The functionality is remarkably simple. The part of the iOS 5 lock screen that normally only shows the date and the time is redesigned to include a weather image, the high and low temperature, the current temperature, and last updated time. Yes, this means that your clock will have to be a bit smaller, but that’s a small price to pay to have weather at your fingertips like that. Just keep in mind that having the weather widget run in the background like that will consume data.

This really isn’t terribly different from the countless weather widgets available for the Android platform, but it is nice that you don’t even need to unlock the phone to see the report. You can even switch between the current weather and the weekly forecast simply by swiping from side to side. Not surprisingly, this is a Cydia hack, so you will need to jailbreak that iPhone before getting Forecast. Find it in the ModMyi repository on Cydia for 99 cents.

[Source]

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Weather reports are useful sometimes, useless others. To make things interesting and switch it up from watching those typical forecasted weather reports, how about feeling the weather tomorrow?  I know that I still have a habit of stepping outside to “see how cold it is” and whether I need a coat or not, even if I happen to have the current conditions displayed on my phone or computer.  And it’s that kind of tactile experience that paved the way for the Cryoscope. It’s a little aluminium cube devised by Robb Godshaw, what it does is gives you the ability to literally feel tomorrow’s temperature instead of trying to wrap your head around a number. The Cryoscope uses a thermoelectric Peltier element, heat sink, and a cooling fan. It is then connected to an Arduino controller and an external power supply which then pulls the weather forecast from the Internet. Heat is pumped in or out of the cube until its surface temperature mirrors the forecast. You lay your fingers on the aluminum surface and get a real feel for what it’ll be like tomorrow. The cube also factors in wind chill, humidity, and the properties of the aluminum surface itself. The Cryoscope has an effective range of 0 to 100F (-18 to 38C) so you may actually be able to fry an egg on it.

Weather reports are useful, to be sure, but there’s nothing quite like feeling the weather to really get a sense of things. I know that I still have a habit of stepping outside to “see how cold it is” and whether I need a coat, even if I happen to have the current conditions displayed on my phone or computer.

[ source via Robb ]

The post Cryoscope Will Let You Feel The Weather Tomorrow, Literally (Video) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

What’s that? You thought the Internet generation was only interested in tweets and YouTube videos? As it turns out we still read books, but we’ll be increasingly turning to e-books moving forward. In fact, a forecast is calling for some huge growth in the e-book market.

As it stands, global e-book reader sales were recorded at about $1.9 billion last year with a total of just under 11 million units sold. According to Yankee Group, those numbers will increase to $8.2 billion and nearly 72 million units, respectively, by 2014. That’s a lot of growth.

The forecast also calls for a worldwide doubling of the installed base of e-readers each year (up to 127 million by 2014), even faster adoption by the European market (143% growth each year, compared to 19% growth in smartphones), and reductions in the average e-reader price. Right now, the average e-reader is $182. They’re expecting that to drop to $114 by 2014.

Considering that you can already pick up something like the Kobo Reader for $100, you realize how far we’ve come from the initial $300+ price tags of the first Kindles. That said, tablets like the iPad weren’t supposed to replace e-readers… but they have been for many people. Is that the real wave of the future or will e-paper and e-ink still have teeth? I don’t read a lot of books, but I am getting more and more tempted to get one of these things.

[Yankee Group]

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As of 2010, Android holds about a 17.7 percent of the “mobile communications device open OS sales to end users” market share. That’s a significant improvement from the mere 3.9 percent the Google-derived platform was able to achieve just one year ago in 2009.   Looking ahead, Gartner is predicting that Android will hold 22.2 percent in 2011 and up to 29.6 percent by 2014. If Google Android is the big winner in this equation, who’s losing out? Symbian is the one that will likely hurt the most, dropping from its current 40.1 percent to just 30.2 percent by 2014.

Similarly, RIM’s BlackBerry is expected to drop from 17.5 percent (in 2010) to 11.7 percent in 2014. Windows Phone is losing share too. The only other winner is the elephant in the room. iOS currently holds 15.4 percent of worldwide market share and Gartner is forecasting it to hold 17.1 percent next year. Interestingly, they predict a drop to 14.9 percent for iOS by 2014 though.

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