LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Last year, Supertooth promised to make its Disco 2 speakers stereo, with each separate Bluetooth speaker becoming either the left or right speaker in the pair.
At the last minute, it switched out this feature in favor of low-power Bluetooth 4, which is probably way more useful to most buyers. Now, stereo is back, and it sounds great.
If you happen to wander the courtyard of St. Petersburg’s National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (quite the mouthful), you will now find a giant iPhone. The monument stands about as tall as a fully grown man, and a huge screen displays photos, videos and text about Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder.
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The Cult of Mac staff invaded Show Stoppers last night at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. Along with some free buffet food and an endless supply of booze, there were products galore. Some were neat. A lot were horrible. But the event was a lot of fun.
Here is a small sampling of the sights of CES Showstoppers last night:
Apple has released an important software update for all mid-2012 MacBook Air models. The EFI firmware update is available now via Software Update in the Mac App Store. Today’s 2.6 update addresses issues with coloring on HDMI-connected displays, booting into Windows via a tool like Boot Camp, and a Thunderbolt glitch.
This update fixes a color issue with HDMI displays connected to MacBook Air, resolves an issue with Windows which can prevent MacBook Air from booting properly, and also resolves an issue where unplugging a Thunderbolt device may cause the system to freeze when waking from standby.
Source: Apple
Apple released iTunes 1.0 to the world at Macworld back on January 9th, 2001. The application was based on SoundJam MP, an old piece of software Apple purchased from a development company called Casady & Greene in 2000. Apple simplified the SoundJam MP interface, added CD burning, and rebranded it as iTunes.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – CES isn’t just about the big names. We ran into the folks from Nifty Mini Drive, a successful Kickstarter project which is about to go on general sale. The Nifty is a tiny dongle which house a microSD card, and then slots into your MacBook’s SD card slot.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The CES iLounge is jam packed with a cornucopia of iPhone headphones, all with their own little trick or gimmick to make them standout. A lot of them try to solve the problem of tangled headphone wires, and then best one I’ve seen so far are Zipbuds.
Like almost every other headphone manufacturer at CES, Zipbuds makes headphones with big puffy earpieces that can pump out some loud bass. Zipbuds also has a lot of celebrity endorsements and all that jazz. But what sets Zipbuds’ product apart, is that you can zip your headphone wires together to make everything tangle free. It’s simple, and clever, and works really well.
I have an admiration for very simple solutions, and while the CardNinja — a new iPhone accessory that was on display last night at Showstoppers! — isn’t going to light anyone’s world on fire, it’s a “why didn’t I think of that?” kind of product that makes it a lot easier to treat your iPhone like a real wallet.
We’ve been itching to get our hands on the Pebble smartwatch since it first hit Kickstarter, but that wait will be over later this month. At CES in Las Vegas today, Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that the device has now entered mass production, and that shipping will begin on January 23.
Twitter has updated one its Mac applications today, but no, it’s not the Twitter app. It’s TweetDeck, which now offers a number of new features, and more than 90 fixes for previous issues. The update brings the native TweetDeck client in line with TweetDeck for Google Chrome.
No one really likes slapping a case on their iPhone — no matter how pretty or how protective that case may be. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll try to find the thinnest, lightest iPhone case on the market in an effort to preserve Apple’s sleek and sexy design. Mod-3 feels exactly the same way, and they’ve designed the Radius, a new iPhone 5 case that’s so minimalistic you’ll hardly notice it.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The venerable MacBook Pro has a number of workstation options available to it, but the MacBook Air tends to get short shrift in the B2B accessories market.
The LandingZone wants to change that, and they’re showing off a simple, attractive pair of docking stations that not only make it easy to “check in” to your workstation, but give the MacBook Air a wealth of new USB ports and security benefits.
Rumors surrounding an upcoming low-cost iPhone have really taken off this week, with The Wall Street Journal reporting on Tuesday that the device could make its debut before the end of 2013. Now Bloomberg is corroborating that with information from its own sources, who say Apple is already discussing the device with at least one of the major U.S. carriers. They also claim that the handset will cost between $99 and $149 when it launches.
Wireless speakers are often the best way to enjoy the music you have stored on your smartphone or tablet, but like other electronics, there are some places you wouldn’t want to take them — such as the beach or the lake. Filling them with sand and water will kill them incredibly quickly.
