@video posts

A new iPhone 4 ad has hit the airwaves.

Rather than featuring FaceTime, which is now quickly making it into the mainstream on shows like Hawaii Five-O, the new ad focuses on the Retina Display. In the ad, the ability of the display to bring out the best of photos, movies, text, and games is vividly demonstrated on "the highest resolution phone screen ever."

Seeing how other phone manufacturers are now using terms like "our high-resolution AMOLED display" in their advertising, this is a smart move on Apple's part while they still have the lead in phone display technology.

When last week's episode of TUAW TV Live was being streamed, my Apple TV had just been delivered and I hadn't been able to do more than shoot a quick unboxing video. After a week, I've had an opportunity to put the new Apple TV through its paces and find what I like and dislike about the new unit.

This afternoon, join me for a special Apple TV edition of TUAW TV Live. I'll show you the device, how it connects to the world, and give you a detailed tour of the Lowtide user interface. I'll also demonstrate the use of Apple's free Remote app in controlling the Apple TV, and then we'll open the chat room to discussion of the device.

It all starts at 5 PM EDT today here at TUAW. Show up a few minutes early either here at TUAW.com, or visit the Ustream link below to watch -- either way, you'll be treated to a live video stream and a chat tool. If you can't make it to the live show, all of the TUAW TV Live episodes are archived on our Ustream page so you can view them at your leisure.

Wow! These days, it seems, if you're going to propose, popping the question needs to be done in a super creative, ultra romantic fashion. Gone are the days of proposing to your love after a few drinks at the local pub or after a few too many at a New Years Eve party (Both proposals I know of, both ladies said yes)!

Apparently, If you're going to do it right in this day and age, you need to do it akin to the stratosphere that B.B Bling did it in. This guy took his girlfriend to the cinema where they watched their first movie together (OK, nothing too special there), but after a few commercials, what appeared to be an iPhone commercial came on the screen. However, it turned out to be a full blown music video proposal, written and performed by the groom to be. Using apps from his iPhone, the song declared Bling's undying love for his stunned girlfriend, culminating in an on screen proposal. Thankfully, she said yes, and the rest of the cinema goers burst into applause.

To to top it all off, the track is now available for purchase on the iTunes store to finance the wedding.

From all of us here at TUAW, we say well done to you, sir! And congratulations to the happy couple.

Now, why didn't I think of that?

For all the juicy details, click here.

Android users have been enjoying Google Goggles for a while; now, the image recognition feature has made it over to the iPhone. The first hints that GG would make the leap to iPhone came back in August, and we're glad to see it here now.

Google Goggles delivers the kind of visual product search and recognition features found in SnapTell (now owned by Amazon) and Kooaba. While it's a separate app on the Android Market, on iPhone it's bundled in with the existing Google Mobile app.

As the video shows, with Google Goggles (not to be confused with other, similar sounding technologies), you can use visual recognition to search for information with your iPhone's camera -- even translate text from other languages into English on demand. The service works best on copy, logos, book covers, landmarks, wine labels and other easily recognized images; it doesn't do so well with organic shapes like animals, people or food. Note that since it requires an auto-focusing camera, Goggles will only work on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.

If you update your Google Mobile app, you'll see a new camera icon in the top bar. The first time you tap it, you'll have to clear several screenfuls of instructions and accept a new version of the Google mobile usage agreement. You can, at your option, have your image capture history saved to your Google account.

More details are available on Google's blog. Get Goggling!

It seems we've been discussing Apple's upcoming, massive North Carolina datacenter for a long, long time -- since around May 2009, actually. Word is that the $1 billion facility is nearing completion, meaning we'll hopefully see the fruits of Apple's labor very soon.

Here's one interesting item to come out of the story: the company reportedly paid one family upwards of $1.7 million for their one-acre lot. Even having paid that amount for such a small bit of land, Apple could have come away from this having paid as little as $35k per acre.

While many people speculate that the new datacenter will support Apple's initiatives into streaming media, it's just as likely that it will be used for technologies that Apple hasn't really dipped its toe into quite yet. Social media could be one area, as we've seen the company testing those waters with Ping (with questionable results).

Click the link below to see video of a helicopter fly-over of the new facility.

There's no denying that there are a lot of guitar apps in the App Store. But how do you use them with your iPhone or iPod touch? Usually, you put the iPhone onto a table or music stand, where it's apt to get fumbled the next time you try picking it up to look at lyrics.

Castiv has come up with a good solution: put the iPhone or just about any other phone-sized device right onto your guitar with a little gadget called the Guitar Sidekick (US$29.99). You clamp it on the neck of your guitar, and then use the iPhone as a scrolling reminder of lyrics, as a tuning tool, as a practice metronome, a recording device, and more.

Castiv and TUAW want to give one of these little wonders away to a TUAW reader. To enter, just leave us a comment telling us which song contains your favorite guitar solo. Here are the details:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter, leave a comment with the name of the song containing your favorite guitar solo.
• The comment must be left before midnight on Sunday, October 10th, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
• You may enter only once.
• One winner will be selected and receives a Castiv Guitar Sidekick valued at $29.99
• Click here for complete official rules.

There's some video of the Guitar Sidekick in action on the next page, so check it out.

Plato said, "Necessity is the mother of all inventions." He must have been talking about the guys at One Block Off the Grid, which is a cooperative of sorts for buying photovoltaic solar panels at a group discount. One of their staff members was running into issues trying to run Adobe After Effects on a slower Mac, so they had another staff member -- Kalvin -- build a fast hackintosh in the Amazon cardboard box that all the computer parts came in.

