Dexim Visible Green iPhone Cable Makes Charging More Visible

While most USB-charged Apple products like the iPhone and iPad come with a USB charging cable in the box, there is a thriving third-party market for these easily lost accessories. Dexim's $20 Visible Green USB-Dock Connector cables have a distinctive twist: they use electroluminescence to "visibly show the electrical current flowing through the cable". Completing the illusion is the fact that there are multiple speeds that the current can "flow", adjusting with the battery life of the device it's charging. 

While perhaps not the most practical iPhone charger, particularly for bedside nighttime charging, the Visible Green cable is certainly the coolest. 

Dexim's Visible Green cables are available via a number of retailers, including Amazon and others.

Source:Macrumors.com

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NASA Releases "Sector 33" Air Traffic Control Game

NASA, the U.S. space agency has released a new iOS game calledSector 33. The educational title aims to teach youngsters math and reasoning skills as they act the role of an air traffic controller in charge of ATC Sector 33 as they guide planes to San Francisco International Airport from the East over California and Nevada. 

Players adjust multiple planes' path and speed to safely reach a target location in the sky in the fastest time possible while keeping the plans a safe distance apart. 

"Our hope is that Sector 33 will give students a sense of the importance of math in managing our nation's air traffic and, at the same time, interest them in pursuing a career in aeronautics," said Jaiwon Shin, NASA's associate administrator for aeronautics research in Washington. 

The math-focused game also aligns with the NASA Office of Education's mission to engage students in activities related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. 

"Today's students respond positively to experiential learning," said Leland Melvin, NASA's associate administrator for education. "Using an interactive game to spark their interest, while at the same time teaching them fundamental math concepts, is a win-win scenario. It is a perfect way to help cultivate the next generation of engineers and technologists."

NASA is no stranger to iOS apps, having launched an iPhone app in 2009 to help users stay on top of the latest NASA news. 

Sector 33 is available free for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Source:Macrumors.com

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Apple Releases OS X 10.7.3 with New Language Support and Bug Fixes

Apple today released OS X 10.7.3, the third maintenance update to OS X Lion. The update is available via Software Update and Apple's download pages.

The 10.7.3 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac including fixes that: 

- Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support 
- Address issues when using smart cards to log into OS X 
- Resolve issues authenticating with directory services 
- Address compatibility issues with Windows file sharing

Detailed information is available in the full full release notes. 

Available versions includes: 

- OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Client) (997.01 MB) 
- OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Client Combo) (1.2 GB) 

- OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Server) (1 GB) 
- OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Server) Combo (1.34 GB) 
- Server Admin Tools 10.7.3 (202.59 MB) 

Apple has also released Security Update 2012-001 to bring security fixes to users running systems with Mac OS X Snow Leopard: 

- Security Update 2012-001 (Snow Leopard) (192.73 MB) 
- Security Update 2012-001 Server (Snow Leopard) (212.09 MB) 

Finally, Apple has also released Apple Remote Desktop 3.5.2 Client (3.75 MB) to address issues with screen sharing.

Source:Macrumors.com

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New Photos of Camera-Equipped iPod Nano Casing Surface

Last April, Taiwanese site Apple.pro posted a photo of what appeared to be an iPod nano with a hole in the rear casing that was said to be for a camera. A second photo showing the casing from the other side surfaced a month later, appearing to show a clipless design for the device and claiming that it would carry a 1.3-megapixel camera. 

Apple ultimately made no changes to the design of the iPod nano in September of last year, instead opting to update the software and lower pricing on the 8 GB and 16 GB models. But the idea of a camera-equipped iPod nano was revived in November with the publication of a May 2010 patent application on speaker design that appeared to show a hole in the iPod nano's clip in the same location as the rumored camera hole seen in the leaked photos. 

Apple.pro now reports [Google translation] that a series of new photos have surfaced showing this camera-enabled iPod nano casing in even more detail. The new photos clearly show the device retaining its clip-on design with a metal housing for a camera assembly protruding from the back of the main case and sitting flush with a hole in the device's clip. 

The design would allow Apple to squeeze a camera into the current diminutive form factor of the iPod nano by moving much of the lens and sensor hardware outside of the main casing but still within the overall device envelope by utilizing a small portion of the gap between the device and the clip. 

Given that this design for a camera-equipped iPod nano has been floating around for some time and did not make an appearance during last October's update, it is unclear whether the design is still in the works for Apple or if it has been scrapped for some reason. The company had previously introduced a low-resolution video-only camera on the previous iPod nano form factor, but removed the feature when it redesigned the device with a smaller, iPod shuffle-like form factor in 2010. 

An Apple patent application filed in late 2009 also suggests that Apple has an interest in equipping the current iPod nano design with a camera, offering it as one example of an environmental sensor that could be used to allow the device to display screen savers and other content that relate to the device's environment such as the current weather or other factors.

Source:Macrumors.com

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Seagate Starts Selling GoFlex Portable Thunderbolt Adapter

The slow trickle of new Thunderbolt products continues. Seagate has begun selling a $99 Thunderbolt SATA adapter for portable (2.5") external hard drives: 

The GoFlex series is a set of external hard drives with interchangeable interface adapters that allow their hard drives to switch between different interfaces. Existing adapters include USB 3.0, Firewire, and eSATA. This new adapter offers Thunderbolt support for existing portable GoFlex customers. One reader notes that the interface is simply an SATA interface, so this adapter could be used with any bare 2.5" SATA hard drive. 

Seagate first announced the Thunderbolt adapters at CES and is also planning on offering a desktop version of the adapter for $199 in February. 

Macworld had a hands on with the portable unit and found it did indeed perform faster than Firewire 800 (and of course USB)

"Using the new Thunderbolt adapter, we saw write speeds of 78.8MBps, or 40 percent faster than FireWire 800. Read speeds were about 79.3MBps, about 13 percent faster than FireWire 800."

The performance gains were only so big since they were testing against a single non-SSD drive. Previous Thunderbolt benchmarks have shown much larger boosts but only when using SSD and RAID configurations, eliminating some of the drive bottlenecks. 

As it's aimed at the portable market, there are some other limitations with the device. The device only has a single Thunderbolt port, so it must be at the end of the chain. However, it is also bus-powered so no external power supply is required. (The upcoming $199 desktop model reportedly will have an external power supply and additional Thunderbolt port.) Also, the $99 price doesn't include a Thunderbolt cable which still runs $50 at the Apple online store. 

So, the entire setup will add a $150 premium to your hard drive purchase, but is one of the few single-drive external Thunderbolt drive options available today. 

Update: Note, that Seagate's GoFlex adapter is simply a standard SATA connector, so it could be used as a bare 2.5" SATA Hard Drive -> Thunderbolt adapter.

Source:Macrumors.com

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