News - page 1744

The iPad became a big hit in the K-12 education market over the past year. Pioneering schools that brought Apple’s tablet into the classroom last school year proved that the iPad can be a excellent learning tool – one that has immense power to transform education.

As the new school year begins, and hundreds of thousands of students across the U.S. become iPad users thanks to one-to-one iPad deployments, there’s already talk that the iPad’s success in schools will be short-lived. The belief is that iPads will quickly be replaced by tablets running Microsoft’s Windows RT or Windows 8.

That assumption is absurd and delusional.

Big glass walls? Check. Wood product tables with open layout? Check. Minimalist design? Check. Retail staff wearing blue t-shirts? Check. This isn’t an Apple Store, though; it’s the newest Samsung Experience store that just opened in Sydney where visitors can play with all the greatest smartphones, tablets, and laptops on the planet made by Samsung.

The store looks a lot like the inside of the Apple Store that’s just a short walk away, but Samsung swears they didn’t copy Apple this time, or even look at what Apple was doing in the retail space. Right!

What if I told you there was a plugin for Lightroom which would mirror the latest edit of every photo in library in the cloud, and make it available in a neat, iPad optimized browser view right away?

You’d probably just call me a liar, skip to the next post and maybe take a sip of your coffee, muttering “That idiot Sorrel is doing it again. I’m writing to hi damn editor this time.”

Well, you’d be a fool. Instead, let that coffee cool a little and come take a look at Mosaic.

Apple just released OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion a month ago, and now it’s already got an update. If you click “Software Update…” from your Apple icon menu, 10.8.1 should be ready to download. The update weighs only 24.2MB, and  is mostly just a bunch of bug fixes, but you can read the full notes here:

Apple retail stores are now installing special dock connectors to prevent iOS devices from being stolen. They look just like the regular USB cable that ships with every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, but they feature a nifty anti-left lock that prevents them from being removed from the device — essentially tethering the unit to the table.

An old-as-the-hills Easter Egg has been rediscovered by New York based hacker collective NYC Resistor: hidden pictures of the Macintosh team from 1986 hidden in the Mac SE’s system ROM. The Easter Egg has been known about forever — references to it on the Internet go back to at least 1999 — but more interesting than the Easter Egg itself is how NYC Resistor discovered for themselves how it was done: by good, old fashioned hacking.

The old one lasted a quarter of a century, but Microsoft has now unveiled a new logo ahead of the anticipated launch of Windows 8, the most radical revision of the world’s most popular desktop operating system to date. It’s boring, but in regards to embracing the minimalism of today’s design trends with a soft, non-stylized font, it does a good job.

Steve Jobs’s widow, Laurene Powell, has been named as the 49th most powerful woman. She features alongside billionaires, CEOs, entertainers, and heads of state in a list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women composed by Forbes.

I adjust fonts in different apps for OS X almost every day, so maybe I’m blowing this tiny tip out of proportion, but it’s one of the most useful things I’ve come across in weeks. Slide a little dot down to get a preview of the font, rather than having to look over at your document or image with each font change? It’s great!

Source: Reddit

The various bookbindery cases for the iPad are great and all, but I always found them to be a little impractical. They look lovely, they offer a ton of protection, but they do tend to get in the way. But the Kindle, made to be read like a book, seems tailor-made for a book-like cover. And here it is, the Hardcover for Kindle Touch from Dodo.

Agile Tortoise has today updated its Drafts app for the iPhone, as well as launching an all-new version for the iPad. I have been using the iPad version for a little while now and it turns out to be pretty fantastic. The iPad app has an all-new UI, and incorporates the additions to the new iPhone app. Let’s take a look:

VMware has announced the latest version of its popular virtualization tool, VMware Fusion. Version 5 is optimized for the latest technologies found in OS X Mountain Lion, Windows 8 and the latest Macs — including the Retina MacBook Pro — and includes more than 70 new features “for a Windows on Mac experience never seen before.”

