David Pierini - page 2

Mac users grow aggravated over macOS 10.15.4 crashes

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macOS Catalina is here. But proceed from Mojave with caution.
Crashes with Catalina 10.15.4.
Photo: Apple

Mac users are venting in online forums about frequent system crashes that began after they updated to macOS Catalina 10.15.4.

The crash reports are popping up on a number of online forums with most saying kernel panics seem to happen after attempting large file transfers.

Will people pay for Quibi’s snack-size shows? Free trial might help

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Nicole Richie as Nikki FreSh
Nicole Richie is Nikki Fre$h.
Screenshot: Quibi/YouTube

A new streaming service started Monday — but put down the remote. You won’t find Quibi on your television.

Instead, Quibi – its title a mashup of the words quick and bites – brings short-form entertainment through an app downloaded to an iPhone or iPad. If you are just hearing about Quibi, here’s a quick primer on the new streaming service.

Lawmakers want proof Apple’s COVID-19 app protects privacy

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apple
The new COVID-19 app and website provide the latest information and guidance from the CDC for users across the US.
Photo: Apple

A group of U.S. Senators is requesting assurances from CEO Tim Cook that Apple has privacy protections built into the company’s new COVID-19 screening app and website.

Senators Kamala Harris, Richard Blumenthal, Bob Menedez and Cory Booker sent a letter addressed to Cook on Friday voicing concerns about the private health data of Americans.

Celebs join the COVID-19 fight by telling billions to stay home

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Selena Gomez shows us how to wash
If the singing thing doesn't pan out...
Screenshot: Selena Gomez/Instagram

Say what you will about celebrity influencers. They are using social media to tell millions of followers to stay home and “wash your hands.”

Taking a break from vanity and self-branding (well, sort of), influencers have answered the call by the United Nations to use their platforms to promote public health messages to help contain the spread of COVID-19.

Genius tweak for security cams is just the start of Wyze’s COVID-19 response

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Wyze Cam
This Wyze Cam can be converted to a webcam.
Photo: Wyze

A company that makes low-cost home security cameras doesn’t sound like an organization you’d call for help in the fight against COVID-19 as it sweeps across the United States.

Wyze didn’t wait for a call.

Located in Kirkland, Washington, close to where the first U.S. cases surfaced, the company used its worldwide connections and ingenuity to help the local medical community fight the coronavirus pandemic. But it also helped consumers stuck at home better use Wyze’s iOS-compatible security cameras as webcams.

Photog claims Amazing Stories intro contains ‘direct theft’ of his image

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Adrian Murray showing his photo and the one from Amazing Stories
How similar do they look to you?
Screenshot: Andrian Murray/YouTube

A photographer claims the production company behind the Apple TV+ series Amazing Stories committed “flagrant copyright infringement” by re-creating an image of his for the show’s intro.

Adrian Murray, of Louisville, Kentucky, alleges an image of two boys opening a glowing chest at about the 45-second mark of the intro is derivative of a work he created with his two sons in 2018.

iPad magician whips up some quarantine tricks

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Simon Pierro iPad magician
Quarantine with a twist.
Screenshot: Simon Pierro/YouTube

This public service announcement is brought to you by a magician who, like you, is stuck home in quarantine and spending a lot of time on his iPad.

“Magician” and “iPad” in the same sentence means Simon Pierro. The iPad magician cooked up some new quarantine -themed tricks to show off. (He also reminds fans to stay at home to help slow the spread of COVID-19.)

Quarantined photographer executes fantastic FaceTime fashion shoot

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Alessio Albi FaceTime model shoot
Alessio Albi makes screenshot magic on FaceTime.
Screenshot: Alessio Albi/Instagram

Quarantined photographers across the internet have used the lockdown to come up with personal projects they could shoot within the same confines of their home.

Condé Nast shooter Alessio Albi has one of the more interesting bodies of work to emerge from staying at home. He is using FaceTime for remote fashion shoots.

iOS bug may expose data even while running a VPN

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This VPN provider is backed by super secure encryption, Swiss data privacy laws, and lots more.
ProtonVPN brings an iOS bug to light.
Photo: Cult of Mac

A consultant has discovered an unpatched security bug in iOS that prevents virtual private networks from encrypting all traffic.

The problem impacts iOS 13.3.1 and later and could lead some internet connections to expose data or leak IP addresses.

R&B star learns iMovie on lockdown to make sexy ‘quarantine style’ video

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Kehlani music video on iMove
Kehlani doing her work at home.
Screenshot: Kehlani/YouTube

Kehlani, an R&B star from Oakland, California, used her time in COVID-19 quarantine to teach herself iMovie — then shot and edited a racy DIY music video at home.

The video for her new single “Toxic” involves creative lighting, a lot of twerking and, um, implied self-care. “Created, directed, edited by me in my room in an hour,” she wrote on Twitter. “Thank U red wine.”

Stay at home! This free TV list will make your quarantine cozy

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Apple TV remote news
Binging on TV is now a healthy choice.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

If staying at home saves lives during the coronavirus pandemic, then binging on TV is your civic duty.

Networks and streaming services are stepping up to help us sacrifice, offering loads of free programming for any device while we wait out stay-at-home orders. Much of what we’re about to tell you in this guide to free streaming is available on a variety of platforms, from Apple TV to the iPhone, iPad, Macs and smart TVs. Chances are good you’ve already got everything you need to take advantage of these freebies.

