News - page 1226

LAS VEGAS — Everyone hates loudmouth jerks who talk too loudly on their cellphones in public. If this is you know or someone you love, a new startup may have the answer.

Onvocal’s Mix360 is a Bluetooth headset with a microphone that detects ambient sound. So if you’re talking on your cell, you can hear exactly how loud you are and modulate your voice accordingly.

“It’ll end those annoying calls where people can’t hear how loud they are and are shouting into their phones,” said Ashley Waters, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts-based startup.

LAS VEGAS — For more than 10 years, Michael Wallace and Darin Barri were toy designers. Depressed about plummeting sales because of video games, the pair went on a week long bender to drown their sorrows.

They both loved lychee martinis, which are tricky to make. They dreamed of a smart cocktail mixer that uses weight — rather than volume — to make mixed drinks. So they hacked a kitchen scale with some electronics and coded an app. The resulting system, called Perfect Drink, makes it impossible to screw up martinis and dozens of other cocktails. They took it to Brookstone, who loved it and put it on the market. Eighteen months later, they’ve sold 120,000 units.

Now they’re back with Perfect Bake, a foolproof baking system that uses the weight of ingredients, rather than volume, to guide clueless home bakers.

Quick: How much does an iPhone 6 cost? If you read this blog at all, you probably know that answer can range wildly depending on a variety of factors: how much storage it’s got, whether it’s subsidized, what carrier it’s on and what coverage you’ve got. Even so, would you ever guess that an iPhone 6 costs $7,500? Well, that’s just what two contestants on The Price Is Right did on a recent episode of the show.

We said that Apple was going to dominate this year’s Consumer Electronics Show — despite not being there in person — and here’s another example of why that’s true.

Although the Apple Watch isn’t out yet, mobile-marketing firm TapSense is taking advantage of CES mania to unveil its plans to release an Apple Watch ad-buying service, aimed at developers. This service will let businesses create ads targeted at individual users of Apple’s upcoming wearables device.

These ads would use “push notifications” to alert customers of specific deals they may be interested in, although only inside apps that have already been opened.

LAS VEGAS — As soon as I saw this Wi-Fi-connected kettle, I wondered to myself: “Why on earth would anyone want a Wi-Fi-connected kettle?”

This is crazy. Connectivity gone mad. It’s got Wi-Fi for the sake of it. It’s a gimmick. Tech trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

But I talked to the CEO, and his answer surprised me. Now I totally want one.

The Smarter Wi-Fi-connected kettle, called the iKettle in the U.K., is so British it’s not funny. Every household in the U.K. has an electric kettle. It’s on all day, every day, making cuppa after cuppa, all day long.

If you’ve ever wanted an ultra-slim hard disk drive to go along with your MacBook Air or other supermodel-thin device, now’s your chance: the Seagate Seven is set to be the world’s thinnest HDD ever — measuring just 7mm thick.

To put that in perspective, that’s 01.mm thinner than even the slimline iPhone 6 Plus: an astonishing engineering feat, which also pulls off the difficult task of being a gorgeous piece of design. On top of that, it offers 500GB of storage, excellent speeds, and USB 3.0 connectivity.

What more could you ask for?

Rumors of a larger 12-inch iPad have been swirling for months now, but we’ve yet to see any credible parts or renders. That may have just changed, though: renders of a larger rear iPad Pro shell, allegedly from a Foxconn factory.

More than a year after Apple broke ground on its futuristic “spaceship” Apple Campus 2, we have another progress report courtesy of a new drone flyover video from Myithz.

As you can see from the video (which looks absolutely stunning on a 5K iMac, thanks to its high resolution), the forthcoming Apple headquarters is really starting to take shape now, as building continues on the $5 billion campus.

Check it out after the jump:

LAS VEGAS — I love basketball, but I have a weakness — I can’t jump.

I’ve hit the gym. I’ve tried jumping exercises.

