News - page 1234

Europe’s largest collective of hackers, the Chaos Computer Club, claims to have come up with a way of reproducing fingerprints using only a handful of photos (no pun intended) showing your fingers.

Speaking at the 31st annual Chaos Computer Club convention in Hamburg, Germany, hacker Jan Krissler, a.k.a. “Starbug,” said he had managed to copy the thumbprint of German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen.

This was apparently done using the commercially available software VeriFinger, using a close-up picture of von der Leyen’s thumb, taken from a news conference in October, as well as some other photos showing different angles of the fingerprint.

Never able to find an open Wi-Fi signal when you need one? Maybe you should carry around this sword. Modeled after Frodo’s weapon in The Lord of the Rings, it glows when it’s within range of open Wi-Fi.

Apple Pay is set to arrive in the U.K. during the first half of 2015, according to a recent report from The Telegraph newspaper, which states that Apple is in talks with top banks in the country.

If true, this report backs up what Cult of Mac wrote recently, noting that Apple recently advertised for a new employee to help “drive the roll-out” of mobile payments in Europe and elsewhere.

But there are likely to be a few teething problems along the way.

When people opened up their brand new iPhones and iPads for Christmas, what was the first app they were most likely to download?

Well, the data’s in, and it looks like Minecraft: Pocket Edition had a pretty great Christmas, raking in more money in holiday sales than any other game in the world.

Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s troubled Steve Jobs movie has had difficulty holding onto its cast members, but there’s a way you can help change that: by putting yourself forward for a role.

Beau Bonneau Casting is looking for San Francisco-based extras to appear in the movie when it starts shooting in late January 2015.

Here’s everything you’ll need to do to stand a chance at making the movie, just in case you ever wanted to be in the audience for one of Apple’s product launches (and, frankly, who wouldn’t?).

It was a great Christmas for iOS, according to new figures released by IBM, which monitored mobile traffic for online shopping over the holidays.

What it discovered was that a massive 57.1 percent of online shopping via a mobile device was carried out using an iPhone or iPad: up 8.3 percent compared to the previous year.

While no direct explanations were drawn, this has to be due to the enormous success of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which some analysts have predicted was set to sell a massive 71.5 million units over the festive season.

After previously snubbing Sony’s offer to distrubute the film in the wake of the Sony hacks, Apple is now streaming The Interview on iTunes.

Let’s face it. Deep in our hearts, we all know some colored M&M’s taste better than others. For me, it’s the red and green ones; for my wife, it’s the brown and orange ones. And Van Halen famously stipulated in all its contracts that the band should never be served any brown M&M’s, requiring some lowly stagehand to pick them all out by hand from a bowl before every show.

These days, things would be easier. Case in point: This simple machine, which was custom-rigged out of just an iPhone and an Arduino to individually sort M&M’s by color, no human intervention required.

Riding high on the success of his iPhone video editing app Videoshop, developer Joe Riquelme decided to splurge on his parents for Christmas.

How much did he splurge? Let’s just say that he made every other kid on Earth look like little ingrates by comparison.

He paid off his parents’ mortgage in full. And he documented it for the rest of us, just so we could share in the joy.

Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine is in fresh talks with the world’s top musicians, in hopes of landing more exclusive album deals for iTunes, reports The New York Post.

Apple is looking to replicate the success Beyonce had with her exclusive iTunes album in December 2013, by signing other hot artists to drop their albums early on Beats Music and iTunes. But according to industry sources, the idea of artists making side deals with streaming services is not going over well with record label executives.

Nike is re-releasing the Zvezdochka, a line of space-inspired sneakers first designed for the company 10 years ago by Marc Newson, Jony Ive’s BFF and Apple’s newest star designer.

Notice anything about them? Yup. They look just like the iPhone 5c case. Got to make you wonder if the iPhone 5c case was designed by Newson, don’t you think?

If you’re like me, you’ve probably had that experience of giving an older relative a gift of tech for the holidays, only for it to go unappreciated. In this absolutely priceless video, though, one family turns that situation on its head, tricking their very sweet grandmother into thinking she’s been given an iPhone she has absolutely no use for… until she discovers it’s made of chocolate!

