The Metropolitan Transit Authority on
Friday released an iOS app that will let riders of seven train lines
plan their trips to the minute, a first for the largest subway system in
the U.S.
The official MTA Subway Time
app uses train location data to provide iPhone and iPod touch owners
with up-to-the-minute arrival times for seven of the system's 24 lines.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
approved the iBGStar Meter - a blood glucose monitoring system that
works with the iPhone and iPod touch.
As the first and only blood glucose meter to be used in conjunction with the iPhone and the iPod Touch, the iBGStar allows users diagnosed with diabetes to track, record and manage important information on-the-go.
The accessory is like a dongle that
plugs directly into the dock connector and works with the free iBGStar
Diabetes Manager App that is available in the App Store.
iBGStar Test strips need to be bought
along with the glucose meter that is inserted into the strip port to
take the blood samples. The dongle then syncs the blood glucose reading
with the iBGStar Diabetes Manager App. You can then view and analyse the
data with the iPhone app and also share the results with your
healthcare provider.
Shawna Gvazdauskas, Vice President and
Head of Devices of Sanofi-Aventis, the developer of the iBGStar, noted
in a phone call conducted by Diabetes Mine:
“This is a
momentous occasion. Obviously we’re as excited as you are, but I can’t
disclose any details at this early stage. We’re not issuing any
statements yet, but I can say that a ‘generic’ announcement was made at
the mHealth conference today.”
The approval of such a product by the FDA paves the way for future innovations in medical technology. Analyst David Kliff of Diabetic Investor throws in his two cents:
“With this
approval we’ll finally see if iPhone users who also have diabetes will
favor a meter that works with their phone or will they remain loyal to
their existing monitor. Although the iPhone is wildly popular and the
iBGStar will certainly have the ‘cool’ factor, this does not solve some
of the fundamental dynamics of the BGM market. Sanofi still must get the
system on formulary and make the cost on par with existing systems.
While there will a sub-segment of the market that will pay for the
iBGStar, after all people have been known to stand in line for hours
waiting for the latest version of the iPhone, the iBGStar as cool as it
is just a glucose monitor.”
You can purchase iBGStar from Apple's online store for $99.95 here. You can also check out iBGStar's website at www.ibgstar.us for additional information.
Cult of Mac reports that a user has claimed that Siri was installed on his iPod touch and iPhone 4 when he restored it from an iPhone 4S backup.
It would be quite bizarre if this turns out to be true, as hackers have been working hard to bring Siri to non-iPhone 4S devices ever since iPhone 4S was launched and have only recently managed to bring Siri to non-iPhone 4S devices but still only for someone who is technically inclined.
Cult of Mac reports:
“AppleGordon”
recently purchased a brand new white iPod touch and claims that instead
of setting it up as a new device, he attempted to restore it from a
backup of his iPhone 4S in iTunes. Once the process was complete, Gordon
claims that Siri had been installed on his iPod.
The feature does
not work because it cannot connect to Apple’s servers, and Gordon
reports that it’s very buggy, causing the iPod to crash several times
during the day. But the entire Siri interface is there, and Gordon
claims that the Dictation feature works flawlessly.
It’s not just
his iPod touch that has Siri either. Gordon says that he also attempted
the same thing with his Verizon iPhone 4 and managed to install Siri
successfully on that, too.
You can checkout the video of Siri running on iPod touch below:
Cult of Mac goes on to add that they're quite skeptical about the users claim:
While the video
and the screenshots prove that Siri is installed on Gordon’s device,
we’re skeptical that it was installed simply using an iPhone 4S backup.
Gordon’s device is jailbroken, and although he takes us through the
Settings menu to show that third-party Siri tweaks or hacks have not
been installed, we still feel that there’s a little more to this than
Gordon reports.
