Traci Dauphin - page 3

LAS VEGAS — For more than 10 years, Michael Wallace and Darin Barri were toy designers. Depressed about plummeting sales because of video games, the pair went on a week long bender to drown their sorrows.

They both loved lychee martinis, which are tricky to make. They dreamed of a smart cocktail mixer that uses weight — rather than volume — to make mixed drinks. So they hacked a kitchen scale with some electronics and coded an app. The resulting system, called Perfect Drink, makes it impossible to screw up martinis and dozens of other cocktails. They took it to Brookstone, who loved it and put it on the market. Eighteen months later, they’ve sold 120,000 units.

Now they’re back with Perfect Bake, a foolproof baking system that uses the weight of ingredients, rather than volume, to guide clueless home bakers.

SAN FRANCISCO — Since Apple won’t be selling the iPhone 6 in China for some time, early buyers of the smartphone have an opportunity to make a quick profit by reselling the hot handset on the gray market.

The first 50 people in line at Apple’s San Francisco store this morning appeared to be iPhone resellers — a pattern that seems to be  have been repeated worldwide on the first day of iPhone 6 sales.

SAN FRANCISCO — Right in the middle of the Macworld show floor, there’s a circle of 12 tables. They’re showing off a range of cool gadgets, like a combination battery/wall charger and a clever foldable iPhone stand.

The dozen products all started life as successful Kickstarter projects, and can be found for sale on BiteMyApple.co, an online store that sells Apple-related Kickstarter products.

The site is the brainchild of Chris Johnson. After founding the site three years ago, Johnson has grown it from $45,000 in annual revenues to more than $500,000. He runs the whole operation himself out of his small apartment in New York.

He’s even making a profit on the 12 tables here at Macworld.

LAS VEGAS — Walking the long, dusty road between the Encore Hotel and the CES Convention Center, I was approached by two guys. They offered to give me a ride. I know I should never accept rides from strangers but their offer was to good to pass up. It was the most creative and original marketing ploy I’ve seen at CES.

LAS VEGAS –Brookstone’s Perfect Drink is an app-Controlled smart bartending system that’s a dream come true for the cocktail-challenged. If you become paralyzed when confronted with a liquor cabinet, Perfect Drink is all but guaranteed to turn you into a bartending genius with it’s real-time pouring instructions.

LAS VEGAS — Remember the View-Master? I used to spend hours looking at 3D reels but after awhile the same pictures got boring. Now, a Kickstarter startup called Poppy has taken the immersive 3D scenes concept but instead of stock photos, you can take your own iPhone photos and videos and make them 3D.

LAS VEGAS — Home security, solar-powered gadgets and health accessories will be big technology themes of 2014, if what’s on show at CES is to be believed. At the kickoff media event here, manufacturers provided first peeks at their wares for the new year.

Here are some the best gadgets we saw:

Apple EarPods are sleek and gorgeous. For most people like me though, they fallout all the time. Moshi has released its new Mythro earbuds that promise to stay in-place while still sounding good at an affordable price, so we’ve decided to put them through the ringer to see if they’re a suitable cheap earbud alternative. While we’re at it, we also take a look at Moshi’s first ever iPad charger, the IonBank 10k. It’s light, white, and sleek all over, but does it have enough juice to make it worth carrying around? Check out our findings below:

SAN FRANCISCO — It may come as a surprise, but AT&T’s is one of the biggest retailers of Apple accessories. The company has more than 2,200 stores across the country, compared to Apple’s 253 US stores. and they sell a boatload of goodies.

On Thursday night, AT&T showcased some of the hottest iPhone and iPad accessories that will be available this Holiday at it’s retail locations.

Check them out:

Hartmut Esslinger, Apple’s first celebrity designer, is coming to the Jony Ive book launch party on Thursday!

This is super exciting. Esslinger is giant of the design industry. He was hired by Steve Jobs in the mid-1980s to bring world-class design to Apple. Jobs wanted to make Apple “the Olivetti of Silicon Valley,” a world leader in design. He succeeded amazingly well. Esslinger was responsible for Snow White, a distinctive design language that dominated the entire computer industry for more than a decade, and other industries too.

SAN FRANCISCO — The gold iPhone 5s is rarer than, well, gold. If you wanted to snag a gold-colored iPhone 5s this morning, you had to start lining up outside the Apple Store at 7:30 p.m. the night before. Apple had only 20 or so at the flagship Apple Store, which was a lot compared to most outlets.

At about 5 a.m. this morning, Apple staffers handed out tickets to everyone in line reserving them an iPhone. But there were only 20 tickets for gold iPhones, people in line estimated, and they were snapped up instantly by those at the front.