Christmas may be over here in the United States, but the season’s just starting in Japan. Apple has just announced that it will kick off its annual “Lucky Bag” celebration in its Japanese retail stores starting January 2.

2014 was an absolutely monumental year for Apple. Haters will hate, but one thing can’t be denied: This is a company that refuses to rest on its laurels.

Under Tim Cook’s leadership, Apple debuted a new product category with the Apple Watch, sold a record number of new iPhones, made the biggest acquisition in its history, and successfully sent its suffering stock price back into the stratosphere.

The company wasn’t without its missteps, but all in all, it’s hard to call 2014 anything short of a blow-away year for Apple.

Happy holidays everyone, however you celebrate it: Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, kickin’ Kwanzaa and a tipsy New Year!

We trust you’re in the company of family and friends, stuffing your faces and giving and receiving in the best spirit of the holidays.

Whether you head to a theater or stream it in the comfort of your home, you really ought to watch The Interview this weekend.

The action-comedy, about two journalists on a mission to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, has become the unlikely must-see movie of the Christmas break — and it’s your patriotic duty to see it, like it or not.

The Interview has been made available for streaming and purchase online ahead of its theatrical release Christmas Day. YouTube Movies, Google Play, Xbox Videos, and a dedicated website are all offering the controversial comedy for $5.99 to rent and $14.99 to own in HD.

Notably absent from the list of streaming providers is Apple, which refused the chance to make the movie available through iTunes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t stream “James Flacco” and Seth Rogen’s North Korean escapades on your Apple TV or iOS device.

There are plenty of festive apps out there, but one of the quirkiest and most fun is the NORAD Tracks Santa app, which lets you keep real time tabs on Jolly Old Saint Nick as he carries out his gift-dispensing journey around the globe.

As one of the foremost authorities on tracking man-made objects in space, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has been tracking Santa’s progress for many years now. For those who don’t want to use the app, its possible to visit the Santa Tracker website, or check out the updates on Twitter.

Foxconn might get in on Apple’s sapphire business for future iPhones, according to a source speaking with Cult of Mac.

While Foxconn has no actual experience growing sapphire, it is reportedly very interested in the material, and has been actively pursuing various sapphire related patents over the past several years.

Foxconn’s array of sapphire patents include LCD displays with sapphire, protective sapphire covers, methods of sapphire growth, as well as a laser process to cut sapphire substrates to eliminate the need for grinding and polishing.

From perfect superhero books to quirky indie hits, the comics scene circa 2014 is about as varied as it’s ever been.

If you’re looking for some four-color reading recommendations over the holidays, look no further than Cult of Mac’s list showcasing the year’s finest comics. Whether it’s DC’s best-ever take on Batgirl, or Bryan Lee O’Malley’s eagerly awaited follow-up to the superb Scott Pilgrim series, there truly is something for everybody.

It’s December 24th, and there’s no sign of Apple’s annual iTunes 12 Days Of Gifts. We’re calling it: it’s not happening this year. But why not?

Apple turned down the opportunity to distribute the controversial movie The Interview on iTunes, despite a plea from Sony to the White House aimed at getting Cupertino on board.

Sony hoped Apple would step up as its sole “technology partner” to distribute the film, according to The New York Times.

Well, that didn’t last long: Floppy Cloud, the NES and SNES emulator for iOS we wrote about yesterday, has been pulled from the App Store.

When it comes to Asia, Apple’s increasing foothold in China has been the big Cupertino-related story of the year. However, mainland China’s far from the only Asian country that’s big into Apple devices.

According to a new report published today, Apple stormed the smartphone market in Taiwan for the month of November, capturing a 24.6 percent share in sales volume, and a massive 48.9 percent in sales value.

Of the 10 top-selling phone models sold in Taiwan last month, different configurations of the iPhone 6 represented four of them, with the most popular models being the 64GB iPhone 6 Plus, the 64GB iPhone 6, and the 16GB variants of both devices.

If your idea of high comedy is waggling your hind parts at people with a smarmy smirk, Jib Jab’s new funny video is right up your, well, alley.

“2014, You Are History” is a celebrity character-filled musical video in which the biggest names of the year sing a parody song set to the melody of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

Watch the video below and remind yourself of this silly year, including ice bucket challenges, hacked celebrity nudes and Kim Kardashian’s shiny hindquarters.