News - page 1057

LAS VEGAS — Your body is an amazing energy creation machine but you’re not even using it to its full potential. All the walking, running, biking and other movements you make throughout the day all create kinetic energy, and now you can finally harness it to charge the most important gadgets in your life with Ampy.

Ampy is a wearable battery pack that can be charged via USB, but its superpower is the ability to recharge using motion thanks to a couple of magnets that bounce up and down inside coils. One hour of moderate exercise (jogging or riding a bike) will add up to five hours of standby battery life to your iPhone, or about 1 hour of regular usage. It’s not something you’ll want to use everyday, but it’s perfect for when you’re going on a hike, or experience a power outage.

The device comes with a strap and carrying band so you can place it on your arm or leg depending on what exercises you’re doing. It features a curved profile, making it a great fit for jean pockets, jackets, or anything other object that moves a lot. Priced at $100 the device comes with an accompanying iOS app so you can track how much power you’re generating. A slimmer, more power efficient model is on the way later this year.

Rich single men love the Apple Watch, but if they are dressing for a first date, they may want to wrist up with a good old-fashioned Rolex.

Rolex appears to be the way to a woman’s heart according to a survey of 1,400 members of the millionaire dating app Luxy, an unapologetic company that describes itself as “Tinder minus the poor people.”

Austin-based research group Brains Worldwide Foundation is developing a new iPad app to help parents carry out concussion tests on their kids at home, if they fear their children might have suffered a brain trauma during a sports game or similar.

Sprint is set to match Verizon and T-Mobile by stopping offering two-year phone contracts to new customers, although two-year contracts for tablets will remain.

You can try arguing that Apple’s doing what it’s always done by allegedly eliminating the (quite literally) century-old 3.5mm jack from the upcoming iPhone 7 — but 204,305 people are going to disagree with you.

Surprise box office bomb Steve Jobs has racked up yet more award nominations in the form of three BAFTA awards, a.k.a. the U.K.’s most respected film prize.

Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s controversial movie picked up nominations in the Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Actor categories.

LAS VEGAS — CES is the tech world equivalent of an all-you-can-eat dim sum buffet. Your eyes boggle at all the tantalizing-looking options, but you’re never really sure what you’re about to sink your teeth into.

Sometimes an exhibitor at this sprawling electronics show serves up the tech equivalent of a delicious shrimp dumpling. Other times you end up politely nodding and searching for the nearest napkin.

In today’s Cult of Mac CES 2016 roundup, we’ve got hoverboards, a game console for dogs, robots and other exotic offerings on the menu.

The iPhone camera is great at photos and videos, but if you want to take your shots to the next level, you need some extra gear. BeastGrip is the easy-to-use solution that enables photogs to attach all sorts of components like stabilizers, mics, lights, and DSLR lenses to the iPhone to make a custom, pro-quality camera rig.

Every aspect of BeastGrip’s modular system can be expanded to fit practically any piece of photography hardware you throw at it. Whether you’re shooting on an iPhone, Android, or Windows device, simply loosen some screws, slide in a new segment, and you’re ready to capture professional quality video from your smartphone.

Flexibility is BeatGrip’s biggest selling point. The body alone costs $115, but you can also buy a kit with the company’s DOF adapter that lets you mount Canon or Nikon DSLR lenses to your iPhone, giving you much better depth-of-field for really unique camera phone shots.

The upcoming iPhone 7 is almost certainly ditching the headphone jack at this point. What at first seemed like a ridiculous stretch is now shaping up to be the most credible rumor about the next-gen iPhone so far.

The latest whispers indicate that, while the headphone jack is out, wireless charging and a waterproof design are finally in.

You can warn your kid about too much screen time until you’re blue in the face. They’re too absorbed to listen. You need an enforcer or, better yet, an EyeForcer.

It’s another gadget for your kid, but this one works with you. Looking like eyeglass frames without lenses, the EyeForcer shuts down your child’s device when it senses he or she has been on it too long. It promotes good posture by switching the device off when the young user begins to slouch.

LAS VEGAS — The makers of a tiny new device called the TarDisk Pear promise to permanently double your MacBook’s hard drive space in a matter of moments.

