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News - page 1168

Photoshop Touch gets axed on iOS as Adobe preps new retouching app

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Bye-bye, Photoshop Touch.
Bye-bye, Photoshop Touch.
Photo: Adobe

Adobe is killing off its mobile version of Photoshop, doubling down on its strategy of creating simpler photo apps focused on specific tasks rather than all-in-one photo-editing software.

In a blog post detailing its strategy for mobile apps, Adobe said Photoshop Touch will be taken off the App Store on May 28. A new retouching app codenamed “Project Rigel” is in the works and will be released later this year.

Artist Richard Prince cashes in on others’ Instagram photos

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Inkjet
Inkjet "paintings" from a body of work by Richard Prince from Instagram.
Photo: Collector Daily

Instagram users, adjust your privacy setting and remember the name Richard Prince.

Should he request to follow you, he could one day “appropriate” your pictures and make thousands of dollars off you.

Prince featured 38 screenshots from his Instagram feed in a show in New York City last fall and at the Frieze Art Fair earlier this month, and some of the people featured are just now finding out about their pictures appearing in giant form on gallery walls.

Online romance budding? Send her fields of flowers with this drone film

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Fields of flowers in the Netherlands as seen from a drone.
Fields of flowers in the Netherlands as seen from a drone.
Photo: Voormedia

If flowers are your photographic muse, you use a macro lens to create pictures from a bee’s-eye view.

But consider what a bee sees when it flies. Voormedia in the Netherlands did, flying a drone and filming over breath-taking flower fields in bloom that may have you wanting to give your macro the day off.

Shooting is easy in Keukenhof or Noordwijkerhout in the spring where acres and acres of vibrant pinks and purples bloom at once. Watch the short YouTube video below and you’ll make room in your bag for a quadcopter and GoPro camera.

Worthless 16GB iPhones will finally die out this year

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not-enough
We need more than 16GB.
Photo: Columbia Pictures

Apple might finally be ready to upgrade the storage on the cheapest iPhones 6s model later this year, and it could happen sooner than expected. As someone who upgraded to the 64GB 6 Plus only because 16GB is just not enough, this is great news.

iPhone 6s rumors are starting to pick up steam this week and new research report is backing up two previous rumors that Apple’s newest iPhone will enter mass production in June, with the baseline model getting a storage upgrade to 32GB.

Hockey’s goalie mask saved face and grew into a bulletproof work of art

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Jacques Plante made history in 1959 when refused to play after a facial injury without a protective mask.
Jacques Plante made history in 1959 when he refused to play hockey without a protective mask after suffering a facial injury.
Photo: National Hockey League

In hockey’s early days, if you took a puck to the kisser you got stitched up and put back on the ice. No goalie would dare wear a protective mask — fans considered it unmanly. Coaches worried their netminders would lose their courage. Reporters echoed these judgments in their stories.

 But after stopping a hard wrist shot with his face early in the first period of a game against the Rangers in 1959, Montreal Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante refused to return without the crude, flesh-toned fiberglass mask he used in practice.

The press fussed at him, but Plante believed playing without a mask was like a skydiver jumping without a parachute. Plante’s ghoulish face cover went on to win over goalies, became an enduring symbol of the game and even evolved into a high-tech artistic statement for today’s goaltenders.

Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 6s a month early

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Apple is hoping for big things from its next-gen iPhone.
The iPhone 6s could be coming sooner than expected.
Photo: Cult of Mac

We may only have to wait until August to get our first official glimpse of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, according to a new research note by well-connected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Don’t get too excited though — even though Kuo thinks the iPhone will be unveiled a month earlier than usual, he says it will be released in its usual September slot.

The respected KGI Securities analyst also sheds light on who is set to build the new iPhones, a few of the devices’ key features, and some details about the forthcoming 12.9-inch iPad. Check them out below.

Shock horror! iPhone 7 concept takes a page out of Samsung’s playbook

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Who needs a bezel?
Who needs a bezel?
Photo: Hasan Kaymak

If the multiple worlds theory of quantum mechanics is correct, there is a universe out there somewhere in which Apple slavishly copies every move Samsung makes in the handset department.

A new iPhone 7 concept by designer Hasan Kaymak shows us what that parallel world would look like by demonstrating an iPhone with an edge-to-edge display much like the one Samsung uses for its current Galaxy S6 Edge.