None of it has worked, but a new fitness sensor called VERT might be the first wearable that finally helps me get above the rim, thanks to its workouts, which are designed to help you improve your leaping ability, while also preventing injuries on the court.

LAS VEGAS — When it comes to the smart home, there are two key players right now: Apple and Nest, the latter of which is owned by Google. While plenty of smart lock and thermostat makers are starting to support Apple’s HomeKit, the “Works with Nest” family is also growing.

That other man being, in this case, freelance graphic designer Viktor Hertz, who spends some of his time making fun little art pieces out of Macintosh progress bars.

He calls this project his “work in progress bars,” and you can see his whole collection on his main page, as well as some of his other illustration work over on Behance. Continue below to see a few more tasty treats from Hertz, who calls it “a quick and silly little side-project of mine.”

Happy New Year to all of you wonderful Cult of Mac readers. This week, we’ve yet again compiled our best content right in one place for you to enjoy over the weekend.

We’ve got the top security tips for getting online safely, a sweet little story about using Siri to wrangle those pesky resolutions, the best games of 2014, and plenty more. Check them out below for the full scoop, and head on over to subscribe to or download the latest issue.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows. But it doesn’t have to.

The creators of a new dating app helps singles connect based on politics to help find like-minded matches on hot-button issues like guns, abortion, gay marriage and climate change.

So if size (of government) does matter, candiDate is available for free download on the Google Play store with a version for iPhone in the works.

A majority of single people in the United States have tried online dating, according to the website Statistic Brain. OK Cupid has 12 million users while Tinder boasts of having 50 million seeking a connection.

More than 50 percent of people ages 18-29 are not registered to vote and the digital agency HelpsGood wanted to develop a product that could invigorate young people to get more politically engaged.

Apple has today increased the annual subscription cost of its Mac and iOS Developer Programs in several countries across Europe. While the prices remain the same at $99 in the U.S., Europeans can now expect to pay anything from $96 to $121, depending on where they live.

Silicon Valley has a lot of very bright people, but there are very few who ever reach the level of Steve Jobs. One who might come close is Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has actually been able to use his visionary take on the future to snatch away senior execs from Apple to come and work for him.

According to a Musk employee writing on Quora, however, it’s not just employees that Elon shares in common with Apple’s late co-founder and former CEO.

Much like Jobs, Musk is described as having a ‘reality distortion field’ that helps him convince others that what they view as impossible doesn’t have to remain that way.

And it’s not always a pretty sight.

A new Apple online ad campaign called “Start Something New” has extended to Apple’s brick-and-mortar retail outlets — with the walls of Apple Stores being used to show off artwork created using Apple products.

Apple first launched the online campaign on its Japanese website, before extending it internationally. It shows off work in which “every brushstroke, every pixel, and every frame of film” was created by artistic Apple users, using software like the third-party photography and painting apps VSCO Cam and Waterlogue, along with better known tools such as iDraw and Final Cut Pro, and in-built features like the iPhone’s Panorama mode.

This week, on our maiden episode of 2015: The story of an iOS developer who gave a gift so generous, it went viral; discovering new apps and podcasts on iTunes is an awful experience, but we know how to fix it; plus, how Steve Jobs contributions helped rebuild a struggling Disney…

And stay tuned for an all-new CultCast 2nd Hour, where pro photographer David Hobby shares his favorite tips and tactics for taking great travel photos, his bag-worthy gear, plus his street photography advice will help you not get punched…

Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Full show notes ahead!

As the company’s first major new product category since the iPad, Apple fans are understandably excited about getting their hands on an Apple Watch sometime in 2015.

But while Apple has so far given just “early 2015” as a vague launch date, a look at the Apple Watch micro-sites for around the world paint a different picture; suggesting Apple’s eagerly-awaited wearables debut will follow a gradual iPhone-style rollout which may keep some customers waiting much further into the new year.

Of course, this is highly speculative based on the fact that Apple’s verbiage can change from market to market, but there’s no getting around the fact that currently major markets like the U.S. describe the Apple Watch as “Coming Early 2015” while others simply advertise “Available in 2015.”

