Category: Tech news

Danfung Dennis is a war photographer.

He’s covered the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was nominated for a 2012 Academy Award for his documentary, “Hell And Back Again”. But he’s ready to tackle a new space: technology. His company, ConditionOne, has created a video player for the iPad and iPhone that offers a full 180 degree view, allowing the user to pan or tilt the device to look around inside the video.

So you open up the player, either through the C1 app or inside a branded application, and calibrate by pressing a little cross hair button that pops up. After setting your positioning, you can move the iPad around in front of you (similar to how you would with an AR app) and look around 180 degrees while the video is playing.

Brands are able to use an API to bake the viewer right into their own app, or market their content as a stand-alone product.

Brands and media companies can license the software from C1 to distribute content through the ConditionOne player, and then create real-life experiences for their users and consumers. The key here is that the C1 player doesn’t require any new camera hardware or interrupt the usual work flow of photographer or filmmaker, making it an attractive avenue for brands. A number of companies have signed on to joint the ConditionOne pilot program, including Mercedes, Discovery Communications, XL Recordings, The Guardian, and Popular Science.

In fact, Popular Science has just released a ConditionOne-equipped app that takes you through the ATLAS Large Hadron Collider.

We’ve also learned that Mark Cuban has invested $500,000 in the startup.

Check out all of the cool stuff that came out of TechStars NYC Demo Day here.

The TiGr lock straps to your bike frame along the top tube. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

After two of my friends had their bikes stolen in the same week, paranoia set in. I ditched my old U-lock (the kind you could pick with a ball-point pen) and started looking around for the strongest lock I could find without resorting to a heavy-duty (and heavy) chain.

The first one to catch my eye was the all-titanium TiGr. The TiGr drops something new on would-be bike rustlers. With its strap-like bow design, it doesn’t look like other bike locks. It doesn’t use the traditional barrel cylinder of other bike locks. And most importantly, you can’t cut it, snap it, bend it, or pick it like other bike locks.

Titanium is very strong and incredibly light, so while the eighth-of-an-inch-thick TiGr stymies a saw for around twice as long as a standard U-lock, it weighs far less — 15 ounces for the .75-inch-wide lock, and 24 ounces for the 1.25-inch-wide model. Compare that to 3 or 4 pounds for the lightest U-locks. To stow it, you clamp it to the frame along the sides of the top tube and secure it with a pair of Velcro straps. A clear PVC skin keeps the bare metal from scratching your bike frame.

Titanium is not only super-light and super-durable, it’s also super-expensive.
So when John Loughlin decided he was going to try to make a better bike lock out of the stuff, he started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds. The pledges poured in, eventually reaching 288 percent of the $37,500 goal.

“The properties of the titanium were really well suited to the mechanism,” Loughlin says in a phone interview. “It has really good elastic properties.”

To show off its ruggedness, Loughlin took to YouTube, posting videos of himself attacking the lock with a hacksaw, an angle grinder, bolt cutters, and a car jack. In each instance, the TiGr beat a standard U-lock.

But that was informal testing. How does the TiGr stand up to the industry-standard ART Foundation tests? Loughlin’s company, Stanton Concepts, is submitting a TiGr for its second round of third-party testing. The resulting ratings and certifications will be posted on the lock’s product page as soon as they are available. In my time with the TiGr, I concentrated more on usability than security, mostly because ART’s group of testers has more collective knowledge about compromising locks than I do.

The bow-like design is meant to hug the frame when it’s secured, making it harder to squeeze a jack (or other spreading mechanism) inside the lock. The bow design also makes it easier to transport, since the TiGr stows nicely along the top tube. It fits most, but not all, bikes. Also, the Velcro straps that keep it in place can constrict any brake and derailleur cables running along the top tube, depending on how your bike is set up. The TiGr is flexible enough to bend through skinny 700c rims to tightly secure both wheels and the frame to a public bike rack. With fat mountain bike wheels, I was only able to secure the frame and one wheel.

The loose ends clamp together inside a small lock cylinder. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

After it’s threaded through your bike, a stainless steel cylinder pops on the end of the TiGr to lock it. Because of the way the TiGr fastens to the tube of the bike, you have to carry the cylinder separately, which is annoying. But it does fit in a pocket, and the mechanism as a whole was still far more convenient to travel with than a rigid U-lock.

A side note: TiGr is working on some updated designs and will soon be offering locks in other shapes and sizes, making it more convenient for mountain bike riders, or people who’d rather carry the lock in a bag instead of on the top tube.

