It’s pretty amazing when you stop to think that just 10 years ago people were carrying around Nokia brick phones and using dial-up Internet. The age of information technology is here and the advancements are coming almost quicker than we can keep up with them. It’s strange and exciting all at the same time. Innovation is driving technology to forefronts that will likely to wow society even further in the coming years but here are a few current bits of tech that are productions or are slated for near future release.

One of the newest and most exciting innovations out there today is the research and development of nanotechnology. This is an impressive front in, not just the world of cell phone technology, but for the science world as a whole. Nanotechnology, in essence, is the science of very small things. This is being haled as nothing less than a breakthrough in powering many of the devices we use. Apple is hoping to use nanotechnology to power the future generations of cell phones. They will, hopefully, completely bypass the need for replaceable batteries. Nanotechnology can harness energy from movement or vibrations and it’s the hope that, in just five years, we’ll be able to power the devices we use by nothing more than movement or the vibrations of our heartbeat. It will allow us to do everything from a reverse phone lookup to browsing the Internet. Many scientists feel that nanotech is the future of science and it’s likely to have broader applications than we’ve yet to realize.

We’ve seen a lot of breakthroughs in the world of gaming technology but before now it’s been primarily in the field of improved graphics performances. Now there’s a whole new market opening up for movement based games and platforms. We’ve seen several versions of these movement-based games but it hasn’t been until recently that it’s been advanced enough to be a viable market product. The Wii started using movement-based games but its application was somewhat limited. Now, on the market, there are completely hands-free systems that respond totally to the movements of the user. Microsoft has the Kinect and Sony is using a motion sensor controller. By recording the user, these devices allow you to manipulate an onscreen avatar that responds to the slightest moment. It’s not clear if individual platforms will be released on this central concept but chances are the console/controller system will be around for at least a few more years.

Every now and again entertainment takes a huge leap forward and “Skinput” is one such leap. It’s currently being designed for the Xbox 360 and it will allow users to have an interactive experience that, to date, has only been seen in Hollywood. It effectively turns the human body into a joystick. A two dimensional image of a series of options and commands are projected onto the user’s skin and would, basically, turn your arm into a joystick or remote. This tech is based on the science of specific vibrations that move through the body which are acoustically distinct from one another. Depending on the location, the area of the skin that a command would be applied holds a specific resonance to allow users to control a game through touching their skin. It’s likely that this will be applied in many ways but Microsoft is currently the only company with current designs using this new tech.

Similar innovations have totally streamlined the way media and information is consumed. No one could have imagined how the iPod would change the way we look at music and movies. From there we saw the evolution if the iPhone and the iPad. Similar devices are being seen on the market all over the world and it’s amazing to ponder all of the possibilities for computing software and its various, real world, applications. These initial innovations aren’t just changing the way we are entertaining, they’re changing the world.

Toxoplasmosis at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 12/28/10 by divvied

Put my iPhone on the table at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, fired up the SoundCloud app and recorded this Toxoplasmosis performance.

To describe the duo badly: experimental noise.

Doc Pop wears many digital hats: iPad musician,  visual experimenter of mobile apps, blogger, yo-yo madman, game developer/designer, painter, illustrator, etc. etc.

He’s was also my first follower on the (primarily) iPhone (only) social photo app http://instagr.am.

The good doctor does a Daily App Experiment where he takes an images and applies manipulations using different iPhone apps.  He used a photo I shot and posted to Instagr.am yesterday to make #48 in the series.

Daily App Experiment #48: “Nettled Birds” – Saw this pic in @dippold’s instagram and asked if I could play with it. Using TypeDrawing, I added one trillion birds to his original image. I’m really happy folks are willing to let me alter their images. (Taken with Instagram at Daily App Experiment) ~Doc Pop

Make the jump to see my original image and read more about Doc Pop and Instagr.am

My original Instagr.am image, the starting point in his Daily App Experiment #48.

If you don’t have an iPhone, or aren’t ready to download the free app yet, Doc Pop feeds his Instagr.am photos and images into a Tumblr for general viewing.

