Bulletflight might take the cake, but Raytheon’s One Force Tracker would certainly be in the running for least likely iPhone app.
The New York Times reports the Waltham-based defense giant is developing two iPhone apps: One for situational awareness in a battlefield, and one for air traffic control. One Force Tracker maps the positions of enemies and friends in real-time, and allows for secure communication including photo and video transmission. The app could also be used by police, firefighters and other first responders.
The air traffic control app would be used to train air traffic conrollers.
Is there an e-reader on your gift list this year? It wouldn’t be a surprise—the technology press touts that the 2009 holiday shopping season (actually, all of 2010) will see the ascent of the e-reader as the ultimate mobile accessory, delivering novels and newspapers to a public clamoring for convenience
Once a boutique, almost novelty device, the e-reader market is steadily filling up. According to an August report from the Association of American Publishers, electronic-book sales increased 177 percent, to $96.6 million, over 2008 numbers.
Industry pioneer Sony and its upstart rival Amazon, with its Kindle series of devices (this year, the company is believed to have sold three million units), must now battle for market share against iRex Technologies’ iRex DR800SG, the soon-to-be released Alex from Spring Design, and offerings from Barnes & Noble. (more…)
The city of Boston’s iPhone app, is available for download today. The email archiving pothole-and-whatnot-reporting app allows residents to send the city service requests, including photos and location information.
Mayor Menino is holding a 2 p.m. press conference to announce the app’s availability with Bill Oates, the city’s CIO; Nigel Jacob, the mayor’s emerging technology adviser; and Dave Mitchell, founder of Nashua, N.H.-based software company Connected Bits, which developed the app.
Called CatholicTV, the application includes reflections, Mass celebrations, recitations of the rosary and a few other features.
A test found the application to be a bit clumsy, but any newspaper stock analyst will tell you that divine hostility toward the media is no surprise these days.
Cambridge-based Sparkfish Creative has developed an iPhone app that lets a user browse the T’s scheduling info and find out when your bus or train is coming.
All of these Tscheduleapplications have me wondering — am I the only one who didn’t know the Red, Orange, Green and Blue lines even had a schedule?
If you’re afraid of contracting H1N1, or you’re a hypochondriac, or you’re just morbidly curious — and you have an iPhone — then get yourself to the App Store ASAP. Children’s Hospital reports it has developed an H1N1-alerting and reporting iPhone app with the MIT Media Lab:
The new application also features an option for users to submit an outbreak report. This will enable individuals in cities and countries around the world to interact with the HealthMap team and participate in the public health surveillance process. Users may take photos – of situations and scenarios of, and/or leading to, disease – with their iPhone and submit them to the HealthMap system for review and eventual posting as an alert on the worldwide map.
The free app, called OutbreaksNearMe, is based on HealthMap, another Children’s project — in conjunction with MIT and Harvard — marking cases of infectious diseases on an interactive map.
MIT professor Missy Cummings and her students at the Humans and Automation Lab at MIT Aero/Astro have developed an iPhone-app to control unmanned aerial vehicles. UAVs usually have unwieldy remote controls about the size of a briefcase.
Not only would a iPhone-like controller make soldiers’ jobs much easier, it also opens up UAVs to a whole new, non-military market. If robot control is cheap and intuitive, people might find all kinds of new uses. Cummings’ own favorite: “Being able to launch one out of the window and fly it down to the Starbucks, to tell me how many people are in line, so I know when to get coffee.”
UAV technology will definitely develop at a faster pace than my sense of ease with seeing a flying robot spying on the coffee shop I just left.
Opening doors has been killing me lately, and I’ve been looking for a solution combining state-of-the-art mobile communications technology and plumbing. Luckily, MIT is nearby for just such situations. Recent grad Chris Varenhorst has given the world iDoor, a hydraulic door-control system controlled by his iPhone:
I spent my senior year living with this door, and besides having to replace a servo, it pretty much worked flawlessy. The only trouble was my hallmates hacking the door, and random EM noises doing weird things to it. I’m not sure if I’ve actually saved time in the long run, but it was definitely fun. Some of my favorite uses of the door are opening it remotely for friends that need to get stuff out of my room, (though it can be confusing for people that aren’t familiar with it). If I leave in a hurry, I can also just tell my phone to close my door when I remember later. Another good trick is opening and closing the door randomly during parties on my hall, confusing bystanders endlessly.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has contacted Israel-based Protalix BioTherapeutics Inc. about the possibility of initiating a treatment protocol for use of its Phase 3 drug target for Gaucher’s disease. The drug has not yet been approved for use in the U.S. but would be used to blunt the effect that the Cerezyme shortage is having on patients, who have no other approved treatment options.
The Boston-based company (Nasdaq: NMTI) said revenue for the second quarter that ended June 30 will be around $3.2 million, down from the $3.8 million to $4.3 million predicted in May.
Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. has won a patent for a method of extracting oil from the tiny seeds of cranberries, which the patent claims can be used for “treating or reducing the occurrence of breast cancer,” among other diseases. It’s a bold claim, but when asked if he believes the yellowish oil that smells and tastes faintly of cranberries could really have that power, inventor Wassef Nawar says, “Absolutely.” (more…)
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Bulletflight might take the cake, but Raytheon’s One Force Tracker would certainly be in the running for least likely iPhone app.
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The city of Boston’s iPhone app, is 
If you’re afraid of contracting H1N1, or you’re a hypochondriac, or you’re just morbidly curious — and you have an iPhone — then get yourself to the App Store ASAP. Children’s Hospital 
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