News - page 1144

In my mind, the original iPod basically came out yesterday. Which is why it’s more than a little surreal — yet strangely amusing — watching kids who weren’t even born in 2001 react to it like they’re archeologists uncovering the relics of a bygone civilization.

Does it make calls? Does it have external speakers? And surely it’s got to have a touchscreen somewhere, if you can only work out which button to press. No, no, and no are the answers, as these grade school kids learn over the course of an amusing video. Check it out below:

We hope that the designer of this cute Apple Watch stand doesn’t get an adorable little cease-and-desist letter in the mail.

The WatchMe stand bears an uncanny resemblance to the stars of some despicable memes scattered across the Internet like salt, but it isn’t a complete rip-off. They don’t have arms, after all. And luckily, the Apple Watch, which the stand wears like a monocle, isn’t round.

So it’s a toss-up, really.

If you have plans this weekend to saunter into your local Apple Store and pick up a Nest thermostat for your increasingly connected home, we have bad news for you: The company is no longer offering the device for sale in either its retail or online stores.

But could Apple interest you in an Ecobee?

The iPhone 6s is likely to be revealed within the next two months, which means the leaks are starting to flow out of the supply chain like toxic fumes pouring out of Foxconn factories. We got our first look at a purported iPhone 6s rear shell last week, and now a new set of pictures of an alleged iPhone 6s front panel have leaked online.

When it comes to the App Store and the Mac App Store, the two software dispensing platforms are not treated equally.

Not only do top 10 Mac App Store apps make a whole lot less than the chart toppers on iOS, but developers are noticing that Apple’s not even giving Mac app developers some of the same critical tools their counterparts enjoy on the App Store.

“What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is a common phrase that unfortunately does not apply to the apps on your phone. It turns out that thousands of apps on Android and iOS secretly have ads in them that you can’t see, and they very well might be what’s causing a number of problems that plague smartphones today.

It’s iPhone rumor season which means concept artists are busting out their best guesses as to what Jony Ive’s next smartphone design changes might entail. We’ve already seen some super thin iPhone redesigns, but concept designers Ivo Marić and Tomislav have taken a different approach.

Instead of changing the iPhone’s form factor, the designers’ iPhone 7 concept looks just like an iPhone 6. It comes with all the features we’d expect to see — sapphire glass, an A10 processor, 16 Megapixel camera sensor, QHD Retina display — but the duo have dreamed up a super special wireless dock that does a lot more than just wireless charging.

Check it out:

In an effort to outlaw discrimination against LGBT people under federal law, members of congress introduced the historic Equality Act of 2015 today, and they’ve got the biggest company in tech on their side.

By ensuring people can no longer be discriminated against due to sexual orientation or gender identity, the sweeping legislation would extend these rights to LGBT people in the 31 states that don’t offer those protections to LGBT citizens. The new bill already has 150 co-sponsors, plus Apple’s official endorsement.

Despite launching a few months ago, the new MacBook hasn’t gotten a tremendous amount of love from accessory makers so far. Above the Fray, a company based in Thailand, noticed a glaring omission for a 12-inch MacBook cable manager so the team took it upon themselves to create one.

Amid continuing rumors that it might be building an electric car, Apple revealed that is has boosted its research-and-development spending by $1.5 billion this year.

While Apple is dumping more money into R&D, it’s been able to trim costs in other areas. In its Securities and Exchange Commission filing for the fiscal quarter that ended June 27, Apple lowered its capital-spending projections for the year by 8 percent, which could amount to $1 billion in savings.

The E1 camera is so small, there is barely any room on the body for its two-character name.

This is only a slight exaggeration for the slight camera with large ambitions and an impressive list of specs that could make it legitimate competition for GoPro, the reigning king of the Point of View camera market.

Startup camera company Z says its E1 is the world’s smallest Micro Four Thirds 4K video camera with interchangeable lenses.

From Photoshop to Flash, Adobe’s software products are a key part of the digital media ecosystem. Mastering a set of tools as wide ranging as theirs takes a lot of time, which is exactly what the Lifetime Subscription to Adobe Training Videos offers. For $89, you’ll get literally as much time as you need to absorb thousands of lessons on the countless facets of Adobe and web design.

Apple has launched its “Back to School” promotion for 2015, and this year’s is… kinda “meh” to be honest.

