Patrick Talmadge

It has finally been released the Apple iPhone will be out in June for Cingular. The phone looks very cool and looks like it has a great user interface. I will have to play with one before I plop down my $599. I like several of the features in the iPhone: multi touch screen, random access voice mail, full iPod, and the new internet browser.

I do have mixed feelings with Apple saying that they invented the multi touch display because several months ago I saw the video of Jeff Han at TED. Jeff Han is a research scientist for NYU’s Media Research Lab, and the inventor of an “interface-free” touch-driven computer screen. I hope that Jeff Han and NYU made a lot of money off Apple since they are saying they invented this technology.

Here is the video of Jeff Han demoing this UI at TED.

Here is the video of the iPhone.

You make your own judgments about this multi touch technology. Is Apple stealing this technology like it did with its Original Macintosh OS. I guess this is how the technology industry works everyone reverse engineers other products.

Computers, General iPhone

I found this article on SC Magazine that reminded me of Hackers the movie because in the movie the hackers hack into the street lights so they have all green lights. Here is the article that can be found at SC Magazine.

Ericka Chickowski Jan 9 2007 18:29

Two Los Angeles municipal traffic engineers were arraigned and charged with hacking city systems to disable traffic lights, all in connection with a labor dispute.

The two men, Gabriel Murillo and Kartik Patel, were charged by the Los Angeles district attorney’s newly-formed High Technology Crimes Division. The district attorney alleged that the men illegally accessed the city’s Automated Traffic Surveillance Center last August and disconnected four signal control boxes at key intersections.

Murillo allegedly accessed the system and found a way to block other managers from fixing the changes. Prosecutors reported it took four days to repair the signals.

According to the DA’s office, the disruption occurred hours before a job action by members of the Engineers and Architects Association, a union representing employees, such as Murillo and Patel, that run the city’s traffic center.

“This amounts to sabotage and is not to be tolerated no matter what the dispute or cause,” Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley said.

Hacking, Security