A dedicated thief with enough time and the right tools can break any lock, but I trusted the TiGr enough to use it as my sole lock for the weeks I spent with it. I didn’t trust it so much that I’d leave my bike locked overnight in a bad neighborhood, but I wouldn’t do that with any lock — titanium or otherwise.

WIRED Supremely lightweight. Novel design is a deterrent in itself. Offers peace of mind. It’s a conversation starter.

TIRED Fit is disappointing on some bikes, but more lock sizes will show up in future designs. Expensive — locks cost between $165 and $200 each. Locking cylinder is easy to forget. No bike lock is unbreakable.

The titanium body is slightly flexible, like a bow. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

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Gamers have long had two real choices if they wanted to go mobile: tote their monstrous desktop PC to the LAN party, or invest thousands in a beastly, oversized gaming notebook.

AVADirect would like to offer you a third option: the W110ER, an 11.6-inch gaming notebook.

AVADirect is an old-school custom computer builder, most of which went out of business in the late 1990s as cheaper yet equally customizable options became available from larger OEMs. But AVA is still kicking, thanks in part to its focus on high-end gaming equipment and oddball units like this.

At just 3.8 pounds, the W110ER is, to our knowledge, the smallest computer available that can be realistically described as a “gaming” PC. The only other real competitor is the Alienware M11x, an 11.6-inch model that weighs 4.4 pounds — and which is no longer being updated as of April 2012.

What makes the W110ER a gaming laptop and not a netbook (which it totally looks like) is of course its beefy specs. These would be impressive on any laptop, frankly: A third-generation 2.3GHz Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM (not a typo), 750GB hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics card. Three USB ports (two 3.0), SD card slot, HDMI, and VGA output are included. No optical drive. Somehow that is all wedged into a machine with a mere 11.6-inch display running at 1366 x 768 pixels.

All of this power doesn’t disappoint. General performance benchmarks were very good (though not record-breaking), and the W110ER turned in gaming framerates above 40fps on all the titles I tested. These aren’t stellar in the abstract, but the numbers are perfectly playable and likely more than acceptable to a gamer waiting to catch his flight at LAX. For comparative purposes, on the synthetic 3DMark 11 benchmark, the pint-sized W110ER scored a P2439 rating. That’s pretty impressive considering the Alienware Andromeda X51 gaming desktop I reviewed in April scored a P3166.

Power does not come without a price, and on the W110ER that price is exacted in the form of usability. An 11.6-inch laptop means a full-size keyboard is out of the question, and the chiclets on the W110ER make even crummy netbook keyboards look great in comparison. Touch typing is tough, and even WASD game controls won’t be easy unless your hands are Snooki-sized. The rubbery trackpad and chintzy, recessed buttons are difficult to work with, too. Sure, real gamers will invest in a mouse and external keyboard for home use, but those aren’t real options when you’re mobile.

The W110ER is jammed full of high-end components and, as you might expect, this is a laptop that runs very hot. When running full bore, it gets uncomfortable in the lap surprisingly quickly, and even my wooden desk was left surprisingly toasty after a gaming session with the machine atop it.

Still, as truly portable options go for the PC gamer, the W110ER is probably at the top of the list. 3.8 pounds beats the hell out of the 8, 10, or even 13 pounds that a traditional gaming laptop saddles you down with. And the $1,354 price tag isn’t obscene, either.

WIRED Pound for pound, possibly the most powerful gaming laptop you can buy. Covers the basics, with future-proof specs to keep your game going for the next few years, no upgrades required.

TIRED Monster battery pack provides minimal battery life (2 to 3 hours, max). Thick, with uninspired styling. Low-resolution screen will have gamers kvetching. Lousy keyboard.

The new M has a hushed engine and some cushy trim, but it’s a beast on the straight roads. Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

BMW fanboys ritually enrapture themselves over the small blue, purple, and red “M” badge that designates the brand’s hulkier strains.

But these are divisive times for the Bayerische Motoren Werkes’ in-house performance shop. The 7,104 “M” cars which made their way into US driveways last year are but a sliver of the nearly quarter-million vehicles sold annually by the German manufacturer, yet the boutique sub-brand is the sacred cow that can lead the faithful to believe, or revolt and insist BMW has gone Buick with squishy steering feel and soft suspension.

The lunatic fringe obsessed with horsepower-inspired horseplay stalks new model specifications with fervor, and the House of M has offered no shortage of variance over the years. For instance, only the first two successive M5 models possessed the same engine layout, a naturally aspirated inline-6. Since then, a V8 ruled the roost until the V10 came along, an F1-inspired screamer that was both hard on the ears and the fuel tank. Following that, the Munich-based cult proclaimeth the future would be turbocharged, despite earlier promises against M cars with forced induction.

