News - page 1383

In the quiet foothills of Kentucky, a massive supercomputer is churning through data. It is hunting for new drugs to fight cancer.

Every week, the DataseamGrid processes 300 man-years worth of calculations. Yeah, that’s 300 years of calculations every week. Drug discovery usually takes 10 to 15 years, but the DataseamGrid blazes through that work in a fraction of the usual time. It is one of the largest pipelines of potential new cancer drugs in the country. Researchers here are about to start human trials this year of a new drug discovered by the supercomputer, which, if successful, may lead to an entirely new class of cancer drugs.

Is your iPhone app, awesome iPad case, or other Apple-related service so insanely great you know it’ll be the next big thing? Show it off to thousands of potential customers, journalists and investors at Macworld/iWorld by winning a spot in SF New Tech’s awesome “6 About to Break” event.

Cult of Mac is chuffed to be a media partner for the contest — we’ll be helping judge the best new apps, accessories, software and utilities tied to the Cupertino company, in the eternal quest for the next big thing.

Get a move on, though: The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. PST on Monday, March 3.

It’s free to enter and qualified entries include any newly released software, iOS applications, iPhone or iPad accessories, or Apple utilities launched in the past year. Winners will be announced Wednesday, March 12.

The six-pack stars of startup goodness get to showcase their wares at Macworld/iWorld 2014 with a 5-minute live demo plus a 5-minute Q&A in front of a live audience. Winners also receive a free kiosk at Macworld, free hosting from Rackspace and Kendo UI and Icenium full product licenses plus support from Telerik.

Bring it on!

6 About To Break contest by SF New Tech

Samsung may have flashed a bit of cash to get Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres to appear on-stage with a Galaxy Note, but it seems that DeGeneres ditched the device backstage, as she was spotted tweeting out selfies using an iPhone.

@parislemon she’s using an iPhone backstage. pic.twitter.com/eRZlAVwq3S

— Sammy (@sbanawan) March 3, 2014

Yukari Kane’s new book about Apple post-Steve Jobs, Haunted Empire, is still a few weeks away, but it’s already beginning to pick up press coverage.

A recent video interview with Kane for the Wall Street Journal sheds a bit of light on her research methods as she describes her efforts to find out more about Tim Cook.

Referring to Apple’s CEO as “still an enigma to me,” Kane describes visiting Cook’s hometown and speaking with friends and former teachers to try and find out more about Apple’s soft-spoken CEO.

Last week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, a curious, unexpected thing happened: I used an Eye-Fi Mobi card to shoot and share photos from my camera to my iPhone and it worked – almost flawlessly.

As regular readers will know, I have tried Eye-Fi’s cards over and over, both here and when I wrote for Wired’s Gadget Lab, and I could never get on with them. The problems ran from annoyances to plain bad design and broken functionality.

This time, though, the card came through. In fact, I couldn’t have covered the show so well without it. Read on to see how we covered the show.

Yesterday marked Dr. Seuss’s birthday and — in honor of him and Read Across America Day — developers Oceanhouse Media have launched a massive sale on more than 60 of its Dr. Seuss apps.

As expected, Apple today announced that it is finally ready to launch its “iOS in the Car” iPhone integration setup for car infotainment systems.

Called CarPlay, Apple claims that it is “designed from the ground up to provide drivers with an incredible experience using their iPhone in the car.”

CarPlay is built primarily around Siri interactions, with voice commands and prompts giving users an “eyes-free” means of responding to incoming calls, dictating text messages, and accessing their music library. Apple’s Maps service is also an integral part of the system.

Tim Cook lashed out at shortsighted, bottom line-driven investors during Friday’s annual shareholders meeting — telling them to “get out of [Apple] stock.”

The exchange concerned the conservative think tank National Center for Public Policy Research, which was pushing Apple to disclose the cost of its sustainability programs, and the impact this had on the company’s earning power.

Cook was asked about Apple’s plans to have 100 percent of its power come from green sources — and whether this was the case only because of government subsidies on green energy.

Asked to commit point-blank to only pursuing moves immediately profitable to Apple, Cook responded with anger — noting that Apple does many things because they are right and just, and not simply about making a return on investment (ROI).

Castello Davarg’s latest hot leather case is the Heming for iPad, an upgraded, redesigned version of its excellent iPhone case. It comes in iPad mini and iPad Air flavors, and is surprisingly full-featured for what looks at fist glance like a plain folio sleeve.

If you have a nerd in your life, and you need to get him/her a gift anytime soon, then your search is over. Go buy them the new Lomo Konstruktor Super Kit, the “directors cut” of the original build-it-yourself plastic film camera kit that now contains not one, not two but three lenses, plus a proper viewfinder.

Did you ever try to write a blog post on your iPad? It’s easy, right? But did you ever try to add an image to that post? It’s a major pain in the ass. Plink is here to fix that. It’s an iOS app that will upload a photo to its own storage cloud, and generate a URL that is automatically copied to your clipboard. All you need to do is switch back to your writing app and paste it in.

And of course this isn’t just for bloggers. Anywhere you need to link an image – forum posts for example – you can use Plink.

I saw the Oaxis InkCase at the Mobile World Congress last week, and it looks pretty neat. The v2 “case” is actually an e-ink panel that connects to the iPhone (or other device) via Bluetooth and can show anything on its e-ink screen. The new version is modular, so you can slip in into any case for any device, and even mount it, say, on the handlebars of a bike for a sunlight-friendly readout.

