The Next Generation In Augmented Reality Gaming

Here's a new device by Parrot called the AR.Drone that is making its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada this week. You haven't seen augmented reality gaming until you have seen these videos. No price or release date set yet. I think the video speaks for itself.

My iPhone History & Qik!

As I started the New Year, I looked back at my iPhone usage since I bought it back in July 2008 and there's some interesting statistics I have compiled from my AT&T statements.

The average amount of minutes I spend a month talking on the iPhone is 137. I don't make a lot of calls.

The average amount of kilobytes that go through my iPhone each month is 553,640. That's about 540MB per month.

My monthly minutes ranged from 62 to 270.

My monthly kilobyte usage ranged from 136,224 (133MB) to 1,405,007 (1.34GB)! That month I used the internet a lot and I had ZERO Wi-Fi was when I was on my trip to Oregon.

Okay, enough of that. Since I've been busy during the holidays some MAJOR apps have come out like...

Qik Live [iTunes link] and Qik VideoCamera [iTunes link]!

Qik Live is basically the non-jailbroken version of the app that has been available for the jailbroken iPhone. It allows you to stream video and sound over 3G or Wi-Fi. If you are jailbroken, you will have to uninstall the jailbroken Qik to install this new one. I would highly suggest making the upgrade because, in my opinion, the sound is much better with Qik Live. The frame rate is still abysmal. But, having it is better than not.

Here's a video I made using Qik Live:

Compare that with the competing FREE Ustream app:

Qik VideoCamera is a game-changing app since it now gives the original iPhone and the 3G version the capability to record videos - a function that Apple has been, until now, unwilling to hand over.
This is a $.99 app but I am willing to pay minimal price for a great and useful function. So, you record your video and you can export it to your camera roll. Once there, you can copy and paste your video into e-mail. The big difference with Qik Live is that Qik Live records in a 4x3 ratio which uses about half of the screen. Qik VideoCamera records the entire screen. Both can only be used (for now) in portrait mode.

Here's a sample of the video quality: