Celebrities like Samsung phones, but they love marketing paychecks even more.
The wave of Samsung-sponsored selfies that started with massive retweets at the Oscars, has become one of the most popular viral campaigns in the history of the Internet as everyone from Ellen to Big Papi have been spotted snapping Samsung-selfies in exchange for a fat paycheck.
And Apple is totally jealous.
Those hoping to get a peek at Apple’s game-changing future products at next month’s Worldwide Developers Conference reportedly need to “dial back [their] expectations or be disappointed.”
Despite Tim Cook’s promise from the WWDC stage last year that Cupertino would enter “new product categories,” no big reveals are forthcoming on the iWatch or Apple TV fronts at this year’s big conference, according to a report from Re/code.
A week full of news has passed and your host Joshua Smith is here to give you a wrap-up on some of the biggest features. Warrants to search cell phones, leaked iPhone cases and the latest Snapchat update are among just some of the featured stories in today’s rundown. Take a look at the video and be sure to return next week for another.
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For the second time in around one month, a major flaw has been found in popular open-source security software. The hole, which exists in the login tools OAuth and OpenID, affects many websites including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Yahoo, GitHub and others.
The flaw was discovered by Wang Jing, a Ph.D student at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Jing notes that the serious “Covert Redirect” flaw can act as a login popup based on an affected site’s domain. Exploited by an attacker, affected sites may result in users losing control of their login information and personal data — including email addresses, birth dates, and contact lists.
New game Mutants: Genetic Gladiators aims to be your go-to when you want to battle it out with comic book-style monsters that you mutate and create yourself.
The game, from French publisher Kojobo, originated on Facebook, gathering almost 6 million players with a turn-based arena battling scheme that mixes role-playing level-up mechanics with an interesting combat system that uses various monster “genes” to add to the strategy. You’ll choose three mutant gladiators for your battle team, and then pit them against other teams — both AI-controlled and actual other players — for ultimate supremacy.
Check out the launch trailer below for some hot comic-book creature battling action.
Two coders who’ve never met sat in their respective man caves 1,400 miles apart making a game that proves once and for all that whiz-bang graphics aren’t necessary when it comes to building a hit.
Called A Dark Room, their “minimalist text adventure” has stormed the App Store — averaging 10,000 downloads a day (at $0.99 a pop) and currently holding the No. 1 position for paid iPhone games (see our review here).
Here’s how Michael Townsend and Amir Rajan created an indie iOS game with no graphics that became the most unlikely success of the year.
When I was about 11, my best friend was a guy called James Brzezicki, who used to spend hours drawing out super-detailed level designs for platform video games. I copied him, although mine were never as good.
The real problem, though, was that when the drawings were finished we had no way of turning them into actual games. Neither of us was able to code, and the idea that it might be possible to create a video game approaching the quality of, say, Super Mario World was pretty unimaginable stuff.
Thankfully, technology has moved on a lot in the past couple of decades. Proof of this is the launch of a new iPad app called Pixel Press Floors, which lets you create side-scrolling platform games using nothing more than a few basic school supplies.
CHICAGO — I thought I was boarding the train with a camera that gave me a cloak of invisibility.
But even before the train began moving away from the station, the eyes of a man with a handlebar mustache drew a bead on my Autographer, a tiny, continuous-shooting photographic device clipped to my breast pocket.
He furled his brow. He did not blink. What was he thinking? Could he see the lens? Was he wondering if that thing was on? Maybe some insecurity set in, but the vibe felt like he was suspicious.
Of all the many,many, many manga takes on Steve Jobs we’ve inexplicably seen in recent years, this one is by far the weirdest.
Depicting Apple’s late founder as, um, an attractive young lady with a come-hither stare, the gender-switched CEO is gracing T-shirts across Japan.
Originally created as the central character of Chocolate Apple, an unusual manga biography tribute from the illustrator of IS <Infinite Stratos> and the Xenosaga series, the mascot now seems to have taken on a life of his/her own, as a fashionista of sorts.
Somehow I suspect that when Apple began considering entering the wearables market, this was the last thing on anyone’s mind.
Apple has launched a new section of its iOS App Store, offering a roundup of the past month’s best mobile apps as selected by an Apple editorial team.
The “Best of April” selection is split into two categories: “Great Games” and “Amazing Apps.” These include titles such as Monument Valley, Fantastical for iPad, Duolingo, and Hitman GO.
Since the glory days of Neo-Geo, I’ve been a massive fan of Metal Slug: the run and gun series of video games that sees you blast the living heck out of everything from enemy soldiers to undead zombies and giant crab monsters.
Now a new iOS game set in the Metal Slug universe, called Metal Slug Defense, has been released — and it actually looks pretty good.
Unlike recent abominations like RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile, which are the nostalgic equivalent of being forced to burn your favorite childhood toy while your first girlfriend points and laughs at you, this game has taken the superb pixel art, animations and manic destruction that fans loved about the Metal Slug series and turned it into an entertaining iPhone experience.
In a blatant attempt to steal Apple’s thunder, Samsung has announced a conference to take place on May 28 — promising to kick start “a new conversation around health.”
Why is this stepping on Apple’s toes?
Because the very next week is Apple’s eagerly-anticipated Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) — where Apple is expected to introduce the first stages of its new health-tracking family of innovations, beginning with the Healthbook feature for iOS 8, and likely to later expand to include the iWatch.
There are some fantastic photos hidden in the videos you’ve shot on your iPhone over the years. You just need to know where to look.
