, daily 50% off deals. Sometimes you'll even find a 100% off deal or two. Past free deals we have taken advantage of include free belgium fries from Pommes Frites and a free hot dog from Crif Dogs -- both NYC staples. Another bonus, you don't need to pre-pay for the deal before eating your meal. Extra features: Within the app, Stache Cam lets you pick a mustache and smile for the camera. Available cities: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C. What is available: 50% off and 100% off deals. 2. BlackboardEats What we like about the app: BlackboardEats has some real classy deals. Plus, it's well-designed and easy to operate. BlackboardEats emails and delivers deals for "hot spots and hidden gems" in your city. The app's reviews and deals are by food editors and writers who know what they're talking about. One of this week's deals was one of the most expensive we've seen on the app: a very exclusive pre-show dinner at ellabass and a sold-out floor seat ticket to Coldplay's concert at the Meadowlands. Extra features: The Tip Calculator makes the arrival of your (discounted!) check a little less stressful. Enter discounted total, pre-discounted total, tip percentage you want to leave and how many people will split the check. Available cities: Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. What is available: Free deals, for instance, a complimentary bottle of wine and guacamole alla toscana at Matilda. Plus, regular 30% off restaurant deals, access to secret menu items and pre-fixe package deals. 3. Poggled What we like about the app: We love Poggled drink and food deals. You can search deals with the geolocation feature and view the most popular deals of the day. You'll find $10 for $20 beverage deals, $15 for $30 food and drink deals and classy wine tasting packages. Extra features: Through the All Events tab, you'll be able to search by day and deals by category -- bar night, bottle service, brunch drink deals and more. Yelp reviews are also available. Available cities: Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee and New York City. What is available: Daily drink and food specials. Plus, pre-admission packages to parties and events. 4. Tweat.It Tweat.It is the coolest thing we have ever seen. If you love food trucks as much as we do, download this app now. It will track your location and tell you which food trucks are closest. Right now, my options are: Milk Truck, The Treats Truck, Taim Mobile, along with a couple others. The best part? You'll know about the secret discounts and daily specials first. What we like about the app: It sends real-time food vendor locations, which are very accurate, to your phone. The trucks appear as little labelled square icons on an interactive map of New York City. Available cities: Manhattan What is available: Food Truck tweets and illustrates locations on a handy map of NYC so you can find your lunch easily. 5. Daily Gobble What we like about the app: The Daily Gobble's graphics are funny, and the app makes the process easy to understand. Daily Gobblers made this app for people who hate using coupons for fear of presenting the coupon and receiving inferior service. So, they completely remove that step. Find a deal you like, eat your meal, then upload a photo of your check to get your money back afterward -- whether it be 10% to 50% off via PayPal, within the hour. There are literally hundreds of deals available at a time. Available cities: New York and San Francisco. What is available: The app has a built-in camera and "My Gobbles" tab to track your meal deals. Honorable Mentions -- We also think Yelp -- a social networking and review site available in most of the U.S. states and Puerto Rico -- is a convenient way to look up restaurant addresses, dining details and really great deals. A lot of the time, you can find discounts to unlock once you check into a place. Same goes for Foursquare -- a popular location-based social networking website -- which also lets you check-in at different venues, earn points, badges and deals! Now, start downloading! All these apps are free. Let us know details about your latest food tour -- or meal -- in the comments section. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, webphotographeer |
| CES 2012 Recap: Everything You May Have Missed [PICS] | | Monday, January 16, 2012 5:37 PM | Chelsea Stark |
|  Last week thousands of exhibitors, journalists, marketers and electronics aficionados hopped on planes to Las Vegas for the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. Mashable's own team covered all the events leading up to and happening at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Venetian Hotel. While many agreed that CES didn't hold a candle to the glory of previous years, there was still plenty to see and be impressed by this year. While one single gadget or announcement didn't steal the spotlight, in general CES toys were bigger, faster, lighter and brighter. Images on brand-new OLED TVs from companies like Samsung, Sharp, LG and Sony seemed to pop out at you, and speaking of, 3D technology -- both with goofy future glasses and without -- became widely available. There were also gadgets that could detect motion, similar to Kinect, and some with face detection. TVs averaged 55 to 84 inches, sure to dominiate even the most opulent living room. Even without Apple's direct presence at CES, the company's technology still made waves. Other companies hopped onto the two big bandwagons Apple pioneered: tablets and extremely thin, powerful laptops. Intel devoted a massive booth to Ultrabook technology, which included offerings from Acer, Dell, HP and convertible tablet-PC hybrids by Lenovo. But CES was also home to concepts and innovations, including concept cars, iAccessories galore and toys for the young and old. Along with the devices on display, there were plenty of celebrities in attendance, as well as parties to attend. Mashable hosted its own MashBash on Jan. 11 at the 1OAK Nightclub in the Mirage Hotel and Casino. The event sold out several days before, in anticipation of dancing the night away with mashup DJs and enjoying plenty of digital distractions. Click above to see our most important moments of CES in pictures. |
