Buster Hein - page 156

Microsoft announced new versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are coming to the iPhone today, giving users more tools to create and edit documents, so you can finally get some ‘real work’ done on that giant iPhone 6 Plus screen.

The new Office apps for iPhone are pretty much exactly like the iPad versions which were released in March, only they’ve been optimized for portrait mode, and unlike the old Microsoft Office Mobile app for iPhone, users will finally be able to do a whole lot more than just edit text.

MXC has been in full damage control mode ever since its partners began blocking Apple Pay at stores, and while the consortium behind CurrentC claims there aren’t any fees for supporting Apple Pay, its partners should think twice before defecting.

In an interview with The Verge, MXC CEO Dekkers Davidson revealed what happens to stores that ignore the Apple Pay ban, stating merchants have to ultimately make the best decision for their businesses, but there are consequences for breaking ranks.

Microsoft proudly announced last month that it would be paying CNN to use its Surface tablets for the historic Mid-Term 2014 coverage, but when it came time to actually use Microsoft’s tablet last night, CNN political commentators discovered an incredible new Surface feature: it doubles as an iPad kickstand.

CNN’s talking heads tried to hide their iPad Airs and minis behind a barricade of Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablets, but it didn’t take long for some observant viewers to notice their preferred tablets are made by Apple.

Check out this guy working on his iPad mini behind the scenes:

CVS and Rite Aid kicked off the Apple Pay War last week by disabling Apple’s mobile wallet solution from working at stores, even though it was supported at launch, but a team of class action lawyers are helping fanboys fight back by hitting the companies with an antitrust investigation.

Schubert, Jonckheer & Kolbe announced that it is launching an investigation into the conduct of  CVS and Rite Aid, and if they violated federal antitrust laws by colluding with one another and other MCX members to boycott competing payment systems at the same time.

Bendgate is back. A new website is spotlighting the malleability of Apple’s new super-slim smartphone by posting hundreds of pictures of bent iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units.

More than 350 images of deformed Apple phones have been posted by grassroots site One of the Nine, and the submissions keep on coming despite Apple’s claim that a bend in the iPhone 6 is “extremely rare” with normal use.

Steve Jobs’ monument in Russia was torn down the day after CEO Tim Cook opened up about being gay last week. The incident was immediately blamed on homophobic Russians and the country’s anti-gay laws, but the school where the monument was destroyed, says that’s not actually what happened.

School officials told Russian news outlets today that the iPhone statue was removed for a reason any Apple fan can relate to: its screen was broken.

Racial diversity has been a problem for emoji for years now, but the Unicode Consortium has finally proposed a new solution that will add more than 755 new character options to the little pictograms that have quickly replaced all our words.

Five new skin tones will added to the mostly white faces of the emoji character set, according to a draft for Unicode Version 8.0 that will hopefully get adopted pretty quickly to get, after Apple and others began to push for characters that reflect the diversity of its users.

Window’s Blue Screen of Death was the tech world’s joke du jour for poking fun at Microsoft’s crash-friendly software, and while many believed the blue screen had finally died, it looks like Windows Phone is carrying on the proud tradition of the horrific error notification.

Ars Technica tech editor, Peter Bright tweeted the picture above of his Nokia Windows Phone with the fatal error screen. Other Twitter users have also posted shots of their Windows Phone afflicted by the BSoD ‘process initialization failed’ error.

The Blue Screen of Death has been around since the days of Windows NT and was updated to include a sad face emoticon for the disastrous release of Windows 8. Microsoft is uniting its mobile and desktop operating systems with the upcoming release of Windows 9, but rather than coming up with a new error screen, it looks Redmond decided it’s still better than an insanely annoying spinning beach ball.

The first beta of OS X Yosemite has been seeded to developers this afternoon since the operating system was released to the public last month.

Apple released OS X 10.10.1 beta with build number 14B17 to registered developers as an App Store update, and should be available via direct download in the Mac Dev Center later today.

The release notes don’t mention any major new features, but Apple has added several improvements for WiFi Connectivity. The Yosemite beta also adds fixes for Exchange support to Mail, as well as some updates to Notification Center and general bug fixes overall.

