News - page 1494

UPDATE: Looks like FreshPatents isn’t so fresh. Despite labeling this patent as “new,” it seems it was first published back in March. Nevertheless, it’s still a pretty interesting one, so we’ll leave it here for those who haven’t seen it before.

You don’t know the true meaning of pain until you’ve dropped your shiny new iPhone on a hard surface. If you’re lucky, it will land on its back and your case will protect it, but if you’re not, it’ll land flat on its face and you’ll need a new display. But what if there was a way of ensuring it landed on its back every time?

A new Apple patent that covers a “Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device” describes how future iPhones and other mobile devices could have built-in motors that automatically flip them over in mid-air after they’ve been dropped to protect vulnerable areas.

Behold, the iKettle, a water-boiler that can be almost completely controlled from your iPhone while you laze around in your bed.

There isn’t much to say about Cloudpaint in the cloud other than it’s MacPaint… in your browser. That’s right – go browse to the site and enjoy the wonders of 1984-style B&W ink and square brushes.

The Brother ADS-1500W scanner is the first of a pair of wireless small office/home office scanners the company is releasing this month; the two fall between its recently redesigned portable wireless scanners and its ADS-2500W workhorse.

I remember a few tech bloggers going nuts over Vine when it hit the street back in January. I wasn’t convinced; it seemed too limiting, felt too gimmicky. Vine turned out to be a more creative tool than I’d imagined — at least for others. But the concept never really hooked me enough to want to use it.

Cameo, on the other hand, had my juices flowing almost immediately. Like Vine, Cameo shoots short, six-second HD (720p) clips that can be uploaded to Cameo’s website or shared via social media and email. Unlike Vine, multiple six second shots can be combined into a two-minute (maxiumum) clip, with light editing tools, effects and music added to the mix. And Cameo even lets you collaborate with friends.

The iMessage dot indicator lets you know when the person on the other is ignoring typing you, which can be a wonderful thing. It can also be one of the most annoying things in the world when you see someone start to type and then stop, or supposedly “type” for a long time.

Here’s a mischievous little prank you can play on unsuspecting iMessage users. Go to the website below and save the GIF to your Camera Roll. Just send it to random people and watch frustration ensue. Rinse, then repeat. You’re welcome.

Source: Infinite Text-In-Progress

The year is 2013 and we have all kinds of way to share content between mobile devices, but there still isn’t an easy, frictionless way to send money to someone wirelessly in a secure manner.

Then there’s AirDrop, Apple’s new sharing platform in iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks that’s as easy as dragging and dropping. What if something like that existed for transferring cash between different bank accounts? Simple has the answer with a new feature called MoneyDrop.

If you don’t know what the upcoming fifth-gen iPad is going to look like by now, you just haven’t been paying attention. We’ve seen leaks on leaks of both the next 10-inch iPad and the second-gen iPad mini, each of which sport a slimmer, more streamlined design.

More photos of the iPad 5 in Space Grey and Silver have surfaced, and they look great. The colors match up with the iPhone 5s color options very well, except for one glaring omission: gold.

Foursquare released an update for its iOS app today that includes an updated look and feel, as well as a new real-time recommendations feature. Using your iPhone’s location data, the app now serves up recommendations such as what to eat at a restaurant or sales coupons for a store you’re already shopping at. Users can also expect to see recommendations for places of interest throughout the day when visiting new cities.

The feature has been on Android for a month now, but Foursquare plans to roll it out to a small batch of iPhone users today with more added every day. The app also brings back a feature that lets you see what your friends are up to by filtering between nearby and worldwide. The free update is available now in the App Store.

Here are the full release notes:

It seems to me that we do a lot of unnecessary worrying in our lives. There’s a lot of generalized anxiety floating out there, and–absent a clinical diagnosis of anxiety–perhaps we could all benefit from keeping track of what we worry about, and how often. If nothing else, it’s a good way to figure out whether we truly have issues to stress over, or if we’re maybe creating a bunch of it for our own need to feel worried.

In addition, we might also have some moments when we realize that our worries are nothing more than irrational fears of our own making. The problem is, we forget these moments when gripped by worry again the next time.

The developer behind iOS app Worry Watch has created a gorgeous and useful way to track our anxious moments as well as the moments when we realize that our worries might be irrational.

Warner Bros. / DC Comics-owned Vertigo has published this amazing ongoing series called Fables since 2002. Written by Bill Willingham, the stories all revolve around the idea that all the characters in fairy tales are real, and they’ve been banished to upstate New York until they can reclaim their ancestral homelands.

One of the most interesting characters is Bigby, better known as the big bad wolf from tales like “Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs.”

