News - page 1380

I know we’ve talked about Flappy Bird a lot over the past month… but forget that stupid bird. You have a new god now. Meet Flapthulhu.

Up to this point, the term “iBeacon” has been used to describe just about any location-aware transmitter that can send data to a device over Bluetooth. But now it’s going to get harder for companies to market their products as iBeacons.

Apple is clamping down on its iBeacon trademark by adding specifications for the technology to its ‘Made for iPhone’ (MFi) program.

Including iBeacon in MFi gives Apple complete quality control over where the iBeacon name can be used. When a Bluetooth speaker maker wants to be approved by Apple, it has to go through the MFi program. And now the same process will be required for iBeacon.

Apple just finished patching the nasty goto fail bug in iOS 7 and OS X, but a report shows another vulnerability in iOS has been discovered that gives attackers access to every single touch you make, including your keystrokes.

Apple has added a dedicated channel to the Apple TV for TV4 Play, the country’s largest commercial broadcasting network.

Live broadcasts and original programming are available for free. Full episodes of TV4 Group shows are available for playback up to seven days after their release. Premium TV4 subscribers get access to additional content, and the window of availability for TV shows is longer.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified gets three new expansion packs for the Mac version of the game this week, available on the Mac App Store and Steam. The new packs–Hangar 6 R&D, CodeBreakers and the Light Plasma Pistol–bring new content and missions to the strategy title as in-app purchases.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a tactical third-person shooter game set in the exciting XCOM universe, this time in the 1960s. You play as agent William Carter, helping your agency cover up and battle alien incursions on the planet.

Anyone who’s done their time babysitting knows the pain of kids wanting to watch the same Disney movie over, and over, and over, all in one day. To make Little Mermaid marathons that much easier/bearable, Disney’s got a new iOS app that lets you watch all your Disney, Pixar and Marvel movies from anywhere without using iTunes.

Apple has released an new update for Mavericks that fixes the goto fail SSL vulnerability that was patched up on iOS last week with the iOS 7.0.6 update.

Along with fixing SSL/TLS vulnerability, the update brings in a couple of new features such as FaceTime audio calls, call waiting for FaceTime, the ability to block incoming iMessages, not to mention numerous bug fixes.

The update is available by going to Apple menu () > Software Update to check for the latest Apple software using the Mac App Store.

Here are the release notes:

Internet Radio has some fierce competition. Since the launch of iTunes Radio in 2013, it became much harder to single out one service in particular that reigns supreme. Does the popular US service Pandora still have what it takes to surpass all others? Is Slacker Radio more your personal preference?

Either way, following on from last week’s column where we compared on-demand music services, we have taken it upon ourselves to narrow down the competition, including iTunes Radio, Pandora,  Slacker Radio, iHeartRadio, Last.fm and TuneIn Radio; see the table below. We’ve also done some hands-on testing and in-depth research in order to determine just who has the leading edge and what they offer in terms of functionality, catalog size, features and usability.

What connects Apple to crack-smoking Toronto mayor Rob Ford?

The answer is that the company has reportedly been called in to help Toronto police access Ford’s cell phone data for an ongoing investigation (nicknamed “Project Brazen 2”) into the controversial politician’s secret life.

In a new blogpost, New Zealand security consultant Aldo Cortesi notes that it took him less than one day to develop a proof of concept for the critical OS X SSL/TLS bug, known as “goto fail”.

By doing this Cortesi has confirmed in practice what people were already worried about in theory: that thanks to the bug — thought to be the result of a line of erroneous code — almost all encrypted traffic, including usernames, passwords, and even Apple app updates can potentially be captured.

With yesterday being Steve Jobs’ birthday, Apple fans chose to mark the occasion in different ways. Marketing agency Easy Explain Video celebrated the life of Apple’s late CEO by creating an animated version of Jobs’ iconic iPhone introduction at the 2007 Macworld San Francisco.

Speaking with Cult of Mac, Easy Explain Video emphasized the enormous impact Apple has had on creatives.

Apple has updated the retail section of its website with a new look more closely resembling the design aesthetic of iOS 7.