Christian Bale says he’s not the Steve Jobs we deserve.

The actor was tapped to star as the iconic Apple CEO, but has reportedly turned down the part in Sony’s upcoming biopic that is also rumored to star Seth Rogen as Woz, with sources saying he doesn’t think he’s fit for the part.

The dream of replacing all the pieces of plastic in your wallet with your smartphone got a little closer to reality today as Starwood hotels announced that its new keyless entry system – SPG Keyless – is rolling out to hotels worldwide.

Guests at Aloft, Element, and W Hotels around the globe can now use their iPhone and the SPG app to skip the hotel front desk altogether, walk straight to their room, and unlock it, no key required.

Southwest Airlines can’t guarantee you’ll get the seat you want on your next flight, but starting this week you’ll be slightly more entertained wherever you end up, as the airline is introducing free Beats Music streaming on flights.

Beginning today, Southwest will provide all WiFi-enabled aircraft with a custom curated Beats Music experience that’s free for all flyers.

Seth Rogen has been tapped to play Steve Jobs’ loveable sidekick Woz in the upcoming biopic starring Christian Bale as Apple’s iconic CEO. We don’t know if Rogen’s guttural chuckling will mesh well with Bale’s ferocity, but when it comes to looking like Jobs and Woz, the duo already has us sold.

Following up on their Bale/Jobs mashup, GadgetLove created the mockup above of Seth Wozniak and Christian Jobs reveling in the beauty of an Apple I motherboard.

Check out  the original photo of Jobs and Woz for comparison:

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor became an Apple employee this year when Beats was scooped up for $3 billion, but in an interview with Billboard, the former Beats chief creative officer reveals that his position at Apple isn’t just for show, he’s actually working on a secret new music project.

Reznor says that Apple is tapping into his creative energy to help create a new music delivery service, and even though he just wrapped up a huge tour and cemented another Oscar nod with his Gone Girl score, Reznor thinks the new service will have a huge enough impact on the music world that’s it’s well worth the effort.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says we are witnessing a huge shift in the way people buy things in America, and even though his brick and mortar Starbucks stores aren’t supporting Apple Pay right now, he still thinks it’s great for business.

Schultz appeared on CNBC this morning to talk about Starbucks’ mobile payments where he was taken to quipped by Jim Cramer for bragging in March that Starbucks had a big lead in mobile payments with its Starbucks app, only to get leap frogged by Apple Pay this month.

The Java King was adamant Stars’ currency would be relevant ‘at some point in the future’ but admitted there’s no other company that can get shoppers to change their behavior like Apple.

Jony Ive has designed someone of the worlds most iconic tech devices, but when it came time to revolutionizing the wrist watch, Ive says it was even more challenging to make than the iPhone.

Speaking to an audience at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Thursday night, Ive said that societal expectations for a wristwatch posed some serious challenges when creating the Apple Watch, but he believes with “every bone in his body” that Apple will usher in an entirely new computing device category.

Seth Rogen just landed the role to play Christian Bale’s sidekick in Sony’s upcoming biopic on Steve Jobs.

Rogen will reportedly don the mantle of Steve Wozniak, according to Variety, in the film written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle.

The launch of Apple Pay was met with resistance by retailers hoping to kill the new payments solution, but after just one week of waging a war on Apple Pay, MCX is already starting to see its death grip on CurrentC supporters begin to weaken.

Meijer, a popular supermarket chain in the Midwest, says it has no plans to stop accepting Apple Pay at its 213 stores, even though its a member of the MCX consortium backed by Walmart, Target, BestBuy, Gap, and over 50 other stores that want to replace your wallet the unlaunched CurrentC service.

In an interview with Michigan Live, Meijer spokesman Frank Gugielmi confirmed that the company supports both Apple Pay and other solutions, despite reports that MCX members receive steep fines for accepting anything other than CurrentC.

Tim Cook squashed years of speculations and rumors this morning, only instead of doing it with an iPhone announcement, he made his first public declaration that’s he proud to be gay.

Cook never denied his sexuality, but the letter marks a huge moment for the LGBT community, equal rights, and society in general, as the world’s most powerful CEO committed to being an example and inspiration to those wanting to rise above adversity and bigotry.

