Labour MP Derek Wyatt has become the world’s first serving politician to launch an iPhone app which he said makes him more accountable to constituents.

The free MyMP app shows users what their MP is doing, where they are, their surgery hours and location and also lets the public send messages directly to their elected representative.

The Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP is hoping the new app will engage with a generation of voters who would not normally get involved in politics.

He said: “Now people can alert me in real time to any issues that I need to address, and they don’t have to visit my website to find out what I’m doing.”

Last year, the Daily Telegraph highlighted Mr Wyatt’s expense claims of 75p for Scotch eggs and £1.79 for mini pork pies. He insisted all his claims were legitimate.

Being at the end of a smartphone 24-hours a day might not always be an attractive proposition for a politician, however, Mr Wyatt said he is looking forward to hearing from constituents.

“This is a new way to encourage people who might not be particularly engaged in technology or politics to get involved,” he said. “Even if it is only to send me complaints!”

Mr Wyatt announced on Twitter last July he will stand down at the forthcoming general election for personal reasons.

The app – available from Apple’s iTunes store – has already been downloaded 4,000 times in beta (testing) format and its developer, Public Zone, is hoping to roll out the service to other MPs in coming months.

Additional special attacks and skills are introduced over time and there appear to be a massive number of possibilities. The game is a series of fights strung together with a story. Surviving the fight is, of course, the ultimate goal, but you also get graded on your style and performance with each fight. As you level up and pick up items from enemies, you can upgrade your personal stats and equip stronger weapons and defensive items.

Hey, all you iPhone users: You have apps to check sports statistics. You even have apps that protect you from drunk dialing your colleagues. Well, now there’s an app that will help you stay up-to-date with the White House.

That’s right. The tech-savvy White House has just unveiled its very own app for the iPhone and iPod Touch 2G, joining the countless other organizations that reach the American people through the iTunes store each day.

So now, if you can’t be in front of a television to watch President Obama’s State of the Union address next Wednesday, not to worry. You can watch it live on your mobile device instead.

This level of accessibility, the White House claims, was always part of President Obama’s plan.

On the White House blog, Dave Cole writes that the app is “part of President Obama’s commitment to an open and transparent government.” With mobile Web usage burgeoning more than 100 percent in the United States last year, a White House app probably will, as the blog says, “[make] getting all the latest news and media from the White House easier than ever.”

So far, the app has scored favorable ratings from the public.

iTunes user, Mgj1262 says, “I really appreciate this administration’s dedication to technology. Keep it up.”

Likewise, iTunes user, Pearl of 1908, says, “About time… A president that realizes that modern technology is the way my generation communicates! I love the speed, visuals and info!”

After 197 reviews, the White House app’s average rating is 4 stars (quite a good rating, as apps go). In fact, many of its poorer reviews are due to its incompatibility with other mobile devices, rather than to its shortcomings.

iTunes user, Hoser1215, for example, gave the app one star because “There are a lot of 1st gen people out there that would really enjoy having this app” and it is simply not compatible with that version of the iTouch.

So, during a week when the president and his party could certainly use a little good news, it appears that this venture, at least, has been successful.

And, perhaps best of all, the app is free; not something that can be said about many things coming out of Washington these days.

-Christina Capatides

No problem, if you have an iphone with any unlimited data plan.

Now you can have “satellite internet” connection anywhere and everywhere you bring your laptop to with the help of a jailbroken iPhone.

First access Cydia ->Search->download PdaNet

Then create an ad hoc connection from your laptop (which creates a temporary network for sharing internet connection or files)  from your laptop .

This can be done under control Panel->Network and Sharing->Setup a connection or Network, the you will see the option to create an adhoc connection.

Choose a network name and security password. Name can be anything, (ex: iphone)

Now connect your laptop to adhoc “iphone”.

Last, open PdaNet we just downloaded and also connect to “iphone”

Wala…. you’re connected!

