You know how when you pull that rank-looking piece of meat from the fridge, you don’t really know whether it’ll fill you or kill you? Is that chunk of chicken still fresh? Should you grill that fish or toss it?
Now (or soon anyway), you can use the Peres to answer those questions. It’s an electronic nose that sniffs your meat and tells you whether it’s still good to eat.
In the olden days, format snobbery was a little bigger. Real photographers used medium format cameras, stuffed with big rolls of 120 or 220 film, and they laughed at folks who struggled by with little toy “full-frame” 35mm cameras.
These medium format cameras were also distinctly old school, without much automatic control.
Back then, the Pentax 645 was an odd camera, an affordable medium format camera with auto-everything. Well, not everything, but way more than you’d get in the Mamiyas and Hasselblads at the time.
Which is all to introduce the Pentax 645Z, Ricoh’s new 51.5 megapixel body with a price tag of $8,500, not much more than a top-of-the-line full frame SLR body.
Let’s face it, touchscreen controls just aren’t the same as old fashioned, plastic buttons. Free emulators on the iPhone make it easy to play classic games, but the D-pad doesn’t translate very well to a touchscreen.
If you’re feeling particularly nostalgic for the days of the Game Boy, an iPhone accessory called the G-pad hopes to give you the best of both worlds.
Most Apple fans would undoubtedly love to have CarPlay in their vehicles. But unless you shell out for a brand new whip from the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes, you’re out of luck.
Well, at least for now.
A new report claims that Apple and Alpine Electronics are working on an aftermarket version of CarPlay that will go on sale this fall.
David Fincher, who was previously rumored to direct Sony’s movie about Steve Jobs, is now out of the picture. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fincher and Sony have parted ways due to disagreements over “compensation and control.”
And if Fincher is out, that means his top pick to play Jobs, Christian Bale, will probably not be involved with the project either.
If busting out your iPhone to catalog your #outfitoftheday is just too tedious, meet the mirror that will take your selfie game to the next level.
S.E.L.F.I.E (Self Enhancing Live Feed Image Engine) looks like your average mirror, but behind the shiny glass facade is a Mac Mini-powered selfie machine that features facial recognition tech so all you have to do is smile snap your picture.
Here’s how it works:
My biggest qualm with the stock Messages app is its lack of a quick reply feature.
A new jailbreak tweak called Auki was released yesterday at JailbreakCon, and it works like the Messages app Apple should have made in iOS 7. In terms of elegance and simplicity, Auki leapfrogs tweaks like biteSMS that came before. It’s quick reply done right, then some.
The idea of aliens invading earth is a theory that has been created and expanded upon for many years. In the app Captain Bubblenaut the invasion comes to life as players help guide an alien as he obliterates Erf and all erflings standing in his way. Drag your finger across the screen to help guide Captain Bubblenaut to victory. How many erflings do you think you can destroy for a spot on top of the high-score charts?
Take a look at the video and see what you think.
What do you get when you combine several hundred serious geeks, two large rooms, five decades’ worth of vintage computers, and a weekend in New Jersey? The Vintage Computer Festival East, of course!
The ninth running of the VCF East was held April 4-7 at the InfoAge Science Center in Wall Township, New Jersey. Hosted by MARCH, the MidAtlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists group, the 2014 show saw the largest number of exhibitors and attendees for a VCF East yet, with exhibit halls expanded from one to two rooms and three days of lectures and seminars available for attendees. The show featured a wide range of computing history, from a seminal, room-size UNIVAC computer, through the DEC, Prime and HP minicomputer era, to the workstations and home computers of the 1970s and ’80s.
MagBak made a name for itself last year as the maker of the world’s thinnest iPad mount. Consisting of a wall holder (called the MagStick) and a strong, yet thin magnetic grip which adheres to the back of the tablet, the project was a huge success on Kickstarter.
Now the team behind MagBak have returned with their latest product iteration: a MagBak designed for the iPad Air and iPad mini. With around three days to go, the Kickstarter campaign has already raised close to twice its $15,000 funding goal.
Everyone knows Apple is incredibly profitable, but did you know that the top-earning tech company brings in more money than Hewlett-Packard, Google, Intel and Cisco combined?
That’s according to the San Jose Mercury News’ newly published Silicon Valley 150 list, which ranks 75 tech companies using data from Bloomberg and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Cups is an amazing proposition, and it’s going to be fascinating to see if it works. The app/service gives you unlimited coffee in NYC, from $45 per month. Yup, subscription coffee, just like Netflix or Spotify.
New leaked images purportedly taken inside a Foxconn plant show the iPhone 6 chassis and a handful of manufacturing molds for Apple’s upcoming smartphone.
