News - page 1638

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – We’re a big fan of wireless Bluetooth speakers like the Jambox, but let’s face it: for most people, they are both too expensive, and too much of a pain in the butt to remember to pair and unpair. When NFC sees broad adoption, the latter will change, and you’ll be able to play from a wireless speaker just by laying it on top of the device.

Why wait for NFC, though? RCA of all companies is here at CES with a super cool new speaker line called the Soundflow, and it can play music from any smartphone or tablet just by laying it on top of the speaker. Best of all? The technology is so cheap that for the price of one Jambox, you could buy five or six Soundflows.

University vending machines usually dispense soda and junk food, not $1,000 MacBooks. At Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a kiosk in the library spits out MacBooks free of charge for students to borrow and return five hours later. The kiosk is part of an experiment to gauge interest and see if more MacBook and iPad dispensers should be installed around campus.

Students who don’t want to carry a laptop out of their dorm room can use the self-service kiosk 24 hours a day in the school’s Hagerty Library. A dozen 15-inch MacBooks are available and can be checked out by anyone with a Drexel ID for up to five hours. There’s a $5 late fee for every hour a MacBook is kept out longer than the allotted rental time.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – With so many companies competing for attention, there’s plenty of clever, crazy and just plain weird here at the Consumer Electronics Show. Take the gentleman above: his real name is Gary Fisher but his stage name is Sir Gaga. He claims to be the most photographed performer in Las Vegas. For those of you who like his style, he also has a fashion company called Nazrat (Tarzan spelled backwards)

If you own a relatively recent Android device, it’s likely to support a nifty feature called DLNA, which allows you to stream content directly from your device to a whole host of compatible devices, including televisions, stereos, and Sony’s PlayStation 3. It’s very similar to AirPlay, only it supports a far greater range of devices, and doesn’t require an Apple TV.

Well now you can enjoy DLNA streaming on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch thanks to Skifta, a new iOS app from Qualcomm Atheros.

Apple has settled a lawsuit with Swiss photographer Sabine Liewald over the alleged misuse of a photograph of an eyeball that the Cupertino company used during a keynote presentation for its Retina MacBook Pro. News of the settlement came in an order of dismissal issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, January 3, but the terms of the deal are unclear at this point.

I’m a big fan of Loop Attachment’s Mummy cases for iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5; I’ve reviewed them both in the past and found them to be two of the best silicone cases you can get for Apple’s smartphone. And so I’m delighted that the Mummy for iPad mini has finally be unveiled at CES in Las Vegas this week — alongside a nifty clip for the latest iPod nano.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Last year, I gave my friend Rachel — a NYC singer/songwriter/comedian with an impressive array of musical proficiencies — my old iPad 2 as a gift. It was her first tablet, or even touchscreen device. I worried she wouldn’t know what to do with it, so when she opened the box and gave me an inquisitive cock of the eyebrow, I told her that the very first thing she needed to do with it was install Garage Band.

To this day, I think it was Garage Band that is the real gift to Rachel, not the actual iPad. Using Garage Band, she can quickly jot out a song idea on the road, or even fully record a fantastic mix, all from a device small enough to fit in her purse. There’s only one trade-off: you have to use the touchscreen. There’s no physical instrument as portable as the iPad to take on the road with you.

That’s where the Jamstik comes in. A product so new and in-concept it doesn’t even have a distributor yet, it’s one of our favorite products of CES. It’s a tiny, ukelele-sized guitar with real strings that connects to your iPad over WiFi, and not only can you use it to record or even perform with your iPad, but it can also teach you how to play the guitar… or serve for an impromptu game of Guitar Hero.

ZeptoLab released Pudding Monsters, its first iOS title since its success with Cut the Rope, back in December. But it hasn’t finished its original physics-based puzzler just yet. The company just released an update on iOS that introduces a brand new box of content with 25 new levels.

Isn’t it annoying when your iPhone rings and you don’t get to it in time to answer it? One Japanese gentleman aims to solve this problem with a crazy quick-draw contraption that ensures your iPhone is never more than a flick away. Check out the hilarious demonstration video below.

Angry Birds Space for Android and iOS has today received yet another big update, introducing a brand new galaxy with 30 new levels. It’s called Splash, and every planet is filled with water, strange aquatic life, and pigs in boats. The update also promises the “ultimate under water boss level.”

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iPhone protection company Hitcase is debuting a new iPhone 5 case at CES which is going up against the like of Otterbox to provide a secure shell for your iPhone 5. Going one step further, Hitcase has also made a harness system for the case itself, so you can mount your iPhone in a variety of different ways.