Another noteworthy and recent project of his is the electronic-pop-ish record “Beats and Smudges,” recorded exclusively with mobile applications.

A CD laser lens scrapped from a CD drive of an aged laptop

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Quick and nastily taped onto a iPhone 3GS

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iPhone macro lens

Close up of an Arduino board

Close up of the back side of a one hundred dollar bill

After the jump, a write up about this hacked-up/modded iPhone camera rig and a gallery of some shots taken with it.

This contraption is a discovery by my brother Aaron, came across while dismantling an old computer and popping off the lens — or covering — to the laser on a CD drive and placing it over the iPhone’s camera.

He suggests using different washers of varying thickness to act as spacers between the CD lens and the iPhone to achieve more magnified, better quality images.

This entire home-brew innovation is born from attempting to replicate the more legit and interchangeable Fisheye, Macro, and Wide Angle Camera Phone Lenses from PhotoJoJo that mount onto a magnetic ring you affix to the body of the iPhone.

Other DIY iPhone macro lens projects abound.  Most use other camera lenses, cases and mounts. But this CD lens method seems the least expensive and most novel macro lens photo method for an iPhone thus far.

Side note: a different CD lens used for the photos below was somehow magnetized and stuck to the iPhone without the tape job shown in the recreation above.

The Glif is a small thingy that fits snugly onto the corner of your iPhone 4.  It enables you to then mount your iPhone 4 on most tripods.

It also:

• Props up your phone so you can watch video
• Can turn the iPhone into a mini computer (with the use of a bluetooth keyboard)
• A handsfree method for FaceTime calls It even acts as a shield for the phone’s antenna issue.

But the thing has yet to even be manufactured.  Regardless, this future product fills such a need and want that at last check those behind The Glif are up to $95,120 — vastly exceeding their goal of $10K — with 21 days remaining on their Kickstarter project.

I recently called B & H photo, the massive Audio/Visual outlet based in NYC, to find out if their website was erring.  How is there are millions of iPhones — with an OK camera and now capable of HD video — and no way to mount them on tripods?  I believe B & H told me they don’t carry anything like this because there is nothing like this currently on the market worthy of their store.

Maybe the The Glif could rectify.

Looks like a $20 contribution to The Glif KickStarter project will snag you a pre-order of long awaited iPhone accessory.

Related articles

• A Simple Tripod Kicks Up iPhone Photography a Notch (mashable.com)
• Glif iPhone 4 tripod adapter & stand has huge public appeal (slashgear.com)
• The Glif: We Need This iPhone Stand & Tripod Mount (macstories.net)
• iPhone Mounting Stands – The Glif iPhone 4 Tripod Stand is a Convenient Accessory (VIDEO) (trendhunter.com)

UPDATE: Now shipping!!

The web page for Blue Microphone’s plug-in mic for iPhone — known as Mikey 2 — still says its release date is 8/20/10, but the buy now text is not clickable.

The opening blurb on Mikey 2′s product page:

The all-new Mikey is the perfect tool for mobile recording. Featuring two custom-tuned Blue capsules for stereo recording, a line-input, USB pass through and a stylish updated 230-degree rotating design. Mikey’s three gain settings allow for a versatile recording experience for everything from a loud concert to a whisper. Record lectures, voice notes, live music, interviews, and more. Mikey also comes with its own soft carrying pouch for convenient storage and protection while on the go. Mikey turns your iPod or iPhone into the coolest mobile recording device around!

Pretty much ready to buy. Even called Blue a while back asking about it. Anybody have the lowdown?

Picked up my iPhone 4 from the AT&T store in Jefferson City, MO on July 17, 2010.  Today is August 3rd.  About 30 minutes ago I received this email from AT&T saying my iPhone 4 has now SHIPPED.  That’s nice.

Ah, the “Idea.” Hardly will we find anything more polarizing.

For seemingly half of us, just the word “idea” alone seems to conjure high-mindedness, nobility and is lauded up above so much else. The other half snubs/thumbs their noise at the word and “ideas” hardly even register as a time-waster anymore because they are automatically dismissed, ignored.

Nevertheless, this series of posts are a veritable dump of notions, products, services, improvement and “ideas”. I don’t really want to approach any developers and entrepreneurs I know with any one, all, or any combinations of these. But I also tire of waiting. Blogging them seems a more proper place to toss them out and see if anybody — known or unknown to me — bites.

If interested, I prefer you contact me first before pursuing, but at this point, I want most of what you may read to get on some sort of track that I almost want you to just take them and run.

The following vagaries may undergo many published updates and revisions. The intent is to get them out there. You may scratch your head on some, but hopefully they could lead you, and us, to betterment.

Click below to jump into a slew of stuff. Part 1 concerns Twitter and iPhone/iPod iOS & Apps.

Twitter

• Auto-changing (custom) twitter backgrounds

Skip being stuck with the same old, single Twitter background. And who wants to manually change it all the time. Start a service with a bunch of better, ready-to-go twitter backgrounds; allow users to upload several of their own; and give the option to have your background change every so often at set times.

• Tweet by snail mail — (Printout) postcards

Pictured is an actual paper notepad for sale. But I mean something like similar on a mailable postcard for the elderly, the Internet challenged and the Internet restricted (like Pulp Fiction writer Roger Avery, tweeting from lock-up.) Instead of a joke, a new service — set to receive the snail mail — would get the TweetCards in the mail and post the messages on Twitter.com.

Print designers here you go. TwitCards would likely need a space for one’s Twitter name or desired twitter name. Also a disclosure that the service provider may pick your Twitter username and manage your password.

Bonus: a double use, Netflix-like mailer, with room for a forwarding address to send the TwitCard elsewhere after the message goes on Twitter.com.

Maybe even a simple TwitCard web interface — in case the snail-mailers ever get to a computer with Internet and decide to Twitter the normal way themselves.

• Twitter Tool: Re-following (after they start tweeting again)   [http://twitive.com (or http://twitivity.com) = Twitter plus Active (or Activity)]

This is for all the Twitterers signing up and then pretty much abandoning their account.  This service could allow a different, less harsh way to temporarily unfollow and send a subtile message that they should not expect to get followers if they’re lazy.

The service would send out a can tweet, something like: “@name you’ve been unfollowed by @dipps for inactivity with @twitive. You’ll be automatically refollowed when you start tweeting regular again.”  It would then grab the unfollowed’s twitter RSS feed and monitor it. When their Twitter account became “active” (again), this service would re-follow them for you.

Something similar could be offered for temporarily unfollowing when someone goes overboard during an event, season, etc.  Set a refollow date and the service sends out an explanatory tweet.

This notion is more of a feature to build into an existing Twitter client or Twitter service rather than its own standalone thing.

iPhone/iPod: iOS & Apps

• Getting Flash (video) to work on iPhone

After tapping on broken flash link — instead of nothing — provide an option to watch flash vid that is pushed to you from the Cloud and viewable in iPhone’s Safari’s QT player.

An Apple and/or an open source solution/platform would be developed and made available — to either content providers/hosts; to a 3rd party, intermediary service; from an Apple created and hosted service; or built-into OS X server; etc. — to push converted Flash (video) into something you can watch (in a QT playable format) in Safari on iPhone — like you can now with .MOV files.

This Flash content conversion and pushing it to iPhone would ideally be done simultaneously — and on the fly, as needed — to speed viewing. Also (some) caching, on servers, of completed conversions could maybe help.

Note: Apple’s Gianduia may make this idea null and void, but something like this may be viable until Flash dies.

Note2: Ripcode.com may already do this, but I don’t understand it enough to say yes or no.

Note3: Skyfire and your done?

• iPhone Video podcast improvements

Allow an option to play audio only (to allow multi-tasking and after pressing power button to black-out screen.)  Right now there is now way to multitask while watching video podcasts.  Or even lock the screen and keep the audio playing like with audio podcasts.  Video podcasts are currently all or nothing.

And dump, or fix, the video shuffle button. It does nothing.

2x playback like audio podcasts already have would be nice. Kthx.