Thus, the latest M6 and its ragtop variant pack the same powerhouse as the M5 sedan, a 4.4-liter V8 with twin-turbos nestled cozily between the cylinder banks for tidier packaging and quicker response. This techy, direct-injected engine pumps 560 horsepower and 500 pound-feet of torque — which commences at a leisurely 1,500 rpm and doesn’t quit until the tach approaches 6,000 rpm, just 1,200 rpm shy of redline.

Performance parameters can be manipulated with Choose Your Own Adventure levels of options: A smattering of buttons around the shifter command everything from steering effort to throttle response, transmission shift patterns, stability control intrusiveness, and suspension damping. Buttons on the steering wheel can be programmed with your favorite shortcuts to dynamic bliss, though it takes some fiddling to optimize the mélange of motoring variables, which I discovered during an afternoon with the M6 Convertible on the highways and byways outside California’s sleepy bedroom community of Santa Barbara.

Hey, watch the leather, man. Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

The cockpit is welcoming enough, with firmish but friendly seats that, like the drivetrain settings, don’t lack for adjustability. Sensing a trend here? Yep, aspects of this car are aimed at your nephew, not you, despite the restrained instrumentation (typical BMW) and the cinematic, landscape-oriented nav screen that, as also seen in the new 3-series, sadly doesn’t disappear beneath the dash.

Unlike the M5′s artificially enhanced acoustics (which route a simulacra of engine sounds through the speakers), the M6 goes au natural with an exhaust note that’s purely gaseous — and surprisingly hushed. The canvas top incorporates a carbon fiber reinforced plastic structure for strength and weight savings, and when it’s up, the M6′s engine sounds like a retiring lilly of a mill, with barely audible whooshes and low frequency hums that belie the torquey acceleration on tap. Humming along the inside of a tunnel, lowered windows and two taps of the downshift paddles reveal restrained sounds coming from behind; not until you’re driving top-down do the engine notes become incrementally more tasty (but never overstated), with a finely modulated hum suggesting the twin-power V8 is just getting started, even as it compresses you into your Merino leather seats with mean, pushy pressure. Even in more aggro settings, the dual-clutch 7-speed transmission shifts swiftly and smoothly during most acceleration runs. With launch control initiated, the M6 ragtop can gallop to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds. Brakes are also appropriately effective, as repeated left pedal jabs along Ojai’s legendary Highway 33 produced reassuringly strong stops.

But speaking of weight, the very heft that seemed to disappear in a straight line nudges back into perception when the road bends. It’s not that the M6 doesn’t handle itself intuitively — it does, thanks to a rear axle whose subframes are rigid-mounted to the body. But with the optional 20-inch light alloy wheels wrapped in 265mm front and 295mm rear rubber, the M6 ragtop carries 4,508 pounds of mass to hustle along in either direction, and that poundage detracts from the loving attention paid to the punchy yet silky V8, the sublimely buttery but expedient gearbox, and the impressive compromises made between ride quality and road feel. Sure, there are hints at lag from low rpms before an exhilarating rush of torque that carries strongly through the powerband, but the engine’s robustness never makes you pine for its predecessor, which supplied 10 percent less horsepower and 30 percent less torque.

Before we start getting even deeper into our analyses of which startups and products Apple killed today with its iOS 6 and other announcements, we should all remember that it basically tried to build Spotify with social music network Ping, and well, look how that turned out.

I don’t even need to ask for a moment of silence for Ping, because Apple already had it for me.

h/t @Atul

If you’re planning the great American road trip this summer, here is a new site that can help you get the most out of your time. Roadtrippers, which also just secured its first round of seed funding, launched in public beta today. The Cincinnati-based service lets you create a basic route with directions for your trip using Google Maps. There’s nothing special about that, of course, but the nice thing is that you can also find everything from quirky roadside attractions like the world’s largest dead polar bear, parks, beaches and other roadside attractions and accommodations within a set distance from your route (up to 50 miles).

In total, the site currently features about 20,000 attractions, services and accommodations. Roadtrippers also gives you an estimate for how much you’re likely to pay for fuel on your trip, but the focus here is less on mapping that on finding cool things along your route. For the time being, though, you can’t save trips and edit them later. The team plans to add this feature later. You can, however, share your plans on Twitter and Facebook.

The Roadtrippers team also today announced that it has raised a $250,000 investment from CincyTech (which mostly focuses on investments in southwest Ohio) and three individual investors. The company’s founders say they will use this new influx of cash “to expand content partnerships and further develop internal purchasing routes.”

