Word Lens is an amazing new iPhone app that instantly translates language right before your eyes. Using the video camera on your iPhone, Word Lens can scan, for instance, the words on a sign or menu. The app then runs that text through optical character recognition software and displays the translated type in context. Because Word Lens looks up words in its onboard dictionary, you don’t need to be connected to the internet for the app to work; there is no delay, roaming fees, nor reception problems to contend with. It’s a $4.99 paid app, which for the moment offers only English to Spanish and Spanish to English translation.

Techcrunch reports that the app is the culmination of 2 1/2 years of work from founders Otavio Good and John DeWeese. Good says in the video below that he got the idea for the app when he was in a foreign country and couldn’t read the language on a sign. He thought to himself “why doesn’t my cellphone do this?” Now that the translator is complete and deployed to the App Store, Good notes that Word Lens is not perfect, but it usually gets the point across. It doesn’t work on handwritten type, very stylized fonts, or cursive. . Sometimes the translation will have mistakes, and may be hard to understand. If a translation fails, there is a way to manually look up words by typing them in.

The Breakthrough Institute has published a series of case studies entitled Where Good Technologies Come From: Case Studies in American Innovation. From agriculture and locomotives to aviation and cancer treatment, the brief argues that great strides come when the public and private sector work hand in hand. As their headline case, the Breakthrough Institute sites the iPhone as no better example of the invisible hand of government.

The Origins of the iPhone

A blog post about Where Good Technologies Come From states that the iPhone brought together a number of communications and information technologies made possible by federal funding:

• The microchips powering the iPhone owe their emergence to the U.S. military and space programs, which constituted almost the entire early market for the breakthrough technology in the 1960s, buying enough of the initially costly chips to drive down their price by a factor of 50 in a few short years.
• The early foundation of cellular communication lies in radiotelephony capabilities progressively advanced throughout the 20th century with support from the U.S. military.
• The technologies underpinning the Internet were developed and funded by the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency in the 1960s and 70s.
• GPS was originally created and deployed by the military’s NAVSTAR satellite program in the 1980s and 90s.
• Even the revolutionary multitouch screen that provides the iPhone’s intuitive interface was first developed by University of Delaware researchers supported by grants and fellowships provided by the National Science Foundation and the CIA.

The post’s author Jesse Jenkins calls the iPhone emblematic of the public-private partnerships that have driven America’s technological leadership. The two forms this partnership has taken are 1) government acting as an early funder of kscience and applied research and development, and 2) the government helping to develop new industries by acting as an early and demanding customer for innovative, high-risk technologies that the private sector was unable or unwilling to fund.

Download the full report as a PDF here. It’s well worth the read.

Cult of Mac brings some welcome perspective to the “Apple is cannibalizing everything” meme concluding that Apple hasn’t taken anything from netbooks, notebooks, PCs, hand-held gaming systems, newspapers or DVDs and incorporated what it has taken into its own products. Rather:

Apple is providing an alternative to these platforms and media, and some customers are choosing Apple’s alternative in cases where without Apple they would have presumably chosen the older model. That’s not cannibalism. That’s just capitalism.

Cult of Mac

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iOS Devices are Cannibals

Smartphone Cameras Cannibalize Point-and-Shoot Sales (Video)

"Apple Cannibalizing Everything" Cult of Mac's Perspective

Best Buy CEO: iPad Cannibalizing Laptop PC Sales by 50%

iPad to Blame for Notebook Sales Negative Growth?

Steve Jobs Said So: iPad Will Replace PCs

Steve Jobs Said So: Origin of iPhone & iPad (Video)

iPhone 4 Shoots 100% of Photo + Video for a Wedding (Video)

iPhone 4 Macworld Cover Self-portrait (Video)

Hey, iOS user, ever found yourself tapping away on your virtual keyboard when you suddenly utter the phrase “Damn you, Autocorrect!” We thought you had. Well now that phrase is captured (along with user-gernerated autocorrect fails) as the name of the new Pop Hangover Network site damnyouautocorrect.com. We like that the developers of a site which is all about writing problems caused by a ghost in the machine still saw fit to properly deploy the comma in the site’s name.

If you don’t feel like playing, here’s how to disable the auto-correct on your iOS device.

Otherwise, it’s time to get started checking out the hilarious fails and submitting some of your own.

damnyouautocorrect.com

Retailers are revamping their aisles with hand-held gadgets in anticipation of holiday shopping season. Wall Street Journal is reporting Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn as saying that “internal estimates showed that the iPad had cannibalized sales from laptop PCs, especially netbooks, by as much as 50%.”