By the time I arrived to the Apple Flagship store on Stockton Street at 6:30 a.m. this morning, all the gold iPhones were gone. The line was already two blocks long though but I wasn’t worried because Cult of Mac.com had someone from Task Rabbit holding a spot.

There was only one problem: I couldn’t find her.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/iWORLD 2013 – After my article last year about Macworld booth babes, I expected to find lots of models again this year at the show. But to my surprise, there were none to be found.

The reason surprised me, but makes total sense.

 SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/iWORLD 2013 – Like any other trade show, there are a lot of weird and cool things to see at Macworld. Even though there aren’t as many booths here as there are at CES, but there’s tons to look at.

We wandered the corridors of Macworld this afternoon to find the most fun and freaky booths at Macworld. Here’s what we found.

It’s the new year, so it’s out with the old and in with new cases!

I’ve got two new high-end cases from the London Company Knomo — a leather snap-on for the iPhone 5 and a leather folio for the iPad Mini.

As soon as the samples arrived, I put them on my iPad and iPhone — and they haven’t come off since.

LAS VEGAS — The wine list at Gordon Ramsay’s Steak restaurant changes so frequently, the servers need iPads to keep up.

The wait staff at the Englishman’s massively popular restaurant are armed with 20 iPads to take wine orders.

Not only does it save paper, it’s the only way to make sure the ever-changing wine list is accurate.

Not only do the sommeliers love it, the customers do too.

LAS VEGAS — The Rio casino is using iPads to do what casinos do: get visitors drunk and lose money gambling.

Located just off the bustling Vegas strip, the Rio casino has a team of “Beverage Ambassadors,” who wander the casino floor with iPads taking drink orders.

The system has been in place a year now, and it’s so successful, the casino is wondering why the other Vegas gaming joints haven’t copied it.

Here’s how it works:

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – I told my co-workers that I have now officially seen it all. On the show floor, a company is showing a toddler potty with a built-in stand for the iPad. Is there anything that hasn’t been turned into an iPad accessory? Apparently not.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The Consumer Electronic Show is winding down. Friday is the last day. There are so many weird and wacky wonderful things, it’s worth another gallery.

Elvis — an icon of Las Vegas — is posing for pictures and representing the United States Post Office, posing next to his commemorative stamp. He has the snarl down.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – With so many companies competing for attention, there’s plenty of clever, crazy and just plain weird here at the Consumer Electronics Show. Take the gentleman above: his real name is Gary Fisher but his stage name is Sir Gaga. He claims to be the most photographed performer in Las Vegas. For those of you who like his style, he also has a fashion company called Nazrat (Tarzan spelled backwards)

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 –
The Cult of Mac staff invaded Show Stoppers last night at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. Along with some free buffet food and an endless supply of booze, there were products galore. Some were neat. A lot were horrible. But the event was a lot of fun.

Here is a small sampling of the sights of CES Showstoppers last night:

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Last night, the Cult of Mac staff attended a CES event called Pepcom. It’s a heavily sponsored event with hundreds of companies showing off their latest products to members of the press. Some products are not available for retail and a few don’t even have prices yet. Pepcom goes all out on themes. The more elaborate, the better. This year the theme was “tailgating,” so there was a lot of deep fried food and people dressed as football players and cheerleaders.

Here’s some of the fun stuff and people we saw:

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Party rockers were in the house last night at CES. Ion unveiled several new products from their 2013 catalog. Two in particular caught my eye.

Do you smell that? Over the intoxicating aroma of gingerbread lattes, there’s another scent. The smell of fear and anxiety.

That can only mean one thing: the holidays are upon us. And if you’re anything like me, this time of year fills you with dread… the dread of picking out the perfect present that will delight yet not break the bank.

As someone who also feels the stress of holiday shopping, let me give you some advice: if you have a special gal in your life and no ideas on what to get her, consider the Melissa cross-body iPhone bag by Knomo. It’s an excellent choice, and she’ll probably love you for it.

SAN FRANCISCO — This is Charlie Hufnagel, who was paid $1,500 to be first in line for the iPhone 5 at Apple’s flagship store here in the city.

Hufnagel was hired through TaskRabbit, an increasingly popular freelance odd-job company in this economy. He’s been camping out in front of the store for 94 hours (nearly 4 days) to snag a new iPhone for a “private investor.”

In fact, there are about 70 “TaskRabbits” in line here in San Francisco, who are being paid $55 to wait up to four hours for other people. A TaskRabbit rep estimated that one in four in line here are TaskRabbits.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — Watershed is a company based in North Carolina that makes a variety of waterproof bags, including a range of military backpacks.

It has an iPad tote bag called the Grid Tablet that is used by none other than the Navy Seals.