Roadtrippers managed to secure Jamie Jensen, the author of the popular Road Trip USA guidebook as an advisor. The Roadtrippers team, including James Fisher and Tatiana Parent, founded the company in a motel in Savannah, Ga. (or so they say). They participated in the summer 2011 class of Cincinnati-based startup accelerator Brandery.

Roadtrippers hopes to reach about 100,000 active users by the end of the summer. The company currently has three staffers besides its founders, as well as two interns.

Apple today announced that it will be discontinuing latest OS support for the Original iPad (in addition to the third generation iPod), striking a blow to pretty much every tech writer on earth who doesn’t buy things because of how thick they are okay well maybe just me. #thatswhatshesaid

*A moment of silence.*

Why read about someone else when you could write about yourself? Soon the “Tap to post” to Facebook and Twitter buttons announced at WWDC today will appear in iOS and OS X Mountain Lion’s Notifications centers so you’ll always be just a swipe away from sharing. But that means you won’t have to visit Facebook or Twitter where you collide with what others create, diminishing the ambient intimacy they offer and turning them into ego-driven broadcast channels.

By divorcing the composer from the content, sharing starts to feel like shouting into a black hole. So thanks a lot, Apple. You’re so bad at social you might actually be making us more anti-social.

We’ve entered an unprecedented new age where a handful of companies possess vast control over the way we communicate. Seemingly small interfaces changes pushed to billions of people can produce drastic and unforseen changes in how we connect. Some argue a Facebook integration into iOS is meaningless compared to putting a man on the moon. I think quite the opposite. Only one of them has a real influence on the every day lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Facebook and Twitter have always hosted their sharing composers right next to the content others have already shared. That means when you go to post a status update, you inevitably end up reading about the lives of your friends. Rather than making dedicated sharing tabs, both Facebook and Twitter’s mobile apps cleverly use sharing buttons that dump you back on their content feeds when you’re finished talking about yourself.

But with time, OS X and iOS Notifications sharing could make us more likely to post “This is what I’m doing” rather than “What do you think about this?” “Look at me, I’m in Las Vegas” rather than “What’s something fun you’ve done in Las Vegas”. That’s a subtle difference, but the former can seem like you’re bragging while the latter feels like your starting an authentic conversation.

Beyond being bad for our souls, one-way streets from Apple products into Facebook and Twitter could reduce the average Likes, comments, replies, and retweets our posts get. That means fewer re-engagement notifications, and fewer reasons to make return visits to the sites and apps where our social networks show us ads to pay their bills.

In Apple’s unending quest to bring us convenience, it might have sucked some of the soul out of social networking. 900 million people yelling and no one listening doesn’t sound like a very friendly place to hang out.

2011 was an impressive year for mobile exits: according to investment bank Rutberg  & Co. it topped out as the biggest-ever for mobile IPOs and acquisitions: $15.5 billion in total transactions, 63 percent higher than previous record holder, 2007. But halfway through 2012, Rutberg believes that this year could be either just as big or bigger: in the year to date, there have been $6.5 billion in transactions, according to new research out today.

Led by the (still pending) $1-billion acquisition of Instagram by Facebook and the $1.093 billion IPO of mobile ad company Millennial Media, 2012 has rung up exits totaling nearly as much as all of 2010. 2007 saw $7.1 billion in mobile exits, with values split nearly equally between IPOs and M&A. In contrast, 2012, up to now, has been much more uneven: $4.6 billion in M&A, with $1.9 billion in IPOs.

That is a trend that Rutberg’s MD Rajeev Chand believes will continue as investors continue to ruminate on the “dark cloud” of Facebook (and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Groupon and Zynga’s debuts) in the public markets. “Facebook’s IPO will have a delay effect on all tech IPOs,” he says, including those for mobile companies.

Over the last 11 years, as you can see from the graphic below, Consumer mobile services appear to have grown the most as IPO targets, although some of that may have been related to activity during the big dot-com bubble at around 2001.

The fact that Millennial Media and Instagram are the most valuable exits so far in 2012 point to another trend: the shift in value from infrastructure to other sectors like apps and services — a growth that Chand traces back to the rise of Apple’s iPhone in 2007 and the effect that it had on the whole ecosystem, spurring the development of apps and services catering to that business (such as mobile ads).

But infrastructure is still there, and ironically the two acquisitions Apple has officially confirmed in 2012 speak to continued attention to both sides of the equation: Israeli semiconductor and flash memory maker Anobit, reported to be bought for between $400 million and $500 million; and app discovery and analytics giant Chomp, reportedly for $50 million.