Simply slide the Pear into your MacBook’s SD card slot, run a quick setup (called “pearing”), and your hard-drive capacity will be permanently doubled.

“Pear is a one-click option for upgrading,” TarDisk’s Pierce Schiller told Cult of Mac at CES 2016.

We can officially add luggage locks to the list of things we kind of never expected to get smart versions.

Case and lock maker Dog & Bone is bringing out a keyless, TSA-approved, Bluetooth travel padlock that’s designed to keep unwanted people from getting their dirty hands on your underwear and hoard of duty-free booze. The company is showing off their new device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

The holy grail of the home workout is something that you can get set up for quickly and easily, doesn’t require a lot of gear, and will only take as short a time as possible.

Wahoo Fitness thinks they have this down. The developer of the Wahoo 7 Minute Workout app has brought its science-based, high-intensity interval workout to your big screen via the Apple TV app store, so you can get your workout on quickly and easily.

Apple’s latest acquisition is of a small artificial intelligence company called Emotient. The startup has technology that analyzes people’s emotions through their facial expressions.

Apple “buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” Apple’s spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal. That’s the typical statement Apple gives when snatching up small companies.

It’s not clear yet what Apple has in mind for Emotient, but we sure can speculate.

Navigating the many health devices on the CES show floor, I came across the vSculpt booth and stopped dead in my tracks. Mainly because it looked like a sex toy and they were giving away red panties (best swag ever).

But what I assumed was just a basic vibrator is actually a medical device used for vaginal rejuvenation therapy.

Drones may be big news at CES, but only one can make a splash.

Chinese hardware company Taihuoniao Shenzhen has developed what it says is the first consumer drone for exploring all those big bodies of water that cover most of the Earth.

LAS VEGAS — Learning how to fly a drone isn’t easy, and accidents happen all the time. Wouldn’t it be great if your drone could just fly itself?

AirDog does just that. In fact, the only way to fly AirDog is to use its incredible auto-following technology that keeps the camera aimed at you during the entire flight Cult of Mac met up with the makers of AirDog at CES 2016 for a mountain-biking demo in the desert to see how the drone uses LiDAR and other tech to capture spectacular aerial footage on the fly without any human intervention. We came away ridiculously impressed.

Apple stock opened morning trading today below $100, marking the first time it has dipped below this level since October 2014 — shortly after Apple introduced the iPhone 6.

HTC’s iPhone clone was missing one thing when it made its debut last October: a pink paint job. Now it’s gone one, giving Android fans a near-identical alternative to the rose gold iPhone 6s.

Razer may be best known for its gaming accessories, but the company just launched its latest creation: an activity-tracking, notification-giving Nabu Watch, which works with both Android and iPhone.

Just don’t call it a smartwatch!

With innovations like HealthKit and ResearchKit, Apple has been making big strides into healthcare in the past couple of years. In a new interview with Conversations with Health Care, Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams talks about Apple’s belief in the “democratization” of medicine, among other topics.

With Jony Ive being a self-proclaimed mechanical watch fan, it’s fascinating to see how the Apple Watch design language borrowed elements from traditional Swiss watches — and now how Swiss watches are starting to resemble the Apple Watch.

Luxury watchmaker H. Moser & Cie’s is the closest yet, looking virtually identical to Apple’s smartwatch with its rectangular chassis, crown, band, and even 38mm size. It’s name? The Apple Alp Watch. We’re not even kidding.

More evidence is piling up suggesting that iPhone sales may be weakening, with multiple Apple suppliers reporting lower revenues as a direct result of “weak iPhone 6s and 6s Plus sales.”

If you’ve ever lived through a house fire, you know how devastating it can be. The fear of fire leaves many homeowners anxious, especially when they are away from home. The Leeo Smart Alert is here to save the day.

LAS VEGAS — The makers of a powerful new battery pack called the iTron claim it can be fully charged to 9,000 mAh in an astonishing 18 minutes. Even better, in just three short minutes, it slurps up enough power to recharge an iPhone 6.

To make the package even more enticing, the quick-juicing battery pack charges on a dock that offers three USB ports, so it can become a full-blown charging station for multiple devices.