News - page 1582

Yesterday, I visited the nerd-o-rama that is the annual Barcelona comics convention, and along with the overweight folks in too-tight superhero costumes, there were overweight folks in black t-shirts and sweatpants taking lots of photos. And their comfy clothing choices were explained by the fact that they had to carry like 20 kilos of glass in their camera bags.

Next year, they might be able to dress a little better whilst also saving their spines, using the Schneider iPro Series 2 lenses for the iPhone 5.

Steam! That’s what Steve Jobs would have had rocket from his ears when he heard about Facebook Home. We’ll explain why on our newest CultCast, but also covet aloud the one feature we hope Apple borrows for iOS. Plus, inside Leander Kahney’s Jony Ive book; Ron Johnson father of the Apple Store takes a boot to the rear; and we wrap with an all new Faves ‘N Raves, the segment where we pitch our favorite tech and apps then vote on which one’s best!

Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.

Click on through for the show notes.

Even before I ever dreamed of writing and taking pictures for a living — I’ll just pause here to let my fellow journalists and bloggers finish laughing hysterically at the idea that earnings from journalism could be considered “a living” — I rocked one of those photographer’s jackets. You know the one — zippers and pockets everywhere. I was a Geek King in the jacket, but I didn’t care; it let me carry all my gizmos and, yes, sometimes even photography gear.

Only the most wizened, old-school photographers use those vests anymore. And there are far better ways to shlep a quiver of gadgets — like the magnetic-sleeved, 22-pocket, Personal Area Network-equipped Tropiformer by Scottevest. Oh yeah.

Bill Campbell, an Apple board member as well as the chairman of the Intuit board, sat down for an hour long chat with Intuit’s CEO today to talk about technology. This is a rare move for Campbell, who’s known for his behind the scenes work (as well as his salty language, apparently).

Without giving away Apple secrets, Campbell talked about a new era of technology, one that will include all sorts of “intimate objects” as our new devices.

While the term intimate objects may mean completely different things to some folks, I’m betting he was talking about tech that you wear on your body, like glasses, or watches.

Zynga, the veritable king of social game publishing, is bringing yet another card battling game to mobile platforms, starting with iOS today. War of the Fallen is a digital collectible card game, one that mirrors real-life card games like Magic: The Gathering. Zynga’s game is free-to-download now on the iOS App Store, and will come to the Google Play store, soon.

For the first time since Steve Jobs died, his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, will speak on TV — in this case, in an interview on Rock Center with Brian Williams this evening, in just a few hours.

Pebble has updated its Bluetooth smartwatch OS with several notable additions and bug fixes. Battery life has been improved, and push notifications requesting permission to pair appear less frequently on iOS devices. Developers now have access to the SDK for creating custom watchfaces.

Twitter’s rumored music app technically exists, and it even has its own website. But normal people can’t use it yet. Twitter was expected to unveil a standalone music app to the world sometime today, but it turns out that the social network is doing a promotion with celebrities to generate more hype. This is all timed with the Coachella music festival this weekend, of course.

So for the next week or so, you’ll see some celebrities on Twitter sharing how much they love the music app. “There’s a serious dance party happening,” they’ll say. But you won’t be able to jam with them because you are a normal. Welcome to the real world. Time to wait another week.

Source: AllThingsD

Steve Wozniak is no stranger to gaming, having met Steve Jobs while working at Atari and even programmed his own version of the classic video game, Pong.

Did you know, though, that the Woz is a huge aficionado of the classic Gameboy game, Tetris. Well, he is… so much so that Nintendo Power magazine back in the 1980s refused to publish his scores anymore because he’d dominated the #1 spot for too long!

What can you hope for when you’re the last major U.S. carrier to get the iPhone? That at least a few people get in line to buy one on launch day.

Considering that the iPhone 5 has been out since last fall, you wouldn’t expect many lines to be forming outside of T-Mobile stores today. But surprisingly enough, people are showing up. “Uncarrier” FTW!!!

