Friday the 13th marks the release of ARGH: Augmented Reality Ghost Hunter, a cool new augmented reality game for the iPhone that lets you hunt for ghosts in the real world using special “Ghost Goggles” that allow you to see into the ethereal plane.

Ghosts actually exist in specific locations everywhere. Some only inhabit certain locations and others show only during certain times.

Using Augmented Reality technology, ARGH determines where you are and where you’re facing, and shows you what ghosts exist around you.

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Reko Rivera and John Savio have created the world’s first “working” iPhone costume.

This all started two years ago Reko Rivera and Bobby Hartman created a wearable large iPhone costume with a real 37″ lcd tv. An iPod was attached with a looping video of a real iphones screen in normal use. This time with the help of John Savio and John Matthews the team created yet another amazing rendition of the new iPhone 3GS. Savio loved the original idea but wanted to take it to the next level and make it thinner and actually work with user input! With some heavy researching and some solid determination Savio finally found a solution. He managed to modify the software on the iPhone to allow a live dual image output to the large 42″ lcd tv while maintaining the image in landscape mode. Reko originally came up with the idea and really pushed to see his vision come to life two years ago. This year John and Reko plan to compete in most of the local and online contest to win back all the money they invested in the costumes. The team has about $2000 into the two costumes and has no regrets!

via TUAW

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Last week Adobe released a free Photoshop.com iPhone App, that allows you to manipulate photos shot with an iPhone and share them on Photoshop.com.

Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone provides a fun, seamless experience to view photos with full-screen previews and edit images with gesture-based editing. Consumers can transform their photos with essential edits like crop, rotate and flip. Users can correct and play with color by adjusting the saturation and tint, enhancing the exposure and vibrancy and converting images to black and white.

Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone also offers eye-catching special effects. The Sketch tool helps photos look like drawings, and Soft Focus can give photos a subtle blur for artistic effect. With just one click, users can also apply dramatic changes to the look and feel of their photos with effects such as Warm Vintage, Vignette and Pop. Edits or changes can be undone or redone so users can experiment without the worry of losing the original photo.

Here’s more on the app from Josh Lowensohn (CNET’s Web Crawler) and Thomas Hawk. The Photoshop.com iPhone App can be downloaded from the iTunes store.

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I’ve recently been trying out Gowalla, a location-based social network that launched at SXSW this year along with Foursquare. Foursquare picked up a bunch of early adopters (I’ve been using is since it launched), especially those who used to use Dodgeball, but in the last few months, Gowalla has been ramping up quite a bit.

The two services are similar, with one major difference is that Gowalla uses GPS to verify locations, where with Foursquare you can check in to a location without even being there, something that is often abused. Also, currently Gowalla is only available for the iPhone without a SMS option, but they are currently working on support for other phones.

One big advantage that Gowalla has over Foursquare is that it can be used anywhere around the world. Foursqure is only in available in a few cities at the moment, with plans to expand in the future.

Like Foursquare, Gowalla also has a game layer. You can pickup and drop items at various locations. Dropping an item lets you become a founder of a location when you enter it into their database. Gowalla also has a “Trips” feature that encourages your to explore new areas in a city.

Another thing that sets Gowalla apart is their design. They use a clever icon set for various types of locations as well as many custom graphics for featured spots.

The Next Web and TechCrunch both recently did extensive reviews of Gowalla.

The best thing about Foursquare and Gowalla is that they encourage people to step away from the computer and leave their home to explore the world around them.

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Bionic Eye is new augmented reality app for the iPhone 3GS that enables you to visualize local points of interest using the iPhone camera.

via Sean Bonner & Mashable

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Case-Mate has created a special iPhone Recession Case that is perfectly suited for our “current economic climate”. Made of cardboard, this iPhone case costs only $0.99 and includes free “Sharpie Script” personalization on the back. Some assembly required.

Tough times call for tough cases and that’s where the recession case comes in! The recession case lets you keep cash in your pocket without sacrificing on unique design for your beloved iPhone!

A ten tentacle salute to Michael Lyons for the tip!

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Joe Stump has released Take Me To The Internets, a free iPhone app that helps you discover the internet’s funniest websites by shaking your iPhone to load a new website. Joe has included content from Laughing Squid on the app as well.

Daniel Brusilovsky recently did a review of Take Me To The Internets on TechCrunch.

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Flickr has just released a new native iPhone app. The interface has improved quite a bit over Flickr’s mobile website, which was already pretty good. You can even shoot photos and upload them directly to Flickr from the app.

via Daring Fireball

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Like many people, I often find myself in situations where my MacBook Pro battery runs out much sooner than I would like. The newer MacBook Pro’s have a built-in battery with extended life, but I don’t have any immediate plans to upgrade. That’s were HyperMac comes in. It’s an external battery in a aluminum enclosure that can both power and charge a MacBook as well as a iPhone (via USB). It comes in four sizes, the larger the HyperMac, the longer the batter life. It also automatically determines which model you are using and charges at the appropriate voltage.

Available in 4 different capacities of 60Wh, 100Wh, 150Wh and 222Wh (compared to MacBook Air 37Wh only internal battery), the external battery is capable of powering the MacBook for up to 32 hours – allowing for long haul flights, extended outdoor shoots, expeditions to remote locations or any situation where electricity is simply not an option. When on the road, there is also the HyperMac car charger which powers and recharges the MacBook directly from the automobile cigarette slot.

