Monthly Archives: December 2011

Action Movie FX: Add explosions, car crashes & more to your iPhone video recordings

Action Movie FX is a free iPhone app that can add action to any video you record using an iPhone or iPad 2. It comes with two effects (missile strike and car crash). Additional effects bundles are available for 99 cents each.

Video clips need to be at least five seconds long. You can choose where the effect should start in the clip. Clips with effects can be shared directly via Facebook or email. You can also save the clip to the iPhone’s photo album. I added the title in the clip embedded above using Apple iMovie for iOS.

The app appears to be some kind of tie-in to the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol that just opened.

So, there you go. This app can add a bit of action to any of your New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day video clips.

MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely looks at why we fret over buying 99 cent apps

Dan Ariely is a behavioral economist at MIT and the author of a book I enjoyed a lot (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions). In his latest blog entry, Ariely takes a look at why we hesitate at spending 99 cents for an app when we do no such thing spending several dollars for a cup of coffee or hundreds of dollars for a mobile device.

This Is How I Feel About Buying Apps

Readers of his book “Predictably Irrational” will find the concept of “price anchors” a familiar one. Ariely suggests that Apple do something Google is already testing: Really cheap, but not free, apps. Ariely suggests 15 cent iOS apps. Google tested 25 cents apps in the past few weeks. But, would 15 cents vs. free really change the way we feel when deciding whether or not to buy a 99 cent app? Or, would it lower our fretting threshold to 15 cents? 🙂

Here comes Windows Phone fragmentation: Nokia Lumia-only apps

The Verge reports that Nokia’s Lumia phone will get their own app section in the Windows Phone marketplace. While this is not a first, HTC and other firms have apps only available for their phones, most of those apps fall into the interesting but not “must have” category. However, if Nokia’s Lumia because the flagship for Windows Phone and Nokia produces truly must have apps, we’re going to see the tiny Windows Phone market fragmented and shattered. This is not a good way to build a market for a platform far behind the leaders.

Nokia Windows Phones reportedly receiving ‘Nokia Collection’ Marketplace section

Addendum to – Jurassic Tech: Toshiba T1000 As the MacBook Air of 1987

I wrote an article for aNewDomain.net about the first Toshiba clamshell notebook computer. Reader Matthew Potter asked: Great article! Love the throw back. Any chance you could post pictures of the Toshiba with a modern gaming laptop or off the shelf modern Toshiba laptop? Thickness may not be that different. So, here are a few photos comparing the Toshiba T1000 (1987) with a Dell Inspiron R15 (2011) notebook PC. Looks like a thickness difference to me 🙂

Jurassic Tech: Toshiba T1000 As the MacBook Air of 1987

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