Gooii :: Blog :: Website Design Nottingham, Programming, iPhone and iPad App Developer, Midlands, UK

In the US, Amtrak train conductors will soon be using iPhones to scan passenger's tickets, with passengers being able to print their tickets at home or present them on their smart phones. It's impressive to see the amount of companies using these as part of their new business models, as iPhone and Android devices become established as a necessity in our daily lives. It's only a matter of time before companies like Ryan Air introduce a similar system over here in the UK, making travel even easier and more convenient for everyone.

For more on this story visit the New York Times website.

Interestingly Google have joined the race to bring commercial wearable computing to the masses. Project glass is a Google research project which is presumably aiming to use retinal projection technology to make a wearable head mounted display. This is not new tech, in 2010 Brother announced Air Scouter which projects an image onto the retina, in a less stylish looking way to the Google ones. Brother started manufacturing the Air Scouter in 2011. NEC also have some similar technology whichaimed to project real time translations of people's speech as subtitles over the person.

Apple must also be looking at this technology, as it surely is a "must have" mobile tech of the future. This will be the first time that a computer can be said to be truly Personal, no one else will be able to see the screen.

So we didn’t get an iPad 3 afterall, Apple you tease. The “new iPad” suggests more of a 0.5 update much like the iPhone 4S, with the iPad 3 still to come. As usual it’s a brilliant piece of hardware but is it worth upgrading if you already own an iPad? I’m going to approach this question as a user, rather than as an iOS app designer. Personally I think if you own an iPad 1, upgrading to the new iPad could be a very tempting proposition, boasting a much faster processor, a delicious HD screen and more RAM means you’re going to notice the difference between your heavy first gen tablet and new the sleeker model. For iPad 2 owners however the differences are less obvious. The new iPad’s casing looks identical to the iPad 2, the improved camera will be welcomed by FaceTimers but with only Apple’s apps currently benefitting from the new screen, it could take a while for developers to take advantage of the extra pixels.

So what effect does the new iPad have on developers? Well it gives us an opportunity for our graphics to look even crisper and more beautiful, on a screen that boasts more pixels than your average HDTV. The flip side is, creating an additional set of graphics will take the toll to four versions for cross iOS platform development (iPhone SD, iPhone Retina, iPad Sd and iPad Retina), which means more design and programming time will be required. The additional graphics also mean increased file sizes. Apps will take up more space on the iPad, add to that the RAM restrictions imposed by the iPad 1, may mean the new iPad is held back by its older sibling’s limitations. The obvious way around this will be to release HD or Retina versions for owners to choose between, which may or may not carry a slightly higher price tag to cover the additional development costs.

The new iPad’s tagline is ‘Resoultionary’. Yes it’s a bit cheesy but I like it. It sounds like they’ve employed Tim Vine to create advertising slogans for Apple, but that made-up word is also a little slice of genius. It describes perfectly the noticible defifference between the new iPad and every other tablet on the market. It’s all about the screen baby.

UPDATE: As the reviews come in and more information is revealed, it seems the new iPad's front facing camera is the same spec as the iPad 2's. The back camera has received a notable ugrade however, to 5 megapixels with the ability to shoot 1080p video.

15 years ago everyone was banging on about “virtual reality”, a phrase that seemed to be applied to anything from enormous monitor wielding headsets, to almost everything interactive. Thankfully the buzzword has been buried with cyberspace, Y2K and Dirty Den but that doesn’t mean the ideals and notions have gone away. Instead, now they’re actually possible, they have less ambitious and more meaningful names like ‘Personal 3D Viewer’.

Designed to work with the Playstation 3, Sony’s Personal 3D Viewer dispenses with the futurisms, to provide a viewing experience that often fails leaves most company’s concept departments. When worn, the device provides two 720p OLED monitors, one for each eye, replicating the 3D cinema experience and proving ideal for 3D movies and gaming. Costing around £700, the headsets aren’t cheap but for those with plenty of disposable cash, this surely has to be the ‘must-have’ gadget of the year.

For the full review please visit the Digital Foundry website.

The early days for any console can be a tricky time for hardware companies. On one hand you have a fantastic and powerful new system but on the other, actual software to play on it can be a little thin on the ground. The PlayStation Vita, Sony’s successor to the PSP, looks to buck this trend.

Sony has just announced the first party launch games for its new handheld and it’s an impressive line-up that includes killer apps such as ‘Uncharted: Golden Abyss’, ‘MotorStorm RC’ and ‘WipEout 2048’. With a system rumoured to be almost as powerful as the PS3, could this be the device to knock the iPhone off it’s portable gaming perch?

The full line-up includes:

Uncharted: Golden Abyss
WipEout 2048
Reality Fighters
Little Deviants
ModNation Racers: Road Trip
Everybody's Golf
Escape Plan
Gravity Rush
Hustle Kings
MotorStorm RC
Top Darts
Super StarDust Delta

With some impressive 3rd party games on the way too, Sony's handled could truly be a thing of beauty - check out the mouth watering trailer for ‘Uncharted: Golden Abyss’ below.