As pointless gimmicks go, it’s actually a pretty neat one.

Apple website confirms iCloud services experiencing problems

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Hacker who tried to extort Apple for $100k is spared prison
It's a cloudy day for many Apple services.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

If you’re having problems with Apple’s iCloud services, don’t worry — you’re not alone!

On its status page, Apple is currently showing yellow alerts for Back to My Mac, Find My iPhone, iCloud Account & Sign-In, iCloud Backup, Drive, Keychain, Mail, iMovie Theater, iWork, and Photos — meaning that services are either running slowly or are down. While not all users are experiences these problems, Apple acknowledges that many are.

Updated trivia game QuizUp has all the answers for finding you a friend

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Where is QuizUp heading? a) Up b) Up c) Up
Where is QuizUp heading? a) Up. b) Up. c) Up.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

When Icelandic developer Thorsteinn Fridriksson unleashed QuizUp on the world in late 2013, the last thing he expected was that the trivia app’s questions would turn into the nerdy equivalent of Cupid’s arrows. However, a surprising number of people who fell in love with the app also fell in love with each other.

“Very soon after we launched, we started hearing about people connecting on the platform,” Fridriksson told Cult of Mac. “You’d be amazed at how many QuizUp couples there are — people who literally met each other because they shared interests in the game.”

Now QuizUp is poised to pivot, taking advantage of its innate ability to connect players — whether for love, friendship or just a killer trivia smackdown. Today’s update marks the biggest and riskiest change in QuizUp’s history, as the multiple-choice game relaunches with a new focus on social networking.

Crazily enough, it just might work.

Popcorn Time’s new web app is already dead

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So long, Popcorn Time on Your Browser.
So long, Popcorn Time on Your Browser.
Photo: Popcorn Time on Your Browser

Promising users access to as many free movies as they wanted via a torrent-streaming website, Popcorn Time’s newly-launched web app was as sweet as a bag of popcorn — and lasted about as long.

Launching just this week, Popcorn Time on Your Browser’s servers were apparently overwhelmed as the site went viral quicker than anyone had anticipated.

Yes, a site offering high quality streaming Hollywood movies for no money whatsoever proved popular — we’re shocked too!

Flickr’s lame auto-tagging feature infuriates users

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Auschwitz
Above: A jungle gym, according to Flickr's highly questionable tagging robots.
Photo: History.com

Photo-hosting site Flickr is taking some heat today over some unfortunate tags automatically showing up on users’ pictures. Specifically, the auto-tagging program has described people (of various races) as “animals” and identified concentration camps as “jungle gyms” and “sport.”

The auto-tag system remains in place, but some users want it gone.

We’re all suckers for filtered photos

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Get more interest in your photos with filters.
Get more interest in your photos with filters.
Photo: Wikipedia Commons

The researchers at Yahoo labs have just quantified the use of filters on digital photos. Say what you want about the death of the art of photography – filters will get your photos noticed.

“We find two groups of serious and casual photographers among filter users,” write the researchers at Yahoo Labs. “The serious see filters as correction tools and prefer milder effects. Casual photographers, by contrast, use filters to significantly transform their photos with bolder effects.”

The best filters for engagement, however, tended to be the ones that increase warmth, exposure, and contrast, rather than the cooler, more obscuring ones.

This is big news if you’re looking to get popular on sites like Flickr and Instagram.

As Apple Watch soars, Pebble is dropping like a rock

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Investors and consumers alike are skipping Pebble
Investors and consumers alike are skipping Pebble
Photo: Pebble

Apple Watch hasn’t even been out for a month yet but it may have already claimed its first victim in the war for your wrist.

Smartwatch maker Pebble is in big trouble and has applied for a $5 million loan from a Silicon Valley bank to stay afloat, according to a new report that claims the company is having a hard time maintaining growth.

Holy crap! LG has made HDTV as thin as wallpaper

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The future is looking bright.
The future of television is crazy thin.
Photo: LG Display

Short on room space? LG has just busted through the thinness limit on massive screened television sets and unveiled its proof of concept HDTV that’s as thin as paper.

Sure, it’s not in production yet, and will likely cost way too much for the average person to buy at first, but a press-on wallpaper television set is pretty high on our list of wants.

