List: '10 terrific iPhone and iPad musical performances’

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Decades ago, Sweetheart Vivienne and I knew a then young couple who bragged they had to wed each other as their fathers both owned Rolls Royces. Fair dinkum. No joke. If you reckon that’s no basis for a marriage, you’d be right. They’re divorced. But it took 30+ years to get there. In 16 days time, Sweetheart Vivienne and I will have been married for 43 years. I can’t identify all the reasons for our marriage’s longevity. But one important one is that in key ways we’re different. Even opposites. That’s an asset because we complement each other. Her strengths are my weaknesses. And vice versa. But you can be sure one fact that’s played no part in our long marriage is that she owns an iPhone and I an iPod touch. These gizmos suit our different needs well. But both are beautiful, user friendly, fast, and ultra-portable. It’s amazing what Apple’s packed into their small cases. I could say ‘everything but the kitchen sink’. But that’d be exaggerating. Though try a bunch of musical instruments. Today’s list, from last Friday’s Age, is ‘10 terrific iPhone and iPad musical performances’ [1]. I’m pleased that, despite the list’s title, some iPod Touches are included. My fave? They’re all astounding. Remarkable. But I’ll go for Lang Lang [pictured] playing an iPad Flight of the Bumblebee [2]. I’m not saying you can’t make just as awesome music with a Rolls Royce or two. However I’ll reserve my judgement until I hear it. Ho hum.

Out with the old?

Today’s ‘Positive and Optimistic Sunday’. The stethoscope (Greek: stéthos = chest; skopé = examination) is a medical device for listening to the body’s internal sounds [1]. René Laennec [2] invented it in 1816 – as a monaural wooden tube. The binaural stethoscope dates from 1851. The stethoscope’s become the visible symbol of medical professionals. Doctors especially, are often seen or depicted with them hanging around their necks. But all that may be changing due to iStethoscope – a A$1.19 iPhone application [3, 4] invented by London computer scientist Peter Bentley [5]. With the iPhone’s microphone’s placed on the patient’s skin over the heart, the app counts the number of heart beats per minute, records audio of the heartbeats and any murmurs, and generates a spectrogram image [6]. The audio and the spectrogram can be saved and emailed. For best results Bentley advises users to buy better quality headphones than the Apple white ones, use the iPhone sans protective case, and place its microphone on the skin. Even so, effective iStethoscope use takes practice. But Bentley’s produced some helpful video clips [7]. So far, there’ve been over 3 million iStethoscope downloads. Will it end use of the conventional stethoscope? I doubt it – for the stethoscope has non-heart uses, e.g. listening to sounds of artery, lung and bowel; and as part of blood pressure measurement. Maybe in future there’ll be iPhone apps for these uses too. If so, the symbol of a doctor may be an iPhone slung around the neck. Perish the thought.

The iPod, the terrorist and the police chief

Sweetheart Vivienne recently became an iPhone owner. And I in turn inherited her iPod Touch. Naturally I’ve been downloading Apps – free ones, of course, because I’m a parsimonious old guy. One of my favourites so far is AppBox Lite [1] which contains many utilities. One utility calculates the number of days between two dates. Which is how I know 103 days have elapsed since 19 January when Hamas terrorist and arms smuggler Mahmoud Abdel Raouf Al-Mabhouh met a timely death in his Dubai hotel room [2]. And 45 days have elapsed since 18 March when Victoria Police’s Chief Commissioner Simon Overland was detected carrying live bullets on a Qantas domestic flight [3]. Both these events have vanished from the media. Like sunk stones. Without trace. Because, self evidently, in each case there have been no new developments. In relation to Al-Mabhouh all investigations by Dubai’s police, Scotland Yard, the Australian Federal Police and Interpol have seemingly come to nought. What welcome news. Whoever killed him did the civilised world a favour. In the Overland case, the metaphorical sunk stone is unwelcome because it demonstrates the Rule of Law doesn’t apply in Australia, i.e. the law doesn’t apply equally to each citizen. I’ve been waiting for a wag to put some bullets in a pocket and walk through airport security to see what happens. But so far no takers. I think, now, both stories are gone forever. Ho hum.