Same Concept applys to PC. Enjoy:)

Steps:

1.Download and install Tansee iPhone Transfer . You also need iTunes version 7.3 or higher installed.
2.Connect your iPhone to your computer.
3.Launch Tansee iPhone Transfer, and all the contents of your iPhone including music and videos will be automatically scanned and displayed instantly.
4.Select the photos to be transferred to your computer. The selected file will marked with red border. You can select photos by click on each one, or just drag a rectangle to select a bundle of photos. You can also select all photos by click right button of your mouse or click “File” to choose.
5.Click “Copy” button on the bottom right side to set output path and start to transfer songs or videos to your computer.
The trial version will only allow you to select the first 5 songs.

You control a skeleton wizard who is in charge of protecting the skull tower from human invasion. With each human kill of enemy warriors, you gain soul points which can be used to research for new spells or repair your tower.

To send your enemies to their deaths, touch the skull tower and drag a line towards the enemies to send a lightning towards them so that they will be electrified before they reach the skull tower.

Your mana bar will increase similarly like your soul points when the number of enemies you killed increases. However,if more enemies hit on the skull tower, the health bar of the tower will decrease to a point it will be destroyed to ground. Your mission is to prevent that from happening!

After you killed all the enemies on the level, you are given a resting time where you can either upgrade your existing spells or research new spells. You can also exchange all your soul points to repair your skull tower.

Spells to research or upgrade:

- Mana capacity – this is the ability to cast your spells. If you run out of mana, you cannot cast any more spells and your tower will be in danger.

- Chain lightning damage – you can increase your damage of this spell to greater heights.

- Hellfire – a fire from the hell that will burn your enemies to ashes. It works by drawing a circle over the affected area on the screen. The hellfire will ignite and set enemies within the chosen area on fire.

- Frozen Touch – this spell will freeze your enemies and you can increase the duration for which they are frozen to delay time.

It works by double tapping the enemies to freeze them. After being frozen, the enemies cannot move or attack the skull tower.

Addition character to summon:

- Skeleton Archer – He will attack enemies automatically without you touching the screen. You can increase his level in the game to make him stronger by redeeming your soul points to upgrade his level.

The game includes online scoreboard, evil skeleton laughter and lightning special effects which gives you an immense gaming experience.

Features:

- Lightning, Fire and Ice 3 different school of spells
- fully support touchscreen control
- easy and simple gameplay
- 3 different difficulty to choose from
- unlimited round
- online world ranking
- brilliant spell effects and sounds.
- In App Access to iPod Library
- Added In-app purchase item: Gryphon’s Fury

Gryphon’s Fury included:

- 3 addition save slot
- 2 new spells to learn: Summon Golem and Earthquake
- 3 new enemies: Knight, Gryphon and Wizard
- Enable weather feature. The weather will affect spells effects.
- New appearance for Skull Castle

Well, covet your brothers no more, for your prayers have been answered! There’s an app that acts just like that! But, don’t go looking in Apple’s App Store, because Riverturn’s VoiceCentral Black Swan (currently in beta) is a new kind of “weblication” that taps into the power of Google Voice in a whole unique way. We were able to get in on the beta process and give MacLife.com readers a first look at the innovative new software, which basically brings Google Voice’s coveted features to your iPhone without any gimmicks. Read on to find out more.

So, What is Black Swan?

VoiceCentral Black Swan is the next generation of Riverturn’s former VoiceCentral app, which was removed by Apple from the App Store (along with a couple of competing apps) following a controversial rejection of Google’s own Voice app submission (more on that in a moment). Black Swan is unique because it totally bypasses the App Store, as well as the need to jailbreak your device (which is currently the only way to run competitor Sean Kovacs’ GV Mobile). Riverturn has taken the HTML5, JavaScript and client-side database abilities of Mobile Safari and mixed in their own “middleware” layer powered by the Google App Engine. The result is an extremely streamlined Google Voice app that looks and acts almost exactly like the real thing, yet allows immediate upgrades without having to use iTunes or Apple’s proprietary App Store.

What Does it Do?

Almost everything that the Google Voice website allows, including placing calls through Voice, browsing your recent call history, listening to your voicemail, read & send free SMS messages and review your billing & transaction history. You can even use the service offline to browse your contacts, call history, voicemail and SMS messages (although listening to voicemails still requires a data connection).

How Do I Install it Without the App Store?