Bigby is the sheriff of this winged-horse town, and he’s kind of a badass. Check out the trailer below for a glimpse of this gritty noir-thriller based on the award-winning comic, Fables.

We’re still waiting for the iPhone to make its big debut on China Mobile, but we’ve seen lots of evidence to suggest that the move is imminent. The latest indication comes from a job listing on Apple’s China website that seeks a new engineer with extensive knowledge of China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA network.

One of my favorite games of all time is a little 1993 adventure game called Gabriel Knight: Sins Of The Fathers. Taking place in New Orleans, the Sierra classic follows the titular smooth-talking, trenchcoat wearing horror novelist as he attempts to get to the bottom of a voodoo murder mystery.

When I say I loved this game, I don’t mean I played it and kind of liked it. To this day, I wear a black overcoat everywhere, just like Gabriel Knight. I have had serious conversations with my significant other if we can name our firstborn son “Gabriel Knight Brownlee.” So you know I was going to be all over this: Gabriel Knight is coming back, to the iPad and Mac.

Apple has today announced that the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c will both reach another 35 countries on Friday, October 25. Italy, Russia, and Spain will be included in the second phase of the new iPhone rollout, along with a number of other countries across Europe and Asia.

The devices will then reach India, Mexico, and more than a dozen more countries on Friday, November 1.

NPD DisplaySearch is one of the more reputable sources of supply-chain chatter there is, and they are currently making some bold predictions when it comes to Apple’s future iOS device line-up, from the iPhone 6, Retina MacBook Air, Apple HDTV and iWatch. Not only do they say that Apple is intending on announcing a retina iPad mini later this month (fingers crossed), but they say a larger iPhone is a certainty. In fact, they think every Apple display will improve across the board.

Every once and a while, someone suggests that Apple will eventually migrate OS X over to ARM, and the A7 processor’s move to 64-bit has reopened that rumor yet again. As we’ve explained before, they almost definitely won’t, but the rumor persists nonetheless.

It’s interesting, then, to see a different variation on this rumor. According to a Barclays Capital analyst, Apple doesn’t intend to put ARM chips in every MacBook… they want to make iPads into notebooks as alternatives to Macs.

Do you remember when a representative for mobile chip maker Qualcomm said that Apple’s 64-bit A7 chip was a “marketing gimmick?” It seemed pretty laughable even at the time. At some point, Qualcomm is going to start releasing 64-bit chips, at which point they’d have to eat these words.

Well, Qualcomm didn’t bother waiting to eat those words. They tied a bib on and tucked in, with Qualcomm now acknowledging that the comments were “inaccurate.”

Flickr for iPhone can now automatically upload all the photos in your camera roll, thanks to a new update for devices running iOS 7. There’s also a new auto-straighten feature that fixes your wonky snaps, and the Google sign-in issues that plagued the previous release have been fixed.

Just when I thought I’d kicked my bag-buying habit, along comes Waterfield and dangles the Staad backpack in front of my wallet. The Staad is a classic-looking waxed-canvas and leather backpack with some distinctly modern touches. And I want one. Now.

According to all the fashionable studies these days, sitting is about as dangerous as balancing a TV set on the edge of the bathtub while you have a soak, sip a martini and smoke a fat Havana all at the same time.

I avoid this deathtrap by doing my work as fast as possible and then going back to bed after a couple of hours spent in the danger zone, but apparently standing desks are another good solution. And if you own a Mac, then you’ll want a standing desk designed to work with it, like the new WorkFit for Apple range from Ergotron.

Maybe you have an iPhone, an SLR, and perhaps a couple of weird old lenses that don’t fit either of them. Fear not, my gadget-hoarding friend, for the answer is nigh. It’s called the Beastgrip, and it attached pretty much anything to anything else.

Amazon’s Whispersync for voice was always an interesting curiosity: You can read a book on your Kindle, seamlessly switch to the Audiobook version, and then switch back again, all without losing your place. This works thanks to the fact that Amazon owns Audible, the biggest audiobook seller around.

The service just got a lot easier to use, thanks to a doubling of compatible titles, and a new Matchmaker service which automatically pairs up any books you already own, and lets you grab the audio version for a big discount.

Dr. Drang is on a roll these days. After letting us organize our photos in the Finder with his fantastic shell scripts, he will now change the way you use your iOS reminders app. Are you ready to have your mind blown?

The Satechi Smart Travel Router might just be the most useful travel adapter ever made. Not only can it plug into a wall socket pretty much anywhere in the world, it can also charge your iPhone and create a wireless network.

Apple’s iPad event is slated to happen in two weeks on Tuesday, October 22nd, according to the venerable AllThingsD. Not only will the iPad and iPad mini be updated, but the “new Mac Pro and OS X Mavericks will likely get some stage time as well.”