So if this is to be believed, when will an Apple Watch land in your market? Check out the (possible) answer after the jump:

As per Japanese tradition, Apple has started handing out its Fukubukuro (a.k.a. “Lucky Bags”) to customers at its brick-and-mortar retail stores in Japan — giving some fortunate buyers massive discounts on the latest Apple products and accessories.

The bags are part of a special New Year offer, and are available in only limited quantities, with customers not knowing which they’re going to get until they’ve stumped up their ¥36,000 (around $300).

Check out the bag’s contents (as well as how you can get your hands on one, even if you don’t live in Japan!) after the jump:

2014 was a great year for movies, but — if anything — 2015 looks to be even better. If you’re fretting over which films to build your year around, look no further: Cult of Mac has you covered.

From sci-fi epics from the brains behind The Matrix, to the next instalment in the James Bond franchise, to, yes, the next Star Wars movie, here are the flicks you’ll want to check out this year.

2014 will go down as one of the biggest years in Apple history. The stock hit record highs. The company’s first wearable was revealed. And Apple dropped $3 billion on its biggest acquisition ever. But of all the huge news Apple dropped in the last 12 months, nothing is likely to have as big an impact as the previously unthinkable announcement that Apple and IBM buried the hatchet and partnered up.

The move was significant not only for the historic aspect of the two rival tech titans uniting, but also for how it will impact all of us in the workplace. In his final note of the year, top Apple analyst Horace Dediu dubbed the IBM partnership “the most significant technology news of 2014.”

That may sound ridiculous considering how much hype Apple Watch is getting ahead of its release, but Dediu points to the first wave of apps created by the partnership. These offer an early indication of just how transformative the relationship could be. For the first time, enterprise apps are being designed for their users (the employees) rather than their employers.

Just take a look at the difference between IBM’s new Expert Tech app compared to the closest equivalent from Oracle, and see which one you’d rather work with:

Photography’s impact on society doesn’t come down to single, striking images like it once did. Instead, the power today comes from conversations: What we talked about in 2014 often began with pictures and videos that were seen and shared over and over again.

It did not matter whether the images came from skilled photojournalists or witnesses with cellphones. Consider that Instagram alone churns out 70 million images a day. From that sea of imagery, a collective and comprehensive body of work emerged. We subconsciously curated those images based on our own experiences and attitudes — and maybe even grew a little in the process.

I asked Siri to set a 6:30 a.m. alarm so I could get this article written before my morning spin class. And that got me wondering what other things the young woman on my iPhone 6 Plus could do to help me meet or exceed my plans to dominate in 2015.

After my wake-up alarm, I told Siri to “call me ‘Champ.'” What better way to get our relationship started than to establish a motivational nickname? I was going to go with “Tiger” or “Hero” or “Shnoogems,” but decided “Champ” was the least embarrassing if Siri shouted it out in public.

Apple Pay is a pretty seamless service for the most part — until you have to restore your iPhone, that is.

Over on the Apple Support Communities forum, a number of users are complaining that they’ve been unable to add credit cards back into Apple Pay after performing a factory restore — despite the fact that doing so should remove their cards completely.

When users try and reload their cards, they receive a message saying, “Could not add card. Try again later or contact your card issuer for more information.”

While most of us are still a day away from 2015, in New Zealand, New Year has already happened. Celebrating with an amusingly offbeat message, Steve Wozniak took to Facebook to engage in a bit of numerical fun for the year ahead.

Having turned 64 this year, 2014 has seen Woz on vintage form: from his controversially suggesting Apple should create an Android device, to penning an open letter to the FCC asking them to keep the Internet free, to raising eyebrows by dismissing the Apple Watch as a “luxury fitness band.”

With plans for a reality TV show and his heart set on becoming a fully-fledged Australian citizen, it seems 2015 is likely to be just as eventful.

Until then, you can check out Woz’s “unique” New Year’s message after the jump: