Updated iTunes U – Great New Tool for Education Content

Apple has now updated iTunes U enabling teachers in creating, editing and managing lessons and course through the iPad, With this updates to iTunes U, it will help educators and students with great new tools to build and experience education content on an iPad.

 From July 8th, teachers using the free iTunes U app for the first timecan now create edit as well as manage their entire course directly through the iPad while students will find new discoveries to collaborate with the ability to start class discussion as well as ask questions right from their iPad. According to Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, he states that `Education is at the core of Apple’s DNA and iTunes U is an incredibly valuable resource for teachers and students’.

 He further stated that `iTunes U features an amazing selection of academic material for all around the world and now with the ability to manage better and discuss education content, learning has become even more personalized on iPad’.

Giving Teachers the Liberty to Create & Organise 

The free educational service’s new tool helps teachers in adding learning materialiBook Author,iWork or any of the 75,000 educational apps for iPad as well as photos and videos, in a package which is accessible to students. With the advantage of the built in camera on iPad, teachers also have the opportunity to capture photos and videos to incorporate real world subject matter needed for their course and instantly making relevant content available to their students.

The Head of computing and IT at Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland, Fraser Speirs had stated that `iTunes U is the most powerful destination in bringing the entire educational experience to life on iPad. By giving teachers the liberty in creating and organizing courses right on iPad, educators can be focussed better in enabling students’ participation both with the content and with one another.

Debates and Get Engaged in Conversation 

Moreover, students can also have debates and get engaged in conversations through the service’s discussion feature and teachers can moderate and remove off topic messages. Besides this, teachers and lecturers at all stages of education can use iTunes U to create lessons, coursework, book, test and lectures and students can access the information.

Universities and school also have the opportunity in setting up their own iTunes U site where the free app is made available for download. Students with iPad and who have enrolled in private iTunes U courses will now have the availability to all their requirements to collaborate with their classmates as well as the teachers.

With the help of the Discussion in the iTunes U app, students can now automatically engage themselves in classroom discussions as well as join in conversation on new topics and also set up push notification when new topics come up or replies are added to active exchanges. Forum participation for teachers is also possible with the ability to moderate discussion by deleting any off topic messages.

ITunes U has helped teacher to create courses inclusive of lectures, books, quizzes, assignments etc. for many iOS users and with over 750,000 individuals learning material made available on iTunes U app, it is one of the world’s largest online catalog with free educational content from prominent organizations and top schools.

Apple’s Launch of Colourful New iPod Touch

An updated version of iPad touch device with a new 16GB model has been launched by Apple adding a rear facing camera which now comes in a range of four colours like its more expensive versions and though this updated version is not yet available in the UK, the UK Apple Store website indicates that the old model of 16GB silver model marked as `currently unavailable.

Till now, the 16GB iPod Touch was available only in grey colour and though a sensible choice, it failed to reach the hearts of design fans and hence Apple is hoping that the new range of colours would draw more fans towards it.

The updated version retains the four inch retina screen and A5 processor of the earlier 16GB version which is a throwback to the previous generation of iPod touch with the addition of a five megapixel iSight camera which comes with an LED flash and onscreen filter to jazz shots, to its existing FaceTime HD camera.

Equipped with 5 Megapixel/4 In. Retina/A5 Chip 

The new version is priced at $199 in the US while Apple had sold the16GB version of its fifth generation iPod Touch for $229 without the rear camera and in only one colour option. Available in vibrant colours like pink, yellow and blue, the iPod touch besides being equipped with a five megapixel, a 4 inch Retina display and A5 chip, has a FaceTime camera with 1080p HD video recording, as stated by Apple.

Moreover, the iPod also has a fingerprint resistant oleo phobic coating which will enable it to remain beautiful and bright.Now with this new launch, customers in the US have the choice of buying the new iPod touch in the same range of different available colours on the 32 GB and 64GB models.

Apple’s iconic music player sales had slumped in recent years while smartphones have compensated all the functions of the standalone digital music player and Apple considered revamping the market by bringing in a lot of features on the iPhone like a camera and access to a variety of apps to the iPhone touch on the App Store.

