Buster Hein - page 198

In response to the public’s outcry that tech companies are working with the NSA to pilfer personal info on targets of interest, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and others announced an alliance with civil liberties groups today demanding for more transparency by the U.S. government concerning wiretapping.

The coalition sent a letter today to President Obama and other leaders in Congress, urging for greater transparency around national security-related requests. Portions of the letter were published last night, but we now have a copy it in its entirety, which can be read below:

Apple and some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies have been under heavy fire ever since info on the National Security Administration’s PRISM program leaked to the public last month.

In response to the public’s outcry that tech companies are working with the NSA to pilfer personal info on targets of interest, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and others have formed a broad alliance with civil liberties groups that will tomorrow demand for increased transparency regarding the U.S. government’s spy programs on citizens.

All Things D reports that the alliance will publish a letter Thursday, demanding President Obama and Congress allow tech companies to provide reports on information requests related to national security.

Potluck, a link-sharing service made by the same people behind Branch, announced today that its bringing its social network to the iPhone today with a brand new iOS app.

Rather than focusing on likes and retweets, Potluck is trying to position itself as a casual social network in hopes of drawing out the “lurkers” who usually sit back and read everyone else’s posts rather than engaging.

The central experience of Potluck is built around sharing and discussing links between a small number of friends, kind of like a more intimate version mix of Twitter and Digg. A desktop version has been available for the past two months, but the company says it sees Potluck as truly mobile experience and plans to release an Android app as well.

Here are the full release notes:

As a response to T-Mobile’s new Jump plan that allows customers to upgrade their smartphone once a year for free, AT&T announced Next two days ago, which offers similar perks as Jump but at a much higher cost.

T-Mobile’s CEO, John Legere has already launched an AT&T Next bashing campaign to go along with the anti-AT&T rant filled keynote he delivered on July 10th. According to an email exchange with CNET, Legere views AT&T Next as just “a poor copycat” of Jump that’s designed to ripoff consumers more than ever:

After refreshing its iPad lineup in the fall last year, rather than summer, Apple set itself up to go through a June quarter without a new iPad launch for the first time since it was introduced in 2010.

With Apple’s Q3 2013 quickly approaching on July 23rd, analysts have already begun to make their iPad sales estimates, and to no one’s surprise, YOY growth has slowed to a crawl in Q3 2013.

Tim Cook and co. have claimed that the Apple TV is just a hobby device, but that hasn’t stopped it from dominating the TV streaming box industry.

A new report from Frost & Sullivan claims that Apple TV now accounts for 56% of the worldwide IP streaming devices market and its nearest competitor, Roku, isn’t even close.

The Apple TV remote is  a cute little brick of sleek aluminum simplicity, but its so damn skinny and small that if you’re like me, it goes missing for weeks at a time. If you need an extra reminder to put your toys away after you’ve played with them, Bloc has a walnut stand to keep all your Apple TV gear in place.

AT&T announced today that it will rollout its own yearly upgrade program, in what seems to be a direct response to T-Mobile’s new ‘Jump’ program that was announced last week.

The new service, dubbed ‘AT&T Next,’ will begin nationwide on July 26th. Customers will be able to get a new smartphone or tablet every year without a down payment, activation fee, upgrade fee or financing fee. Sounds great, except just like with T-Mobile’s Jump plan, you have to pay a monthly fee for the perk for the first 20 months.

Here’s AT&T’s summary of Next:

Following up on the release of the first full trailer for the new Jobs movie starring Ashton Kutcher, Open Roads Studios has released a new Instagram trailer. It’s only 15 seconds long of course, but it’s packed with scenes of Ashton doing his best Steve Jobs death stare while reciting parts of Apple’s famous “The Crazy Ones” ad.

The movie was originally supposed to hit theaters in April, but the premiere has been pushed back to August 16th due to a need more more marketing. Early reviews were mixed for Jobs, but most seem to agree that the movie isn’t going to be that great. What do you think of the Instagram trailer?
Source: Instagram

IMDB released a new update for it’s iOS and Android apps today that includes a new feature that will allow iOS users to purchase movie tickets via the app. The free update also comes with a tie-in to the Amazon Mobile app that allows you to choose to buy a movie in IMDB and then order it through Amazon.

