Thin is in. When Apple announced the iPhone 5 this week, the technology community predictably went haywire. One of the best ways to measure the level of craziness is of course Twitter .
That’s where Derek Ruths , an assistant professor at McGill University ‘s School of Computer Science , comes in. Ruths runs a Network Dynamics Lab , and with the help of Raviv Cohen and Morgane Ciot, he analyzed over 30 million tweets generated the day the 6th generation iPhone was announced.
Here are his thoughts:
The results are all in the infographic below, but before your eyes glaze over, there are some things worth underlining. First off, the basics: men tweeted more than women, most of the reaction came from the US, and iOS users cared more than BlackBerry users, which cared more than Android users (not surprising, given these survey results ). There were more tweets for the iPhone 5 event than for Mitt Romney’s RNC speech, but still less than US President Barack Obama’s RNC speech.
The most interesting part, in my opinion, is that Twitter users cared more about the new iPhone 5’s thinness. This received significantly more tweets (47 percent) than the fact it has LTE (21 percent), is lighter (17 percent), has a more powerful processor (9 percent), bigger screen (8 percent), or comes with EarPods (0.3 percent).
Apple called the iPhone 5 “ the thinnest smartphone in the world .” This is of course not true. While it’s certainly the thinnest iPhone to date at 7.6mm, these smartphones are thinner, according to Strategy Analytics :
Pantech Vega S5 (6.89mm)
Fujitsu ARROWS ES IS12F (6.70mm)
Huawei Ascend P1 S (6.68mm)
When it comes to the Twitter mob, however, facts don’t always matter. Then again, maybe the inaccuracy is exactly what was being so viciously debated.
Here’s the full infographic:
I have contacted my fellow Canadians for more information about the data. I will update this post if they have anything interesting to add.
Image credit: stock.xchng
This Kickstarter project turns your smartphone into a sleek car stereo
Kickstarter , a site which makes it easy to crowdfund new projects from concept to reality, recently revealed some pretty interesting statistics on some of its successes in 2011 . Today, a new Kickstarter project that caught our attention is Dash , an alternative smartphone car stereo.
Paul Lizer, an engineer for Lockheed Martin, is behind the product which, with a small piece of hardware, instantly turns your smartphone into your car stereo. So you’re probably thinking that’s nothing new. We have iPod ready cars, and better yet, cars that come equipped with satellite radio which lets you pause and rewind radio stations to your heart’s content.
Described as “the convergence of the car stereo and your smartphone”, Lizer’s product aims to do things a little differently. You will have to rip out the stereo currently in your car and place the Dash body in there instead.
Each body comes with a faceplate that is designed to work specifically with one brand, and the first Dash stereos will be shipping with iPhone 4/4S versions.
The faceplate’s sleek and minimal design has no buttons, since all the controls can be accessed from your phone, with the exception of a small volume controller.
Once you slip your phone into the faceplate, you can charge your phone, and use all of the music, navigation and phone call features you’ve already got on there. A specially tailored app should make it easy to access all of your apps and features in horizontal mode.
Dash is perfect in certain situations. If you’ve put a lot of effort into sorting out your music collection on your phone, or better yet, if you use Spotify’s offline feature, Dash is the perfect accompaniment which will work for you no matter what the brand of your car is.
If you drive a shared car, it’s a great way of making sure that no one plays around with your radio and music settings – provided of course all of you own the same kind of smartphone, otherwise you’ll have to invest in several faceplates. Dash also one-ups iPod-ready-systems since you’re doing away with an awkward cradle or cables.
There are some caveats that you’ll have to put up with using a system like Dash. For starters, you’re sacrificing your local radio stations, and possible alternative navigational system that already comes with your car, and without an unlimited data plan, listening to online radio is bound to be far too much for your wallet.
The system is obviously not for everyone, but if your smartphone is your primary source of entertainment, you might want to consider Dash.
Once available, Dash will retail for $300, but you can get it for a little less, by pledging $250 to Lizer’s Kickstarter project. If you go ahead and pledge $300, you’ll get a special Kickstarter edition which comes in black, red, blue or white.
To find out more about Dash, check out Lizer’s Kickstarter video below:
Dash on Kickstarter | Devium
Say hi to Mom on the big screen with Logitech’s new HD Skype camera for TVs
If you’ve ever been on Skype with the family and thought their faces were too small, Logitech’s got a new toy for you. The just-announced TV Cam HD comes with built-in Skype capability and connects to TVs via an HDMI input.
The Skype-certified camera works over Wi-Fi or Ethernet. It comes bundled with a remote control so you can access the device.
Logitech vice president Joerg Toewes says “amazing connections” can happen when video calling moves to the “most popular and comfortable place in the house.” Indeed, Joerg, indeed.
The suggested retail price of the device is $199.99. It features a built-in ringer, wide-angle Carl Zeiss lens and four microphones.
When I first saw this announcement, something looked really familiar about it. Then it came to me: Kinect. Given that Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion in May , I wouldn’t be surprised if future versions of the Kinect were integrated with Skype. The company is, after all, already planning deep integration in Windows Phone 8 and is rumored to be adding the service to the next version of its Xbox gaming console.