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News - page 1389

International Game Developers Contest King’s ‘Candy’ & ‘Saga’ Trademarks

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Candy Crush Saga

The International Game Developers Association has issued a statement opposing King’s recent Candy Crush Saga trademark filing — in which the game developer claimed ownership of the words “candy” and “saga” across all gaming platforms.

Calling the move “predatory,” the group plans to use its Business and Legal Special Interest Group to investigate the filing, which was recently approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Apple’s Sapphire Glass Manufacturer Gets Big Share Price Boost

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The Rumor: Samsung is hard at work trying to copy Apple's Sapphire glass display on the unannounced iPhone 6.

The Verdict: This is an early nominee for least surprising rumor of the year  ETNews cites industry sources with inside knowledge on Samsung's meetings with manufactures, but we could've called it as soon we saw the Gold S5 with a fingerprint scanner. Or their Smart Case. Or their Chromebox. Or... you get the point.

The Rumor: Samsung is hard at work trying to copy Apple's Sapphire glass display on the unannounced iPhone 6.

The Verdict: This is an early nominee for least surprising rumor of the year ETNews cites industry sources with inside knowledge on Samsung's meetings with manufactures, but we could've called it as soon we saw the Gold S5 with a fingerprint scanner. Or their Smart Case. Or their Chromebox. Or... you get the point.


GT Advanced Technologies Inc. shares received a nice boost on Tuesday, on the back of reports that Apple will use the company’s sapphire glass for its next generation iPhone cover.

GT shares posted a new 52-week high of $12.72, while analysts at Canaccord Genuity also raised their price targets on the company from $13 to $15.

Apple Named The World’s Most Valuable Brand For Third Year In A Row

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The World's Most Valuable Brands

Apple maintains its position as the world’s most valuable brand for the third year in a row, according to this year’s Brand Finance Global 500 study.

After Apple, the other positions in the Top 10 were filled out by Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, General Electric, AT&T, Amazon, Walmart, and IBM.

“What sets [Apple] apart is its ability to monetize [its] brand,” Brand Finance CEO David Haigh said in a statement. “For example, though tablets were in use before the iPad, it was the application of the Apple brand to the concept that captured the public imagination and allowed it to take off as a commercial reality.”

What Happens When You Reach Level 999 In Flappy Bird

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A lot of the artistic assets of Flappy Bird were ripped pretty much wholesale from Super Mario Bros.. So what happens when you beat Flappy Bird? Do you face Bowser? As this parody video show, it’s not the King of the Koopas you have to fear: it’s gaming’s favorite stereotypical Italian plumber, who certainly won’t let you flap your way past pipe 999.

Minecraft On iOS Is About To Get A Hell Of A Lot Bigger

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Do you love playing Minecraft on your iPhone or iPad? So do we, but you’ve got to admit, there’s some compromises in playing Minecraft: Pocket Edition compared to the Mac, not least of which the size of the worlds. On the Mac, Minecraft worlds are infinite, but on iOS, they are extremely limited. But according to a new blog post, that’s about to change soon.

Olloclip Macro Lens Is Ready For Its Close-Up [Review]

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3-In-1 Macro Lens by Olloclip
Category: iPhoneography
Works With: iPhone 5/S, iPod Touch 5g
Price: $70

Olloclip’s 3-In–1 Macro lens is extremely limited, but that’s by design: It’s a set of close-up lenses for the iPhone 5/S and fifth-gen iPod Touch (using the included adapter) which let you magnify the tiny world around us and put these wonders where God intended: on Instagram.

Code Like A Champ And Save Big With The Name Your Own Price Learn To Code Bundle [Deals]

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Want to help yourself and others in need at the same time? Then this latest offer from Cult of Mac Deals is for you.

Our team has partnered with 8 influential instructors to bring you the first-ever Name Your Own Price Learn To Code Bundle. You pay what you want for Programming Java for Beginnings and PSD to HTML5/CSS3, and if you pay more than the average price then you’ll receive all the courses in the bundle.

And The Winner Is… Best Music On-Demand Streaming Service

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In 2001, Apple changed the way music was distributed with the arrival of iTunes, its online digital media store. Since that time, the digital age has evolved rapidly into an era where cassette mix tapes and compact discs are no more. As we enter an era in which the internet serves our every need, alongside digital distribution and the iTunes Store are an increasing number of on-demand music streaming services have become today’s most popular and possibly cost-effective means of accessing the equivalent of walking into your local music store and buying everything.

Unlike Pandora and iTunes Radio (which we’ll cover shortly in another column), on-demand streaming radio allows you to listen to any music in the service library as often as you like.

The competition between the unlimited all-you-can-stream music services is fiercer than ever before, and with the launch of Beats Music this past month, it has become even more difficult to pinpoint the most suitable music subscription for our needs.