Ticket purchasing in the IMDB update is powered by Fandango. Once a user purchases a ticket it can be added to your Passbook and then scanned by theater staff for admittance just like in the Fandango iOS app. The app also has a new “Coming Soon” feature that lets you add movie release dates to your iOS calendar.

Here are the full release notes:

Rovio announced this morning that the next game in its blockbuster Angry Birds franchise will be Angry Birds Star Wars II. Following up on the success of the original Angry Birds Star Wars, the new game will be based off the events in Star Wars episodes I-III.

So far, details on the new game are fairly light, but we do know that it will feature new characters such as young Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Darth Maul, General Grievous and even Jar Jar Binks. Players will finally get to join the dark side and play as one of the villainous pigs too.

Rovio also announced that it’s creating a line of  toys called Telepods that interact with the game and teleport characters into the map.

Here’s the trailer:

Update: Looks like the account wasn’t Apple’s after all, and the videos have been pulled.

Didn’t get a chance to go to WWDC to learn all the new stuff about iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks? Developers have been able to watch all of the WWDC session videos for nearly a month now, but Apple just uploaded them to YouTube as well so even unregistered developers can get in on the action.

Rather than uploading all the videos to Apple’s regular YouTube channel, they’ve been uploaded to a new channel called WWDCVideos channel. Apple hasn’t confirmed that it’s an official channel, but the videos are legit, so head over for a heavy dose of iOS 7 knowledge.

Source: YouTube

Via: MacStories

When the iPhone was unveiled back in 2007, its touch screen was a revelation to the industry. You don’t need a stylus; you just touch it with your finger and it responds almost instantaneously.

While the iPhone’s touch display may feel a bit magical, the glass is coated in a thin, transparent material called indium tin oxide (ITO) that can sense when you touch the display. It’s one of those little tiny feats of engineering that you never really notice, except according to a new report from the U.S. government, supplies of ITO are dwindling and researchers are hustling to find a replacement.

In its first foray into the world of 3D printing, eBay has introduced a new app for iOS, called eBay Exact. The new app allows users to customize and purchase 3D-printed products from Sculpteo, MakerBot, and Hot Pop Factory, which are built to order and shipped from each 3D printer’s facilities.

Right now eBay Exact only has about 20 items to choose from and customize, but more are likely to be added in the future as the 3D printing wave continues to gain momentum. All of the customizations are handled within the app as users are able to personalize colors, engravings, and even design textures for a few items.

Here’s what it’s like to design a custom wood grain iPhone case with the app:

While Rovio has been pretty busy lately helping other developers launch new iOS games via its publishing company, Rovio Stars, but the Angry Birds hit marker isn’t done churning out its own titles.

This morning Rovio announced it will reveal a brand new game next Monday, July 15th. The teaser image pays homage to the very first teaser poster that was released for Star Wars Episode I: the Phantom Menace, so it looks like the new game will be an Angry Birds version of the prequel trilogy:

Attention, Angry Birds fans! Stay tuned on Monday, July 15th, for big news about a brand new game! We’re talking the biggest character line-up ever, awesome new powers, and maybe even a few surprises!

Intrigued? Stay tuned for more news on #July15!

Source: Rovio

Rovio, makers of the all-mighty Angry Birds franchise, kicked off the launch of its new publishing company last month with the new game Icebreakers: A Viking Voyage, but their second title is already here.

Tiny Thief has landed on the App Store this afternoon early reviews have been very positive. The game centers around the character Tiny Thief, an unconventional hero who uses cunning and trickery to out-smart his opponents across six epic medieval adventures.

Priced at $2.99 for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, the game plays similar to the point-and-click games of yore but has its own charm and mind boggling puzzles.

Here is the trailer and release notes:

Pacific Rim doesn’t hit theaters until Friday, July 12th, but if you want to rage battle against Guillermo del Toro’s Kaiju monsters on your own the official tie-in game is now available on the App Store.

The new action fighting game gives players access to five of the weaponized robots in the movie called Jaegers, to do battle against the powerful Kaiju monsters. You can choose Story Mode to play 30 different levels that kind of follow the movie, or Survival Mode and see how many waves of Kaiju you can defeat while upgrading the tech of your Jaeger.

