Griffin has a new lineup of charging accessories at CES in Las Vegas, one of which is ideal for those who have collected an entire family of iOS devices. It’s called the PowerDock 5 and it charges up to five devices at any one time, storing them away neatly to save space on your desk.
A company called Spicebox is showing at CES a hardware-software product called Mauz that turns your iPhone into a mouse that can also read motion gestures through the camera.
The product comes in three parts: a snap-on thing for your iPhone, an app for your iPhone and a driver for your Mac.
Mauz connects with your Mac over WiFi. It works like a regular mouse. But it can also register movement of the phone like the Nintendo Wii remote, as well as register in-air gestures like the Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360. Here’s a video.
The product should sell for less than $70 when it becomes available in June.
Apple has today announced that the App Store has surpassed a whopping 40 billion downloads, with almost 20 million seen in 2012 alone. A record-breaking December, helped by another successful Christmas, boosted this year’s figures, with more than two billion downloads during the month.
When Apple’s all-new iMacs made their debut in late November, a super speedy Fusion Drive was only available as a build-to-order option with the 27-inch models. But that’s no longer the case. Over the weekend, Apple made the 1TB Fusion Drive an upgrade option for the entry-level 21.5-inch iMac, too.
Stick-n-Find is a clever – and very small – object tracking device that talks to an app on your iDevice via Bluetooth, over a range of about 100 feet. After a hugely successful fundraising program on Indiegogo that raised six times more than required, the makers will be showing off the gadget at CES.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – When Sandy hit NYC and New Jersey last year, hundreds of thousands of people were left without power and no way to recharge their iPhones. After the 2,463rd round of Temple Run and your iPhone dies, what are you supposed to do? Talk to people?
Eton’s newest line of portable battery packs will make it possible for anyone to power-up their iPhone even during a diaster. All you need to do is put in a little old fashioned manual labor for a few minutes and you’ll create enough juice to make a short phone call.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Let’s be honest: any moron can crap out an iPhone case. Sketch out a quick model in CAD, send a few emails to someone in Shenzhen, and just a couple weeks later, a buttload of cheap plastic iPhone cases will hit your door. The fact that it’s literally this easy to make an iPhone case is what makes reporting on iPhone cases just so tedious: they are literally a multi-billion dollar industry fueled by brain farts.
Which is why I like Sculpteo, and was charmed as they lead me through a demonstration of their service. Unlike most of the bozos at CES, they aren’t hiding the fact that any moron can crap out an iPhone case. In fact, that’s their whole business: they want you to be that moron.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The idea behind Felt Audio’s lineup of iPhone accessories is simple. We’re going to let you take the sound from your iPhone and snap it on anywhere.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – If you want to get on some James Bond level espionage stuff, you could try buying a flying robot to spy on your neighbors, but the noise will clue them in. The best option right now is this tiny sensor wearable HD camera sensor from Liquid Image that can grab 1080p video without anyone knowing it’s there.
The Ego mini is a Wifi equipped HD camera that is marketed towards outdoor adventure seekers that want to record their greatest stunts and disasters, but it also comes with the ability to broadcast your video-feed over WiFi to an iPhone or Android device 400meters away, making it a perfect spycam.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The iPhone has many hardware advantages over the competition, but it sucks at LED alerts. Smartphones like the ones offered by RIM have a dedicated LED that flashes when you get a message; on Android, you can even dictate the pattern of the LED flashes per contact with a staccato rhythm applied on the touchscreen with your index finger.
Your iPhone? Nothing. The LED can flash if you get a message, but it’s messy and unrefined. But that’s where the Endliss Hybrid Battery Case for the iPhone 5 by uNu comes in. It gives the back of your iPhone just as much information to display as the front.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – When I videochatted over Skype with one of Belkin‘s PR people a few days ago, I told them I was dumbfounded at the sound coming from the tiny speakers built into the pre-production Thunderstorm case they sent me to play around with (the review notes I scrawled down actually read “pretty fucking amazed with this thing”). Nate, whose face I could see gazing at me from Belkin’s Los Angeles office, seemed stoic. “Invariably people have that same reaction… we call it ‘the thirty seconds of wow.’ ”
The world’s largest gadget showcase starts today in Las Vegas, and as we have in years past, Cult of Mac will be at Consumer Electronic Show 2013 from day one to report on the latest iOS and Apple news, the most important tech trends, the best accessories and gadgets, as well as rock out at the some of the most bitchin’ and downright bizarre parties Sin City has ever seen.
On our website, you’ll be able to access all of our CES coverage by visiting our dedicated CES 2013 page.
For those of you who simply must have all your devices – and a few on loan from a friend too – by your bedside all night, every night, here’s a new thing you’ll see at CES this year: the Easy-Doks CR19.
The entire camera world is in a state of flux at the moment; point-and-shoot cameras are being replaced by smarter phones with good-enough cameras, and accessory manufacturers know that us photo-crazy iPhone 5 owners are lacking the plethora of lenses, apps, and cases we once had available to us on the iPhone 4 and 4S.