That idea’s the starting point for new iOS app Vhoto, which uses computer vision technology to intelligently scan through your videos to find and extract the best photographic moments.
It took nearly 6 months, but former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts has officially joined Apple as its new Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores. Her bio has been added to Apple’s executive leadership website, making her transition from Burberry complete.
Wahoo’s first heart-rate sensor was of the pedestrian ANT+ variety, and connected to the iPhone through a 30-pin ANT+ dongle. Around a year later, the Atlanta-based outfit introduced the first heart-rate sensor that connected to a smartphone through Bluetooth; specifically and only to the iPhone 4s, since that was the only phone at the time with Bluetooth 4.0 under the hood.
Wahoo upped the ante again in January at CES, when they revealed a radical departure from traditional heart-rate based fitness tracking: Their new highly sophisticated, three-model TICKR sensor squad, combined with an all-new app that turns conventional fitness-tracking on its head. Now the first of the TICKR trio, the TICKR Run, is hitting the street.
Ever since Disney revealed its grand Infinity gaming universe, we’ve been wondering when Marvel-themed playsets would arrive — or even if they would. Disney bought Marvel in 2009, and it made sense the characters would show up: Infinity would be the perfect setting to flaunt the newly subsumed superheroes. Problem was, nary a whiff of Marvel could be found at Infinity’s January 2013 launch.
Nevertheless, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow and the gang are coming to Disney Infinity — and boy do they look awesome.
The data-hungry tentacles of the NSA have managed to choke America’s top tech firms into silent submission on data requests, but after months of demanding more transparency, Apple is ready to defy authorities and let you know when the NSA wants your data.
Prosecutors warn that such a move will undermine investigations by tipping off criminals and allowing them to destroy sensitive data, but according to the Washington Post, Apple and others have already changed their policies.
Although it looks like a vanilla PC in a boxy case, the machine pictured above is a high-performance, custom-built Hackintosh.
This thing is hot! Known as the P280, after its Antec case, this Hackintosh is equivalent in performance to Apple’s latest Mac Pro workstation, but costs significantly less.
Roughly comparable to a Mac Pro costing $3,500, the P280 was assembled from off-the-shelf PC parts costing just over $2,000, including a water-cooling system to chill its chips. The Hackintosh runs Apple’s OS X Mavericks and, according to its builder, bests a similarly configured Pro on many benchmarks.
It has none of Jony Ive’s industrial design magic, of course, but that’s not the point. This is a DIY rig that’s as badass as it gets.
Less than a decade ago, Apple was singled out by Greenpeace as one of the least environmentally friendly tech companies on the planet.
Apple has since turned over a new leaf, embracing environmentalism as something every bit as central to the company as the latest iPhone.
Just how important became evident a few months ago, when, during a routine earnings call, Cook spoke of his dream for Apple as a “force for good in the world beyond our products.” The recent global celebrations for Earth Day for the first time in nearly a decade mean that his dream is closer to becoming a reality.
So what changed exactly?
Apple’s FaceTime service is getting another rival — courtesy of an update from disappearing messages service Snachat.
The update will introduce instant messaging and video call functions — opening up more possibilities for users wanting to have private conversations.
As with existing Snapchat messages, conversations won’t be stored on users’ phones by default. Since some conversations are worth saving, however, the update will allow users to manually save them.
As we creep closer to the expected September release date of the iPhone 6, more mockups and reported leaks are showing up on what seems like a daily basis.
This latest one, which surfaced on the Chinese technology blog 86Digi, is a physical mockup claimed to be based on real iPhone 6 machine schematics from sources in the supply chain.
It shows the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 as a 6mm thin devices, featuring rounded edges and various other changes — including a relocated power button, rectangular volume controls on the left hand side of the device, and the camera and circular LED flash on the rear.
Do you remember the classic Simpsons skit from the episode “Homer Bad Man?” When Homer walks past a salesman, they try to catch his attention by yelling, “Hey, sir! Try our wax lips: the candy of 1000 uses.” Homer is skeptical. “Like what?” he asks. “One, a humorous substitute for your own lips,” the salesman responds, before immediately running out of other possible other uses.
Well, Logitech’s new modular case+ promises to be the “wax lips” of the iPhone 5 and 5s — albeit with more actual applications. Using magnets to switch between a variety of interchangeable accessories — including power supply, car mount, kickstand and wallet modules — the case+ hopes to be the most versatile iPhone case yet.
Okay, so pinball maybe isn’t the first thing you think of when hear the two words Star Wars, but this actually looks pretty great.
Developers Zen Studios are veritable Jedi masters at bringing out both the video game quality you need in a digital pinball table, and also at utilizing licenses in a way that doesn’t feel money-grubbing and superficial.
Apple has made another interesting hire in the form of Bobby Hollis, a former vice president of NV Energy who will serve as the company’s new Senior Renewable Energy Manager.
The appointment took place earlier this year, while Hollis took his post back in April.
At NV Energy in Nevada, Hollis worked as the Vice President of Renewable Energy and Origination. He also served on the board of the Solar Electric Power Association, and was recently named one of Las Vegas’s 40 Under Forty business leaders.
Could iBeacons help improve the air travel experience? Sir Richard Branson thinks they could.
Branson’s majority-owned Virgin Atlantic is the latest company to hop aboard the iBeacon bandwagon — announcing plans to use the technology to send customized messages to passenger’s iPhones in London’s Heathrow airport in the UK.
The program, which is being created in conjunction with beacon startup Estimote, will use Apple’s iBeacons technology in conjunction with the Passbook iOS app.