You might remember the whole “iPhone 4 prototype swiped in a bar” fiasco. You’re probably aware that history has recently repeated itself with the iPhone 5. What you might not know is what Apple is planning to do about it. Never fear, however! Conan O’Brien and the good folks at Team Coco have put together a commercial that shows exactly what fate awaits the intrepid thief — and it ain’t gonna be pretty.
If you were Apple, what sort of fun things would you have in store for the prototype thief? How about the dumbass who let it happen – again? Presuming that it’s not all some sort of weird publicity stunt, of course.
Perhaps this one should be filed under “cool headline, but what is the whole story?” According to TUAW, a documentary on BBC 3 compares the similarities between Apple and a religion. A team of neuroscientists took an MRI scan of the brain of an Apple fanatic, and determined that “Apple was actually stimulating the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people in faith.”
The documentary, aired on May 18, was about the relationship between consumers and the brands that shape their behavior. Unfortunately, the documentary is not available in my region. Has anyone seen it, who can give us a more full report? I’d be curious to learn whether this reaction to stimulation was unique to Apple, or a reaction that everyone has to favorite brands or positive experiences. If the former, perhaps Apple fans are brainwashed masses after all. (And before you get up in arms over that statement, I count myself among them, given my total dedication to my MacBook Air).
File this under very cool and potentially useful. Word Lens is the kind of app you will want to have on you when travelling, or when presented with text in a language you don’t understand that you just have to know the translation of. I say “will want” because, so far, it only works with Spanish and English, so it is useless for your other translation needs. It’s still awesome, though — the bees knees, even.
All this iOS app needs is a device with a camera, and — with no network required — it will translate the text that the camera sees, in real time. It works surprisingly well, too! I think that, next to (prepare for Star Trek reference) a Universal Translator, this is best thing to happen to translation software in a while. Maybe Google will buy them and offer the tech for free some day soon. For now, however, even though the app looks free, it will actually cost you $10 per language set. That means that you need to spend $10 to get it to translate Spanish to English and another $10 for the vice versa. For what it does, though, and especially as it adds in more languages, Word Lens might actually be worth it.
After many years of being a Windows user, I’ve gone back to my roots. My first computer many years ago was an Apple IIe, and now I’m the owner of a Macbook Air (although, to be honest, it is a secondary machine for me). The transition from Windows to Mac is much like learning a new language. Here are a few tips that would have made my transition easier had I know them from the start. Hopefully, they will help some of you who are also making the switch. Read more
The tech community seems to be almost overwhelmingly positive about the new Samsung Galaxy Tab. Some of that is because the tech community tends to love the openness of Android, and some of that is because the Tab is a shiny new toy — but much of it appears to be because Samsung’s new tablet is actually pretty cool.
Check out the video, below, from Stuff.tv. It’s one of many reviews and unboxings that I’ve come across that sings a balanced tune about the Tab’s goodness. Some highlights are as follows:
The smaller size of the Tab is a good thing, as it can fit in a (large) pocket and is easier to type on than an iPad (for people focused on thumb-typing).
Having Flash on a tablet is awesome and it appears to work pretty well, even on 3G.
Samsung and Carriers have pre-loaded “helpful” software (or bloatware) onto the device.
The interface, while infinitely more configurable, is not a slick as the iPad — but it does the job.
People will like it, no matter what Steve Jobs thinks.
My last two highlight points, above, were mentioned in every single positive review I read, watched, or skimmed, and though there are a few negative reviews out there, many of them come of as Apple fanboys doing what Apple fanboys love to do: trashing things that are not Apple. There are a some reasonable points to take away from the negative reviews, however, such as the difficulty that first time users of the Tab can have with finding the “on” button, and the fact that Android 2.2 was simply not built for tablets (just like Google said it wasn’t) and that leads to the occasional performance hiccup.
Overall, it seems that the Samsung Galaxy Tab will be a reasonable alternative to the iPad, even if it will never quite achieve the elitist notoriety of an Apple product. What do you think?
![iPhone 5 Thief Doesn't Know Who He’s Messing With... Just Ask Conan [VIDEO] | 40Tech](https://www.40tech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/image6.png "iPhone 5 Thief Doesn't Know Who He’s Messing With... Just Ask Conan [VIDEO] | 40Tech")