Teenage developer Ryan Orbuch already has an Apple Design Award under his belt thanks to Finish, his popular to-do app that’s billed as an anti-procrastination tool. Today Finish is going free in the App Store for good, but there’s a catch.

That’s right, here comes the “f” word: freemium. Users will be limited to 10 tasks and certain times can’t be associated with tasks until a $0.99 in-app upgrade is made to unlock Finish More. Calling it Finish Pro is “boring and sounds way too fancy,” according to Orbuch. Existing users won’t have to pay for the in-app upgrade.

This past week Readdle released Documents 5, the big iOS 7 redesign of their popular document manager. The download is a free update to existing users, and it brings a much-needed design refresh and several feature additions.

Apple has been in talks with record labels about releasing more albums exclusively through the iTunes Store, similarly to how Beyonce released her self-titled album in December.

According to Billboard, Apple’s VP of the iTunes Store, Robert Kondrk, had “tense” talks with label executives in January during Grammy Week in Los Angeles. Kondrk used the success of the BEYONCÉ album as evidence when arguing for the new iTunes Store model.

This time on The CultCast: hipsters have beards installed; the mysterious life of Timothy Cook; exciting rumors around the new Jobs movie; Mavericks 10.9.2’s features and fixes; why you should install iOS 7.0.6 like, right now; Netflix pays off Comcast; and we’re too sexy for this podcast.

Laugh your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin.

And thanks to Lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at Lynda.com.

Apple will launch “iOS in the Car” with Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo as partners at the Geneva Motor Show next week, according to the Financial Times.

While Apple has said that it has more than a dozen automobile manufacturers on board, the company is reportedly choosing to launch with the three aforementioned brands only. Apple executive Eddy Cue is a member of Ferrari’s board of directors.

Originally unveiled alongside iOS 7 at WWDC last summer, iOS in the Car is Apple’s interface for dash displays in vehicles. The extension of iOS lets the user navigate using Maps, make phone calls, control music, and use Siri without needing to touch an iPhone in the car.

Apple has said that iOS in the Car is a “key focus” for the company in 2014. A redesigned interface for iOS in the Car was discovered in iOS 7 last month. Automobile makers like Honda have been preparing their newer cars for the software with large touchscreens.

Source: Financial Times

Steve Jobs famously argued that if five million people used the Mac, cutting its boot time down by 10 seconds would save the equivalent of at least 100 lifetimes per year.

Taken on an individual basis, it’s difficult to know how many minutes of your life will be saved by using the KoolPuck Wireless Charger — but it’s almost certainly less than an hour over the lifespan of your typical iPhone.

That doesn’t really matter, though. In an age of convenience, the idea that you can charge your iPhone by simply placing it down on a massively wireless charger is a tempting one. Straightforward, attractive, and tiny, FoneSalesman’s iQi solution seems to tick all the boxes.

So how does it measure up?

If you buy an Apple TV by March 5th, you will receive a $25 iTunes gift card from Apple. The promotion began today and only works at Apple retail stores or through the company’s online store.

Apple rarely does deals like this, and the timing is interesting. A new Apple TV is rumored to come out as soon as March, and this time of year is when Apple has updated its set-top box in the past. But that doesn’t mean you should expect a new one in the near future.

App developers everywhere are posting their own clones of the hit app “Flappy Bird” to the App Store. While few have been able to publish their apps with many significant differences, the app developers behind the new app Flappy Fall have incorporated their own twist on the gameplay. Will you too become addicted to Flappy Fall?

Take a look at Flappy Fall and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the multi-platform application Flappy Fall brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Apple just set a record for the most iPhones sold in a quarter, but while the new iPhone 5ses and Cs are flying off shelves, a new scam is booming in China where broken old iPhones are cannibalized for parts to build complete units sold with a full retail price tag.

The Apple TV made a staggering $1 billion in sales in 2013. Tim Cook shared the news during Apple’s annual meeting with shareholders today in Cupertino, California.

“It’s a little more difficult to call it a hobby these days,” said Cook during the meeting. For years, Apple has referred to the Apple TV as a hobby, but the company’s tone towards the $99 product is starting to change.

Predicting the future of Apple is probably the no. 1 party game in Silicon Valley.  The venerable Churchill Club, which has been gathering luminaries to discuss tech in Menlo Park since 1985, has assembled a panel of experts who have some real insight in to the days ahead for the Cupertino company.

This Tuesday, March 4, they’re hosting what will surely be lively and provocative conversation with four Apple authors titled: “Are Apple’s Best Days Ahead?” .

Apple has won the dismissal of a 1.57 billion-euro ($2.2 billion) German lawsuit, relating to an IPCom patent it was supposedly infringing upon.

While no oral explanation has been given for the verdict, the court in Mannheim, Germany decided that Apple didn’t infringe on the property of IPCom, and also dismissed a similar case against mobile manufacturer HTC.

Think Apple’s “Misunderstood” Christmas ad would have been improved with the addition of a random piano drop, ghost bride, or chainsaw-wielding madman?

If so, you can re-create the commercial your way using Picadelic’s FxGuru: Movie FX Director app. Previously an Android exclusive, the app lets you incorporate a variety of Hollywood-style horror, sci-fi and action movie effects to any iPhone video — with virtual guidelines showing you how to incorporate effects seamlessly, while 24 different “Cinematic” filters allow you enhance the atmosphere of any scene.