Even as companies like T-Mobile try to loosen the restrictions and obligations you sign up for when you get an iPhone, Verizon is tightening them up. The nation’s largest wireless carrier has just announced that they are ending their early upgrade eligibility program, which allowed customers on a two-year contract to upgrade their devices every twenty months. Instead, you’ll have to wait until your contract expires.

Here’s some fantastic analysis on what ex-Apple retail chief Ron Johnson did wrong at JC Penney written by legendary Apple ad man Ken Segall, who completely rejects the idea that Ron Johnson didn’t understand JC Penney’s brand identity, and even wandered around quoting the company’s founder, who detested sales gimmicks. So what was the problem?

Nope, it’s not just you: iMessage and FaceTime are experiencing issues this morning, with loads of users on Twitter (and, for that matter, my girlfriend) reporting problems. Yesterday, iMessage and Facetime also reported a number of issues. Jeez, Apple, get it together.

Source: Apple

Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets has been making some zany predictions lately, perhaps best exemplified by his recent claim that Apple’s forthcoming HDTV will be controlled using a Green Lantern like power ring called the iRing.

Almost as if to apologize for releasing a report written so clearly after an all-night bender, White is now making a more sensible prediction that falls in line with other reports: that his sources in the Asian supply chain have told him the iPhone 5S’s killer feature will be a fingerprint scanner.

Apple could introduce a redesigned backlighting system to the fifth-generation iPad to help make the device thinner and lighter, according to NDP DisplaySearch. The Cupertino company will have to make significant changes if it is to bring the iPad mini’s sleek and slim form factor to its bigger brother, and this is one of the areas in which it could reduce bulk.

Only T-Mobile lets your iPhone 5 be as great as an iPhone 5. That’s according to the carrier’s new commercial, which has begun airing today to celebrate the launch of the iPhone on T-Mobile. It’s taken almost six years, but Apple’s popular smartphone is finally available on America’s fourth largest carrier. Watch the new ad below.

In the 1984 rite-of-passage classic The Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso is taught agility and patience by his sensei, Keisuke Miyagi, by catching flies with chopsticks.

What kind of agility do you think it would take, then, to steal an iPhone using chopsticks? From a passing bicyclist, no less?

The Chinese gentleman above apparently pulled off the incredible feat in downtown Zhengzhou. A journalist happened to snap his nimble pickpocketing in action, which led to Wang turning himself in.

Via: Kotaku

We’ve heard tell that Twitter would soon be launching a music-discovery app, but it now appears that we might see it as early as today.

Nuff said.

Source: Twitter

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iTunes links mysteriously began disappearing from Google search results earlier this month, and Google was quick to confirm that a technical issue was the cause — and not that it was pulling them intentionally. As it turns out, the problem may have actually been Apple’s fault.

According to a report from search engine experts SISTRIX, Apple may have been blocking Google’s crawlers accidentally.

When Apple hired former Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch — yes, the same guy who watched and lamely whined while Apple basically killed Flash by declaring it a wholly unnecessary and archaic web technology that had no place in the mobile age of computing — there was a lot of head scratching. What would Kevin Lynch be doing at Apple?

Well, here’s one theory: he’s heading a team made up largely of former iPod employees, and he’s working on the iWatch.

Apple has agreed to pay $53 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accuses the Cupertino company of failing to honor warranties on iPhones and iPod touches. The settlement could see hundreds of thousands of Apple customers receiving a payout after being refused repairs or replacements on faulty devices still under warranty.

The U.K.’s Office of Fair Trading is investigating children’s games that charge in-app purchases for additional content and virtual items. The watchdog will look at games on mobile and on the web, and it’s calling for parents to report titles that “aggressively push” in-app purchases to children.

Apparently, junior minister for digital economy Fluer Pellerin thinks that Apple shouldn’t have rejected AppGratis from the App Store last week. Her remarks to the French media make it clear that she feels the tech company isn’t behaving ethically in its dealings with AppGratis, a French startup, or others like it, calling the move “an issue of fairness,” and “extremely brutal.”

Not only that, but Pellerin feels that European regulators might want to think about taking action against Apple for the rejection.