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News - page 1412

Redesigned iPad Stand Looks More Like A Kitchen Utensil

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High-powered with a tiny footprint.
High-powered with a tiny footprint.

Kitchen Utensil. Mobile Office. Study Stand.

Sure, those don’t all go together, but Twelve South’s new iPad Air and iPad mini stand looks like nothing you’ve seen before. It might as well find a place in a kitchen drawer, next to all the Pampered Chef gizmos you’ve got in there.

This new iPad stand — made for the iPad Air and iPad mini — is foldable, easy to use, and just plain sweet looking.

Flappy Bird Developer Succeeds With New App Shuriken Block [Video Review]

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While the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has been removed from the App Store, developer Dong Nguyen has still found success with a few of his other games. Consistently ranking at the top of the app charts how will Nguyen’s new game Shuriken Block rank in your interests?

Take a look at Shuriken Block and see how it compares to the hype and popularity of the late Flappy Bird.

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

Upcoming Retro Action Platforming RPG Game Looks For Greenlight

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crystal catacombs

See that? That’s the excellent looking retro action platform from Levels or Lives, Super Fun Games, and Crescent Moon Games. It’s called Crystal Catacombs, and was successfully funded on Kickstarter in July of 2012.

To continue the process, the developers want to get Crystal Catacombs on Steam, which is perhaps the most well-known gaming distribution platform for Mac, Windows, and Linux games. The process there is known as Project Greenlight, and Steam members all vote on the games they’d like to see on Steam.

Apple’s Wrap-Around Display Tech Could Kill Off Those Pesky Bezels [Patent]

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A patent application published Thursday reveals how Apple could incorporate flexible OLED displays into future devices to improve their function without sacrificing strength. The technology could get Apple closer to producing bezel-less devices in existing product lines such as the iPhone, iPad and MacBook as well as speculative product categories like the iWatch.

The patent refers to a technique for reducing a display border by bending the sides of a display surface in such a way that electrode materials used in the device could be made to stretch rather than break when bent or folded. The application, titled “Flexible Displays” and filed in July 2013, means that future Apple devices need not be limited in size by the requirement that they include metal or plastic housings.

Comcast’s Time Warner Cable Acquisition Throws Apple TV Partnership Into Doubt

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The next version of Apple TV may allow you to take your viewing with you wherever you go. Photo: Apple
The next version of Apple TV may allow you to take your viewing with you wherever you go. Photo: Apple

Comcast, the number one cable provider in the U.S., has announced that it plans to acquire Time Warner Cable, the second largest cable firm in the U.S., for a reported $45 billion.

The deal — set to be officially announced later today — will see Comcast offer $158.82 per share in an all-stock deal.

U.S. Customers Are Hoarding $13.4bn Of Old iPhones

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The iPhone 5 is going to be huge.
The iPhone 5 is going to be huge.

Around half of U.S. consumers are hoarding their old iPhones in cupboards and sock drawers — representing an inventory worth around $13.4 billion in total.

According to the annual “Mobile Mountain Study” conducted by research group OnePoll for resale site SellCell.com, this figure is down from the 55% of people who admitted to holding onto their old smartphones last year — although the total amount of money being left on the table is up from last year’s sum of $9 billion, thanks to the growing smartphone market.

“Americans are still unaware of the money they can make by trading in their old mobile,” says SellCell founder Keir McConomy.

iPhone Users Have A ‘Blind Loyalty’ To The Apple Brand [Report]

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Apple Loyalty
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Photo: Cult of Mac

A new survey of 2,000 iPhone users saw 3/5ths of respondents admit to having a “blind loyalty” to the Apple brand.

78% percent claimed they “couldn’t imagine having a different type of phone now,”  while 52% said they had been “really impressed” with the iPhone.

Ellen DeGeneres’ Heads Up! Game Adds New Oscars Category

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Ahead of the 86th Academy Awards show, the Heads Up! app dreamed up by this year’s host Ellen DeGeneres has received a timely update — offering questions related to the Oscars.

Joining existing game categories including Celebrities, Animals, Accents, and Characters, the new time-limited Oscars game deck offers users a chance to brush up on their movie trivia knowledge in the most time-pressured setting imaginable. “It’s perfect perfect for your viewing party, or preparing for the big night starring Ellen,” the app’s developers state.

Tangent iPhoneography App Plagued By App Store Fakes

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Pixite’s fantastic Tangent app gets a big update with v1.5, adding in a new “Urban Decay” pack that lets you point your iPhone camera at a building and have it crumble into rubble and dust, and then snap pictures as zombies and wild animals reclaim what us evil humans were only ever borrowing.

Wait, no. Urban Decay is a new set of fancy filters for grungifying your pictures. Just make sure you get the right Tangent app, as the developer has been plagued by a copycat who keeps putting fake versions of the app up on the store.

This Camera Flash Ditches The AAs For A Powerful 12-Volt Li-Ion Battery

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Here’s a neat take on the small pocket strobe or flash. Instead of forcing you to buy and manage the charging of a ton of AA batteries to use it, the Neewer TT850 is a hot-shoe strobe that uses a 12-volt li-ion battery. This not only makes charging easier, but also means you get a lot more pops per second thanks to the fact that the battery can dump 12V instead the flash instead of the paltry 6V that 4xAAs can manage.

