What we have here is a solar-powered iPhone case/charger, from Brando.com.hk, an Asian technology importer. And if you think about it, it’s really not too shabby an idea.
The cost of this clever case is $48 and it is made of black leather, includes a 3.7-volt rechargeable battery, and a built-in photocell. Two versions are available, a flip-top and a side holster.
How long does it take to fully charge your iPhone? 12 hours in direct sunlight. While that is a long time in the sun, it’s better than nothing if you are spending your day at the beach and need battery power. Or if you need some emergency juice, give it a few minutes and you’ll have the battery power for a quick call.
If you try it out, let us know how you like it!
(Via MacDailyNews)
Daring Fireball, via Digital Arts, brings word that Sun hasn’t stopped trying to bring a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to the iPhone even though:
Apple has not been publicly receptive to having Java on its popular new device. There have been questions about whether Apple’s iPhone SDK agreement would permit this. The JVM potentially could sidestep Apple’s App Store program for dispensing iPhone applications.
And while Sun’s efforts continue, they’re also hedging their bets with Innaworks, who produces alcheMo, which may let Java programs compile as native iPhone apps, ready for App Store:
[I]nitially targeted at games publishers. Now in a beta release, alcheMo for iPhone can be used to port Java ME mobile games to iPhone and iPod touch without the need for further manual adjustments. The product features an optimizing translator to convert Java ME application source code to equivalent source code for iPhone, according to the Innaworks press statement on the product.
While Apple’s Cocao Touch development sounds like a more chocolaty, and much sweeter beverage than Java, Sun sure does seem determined. Of course, determination has a tendency to crash and explode in Matrix-like bullet time when it strikes up against the Zen-like immovability of one Steven P. Jobs.
I don’t think we’ll be seeing the steaming coffee mug on the iPhone any time soon. You?
Sun, the company that loves Java so much they made it their stock symbol, has announced that they’ve looked at the new Apple SDK and believe they can use it to bring Java VM (virtual machine) ME (micro addition) to the iPhone:
“We’re going to make sure that the JVM offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible,” said Java VP, Eric Klein.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs, having previously lavished Java with such praise as (paraphrased) “a ball and chain OS that nobody uses and isn’t worth supporting on the iPhone”, is no doubt in deep mediation over the news.
Java, the technology that enables everything from game-lets on other mobile phones to Blu-Ray’s interactivity layer, while not widely adored in the techsphere, is widely available and offers some cross-platform portability advantages for programers (who want to use their code on multiple OS’s).
Klein also mentioned the possibility of not only JavaFX (which supports Flash-like animation), but the full desktop Java implementation in the future.
Though Sun says they will deploy JVM via the AppStore coming with iPhone firmware 2.0, how exactly they will create what could be a competitive development environment is unclear.
Related news that may or may not provide some hints, however, comes from Apple itself:
..the iPhone SDK beta [...] includes a beta version of llvm-gcc 4.2 as part of the included Xcode 3.1 beta.
LLVM (low level virtual machine), may allow for this functionality, and will also help with (according to Ars Technica’s Siracusa), “Faster compiled code, faster code compilation, more metadata for the IDE, better portability, easier to improve all of the above.”