Like you’d expect from a rugged iPhone case, the Hitcase is waterproof up to 10 meters and fully protects all of the iPhone’s ports and switches. The back even integrates a wide angle lens for shooting scenes while outdoors with the case.

Amazon has today launched a new music service called AutoRip, which offers customers a free MP3 version of every album they’ve bought on CD from Amazon since 1998. The service currently boasts more than 50,000 digital albums from all the major record labels, and Amazon insists that new titles are added on a regular basis.

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Cocoon is showing off at CES this year a new bag that combines the best of their organization tools with the familiarity of a carrying case for your devices.

The IQ Collection, as it’s being tentatively called, is based around Cocoon’s Grid, a storage system that keeps a wide variety of your gadgets secure and organized while you’re traveling.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Back when I was a kid, I had all kinds of Fisher-Price toys I loved playing with. But I don’t think I remember anything quite as magic as Fisher-Price’s new line of Apptivity sets for preschoolers that combine child-safe cases and toy figures with slick augmented-reality apps (though my little Classic Xylophone came close).

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When it comes to styluses for your iPad, there’s quite a few options, but none are quite like the Connect, Pogo’s newest stylus that they’re showing off at CES this year. The Connect is a pressure-sensitive stylus with some unique features that set it apart from the rest.

The Pogo connect lets you rest your hand on the iPads screen while drawing, something that can come in handy when using the stylus for extended periods of time. Because of this, your hand won’t get sore trying to rest it on the bezel to avoid unwanted input from your wrist.

Tim Cook is on his second visit to China as Apple CEO this week, and during an interview with local reporters on Thursday, he confirmed that the cellular version of the iPad mini will be arriving in the nation in late January. The Wi-Fi only model arriving in China on December 7, just over a month after it launched in the United States.

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Cult Of Mac’s gadget hunter Erfon Elijah stopped by the HEX booth at CES this year to check out some of the company’s new products, including a new backpack as well as some custom designed headphones.

HEX’s products are focused heavily on great design, and it shows in the new Origin backpack that was demoed at CES. Instead of going with run-of-the-mill materials, HEX developed the material for the Origin backpack themselves, to get just the right texture.

Apple announced on its developer site today that it will be locking down the images submitted along with apps once they are approved for the App Store, locking scammers out of one more tactic used to scam naive app buyers into purchasing apps that may look just like popular games (like Pokemon or Minecraft). The tactic involved submitting apps with basic images for approval to Apple, then switching them out to infringing images that look just like the popular apps.

Apple’s new policy should help cut down on scammer app sellers from deploying the bait and switch maneuver in the future, helping keep app buyers a bit safer than before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlZfco05AZM

There’s a new game in town, coming to the Mac early this year, according to Haemimont Games, developer of Tropico. Omerta: City of Gangsters has you work your way up the criminal scene of 1920’s Atlantic City. Start running small jobs, recruit new gang members, and take down other mobsters, grabbing their territory as you take them out. Eventually, you’ll set up your own city-wide crime syndicate and rule Atlantic City’s seedy underground.

Lucky Frame, developer behind indie hit iOS games Bad Hotel and Pugs Luv Beats, announced today that its anticipated follow-up game, Wave Trip, will release on January 22, 2012. So, in just two short weeks, you’ll be able to control a mysterious geometric astronaut, helping her travel through worlds of beauty as well as danger, saving her friends via music and beat-based gameplay.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Samson’s iQ5 is a Lightning-connected stereo mic which rotates to give proper left and right channels whether you’re shooting in landscape or portrait.

That’s right – Samson is enabling portrait-format video. Shame on them.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – When I shoot video with my iPhone it usually looks like a rehabbing crack addict shot it. I get the shakes and the video becomes a wonky mess as everything starts blurring together.

If you want to shoot better video with your iPhone, there’s a new product we found at CES today that will make you look like a pro. It’s called the iStabilizer Dolly, and it helps you capture smooth video cinematic videos and panning shots using your iPhone.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Let’s be honest, iPad styluses are pretty boring. I’ve tried to use a few different models, but the problem is you always have to take it with you and then you forget about it because you’re so used to using pens.

It’s nearly impossible for me to get excited about styluses, but LunaTick’s new Touch Pen is the first stylus I’ve seen that’s actually made me think a stylus could be useful.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Lightning accessories for the iPhone are starting to show up at last, but who really wants a speaker dock anymore anyway? ILuv seems to think that somebody out there will buy one, and the result is this Aud 5 dock, a device which is fully CES-buzzword compliant.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – It’d be easy to believe that CES is totally about the press, but the real reason its here is for device makers to hawk their wares to dealers, store chains and so on.

And that’s what’s happening at the iLuv booth, which this year has a neat Lightning iPhone dock (more on that in another post) and this super-stylish iPhone case.