Gallery of curious photos from iPhone PhotoSwap app

Boing Boing:

“This morning over a pre-dawn milchkaffee, I spent some time groggily playing with my iPhone, and stumbled — like many users before me — on the fantastic app PhotoSwap: a swell little program that allows you to trade one picture with a random stranger anywhere in the world. I took a picture of a millet-nomming parakeet, angrily muttering to himself about the hour, and was rewarded with a profile picture of a striking blonde, one hand obscuring her face. I replied (a neat little feature) by mimicking the same shot, and thus began a half hour international flirtation that finally ended in the taste of throw-up when my virtual girlfriend finally revealed herself as the floozily-conceived grandaughter of Lena the Hyena.

Never the less, I remain a fan of the program, and if you’ve used it this morning you can comfortably assume that any pictures you have received of sneezing budgerigars, cat buses or Cthulhus are from Gleimstrasse in Berlin. Needless to say, the temptation to snap a shot of my girded, glistening nethers is strong, but the horrible uncertainty that I might be rewarded with Monsieur Goatse.cx’s gaping rectum is enough to keep me in check.

Not so for many. An entire Flickr group has sprung up dedicated to NSFW PhotoSwap shots. There’s the usual assortment of sulfurous moon shots, a few oiled breasts, a rubbery schlong. It’s actually surprisingly uninteresting in an age of porn in which the only nudity still alien is pulsating, exposed musculature. More interesting and amusing is the SFW gallery, where gentlemen like the one to the right are on Katamari Damacy like display. I love you, King of Cosmos. You can share photos with me anytime.”

iPhone Photoswap SFW and Photoswap NSFW (Warning: NSFW!) [via CoM]

Cactus Brings Free Voice Dialing to Your iPhone

Lifehacker:

“iPhone only: Considering that voice dialing has been a standard feature of even the cheapest cell phones for several years, the lack of any sort of hands-free voice dialing on the iPhone is frustrating. Cactus Voice Dialer is a free voice-dialing application based on an open-source speech recognition engine called PocketSphinx. Since it’s speech recognition, there’s no set up required. Just call a number by saying the contact’s name and—if necessary—which number to call (e.g., “Adam Pash’s mobile”). Cactus isn’t the only voice dialing app available in the App Store, but it is currently the only free voice dialer as far as we can tell (VoiceDial, for example, is a whopping $15). For as young as it is (and the lack of price tag), I’d say Cactus has a lot of promise. If only Apple would allow apps to tie to special buttons, like double-click home.”

Cactus Voice Dialer [iTunes Store via MakeUseOf]

Notice: Apple Issuing Recall Of iPhone 3G Power Adapter Starting October 10th

iPhone Alley: “iPhone 3G owners: Apple has issued a full recall of their Apple
Ultracompact USB Power Adapter in the form of an exchange program. They
have determined that the adapter is dangerous under certain conditions.
Apple says that they have gotten reports where the “metal prongs can
break off and remain in a power outlet, creating a risk of electric
shock.”

Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ campaign created with Macs

Idiots - didn’t I say the geeks would figure this shiz out if Macs were involved in any manner??

Appleinsider:  “Metadata found on Microsoft’s creative copy used in its ‘I’m a PC’ ad reveals that the graphics were actually produced using Macs running Adobe Creative Suite 3. After the details were published on the Flickr photo sharing site, Microsoft scrambled to polish off the embarrassing details last night.

Microsoft’s new ad features contrasts a “stereotyped PC user” dressed up like John Hodgman in Apple’s Get a Mac ads with a number of people who say, “I’m a PC” apparently to affirm that they run Windows.

However, not even Microsoft itself can wean itself off the Mac, as the metadata discovered by Flickr user LuisDS points out. Microsoft was not only using Macs but also Adobe’s software in place of its own Expressions Studio, which the company bills as software that “takes your creative possibilities to a new level.”

