Toluu

Josh Bancroft's TinyScreenfuls.com

Huge iPhone and web geek. Selfish, Obsessive, and Easily Distracted.

Tell Your iPhone To Make You A Sandwich With SiriFebruary 5

Siri Assistant is a new iPhone app/service that has a lot of people talking. I first heard Scoble get all excited about it a couple of weeks ago, and Adam Duvander was telling me about it last night. By the time I got home from the Ignite Portland 8 talk selection meeting last night, it was in the App Store, so I’ve been playing with it. It’s definitely worth grabbing (it’s free), and time will tell if it becomes truly useful, or just a very novel idea.

Siri combines a couple of cool features – speech to text by Nuance, the folks who power the awesome Dragon Dictation iPhone app – and a bunch of search and service APIs, like OpenTable. The result is an app you can tell things like “book me a table for two at an italian restaurant in Portland tomorrow night” and it will come back with a selection of restaurants and times that are available. Simply tap on the time, and your table is booked.

You can also look up movie times (“Where is Avatar playing tonight?“), call a taxi, ask for the weather in any city, or find out more about people (“Who is Josh Bancroft?

Get Your Last Minute Apple Tablet Predictions In NowJanuary 26

Update: I’ve scored my predictions below against reality, striking out ones I missed. Not to brag, but the only major items I missed were the keyboard dock (I didn’t think it would have one) and the name. Not too shabby!

The hype is almost overwhelming now. Even for me. You’ve read up on what all the big thinkers have to say about an Apple Tablet device. If you’re like me, you’ve had endless conversations with friends and acquaintances about which rumors you think are true, and which ones aren’t.

You might as well formalize your predictions. I found this awesome PDF Prediction Score Card that David Weiss made, which you can print out, mark whether you think all the predictions are Correct or Incorrect, and then grade yourself after the announcement.

But printing stuff out on dead trees? Ugh. Isn’t there an app for that? Turns out there is. Weiss’ iPhone app Prediction just hit the App Store ($2.99, but worth it IMO) lets you make your own call on predictions for not only Apple’s event, but other upcoming tech stuff like MWC and Google I/O (all stuff I happ

Panorama of the madness at Out of This World Pizza and PlayJanuary 23

This place is AWESOME. A giant warehouse full of big playthings, tables and couches for parents, pizza, ice cream, and even wifi. And they have gluten-free pizza.

It’s kind of out in the middle of nowhere, north of Highway 26 off Cornelius Pass Rd. And it’s a zoo on Saturday night. But highly recommended if you have small kids.

Photo is an Autostich panorama made if seven or so shots on my iPhone 3GS.

The Perplexus – Awesome Brain ToyJanuary 14

I asked for (and got) a Perplexus puzzle sphere for Christmas. I had thought I’d bring it to work, as a companion to the Rubik’s 360 I keep on my desk (it’s a great conversation starter, and fun to play with while I’m on phone meetings – shh! . But the Perplexus has become so popular with everyone at home (even 3yo Gabe, who does surprisingly well with it once you get him started) that I don’t dare take it to work for fear of angering Emma, Gabe and Rachel.

What is a Perplexus? It’s like one of those marble labyrinth toys, where you twist and turn to move a steel bearing along a path. Except it’s in 3D, and completely encased inside a 10 inch plastic sphere. The insides of it look like colorful plastic brain matter, and it’s lots of fun to play with. I first heard about it in Make magazine, where they did a story on its creator, Michael McGinnin, and the giant-sized “Superplexuses” he creates (I WANT one of those!). BoingBoing also wrote about it (again) recently.

Here’s a video of 6yo Emma playing with it and explaining it. Watch to the end to see her highly advanced technique

My Thoughts on the Fabled Apple “iSlate” TabletJanuary 5

I’m trying to avoid writing about rumors and hype these days. There is plenty of that to go around, and I don’t need to tell you where to find it. I don’t have any facts, only opinions, and there’s really one main idea that I want to share here, sprinkled among the following posts. Go read them now, or save them for later when your brain can chew on them. There’s a lot to think about. They’re all interrelated, so read them in order, and form your own conclusions.

• John “Daring Fireball” Gruber on “The Tablet”
• Ars Technica’s John Siracusa on the tablet
• Marco Arment (Tumblr, Instapaper) on the tablet. Part One and Part Two
• MG Siegler (TechCrunch) on the significance of Steve Jobs’ involvement in the project

These posts represent the best thinking I’ve read recently about how an Apple tablet device could potentially change personal computing. Besides the baseline gadget lust that such a device certainly inspires, there’s a bigger potential here. Because of the way the iPhone has change