Punch Quest Packs A Heckuva Punch For A Pocket-Sized Game [Review]

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punchquest

Punch Quest by Rocketcat Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: Free

Released at the end of 2012, Rocketcat Games’ Punch Quest isn’t the newest game to hit the App Store. However, as a former Flappy Bird player (yes, I admit it!) I was interested to see what else Apple’s recommender algorithms would suggests to me in terms of a substitute constant runner requiring precision-tapping.

Following those recommendations brought me to Punch Quest.

Punch Quest is pretty much a quest where you punch things. Like so many successful iOS game it basically takes a video game premise/paradigm — in this case a platformer — and strips it down to its most essential elements — in this case running and punching. Your left hand controls jumping, your right does the bulk of the punching, and the running is automatic — as if the action takes place on a giant treadmill, although you can choose to speed up or slow down within this setup.

SuperTab Adds Every Function Ever To The Mac Tab Switcher

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Command-tab, a keyboard shortcut so ingrained in the Mac user’s finger-memory that it’s easy to find yourself hitting it when using a keyboard with your iPad, or when you’re on a PC (NB: don’t use a PC unless you have been professionally trained and are wearing a tie).

The switcher already lets you flip between apps, quit apps, view recent documents in a cool Exposé view (use the up/down arrows), and to drag and drop documents onto apps to open them. But now there’s SuperTab, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-style app which adds even more.

Are These The First Spyshots of the iPhone 6?

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The iPhone rumor mill has been in overdrive lately, but with the iPhone 6 launch not expect until later this Fall we weren’t expecting to see any pictures which makes this afternoon’s set of alleged iPhone 6 rear casings almost too delicious to believe.

A set of images of an alleged iPhone 6 hit Twitter this afternoon, originating from obscure account but have since been picked up by Sonny Dickson, the infamous leaker who revealed the iPhone 5 as well as a number of other Apple products.

The images feature a space gray and gold iPhone, both with an edge-to-edge display and a thinner profile. The rear casing also suggest Apple will ditch the two glass sections in the back – maybe finally utilizing their LiquidMetal tech for an antenna?

We can’t confirm if the images are genuine yet, but they still give you a pretty good idea just how beautiful a bigger screen iPhone will be.

Update: Looks like these photos are fake. At least there are more surprises to come.

See for yourself:

Put Fashion First With New Blogger-Centric App, Flink

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Flink

Whether you’re a fashionista looking for new sources of inspiration or a tone-deaf jeans and t-shirt kind of dresser, new app Flink will help you connect to the world of fashion blogging.

Flink allows you to see hot new “looks” from the top fashion bloggers around the web, including Garance Doré, La revue de Kenza, Adenorah, Absolutely Glamourous, Mercredie, le blog de Lilou, Modasic, and Blondie Baby. You can also save these looks for later, visit the original blog posts, and “heart” the looks you love.

When you first launch the app, you’ll tap to follow as many of the included bloggers, and then tap your way through each of the photos included in each screen. You can tap through to see what clothes and accessories make up each look, or you can just swipe through and see various images of the different parts.

All in all, if you’re looking to kick up your fashion knowledge, or just find some new looks to recreate in your own life, Flink just might be the free app you’re looking for.

Source: App Store: Flink | Free | Epic Dream

How A Young Steve Jobs Stole The Spotlight In National Geographic

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(Credit: National Geographic)
(Credit: National Geographic)

To coincide with Steve Jobs’ appearance in the National Portrait Gallery’s new “American Cool” exhibition, Cult of Mac had the opportunity to speak with Charles “Chuck” O’Rear — the photographer who took the 1981 portrait of Jobs currently on display.

O’Rear, 73, recalls Jobs being aloof and preoccupied but — despite being young (he was just 27) — carried a real aura that this was someone who couldn’t be ignored.

“We had barely heard of him at the time,” O’Rear says. “With the same project I ended up photographing names like David Packard and Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard, and Bill Noyce of Intel — all of who were better known than Steve. But there was a sense that Steve was a renegade, and so we should make sure we get his picture.”

Super Ball Juggling Is Flappy Bird Developer’s Newest Success [Video Review]

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The elusive developer behind the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has other games in the App Store that haven’t yet been pulled. Are they any good?

Take a look at Super Ball Juggling and see if it measures up to the hype and fame of Flappy Bird.

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

Missing Flappy Bird? More Weird New Ways You Can Get Your Flap On

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Flap, be free!
Flap, be free!

The buzz continues around Flappy Bird, Dong Nguyen’s scary addictive side-scrolling bird flapping game. The developer pulled the wildly successful app from both iOS and Android App Stores on Sunday, citing the fact that his game was too addictive. There are mobile devices out there on eBay and Craigslist for outrageous prices, and everyone seems to want to talk about the retro-inspired flap-fest.

While many of us have Flappy Bird still installed on our phones, it’s possible many folks didn’t get to the party until now.

We’ve already shown you a straight-up clone of Flappy Bird that you can play on any web browser, but these new ones are odd. And totally cool.

Treasure Hunters Find Steve Jobs’ Long-Lost Lisa Mouse [Video]

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(Credit: CNet/Mike Durkin)
(Credit: CNET/Mike Durkin)

Footage has been released of a television crew discovering an original Lisa mouse used by Steve Jobs. The mouse was one of a collection of miscellaneous items found inside a time capsule in Aspen, Colorado.

Jobs had visited the area in 1983 for the Aspen International Design Conference — during which he delivered a speech predicting many of the Apple technologies which would come to pass during his lifetime — including the iPad, wireless networking, and even the App Store. Afterwards, Jobs was one of several conference attendees who donated objects for the “Aspen Time Tube” which has now been recovered.