• Add ability to keep podcasts updated using only iPhone/iPod

Why not allow podcasts to be updated from the iPhone via Wi-Fi?  You can can already do this manually with the iTunes app, but it seems simple enough to include an automatic update option in Settings >> iPod, or a “Keep this Podcast Updated” link under each podcast in the iPod app, or a “Subscribe” button in the iTunes app, something, instead of just a “Get More Episodes…” link.

Or even just do this by default like iTunes on a computer does.  I do not see the need to hinder this functionality.  It would only update on Wi-Fi and maybe only while on the podcasts tab in the iPod app.

• Un-gray search button on Google search within iPhone’s Safari (when left blank)

Un-gray the “Search” button — the one in the lower right on the Google search bar screen — so pressing it without typing anything will go to Google.com.  This is an easy “fix” and a great way to quickly get to Google.com for the newish “Near me now” & links to other Gstuff/Glinks.

• Use iPhone/iPod as a keyboard/mouse for a regular computer (in a pinch) via USB cable, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth

Recently bought an old flowerpot iMac and found myself without a mouse and keyboard — since I only have a MacBook Pro and iPhone — and I needed to get this old computer ready for my parents.

Well surely an app developer could turn the iPhone’s touch keyboard into a virtual keyboard to use on a regular computer.  Bonus point for turning the touch screen into a trackpad/computer mouse substitute too.

At the very least this app would work for Macs; not sure about how challenging it would be to get it to work on Linux and Windows.

• Auto-disable Wi-Fi discovery while traveling (app)

This popped up while driving on the Interstate

My iPhone already knows I’m moving when I’m using transportation — I see the blue GPS dot moving in the Maps app.  So why can’t it figure out how to keep from endlessly asking to join Wi-Fi networks while driving?

Someone could come up with a code snippet to allow all iPhone/iPod app developers to block this annoyance when using their current apps already in the wild.  (And maybe all those complying would proudly display a badge saying “Traveler Approved App.”

At the least, someone could make an app to auto-disable wi-fi discovery if traveling (over 20 mph).  Call it TravAta or something.  Press the app and it immediately starts disabling wi-fi discovery when moving over 20mph and an option screen comes up to adjust the speed at which Wi-Fi is disabled; option to enable discovery if stationary for a certain amount of time; and option to stop the app after a certain time or when arriving at certain locations.

• iPhone apps that also launch/open computer programs

For example:

1. Boxee.tv‘s iPhone remote control app would also automatically open Boxee on your computer.  The whole idea of the Boxee remote control iPhone app is to control Boxee on your TV.  All of Boxee can now be shut down with its remote control iPhone app (when the app doesn’t crash) but you must go to the computer to start the main Boxee program.  The computer I run boxee on is in an awkward place.  It would be so nice to sit down on the couch to watch TV with Boxee and not have to go over to F with the computer.
2. The iPhone app that allows remote control of iTunes should also open iTunes on the computer at the same time you open it on the iPhone.
3. Any exsisting computer program could also offer a simple iPhone app that when launched on iPhone will also open the main program on your computer.

• iPhone app to download anything — save it all to the cloud to get your downloads from anywhere

Time and time again we come across something on our phone we want to download but can’t.  We need an app that will queue up and start downloading to the cloud anything that can be downloaded: MP3s, torrents, PDFs, documents, web pages, images, etc.  And all of our downloaded stuff becomes instantly accessible from any applicable electronic device.

In other words, Put.io needs an iPhone app.

UPDATE 1: 8/10/10

Additional parts of this post will include Media, Music, Reading, Computing/Internet/Telephony and various Miscellaneous ideas.

When asked if I knew what the hell this iPhone icon is, I answered: I haven’t a clue.  Thought maybe it had something to do with a Bluetooth keyboard? Perhaps some kind of way to interface with those TDD things for communicating with equipment for the deaf?  I really have no friggin’ idea.

Anyone know what this icon that looks like a phone atop a keyboard means? What it is for? How it could have gotten turned on? How to turn it off?  Or any combination of these questions.

This happened when trying to do too much with YouTube within an iPhone twitter app