Canon

Today in Apple history: Rumors fly that Canon might buy Apple

By

Apple is worth more than the entire US energy sector combined
Apple was up for sale in the 1990s.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

April 21: Today in Apple history: Rumors fly that Canon might buy Apple April 21, 1995: Rumors swirl that Canon (yes, the Japanese camera company!) might take over Apple in either a partial or complete acquisition.

Speculation grows about a possible deal after Apple reveals its latest earnings, which show big improvement but still fall far short of Wall Street’s expectations.

Here’s how you gut a whole office and start over [Setups]

By

De Jong gave his computer setup -- and his whole office -- a makeover.
De Jong gave his computer setup -- and his whole office -- a makeover.
Photo: Michael De Jong

How refreshing it must be to make over your computer setup and, while you’re at it, gut and refresh your whole home office. That’s what Michael De Jong did recently. And he shared his transition with Cult of Mac.

First, he tinkered with the setup, going with dual displays and adding a soundbar and a slick gaming chair. Later he gutted the whole office and added a whole raft of upgrades. Take a look at his photos and gear, new and old, below.

Mac Pro and 3-Pro-Display-XDR workstation is an AV wonderland [Setups]

By

A 2019 Mac Pro is the core of this computer setup, along with a 16-inch M1 Pro MacBook (not pictured).
A 2019 Mac Pro is the core of this computer setup, along with a 16-inch M1 Pro MacBook (not pictured).
Photo: Liam Hudson

We can count the number of times we’ve come across a three-Pro Display XDR workstation in our Setups travels on less than one hand — maybe two or three times. And if you throw in a late-model Mac Pro and a pile of great audio-visual gear for professional-level videoconferencing, well, that’s even more rare.

Liam Hudson, CEO of a qualitative electronic trading company, sent his “ultimate computer setup” for at-home work to Cult of Mac. And it’s really something.

A Mac mini, a PC and a G4 walk into a podcasting primer … [Setups]

By

See the G4 peeking out from under the desk? Ah, nostalgia.
See the G4 peeking out from under the desk? Ah, nostalgia.
Photo: omgaporksword@Reddit

It sounds like the setup to a punchline: A strapping young Mac mini, a yoked gaming PC and an elderly Power Mac G4 walk into a podcasting primer. Then what happens?

Well, if we’re talking about Redditor omgaporksword’s recent setup post, you learn a few OS-switching tricks, share some old-school Mac nostalgia and see how to position your USB microphone using a boom arm.

There is no punchline and there are no laughs. But please, people. Not everything is about humor. Except maybe omgaporksword’s Reddit handle.

$299 off Panasonic 4K HD TV, $278 off Canon EOS Rebel Bundle, and more [Deals]

By

Daily Deals Roundup 10.28
Score huge savings on bundles for Amazon Echo Dot, PlayStation 4 and Canon EOS Rebel.
Photos: Amazon, Sony, Canon

Big-name brands are acting especially generous this week — we found deals on Panasonic, Sony and even KitchenAid products. eBay is back at it again with a new-and-improved PlayStation 4 bundle. Amazon’s cutting the price on its Echo smart home package. And Walmart is joining the fray with a major deal on a Panasonic 50-inch HD TV.

Read on for all the juicy details.

$770 off a Samsung 4K HD TV, $130 off Apple Watch and more [Deals]

By

Deals on Apple Watch Sport, the DJI Phantom 4 drone, and a Canon camera highlight this week’s best of the internet.
Deals on Apple Watch Sport, the DJI Phantom 4 drone, and a Canon camera highlight this week’s best of the internet.

The internet is going bananas with deals this week, with huge savings on Apple Watch Sport, one of Samsung’s flagship 4K HD TVs, and much more. We’ve scoured the web to find some of the best deals on things you might need, as well as some things you just might really want.

$100 off a MacBook Air, Canon DSLR with two lenses for $500 and more [Deals]

By

Take advantage of great deals on MacBook Air, iPad 2, and much more.
Take advantage of great deals on iPad Air 2, MacBook Air, a Canon camera and much more.
Photos: Apple, Canon

Halloween is right around the corner, which means your local CVS probably already put out Christmas decorations. They do that for a reason, you know: It’s never too early to start thinking about the holiday season!

