1 Step Closer to the Matrix! Humans used for batteries!!!

Scientists are using nanotechnology to turn your blood flow and heartbeat into electricity to power small electrical devices. You're now one step closer to being just a copper-top just like in the Matrix! At least then Keanu can serve some useful purpose in the future :)

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The Police Reunion Tour 2007 Cleveland, OH

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iPhone week 2 and the future...

So far there have been 2 annoying things about the iPhone that I've found.  The first one is the VPN bug which I blogged about earlier.  The second, and in some ways more annoying, was the tendency of the iPod functionality to crash out while browsing web pages.  I found this especially on Digg.com for some reason.  It's a great feature to be able to browse and listen to your iPod on the same device... but it has to work reasonably reliably and for me it hasn't.  Hopefully, this will be one of the fixes that comes out in the first update.

So, what do people think will be included in the updates this year?  I say 'this year' because I could see them trickling out, coming all near the Leopard release, or being spaced more evenly.  Best, and most hopeful, guess would be a bug-fix/feature update somewhere between now and Leopard (to keep the hype sufficiently going) and then a big one at Leopard's release, perhaps followed by a smaller one around Christmas.

As far as feature updates, here's what I think is coming in no particular order:

iChat

MMS

Flash support

'Pinch and Zoom' for the camera

Video for the camera

The ability to make podcasts from your iPhone using the headphones

File browser using cover flow with some file rudimentary file editing

Custom ringtones (duh) we already know they're non-DRM'd mp4 files

Ability to purchase/download iTunes tracks and ringtones

Ability to see and stream from local iTunes shared libraries

SDK for 3rd Party widgets

Well those are my thoughts... anyone else care to look into the crystal ball and speculate on the future? 

iPhone VPN issues

One of the really great features of the iPhone is its ability to connect to a VPN network.  It can use either PPTP (with MSCHAP2) or L2TP (using ipsec and shared secret).

HOWEVER...  There's an implementation problem.  When you put in the VPN information it loses the password and prompt you to re-enter it when you click on the icon to turn the VPN On. This wouldn't be a big deal if a normal keyboard came up BUT instead a numeric only keypad (like what you use in the phone app) comes up.  So... unless your 'password' for your VPN is numeric only (not likely) then you can't connect.  This is an obvious programmatic screw-up that I hope Apple addresses in the next update.

There is a work around, sort of...  You can connect to a VPN that has a non-numeric password by re-setting your password in Settings > General > Network > VPN > VPN Settings and then turning on the VPN from Settings > General > Network > VPN > VPN 'on/off'.  After re-entering your password this way you bypass the prompt for a password.  However, it will lose your password again and you'll have to go through the whole tedious procedure when you need to VPN again... *sigh*  On the bright side the iPhone's VPN seems pretty robust and I haven't had many disconnects or speed issues with it.

I'm hopeful that Apple will correct this obvious oversight in bringing up the WRONG keypad to allow you to enter a non-numeric password.  Come on, Steve!

The 'glitch' in it losing your password still needs to be fixed since that's a bug but the other part would make this bug at least tolerable and should be a very quick fix to the code.