Among other non-infrastrcuture exits, after Millennial Media and Instagram, the next two most valuable exits were by operators acquiring to pick up new business and expertise — part of the trend Chand describes as “inorganic growth strategies” by businesses wanting to have more fingers in the mobile pie: the $321 million sale of mobile marketing and ad company Amobee to Singtel and mobile content company Buongiorno’s sale to Docomo for $289 million.

Funzio’s sale to Gree for $210 million, OMGPOP’s acquisition by Zynga for $180 million, and Clairmail’s acquisition by Monitise round out mobile content exits in the top 10.

Chand believes that mobile, along with other innovations in cloud and social media technologies, are fundamentally changing how consumers behave and businesses operate. Like others, Chand believes mobile is also gradually ceasing to be a category unto itself.

“In our view the PC Internet was a ‘dress rehearsal’ for what will come with mobile,” Chand writes. “We are ‘half a shade’ away from a time when the term mobile as an identifier will disappear.”

Even so, Rutberg has chosen to not include companies like Facebook in its mobile IPO tally, despite it having some half its 900 million+ users already accessing the site using mobile devices, and clearly focusing on the mobile platform as an engine for future growth.

“Our exits analysis focuses on private companies which are mobile first or principally mobile (revenues, users, usage),” Chand explains. “Facebook did not start as mobile first or principally mobile and is not included in our numbers.”

Ditto for one of the biggest M&A mobile plays, the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google for $12.5 billion, which closed in May. This, he says, is not included because Motorola is a longstanding public company, and “this chart focuses on venture-backed exits, to show the opportunity for entrepreneurs and venture investors.”

Judging from the graphic below, however, there seems to be a slight tailing off in terms of VC funding versus exits, perhaps a sign of how the space is maturing and attention is going elsewhere?

Image: 401k, Flickr

Bullpen Capital, the Silicon Valley-based early stage venture capital firm, is raising $35 million for what appears to be its second fund, according to regulatory documents filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Bullpen Capital was founded in late 2010 and is aimed at making follow-on investments in startups that have already received angel funding. Even though the firm is quite young, its portfolio has already had some hits: Bullpen’s investments have included Assistly, which was acquired by Salesforce, and FlashSoft, which was acquired by SanDisk.

According to the new SEC filing, Bullpen is now looking to raise $35 million for what appears to be its second fund, Bullpen Capital II. No money has been raised for the fund yet, the filing says. Bullpen’s founders and partners Duncan Davidson, Paul Martino, and Richard Melmon are all named in the document.

It’s a step down in size from Bullpen’s first fund, for which the firm targeted a $50 million raise back in December 2010.

We’ve reached out to Bullpen for comment on the new raise and its plans for Bullpen Capital II. We’ll be sure to report back once we receive more details.

iOS 6 is chock-full of new stuff, with over 200 new features. Some are minor, like Mail VIPs which probably should have been implemented a long time ago, and some are pretty intense, like a brand new Maps app complete with 3D rendering. Now, Apple only showed off ten of the new features today, but which ones will go unnoticed (like the ultimately creepy “Find My Friends” app in iOS 5) and which will pick up like a basketball game on a public court?

That’s what I’m here for, so let’s delve right in, shall we?

1. Phone

I know, I know. A Phone app can only be so exciting, right? But I honestly don’t care. The only thing most people use their iPhone for more than talking is texting, so making the app (that hasn’t changed at all since 2007) a little less 2000-and-late and a little more current is two-thumbs up from this gal.

So, what’s new? Well for one, if you swipe up during an incoming call (much like the Camera shortcut), two small banners will appear at the bottom of the screen right above the Answer and Ignore buttons. These banners will allow you to either remind yourself to call said person back, or text message them.

The feature offers options for 1 hour from now, When I leave, When I get home, or When I get to work, courtesy of that clever geo-fencing thing Apple’s all excited about these days. As far as texting goes, there are a couple quick replies like “I’ll call you later” or “What’s up?” which can be sent with the press of a button.

Apple has also added a Do Not Disturb mode, which goes against our now-natural desire to stay always connected, but that’s probably a good thing. Users will be able to block out all incoming calls and messages. Sure, the calls/texts will come through, but there will be no evidence that they’ve done so, meaning no badges, banners, alerts, noises, flashing LED lights, or even a screen light-up. Users can toggle it on manually in Settings, just above the Notifications tab, or set it to a recurring time like after 11pm on week nights.

2. Maps

Again, not as thrilling as the initial announcement of talk-to-your-iPhone-then-curse-at-your-iPhone Siri, but also not as likely to completely disappoint the way Siri’s been known to do.