Following that logic, we’ve put together some of this week’s best deals from around the internet to start the gift-giving wheels turning. Even if you’re just giving the gift to yourself.

Today in Apple history: Steve Jobs’ NeXT gets major cash injection

By

NeXT Cube
Steve Jobs' NeXT Computer was a gorgeous machine for its time.
Photo: Rama & Musée Bolo/Wikipedia CC

monday13 For many Apple fans who remember Steve Jobs only as the austere, turtleneck-wearing digital emperor he was during his CEO stint at Apple, Jobs’ NeXT years — referring to the company he founded after parting ways with Apple in 1985 — are something of a mystery.

In many Jobs biographies, NeXT is often largely skipped over. In fact, the company had its own fascinating trajectory — and one of its big turning points was a June 13, 1989 investment by Canon which (briefly) left Jobs’ would-be Apple beater flush with cash.

Galaxy S7’s camera is so good, it makes DSLRs look bad

By

galaxy-s7s-camera-is-so-good-it-makes-dslrs-look-bad-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201603Galaxy-S7-cam-2-png
Galaxy S7 continues to amaze. Photo: Samsung
Galaxy S7 continues to amaze. Photo: Samsung

We’ve already watched the Galaxy S7 batter the iPhone 6s in a series of camera tests, but how well does it stack up against a professional DSLR? When it comes to phase detection autofocus, surprisingly well, actually.

See Samsung’s new smartphone make the Nikon 70D look bad in the mind-blowing autofocus test below.

2015: The year photography moved (and moved us)

By

More than a trillion photos were captured in 2015.
More than a trillion photos were captured in 2015.
Photo: HypeBeast

We were too busy taking our own pictures in 2015 to notice that something about photography had changed.

This was the year the photo moved. It shed its flat, two-dimensional constraints and showed a life once left to the imagination.

The movement could be slight, as in Apple’s Live Photos, a new feature on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus camera that records a snippet of video before and after the frozen moment to add an extra dimension.

iPhone is most popular camera among Flickr’s 112 million photographers

By

Canon cameras
The iPhone has been the top choice among Flickr photographers beginning in 2015.
Photo: Flickr

The longtime Kings of the Camera must know their kingdoms are shrinking. If Canon or Nikon need further evidence, Flickr’s 2015 Year in Review shows the popular tool of choice for an engaged and global photography community is not a dedicated camera. It’s first and foremost a phone.

Apple’s iPhone was the popular device used by the Flickr community, according to an analysis of the EXIF data on pictures uploaded to the site. iPhone cameras accounted for 42 percent of the photos on the site, compared to the DSLRs of Canon, 27 percent, and the Nikon, 16 percent.

Canon just dropped a nuke in the megapixel war

By

Canon has developed 250-MP CMOS camera sensor.
Canon has developed 250-MP CMOS camera sensor.
Photo: Canon

Canon has developed a CMOS camera sensor that records a 250-megapixel image. Not that this should kill your excitement about the 12 megapixels you’re going to get with the camera on the new iPhone 6s, but take a moment to consider the number.

How do we even fathom 250 megapixels? Canon, in its press release boasting of the pixel count (19,580 x 12,600), said engineers zoomed in on a photo taken of an airplane from 11 miles away and could distinguish the lettering on the side of the plane.

Samsung outranks Apple where it really hurts… in the patent department

By

post-326179-image-ab8daa5f75c2ad0c0113975f13ee2ccc-jpg

In an effort to prevent rivals from stealing its ideas, Apple patents everything it invents — from the iPhone and the iPad, to app icons and even “magic” tactile gloves. But compared to its biggest competitors, Apple’s patent portfolio from 2015 looks surprisingly bare.

Microsoft, Sony, Google, and LG have all outrank Apple in the patent department this year, while arch rival Samsung has absolutely crushed it.

Stumptown shooter stalks the sexy and the strange

By

Olsen's notes for Cardiac:
Olsen's notes for Cardiac: "Strobist: 550ex and Vivitar 285 with a red gel placed in the boxes. WL1600 with a strip bank to the left and above camera. Triggered via pocket wizards."