Featuring iOS 7 Operating System

The new updated versions come as two different iPhone with a 4.7 inch and a 5.5 inch screen which are rumoured to have gone into production and the current iPhone 5s has 4 inch display.

With difficulties in the production of a large screen model, the 4.7 inch version would probably be released first, somewhere around early autumn.

The iPod was responsible in bringing in the major share of Apple’s revenue but had been dwindling recently in smartphones which gained more popularity.

The iPhone and iPad presently are the company’s biggest earners where Apple in the last quarters released figure of 2.7 m iPods sold.

Apple had also launched its range of portable media players in 2001 on iPod in various versions like iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Touch and iPod Classic.

The iPod touch will feature the iOS 7 operating system as well as offer more than 200 features, inclusive of camera app filters and probably later this year the device would be supporting the latest iOS 8 versions.

Apple Campus – Spaceship Project

Construction on the Apple Campus, the `Spaceship’, project is in progress and is believed to reach completion in mid-2016. The new Apple campus is referred by many as the Spaceship campus because of its flying saucer like design.

 The previous shots taken of the site showed that all the buildings had been demolished and the land was cleared for construction of the new spaceship style HQ. It is doughnuts shaped four storeys circular building which will have huge walls of glass, housing around 14,000 employees of Apple in Cupertino, California enabling them to look out from both sides of the ring.

An architect,Peter Arbour, for Seele, the company which makes glass staircases in Apple stores, all around the world, informed Bloomberg that it was like a six kilometres of glass. Apple had received the final approval from the City of Cupertino last November to start building the 2.8 million square foot campus where the earlier HP campus had previously stood on the site and now had been demolished.

The new campus is located around a mile east of its existing headquarters which is also based in the heart of Silicon Valley in Cupertino.The building which has been designed by Lord Norman Foster will be powered by renewable energy which will be sourced from fuel cell plants together with rooftop photovoltaic arrays.

Underground Car Parking Facilities 

A presentation to the City Council in the year 2011 was given by late CEO with regards to the proposed building’s aesthetics and surround environment of the project, where most of the building’s car parking facilities would be underground providing space for 6,000 indigenous trees which would include persimmons, apples, plums, cherry and apricots.

Due to the advanced natural ventilation along with radiant cooling, the need for air conditioning would not be necessary. The European headquarters of Apple are based in Cork in southern Ireland having around 3,300 staff working there.

Architects for the colossal structure have been appointed from the British firm Foster+Partners whose previous projects include Canary Wharf Underground Station, Stansted Airport, London’s Millenium Bridge, Wembley Stadium, HSBC HQ at Canary Wharf, the Maclaren Technology Centre and the Heast Tower in New York.

Earth Friendly and Self Sufficient

Norman Foster in an interview with Architectural Record commented on how he had been inspired with the idea of a London square with houses surrounding a parkand this eventually led him into the circular design surrounding the large outdoor park.

He further revealed that according to the original plan, there was no circular `spaceship’ structure and the structure of one building with a park was the result of very intensive process. Aiming to be earth friendly and self-sufficient, the materials used for the construction are of the highest quality.

According to an insider, all of the interior wood is harvested from specific species of maple with only finer quality `heartwood’ at the centre of the trees would be used. A segment of the building is the restaurant opening up to the landscape and to combat the size of the building the section have been divided into cafes, lobbies and entrances.

Apple to Partner Foxconn for Next Generation iPhone 6

It was recently reported that Apple would partner manufacturer Foxconn and hire some 100,000 workers in a ramp up for July production of the next generation iPhone 6, thereby enhancing the company’s total iPhone manufacturing workforce by ten percent while secondary supplier Pegatron would also be preparing to increase its recruitment efforts after netting in a thirty percent share of orders.

Sources well versed with Apple’s supply chain, Taiwan’s Economic Daily News has reported that the hiring spree of 100,000 of Foxconn would result in improving the company’s iPhone workforce when compared to the past production of the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s.

Some have stated that with the combination of Pegatron’s recruitment efforts, the manufacture of Apple’s iPhone 6 is expected to drive the largest job creation boom mainland, China has ever seen in recent time.

Huge Expansion to Two Production Lines

Moreover, the mass recruitment campaign as claimed by sources is that Foxconn has been planning to make huge expansions to two production lines in order to meet anticipated high demand for the forthcoming handset line. Foxconn is also considered to be responsible for the bulk order of Apple’s iPhone.