Installing Black Swan is a snap: You simply go to an installer website, add the resulting “weblication” to your home screen and then click to open it like any other app. Enter your Google Voice login & password information, select your desired callback number from the ones already set up in your account, and you’re ready to go.

How Does it Work?

The app will automatically refresh your recent calls, SMS messages and voicemail. You’re given the option in the app’s settings to auto-refresh this information every 15, 30, 45, 60 or 120 minutes, or never. The settings page also gives you easy access to helpful instructions and an FAQ from Riverturn, how many history items to fetch from the server (up to 50, in increments of 10) and it also shows a running tally of your Google Voice billing credit.

In order to play your voicemails, click the arrow to the left of the caller’s name and Black Swan opens the audio in a standard Quicktime player on your device. Click the blue arrow on the right and you’re taken to details of the call (date, time & length) as well as the option to call or SMS the contact back via the iPhone or Voice. You even have the option to display your own Notes about the call as well as the Transcript, although neither of those are editable from the device itself. Recent calls show the same details, sans the Transcript option, of course.

Click on an SMS from within the app and you’re taken to a familiar iChat-style bubble of your conversation, just like the stock iPhone Messages app. Click on the button in the upper left to create a new SMS message, then click the “+” button to add your contact (or type one in yourself).

It’s here where Black Swan faces its biggest obstacle: Because the app is really a souped-up bookmarklet and not a true app created with the SDK, it can’t access your device contacts. Thankfully, the folks at Riverturn have addressed this shortcoming as best they can, by using the Voice service itself to import your Google address book. If you happen to use Mac software such as Spanning Sync, you can easily sync (and automatically update) your Mac Address Book with your Google contacts and vice versa. You can also use iTunes 7.7 or later to sync in a similar way, although it’s not quite as streamlined.

A Few Caveats

The biggest downside to Black Swan’s use of Google contacts is actually a fault with Google — rather than the option to sort your contacts by last name as the Mac Address Book and iPhone Contacts allow, everything is sort by first name only, which will produce a few frustrating moments for iPhone users used to having them the other way around. Also, because this not a true SDK-developed app, the earpiece of your device is off-limits, so voicemails can only be played back through the speaker or headphone jack. (Calls are not a problem, since Google Voice is actually a callback service and not VoIP.)

Besides those two caveats, VoiceCentral Black Swan — even in its present beta form — works great and delivers as promised. It installed quickly and easily on both our first-gen iPhone as well as our iPhone 3GS, and in most cases seemed even a bit faster at pulling data from Google’s servers than the competing GV Mobile + jailbreak-only app.

A Controversial Beginning

Google Voice was born in 2006 as a free, web-based service called GrandCentral, giving users a new telephone number capable of ringing multiple phone numbers at once — home, cell, work, you name it — and even lets you take a call at one number, then shift it seamlessly over to another (for instance, from home phone to cell phone) so you can continue the call on the go, uninterrupted. The service promised “one number for life,” including a unified voicemail box, call screening and much more.

Google purchased GrandCentral in July, 2007 and it seemed for some time that nothing would be done with it — until 21 months later, when the service relaunched as Google Voice (free, but currently available by invitation only). Among the many new features added to the Voice service were voicemail transcription, free calls in the U.S. & Canada and cheap international calls.

However, like GrandCentral before it, the Google Voice service itself was still tied to a website, and despite a respectable attempt at a mobile version of the site, it was clear that a dedicated iPhone app would make the service even more worthwhile.

That’s where third-party App Store developers came in. For whatever reason, Apple allowed a handful of third-party Google Voice apps in the App Store for months prior to Google attempting to release their own version, which was promptly rejected. But after rejecting Google Voice from the App store, Apple began pulling all the third-party apps, resulting in a veritable firestorm of controversy — as well as a pending FCC investigation — that’s been well documented in the media.

Thankfully, independant developers have since managed to figure out a way to bypass Apple’s stringent App Store approval process by writing an application that could be used through the iPhone’s native web browser. Finally, a way to put that Google Voice invitation to good use. Our only hope is that Black Swan is here to stay, though it’s obviously a temporary solution to a bigger issue.

Well, this all sounds pretty awesome. When will Black Swan be available?

