DYI iPhone Scanner

clipped from lifehacker.com Create an iPhone Document Scanner from Cardboard You might need a scanner every so often, but they're far too big for their occasional usefulness. If you've got an iPhone and some time to cut cardboard, you can ditch some paper and capture documents without the glass bed. University of Cincinnati student Kyle A Koch frequently synced his iPhone and backed up his iPhoto library, but wasn't so hot with the paper and study material organization. Since he knew he was reliable with iPhone images, he put his industrial design studies into practice and crafted cardboard-based docks that elevate the phone just enough to properly frame and capture 8.5x11 documents. You can order a customized, pre-assembled version of Koch's scanner apparatus in cardboard or medium density fibreboard, but Koch also includes a free EPS file for downloading and DIY building. Combined with a universal capture/OCR tool like Evernote and the powerful camera on an iPhone 3G S, it's definitely a work-able scanner solution

Very crafty.

Jailbreak iPhone for Goggle Voice

clipped from lifehacker.com GV Mobile Available for Free on Cydia iPhone/iPod touch: Yesterday tech site TechCrunch reported that Apple blocked an official Google Voice app from the App Store; meanwhile, they also kicked unofficial versions (like previously mentioned GV Mobile) out the door. But you can still get GV Mobile for free. The catch: You've got to be willing to jailbreak your iPhone. Why? Because Apple is demonstrating that they're perfectly happy locking out any application or tool that will improve your iPhone experience in ways that don't gel with their corporate synergy. (Yeah, we said corporate synergy—nice work, Apple.) The developer of the recently kicked-out-of-the-App-Store GV Mobile has decided to go ahead and release GV Mobile for free rather than let his work go to waste (it should show up in Cydia sometime today or tomorrow). Guess that's one more reason for us to keep on jailbreaking our iPhones.

Free My Phone.Net for activist info. regrading all things net neutrality, etc.

Playing Devil's Advocate with iPhone and Google Voice

clipped from daringfireball.net By John Gruber But does anyone really think AT&T pulls the strings in this relationship? Google Voice doesn’t just interfere with the carrier’s business model, it interferes with Apple’s iPhone business model. Not just AT&T but all iPhone carrier partners pay Apple a hefty subsidy for every iPhone sold, and that subsidy is based on assumptions about how much the average iPhone customer is going to pay in monthly service charges for voice, data, and SMS. And, to play devil’s advocate for a moment, I’m not sure the decision is entirely unreasonable. think about it in terms of Apple’s competition with Google. Google Voice is a mobile phone service provided by the maker of one of the biggest competitors to the iPhone OS What if Google Voice were instead Microsoft Voice? Would you be as surprised then that Apple is discouraging iPhone owners from using the service? Just saying.

Interesting point of view.