iPhone News Updated

IPhone technology assists halibut industry

Scientists for the first time are tracking the migration of halibut in relationship to the earth’s magnetic field by using tags with sophisticated iPhone technology. The tags are worth $500 if returned to researchers.

“This year the technology that everyone has been talking about for a decade but hasn’t been able to miniaturize are tags that record magnetic field strength on three axes and have accelerometers and pitch and roll detectors. Those were the linchpins — without being able to tell whether or not your tag is horizontal, you can’t really get the axis of the magnetism. The invention of the iPhone and its advancements made the pitch and roll detectors small enough to put in fish tags,” said Tim Loher, a biologist with the International Pacific Halibut Commission.

The commission oversees the health of halibut stocks from California to British Columbia to the Bering Sea, and sets yearly catch limits for all fisheries.

Loher said the iPhone has used “the rolling bead in the maze game” as an electronic component that in real time is doing all the calculations needed to horizontally calibrate a fish tag.

“If you know the tag is horizontal you can get dip angle, which is the angle at which the magnetism is entering the Earth’s crust and that becomes steeper as you go to the poles. That will hopefully give real-time, daily positions on the fish and track them without any need for light, acoustics or communication with GPS satellites. All the information will just be onboard when the fishermen catch them,” he said.

To field test the technology this summer, 30 halibut were double-tagged — both inside and out — and released in the Central Gulf and Southeast Alaska regions.

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The Apple of my iPhone? Let’s just say ‘Nice job, Jobs’

He’s a smart guy who revolutionized an industry, and we wish him well.

But the fan-boy adulation was flying a bit fast and thick with the announced retirement of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, whose notable contributions to humanity include the invention of a handheld phone that works best when not held in hand, and allowing man to fulfill his ultimate destiny by taking “Angry Birds” into an office restroom stall.

One guy we know, obviously a little bit too amorous toward his iPhone, went so far as to rank the man responsible for Adult Game Boys on a scale of historical import with Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.

It’s a little like equating Jenny Craig with Gandhi.

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