Las Vegas, CES 2012 — If you’re going to drop a wad of bills on a serious phone you might as well find one that looks like it was destined to cradle your iPhone or iPad in its loving arms. That’s the mission that French upstart Invoxia has come up with for their newest VOIP desktop conference phone that embodies both beauty and braun.
All that was missing was Steve Jobs. That’s how close Acer’s promotion of its new AcerCloud service was to Apple’s iCloud. Although imitation is flattering, some observers charged Acer of a ‘blatant ripoff’ of iCloud – down to even the promotion images used by netbook kingpin.
Despite the Las Vegas floor of CES 2012 being filled with new smartphones, the iPhone is still hot with prospective handset buyers, a new survey finds. The iPhone tops the list with 54 percent of consumers planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days. That’s down from 65 percent in September, a surprise to experts. The nearest Android handset cam in a distant second.
If Research in Motion is gambling on its future, it picked the right venue: the Las Vegas-based CES 2012. The Waterloo, Ont. company plans to introduce an updated version of its PlayBook Operating System, as well as its new BlackBerry 7.1 software amid a storm of criticism. But can new software alone resurrect a troubled tech company?
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – You’ve probably never looked at a nice ceramic vase and thought, “Geez, I would love to have one of those made based on my self portrait!” but the guys at Sculpteo are here to help you out just in case. Sculpteo is a free app that allows users to instantly covert a 2D image into a 3D image in the shape of an object such as a vase. So if you’re one of those types that is jealous of everyone who gets to look at your beautiful outline all day, you’re now in luck.
Don’t you wish your iOS device would do something a little more spectacular when you use that “slide to unlock” button? Well UnlockFX from Filippo Biga might be the answer. It’s a tweak that offers all kinds of fancy effects designed to transform the unlock animation on your jailbroken iOS device from boring to beautiful.
The popular video sharing service Vimeo is at CES in Las Vegas this week to announce new mobile apps for the Android and Windows Phone platforms. However, it also has some exciting news to share about its existing iOS app.
An update set to hit the App Store later this month will not only bring support for the iPad, but also full HD video streaming, and lots of great new features.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Debuting here at CES 2012, the GoPano Micro ($80) is an odd-looking little device that lets you record 360° panoramic videos on your iPhone 4 and 4S. You can then scroll around those videos in a way similar to how you move around in Google Maps street view, watching your video from a ton of different angles and perspectives.
Microsoft has recently shown a surprising willingness to develop all sorts of software for rival mobile operating systems, with a number of popular releases for iOS devices in particular. Many believed, however, Microsoft would make Xbox LIVE games exclusive to its Windows Phone platform in a bid to encourage gamers to adopt Windows Phone devices.
But according to a recent Microsoft job listing, it seems that may not be the case. The software giant is currently looking for an experienced developer who will “bring the latest and greatest gaming and entertainment experience to mobile platforms including Windows Phone, iOS, and other mobile platforms.”
ION Audio is showing off two new iCade products at CES in Las Vegas this week that provide retro gamers with physical controls while they’re on the go.
Unlike its original iCade Arcade Cabinet, which you wouldn’t dream of carrying around in your rucksack, the iCade Core and iCade Mobile accessories from ION are compact, lightweight, and ready to follow you about.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – We’ve seen countless solutions to finding lost car keys over the past few decades, but this latest solution from Treehouse Labs makes the attempt to be practical and fun while solving one of mankind’s greatest problems through an iPhone app. Bikn is a location tracking solution to help you find anything that has a tendency to get lost: dogs, purses, cameras, your grandparents at Wal-Mart, you name it. By attaching a small location tracker to any item you tend to lose, Bikn makes finding things easier than ever.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Fish and chips and Jony Ive may remain Britain’s most favorite imports among Cult staffers, but maybe Pure’s new Contour 200i Air will get close.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2102 — The Consumer Electronics Show is kicking off with some sobering news. Smartphones and tablets are eating all other electronics alive, says the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the organizer of the show.
“Smartphones and tablets are really sucking up most consumer spending,” said Steve Koenig, director of research at CEA, during a Sunday afternoon opening keynote outlining key trends for the industry this coming year.
Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?
This week’s topic is one personal to both iOS and Android fans alike: is Samsung really copying Apple’s designs for its Galaxy series of Android smartphones and tablets? Samsung and Apple are brawling it out on pretty much every continent on Earth trying to get to the bottom of this issue, so it’s only fitting that we try to settle this one in the ring too.
In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!
Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.
An interesting Apple patent filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office details how Thunderbolt could be headed to iOS devices. Apple has actually been filing many Thunderbolt-related trademarks as of late, despite the fact that Thunderbolt is also an Intel property.
In this recent patent, Apple details how the need for high-speed data connections between devices requires new cables. The traditional 30-pin connector isn’t cutting it anymore, and Thunderbolt is the future.
So by now you may have heard that Nikon’s flagship pro D-SLR, the D4, is real and will be on the floors of CES. The new features of this new drool-worthy machine are numerous, but one that immediately caught my eye was its ability to be controlled remotely by an iPhone or iPad — wow! I don’t think anyone saw that coming.
One of the nifty little features in Apple’s iOS operating system is the ability to “swipe to delete” certain items. You can use the gesture to remove songs, podcasts, videos, text messages, emails, and more from your device, but for some bizarre reason, not audiobooks.
Here’s how to delete audiobooks directly from your iOS device — without the need for a computer.
If, like me, you’re yearning for a physical controller that works well with iOS devices and games, then you’ll be pleased to hear Gametel’s wireless gamepad for smartphone and tablets now supports the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. The device connects via Bluetooth to devices running iOS 4.0 or later, and supports hundreds of arcade titles from the iCade suite, in addition to other selected iOS games like No Gravity and Super Crossfire HD.
Imagine cruising along in your rocket at 100,000 feet when you open the door to let out a wasp and your iPad falls out into space. It’s a situation we can all relate to. But thanks to the Extreme Edge case from G-Form, you no longer have to worry about your device shattering into a million pieces when it lands back down on Earth. What a relief, right?
While we’re all expecting Apple to introduce a quad-core A-something processor to its iOS devices at some point in the future, it appears there are already references to the devices in the company’s latest iOS 5.1 beta release. In addition to support for Apple’s latest dual-core A5 processor, the software also support quad-core processing, according to one report.
While Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices are susceptible to cracks and smashes — just like any other smartphone or tablet — you’ll be surprised by how strong the Gorilla Glass that’s used on each of these devices really is. And it’s about to get even stronger, with Corning set to announce Gorilla Glass 2 at CES in Las Vegas next week, which is said to be even lighter and stronger than its predecessor.
Antonio De Rosa, a designer for ADR Studios, has created a gorgeous next-generation iPhone concept that he’s calling the “iPhone SJ.” This work of beauty features an edge-to-edge capacitive touchscreen, 10 megapixel camera, A6 processor, and a polycarbonate body that’s about as light as you can imagine.
In De Rosa’s fictional world, the iPhone SJ would be the best smartphone on the planet. And based off his concept work, I would have to agree.
Despite all our 21st-century technical wizardry, one of the easiest and least expensive ways to get a very basic idea of physical health is through a metric that’s been used for a very long time: body weight.
The Withings WiFi Body Scale ($160) takes this concept to the next level in many ways, including allowing you access to all your data on a gorgeously designed iOS app. It also adds an even more important metric, body fat percentage, and goes a long way to erasing many of the pitfalls using a simple scale can lead to — and it does this all while remaining incredibly easy to use. In fact, it might be the most effective tool I’ve used to keep healthy.
Adding contact information to your phone can be a tedious task, especially with devices like the iPhone, which allow you to add a whole lot more than just a name and a phone number. But there is one quick and easy way to add missing information to your address book without even touching your device’s virtual keyboard: Syncing your contacts with Facebook.
If you’re a Facebook user — and who isn’t these days? — and you have the official Facebook app installed on your device, you can add birthdays, URLs, and even photos to your address book in just a few taps.
Despite a message posted to Twitter by Pod2g earlier this week, suggesting an untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S was less than a week away from public release, a new blog post detailing the iOS hacker’s process indicates the exploit could still be weeks away yet.
Pod2g has revealed that his new exploit requires a developer account to inject the necessary files to your device, and until he finds a way around this, the hack will not see a public release.