We are wireless, but not quite wire-free. One company wants to help iPhone users cut a couple of cords with a magnetic charging solution called the STACK PACK.
It’s all capital letters for a product that sounds more like workout vitamins. The STACK PACK promises to pack just as much power as that soon-to-be obsolete charging cord — except with shorter charging times and a satisfying feeling as your iPhone magnetically clicks onto a battery or charger.
A good photographer doesn’t say, I’ll fix it later in Photoshop. Lumu Labs understood this when they developed an accessory in 2013 that turns the iPhone into a light meter.
Though heralded by working photographers and tech journalists at the time, Lumu Labs wasn’t satisfied with the bulbous little device that hooks into the headphone jack. They continued to tinker and came up with the next generation of light meter that is like having a knowledgeable photo assistant in the palm of your hand.
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.
Online dating services promise plenty of fish in the sea. They just can’t stop the catfish from biting.
But the pretenders might not have the same luck with the new dating app Blume. Once a match is made, the two users must exchange selfies, using the smartphone camera in-app, before any communication can begin.
Excuse the dad for checking his Instagram feed when the nurse brings the newborn into the room. He might be trying to find a name for the kid.
Naming a baby after an Instagram filter is a hot trend according to the annual Baby Names Survey, sponsored by the Baby Center.
If you bought an Apple Watch that now collects dust on your dresser, you are not alone.
Web-based research firm Wristly, which found a 97 percent user satisfaction rate among early adopters, took equal interest in the unhappy 3 percent. What it found from 340 former Apple Watch users could provide valuable insights for Cupertino as it works on future generations of the smartwatch.
The reasons people gave up the watch include:
David Sawyer knows two very interesting things about his grandfather: he ran track fast enough to qualify for the Olympics and he once saved two men drowning at sea while working on a lobster boat.
But the details that would make those two events precious stories for generations to come were never shared. When Sawyer’s grandfather died, it was as if he died twice.
Harvard classmates Lei Guo and Oliver Hayen created what could have been just another messaging app. They knew they had something unique, as every app development team claims, so they put it in the hands of 2,000 people and hit launch.
Within 30 days, their app SOMA Messenger had 10 million users and has been growing since. They’d love to brag about who is using it, except they can’t because of security measures built into the app that prevents even them from knowing SOMA’s users.
The iPhone can do a lot of things, but work as a functional piece of furniture? Yes, as one design studio proved when it created a tiny lampshade that clips to the iPhone.
Activate the flashlight app and behold, a nightstand reading light.
Lens attachments for your iPhone can bring a fresh point of view to your photos but there are drawbacks. Some force you to remove the phone’s protective case to properly fit the lens. Others require a sticky mounting plate.
The mount for the Iris lenses by Photojojo looks like a little girl’s ponytail holder with a silicon housing holding one of three pop-in lenses that is attached to an elastic cord stretching and securing snuggly to diagonal corners of your iPhone or Samsung Galaxy.
There are people who walk this earth with a recorder and mic much the way a photographer does with a camera. Like the eye, the ear picks up rich and textured details, from the husky-voiced uncle spinning a yarn at Thanksgiving to swirly gusts of wind rousting the last leaves of fall clinging to their branches.
Whatever peeks your audio curiosity, Kapture is a discreet recorder ready at the wrist to save the ambient sound that orbits your ears.
A blaring megaphone is an effective way to get people’s attention. But what if the people in the room speak a multitude of languages?
A Tokyo airport is trying to solve the language gap with international travelers with a megaphone that lets the user communicate in three different languages. A worker speaking one of three languages, Chinese, Korean or English, can have their message broadcast in the other two.
The newspaper that covers the wizarding world of Harry Potter publishes photos that move on the page. For us Muggles, there’s LifePrint, a pocket-sized printer that brings a similar magical to our still photos.
The LifePrint device lets you embed a video inside a printed photograph, using augmented reality and requiring the viewer to point their smartphone at the picture to bring it to life.
Buy a shiny new padlock and hold in your hand something that hasn’t changed much since the Romans used them 500 years before Christ. The ubiquitous lock has a u-shaped shackle that connects to a body containing a mechanism that locks and unlocks with a key or combination wheel.