Maps is Apple’s baby. After acquiring three mapping companies over the past few years, it’s about damn time that Google gets the boot and Apple keeps all its wonderful geolocation data to itself. Plus, Apple will surely offer this service much more reliably than Google.

Apple designed the whole system themselves, including the cartography, which is why you may notice a differently colored icon for Maps come iOS 6 update time. The app will offer turn-by-turn navigation and, most notably, a 3D “Flyover” mode which is straight-up gorgeous. You’ll be able to pan, tilt, zoom, and rotate inside Flyover mode. (I think I can see tears flowing from my current Google Maps iOS app.)

Turn-by-turn navigation is spoken aloud in a familiar voice (read: Siri), can be viewed in 3D mode, and will offer different routes should traffic conditions change up the ETA. Oh, speaking of traffic, Apple Maps comes complete with traffic condition information crowd-sourced anonymously from an army of iOS users. This should let you know if it’s a small delay or a major collision up ahead.

The Maps app covers the whole world, according to Apple, and has listings for over 100 million small businesses, with Yelp listings tossed in to boot.

3. Facebook

We called it way in advance, but it’s now official: Facebook is built right into iOS 6.

After signing in once with your username and password, you’ll be able to post instantly to Facebook from most corners of Apple’s new mobile operating system. In fact, if your hands are tied, you can just ask Siri to do it for you.

Photos, links, locations, Game Center content, “and more” can all be posted straight to the Social Network, and you are now able to “Like” different apps and songs. Another smart move by Apple is the added synchronization between the two platforms: bringing Facebook Events and birthdays into the Calendar app, and syncing Facebook friends into Contacts.

Apple also opened up a public Facebook iOS 6 API.

Josh Constine has a more in-depth analysis on the partnership here and here.

4. Siri

If I had my way, Siri wouldn’t appear on this list. But since Apple didn’t really offer up any jaw-dropping features in iOS 6, an expanded and more knowledgeable Siri will have to do.

The big deal is that she can open apps, which confounds me just a bit. Unless Siri can actually let me play Temple Run with my voice after opening it, or flip through Flipboard on a voice-command level, I don’t see why I’d open the apps with my voice at all. The functionality is, in a word, whatevs.

At the same time, this is a step toward Siri APIs, which will actually be cool, instead of just pretending to be cool.

Other Siri advancements include access to sports, restaurant, and movie information, with the ability to look up Yelp reviews, ratings and prices along with making reservation on Open Table.

Probably most useful is the integration of Siri into certain cars with the announcement of “Eyes-Free” mode. A Siri button will simply be built into the car’s steering wheel, and then you’re off to the connectivity-challenged races.

Finally, the personal assistant will now hit the new iPad, taking up about a quarter of the space on the interface to perform various tasks without disturbing your flow.

5. Passbook

Passbook is a new standard app developed by Apple that will allow you to store movie tickets, boarding passes, coupons, and retail loyalty cards in one place. You can scan your iPhone to check in for a flight, get in to a movie, or redeem a coupon. But the app delves deeper than just that.

You’ll be able to see the balance on your Starbucks card, check where your seats are in a concert hall, or learn that your coupons are close to expiring. Again, it goes deeper still.

If the display of your iThing is awake, pop-up notifications will appear based on time and place. So, as you arrive at the airport, your boarding pass will appear as a notification on the home screen for easy access. One more time, it goes deeper.

The Passbook app can even check to see if your flight is delayed or if your gate has changed, and alerts you immediately.

The app is pretty damn cool, but will also screw over a lot of other apps that have found a nook in the space. It’s unclear which brands are currently integrated with the app, but so far we know that Starbucks, Fandango, Target, Amtrak, United, the Apple Store, MLB.com, and W Hotels are all on-board.

It’s simple really. The new MacBook Pro with the “Retina” display is something you have to see to believe. Perhaps you were watching the live coverage of the keynote today and thinking it’s not a big deal. It’s a very big deal. Once you see this screen, you will forever be ruined. You will not be able to use another screen. The effect is similar to the one we first saw with the iPhone 4 and later with the new iPad as they obtained Retina displays — but it’s magnified. I mean, you’re looking at 5,184,000 pixels.

I got a chance to play around with the new MacBook Pro for a little bit today following the keynote. And I got sent home with a loaner unit to review. I’ll post that review after I’ve had some actual time to play with the device. For now, enjoy the pictures and just trust me when I say you’re going to want to see this screen for yourself. It’s a thing of true beauty.

Outside of search, the closest tie between Apple and Google so far was the deep integration of Google Maps in Apple’s products. That radically changed today, though it’s worth noting that the announcement was one of Apple’s worst kept secrets. Now, Apple will now offer its own mapping service on iOS, opening up a new front in its competition with Google. The new maps will offer virtually all of the features iOS users have come to expect from the Google Maps-based default app (with one exception) and a slew of new features like spoken turn-by-turn directions and 3D maps for virtual flyovers.