Riverturn’s beta program for Black Swan is currently limited, but promises to open up to more users throughout January and February. If you’re a Google Voice user who doesn’t want to jailbreak your device and is tired of waiting for Apple to get its act together, head over to the Riverturn website and sign up for beta access. While there’s no word yet on what the service may eventually cost, for now the beta is an excellent peek into the future of how developers may get around some of the App Store approval nightmares, and an extremely capable Google Voice app to boot.

Earlier versions of Skype would hang up a VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) call made over Wi-Fi when a user received a SMS (Short Message Service) or the low-battery notification.

A new feature in the 1.3 version allows the iPhone to be held in landscape mode and used for instant messages.

Skype has also added a call-quality indicator. The feature checks available bandwidth during a call. When a user presses a green button, a pop-up window will show a message such as “No bandwidth problems. Skype call quality should be excellent.” The feature is already in the 4.2 desktop version of the application for the Windows OS.

In other Skype news, the company says it has a 3G version of its VOIP application for the iPhone ready to go if the Apple allows it to go into their App store.

Since Skype released its iPhone application in March 2009, calls can only be made using a Wi-Fi connection even though 3G data connections – which run over the cellular network – are sufficient for VOIP calls.

Carriers have been concerned that Skype on the iPhone could take away from call revenue and negatively impact the integrity of their networks, but they appear to be changing their minds.

In the U.S., AT&T told Apple in October that it could enable 3rd-party VOIP applications for the iPhone.

Many carriers already allow VOIP applications such as Skype over 3G on operating systems such as Windows Mobile.

Skype is keen to release its 3G application as soon as possible but needs Apple’s OK to put it in the App Store, said Peter Parkes, a Skype spokesman.

“Apple doesn’t make any guarantees about when apps will become available for download, but we’ll submit a 3G-enabled version to the App Store as soon as we hear of any changes,” Parkes said.

“We believe there is a good chance that the ‘One more thing…’ part of next week’s presentation may include two iPhone-related announcements: namely, the release of iPhone OS 4.0 and the unveiling of iPhone 4G coming to Verizon in June,” writes Canaccord Adams’ Peter Misek in a note to clients Wednesday.

Misek said he and his semi-conductor partners believe the Asian supply chain is prepping for mass production of a CDMA Verizon iPhone in March with plans to begin selling the device in June. He added that an “iPhone 4GS” on the next-generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) network will likely arrive next year.

While I won’t completely dismiss the possibility of a Verizon iPhone launched in June, I believe it’s unlikely Apple will make such an announcement next week. Apple introduced both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS at the Worldwide Developers Conference held in June of 2008 and June of 2009, respectively. WWDC is an annual event, and I see no reason for Apple to fire all of its ammo at next week’s presumed tablet event, only to leave customers waiting five months for a Verizon iPhone. (Apple did announce the original iPhone during Macworld Expo in January 2007 and release the device five months later, but based on the greater success of the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, we doubt Apple would revert.)

With all that said, if there is a Verizon iPhone, I’d expect it to be announced at WWDC 2010, which will likely be held June. It would be wise for Apple to save such big news to attract attention to the event. But consider me a skeptic. Other than a few analysts making guesses based on conversations with supply-chain partners, I’ve seen zero solid evidence suggesting a Verizon iPhone is arriving this year. My guess is Apple would wait until 2011 for Verizon to roll out its 4G LTE network to help sell the iPhone on a brand spanking new network.

Apple is apparently in discussions with Microsoft to give the Bing search engine the top spot for search on iPhone, which currently belongs to Google. These talks have been underway for several weeks, BusinessWeek reports, but nothing as of yet has been finalized.

Getting on the iPhone as the default search engine would be a huge win for Bing. I regularly search for things on my iPhone, so just the boost there in search queries would help Microsoft overall in gaining some search share, something it sorely needs. It’s not clear whether any search deal would also extend to the Safari browser, available on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms.

Either way, its pretty likely that Google wouldn’t be completely erased from the iPhone. YouTube is a popular application. Apple would probably also let users switch back to Google in settings just like it already does now if users wish to search using Yahoo. Bing Maps could replace Google Maps, however.

What are your thoughts on the increasingly hostile relationship between Apple and Google? Who stands to benefit most here? We’d like to hear what you think.