As can be seen from the comparison above, where previously the page featured content boxes, borders, and gradients, the new version of the page employs plenty of whitespace and a thinner typeface.

Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal has just been updated with universal support.

The easy-to-use calorie counter features rapid fast food and exercise entry, in addition to the largest food database (over 3 million foods) of any iOS calorie counter.

Apple confirmed to CNBC late on Monday that it has asked Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to veto the controversial religious freedom bill SB1062.

Apple is the latest company to urge Brewers to veto the bill, which critics have suggested will allow companies to use religious belief as a basis for discriminating against the gay and lesbian community.

This year we’re covering the Barcelona Mobile World Congress a little differently. Each day there will be one liveblog post here on Cult of Mac and one on Cult of Android.

Instead of gathering up press releases and writing them up in the press office at the show, and then hitting the parties, we’ll be posting quick photos and snippets of info from the show floor itself.

Think of it as a kind of Instagram/Twitter hybrid, only right here on the site. Currently the newest posts are at the top, reverse-chronological style. And if you want us to check something out, Tweet us @mistercharlie or @killianbell.

Now, let’s get on with Day Two.

2014 isn’t only the thirtieth anniversary of the Macintosh. It’s also the thirtieth anniversary of Infocom’s classic game The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — a title that will likely be fondly remembered by anyone who was gaming in the mid-80s.

To mark the game’s thirtieth birthday, and to coincide with the 36th anniversary of the series’ first radio broadcast, the BBC has announced that on March 8 it will publish a new online version of the game, featuring new high definition graphics, social media support, and smartphone/tablet optimization.

Following the unexpected uncovering of Tim Cook’s high school photos, Apple has updated the official iPhone 5s page and iSight section to pay tribute to the company CEO’s gawky yearbook origins. Looking good, Tim!

Via: The wonderfully talented Michael Steeber

Apple may be great at making trackpads, but they are pretty terrible at making computer mice. On the positive side, though? Those mice make pretty great fashion statements.

Source: Flickr
Via: TUAW

Today the world’s largest hearing aid manufacturer, GN ReSound, announced the ReSound LiNX. Designed specifically for the iPhone, the LiNX is the first hearing aid to be part of Apple’s official “Made for iPhone” program.

When you buy a 16GB iPhone 5c, you get 12.60GB of storage space left over after taking into account iOS 7’s default install size. Comparatively, the Samsung Galaxy S4 was the worst bang for the buck, storage-wise, in smartphones: a paltry 8.56GB of internal space was available to the user to store apps and media upon.

Even the S4, though, was roomy compared to the newly announced Galaxy S5. A 16GB Galaxy S5 comes with less than eight gigabytes of usable memory.

When you sell your old iPhone to a third-party, what happens to it? It enters a thriving third-party marketplace in China, where it is restored to almost new and sold in gray and emerging markets. Weird!

WhatsApp, the popular messaging service that was recently bought by Facebook, is adding a big feature in a few months: voice calling.

During a keynote at Mobile World Congress, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum announced that voice calling would be added in the second quarter of this year. The feature will be a free addition to the already free app.

WhatsApp has 465 million monthly active users, which is 15 million more than Facebook. The service’s huge international presence (it’s the largest mobile messaging service in Korea, for example) also helps explain why Facebook paid $19 billion to own it.

Source: TechCrunch

Do you remember that gorgeous iOS 8 concept from last week that merged multitasking with control center? It’s coming soon to a jailbroken iPhone near you.

Like some totem out of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser series, a bizarre and grotesque statuary tribute to the late Steve Jobs was unveiled in Belgrade, Serbia today. Even more bizarrely, Apple may have liked it enough to put it on display in one of its Cupertino offices.

The iOS game controller market is growing at a pretty healthy pace, but there has yet to be a controller that really steals the limelight. We’ve gone hands on with several options, and they all seem to fall into the same boat: a decent upgrade from touch, but not console-level quality.

Demoed at Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona, the Mad Catz C.T.R.L.i might be the new controller to beat.