The iPhone is walking the beat, Apple’s spaceship is getting closer to liftoff, and how would you like to work for with Siri? The remainders for Wednesday, December 7, 2011 are clocking off.
The iPhone Is About To Become The FBI’s Newest Crime-Fighting Partner (Cult of Mac)
Fingerprinting perps? There’s an app—well, and accessory—for that. Cult of Mac reports on the newest weapon in the FBI’s arsenal: An iPhone-connected fingerprint scanner. Plus the iPhone’s screen can totally double as a portable lie detector.
Apple Campus 2 (City of Cupertino)
The city of Cupertino has posted the latest details on Apple’s prospective new campus. Don’t worry: It still looks like a spaceship. But now there are floor plans! And renderings! Someone totally needs to convince Apple to team up with Lego to sell models of this sucker.
Airline responds as dustup with Baldwin continues (Yahoo News)
We all have had trouble turning off our electronic devices while waiting for the plane to pull away from the gate. We’re finishing a phone call, sending that last text message, or—in the case of 30 Rock star Alec Baldwin—working on our latest Words with Friends move. But most of us don’t get hauled off the flight as a consequence. Just imagine if the flight attendant had told him that the Yankees had won.
Siri job openings (Twitter)
We all know there’s plenty of work left to do on Siri, so it’s no surprise that Siri user interface manager Dan Keen recently pointed to two job openings at Apple, both for iOS engineers to work on Siri. Granted, I’m not qualified for either of these, but when they need more guys to write snarky comebacks? Sign me up.
Google’s Schmidt: Android leads the iPhone (CNet)
It’s been far too long since the last segment of our award-winning* Schmidt My Dad Says. But former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is back, telling a crowd at the LeWeb conference in Paris that “Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favored by the open approach Google is taking.” Added Schmidt, “THAT’S WHY ANDROID IS THE LOUDEST PHONE AROUND.”
Product News:
Sparrow 1.5 – Version 1.5 of the email client adds integration with Dropbox, search tokens and suggestions, and remote image blocking, along with several bug fixes. Free ad-supported version available from site; $10 to register and remove ads.
TextExpander 3.4 – New in version 3.4 of Smile’s text-expansion utility is a detailed rundown of how to create a common snippet group for multiple users and a Tweet My Stats option that lets users share information about their text-expansion habits on Twitter. QuickLook support is also now available for .textexpander files. Free update for TextExpander 3.x users; $35 for a new license. Upgrade from previous version for $15 (or free, if you purchased after November 1, 2009).