How to watch Jony Ive design documentary for free

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frame grab from design doc Objectified
John Ive and the making of the slender MacBook Air.
Screenshot: Guy Hustwit/Vimeo

You’re at home with time to ponder stuff. That’s what industrial designers, including legendary former Apple design chief Jony Ive, do for a living.

This week, you can take a free peek inside the head of Ive and other renowned designers with the documentary Objectified.

Apple stores could open as soon as mid-April

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tulsa.apple.store.1
Closed in Tulsa.
Photo: Brad Gibson / Cult of Mac

Apple told its retail employees that it will likely start reopening Apple Stores sometime during the first half of April, according to memo sent to various store employees on Tuesday.

Apple shuttered 467 of its stores outside of China as a precaution as COVID-19 rapidly advanced around the world.

Plague Inc. devs donate big bucks to fight coronavirus

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Plague Inc., a game about a pandemic, might a little too real for government regulators.
Plague Inc. will fight the real thing.
Screenshot: Ndemic Creations/YouTube

The developers of the game Plague Inc. will donate $250,000 to fight the real-life plague, COVID-19, currently gripping the globe.

Ndemic Creations said it will split the money between the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

Yellowed Apple retail sign from 1978 might pull in $20,000

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apple retail sign up for auction
Pre-Apple Store retail efforts.
Photo: Nate D. Sanders Auctions

Apple’s retail origins were far less glossy than today’s glass shrines known as Apple Stores. If a dealer wanted to sell an Apple II in 1978, the fledgling computer company provided a 4-foot-by-5-foot acrylic sign in a metal frame. On the face was a rainbow Apple logo over the words “apple computer.” No capital letters.

Bidding on one of those original signs starts at $20,000 in an online auction that ends in three days.

Affinity apps free to photographers and designers during COVID-19

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Affinity Photo for iPad
Affinity Photo for iPad.
Photo: Serif

Imaging software companies have been stepping up to support photographers and artists with work drying up because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Joining Adobe and Skylum, Serif is offering three months free access to its Affinity suite of apps, which includes Affinity Photo for Mac and iPad. If trial users like Affinity they can purchase the apps for 50 percent off the retail price.

Add this cute U2-inspired iPod toy to your play list

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iBoy stretch goal looks like U2 special edition iPod
This iBoy is red and black to look like the U2 special edition iPod.
Photo: Philip Lee

Of all of Apple’s creations, the iPod is a sentimental favorite. For many, it was their first Apple device.

An iPod-inspired action figure called iBoy could be your gateway to other Apple-inspired toys from Hong Kong toymaker Philip Lee.

FaceTime humor amid coronavirus is the laugh we all need

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FaceTime coronavirus
FaceTime has been handy but is no replacement for face-to-face time.
Screenshot: Eva Victor/Twitter

With COVID-19 lockdowns walling us off from friends and family, the FaceTime feature on iPhones and iPads is saving our social lives.

But glitchy audio and periodic freezing of the video stream add to our mounting self-isolation frustration.

February smartphone shipments hit historic low

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iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max
Smartphone shipments, including iPhones, were significantly down in February.
Photo: Apple

Worldwide smartphone shipments took a much-anticipated nosedive in the month of February as the COVID-19 outbreak began to spread around the globe.

Strategy Analytics reported Friday a 38% drop in shipments, the worst ever since smartphone sales began more than a decade ago.

Small Apple-related companies grappling with COVID-19 impact

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WaterField Designs
Self-isolation orders in San Francisco emptied this studio at WaterField Designs.
Photo: WaterField Designs

Gary Waterfield should be collaborating with colleagues today over the hum of sewing machines producing an elegant leather crossbody laptop bag.

The small-batch tech backpacks and shoulder bags of WaterField Designs since 1998 have attracted discerning Apple users. Waterfield likes to time a new production run with an Apple product launch.

But when Apple unveiled the new MacBook Air and iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard this week, the handful of WaterField employees were stuck in their San Francisco-area homes on one of the strictest lockdowns since the coronavirus invaded American soil.

WaterField crossbody bag carries a MacBook and iPad in Portrait Mode

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WaterField Designs Hitch Crossbody Laptop Brief
The vertical carry better distributes the weight.
Photo: WaterField Designs

A new MacBook Air or iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard deserves protection that smells good.

Hear the name WaterField Designs and the part of the brain connected to the nose instantly recalls the rich scent of full grain leather.

One day after Apple announced its two newest products, the small-batch San Francisco manufacturer unveiled the Hitch Crossbody Laptop Brief, in two sizes with two padded compartments for both an iPad and MacBook.

Luminar 4 adds AI tools to transform skies and faces in photos

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Luminar sky enhancement
New AI sky enhancement tools are a blast.
Screenshot: Skylum

Imaging software brand Skylum announced new tools to its popular editing app Luminar to support creative digital artists and enhancements to help portrait photographers create more flattering images.

Luminar 4.2 features an AI Augmented Sky tool, allowing artists to seamlessly add objects to create unconventional composite images. Photographers can now remove excessive shine and add slimming effects to the faces of their subjects.