However, after hours of research, a comparison of the seven on-demand services on offer (including Beats Music, Spotify, Rdio, Xbox Music, Rhapsody, Sony Music Unlimited, and Google Play Music–see our table below), and some hands-on testing, we’ve managed to narrow down the overwhelming choice to a select few that offer the best overall features and usability. So let’s crack on with the results, shall we?

Apple’s New ‘Your Verse’ Campaign Is A Real Cliffhanger

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Apple has launched the second story on its new Your Verse microsite.

The campaign — which focuses on showing the iPad in unexpected real world situations — this time chronicles the work of mountaineers Adrian Ballinger and Emily Harrington, who take the iPad with them on their extraordinary climbs.

Ballinger and Harrington use the iPad — along with the Gaia GPS topography app — to plan and navigate their ascent, while also using the device’s access to social networking tools to post photos and progress updates during various junctures of the journey.

Future Apple Earphones Could Track Your Health [Patent]

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A new Apple patent, published Tuesday, reveals how future Apple earbuds and headphones might incorporate health-monitoring features.

The patent shows how a monitoring system could be cleverly built into Apple earphones, and used to track activity such as speed and distance traveled during exercise. The device would also be able to sense other biometric data relating to metrics body temperature, perspiration rate, and heart rate.

DoubleTwist’s New Mac App Lets You Rip Songs Straight From iTunes Radio

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DoubleTwist — the company behind the AirSync tool which allows users to wireless sync their iTunes data — has released a new Mac app, letting users rip songs directly from iTunes Radio.

Called AirPlay Recorder, the app basically tricks iTunes into thinking that it’s an AirPlay device, so that it will stream music. It then records that audio for later offline playback.

The Retina Mini Is So Disappointing I Switched To The iPad Air [Opinion]

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I just switched back to the full-sized iPad – in the form of the iPad Air – after over a year of exclusive iPad Mini use. The reason? I can’t get on with the Retina Mini. The Mini is great in many ways, and so you’d think that an A7 Retina-ized version would be even better. But almost since I bought it, the new hi-res Mini has been driving me crazy.

Tetris For iOS Has (Nearly) All Its Pieces In Place [Review]

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Tetris

As with all classic games, the question about EA’s Tetris for iOS doesn’t have anything to do with whether the core concept is a good one or not (we know that it is), but rather how well the developers have translated it to the world of multi-touch.

Tetris by Electronic Arts
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: $0.99 w/ in-app purchases

If you’re a long-time Tetris fan and former Game Boy owner, chances are you’ll have fond memories of Alexey Pajitnov’s classic puzzle game on mobile. The good news, then, is that at its best EA’s Tetris is every bit as revolutionary and addictive as that game was when you first played it.

Photosmith Now Handles RAW Photos On iPad, Gets Easier To Use

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Remember Photosmith? Yes, it’s the excellent iPad app that hooks up to your Mac’s Lightroom collection and lets you rate, reject, tag and manage your photo library from the comfort of your couch. That’s the promise, anyway. In practice, it crashes far too often, and it is confuddling (confusing and befuddling) as hell to use.

Ever since v3, though, Photosmith has been a lot easier to use. And now in v3.1, the LR sync part has also been improved, with a whole new sync dashboard. Oh, and the app also adds support for RAW photos.

Grace Encore, The Wi-Fi Speaker From the ’80s

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Black-ash finish? Check. Big four-inch woofer? Check. Plenty of knobs and dials and even a built-in screen? Check, check, check! If you were to glance sideways at the Grace Encore (GDI-IRC7500) Stereo System whilst simultaneously taking some experimental military drug that altered your perception of time, you’d think that the Encore was from the 1980s.

FTL Gets A New Free Update For Mac, Coming to iPad Early 2014

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One of our favorite games, FTL, is getting a massive update, plus an iPad version. That’s pretty darn exciting.

The update includes new advanced weaponry, new systems and subsystems, new drones and equipment, new music, and new story content. Best of all, it’s going to be a free update. In a tweet earlier today, the FTL team updated fans on what’s new, including new features like the clone bay, mind control, and hacking systems. The iPad version will include all of these things, too, in a game that will now be called FTL: Advanced Edition.

Check out the video below for some sweet visuals and auditory goodness.

Keep Up With News In Facebook’s New App “Paper” [Video Review]

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Facebook is reportedly working on a breaking news app to compete with Twitter.
Photo: Cult of Mac

As Facebook tends to find itself on a decline of popularity, Mark Zuckerberg and the people of Facebook are making valiant efforts to refresh and revive their social networking site. With the introduction of their new app Paper – stories from Facebook, they strive to combine personal and world news together for a seamless enjoyable experience. Will Paper become your new go-to news app?

Take a look at the new Paper app and see what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Paper” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”