The iPhone goes to war

Is the iPhone going to war?

On Wednesday at the 2009 Intelligence Warfighting Summit in Tucson, Raytheon, the military contractor, announced an iPhone application that tracks friends and foes, shows their positions on live, real time maps and provides secure communications.

Called the One Force Tracker, the Raytheon iPhone software can also be used by first responders like police, firemen, and emergency medical technicians.

The app is completely operative and works on a standard iPhone, said J Smart, chief technology officer for Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems. ''We are really delighted to be leveraging Apple's innovation.''

The adaptation of the iPhone to military use is somewhat unusual, as technology more often trickles from the military to the consumer market. But this is a rare case of consumer hardware and software concepts being adapted for military use.

For instance, crowdsourcing, which has volunteers use cellphones to report real-time traffic flow, could be adapted to turn each soldier into a reporting unit, delivering real-time data about position and status.

Communications resemble social sites like Facebook, in which your friends would be represented by a military unit, and could be used to track position of, and communicate with, other units.

Maps with an overlay of points of interest are familiar to every GPS user. The Raytheon app would use the same concept, but points of interest might be known sniper sites or safe fallback positions.

Field information would be transmitted back to a central computer that would crunch the data, update it and push it back out to the soldiers. ''This is hypothetical, but if there is a building with known terrorist activities, it could automatically be pushed to the phone when the soldiers get near that area,'' said Smart.

Live information could also be used to reduce tactical errors and friendly fire incidents. ''If there was another platoon that was supposed to arrive, and they were delayed, or ahead of schedule, you could adapt your plan,'' said Smart. ''If one of the units you are counting on is redirected, you know that in real time.''

Smart also said that Raytheon was developing sensors that could be attached to phones so that they would serve other purposes. He declined to give specifics, however mobile phones have been outfitted as portable ultrasound machines, which would be useful for battlefield medicine.

Although the application that Raytheon has developed will work with an off-the-shelf iPhone, the company concedes that there would have to be alterations for the battlefield.

One iPhone limitation to be addressed is that it only carries out one function at a time unlike competing systems from Palm and Google, which can run several concurrently. If a soldier is to have position automatically reported, the GPS will have to run at the same time as other applications.

Smart said it would be an easy adaptation to make. ''Underneath the iPhone is a Mac OS X operating system which is based on Unix, which gives us Unix multitasking,'' he said.

But that raises another issue. Apple limits multitasking because it empties the batteries quickly. Because the iPhone doesn't have a replaceable battery, a fresh one can't be popped in when power gets low. Mr. Smart said that Raytheon may address that through a ruggedized phone case that would accommodate a larger battery.

Mobile phones are also known to be vulnerable to hacking attacks. Smart said that some safeguards were built in to the software, but especially sensitive transmissions could be passed through a more sophisticated scrambler that it would dock with.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Raytheon is developing other iPhone apps as well. It has also demonstrated an application that would serve to train air traffic controllers. It would not completely replace current training, but would build skills in recalling aircraft and terrain, visual scanning, on-the-fly mathematics, and rule-based decision-making, skills that also are used frequently by gamers. (NYT)



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iPhone, iPod to overthrow Nintendo by 2014?

Analyst sees Apple winning mobile gaming

The iPhone platform could overtake rivals Nintendo and Sony for the lead in growing handheld gaming in as little as five years, a DFC Intelligence report says. The analyst group believes portable hardware from the Japanese companies is likely to still lead in terms of sheer units in the future but believes growth has "peaked" for devices like the DSi or PSP Go where Apple's platform is still climbing quickly. By 2014, the iPhone and iPod touch are expected to be the only major devices still seeing significant growth.

Researchers explain the anticipated swap in positions as a function of the iPhone platform's wider role compared to the Nintendo and Sony devices. The two consoles are bought primarily only for gaming, with media or Internet use at best a secondary feature. Even for the iPod touch, most who buy Apple's devices are buying them seldom do so with gaming as the primary goal. Internet access and media playback are stronger on iPhone OS devices and give them more flexibility.

Long-term, DFC sees games making up 23 percent of all iPhone app downloads and thus that they will have a secondary but important role.



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Print iPhone, iPod Touch Photos on Canon PIXMA Printers Over Wi-Fi

I don’t print a lot of photos but I know a lot of people who like to do so. Maybe it’s the feeling of holding the photo in the hand that lends a sense of reality to these newfangled digital photos. Those who have a Canon PIXMA MP990, MP640 or MP560 printer can now print directly from the iPhone or iPod touch. This is similar to the HP printing solution for the iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms.

The new app from Canon prints over Wi-Fi, in a variety of sizes. You can select multiple photos on the phone and print up to 20 copies for Grandma and the rest of the family. The app is free, so get printing.


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Apple acknowledges iPod nano overheating in support doc

Update: Apparently, this support document is not new today, but rather an update of a document issued in August 2008 (Google cache), at which point Apple released the same information in a statement. Somehow, that slipped through my net. Apologies.

Stories of iPod batteries catching on fire are sadly nothing new—we’ve been hearing about them for over a year. But on Friday, Apple published a knowledge base document publicly acknowledging the problem—and that may be a first.

The article, Rare cases of battery overheating, specifically references first-generation iPod nanos that were sold between September 2005 and December 2006, which appears to be in line with the models investigated by the Japanese government in 2008. Apple says the problem is very rare and attributes it to batteries provided by a single supplier.

In these rare cases, the battery may overheat, causing the iPod's case to become distorted and the iPod to stop functioning. If you notice those symptoms or other signs of the battery overheating, such as discoloration, Apple suggests you stop using the iPod immediately and contact AppleCare. In addition, if you are concerned about the battery in your iPod nano, you can also contact AppleCare for a battery replacement.

The iPod nano isn’t the only Apple product that’s been dogged by reports of battery problems, however. Earlier this year, a U.K. man said his daughter’s iPod touch overheated and exploded and an Ohio woman filed suit against Apple, claiming her son’s iPod touch exploded in his pants and caught on fire. Apple has not to date issued any specific warning about iPod touch models.


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New iPod nano and iPod touch disassembled

You’ve seen Apple roll out the new iPod nano and new iPod touch. Heck, you’ve heard what we have to say on both the new models. But perhaps you’re wondering what really makes these suckers tick. Fortunately, iFixit is in the business of satisfying your prurient interests in that regard.

You’ve seen Apple roll out the new iPod nano and new iPod touch. Heck, you’ve heard what we have to say on both the new models. But perhaps you’re wondering what really makes these suckers tick. Fortunately, iFixit is in the business of satisfying your prurient interests in that regard.

As is its habit, the company has posted in-depth slideshows of the newest Apple products in all their disassembled glory. You can see the nano’s new video camera, microphone, and speaker, all the while marveling at the incredible tolerances of engineering that make it possible to fit all that tech in such a small package. The camera itself, for example, is just 3mm thick—as iFixit points out, that’s half the size of the unit used in the iPhone 3G, which is likely why they don’t use the same hardware.

Then there’s the third-generation iPod touch. While it doesn’t look very different from its predecessor on the outside, you can’t judge an iPod from its exterior. As we know, there’s a new, faster processor on the inside, and a wireless chip that supports 802.11n (though the software at this point does not). There’s also an FM receiver and transmitter in the Bluetooth chip, though no antenna to use them. Conspiracy theorists can run wild on the fact that there appears to be room for a camera similar to the nano’s, and the internals even look similar to allegedly leaked photos of the new internals from a few months back which actually had cameras in them.

There you have it: the nano and touch—two innocent iPods—dissected for your amusement. Hope this enlightens you.



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