News - page 1260

What were you doing when you were 17? Probably not publishing a book on how to program 3-D terrain in video games.

Game developer Trent Polack did just that. He’s been playing games since, well, forever.

“My mom says I’ve been playing games since I was 2,” he told Cult of Mac, “but I don’t think that’s possible.”

That lifetime of experience is paying off for Polack, creative director of Team Chaos, a small game studio based in Austin, Texas. His team’s latest project is a collaboration with Rooster Teeth, a video production house beloved by gamers for its hilarious machinima, or films created using video game engines (most notably Red vs. Blue, based on the best-selling Halo series).

In the Rooster Teeth vs. Zombiens, which should hit mobile devices in late November, the Rooster Teeth crew gets turned into cannon fodder as they face off against a swarm of zombie aliens. Cult of Mac talked with Polack about that noteworthy project, his gaming roots and his knack for crafting crazy publicity emails.

For the last year or two, Spotify’s iPad app has been sadly, pathetically ignored. Like Twitter for Mac and Tweetbot for iPad, the app has lagged behind the iPhone version so badly that it almost feels like using a different service.

So the use of the word finally is very fitting when describing Spotify’s big update today on the iPad.

Yesterday Apple notified indie developed James Thomson that he would have to remove the iOS 8 widget from his calculator app, PCalc. After the news received a good amount of backlash and press attention, Apple has reversed its stance on the issue.

Gay rights are the civil rights issue of our time, whether in the marriage chapel, the emergency room or the workplace.

That’s why Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to proclaim he is “proud to be gay” in a powerful personal essay is an important and truly historic act.

Seth Rogen just landed the role to play Christian Bale’s sidekick in Sony’s upcoming biopic on Steve Jobs.

Rogen will reportedly don the mantle of Steve Wozniak, according to Variety, in the film written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle.

We’re all concerned about our privacy lately. Using a different strong password for all our banking and website activities is the best way to keep malicious hackers from getting all up into our grill.

Rapper MC Safesearch, though, needs to remember not to post his passwords in the music video he’s doing about privacy and security.

Check out how this socially-conscious musician gets totally hacked during his own music video.

The launch of Apple Pay was met with resistance by retailers hoping to kill the new payments solution, but after just one week of waging a war on Apple Pay, MCX is already starting to see its death grip on CurrentC supporters begin to weaken.

Meijer, a popular supermarket chain in the Midwest, says it has no plans to stop accepting Apple Pay at its 213 stores, even though its a member of the MCX consortium backed by Walmart, Target, BestBuy, Gap, and over 50 other stores that want to replace your wallet the unlaunched CurrentC service.

In an interview with Michigan Live, Meijer spokesman Frank Gugielmi confirmed that the company supports both Apple Pay and other solutions, despite reports that MCX members receive steep fines for accepting anything other than CurrentC.

PanguTeam’s iOS 8 jailbreak happened much quicker than many people expected, but for most users it wasn’t worth installing since its lack of Cydia meant that most users wouldn’t have the ability to find and install software packages.

That looks set to change tomorrow, however, as the PanguTeam has announced that it plans to release an updated stable version of the Pangu8 jailbreak, bundled along with Cydia. tomorrow with Cydia included.

Tim Cook squashed years of speculations and rumors this morning, only instead of doing it with an iPhone announcement, he made his first public declaration that’s he proud to be gay.

Cook never denied his sexuality, but the letter marks a huge moment for the LGBT community, equal rights, and society in general, as the world’s most powerful CEO committed to being an example and inspiration to those wanting to rise above adversity and bigotry.

The world’s reaction to Cook coming out like a boss has been overwhelmingly positive. Yes, the trolls and bigots have crawled out of their dark places to admonish Cook, but their voices have been refreshingly blasted out by accolades and congratulations from the world’s top CEO’s, celebrities, and activists applauding Tim’s courage.

Here’s how the world turned Tim’s coming out party into a celebration:

For anyone who shoots a lot of videos, having the option to shoot at 60fps is one of the most satisfying parts of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, making your footage as silky smooth as a Barry White pickup line.

If your aim was to put up those videos online, however, until now there’s an excellent chance you were wasting your time, since YouTube was only equipped to handle 30fps.

Fortunately that’s now changed, courtesy of a YouTube update that brings 1080p 60fps to your monitor — provided that you’re using an appropriate browser, which according to my tests includes Safari and Chrome.

One of my favorite runners to be released in the last year is Gameloft’s Spider-Man Unlimited. Released last month, it would probably be the best runner I’ve ever played, if not for it’s onerous free-to-play mechanics which make leveling up or unlocking new Spider-Men a total grind if you don’t pay out money.

It’s a testament to how good the core gameplay is that even though the free-to-play mechanics are so bad, I keep coming back for more. And now I have even more reason to be addicted, because the first major update to Spider-Man Unlimited is here, bringing more Spider-Man, more villains, new environments, and a new gameplay ‘issue’ to the already content-packed runner.

How many ghost movies have you seen? How about werewolf or zombie flicks? With filmmakers churning out copycats constantly, the horror formula can get a little stale.

We’re here to help. This is Cult of Mac’s fourth list of horror movies for your consideration (be sure to check out the classics, monsters, and anthologies from the past few days), and this time we’re tipping you off to movies that take those old standard tropes and put an interesting spin on them. But don’t worry — they’re not so different that they aren’t still horrifying.