Got ‘Android’ in your screenshot? You’ll find an app rejection in your inbox

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Squint hard enough and you should see it.
Squint hard enough and you should see it.
Photo: Robocat

An iOS developer claims the latest version of their app has been rejected by Apple solely because a screenshot dared to mention the forbidden word “Android.”

It’s hardly noticeable — you’ll need to squint to see it — but Apple allegedly wants it gone just in case it reminds iPhone and iPad users that other platforms are available.

Spotify adds tunes that match your running pace, and more

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Spotify wants to make you a harder, better, faster, stronger runner.
Spotify wants to make you a harder, better, faster, stronger runner.
Photo: Spotify

Apple is expected to unveil its huge overhaul of Beats Music in just a few weeks at WWDC but Spotify is firing shots first in the battle for music streaming dominance with a huge update for its iPhone app.

Spotify took the wraps off its new music experience at a keynote this morning, revealing a new Now start page for music discovery to go along with additions such as podcasts, video clips, original content, and an awesome new feature for joggers that matches songs to your running tempo.

Here’s a rundown of the new features:

Facebook Messenger is about to get its game on

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Are you game?
Are you game?
Photo: Facebook

Just when you thought you were safe from ceaseless notifications from Farmville players, Facebook has let it be known that it is planning to add gaming apps to its secondary Messenger app. You know, the one you had to install on your iPhone because they took messaging functions out of the main Facebook mobile app.

Facebook is actively talking with game developers about using the Messenger platform to deliver gaming experiences, which would then lead to more interactions with the Messenger app, and probably revenues, as most of Facebook’s non advertising revenue comes from third-party games.

Apple Watch’s biggest problem: Women don’t dig it

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Is Apple Watch mostly for men?
Is Apple Watch mostly for men?
Photo: Beyonce/Twitter

The only Apple Watches I’ve seen in the wild so far have been strapped to men’s wrists, and according to one of the world’s top Apple analysts, that could be a bad indicator for the digital timepieces’ popularity.

In a new note to investors, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has cut his 2015 expectations for Apple Watch sales from 30 million down to just 15 million after research found that Apple Watch has attracted mostly men.

Apple considers massive office expansion in San Jose

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Apple employees can make thousands selling their login info.
Apple's spaceship campus isn't big enough for all its Silicon Valley employees.
Photo: Apple

The biggest city in Silicon Valley is about to land the world’s biggest tech company.

Apple is considering expanding into north San Jose to lease more office space, even though the company’s gigantic space ship campus is scheduled to be completed next year and house more than 13,00 employees.

These are the garden gnomes of the starship Enterprise

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Even in a red shirt, a garden gnome is not safe.
In a red shirt, not even a garden gnome is safe.
Photo: Think Geek

Your garden may be seasonal, but part of it can live long and prosper with a set of Star Trek garden gnomes from the warped minds at Think Geek.

There are four, including a dead yeoman in a red shirt, lying on a slab that says, “Join Starfleet they said. It’d be fun they said.”

Imagine if Mr. Scott in the transporter room mixed up the energy patterns of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock with elves and you would have the Think Geek creations.

Microsoft leaks its brand new chat app for iPhone

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Flow will work alongside Microsoft Outlook.
Flow will work alongside Microsoft Outlook.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Microsoft has inadvertently leaked plans to release a new chat app for iPhone called Flow, which will allow users to have “rapid email conversations.” The service will be a part of Outlook, but it will focus on quick communication with “no subject lines, salutations, or signatures.”

Future phones could be unlocked by monitoring brain waves

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Never mind Touch ID, this could be the best way of unlocking future phones.
Never mind Touch ID, this could be the best way of unlocking future phones.

Touch ID made unlocking your phone faster than previously, but you know what’s more secure than fingerprints as authentication? Brainwaves.

That’s according to Blair Armstrong of the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language in Spain, who feels that the most secure type of biometrics technology could one day involve measuring the brain response of individual tech users to various words or acronyms.

Popcorn Time’s new website makes piracy easier than ever

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Piracy hasn't been this easy since the days of Blackbeard.
Piracy hasn't been this easy since the days of Blackbeard.
Photo: Popcorn in Your Browser

In news that is likely to cause all manner of headaches around Hollywood, Popcorn Time — the streaming torrent service often described as “Netflix for pirates” — is now easier to access than ever, thanks to a new website.

But how long will it last?