Grab a camera when the zombies come. They won’t eat your brains — they’ll strike a pose.

It’s a trick photographer Luke Olsen learned when he was surrounded on the streets of his hometown. His shots from the Portland Zombie Walk showcase the lean and mean side of his stylish but macabre portraiture.

The organized chaos of events like the zombie walk offers comic relief from formal photography sessions filled with intricate lighting, staging and models. Any opportunity to capture inspired lunacy is technically practice, but Olsen gravitates toward flash mobs to cut loose with his camera-wielding compatriots. He’s thrown himself into the thick of SantaCon, the infamous alcohol-fueled rampage that grew from absurdist San Francisco street theater into a national headache. The moribund Portland Urban Iditarod, where teams of costumed runners dragged tricked-out shopping carts from bar to bar, has also been shutter fodder.

“It’s a great deal of fun to wander into a large event with a group of friends, shoot the event and reconvene later to see what everyone got,” says Olsen. “It’s like The Bang Bang Club, just 100 percent less deadly.”

Canon G1 X Mark II Ditches Viewfinder, Adds Wi-Fi

By

Canon’s new G1 X Mark II brings good news and bad news. The bad news is that it ditches the optical viewfinder that has been found on G-series compacts like forever. The good news is that it adds a faster lens, better manual controls, a flip-up touch-screen LCD panel, Wi-Fi and NFC.

So, on balance, not so bad.

Canon G16 Adds Wi-Fi And Not Much Else

By

HR_G16_3QFLASH_CL-white

In camera years[1], Canon’s G-Series is now drawing a pension and should really be scratching out a will. And when a product line is so successful and so mature, it gets hard to improve on it. The G15 had a big sensor, a fast ƒ1.8 lens and a handy front control dial, as well as all the rugged capability that made the G-Series last this long.

The new G16 adds very little, but it get one hugely handy update: Wi-Fi.

Canon’s Vixia Fisheye Camcorder Would Have Been Amazing… Five Years Ago

By

vixen-or-whatever.jpg

Poor Canon. When it comes to compact cameras, its heart is in the right place, but the market is shriveling so fast that sometimes it’s hard to see the point. Today’s example is the Vixia Mini camcorder, a video version of its quirky Powershot N. The Vixia Mini is a square box with a flip-out screen and a fisheye lens. And as a nod to smartphone users, it has Wi-Fi built in. But do we care?

Canon Camera Confusion: EOS 100D Is Smallest DSLR, Like, Ever

By

1363867648.jpg

Oh man, this is what happens when companies don’t really know what to do with themselves. We’re familiar with Apple’s ultra-simple product lineup, a hallmark of a focused corporate mind. Canon, on the other hand, decided that — after stripping down the DSLR to make the mirrorless EOS M — it would take that stripped-down camera and, uh, strip it back up again.

So here we have the EOS 100D (or Rebel SL1, to further confuse things), billed as the smallest DSLR in the world, and essentially an EOS M with a mirror and therefore a viewfinder. And corporate confusion aside, it might actually be a cool little camera.

Rumors Of iPhone 5S And The Next iPad On Our Newest CultCast

By

cultcast-iPad-Mini-new-logo.jpg

This week on The CultCast—finally—it’s time to talk iPhone 5S and iPad 5! We’ll tell you why April and August might be bringing you the tasty new iDevices, and if they’ll be drastically different than the models we’ve already got.

Then, is Apple is a innovation lull? Ex-Apple CEO John Scully thinks so. We’ll tell you what we think is really going on.

Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes to download our newest episode, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Show notes up next!

Print Your Holiday Photos Wirelessly From Your Phone

By

post-204961-image-94fed85e835b44a80e6a332f06305dcc-jpg

Christmas is nearly here, and with it comes the snapping of a million never-to-be shared photos. So, instead of promising your friends and family that you’ll e-mail pictures, or trying to teach your mom how to use shared Photo Streams, or dicking around with SD cards and sneakernet, why not just make some good, old-fashioned prints?

And don’t worry – you won’t have to touch a computer.