Facebook hired crazy-talented graffiti artist David Choe to paint a wall in their corporate office.  Choe allows Mark to paint anything he wants on the wall, and then Choe will complete the painting (Mark drew a stick figure), to make it look alike with the surrounding elements on the canvas.I know it’s not news or anything, but I just found it kind of neat

There’s no initial pay, up front, but we’re looking for talented writers who can manage writing News, App Reviews, Product Reviews, and Tutorials for TeenCastic. We have connections with some of the top names in Tech so you basically have access to just about any App you’d like and some really cool products.

If you’re interested in being a writer for TeenCastic, email us at erphan@teencastic.com with your name, your previous experiences, and your Skype ID. After getting these, we’ll be in touch with you.

We’ve had the opportunity to review Cohdoo Highlight from Cohdoo LLC. The Cohdoo Highlight takes the basic recording features of Voice Memos and expands them by adding numerous additional features that make the app significantly more useful compared to Voice Memos. One of my favorite features from Highlight is the fact that it has Dropbox integration – which lets all of your recordings sync with your Dropbox account. Additionally, if you’re on an iPhone or iPad 3G, you’ll even be able to pinpoint where each recording was made. Of course, the main feature of this app is the ability to “highlight” parts of your recordings while listening or taking notes in real time! Just press the highlight button while the app is recording and once you’re done, you can go right back there.

Cohdoo Highlight’s best feature, as it’s name describes, is the highlighting feature. All you have to do is press the button and the app will readily take you right back there when you’re reviewing your recording. In the settings, you can set the app to take you back 2, 5, or 10 seconds from when you pressed highlight – so you can catch up to where you wanted to leave off. Additionally, if you’re going over the entire recording later, you can more highlights while listening to it. I tried to share the file with my Dropbox account and it worked like a charm. You can also use multitasking on iOS 4+ to record while you’re using other apps but you need to be in the app in order to make highlights. The file is saved as a “.caf” file on Dropbox and opens with Quicktime – however you don’t have the ability to use the highlights when listening on the computer (we didn’t quite expect it either). You also have the option to email recordings through the app.

We really enjoyed having the ability to highlight important parts of each recording. While listening to a lecture, we took written notes while using the Cohdoo Highlight to record the lecture. As the instructor emphasized on important points, we highlighted those parts and noted the highlight number on our notes for our future reference when cramming. Compared to Voice Memos this app definitely has significantly better features which make the app absolutely a charm to use when recording and especially when listening to recorded content. After using this app we didn’t find anything that the app is lacking, in order to fulfill everything it’s intended for. We also loved the fact that we could utilize iTunes Sharing in order to download the recordings without having to use Dropbox.

Cohdoo Highlight costs $4.99 at the App Store, so it’s a little more pricey than the average apps that we’re used to. However, if you’re a student, this $4.99 investment may end up saving you hours of having to go through recordings to find the simple parts you’re looking for (and possibly help you maintain your sanity). This app is definitely a must have for those who take courses which have a lot of lecturing and note taking. We wholeheartedly recommend that anyone who takes recordings more than very occasionally. We definitely give this app a perfect 5 out of 5 rating!

Please check out our screenshots of Cohdoo Highlight after the break!

You can control the game through the virtual joystick, the accelerometer on the device, and remotely through another iOS device.

This game is also very intense when playing. While there are arrows that show you where to go – you’re constantly in a rush for time when playing. Red indicates enemies that need to be assassinated and blue represents people you need to save and places you need to go to, in order to succeed in your mission (which you can always be reminded of when pressing the “?” button on the display).

As for weapons, you have the choice of using a Machine Guns, Rockets, and/or Bombs. The machine gun can be aimed without moving the helicopter (while on the course to your destination). Bombs drop straight down, while rockets shoot in the direction the helicopter is facing

Although there are only 12 missions you can choose from, each and every mission is comprised of multiple parts, which do take a little while to complete. You also have the option of playing in 3 levels of difficulty: Medium, Hard, and Harder.

After you’re done playing this addictive game, you can sync your High Scores to Game Center and OpenFeint to show off a little about your success!

I’d like to finish off by pointing out that the graphics on this app were developed amazingly! I believe that the developer, majicjungle, definitely put a lot of time and effort to make the graphics so remarkable.