I ordered a MBP-100 which I’ll be putting to the test the next few months as I travel.

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photos by Scott Beale

Last Friday at Attaboy’s “Anitdote” art show, my friend and fellow photographer Tryntje Rapalje turned me on to ShakeItPhoto, a really fun iPhone app that emulates a Polaroid camera. You shoot a photo with the app, it gets ejected onto the screen with the classic Polaroid sound and then you have to shake the iPhone in order to “process” the photo. The fauxlaroid photos it produces are pretty cool. Here are a few I’ve shot recently and be sure to check out Tryntje’s awesome ShakeItPhoto gallery.

Once you are up and running, submit your best ShakeItPhoto photos to PhotoShakeDown, where other users can then view and rate them. There is also a ShakeItPhoto Best Of group on Flickr.

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Acrossair has developed an amazing augmented reality app for the iPhone 3GS, New York Nearest Subway which helps you find the nearest subway lines as you move and tilt your iPhone.

When you load the app, holding it flat, all 33 lines of the New York Subway are displayed in coloured arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many miles away they are and what lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons

It is based on the Nearest Tube app that they developed for London underground.

via Daring Fireball

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Prowl is a Growl client for the iPhone that uses push notifications from applications on your Mac.

As soon as a Growl notification pops up on your Mac, Prowl will forward it to your iPhone or iPod Touch over the push notification service found in iPhone OS 3.0. Which notifications are pushed is configurable, allowing only the important messages to be delivered.

via Frank Escamilla

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For a while I’ve been looking for a good way to simultaneously post photos from my iPhone to multiple services. Mobypicture looks like it might be a really good solution.

It has a native iPhone app that you can use to shoot a photo, set the title, add description, tag and even publish GPS location. I’ve been using it to post to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Tumblr (several other services are available as well). All the services are cross-referenced to the original photo uploaded to Mobypicture.

Mobypictures also supports several video services, but it doesn’t look like it works yet with video shot on the new iPhone 3G S, but hopefully they will be able to add that feature in the future.

Here’s my account on Mobypicture.

Here’s the Mobypicture “Shoot n Share” animated promo video.

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photo by Scott Beale

I agree with John Gruber, the quality of low light and macro photos shot with the new iPhone 3G S has greatly improved over the previous generation of iPhones.

Here’s an example I shot of a can of Tiki Cat Food.

UPDATE: More iPhone 3G S photos from Dave Shea (via Daring Fireball).

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The new iPhone “Find My Phone” feature rocks! It’s part of the OS 3.0 update.

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TomTom for iPhone was announced at WWDC 2009

The TomTom solution combines two new TomTom products to provide users with state of the art in-car navigation on their iPhone 3G:

• The TomTom navigation application for iPhone; an Apple version of TomTom’s award-winning turn-by-turn navigation software, including IQ Routes and latest maps from Tele Atlas;
• The TomTom car kit for iPhone; a specially developed car kit for secure docking, enhanced GPS performance, clear voice instructions, hands-free calling and in-car charging.

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“Break In”, directed David Fincher, is the first television commercial for the new Apple iPhone 3G S.

via /Film

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Here are the major announcements Apple made at this morning’s WWDC 2009 keynote:

- Snow Leopard, the refined version of the Mac OS Leopard, is scheduled to be released in September for $29 ($49 for a family license). Here what’s new in Snow Leopard.

- iPhone 3G S, the 3rd generation iPhone, is faster than ever and includes support for shooting video. It will be available June 19th for $199 (16GB) or $299 (32GB). They also dropped the price of the original iPhone 3G to $99.

- iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update, which introduces many new features and includes the long awaited cut-and-paste, will be released on June 17th.

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Jorge Colombo created the June 1st cover of The New Yorker entirely on an iPhone in one hour using the Brushes app.

Here’s a video made with Brushes Viewer showing how Jorge created the cover image.

Colombo’s phone drawing is very much in the tradition of a certain kind of New Yorker cover, and he doesn’t see the fact that it’s a virtual finger painting as such a big deal. “Imagine twenty years ago, writing about these people who are sending these letters on their computer.” But watching the video playback has made him aware that how he draws a picture can tell a story, and he’s hoping to build suspense as he builds up layers of color and shape.

Jorge sells prints of his iPhone art through 20×200. The prints are made in San Francisco by Electric Works and fulfilled by our friends at Noonaco.

I only got an iPhone in February 2009, so all this is still very new. It all started when I realized I could draw while night-riding in a car. Soon I found myself sketching NY spots that are part of my life. I’ve lived in the USA for 20 years and I’m still looking at its urban landscape as if I was discovering it for the first time.

via Gizmodo

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guest post by Burstein!

AxoStudios presents “I Am Ninja”, which is the iPhone game adaptation of the popular Ask a Ninja series. Now that sounds like one “killer” app.

The game was co-written by the folks at Ask a Ninja and reflects their perverted sense of humor. Even better, 10% of the net proceeds will go to Deep Search Foundation lead by Dr. Sylvia Earle.

You are a lone Ninja facing a land overrun with pirates, zombies and evilized ninjas. You must use the ninja skills of quick reaction, dexterity, strategy, and love of KILLING to survive the never-ending onslaught.

Dead them before they dead you!

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