Lightsaber Unleashed Hits The App Store

iPhone Alley:

“TheMacBox released the update to their popular PhoneSaber application today with many new features and additions since the last version. You may remember that PhoneSaber was pulled from the App Store last month. We later learned that it was removed at the request of Lucasfilm Ltd in order for them to create an official version called Lightsaber Unleashed.

The new application now includes 5 characters from The Force Unleashed, each with their own unique Lightsaber. They’ve also added dueling music for extra fun while you and a friend destroy each others’ iPhones.

Lightsaber Unleashed is available for free in the App Store. Customers who have already purchased PhoneSaber can download the update via the Updates tab in the App Store.”

Newber Beta To Add Location-Aware Business Line To iPhone

iPhone Alley:

“FreedomVOICE has just announced the opening of their beta program for their app and cellular service called Newber. The app allows iPhone users to add a second phone number to their iPhone, giving them the ability to have a completely separate “business” line on their iPhone. It’s also location-aware, and can forward calls to other devices when in specific locations.

Not only is the app useful if a business user wants to keep their iPhone’s phone number and business number separate, but it also gives the ability to direct the Newber number to another nearby cellular or landline phone. This lets them do things like conserve battery life, but could be useful in areas with poor reception.

Users can simply key in the number of the alternate phone they wish to use, and the app will tag that location with GPS, so any time the iPhone is in the tagged location, calls to the Newber number will automatically get redirected to the other phone.

Additionally, users can tell the app to send calls from certain phone numbers directly to voicemail with no screening.

The native Newber app itself integrates with the contacts list already on the iPhone, displays missed and incoming calls, and has it’s own separate visual voicemail.

The Newber service costs $5/month and $0.02 per minute in the US (rates are higher elsewhere). They hope to have yet another version of the app in stores “soon”, and are currently considering user-submitted suggestions.

More information on the app is available at MyNewber.com. People interested in participating in their beta test can go here.”

[via MacNN]

Carry Your PC on Your iPhone or iPod Touch

Lifehacker:

“It’d be wonderfully convenient if you could take your important
documents and applications with you wherever you go, but lugging a
laptop with you every time you step out the door is far from
convenient. That’s where MokaFive’s new cross-platform application
called iPhone Sentinel comes in. By turning part of your iPhone or iPod
touch into a portable hard drive, iPhone Sentinel and the MokaFive
Player allow you to run virtual machines directly off your iPhone, so
you can run anything from an entire operating system to standalone
video games like Quake. Here’s how it works.”

CONTINUE READING

OS X 10.5.5 update available for download

Engadget:

“Apple’s latest OS update — 10.5.5 — is now up and
dancing in Software Update. It includes the latest batch of security
updates, Address Book, Spotlight, and iPhone sync enhancements, and
iCal, eMail, MobileMe and Time Machine performance tweaks. In other
words, it’s a biggie. Full release notes just beyond that read link.”

VLC media player 0.9.2 IS OUT!

Digg: “After more than two years of development and 100,000,000 VLC media
player 0.8.6 downloads, the VideoLAN team is proud to announce the
release of VLC media player 0.9.2, codename “Grishenko”.. It’s awesome!”

Network Location Turns Your Mac into a GPS Box

Wired:

“Network Location is a Mac application that has been around for sometime. Being software, it’s not something we have mentioned before, but a new feature puts it firmly (ahem) on the Gadget Lab map: Geo-location.

The main purpose of Network Location is to change your Mac’s settings when you move around: Connect to the server automatically when you get to the office, switch off your email when you get home, lock the keychain at the coffee shop and so on. New in v.3, though, is support for Skyhook, the Wi-Fi triangulation service used by the iPhone and iPod Touch.

And it works. I work in a back room of an old building which pretty much blocks Wi-Fi from the neighbors (and even my own router). But hitting the menu bar option seen in the picture, Network Location triangulated my position in a few seconds and popped open a Google Map showing me exactly where I am. Or more accurately, showing me exactly where I would be if I walked fifty yards down the street.

Still, it’s nifty, and if you only want it for geo-location you can use it free for 30 days, after which it’ll cost $30.”

Product page [Network Location via TUAW]