If you’re an app-maker looking to rake in the money, you’re better off creating apps for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus than you are for smaller-screened phones, according to a new study.

Analysts at IHS claim that the larger screen size of the iPhone 6 family devices correlate with higher engagement in the form of increased minutes of app usage — in turn leading to more revenue through in-app purchases and advertising.

NASA’s unmanned Antares rocket exploded at launch above Wallops Island, Virginia, yesterday on route to dropping off supplies at the International Space Station.

A lesser casualty of that explosion? One rocket watcher’s iPad, which was blown to smithereens by the explosion.

But don’t worry. Cupertino did the right thing: They replaced it.

By now you’ve probably seen the HP Sprout computer, an oddly-named, yet undeniably original desktop computer/tablet/projector combination that allows users to scan physical items and then manipulate them on screen using their fingers.

One day after the $1,899 system got the tech world talking, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has published a continuation patent application from Apple — originally granted in 2011 — describing a very similar-sounding 3D imaging and display system.

Beats Music may have Apple’s support behind it, but it’s still got a long way to go before it tops the crowded online marketplace.

According to new figures from app analytics firm App Annie, Beats is currently trailing industry leaders Pandora and Spotify. In September, both of those services racked up more downloads and earned more revenue than Beats, across both the App Store and Google Play.

Beats was the ninth most downloaded music app in September, with once again Pandora and Spotify taking the lead — but also the likes of Shazam, SoundCloud and even Apple’s own GarageBand receiving more downloads.

Samsung may ship more devices, but there’s no doubt that Apple is winning the war.

That’s the takeaway from Samsung’s latest earnings report, which stated that the Korean smartphone maker’s Q3 operating profits were just $3.8 billion, a 60 percent drop over last year.

And things are even worse in the mobile division, which dropped 73.9 percent year-over-year.

Now compare those numbers to Apple.

In a beautifully written personal essay, Apple CEO Tim Cook has just come out as gay, finally confirming rumors that have circulated since he took over as Steve Jobs’ replacement in 2011.

With China, India and Korea all representing growing markets, Apple’s expanding into more countries than ever here in 2014. One place you’d be forgiven for not expecting Tim Cook and co. to show up in, however, is Iran.

It seems that this assumption may be wrong, though, as according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is in preliminary contact with U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, as well as Iranian distributors, about possibly entering the country should Western sanctions ease sufficiently.

Buoyed by expectation-defying earnings, Apple Pay, and an apparently insatiable demand for the iPhone 6, AAPL stock closed Wednesday at a new all-time split-adjusted high of $107.3.

Apple was trading at $92 at the time of the 7-to-1 split, which means that its current value is up by more than 10% since the division earlier this year. According to Google Finance, Apple ended the day with a market cap of $626 billion, and $629.67 billion as per Yahoo Finance.

Apple has kept quiet on why its sapphire supplier suddenly went bankrupt, but after weeks of court wrangling, GT Advanced Technology’s COO has filed a revised declaration that reveals why Apple’s dream of sapphire iPhones went up in smoke in less than a year.

GTAT COO Daniel Squiller, says that the original plan was for Apple to buy 2,600 sapphire furnaces and other equipment that GTAT would then operate. However, after months of negotiations, the deal was changed so that GTAT would borrow up to $578 million from Apple to purchase furnace components and assemble furnaces that would be used to grow sapphire for Apple.

The company admits the deal came with huge risk for GTAT while shielding Apple, but because it had the potential to be revolutionary to GTAT’s business, they went ahead with it. Then everything went horrible wrong.

When you live in Apple’s world as a third-party developer, you are required to play by Apple’s rules. And sometimes those rules are subject to sudden change.

James Thomson, the developer behind the scientific calculator app PCalc, was notified today by Apple that his iOS 8 widget must be removed. The reason? A new stipulation that iOS widgets cannot perform calculations.

The reasoning behind Apple’s decision may never be known by Thomson or anyone outside the company, and that’s just the point. The App Store is Apple’s kingdom to rule, for better or worse.

Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige took to the stage at a special event at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood Tuesday to talk about the next slate of blockbuster films the company is planning to release over the next few years. The full docket, with projected dates, is as follows:

· 5/1/15 – Avengers: Age of Ultron
· 7/17/15 – Ant-Man
· 5/6/16 – Captain America: Civil War
· 11/4/16 – Doctor Strange
· 5/5/17 – Guardians of the Galaxy 2
· 7/28/17 – Thor: Ragnarok
· 11/3/17 – Black Panther
· 5/4/18 – Avengers: Infinity War Part I
· 7/6/18 – Captain Marvel
· 11/2/18 – Inhumans
· 5/3/19 – Avengers: Infinity War Part II

While most of us are clear on who The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy are, there are some lesser-known characters getting the full movie spotlight that you may not be aware of. Here’s how they fit into the larger Marvel cinematic universe.

Apple Pay’s biggest competitor backed by major retailers has been hacked before it even launched.
Retailers like Walmart, BestBuy, Gap, and CVS are waging a war against Apple Pay with their own mobile wallet solution, CurrentC, but the pending doom of their QR-code solution is looking even more obvious now, as the company just alerted customers that they’ve been hacked.

Customers who signed up to use CurrentC were notified today via email that hackers have “obtained the email addresses of some of you.”

Email addresses were the only information the hackers stole (because CurrentC isn’t even out yet), but we doubt this is going to make shoppers eager to share their social security number and bank account info with MCX’s partners, once the app launches next year.

Here’s the email: