Buster Hein - page 151

Apple’s new spaceship headquarters is poised to be one of the most futuristic corporate buildings in California once it touches down, but to help the campus stay connected to its roots, the company is painstakingly preserving a 100-year-old barn built by pioneers who settled the area.

Visitors at Apple Campus 2 will notice the bright red barn sitting next to the new fitness center as part of Apple’s effort to transform the land surrounding the campus from 80 percent asphalt and concrete, to 80 percent greenery and open space.

Pumping your gas is about to get a touch quicker, now that Chevron says it’s planning to bring Apple Pay to its gas pumps next year.

Chevron was the only gas station to officially support Apple Pay when it launched in October, but the bad news was you had to go into the store if you wanted to use your iPhone 6 to pay for petrol.  However, according to Chevron’s Twitter account, the gas giant is working alongside Cupertino to bring Apple Pay to the pump by early 2015.

Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine is in fresh talks with the world’s top musicians, in hopes of landing more exclusive album deals for iTunes, reports The New York Post.

Apple is looking to replicate the success Beyonce had with her exclusive iTunes album in December 2013, by signing other hot artists to drop their albums early on Beats Music and iTunes. But according to industry sources, the idea of artists making side deals with streaming services is not going over well with record label executives.

We’re nearly a week away from ringing in the new year and all the craziness that 2015 is going to bring with it, but before we go into holiday hibernation mode, we wanted to take a look back at the most GIF-worthy events of 2014.

From Ellen’s hilarious Oscar selfie, to ‘the greatest catch ever’, 2014 was filled with incredible moments that captured the Internet’s fascination thanks to the glory of the GIFs.

Without further adieu, these were our favorite GIFs of 2014:

Apple pushed out a critical security update for Mac users today, and if your Mac is running Yosemite, Mavericks, or Mountain Lion, you’ll want to install it immediately.

OS X NTP Security Update was released to users via the Mac App Store today and fixes a critical security issue with the software that provides the Network Time Protocol service on OS X.

The first wave of Apple Watch apps will probably be pretty limited in functionality, but even with the WatchKit restrictions Apple has in place, the design gurus at JBS Labs have created an Instagram for Apple Watch concept that we can’t wait get on our wrists.

The Hungary-based design firm pared down the Instagram UI to just the bare essentials. No, you can’t upload pictures or comment on your friends’ latte photos, but the simplified app does let you view and like pictures, as well as read comments and find new people to follow.

Check it out:

Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak made his first big step toward becoming an official citizen of Australia this week when he was granted ‘permanent resident’ status for being a distinguished person

Woz is currently teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Technology in Sydney and says he plans to become full fledged citizen and buy a house in Sydney.

Apple is ramping up its social media efforts today with the creation of the company’s first ever Tumblr page dedicated to the top iTunes picks for music, movies, TV shows and books in 2014.

With iTunes sales slumping for the second straight year, Apple is adding more ‘social’ to its marketing plan with a Tumblr page that allows viewers to like and share their favorite GIFS, pictures and videos that Apple created to promote its favorite artists of 2014.

Universal Pictures is eyeing Kate Winslet to play the lead female role in Aaron Sorkin’s movie on Steve Jobs, reports Variety.

It’s still unknown what character the Titanic star might play, but after a couple of other Oscar-nominated actresses have dropped out of the project, Winslet’s addition could be the extra jolt needed for the movie that’s expected to feature Jobs’ daughter Lisa as the heroine.

Tim Cook has told Apple employees he’s “deeply offended” by the BBC’s critical documentary Apple’s Broken Promises that investigated working conditions inside Apple’s supply Asian supply chain.

In an email obtained by The Telegraph from Apple VP Jeff Williams to the company’s workers in the UK, Williams said he and Cook are offended by the BBC’s suggestion that Apple broke promises with workers in the supply chain, and that no other company is doing “as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditions.”

Williams also countered the BBC’s claims that Apple uses tin sourced through child labor in Indonesia, saying Apple is spearheading the movement to hold the tens of thousands of artisanal miners more accountable, rather than getting out of the country altogether.

ABC is making life a little bit better for cord-cutters today with the announcement that all Apple TV users will now be able to access full episodes of aired shows.

The Watch ABC app previously required a cable subscription to view all episodes of a season, but starting today every Apple TV owner will be able to watch entire shows of series like Scandal, Modern Family, and How to Get Away With Murder, one week after they air.

We’re still waiting to slap our wrist with Apple’s first wearable, but MIT Media Lab professor Neri Oxman has taken the wearables movement to a freaky new level by designing a new line of wearable structures that “grow” organically.

The project was a collaboration with the Mediated Matter Group and created four grown and 3-D-printed dresses that look like freakishly large organs growing outside the wearer’s body. To create the shape of the wearables, the team used a computational growth process inspired by natural growth behaviors. Each item starts as just a seed and then expands and refines its shape.

Take a look at these hypnotic growth variations MIT created:

Apple released the third beta of iOS 8.2 to developers this morning. iOS 8.2 is the first version of iOS to provide support for WatchKit and the Apple Watch, slated for release in early 2015.

iOS 8.2 beta 3 Build 12D5452a can be download directly to devices as an over-the-air update. Developers can also pick it up from the Mac Dev Center, along with a new Xcode 6.2 beta 3. The release notes for iOS 8.2 beta 3 don’t mention any new features, but contains plenty of bug fixes for WatchKit and Messages.

Here are the direct download links:

Apple’s World AIDS week campaign has earned a big donation for Bono’s Product RED charity this month. The holiday project RED promotions that ran during two of the busiest shopping days of the year – Black Friday until Cyber Monday – raised more than $20 million, according to an internal email obtained by Recode.

Tim Cook sent employees an email revealing that along with raising another $20 million, the iPhone maker has donated over $100 million for Product RED to fight AIDS in Africa.

Apple Pay made its debut in Major League Baseball just in time for the world series. Now the NBA is about to get its first look at how Apple’s mobile wallet can speed up concession stand lines, as the Orlando Magic plan to be the first team to offer Apple Pay support.

Microsoft’s Xin is already one of the best ways to share photos between devices, even if you’re on Android or iPhone, but it’s getting even better today for iPhone users with a new update that adds Apple TV support, plus a ton of other set top boxes.

Chomecast, Fire TV, Xbox One and web browsers are all getting support for the simple photo sharing app meaning you can now toss pictures to pretty much any smartphone or TV screen in the world.

See how Xim works with Apple TV in the video below:

2014 has been a huge year for music and like many of you we’ve spent the past twelve months sifting through the hottest album releases, starting with Beyonce’s mega-album and culminating with the other wordly music bomb D’Angelo just dropped on the world after 15-years in hibernation.

iTunes saw declining revenues for the second year in the row, but the music industry and its superstars were as strong as ever, blasting out new albums that challenged convention. There were also a host of newcomers that shocked us with their maturity and sound as they tried to knock established artists from the top spots. Want to know our favorite songs and albums of 2014? Take a look below to find out:

Luxury Swiss watch makers were originally dismissive of Apple Watch, but now that its launch is inching closer, their tone is changing. TAG Heur’s chief squirmed in front of the press today and announced that his brand is working on something that might be totally amazing. They’re just still looking for partners to make it happen.

Jony Ive prophesied in September that Swiss watchmakers were in “trouble” thanks to his new creations, and it’s looking like he was right. TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver said his company is creating a product to take on Apple Watch, but only if it “can be first, different and unique.”

Biver told reporters that TAG has already struck several partnerships for the watch, and they’re also considering acquiring a few companies to speed up the process.

Apple fans in Russia can no longer buy new iPhones or Macs, reports Bloomberg. The company has stopped all sales in the country due to ‘extreme’ Ruble fluctuations.

All Apple products were pulled temporarily from the online store in Russia this morning, and Apple’s not saying when they’ll be coming back.

The verdict is in, and after nearly a decade of legal wrangling, Apple has prevailed in the class-action lawsuit seeking over $1 billion in damages by iPod owners who claimed the company conspired to kill competing music services by adding restrictions to iTunes.

The eight-person jury found Apple not liable of adding DRM restrictions as an anti-competitive move toward rival players like RealNetworks from 2006 to 2009. The Verge reports that the jury unanimously delivered the verdict this morning and said that iTunes 7.0 is a “genuine product improvement” that increased security for consumers.

T-Mobile revealed the next stage of its ‘Un-carrier’ plan this morning with the introduction of a new feature called ‘Data Stash’ that’s pretty much just like AT&T’s old rollover minutes, expect for your data plan.

The new plans automatically roll any data you don’t use for the month into your Data Stash. You can then tap into the saved gigabites anytime you need some extra data to keep you out of those nasty overage fees. To make the new feature even more alluring, T-Mobile says its tossing in 10GB of free data for every line on your family plan.

Apple Pay’s list of supporters is continuing to grow this week, as Apple announced this morning that dozens of new banks, retailers, and start-ups have signed up to bring Apple’s mobile wallet to their customers.

The company’s new e-commerce product hasn’t even been out for two full months, but thanks to its aggressive launch, Apple Pay now supports so many credit cards and banks that it covers about 90% of the US credit card purchase volume.

The New York Times reports that Apple Pay is coming to ten new banks today, and starting on Friday, Orlando Magic basketball fans will be able to use Apple Pay at any of the Amway Center retailers and food and beverage stands.

We don’t know when Apple Watch will hit stores, but if you can’t wait to strap your wrist with the most luxurious Apple product ever created, Mervis Diamonds has the perfect band to match the 18k gold Apple Watch you’ve been lusting after. And it’ll only set you back $30,150.

The battle for your eardrums is about to heat up in 2015, as a new report suggests Bose is planning to take on Beats with its own music streaming service next year.

Bose is quickly trying to transition into a media company, according to Hypebot which reports the company is readying its own “next generation streaming music platform” to take on Apple, Pandora, and Spotify. Details of Bose’s music streamer have been kept secret, but it isn’t being shy about its ambitions to poach some of Apple’s top designers.