News - page 1417

The Consumer Electronics Show used to be the premier trade show for the unveiling of major products from big tech companies. But it’s been years since Apple made an official appearance at the Las Vegas convention, and recently the show’s relevance has been questioned as titans like Google and Microsoft have packed up their booths.

Still, Apple’s presence will be strong at International CES 2014, most significantly in the iLounge Pavilion, a sprawling section of the massive show floor that houses hundreds of Apple accessory makers. It’s bigger than last year, even if the actual number of exhibitors has shrunk.

There are several apps in OS X that may want to use your location data, including apps like Maps, iPhoto, and more.

If you want to see which apps are currently requesting and using your data, simply click on the little compass icon in the menubar and your Mac will show you.

To have a bit more control over which apps can use or not use your location data, all you need to do is drop into System Preferences.

Acclaimed biographer Walter Isaacson is crowdsourcing editorial comments for his new book — which will focus on innovators of the digital age. The book will begin with 19th century computer pioneer Ada Lovelace, and continue to the present day.

So far Isaacson has released a draft section — entitled “The Culture That Gave Birth to the Personal Computer” — that “sets the scene” in Silicon Valley during the 1970s: the decade in which Steve Jobs and Wozniak first started Apple.

Accessory manufacturer iDevices has announced a couple of new grilling tech products to be showcased at CES 2014 next week.

Both the iGrill2 Bluetooth Smart Meat Thermometer and the iLP Bluetooth Smart Liquid Propane Monitor are app-connected products which aim to improve the user’s grilling efficiency.

DigiTimes is reporting that Apple is experiencing difficulties in its long-rumored iWatch development — meaning that the (as yet unannounced) consumer launch may slip back further during 2014.

The not-always-reliable news site cites sources from the upstream supply chain, who report that the iWatch production slowdown is the result of the device’s body design. Apple is “reportedly seeing less than 50% yield rates due to difficulties applying surface treatments on their metal injection molded (MIM) chassis.”

Want to know which “freemium” (free to download, but with in-app purchases) game may just rule the App Store in 2014? Say hello to Farm Heroes Saga.

From the creators of social games including Candy Crush Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, Papa Pear Saga, and License To Print Money Saga (note: the last one may not exist), Farm Heroes Saga is essentially an agriculture-themed variation of Candy Crush Saga — in which players must switch and match three “cropsies” in order to stop Rancid the Raccoon from spoiling the farm lands.

Would you pay $7,800 for a suitcase full of carbon fiber and aluminum tubes? No, me neither, but clearly somebody will, or Shadowcam wouldn’t be hawking its crazily-priced S–5 camera stabilizer, a three-axis gimbal rig that would keep your shots steady even if you stood on a vibrating table with a bowl of jello on your head.

Apple’s shares closed at 1.4 percent lower for Tuesday’s trading — ending the day at $553.13.

The reason in a nutshell: that Wells Fargo changed its rating for Apple from “outperform” to “market perform”. While this downgrade wasn’t accompanied by a change in valuation (which remains in the $536 to $581 range) the rating essentially shifts recommendation away from “buy” to “neutral” (which actually means “sell”).

The Mummy Case is one of our all-time favorite iPhone cases, and now it has a sequel. No, it’s not the execrable The Mummy Returns. It’s the Straightjacket, and it looks pretty rad.

MaxStone is yet another way to trigger your camera from your iPhone, with all the usual timer and detection options to fire the camera’s shutter from afar. But this one takes a different approach to the hardware. Instead of running a cable from the iPhone to the camera, the MaxStone uses a combination of Bluetooth and IR.

What could possibly go wrong?

This Week, the app which we said “beats iOS Reminders app at its own game,” is now a universal app with newly-added iPad support. And it’s still way better than Reminders for adding dated tasks.

Having previously been labeled the “least green” tech company by Greenpeace due to its reliance on coal at data centers, Apple is keen to live up to its “force for good” mantra by demonstrating the environmental credentials of its products.

And when you’re speaking about the Mac Pro, those credentials are pretty damn impressive.

Every week Apple picks an app to showcase in the App Store as app of the week, and to kick off the new year Readdle’s Scanner Pro has been selected. The app is designed to turn your iPhone or iPad into a portable scanner that can store all kinds of documents, whether it to be a receipt for dinner or a work visa.

There’s a lot more to this app than meets the eye, so get it now if only to have it in case you ever need it one day. It supports iCloud sync, and you can share documents via Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, email, or print. Scanned documents are automatically fixed up to look they best they can when added to the app, and everything that’s scanned is turned into a PDF.

Scanner Pro normally costs $7, but as part of Apple’s week-long promotion, it’s available now in the App Store for free. The deal ends the 9th. Such a steal.

Source: App Store

The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas next week, and today it was announced that Apple’s iBeacon technology will be used to organize a scavenger hunt on the show floor for attendees.

Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 30 minutes, Cult of Mac has once again waded through the iTunes store to compile a list of the best new movies, albums and books to come out this week.

Enjoy!

Every time I walk into a bookstore, I want to buy a book. Or three. Sadly, my budget doesn’t cover that all the time, because I go into bookstores quite a bit. To scratch that itch, I’ve turned to taking a photo of the book covers with my iPhone; that way, I get the satisfaction of doing something about my book lust without having to pull out the wallet each time.

Shoots & Leaves is a new iOS app that aims to solve the same problem, but for all those things you need to be reminded of, not just books you want to buy (though you can use it for that, too, I suppose).

Referred to as “Swipey”, a new jailbreak tweak allows iOS 7 users to access six different apps via a left swipe from their iDevice lock screen — giving you all the features associated with a lock screen launcher, minus the clutter.

According to reports, Apple’s speculated-upon iPad Pro will come not only with a larger screen and greatly improved resolution, but also with eye-tracking technology.

With the iOS 7 jailbreak finally worth installing on newer iPhones and iPads, it seems the floodgates have finally been opened.

Virtual Home is one of the first Touch ID based jailbreak tweaks available for the iPhone 5s. Working with the Touch ID sensor, Virtual Home can help save wear and tear on the iPhone’s Home button by eliminating a large percentage of button presses. Instead users can replicate much of the functionality of the Home button simply by touching it.

Fact: I’m currently waiting for my lazy optician to supply my first pair of “old-man glasses” aka specs with progressive lenses. In young-folk terms that means I get glasses which let me read without holding the iPad at arms-length.

In the meantime, I have boosted the size of my iPad’s text, but on the Mac I might give Zoom It a spin. It’s a loupe app that magnifies whatever is under it’s little virtual glass eye, and it’s now compatible with Mavericks.

The sequel to 2009’s acclaimed Jet Car Stunts is now available in the App Store, and it looks pretty awesome.

I’m a sucker for great charger designs, and Ventev’s Utilitycharger 2100 is clearly a smart design. So clever is it that I’m even willing to overlook my hatred of cards for a few minutes as I write this post.

Which phone users are the smartest?

According to a peer-reviewed scientific study online intelligence test by renowned university British betting company Ladbrokes, the answer is iPhone owners.

If you’re looking to soften up your photo lighting (and let;’s be honest, who isn;t these days?) then you could do worse than the AirBox range of light modifiers. The AirBoxes are soft-boxes that you inflate. With Air. Hence the name AirBox.

My current desk cost me around €30 in the local flea market, comes from the GDR and is awesome. But it’s not a great desk for piling up with tech, thanks to a complete lack of charger cubbyholes and cable wranglers.

If you put my desk at one end of the tech-configurability spectrum, and a neat, modern desk on the middle, then the Bee9 Tablet Desk 2.0 would be way off at the other end of the scale.