I would give this game 4.5/5 stars. While there are enough missions to play for a little while, you do end the game feeling that more could definitely be added. Additionally, it feels like there should be more helicopters added on to the game.

If you’d like to check out his video review of this app, please check it out here.

Let’s start with the problem.  The Apple TV will cost you some dough (about $230), and then if you want to buy content for it, like a TV show episode, or a movie, it can cost you anywhere from $1-15 a pop.  Sure you can watch the content that you already own which is contained in your iTunes library, but most people get bored watching the same episode more than twice, which makes them delete the episode, or let it take up unnecessary disk space on their hard drive.  Apple figured out that people don’t want to watch the same movie multiple times, and released movie rentals, where you could rent a movie for 24 hours for a few bucks (few additional bucks if you want it in HD).  This made a lot of sense, but if you think about it, it’s still expensive compared to, let’s a say a Netflix plan which gets you access to a huge selection of movies and TV shows that can be accessed from the web or a Netflix ready device like the iPad, or a Xbox 360.  Also Netflix has a wide array of DVDs to pick from, which are delivered to your home’s mailbox.  With websites like Hulu, where you can legally watch a bunch of shows from networks like Fox and NBC, and sites like The Pirate Bay where you can pirate a ton of content, the Apple TV just seems like a expensive choice.

Here are four problems Apple needs to address to make the Apple TV exceptional:

Problem 1: Value

Apple’s advertising solution for their iOS devices (dubbed “iAd”) has been off to quite a good start.  Advertisers have noted higher profits using iAd versus competitors like Admob.  Some developers, like App Store developer Jason Ting, made $1,300 of iAd in one day. Steve Jobs mentioned during the iPhone OS keynote last April that iAd was developed so developers can afford to provide cheap or free applications to the App Store market place.  Since iAd is making app developers enough money to create free or low-cost apps, Apple can use the iAd system for the Apple TV, by placing several 15-30 second ads within a TV episode.  The ads will be enough to pay for theTV shows—making them free to watch.  Since Apple also takes a 40% cut on iAds,  they could use that revenue to justify lowering the Apple TV price from $230, to about $100.  And who knows…maybe Apple is actually working on something like this, considering they bought Lala so iTunes can go cloud-based, and Quattro Wireless for iAd.

Problem 2: Content

Most people can watch TV on their TV, watch movies on their DVD or Blu-Ray players and listen to music on their stereos. Apple TV can do all that, but to make it even more attractve, Apple could create an Apple TV App Store to run on it. Apple TV contains the same processing power as devices like the iPad, which means it’s hardware is capable of running 3rd party applications as the iPhone and iPad can. With a Twitter app, a RSS reader, even a few games, the Apple TV becomes a much more attractive device.  When you have a huge flat screen TV at your disposal,  apps shouldn’t be a problem.  The only problem is how you control and navigate these apps, which leads us to our next problem, control.

Problem 3:  Control

The Apple TV uses a cheap remote which is extremely unintuitive.  It has 7 buttons: up, down, left, right, center, Menu, and Play/Pause. If you know Apple’s style, buttons aren’t the way to go. Instead, they should make the remote a trackpad (just like the newly released Magic Trackpad, only much smaller). This allows you to efficiently scroll through long lists, pinch zoom text, images, and other on-screen content.  This “trackpad” remote could also physically click when you press down on the surface.  Not only will this make navigation on the device easier and more efficient, but it will allow Apple and 3rd party developers the ability to do things that you couldn’t really do well before.  With this remote, you could add apps like Safari, Mail, Google Maps, and more.

Conclusion

The Apple TV has been one of Apple’s least popular devices on the market.  If Apple made TV shows and content free because of iAds, added an App Store for extra functionality, and reinvented their remote by making it a responsive surface, the Apple TV will be something that is more desirable, more logical, and more suited in the living rooms of us consumers.

If you have a feature you think would be great on the Apple TV, leave us a comment below!

How I got involved.

