UI pattern

Usually, most of us as designer needs to find a UI control or widget or pattern to do a job in a software or website. We end up looking for various controls from different website or software's or OS etc. The major confusion we have is what to use and when to use a particulars control, widget or pattern.

Here are links to few website that had solved and given answers to most of the common questions that we have:
http://ui-patterns.com/
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/index.php
http://patterntap.com/

For example, lets say we are thinking about calender control and why and when to use. We can easily follow these 2 links to find calender controls and there implementation in different websites:
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/pattern.php?pattern=calendar
http://patterntap.com/tap/ (click Collections > Select Calendards and then click Filter)
http://www.welie.com/patterns/showPattern.php?patternID=event-calendar
http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/infodesignpatterns/patterndetail.php?pattern=97

So, the result shows various calender controls used in different websites and what problem does that design element solves.

Biometrics on the iPhone?

So Apple files patents all the time for improvements on existing technology that they have, but recently they filed for something a little bit our of the ordinary. It looks like they are looking to incorporate biometric sensors in the iPhone and iPod Touch! Apple suggests that embedding biometric sensors in locations where users already touch devices is their plan. In the case of the iPhone, a patent drawing shows a biometric sensor embedded in the display sensors beneath the area of the screen that is used to unlock the device.

Other drawings also show sensors embedded in a notebook trackpad and on certain keyboard keys. The patent application discusses a number of other authentication methods, including facial feature recognition and even retinal scanning, although those may not be coming any time soon. I think we could see biometric sensor technology in the Apple laptops and the iPhone as soon as October 2009.