| NYC to Open Its First Software Engineering High School | | Monday, January 16, 2012 4:25 PM | Joann Pan |
|  New York City is taking another step toward becoming Silicon Alley -- the East Coast's own tech hub -- with the grand opening of the city's first software engineering-specialized high school. Class at Software Engineering Academy will be in session for 400 to 500 ninth graders this September. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the new school in his 2012 State of the City Address. It will open in the heart of Union Square, within a growing tech community that includes companies such as Yelp and General Assembly. "Those are the kinds of companies we want our students to work for or to start," Bloomberg said. A computer science teacher named Mike Zamansky, who taught computer coding at Stuyvesant High School when other schools hadn't considered teaching the skill, dreamt up the concept. The school aims to fill a void for computer software engineers in the United States' workforce. Computer science is one of the fastest growing industries in the country and will add more jobs than any other between 2008 to 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's about 295,000 jobs. The public school will, in hope, churn out a new crop of computer engineers that will eventually go to work for NYC's technology companies, joining an industry where the middle 50% of workers make between $67,790 and $104,870. The top 10% earn more than $128,870. Software Engineering will be sponsored by Fred Wilson, principal at Union Square Ventures, and Bloomberg L.P. SEE ALSO: NYC Startup Scene Celebrated in 2012 Calendar/a> Anyone who wants to apply for the school will be able to -- grades and attendance will not be considered. Usual school application metrics aren't the most important criteria for promising programmers, explained Joel Spolsky, the co-founder of Fog Creek Software and a member of the new school's board of advisors, in a blog post. There are middle schoolers with so-so grades who will make great software engineers. There are also immigrant children who will be great software engineers but have not overcome the language barrier yet. "They're still looking for qualified computer science teachers and a principal," Spolsky wrote. What you think about NY's tech school support? Will this help create a tech boom in the city? Let us know in the comments. Images courtesy of iStockphoto, dem10, Alsos |
| Tablets Will Transform the Classroom [OPINION] | | Monday, January 16, 2012 3:29 PM | Neil Johnston |
|  Neil Johnston is managing director at Store Van Music. Neil is an award winning young entrepreneur and composer who specializes in a breakthrough link between the music industry and education. You can find out more about his pioneering work by following him on Facebook and Twitter. Apple released the original iPad to consumers in April 2010, sparking the tablet computer frenzy that we see in full-swing today. Twenty-one months later, we're facing the potential launch year of the much-rumored iPad 3, not to mention numerous competitor tablets from all of the major device manufacturers. Alongside these changes, forward-thinking educators are taking risks by distributing tablets in schools, in the hopes that the glimpses of efficiency we have seen to-date can continue to evolve for the long-term, changing classroom education for the better. Many schools across the world are well on their way to integrating tablet technology into their daily routines. I receive hundreds of emails every week from teachers, schools and even businesses that are integrating tablets into their working environments. Some schools are choosing to scrap textbooks all together in a pioneering pledge to remain at the forefront of technology. For the first time, schools have the opportunity to no longer be years behind with their classroom technology, but actually to be at the starting line, as the interface continues to evolve into a respectable tool for work purposes. The blogosphere continues an ongoing discussion: how tablets can change education for the better, how technological change can be both beneficial and problematic for the challenging task of literacy or the art form of handwriting, to name a couple. A recent New York Times article said that teachers in Idaho achieved 75,000 signatures in the hopes of abolishing a new initiative to bring further technology to schools. Some people are worried that technological advancement will cause teacher layoffs and funding cuts, which is understandable. However, putting the political debates aside, what about the benefits to the classroom environment and to the teacher? Teachers are under more and more pressure from governments to create vibrant, engaging