As some of you may know, TeenCastic was featured last year on another Nick News episode which you can watch here. About a year after the episode Nick News had started preparing for their new special, Teens Unplugged. They put up an ad on their site and had reached out to some local schools in the New York area to find middle schoolers in the area that we’re addicted to technology, but that’s not how I got on the show. I neither applied nor was contacted directly. About three months before the show aired, in April, Shivi (an editor here) received an email from the producer asking if he knew anybody that’d be good on the show. As my colleague and someone I have worked with for over a year Shivi knew I’d be a good man for the job. Shivi gave the producer my contact info, and after a brief email chain describing my tech habits and a short phone interview they we’re pretty certain I would be on the show. There was one problem though, each kid who had to live without technology for a week had had to have someone “turn them in”. Shivi had already been on the show for the webstars episode, so they wanted to find someone who hand’t been on the show to turn me in. I suggest a great friend of mine, Eric. Eric became the one that had “turned me in” So weeks go on and on one Friday a camera crew shows up to my house.

Why did I do it?

The decision, was formed out of a mixture of my sporadic nature, the possibility the opportunity could promote TeenCastic and the interest in audio visuals. I have never been a huge fan of Nickelodeon, besides iCarly which I consider my guilty pleasure and I’d never really heard of Nick News before TeenCastic. Hence my decision to go on the show was definitely not about achieving fame in the eight to twelve year old age group that might be watching. I was also curious to what the world thought of Nick News, so when I discovered there was a Facebook group with 100,000+ fans bashing the show I knew I had to be on it.

The experience?

Well, since I think the majority of my observations on how living without technology were contained in the show I’ll talk more about the experience of reality TV. There where three people making the whole thing run, the producer, the video guy and the audio dude. The process was simple, get up at 6 AM in my pajamas with a bright light on my face a boom microphone over my head and a producer staring down at me. When they say, “pretend we’re not here,” it’s a certainly more challenging than pretending to be a prince in a game of dress up. Regardless, after getting up at 6 I took my leisurely 10 minute shower. Boy is it awkward having to get out of the shower, still getting over the morning haze, and having a camera pointed at you, wearing only a towel. After a brief breakfast I got in the car with just the camera man and we headed to the bus stop. After getting out of the car two times from different angles I hopped aboard the bus and I was free from the camera for the rest of the day.

After a day of computer less school I headed home and was faced with the task of waiting for an hour whilst my sister, my mom and my friend Eric where interviewed.