That’s not a worry with the NUU Splash, however, because it’s both dust and water resistant.
If you’re a former BlackBerry user who’s just bought your first iPhone, and you’re struggling to adapt to its virtual on-screen keyboard, then check out the Spike SmartType from SoloMatrix. On show at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, and coming to iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5, the Spike is a new case that slaps a physical QWERTY keyboard right across your handset’s display. You can fold it away when it’s not in use, and you never need to worry about charging it.
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Lego is showing off a new version of its popular Mindstorms robotics kit at CES that adds some incredible new technology. The third generation Lego kit includes support for mobile devices, meaning that you can now control your Lego creations with your iPhone.
As Mindstorms continues to evolve, the technology in them improves as well. The heart of the EV3 is powered by Linux, which allows the creator to program the creation remotely from your iOS device.
Lego plans to make the Mindstorms EV3 available sometime in the second half of 2013, with a retail price of $349.99 It seems like just yesterday that Legos were just plastic bricks…
A day after AT&T announced its “best-ever” quarter for smartphone sales, rival operator Verizon Wireless is doing exactly the same thing. The carrier has announced that it expects to have reached a record 9.8 million sales during the fourth quarter of 2012, and it’s attributing that success to the popularity of the iPhone.
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Fitness technology company Fitbit has unveiled a new product this year at CES that they call the Fitbit Flex, a bluetooth wristband. As with many other products announced at this year’s CES, the Fitbit Flex works with an iOS app over Bluetooth 4.0 to keep your fitness data up to date.
The Fitbit Flex companion app tracks your activities, and keeps a record of how many steps you’ve taken, the distance you’ve traveled, how many calories you’ve burned, as well as the quality of your sleep.
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Fisher-Price is showing off a new iPad case along with some apps at CES that are perfect for any child. The Create and Learn Apptivity case, as it’s called, is a rugged, kid friendly case made for use by children. It not only securely holds the iPad, protecting the entire unit, but also has an integrated handle and stylus connected to the case.
T-Mobile USA will finally start selling the iPhone and enforce its plan to eliminate subsidies in “three to four months,” according to the company’s chief executive, John Legere. It will be the first time T-Mobile has offered in the iPhone in the United States since the handset was first released launched in 2007.
High-end hifi people Naim announced a stylish new audio playback gadget designed to make listening to computer-based music as good as possible. Needless to say, you have to shell out serious money for this kind of serious sound.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – When Steve Jobs first unveiled the 9.7 inch iPad back in 2010, he made a specific point of telling how many endless hours, how many prototypes had been rejected determining the perfect size for an onscreen keyboard. 9.7 inches, he claimed, was the minimum device that you could accurately and comfortable type on. Any smaller tablet, he later elaborated, was a “tweener” you would need sandpaper to whittle down your fingers to type upon.
For Steve Isaac, CEO of Touchfire, those words are a challenge. If anything smaller than an iPad is a “tweener,” how can you enable a satisfactory typing experience on the 7.85 inch iPad mini? And Isaac thinks he’s got an answer.
Apple has released yet another seed for OS X 10.8.3 today, Build 12D50, to developers in the Mac Dev Center. This is the fourth seed since the original 10.8.3 beta back in November.
Retail giant Walmart announced today that it will be offering a prepaid iPhone in its stores starting January 11th. The iPhone will run on a $45 to $60 per month no contract, unlimited talk, text and data plan from the Straight Talk reseller, exclusively through Walmart.
Walmart is also offering a no interest fixed-monthly payment financing plan for the iPhone, if purchased with the Walmart credit card. Yes, you will be able to finance an iPhone 5 with unlimited talk, text, and data through Walmart (assuming approved credit) and Straight Talk ( a TracFone brand) for a whopping $70 a month. No word on how much you’ll actually be paying for the device after the financing has completed, though. This is a zero percent financing deal, so the $25 will never go up, and will end once the full cost of the iPhone is paid off.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – I honestly believed I’d seen pretty much everything in iPhone cases. I’m existentially bored with them, like if Camus wrote about tech writers.
So it was notable to me as I walked through the iLounge Pavillion today that a small booth of cases actually caught my eye and for just a second, made me go, “Hey, I haven’t seen that before.” The cases are by Huckleberry; called Chara-Cases, they turn your iPhone 4, iPhone 5 or iPod touch into the equivalent of a big, colorful action figure.