Google did its best to preempt Apple’s announcement today by scheduling a Google Maps-focused press conference last week. There, the company announced its stunning new 3D maps for Android, but failed to announce when it would actually launch this new feature. It’s now more obvious than ever that this was simply a defensive move on Google’s part, as the company was surely aware that it was going to soon lose its premier position on Apple’s mobile operating system.

Apple’s 3D maps look just as gorgeous as Google’s (and Scott Forestall even used the same kind of San Francisco flyover to demonstrate it). Chances are, Apple is using the same kind of technology to create these 3D maps with airplanes that capture aerial imagery and smart algorithms that then turn these images into 3D maps. As usual, though, Apple is keeping this information to itself.

Goodbye Street View

For the most part, Apple is replicating and expanding on existing features from the currently Google Maps version. There are now built-in Yelp reviews, turn-by-turn directions (I’ll get back to that in a bit) and the same kind of instant traffic updates we’ve become accustomed to from Google.

Transit directions – another useful Google Maps feature – is thankfully coming back in the form of Apple’s own version of this service. (Update: Apple will actually “integrate” transit apps from third-party developers. It doesn’t look like the app itself will feature transit directions.)

Goodbye Stand-Alone Turn-By-Turn Navigation Apps

It’s not just Google Maps facing some fresh competition now, though. Stand-alone turn-by-turn navigation apps from incumbents like TomTom and startups like Waze will likely become a niche product on iOS soon as well (though, it turns out, TomTom is providing maps data to Apple).

Until now, Google was a step ahead of Apple here, thanks to its built-in navigation app, but Apple is now pulling even (and maybe even a bit ahead). The new iOS 6 Maps app will feature spoken turn-by-turn directions, your ETA will be based on real-time traffic information and when there is an accident or a traffic jam along your route, you will get the option to switch to a faster route instead.

Another new feature on iOS – and one that Android users have also had in similar form for a while already – is the ability to use voice commands. Thanks to integration with Siri, though, chances are that Apple’s voice recognition system will be more flexible, but until we get our hands on this thing, that still remains to be seen.

There is no indication that Apple plans to bring any of these features to the web, so Google doesn’t have much to fear here (and neither has Bing). On the mobile side, though, this new competition is clearly driving everybody involved in mapping to push things forward and innovate quickly.

Founded in the mobile microscopy lab at UC Berkeley, a young startup called CellScope is on a mission to turn your smart, mobile devices into a microscope, giving parents the ability to perform easy, at-home diagnoses. Graduating as part of Rock Health’s inaugural batch of startups, CellScope is preparing to launch its first product, an otoscope — that strange-looking device doctors use to look in your ears — that can be attached to smartphones to enable anyone and everyone to perform remote diagnoses of, say, pediatric ear infections. (Which, by the way, create 30 million doctor visits annually in the U.S.)

The startup has been developing its first product for over a year now, adding functionality that will give consumers the ability to share images of the eardrum with remote pediatricians for diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. To help bring its device to shelves near you, CellScope is today announcing that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures.

After this epic post on the future of health care and medicine, you can bet that veteran investor and Sun Microsystems founding exec Vinod Khosla has had his eye out for smart, mobile health devices. His venture capital firm has been stepping up its investments in healthtech startups of late, participating in Misfit Wearables $7.6 million in funding, along with $10.5 million for AliveCor.

“Health data, the key ingredient to useful analysis and diagnosis, is starting to explode exponentially — and CellScope is on the cutting edge,” Khosla said today via Rock Health. “[Founder Erik Douglas] and his team are creating next-generation technology that will empower patients and help them access the best care in the most efficient manner possible.”

For the young team from UC Berkeley, Khosla’s participation is great early validation for its mission (and its peripheral device), allowing the team to accelerate its development and ramp up hiring.

CellScope’s overall goal here is to make the lives of busy parents just a little bit easier, Douglas says, and with smartphones reaching ubiquity, only now does a device like this really have the chance to create value. For busy parents, it means missing less work by avoiding those long drives to doctors’ offices, yet, on the flip side, gives doctors the opportunity to see increased revenue from aiding in mobile diagnostics. (Hopefully not at the same price point as an in-office visit, however.)

Founders Douglas and Amy Sheng said that CellScope originally grew out of the work the two were doing in developing cellphone-microscopy for remote diagnostics in developing countries. While international markets are on the roadmap, the team is currently piloting its system with a handful of doctors in the Bay Area.