That’s why, at this year’s CES, I expect to be hit with a title wave of lenses, gadgets, gizmos, cases, and apps that all promise to do the same thing: make your iPhone’s camera even better.
It’s not often that you get to say something like “Lewis and Clark RPG,” right? Not Lois and Clark, but LEWIS and Clark, the famous explorers from American history, who did a whole lot of exploring, have a trail named after them, and will always be associated with Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who traveled with them to serve as guide and translator.
The Meriwether Kickstarter project has 50 hours to go to get as far past the initial funding goal (which it hit today) as it can to help fund even more historical awesomeness, like special outfits for Lewis that raise his stats, the addition of a Girardoni Air Rifle, an endless arcade mode, and a bizarre nightmare dreamscape extra bonus level with giant sloths and wooly mammoths.
The Steam Holiday sale continues through this coming weekend, as the Valve-owned digital distribution portal extends its amazingly deep discounts for a wide variety of games, including the Mac variety, until 1 pm Eastern time on Monday, January 7th.
The Mac games included in the sale are some great ones, including Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a game we included in our top scariest games list last October. This formerly $19.99 game is now up for sale for a ridiculous $4.99.
Michigan readers, rejoice, as AT&T announced today several new 4G LTE markets in the eighth most populous state in the US.
Users in the following areas of Michigan should start to see the little LTE symbol at the top of their iPhones and Android handsets very soon.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Beverly Hills, Michigan
Birmingham, Michigan
Monroe County, Michigan
Kent County, Michigan
Ottowa County, Michigan
Apple’s newest version of OS X – 10.8 Mountain Lion – has been the fastest adopted Mac operating system in history and it’s continuing to dominate. A new web traffic survey has concluded that Mountain Lion is now the most popular version of OS X used to browse the web.
Before Apple had their very own Internet browser, Mac users had to depend on Internet Explorer for Mac to surf the web. Part of Steve Jobs plan to resurrect the popularity of the Mac was to create its very own web browser – Safari.
Apple being Apple, the entire project was top secret. Even Apple employees weren’t allowed to know that Apple was cooking up its own browser. The secrecy of the project made things difficult because Apple needed to test the browser as they built it, but server logs would identify Safari before it was announced and Apple’s secret would be blown.
Rather than risk someone discovering Safari via their server logs, Apple cleverly hid Safari’s true identity by pretending it was Mozilla, and it actually worked. Here’s the story according to former Apple employee Don Melton who was in charge of the Safari team:
Amazon Instant Video is one of the best reasons to sign up for Amazon Prime. It’s not as good as Netflix yet, but it’s getting there, and it’s cheaper. To make things better, Amazon just announced that they’re adding A&E’s networks to Amazon Instant Video.
The licensing agreement between Amazon and A&E gives Prime Instant Video customers access to popular shows from A&E, bio, History, and Lifetime. So now you can watch all the shenanigans of Duck Dynasty right from your iPad or Kindle Fire.
Next week at CES every tech company in the world is going to cram under one roof and show off all their products that they hope will change the world. Well every company except Apple that is.
Even though Apple won’t have a presence at CES this year, we’ll see their influence everywhere, from ultrabooks to smartphones. But the biggest influence Apple will have on CES 2013 is with a product they haven’t even released yet – the mythical iTV.
Everyone is scared of what will happen if Apple launches an iTV because it will give them a virtual monopoly on all consumer screens (smartphones, laptops, tablets, and televisions). So naturally we’re going to see a lot of Smart TVs as everyone attempts to predict what Apple’s going to do, and then try to get there first.
G-Form is a case manufacturer that’s famous for taking expensive devices and running them over, throwing them off balconies, and dropping bowling balls on top of them. The company is so confident its cases can withstand damage of this magnitude that it’s more than happy to prove it. Its latest trick sees Apple’s latest iPod touch take a 100,000-foot free fall inside the company’s new Xtreme iPhone 5 case. It survives without a scratch.
Forbes Magazine has today made its debut on Newsstand, and it promises to provide you with the “ultimate Forbes experience combining all the original magazine reporting on business, technology, and investing with the dynamic interactive content from Forbes.com” Users can buy single issues as and when they wish, or commit to a monthly or yearly subscription.
Best Buy, Toys “R” Us, and others have complained to attorneys general in more than half a dozen states about an aggressive Walmart advertising campaign for the iPhone 5 and other electronics. The adverts promised better prices than those offered by competitors, with several retailers, including Best Buy and Toys “R” Us, specifically named. However, those retailers argue that Walmart’s information was incorrect.
As Samsung improves its cellphones by adding proper cameras, so it is tweaking its cameras to make them more like pocket computers. The new mirrorless flagship NX300 adds better Wi-Fi connectivity and a massive 3.3-inch, 768,000-dot 16:9 touchscreen.