That price doesn't include the labor involved in putting it all together, and it originally had a rather odd power switch, which was a standard jumper stuck on the end of a plastic cable tie. The computer itself has pretty good specs, with a 2.66 Intel Core i5 CPU, a 1 TB hard drive, 8 GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM, and an XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5 Graphics Card. To run Snow Leopard on this computer, Kalvin used iBoot and MultiBeast.

As noted on the 1BOG blog, "this procedure may potentially violate Apple's End User License Agreement for Mac OS X." On the other hand, it's a great way to get a fast computer and not spend a lot of bucks.

Here's a clever repurposing of an older MacBook. Matt of Enigma Penguin took it upon himself to convert the MacBook into a touch-based tablet with interesting results.

After taking the MacBook apart and removing non-functional hardware, Matt ordered a third-party touchscreen. Once it arrived, he removed the MacBook's original display and cut the lid to accommodate the touchscreen. After fiddling with drivers and other finalities, he's got the thing up and running. It's even using Ink, the Mac OS X input alternative.

Nice work, Matt! It reminds us of the Axiotron ModBook, but of course, this is much cheaper.

[Via PC World]

The USA's largest shopping mall will be the setting of an epic retail battle as Microsoft opens a massive store mere yards away from an Apple Store. Your Tech Weblog, a part of Minnesota's Pioneer Press, has posted some photos of the massive store-to-be.

It's directly across the hall from Apple Store Mall of America, and it's much larger. As the video above demonstrates, the store will be longer and apparently much deeper than the existing Apple Store. All is fair in love and tech retail, as blogger Julio Ojeda-Zapata points out, so may the best retailer win.

Microsoft has opened four retail stores in the US so far. There are two in California, one in Colorado, and one in Arizona. This will be the first location in Minnesota. Some have accused Microsoft of copying the Apple Store's look and feel a little too closely. Check out these photos and decide for yourself.

Alphonso Labs reported today that their Pulse News Reader for iPad (currently US $1.99) has been updated to version 2.0. The new version of the app addresses one of the major complaints about the original by allowing up to 60 news feeds to be added, with up to 12 feeds on each of five pages.

Organization of sources is much easier in the new version. Each one of the five pages has a tab that can be renamed, so users can define each page by type -- for example, "Apple," "Food," "News," and more. The feeds are listed under each tab and can be dragged around to be placed in the order you would like to see them. It's also easier to find sources; when you go to add a source, there are tabs for "featured" and "categories," both featuring sources that look good in Pulse. Alphonso Labs calls this the "Pulse Bazaar."

The app seems snappier than the previous version also, both at startup and while loading or refreshing pages. I'm not sure if it's new, but it's possible to add both your Facebook and Twitter feeds to Pulse, with any post with a photo or link in it showing up in your Pulse list. There's also support for Bump, so you can share feeds with friends who have both Bump and Pulse installed. Sounds like a great update -- if you've had issues with the app previously, it's worth giving it another look.

If you're a subscriber to the free AT&T Navigator app and the associated service , then you'll want to load the latest update ASAP.

AT&T Navigator v1.7i is the newest version of the TeleNav-powered app, and it's now the first iPhone GPS navigation app that incorporates direct speech recognition. As you can see in the video above, all you need to do is tap an icon, speak your destination, and the app will display appropriate destination addresses. Tap one of the addresses, and navigation begins.

The new version also provides alerts for traffic cameras, works in landscape mode, and has a lane-assist function that shows you which lane you need to be in before you get to an intersection. When you need directions back to your home location, there's a new "shake to go home" function -- just shake the iPhone, and the app knows you want directions back home.

The free app works with a US$9.99 monthly service that appears on your AT&T iPhone bill. You can choose a monthly or annual subscription, and you can cancel at any time. Note that navigation is only possible in areas where you have cellular data coverage, as the maps are downloaded on demand.

Nerds squealed with delight last night as the geekiest comedy on American television, The Big Bang Theory, featured a cameo by Steve Wozniak. The Apple co-founder played himself in a brief scene with the gang from the show (Is that his daughter next to him at the table?). He was pretty funny and seemed comfortable on camera. In fact, Steve is an old hand at TV by now, having appeared on Dancing With The Stars and My Life on the D-List.

In case you missed it, you can watch it above (sorry about the audio quality -- we'll keep an eye out for the official version). Good job, Woz!

Happy Friday, all. As you might have expected, things are moving along quite rapidly on the Apple TV Jailbreak front. Although we're still not close to a public release, it looks like things are moving apace. This latest video demonstrates a 2nd generation Apple TV jailbreak using the iPhone dev-team's SHAtter exploit installed via Pwnage tool.

It's really exciting to see how far the team has advanced. I can't wait for the platform to open and for people to start developing custom software, themes, appliance plug-ins ("frappliances"), and other fun elements that are sure to make the updated Apple TV platform even more exciting.

Here's one submitted in the spirit of George Mallory with no comment. Inventive soul Hexxeh has gotten the Chromium OS up and running on an iPad. Chromium is the open source version of Google's Chrome OS. After some effort and a bit of magic, Hexxeh has got it mucking about inside an iPad.

Don't expect lightning speed from this quick demo, and note the bonus tapping that the spiffy cursor provides. We're not going to run out and try it, but we're glad enough to watch someone else do it. Good work, Hexxeh.

[Via Engadget]

Hey, you! With the $100 bill burning a hole in your pocket! Why don't you do something useful with that Benjamin?

In this YouTube footage, photographer Enrique Pardo turns an ordinary $100 bill into a fashionable and expensive stand for an iPhone or iPod touch. If you're cheap, you can always use a regular $1 bill for the same purpose, but where's the fun in that?

[via Techi]