Keys get lost and combination codes forgotten so the company Dog & Bone put its own stamp on the padlock, or actually, your stamp, by creating a smart lock that is controlled by an app on your smartphone.
A good iPhone case protects your handset from the blunt force of a fall. Then there’s the case that protects the force of your blunts.
The iHit is a case for the iPhone 6 and 6s with a slide out odor-free compartment that can stash up to five pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes. It is the latest evolution of the iHit case, which started with a case for the iPhone 5 that had a spring-loaded chamber for a single joint.
Dubai has the world’s tallest buildings. While this may boost national pride in the United Arab Emirates, it also raises worry among the city’s firefighters. How do you fight a fire more than 1,000 feet up?
Jetpacks, of course.
The sparkling UAE city will be the first in the world to have emergency responders trained in using jetpacks to combat fires in the taller buildings.
Watch snobs say the Apple Watch could never be a true collector’s items. But there is one Apple Watch charger guaranteed to be a pricey collectible.
It is saucer-shaped, gold in color and encrusted with 1,000 Swarovski crystals. Act now and you could own one of 10 for $5,000.
InstaAgent, a third-party app for users to track visitors to their Instagram feeds, was pulled out of app stores by both Apple and Google after an iOS developer discovered the app was stealing people’s logins and passwords.
If you have InstaAgent on your smartphone – and reportedly half a million of you do – delete it immediately.
We know Pope Francis is a fan of technology. He is on Twitter with 8 million followers and when in public, the guy never turns down a selfie request.
But His Holiness wants us all to put away our smartphones when seated at the dinner table.
If you owe your buddy $5, turning your pockets inside out may soon be an ineffective charade – thanks to Apple.
Cupertino is in talks with major U.S. banks on a digital payment system that would let people send money to each other from their iPhones. It reportedly will work like services offered by PayPal and Venmo.
Ben Ye knew what could happen as he watched his son chafe and grow bored during private piano lessons. But to keep his son’s interest in music, Ye felt he’d have to do the seemingly impossible: build a new kind of piano and reinvent the way it is taught.
Ye did both and what started as an effort to keep alive an interest in music for his son became available this week in the United States. The ONE Smart Piano, the first Apple MFi-certified smart piano, combines a full-sized piano and a dedicated iOS app that can show a beginner how to play a favorite song in as little as 10 minutes or less.
Tech accessories tend to solve a single problem really well. The SELFLASH, a small ring light you attach to your smartphone for selfies, is not just around to make you look pretty.
In offering a flattering wink of light in a variety of colors and intensities, the SELFLASH also provides up to 128 GB of storage for file transfers, can serve as a backup battery for your phone and has a Bluetooth tracker. Not satisfied with your smartphone’s camera? A pro model of the SELFLASH also comes with a 15.1-megapixel camera.
I remember the day I was way late from school and met up with my frantic mother as I walked home. She was walking quickly and carrying a metal comb with a pointy handle. This was for stabbing my attackers, or at least the ones that entered her mind as she fretted.
Of course, technology these days brings us a saner way of tracking down a late kid. One is KIdGPS, by mobile accessories maker X-Doria. It’s a palm-sized tracking device the kids carry so that nervous parents can check on their whereabouts via a companion app on their iPhone or Android device.
As far as computers go, the Apple III was a rather rotten Apple. The first 14,000 were recalled with hardware problems galore and even with bugs eventually worked out, Apple never could erase the computer’s “lemon” label.
But if you’re willing to give the Apple III a second chance, there is a working one for sale, complete with manuals, startup disks and, quite possibly, the good karma of a famous swami.
The billboards and ads featuring beautiful photographs shot with an iPhone 6 are nearly gone. Apple is now promoting a new iPhone. But that does not mean Apple has forgotten the photographers whose work helped sell phones and treat the world to art in public spaces.
Photographers from the “Shot on iPhone 6” campaign have been getting packages in the mail, a pair of cloth-covered coffee table books featuring their work. The books were apparently a surprise and included a pair of white gloves for handling with care.