Cuppacafe

Hey there kids, are you an Apple fan? do you own a Toyota Prius? Has your car been recalled? If so then you are going to love this! it seems that Apple’s co-founder, Steve Wozniak, recently suggested that Toyota’s troubles with a defective accelerator pedal may have more to do with software, rather than mechanical problems. This apparently occurred after his Prius sped up while in cruise-control mode.

"Since my foot never touches the pedal," Wozniak told ABC News, the problem "cannot be a sticky accelerator pedal.... There might be some bad software in there."

He said the problem in his Prius might be related to the random acceleration issue that has forced Toyota into a massive recall of eight million vehicles worldwide and a halt to US sales and production of eight affected models.

Interestingly enough, Woz unsuccessfully tried to get the attention of both Toyota and US authorities months ago, when his own acceleration problems cropped up while his 2010 Prius was in cruise control. Well, thanks to recent interviews Woz granted to the media attention this week, Toyota has (finally) responded to him by offering to borrow his car for a week to diagnose the problem (as reported by The Los Angeles Times).

Wozniak told ABC his acceleration problem in his Prius can be brought under control by braking and by a radar system that regulates distance from other cars by slowing it down.

He also spoke to CNN about his car troubles, stressing that "I love this car" and downplaying his earlier comments to ABC about a possible broad Toyota software problem.

"It's more like a radio button that doesn't work all the time. The car will start to accelerate in cruise control. You can hit the brake to stop it," Wozniak told CNN.

Good thing the Toyota’s internal software isn’t designed by Microsoft, eh?

(more...)

So you think that the buzz surrounding the release of the super-large easy-reader iTouch iPad made tech-heads hyperventilate, then you haven’t seen anything yet.

Asustek, the Taiwanese manufacturer that essentially invented the netbook category, is trying to dream bigger than that.

Using the Waveface banner, Asustek has been playing around with some more radical design ideas, including a sophisticated wrist-top computer, a laptop that folds like a newspaper and a TV that works with gesture commands. (Behold the jargon-filled demo video.)

The watch-like device, the Waveface Ultra, is made out of a bendable display that can connect to the Internet, make phone calls and do a fair amount of data-crunching. In short, it’s a bracelet that acts like a smartphone.

Asus is hardly the first company to kick around the idea of bendable displays or wristwatch computers (remember Microsoft’s ill-fated Spot watch?). But its ideas are interesting because of what they portend for displays. All three products hinge on a lightweight, flexible display material with built-in computing smarts.

Much of the cutting-edge display work takes place in Taiwan, and PC makers like Acer and Asustek have the most direct insight into what the display companies have cooking. AU Optronics, for example, is one of the world’s largest LCD panel makers and was once known as Acer Display Technology before a merger.

Personally, what I find the coolest part of all of this tech is the “wrist TV” from Asustek because, quite frankly, I saw this little item probably 30 or 40 years ago (and no, not on something as forward-looking as Star Trek, but on something far more mundane). I first saw this little item in Chester Gould’s very cool comic strip, none other than Dick Tracy.

Yep, it was that futuristic flatfoot from the past who taught us about wrist radios (which became wrist TVs), antigrav devices, the Moon Maid, and all sorts of other clever devices. You can’t imagine how thrilled I am to learn that my present has finally caught up to his past.

The Perfessor

OK, we’ve already reported on some of the random silliness that has surrounded the release of Apple’s iPad, well, by all appearances, the pimp-slapping of Apple (and Jobs) is not going to go away anytime soon, as folks keep taking swipes at the goofy name.

Yeah, we like the MadTV version better, but, well, you know that there are just going to be some clunkers along the way.

Hey, they can’t all be gems!

The Perfessor

Steve Jobs gave it to PeeWee personally!

Yeah, you probably saw this coming, what with Cisco pre-buying (and then selling) “iPhone” to Apple, well, as it turns out...

Seems that Fujitsu already has a product called an iPad (pictured), a gizmo mainly used by shop clerks. According to this WSJ story and this NYT article, Fujitsu applied for an iPad trademark in 2003, and is claiming that it should have sole ownership of the name. Click here, also, for the FT story.

Like I said, somebody had to see this one coming. Now the “pad” jokes aside this could be just a “throw money at it” glitch, but given the tepid response that the iPad is getting, you have to wonder if this one of those rare Apple misfires.

The Perfessor

So by now you've heard that Apple had released info about their new tablet which they are calling the iPad. And don’t worry about the built in joke, because Steve has not only already heard it, but he doesn’t care.

Well, that didn’t take long–even as Apple CEO Steve Jobs was launching the new iPad tablet computer today at an event in San Francisco, legions of geeky dudes–and also a lot of women too–let fly with the feminine-protection jokes.

It is the name, iPad, that Apple (AAPL) chose for its newest device that sent them deep into wink-wink-nudge-nudge territory about how it sounded like a Maxi Pad and would hurt the brand.

Get it? Get it! Like a tampon! My seven-year-old could come up with a cleverer comparison.

Besides, Mad TV already made that joke like 10 years ago:

Then of course, he’s Steve Jobs and you’re so not!

So, let’s say that you wanted to read the NY Times on your iPod/iPhone, could you? Well, yes, apparently you can, only from all indications, it is not the Times that built the app, is offering the content, or is turning a profit from the sales.

Has the New York Times (NYT) finally started charging people to read its news online? Not yet.

But it sure looks like they do if you visit Apple’s iTunes store, which is selling two different New York Times iPhone apps at 99 cents a pop.

The Times has nothing to do with either app, each of which is called the “New York Times Mobile Reader”. Each app is supposed to do the same thing: Spit out the paper, along with other Web content like podcasts, in iPhone-friendly form.

According to the report, the Times is aware of the apps, and has — as yet — done anything about correcting the situation.

Apparently, hijacking a publishers’ name and content and then turning them into paid apps isn’t that uncommon over at iTunes, but it really shouldn’t be that hard for Apple to put the kibosh on this kind of stuff. One wonders why it is allowed to continue.

The Perfessor

Yes, we're all doomed! DOOMED, I tell you!

And I can't _wait_ to find out how long the battery in that thing lasts...

From The Joy of Tech

h/t to @dsilverman