Some sources havealso been reporting that the company would be handling all assembly of the rumoured 5.5 inch `phablet’, version of the device. According to reports, Foxconn would be producing seventy percent of the iPhone 6 units while Pegatron, the supplier would be handling some thirty percent of order, a consistent figure of recent rumours and it is not clear if the share would be representative of iPhone 6 version or not.

The timing of these hiring seems to be perfect for the rumoured iPhone 6 with reports of the production to ramp up ahead of its scheduled launch in the usual time frame in September and most of the attention is focused on iPhone 6, a 4.7 inch model which is expected to draw the bulk of sale.

Apple has been working on an even larger 5.5 inch model which would be launched along with or in the month following the debut of the 4.7 inch model.

Screen Size – 4.7 & 5.5 with Multiple Sensors

Many are expecting Apple to release two iPhone models somewhere this year with bigger screens of 4.7 and 5.5 inch in size and a number of supposed iPhone 6 mockups have surfaced on the internet with some indications on the final designs of the duo handset.

The duo handset comes with larger screen with thinner design with faster next gen `A8’CPU where the launch willbe during Fall 2014. Besides the bigger screen, the iPhone 6 will also be featuring multiple sensors which would enable the device to measure altitudes together with atmospheric pressure as well as provide different other information with regards to weather like humidity and temperature.

Speculations are doing the rounds for some time now about Pegatron gaining a foothold in Apple’s premium handset assembly business though the exact share of orders given out to the firm is not established yet. Reports of Foxconn’s intention of hiring as well as the iPhone6 issue leaked following previous reports stating that the production for the iPhone 6 is set to be ramped up in July ahead of its release date sometime in September.

Marbel Electric Skateboard – Operated with iOS Device

Commuters living in the city who would prefer to get from their home to their office by longboards will soon be given an option that can be operated with their iOS device in the form of Marbel electric skateboard. The Marbel Board is a Kickstarter project which has already blown past its $90,000 funding goal having another 23 days still remaining.

As per its description, the Marbel electric skateboard is 30 mm thick, weighing around 9.9 pounds, is made up of custom moulded deck of carbon fibre and kevlar to enable it to last long and needs around ninety minutes of charging for every ten miles. Its batteries are placed in a compartment inside the deck while the motors are mounted on the rear axle which can scurry across the pavement and uphill, up to 20 miles per hour having a 10 mile range before the battery finally runs out.

It is also the world’s lightest electric skateboard costing around $1,200 to $2000.The purpose of the Marbel skateboard was to create the lightest electric vehicle in the world with amazing user experience.

Simple to Use, Efficient and Exhilarating to Ride

The description on Kickstarter reveals that they hadspent two years of dedication in engineering and designing the Marbel Electric skateboard, which is the lightest electric skateboard ever created with the help of modern technologies, amazing team as well as the support from community and managed to build the Marbel Board which is simple to use, besides being efficient and exhilarating to ride.

Another amazing feature of the Marbel Skateboard is that it gets connected to the iOS or Android device through an app in order to get customized in your riding style and also control the throttle. Users also have the option in selecting from the three pre-defined ride modes, tweak the acceleration, and adjust the top speed, map out the rides and much more.

Handheld remote Throttle/Touch Controls

Riders can now control the skateboard by using a handheld remote throttle or through touch controls in a companion iPhone app while enabling users to choose the different modes for Marbel’s power circuitry, like the starter mode which limits the top speed to six miles per hour or an `eco’, mode which dynamically adjusts power output to the maximize range.

 In addition to this, the app also provides various other convenient features like an anti-theft mode that prevents the board from being used when locked with the app and a map showing the riders exactly how far they can go before the Marbel battery dies out. Marbel has also chosen to build a Wi-Fi hotspot in the board instead of connecting through the Bluetooth and this decision could prove to be a problem for riders who prefer to stream music or other media over a mobile data connection at the time of riding.

The design team had envisioned the Marbel Board replacing bikes and cars for short commutes as well as urban travel thus eliminating the worry over fuel cost together with parking issues which is the most prevailing issue at the moment.