We’re a little bit skeptical that jOBS — the upcoming biopic of Steve Jobs’s life from 1971 to 2000 starring That 70s Show doofus Ashton Kutcher — will be any good, but you’ve got to admit, Kutcher surprisingly looks the part. Check out these new photos of him in his buttoned-down, vest-wearing phase in the late 90s. More pictures below.

It’s taken a while, but the first iPad-specific camera apps are starting to trickle into the app store. The iPad 2’s camera was, frankly, a total piece of crap. The new iPad, however, sports the sensor of the iPhone 4 and the optics of the 4S. It was only a matter of time before the likes of ProCamera came along to take advantage of them.

An Australian man who used the Find My iPad feature to locate his tablet after it was stolen is being accused of trespassing “via radio wave.” A court is now trying to decide whether he acted unlawfully when he used Apple’s service to track his iPad — and the thief who stole it — via GPS.

Gameloft’s Order & Chaos Online is widely believed to be the closest alternative to Warcraft on iOS. It’s a popular game, and there’s no doubt it would be even more popular if it weren’t for the monthly fee Gameloft charged to pay it. Thankfully, in the game’s latest update, Gameloft has finally scrapped the subscription fee and made the role-playing game free to play online after purchasing.

If, for whatever reason, you won’t be upgrading to the iPhone 5 this fall, but you don’t want to feel left out when everyone else upgrades. Then check out this mod that promises to covert your iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S into an iPhone 5. All it really does is change its back panel, but it’s still pretty cool.

Longtime supplier of smartphone panels to Apple, LG Display, has begun producing a new, thinner display that is thought to be for use in the upcoming iPhone 5 from Apple. The production schedule is in line with the rumored September 12th announcement of the new iPhone model.

Wait, what? You haven’t played Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP? What’s wrong with you? It’s only one of the best games out there on the iPhone and iPad, garnering several awards from around the web.

The hit universal iOS game is now available for the Mac, and the latest update is Retina Enabled, for all you Macbook Pro owners. I can think of worse ways to spend eight bucks, as Sword and Sworcery is truly a masterpiece of indie design, complete with a brilliant soundtrack by Jim Guthrie, who seems to be involved in the new PSN game, Soundscapes, as well as the soundtrack for Indie Game: The Movie.

Sssssssssssss Boom!

If hearing that sound makes you break out in a cold sweat and go running for the nearest shelter, you may be a Minecraft addict.

Mojang, creator and continuing developer of Minecraft for Mac and PC, wrote a post today on their blog detailing the upcoming update to Minecraft Pocket Edition, the version of the indie runaway hit building, mining, and crafting game for iOS. Here’s a hint: it’s got creepers.

Remember that great Humble Bundle For Android 3 we told you about last week? Well, it just got better! Four new games have been added to the list of bonus games customers will get for paying over the average (which is currently $6.33). That’s a total of 9 games for just over $6! Plus you get to feel good about helping out the Child’s Play Charity (no affiliation with Chucky) along with great developers who make these games. A win-win situation for everyone!

San Jose, CA — A close look at the presentation of Apple’s closing statement in its trial against Samsung reveals the company has a strong and persuasive argument and may lead to a financial windfall.

Back in April, Facebook decided to acquire Instagram for a staggering $1 billion. After the acquisition was announced initially, The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an antitrust investigation that barred the deal from going through. In essence, Instagram hasn’t actually been touched by Facebook yet.

Today the FTC approved Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, but the deal is worth $747 million instead of the original $1 billion.

The 2012 U.S. presidential election is only months away. Leading up to election day, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will continue debating one another and fervently addressing the “issues’ in passionate speeches and ad spots.

Obama and Romney go head-to-head in a new iOS game developed by the makers of Infinity Blade, and well, you get the idea.

If you thought the heat of the mobile payments industry might cool a bit after weeks of major announcements like the Square/Starbucks partnership, the launch of a new mobile payment company dubbed MCX by several national retail chains, and PayPal’s trial of in-restaurant payments at McDonald’s locations in France, think again.

PayPal announced the biggest partnership yet in the U.S. mobile payments market today – a deal with Discover that will bring PayPal in-store payment to seven million locations next spring.