Just recently, notebook sales negative growth figures were charted by Fortune with iPad shouldering at least some of the blame. Last summer Apple CEO Steve Jobs had some choice predictions about the eclipse of the PC by the likes of iPads and mobile smartphone devices.

Best Buy released a statement on September 27 “Statement: Reports of notebook, netbook sales declines grossly exaggerated,” addressing the CEO Dunn’s comment, here’s some of it:

The reports of the demise of these devices are grossly exaggerated,” [Best Buy CEO Brian] Dunn said. “While they were fueled in part by a comment in the Wall Street Journal that was attributed to me, they are not an accurate depiction of what we’re currently seeing. In fact, we see some shifts in consumption patterns, with tablet sales being an incremental opportunity. And as we said during our recent earnings call, we believe computers will remain a very popular gift this holiday because of the very distinct and desirable benefits they offer consumers. That’s why we intend to carry a broad selection of computing products and accessories to address the demand we anticipate this season.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

iOS Devices are Cannibals

Smartphone Cameras Cannibalize Point-and-Shoot Sales (Video)

"Apple Cannibalizing Everything" Cult of Mac's Perspective

Best Buy CEO: iPad Cannibalizing Laptop PC Sales by 50%

iPad to Blame for Notebook Sales Negative Growth?

Steve Jobs Said So: iPad Will Replace PCs

Steve Jobs Said So: Origin of iPhone & iPad (Video)

iPhone 4 Shoots 100% of Photo + Video for a Wedding (Video)

iPhone 4 Macworld Cover Self-portrait (Video)

Fortune posted a chart from Morgan Stanley that highlights the negative growth of notebook sales.

Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty states:

Tablet cannibalization’–chiefly by Apple’s iPad — is at least partially responsible.

Apple Insider reports that an analyst Shaw Wu with Kaufman Bros. finds

that the iPad appears to be “slightly cannibalizing” low-end MacBook sales.

In June, Apple CEO Steve Jobs predicted the ascendance of tablet computing over the consumer PC.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

iOS Devices are Cannibals

Smartphone Cameras Cannibalize Point-and-Shoot Sales (Video)

"Apple Cannibalizing Everything" Cult of Mac's Perspective

Best Buy CEO: iPad Cannibalizing Laptop PC Sales by 50%

iPad to Blame for Notebook Sales Negative Growth?

Steve Jobs Said So: iPad Will Replace PCs

Steve Jobs Said So: Origin of iPhone & iPad (Video)

iPhone 4 Shoots 100% of Photo + Video for a Wedding (Video)

iPhone 4 Macworld Cover Self-portrait (Video)

Peter Belanger shoots one iPhone 4 with another.

The folks over at Macwrold used the built-in camera of the iPhone 4 to shoot the cover photograph for this month’s issue. Additionally, two photo apps were used to process the image: the $3 PhotoForge to remove a slight green cast from the image, and the $1 Resize-Photo to increase the photo from 216 dpi to 290 dpi in order to meet our printing requirements. WATCH the video above to see timelapse of a similar photo shoot for a MacWorld cover. We find it amusing, with the front-facing camera and all, that the iPhone 4 needs to use the back camera to take its self-portrait.

VIOLA:

Read more in detail at MacWorld.

BUY the iPhone 4 Apps here:

PhotoForge

Resize-Photo

PatentlyApple reports the über tech company has been granted a patent for the iPhone’s original broadband antenna — a design which has nothing to do with the iPhone 4 death grip design.

PatentlyApple

Oh what doors get flung open when a company has a PR problem to solve.

iOnApple

Seen the four new iPhone 4 FaceTime spots? Over at Susty, George has a few thoughts on Fortune Online labeling them “Heartbreaking.”

Advertising Agency: TBWA\Media Arts Lab, USA
CCO/ECD: Duncan Milner, Eric Grunbaum, Scott Trattner
ACDs: Jamie Reilly, Kevin Tenglin
Sr. CW: Pete Figel
Agency Producers: Hank Zakroff, Ben Bragg
Production Co: Epoch Films
DP: Harris Savides
Editorial Co: Nomad Editing Company, Inc.
Editor: Glenn Martin, Jared Coller
Post Co: Company 3
Artist: Brian Robinson, Stefan Sonnenfeld