lessons for every learner in their care. How can this technology help? My answer would be enormously. I believe these advancements to be monumental. Many great minds across the world believe our current 18th century way of educating is broken. People like Sir Ken Robinson are strongly pushing for more creativity in schools. I agree fully with the principle; my pledge is to bring refreshing change to music education. But what about the immediate term? The system is still stuck in its ways, and current government reform is still too insignificant to change the model for good. Right now in 2012, I believe tablets to be a significant creative breakthrough that will help teachers across the world do their jobs better. Class sizes vary enormously. Some are small, around 12 to 15 students, but in the UK, some classes enroll up to 32 students. How on earth does a teacher create an engaging lesson for 32 different learners, especially when each learner carries his own individualized learning style? It's at this very point that tablet integration gets exciting. Tablets can be the breakthrough that allows teachers to pursue individualized learning curriculum more easily, freeing the teacher to produce a more effective learner experience for the class as a whole. And in classrooms full of diverse learner abilities, almost every group contains students of lower abilities who are learning alongside students with higher levels of understanding. Therefore, often a few learners become disengaged with the lesson at hand. We've found in music education that the lower-ability learner who would normally retreat to the periphery of the class, struggling to keep in time playing a triangle, is now engaged in his lesson, playing the Smart Guitar function on GarageBand for iPad. Not only does this involve that specific learner in the classroom activity, but its also halts classroom segregation and, often, conflict. This is not just true for music and arts-related education. When the correct apps are applied to the appropriate subject on a creative touchable interface, learners are free to work at different paces, in the same class and with the same teacher. The teacher then becomes free to work with the different ability groups, and to focus on developing the day's curriculum. Furthermore, think of the prospects cloud-based services could bring to tablet education. Competent teachers who are already composing excellent lessons can now share tools across the world, made accessible to all. Soon Apple will hold its next media event; rumors are circulating that the company may introduce further advancements to iTunes U, or launch a new textbook distribution model. These moves will only serve to champion great teaching using improved technology, and ultimately to evolve the education model of today. It's up to the development community to continue developing apps that can contain entire curriculums. When we see those apps in place, tablet-based education will finally live up to its hype as an engaging, creative way to learn math, science, literacy, art, geography and so on -- what more could educators want? Government education departments must also begin to support the move to digital. We're already witnessing a successful transition in digital publishing, and in early adopter music labels, for example. I'm hoping that teachers continue to welcome the forthcoming opportunities in digital education. The tablet interface and app potential is a great step forward for the brilliant educators across the world. These advancements are not intended to replace their skills, but rather, to assist their teaching roles in the most successful way possible. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, arakonyunus |
| New Tech Could Protect Your Phone From Death by Toilet Bowl [VIDEO] | | Monday, January 16, 2012 2:52 PM | Mashable Video |
|  No more rice to the rescue for these gadgets. We've seen a tablet that can be immersed in water and one kind of tech that can protect smartphones from a watery grave, too. Here's another: HZO, which was demoed at this year's CES. This technology creates a barrier that repels water, protecting gadgets' insides. One report indicates that HZO could soon be coming to smartphones and headphones. Check out the video above to learn more and see it in action. Do you want waterproof gadgets? |
| 5 Useful iPad Apps for Doctors, Patients and Med Students | | Monday, January 16, 2012 12:22 PM | Brandon Smith |
|  The days are gone when a doctor walked into a patient's room and grabbed the paper chart at the end of his bed to check his medical history. iPads and tablet computing have revolutionized the way many companies do business, and the medical field is no different. The sharp, intuitive displays and interactive content of tablets naturally make doctor's visits a more collaborative process. Currently, a competitive market is emerging for both software and hardware companies. Recently Apple hired a director of medical marketing, so it's game on in this burgeoning sector. Plus, with $44,000 available in economic stimulus incentives via the HITECH Act, it's no surprise that doctors are beginning to make the switch to digital. Here's a look at some apps that are being used in doctor's offices and hospitals around the U.S. Have you seen any cool apps being used by your doctor that we missed? Share them with us in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, eliandric |
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