I will continue this post after I watch the episode on TV…

http://s103028.gridserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/iPhoneThumb.pngApple Presents iPhone 4
All-New Design with FaceTime Video Calling, Retina Display, 5 Megapixel Camera & HD Video Recording
Thinnest Smartphone Ever
SAN FRANCISCO—June 7, 2010—Apple® today presented the new iPhone® 4 featuring FaceTime, which makes the dream of video calling a reality, and Apple’s stunning new Retina display, the highest resolution display ever built into a phone, resulting in super crisp text, images and video. In addition, iPhone 4 features a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, HD video recording, Apple’s A4 processor, a 3-axis gyro and up to 40 percent longer talk time—in a beautiful all-new design of glass and stainless steel that is the thinnest smartphone in the world. iPhone 4 comes with iOS 4, the newest version of the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, which includes over 100 new features and 1500 new APIs for developers. iOS 4 features Multitasking, Folders, enhanced Mail, deeper Enterprise support and Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform. iPhone 4 will be available in the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan on June 24, starting in the US at just $199 for qualified buyers with a two year contract.*
“iPhone 4 is the biggest leap since the original iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “FaceTime video calling sets a new standard for mobile communication, and our new Retina display is the highest resolution display ever in a phone, with text looking like it does on a fine printed page. We have been dreaming about both of these breakthroughs for decades.”
FaceTime is as mobile as your phone, so you can see your loved ones and friends anywhere there is Wi-Fi. Using FaceTime is as easy as making a regular voice call, with no set-up required, and you can instantly switch to the rear camera to show others what you are seeing with just a tap.
Apple’s stunning 3.5 inch Retina display has 960 x 640 pixels—four times as many pixels as the iPhone 3GS and 78 percent of the pixels on an iPad™. The resulting 326 pixels per inch is so dense that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels when the phone is held at a normal distance, making text, images and video look sharper, smoother and more realistic than ever before on an electronic display.
iPhone 4 is the thinnest smartphone ever—9.3 millimeters—with an all-new design and build quality like no other mobile device. The front and back are made of aluminosilcate glass, chemically strengthened to be 30 times harder than plastic, more scratch resistant and more durable than ever. The front and back glass have an oil-resistant coating that helps keep it clean, and encircling iPhone 4 is a highly finished stainless steel band made of a custom alloy that is forged to be five times stronger than standard steel.
iPhone 4 features a new 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a 5x digital zoom, a backside illuminated sensor and built-in LED flash that allows you to take amazing pictures even in low light and dark environments. iPhone 4 lets you record and edit incredible HD video and the popular tap to focus feature now works while recording video. You can use the iPhone 4‘s LED flash for both still photography and video recording. The new iMovie® app for iPhone lets you combine movie clips, add dynamic transitions and themes and include photos and music, and users can buy it for just $4.99 through the App Store right on their phone.
iPhone 4 is the best mobile device ever for games and entertainment, with access to tens of thousands of games and entertainment apps on the revolutionary App Store. Every iPhone 4 has a built-in 3-axis gyro that when combined with the accelerometer provides 6-axis motion sensing such as up and down, side to side, forward and backward and pitch and roll, making it perfect for gaming. Developers can access the gyro using the new CoreMotion API to make games and other apps that go well beyond what other mobile devices offer.
iPhone 4 comes with iOS 4, the newest version of the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. With over 100 new features, it includes Multitasking, Folders, enhanced Mail, deeper Enterprise support and Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform. With Multitasking, users can now instantly switch between any of their apps while preserving battery life. With Folders, users can easily organize their apps into collections by simply dragging one app on top of another. A folder is automatically created and named based on the category of apps selected. Users can change the name of any folder at any time. In addition, users can now customize their lock and home screens with an array of supplied wallpapers or with any of the photos on their phone.
The new iBooks® app will be available for iPhone 4 as a free download from the App Store and includes Apple’s new iBookstore, the best way to browse, buy and read books on a mobile product. The iBooks app will sync your current place in a book, along with any bookmarks, highlights and notes you have created, between copies of the same book on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch®. iBooks users can also now read and store PDFs right in iBooks. There are now over 60,000 books available in the iBookstore, and users have downloaded over five million books in the first two months.
More than five billion apps have been downloaded from the revolutionary App Store and more than 225,000 apps are available to consumers in 90 countries. Almost 100 million iPhone and iPod touch users around the world can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel.
iPhone 4 delivers an amazing seven hours of talk time on 3G networks, up to 10 hours of web browsing on Wi-Fi and up to six hours on 3G, and up to 10 hours of video playback and up to 40 hours of audio playback.** iPhone 4 is powered by Apple’s new A4 processor that provides exceptional processor and graphic performance along with long battery life. iPhone 4 features a second microphone and advanced software to suppress unwanted background noise for improved call quality when in loud places. iPhone 4 also offers 802.11n Wi-Fi networking and adds quad-band HSUPA to provide 7.2Mbps downlink and 5.8Mbps uplink capability.***
Pricing & Availability iPhone 4 comes in either black or white and will be available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model in both Apple and AT&T’s retail and online stores, Best Buy and Wal-Mart stores. iPhone 4 will be available in the US, France, Germany, Japan and the UK on June 24 and customers can pre-order their iPhone 4 beginning Tuesday, June 15 from the Apple Online Store or reserve an iPhone 4 to pick up at an Apple Retail Store. iMovie for iPhone will be available on the App Store for just $4.99 (US).
Also on June 24, a new iPhone 3GS 8GB model will be available for just $99 (US). iOS 4 software will be available on June 21 as a free software update via iTunes® 9.2 or later for iPhone and iPod touch customers.****
iPhone 4 will roll out worldwide to 88 countries by the end of September. iPhone 4 will be available by the end of July in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
*Qualified customers only. Requires a new two year AT&T rate plan, sold separately.
**Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.
***Speed is dependent on cellular network capability.
****iOS 4 is compatible with iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, second and third generation iPod touch (late 2009 models with 32GB or 64GB). Some features may not be available on all products. For example, Multitasking requires iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 or third generation iPod touch (late 2009 models with 32GB or 64GB).
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

To enter to with in the revolutionary giveaway use the hashtag #AprilFoolsFiAon twitter, we’ll pick the winners and send them the prize at the end of April 1st.