iOS 5 Beta’s Add AirPlay Support for FaceTime

Wednesday July 13, 2011 7:38 am PDT by Eric Slivka on MacRumours

As noted by TiPb, the third beta of iOS 5 released earlier this week has activated new AirPlay streaming support for FaceTime video calling. The feature allows users to display FaceTime video calls directly on a large-screen TV for easy viewing by larger groups of people.

If this makes it into the final release — and not everything does — it’ll be fantastic for families and businesses alike.

The ability to easily start a video call and beam it onto the big screen is compelling. Whether it’s grandpa and grandma, or the team in England, it takes FaceTime from a small, personal experience to a big, group experience at the touch of a button.

With the FaceTime camera of course remaining on the iOS device itself, users taking advantage of the new AirPlay feature while participating in a FaceTime video call will need to ensure that they are looking in the proper direction, but it certainly appears that FaceTime over AirPlay does add some utility for video calling in group settings.

Apple Launches Business App Store for Volume iOS App Purchases

Thursday July 21, 2011 12:25 pm PDT by Eric Slivka on MacRumours

Last week, Apple announced that it would be debuting a new volume purchasing program to allow businesses to purchase iOS in volume and distribute them within their organizations.

As noted by The Loop and in a brief announcementon Apple’s site, the program has now gone live.Businesses in the United States can now enroll in the Volume Purchase Program and purchase your apps in volume for distribution within their organization. You can also offer custom apps that provide tailored solutions to customers who have a Volume Purchase Program account.

The program supports not only standard App Store releases but also custom B2B apps. Apps custom-built for a company by outside developers or other businesses can be purchased privately through the new volume purchasing program.

Full details on how to participate in the program are available in a guide for businesses (PDF).

This iPhone Survived A 4000m Fall

By Jesus Diaz on July 19, 2011 at 8:05 AM on Gizmodo

 

The iPhone 4 may shatter too easily but apparently its guts can sustain plenty of damage, as 37-year-old Minnesotan Jarrod McKinney discovered while skydiving at 4000m.

His phone had previously shattered when his two-year-old son dropped it from a bathroom shelf, so when it fell from 4000m, he thought it would be completely destroyed. He found the device 800m from his landing point. And if you are thinking it probably fell on soft grass after being slowed down by tree leaves, that wasn’t the case.

Jarrod claims that it fell on top of a building using a GPS-tracking app (presumably Apple’s own Find iPhone app), so it was a hard crash. The phone glass and screen shattered, but when he showed it to the skydiving instructor and a few friends, the phone started to vibrate. Apparently, its guts were intact. [CNN]

Let’s Settle This Once And For All: What Exactly Is Sexting?

By Sam Biddle on July 23, 2011 at 11:30 AM on Gizmodo

It goes like this: horny teenagers have always been horny. Then they got mobile phones, and used them to exchange raunchy pics with each other. Horrified parents demanded an explanation, and “sexting” was born. But what does that mean, exactly? This.

“Sexting” has become as nebulous as it is overhyped. And this is problematic, because the definitions in use are as ambiguous as they are many. Some say a sext is just a naked pic. Some say it’s flirty. Some say it’s sexually suggestive or sexually themed. “Sexually themed” being one of those wonderfully catch-all danger words. It can be kissing! It can be nudity! It can be – sex. Is saying “I wanna make out with you” a sext? What if I include a picture of my penis with that message? What if it’s just the picture?

Nobody seems to agree – and that’s a problem. We’re swept up an exciting new word that has the potential to help unseat politicians, but we’re not exactly sure what we’re talking about.

With every wave of technology, we accumulate new words. Upload. Delete. Google. These are fine, because their meanings are technically clear and innocuous. But sexting is something one’s accused of – an act with some degree of shame accompanying it. It might be a lot of fun (I mean, right?), but you wouldn’t want to talk about doing it over Christmas dinner.

So let’s set things straight right now.

Sexting is a portmanteau of sex and texting. Agreed? Good. We’ll stick with that. It’s not sexual texting, or sexually themed texting – it’s sex texting. Texting as a simulacrum of doin’ it. Remember cybersex?

:<<OH YEAH, I AM TAKING OFF YOUR PANTS NOW. HOLD ON MY MODEM IS DOWNLOADING THE REST OF YOUR BRA.

There wasn’t any confusion about cybersex. Like phone sex before it, cybersex was the acting out of sexual performances via internet. Sexting is the same thing. If I tell you I want to make out via text, I’m not sexting. If I say I want to rip off your pants and push you up against a wall (in a sweet way!), I’m probably sexting. If you send me back a naked picture with a reply to that effect, now we’re both sexting.

If I just send you an unsolicited mobile snapshot of my junk, I’m not a sexter – I’m a pervert. If you’re my girlfriend and I do it, I’m still not sexting – there’s no message, no action – just “Here, look at my blurry genitals.”

So let’s stop being confused. And moreover, let’s stop being afraid! It’s a little dystopian and indicative of an alienated and repressed society, but pretending we’re having sex with electronics can be a lot of fun! So open up your phone, scroll down that contact list, and say some freaky shit. Dong shot optional.

Photo: Poulsons Photography/Shutterstock

Facebook adds Skype Video Chat

by Leena Rao on TechCrunch

Skype CEO Tony Bates just took the stage at today’s Facebook eventannouncing integrated video calling, group chat and new design today and revealed a number of new stats regarding video calling on the VoIP platform. Bates said that Skype users are averaging 300 million minutes per month of video calling. Bates says that 50 percent of Skype’s traffic is video calling.

Back in December, Skype told us that video calling represented 40 percent of all Skype calls, so clearly the interaction with video is growing.

As Bates tells members of the press of the Facebook-Skype integration, For us we think this makes a lot of business sense. Thinking about having Skype paid products on the web. We look forward to bringing video calling powered by Skype on Facebook to every one of you out there.

Bates expects the Facebook integration to considerably increase video calling traffic for Skype.

You can read more about the recently announced Skype-Facebook integration here. And you can also see Skype’s mobile video strategy here.