The photos, posted on Chinese microblogging website Weibo over the weekend, appear to confirm that Apple will increase the size of the iPhone.
This is the Gallery Waist Pack. It’s the answer to the question, “What if we made a fanny pack for the iPad?”
That’s not quite as simple as it would seem. After all, the fanny pack is the preferred bag of the middle-aged and style-free. It’s the bag for somebody who values practicality over everything else.
And while the iPad is not completely the opposite of this, it is at least opposed to the beige pleated-pants crowd.
Mixing the two is like crossing the streams.
Folks who work with words have Drafts. People who want to capture a quick picture have a home-screen shortcut to the built-in camera. But what do musicians have to remember a tune when it pops into their head? Now they have Hum, an iPhone app for capturing song-writing ideas.
Samsung has redesigned its SD and microSD cards with color coding that makes it easier to spot the difference between product lines – regular, Pro and Evo. Unfortunately, this is the wrong way to color-code cards.
Dorks of the world, rejoice. Runnur has designed the perfect way for you to carry your iPad on your belt and not look cool. Countless hours doubtless went into making sure that the Hands Free would be not only secure and reliable, but also make you look like an utter drongo when you use it.
Remember Brett Terpstra’s Total Numbers service from last week? Good, because now it’s available in and even more useful and labor-free form as a PopClip Extension.
Now all you need to do is highlight a bunch of numbers with the mouse, and the new “Sum” extension will add them all up for you.
There’s a familiar look you see on the faces of parents at theme parks. It’s a look their children are rarely able to understand — caught as they are in the clutches of school vacations and roller coasters with names like Afterburn and the Dahlonega Mine Train. It’s a look that says, ‘No matter how much fun this is, the credit card bill at the end of the holiday is going to be hell.’
I wanted to be the carefree kid when playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile. After all, this is a sequel to a game franchise I loved to death growing up. There are few better things in life than riding roller coasters — but designing them may be one.
When I sat down to play RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile, however, I quickly found the childlike innocence behind my eyes fading. Not only did I want to put away childish things by the time I stopped playing — I wanted to smash my iPad and send the bill to Atari.
And I would have been entirely justified in doing so.
Have you played Monument Valley yet? Our previous choice for ‘Game of the Week,’ this surreal, M.C. Escher-inspired puzzle game has proved an absolute phenomenon since its launch in the App Store.
But what if you’ve already finished ustwo’s masterpiece, and are now on the lookout for more of the same?
Never fear, gentle reader — we can help. Although there are precious few games which be described as similar to Monument Valley (some people aren’t even convinced it’s a game to begin with), Cult of Mac spoke with lead designer Ken Wong for his picks of the top games currently available on iOS.
Here’s what he came up with:
It seems that Nintendo has no plans to bring its extensive back catalog of games to the App Store, but fans looking to play Nintendo DS titles on their iOS devices can now pick up a new, jailbreak-free emulator.
Venus — the 256-foot super-yacht, commissioned by Steve Jobs — has been sighted in Ensenada, Baja California.
A coastal city in Mexico, on the Baja California Peninsula, Ensenada is a popular cruise ship destination. Photos of the vessel in dock were sent in by Cult of Mac reader Felipe Cornejo. Cornejo notes that he did not see any of Jobs’ family at the site, and that dock workers he spoke with weren’t aware this was Jobs’ boat.
From the highs of the Steve Jobs portrait made out of 20lbs of electronic waste, to the lows of the hideous statue that looked like a totem from Hellraiser, there have certainly been some “uneven” tributes to Apple’s late co-founder.
So which camp does this creation fall into, then?
Called “Baked Apple,” the fountain-sculpture depicts a deformed Apple II sitting on top of a column (previously the base lamp), adorned with images of Jobs and the Apple logo. It was created by artist Robbie Schoen, who once attended Jobs’ alma mater. Schoen, and made his creation with the aid of a real-life Apple II, formerly belonging to the school’s science department.
Remember when Tim Cook said he wanted Apple to be a “force for good” in the world, in terms of sustainability?
In keeping with Apple’s plans to use 100% renewable energy to power all of its facilities, it has recently taken over a small hydroelectric project at a Central Oregon site, near to the company’s data center in Prineville.
Since these data centers consume massive amounts of electricity (read: the equivalent of a small city), Apple has been keen to explore alternative sources of energy to keep them in clean, renewable energy.
Apple has reportedly hired Karl Heiselman, chief executive officer of branding agency Wolff Olins, to join the company in a new marketing communications role.
The former CEO and branding expert has been with Wolff Olins for a total of 14 years — and during his seven years as chief executive officer has worked with a number of high profile clients, including Apple.