Instead of the gift cards Apple offered in 2014 and 2013, this year students who buy a new Mac will be eligible to receive a pair of Beats Solo2 On-Ear Headphones or Beats Solo2 Wireless On-Ear Headphones for their trouble.

John Spinello stuck a safety pin in a light socket. He was 3 and never forgot how the shock “flipped me over backwards.”

As an adult, he turned that moment of mischievous curiosity into a board game that shaped the lives of millions of kids around the world.

Any “dopey doctor” who has played Operation knows the loud buzzing sound when you’ve botched your attempt at removing the patient’s funny bone. It first went off 50 years ago this year. Kids today play the game, adults still hear the buzzer from their childhood and some actually credit it with their pursuit of a career in medicine.

Apple could opt to include a Touch ID fingerprint sensor in its new Apple TV remote, according to a patent application published today.

Unlike the iPhone and iPad, however, this sensor wouldn’t be used for unlocking your device, but rather quickly making it aware of who is watching at any given time — thereby letting Apple’s long-awaited TV configure volume, screen brightness, and suggested channels on a person-by-person basis. Smart, eh?

It was inevitable that the success of Apple Music was going to have some people screaming about anti-competitive practices, and that’s exactly what happened. Yesterday, senator (and former SNL alumni) Al Franken threw his hat into the ring by writing a letter requesting that the Justice Department take the matter seriously.

The overwhelming majority of mobile podcast listening is done on an iPhone, most of it on Apple’s own Podcasts app, which is why it’s no wonder Apple would be interested in figuring out a way to monetize the service if it can.

In a patent application published today, Apple describes how in the future it could interrupt podcasts with targeted personalized advertisements, by way of Apple’s iAd platform.

Apple’s plans for HomeKit to become the de facto platform for the connected home is taking longer than expected to happen because of the company’s obsession with security, according to a recent report.

Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as famous super spy James Bond looks to take a darker, more roguish turn than ever, with Bond looking to “disappear” from the British spy agency that gives him the “00” license to kill rating.

The new trailer has all sorts of dramatic moments interspersed with the action, gadgetry, cars, women, overly-confident villains and explosions fans want to see.

Check it out below and be ready to see your first glimpse at the big bad behind the scenes of anti-spy organization, SPECTRE, which seems to be aimed squarely at Bond, James Bond’s broad shoulders.

Remember when Google announced, probably from within a heavily fortified and Skynet-proof bunker, that its artificial neural networks were “dreaming”? And then we saw the above picture of a squirrel ravaged by a computer’s best and most terrifying guesses at what things look like, and we all peed a little?

Well, the company has released that code to the public, and now some Scarecrow-esque villain has provided us with Dreamscope, a way to turn your beloved pictures into extensions of a neurotic computer’s twisted psyche.

When it comes to smartwatch mind share, Apple Watch is killing the competition.

That’s just one of several key takeaways from an interesting new study that digs into the public’s perception of smartwatches in general and Apple’s wearable in particular.

“I’m leaving” is a message I probably send way too often, but not as often as “I’m here.” It’s just become routine whenever I’m making plans or picking someone up. It’s not necessarily a burden, but it’d be a nice luxury to be able to quickly send friends these repeat messages automatically to save a little bit of time. You’re smart so I bet you know where I’m going with this.

Yes, Written is a new app for iPhone that lets you write out five of your most commonly used phrases and save them for easy access in Notification Center. Then when you pull down the Today view from the top, you see the Written widget with your five messages. Tap one to send it along to your favorite contacts. It works with the Messages app and even WhatsApp.

Video game streaming juggernaut Twitch.tv is stepping up its HTML5 game today with a move to get rid of buggy and overly-patched Flash in Twitch’s website.

The move today is only for the player part of the equation, but a full HTML5 solution should be forthcoming.

“Today’s redesign moves half of the video player – specifically the controls – from Flash to HTML5 and Javascript,” Twitch writes on its blog page. “The video itself is still in Flash underneath the controls. However, this is an important step to releasing the much-anticipated full HTML5 player.”

We aren’t going to find out what the next iPhone looks like until Apple shows us (probably in September), but that isn’t stopping designers from dreaming up some concepts.

Here’s a pretty bold one that imagines the next Apple smartphone as a mix between a Samsung Galaxy Edge and a Club Cracker. You can check it out in the video below.

Apple is giving the public another taste of the future today by seeding the second public betas of iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan to testers this morning, just a day after releasing iOS 9 beta 4 and EL Capitan beta 4 to developers.