The first device will focus on ear, nose and throat exams, with future CellScope products opening up to a greater range of use cases, including skin exams, and perhaps going after non-clinical applications, like consumer skincare.

Updating

CellScope at home here.

Today’s keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference highlighted a number of new features that the company has added to its mobile operating system. And while a number of updates will make life easier for users, there are also some new features that will compete directly with developers who build for the iOS platform.

It’s always a tricky thing for developers, who seek to provide applications which add value on top of the mobile hardware and software that Apple has released. But as time goes on, more and more of the applications that developers build end up being replaced by features that Apple builds directly into its software. With the launch of iOS 6, here’s a list of apps and categories that could be affected by features Apple has added directly into the OS.

Turn-by-turn navigation apps

Given the huge amount of work that Apple did to refine and upgrade its Maps application, this is probably the most obvious app category affected by the update. Google is the big loser, of course, since its maps were replaced by Apple’s own software. But there are a ton of maps applications that could be rendered obsolete, thanks mainly to the addition of turn-by-turn navigation.

The most obvious app makers who will be affected are probably Garmin and TomTom, famous leaders in the space that sell GPS-based navigation apps at a premium. Both have USA navigation apps priced at around $50 on the Apple App store today. Those companies were already feeling some pressure from smaller free apps, but it’s difficult to imagine anyone buying those apps once the iOS 6 update comes out and Apple’s Maps provides the same functionality for free.

But forget about the big guys: There are a number of startups and free apps that could also be hurt by an improved Maps app. Take Waze, for instance: it offered a free, turn-by-turn navigation app that was powered by crowdsourcing data from its users. There might still be some users who find this functionality a differentiator, but it’s a harder sell when the Maps app comes free and pre-installed.

Payments and loyalty program apps

The introduction of Apple’s PassBook could be great for consumers, as it has the potential to allow them to aggregate all sorts of “passes” all in one place: That includes stuff like boarding passes, store cards, and movie tickets to start, but there are all sorts of possibilities here to disrupt the larger mobile payments industry, as well as upend a whole bunch of smaller loyalty programs that are emerging on iOS.

There’s no shortage of loyalty apps out there — and in fact, one of the major problems with that industry is that today things are so fragmented that users never know which local merchant will support which app. Some players — like Square, with its Pay By Square app — have tried to tie loyalty into their broader payment systems, which Apple seems unlikely to totally disrupt.

The other big issue is that Apple has to prove it can get developers and merchants on board and convince them that they want proof of payments for movie tickets and airline boarding passes available all in the same app, as opposed to in their own individual apps. But if PassBook does gets traction, expect a whole bunch of standalone loyalty apps to fold.

Offline reading and bookmarking apps

When Apple introduced its Reader and Reading Lists in mobile Safari last year, a few people worried that the feature had the potential to disrupt mobile reader apps like Instapaper. Well, if that was part of Apple’s plan, the launch of offline reading lists in mobile Safari only threatens them even further.

The new offline reading lists will allow users to cache entire websites rather than just individual links. For users who have to date relied on Instapaper, Pocket, Spool, or other apps to save content for reading during their commutes or when not connected to the Internet, having the same native capability built into iOS could obviate the need for those apps.

Group and private photo-sharing apps

Apple’s announcement probably won’t affect the larger group of social photo-sharing apps — the Instagrams of the world, or those where the name of the game is making your photos available to as many people as possible. But there are a growing number of apps which have emerged around the idea of private sharing — that is, specifying exactly which family members you send pictures of your child to, or allowing folks who go on vacation together to all have the same group of photos without uploading to Facebook.

Apple’s revamped photo streams will allow users to create groups of photos and instantly share them with other users, as well as allowing those users to make comments on them. That could pose a threat to app makers like 1000Memories and others. It could also do away with the use case for online storage services like Dropbox where users upload groups of photos into folders and share them with others.

Mobile video chat apps

Prior to iOS 6, FaceTime only worked on Apple devices, and it only worked on Wi-Fi. Those two factors have led to a proliferation of mobile chat apps that competed directly with the video chat functionality built directly into iOS, apps like Skype, Tango, and ooVoo, among others. Well, Apple worked to solve one of those issues, by allowing users to make FaceTime calls on cellular networks.

The addition of Wi-Fi calling is unlikely to make a huge dent in the video chat competition, in part because the main differentiator for those competitors is multiplatform capability — being able to make calls across iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac operating systems. But it might mean that users who would have switched to an app which does cellular video calling might use FaceTime when dialing another friend with an iPhone — or they might do video chat when they otherwise would have done voice.