The world’s reaction to Cook coming out like a boss has been overwhelmingly positive. Yes, the trolls and bigots have crawled out of their dark places to admonish Cook, but their voices have been refreshingly blasted out by accolades and congratulations from the world’s top CEO’s, celebrities, and activists applauding Tim’s courage.

Here’s how the world turned Tim’s coming out party into a celebration:

Apple has kept quiet on why its sapphire supplier suddenly went bankrupt, but after weeks of court wrangling, GT Advanced Technology’s COO has filed a revised declaration that reveals why Apple’s dream of sapphire iPhones went up in smoke in less than a year.

GTAT COO Daniel Squiller, says that the original plan was for Apple to buy 2,600 sapphire furnaces and other equipment that GTAT would then operate. However, after months of negotiations, the deal was changed so that GTAT would borrow up to $578 million from Apple to purchase furnace components and assemble furnaces that would be used to grow sapphire for Apple.

The company admits the deal came with huge risk for GTAT while shielding Apple, but because it had the potential to be revolutionary to GTAT’s business, they went ahead with it. Then everything went horrible wrong.

Apple Pay’s biggest competitor backed by major retailers has been hacked before it even launched.
Retailers like Walmart, BestBuy, Gap, and CVS are waging a war against Apple Pay with their own mobile wallet solution, CurrentC, but the pending doom of their QR-code solution is looking even more obvious now, as the company just alerted customers that they’ve been hacked.

Customers who signed up to use CurrentC were notified today via email that hackers have “obtained the email addresses of some of you.”

Email addresses were the only information the hackers stole (because CurrentC isn’t even out yet), but we doubt this is going to make shoppers eager to share their social security number and bank account info with MCX’s partners, once the app launches next year.

Here’s the email:

The Federal Trade Commission is finally going after AT&T for throttling customer’s data speeds, by filing an official complaint that the company has lowered speeds on LTE up to 95% on unlimited data plans.

FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez expounded on the lawsuit today stating, “the issue is simple: Unlimited means unlimited.” The FTC also alleges that AT&T engaged in unfair or deceptive acts and practices that affected commerce. And they’ve got the numbers to back up their lawsuit, with claims that AT&T illegally capped users’ data speeds at 128 Kbps.

Here’s AT&T’s response to the lawsuit:

Apple’s mission to replace your wallet with Apple Pay began just last week with support from more than 200,000 stores in the United States, but some merchants have already launched a war against the new payment platform.

Over the weekend, CVS and Rite Aid stores blocked Apple Pay access at their registers, marking the first counterattack in what will likely be a fierce battle to own your digital wallet. Apple Pay’s growth is unprecedented, but the anti-Apple Pay group is backed by a superhero-size team of retail megastores conspiring to make debit and credit card fees extinct. They’ll stop at nothing to see it happen, even it means hurting Apple (or themselves) in the process.

Here’s everything you need to know about the war on Apple Pay and why it’s doomed to fail.

Apple added two new channels to the Apple TV today with FYI from the A&E network and Feeln being both being added to the line up.

The FYI channel (formerly known as The Biography Channel) brings a mix of lifestyle programming that features DYI, cooking, home improvement, and fashion shows, while Hallmark’s Feeln channel adds a new family friendly movie streaming service to the Apple set-top box.

I consider myself to be “the adventurous type” but I’ve never once kayaked, thanks to two big hurdles: I live in the desert, and I drive a tiny Fiat that barely fits four grown humans in its cramped interior.

Water activities in these parts of Arizona require a gas-guzzling truck and a garage big enough to store your boats, putting kayaking out of reach for most urban dwellers. Oru Kayak destroys both those necessities with a foldable boat that’s strong enough to take on a lake or river, while also compacting into a box small enough to fit in your closet.

Before the Oru Kayak glided into my life, my go-to outdoor activity was hiking. Point me to a waterfall 15 miles away in the desert and even if that AZ ‘dry heat’ was boiling the tar on the highway, I was totally there. Now that there’s a boat that fits in my car, everything’s changed.