You can grab Pacific Rim for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch from the App Store for $5.

Here are the full release notes:

We all have at least one friend who is just verbose as hell on iMessage. Like, dude just doesn’t get the fact that you don’t want to read a novella about how the Chipotle burrito roller lady ripped his tortilla twice, so he sends his 1852 character rant to you like it’s an honor to know of his guacamole debacle.

Rather than having to scroll through extremely long iMessages in the chat window, iOS 7 has a new feature which allows users to expand them into full screen mode. A truncated version of a long iMessage will display in the chat window with a little arrow at the bottom to expand it and read more.

Here’s a GIF of how it works:

The new Mac Pro may very well be one of the coolest desktop machines we’ve ever seen, but unlike the older Mac Pros, this new one isn’t going to keep your work area all that tidy.

Giga.de created the image above to show just how messy things are going to get when you want to add a few external harddrives, DVD burner, audio interface, Blu-ray player and a video capture interface to your Mac Pro. Too bad you can’t just stuff them all inside that fancy thermal core.

Via: Twitter

Disney announced this morning that it will honor Steve Jobs with a Disney Legends Award at this year’s D23 Expo on Saturday, August 10th in Anaheim, California.

As the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs became the largest Disney shareholder in 2006 when Disney acquired Pixar. Jobs was also a part of Disney’s board of directors and remained a valuable sounding board and advisor to the company until his passing in 2011.

Disney CEO Bob Iger had the following to say about the award:

T-Mobile is hosting a big keynote today to announce a couple of new products and features that are coming to the network. So far the most exciting news is that customers can  join the new “Jump” program to upgrade their smartphone twice a year.

Ina Fried at All Things D got the scoop on the other new announcements so you don’t have to watch the event yourself. Here are the Cliff Notes of what T-Mobile will announce:

Instagram has quickly become one of the most popular photo sharing services for mobile devices, but you’re about to start seeing more of it in your web browser.

This morning Instagram introduced new web embedding for Instagram content that will allow you to post photos and video right on your blog or website:

“Now, when you visit an Instagram photo or video page on your desktop web browser, you’ll see a new share button on the right side of your photo (just under the comments button). Click the button to see the embed code. Copy the block of text it gives you and paste it into your blog, website or article. When you hit publish, the photo or video will appear.”

Here’s an example of how embedded Instagrams appear on the web:

The original Apple II was a huge breakthrough for Apple when it went on sale in 1977. And even though the 8-bit computer made Steve Jobs and Woz legends, you’ve got to wonder what Apple’s first big hit would have looked like if Jony Ive got his hands all over it.

A true Jony Ive edition Apple II will probably never see the light of day, but this customized aluminum Apple II some redditor bought off eBay might be the next closest thing. It’s simple, sleek and aluminum – everything Jony loves.

Take a look:

PopCap’s highly anticipated sequel to mega-hit Plants vs Zombies has hit some rough patches lately as the launch date has been pushed back to later this summer. But if you can’t wait a second longer we have good news – you can download the new game right now.

Rather than unleashing Plants vs Zombies 2 on the world all at once, PopCap has decided to do a soft-launch in Australia and New Zealand today to test things out. Which is a bummer for iOS users in the U.S. except it’s really easy to get the new game anyway.

To download the app you’ll have to create an Apple ID for the New Zealand or Australian App Store. Normally, iTunes requires new users to provide a credit card from that country to verify you actually live there, but there’s a workaround.

https://youtu.be/oG0yZLEPN_Y

Microsoft is continuing it’s anti-iPad ad campaign with a new TV ad that attacks the iPad’s multitasking capabilities. The ad pits two baseball scouts against each other as they’re armed with an iPad and Windows 8 tablet to see if a certain prospect is worth signing.

The tag line for the ad is “do two things at once without dropping the ball,” so naturally it ends with the Windows 8 bearing scout signing the prospect to a major league deal while the hombre rocking the iPad just couldn’t switch his apps fast enough because Windows 8 allows you view two apps at the same time.

You have to give it to Microsoft for not pulling any punches. It will be interesting to see if Apple responds. Remember the good ol’ days of Mac vs. PC?

Source: YouTube