In the days leading up to WWDC 2011, Nuance integration got enough speculations for a possible presence in Apples iOS 5. Now Developer and Hacker Chronicseems to have got his hands on iOS 5 build with internal settings — hidden from public, as he tweeted a series of screenshots for what might be settings for testing and troubleshooting. Some of these screenshots show what looks like Nuance voice recognition baked into the iOS.
The screenshots show some options like “mic on space keyâ€, “auto-record input†and “Nuance dictationâ€, which seem to suggest Apple has been testing ways to integrate additional buttons in the default iPhone keyboard to let users speak and have text transcribed on screen.
Although these settings look interesting, no Nuance announcement in WWDC and everything may be unveiled in fall with iPhone 5 keynote, though.
The 98-acre campus bought last year from Hewlett Packard, in Cupertino revealed to be a future campus for Apple as CEO Steve Jobs explained Apple’s plans for the space to the Cupertino City Council. Here’s what the new 4-story building holding 12,000 employees will look like when it’s completed in 2015 as described by Steve:
It’s a pretty amazing building. It’s a little like a spaceship landed. It’s got this gorgeous courtyard in the middle… It’s a circle. It’s curved all the way around. If you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There is not a straight piece of glass in this building. It’s all curved. We’ve used our experience making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use. And, we want to make the glass specifically for this building here. We can make it curve all the way around the building… It’s pretty cool.
The facility will be 80% landscaping, with most of the parking underground, compared to 20% landscaping with all above ground parking currently. The current campus has 3,700 trees and Apple plans to increase that to more than 6,000 trees, including “some apricot orchards.”
Apple also plans to build its own energy generation facility using natural gas, with the electricity grid as a backup.
One of the city councilors asked what the citizens of Cupertino would get from the new campus, and in particular brought up a free Wi-Fi network, like Google offers in Mountain View. Steve responded that Apple was the largest taxpayer in Cupertino and he felt that the tax benefits to having a company like Apple in Cupertino was benefit enough and the city should be providing a service like that.
“If we can get out of paying taxes, we would be glad to provide free Wi-Fi.”
Cupertino’s Mayor has responded to Steve’s proposal:
The City of Cupertino has responded to Apple’s stunning new campus proposal. In the statement, Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong states “there is no chance we are saying no” to the new Apple campus. Apple proposal will still have to go through an environmental and a public hearing, but Wong says they are willing to bring on more staff to accommodate the process.
Progress of the project can be followed at Cupertino.org/apple where they’ve also posted a PDF of Jobs’ presentation slides.
At E3 Conference, LA, Nintendo has unveiled their upcoming game platform, previously known as Project Cafe, and now officially known as “Wii U“. It is the next iteration to the current Wii which teased back in April. The device comes with a 6.2-inch integrated touchscreen display (with a stylus) acting as an augmented display, it has an integrated mic, gyroscope, camera, and it outputs full HD which is a huge step from the current device. The device will release in 2012.
Here are the full specs:
1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide, 10.5 inches long
Single-touch display
The new controller incorporates a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including two analog Circle Pads. This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the video game world. The rechargeable controller includes a Power button, Home button, +Control Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons. It includes a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, rumble feature, camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, a sensor strip and a stylus
Up to four Wii Remote (or Wii Remote Plus) controllers can be connected at once. The new console supports all Wii controllers and input devices, including the Nunchuk controller, Classic Controller, Classic Controller Pro and Wii Balance Board
A single self-loading media bay will play 12-centimeter proprietary high-density optical discs for the new console, as well as 12-centimeter Wii optical discs
Supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Compatible cables include HDMI, component, S-video and composite
Uses AV Multi Out connector. Six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI
The console will have internal flash memory, as well as the option to expand its memory using either an SD memory card or an external USB hard disk drive
IBM Power®-based multi-core microprocessor
Four USB 2.0 connector slots are included. The new console is backward compatible with Wii games and Wii accessories
Here is an interesting description of the iCloud as Apple‘s Steve Jobs describes his personal computing environment at the time— back in 1997. Watch WWDC ’97 keynote below: fast forward to 00:14:00 if you wish.
“I have computers at Apple, at NeXT, at Pixar and at home. I walk up to any of them and log in as myself, it goes over the network and finds my home directory on the server and… I’ve got my stuff wherever I am…â€
“…we were able to take all of our personal data, our home directories we call them, off of our local machines and put them on a server, and the software made that completely transparent…â€
“…so in the last seven years, do you know how many times I have lost any personal data? Zero. Do you know how many times I have backed up my computer? Zero.â€
