News - page 2134

The free video transcoding tool HandBrake was recently updated to version 0.9.5. HandBrake is one of my favorite Mac OS X apps that works with another app called VLC to rip and convert videos for your personal use. The application hasn’t been updated in a long time. However, the update was worth the wait since the application has improvements that include library updates, improved subtitles, AC3 encoding support, enhanced presets, and  universal audio downmix support. A complete list of improvements can be found here.

One interesting milestone was the addition of BluRay disc structure support, but unfortunately decryption isn’t supported yet.

The Mac OS X version of HandBrake saw several good GUI improvements: a new Audio Panel that supports more than four audio tracks, VLC is automatically detected, and you can run multiple instances of HandBrake at the same time. However, Mac users lost PowerPC (PPC) support — this version of HandBrake only supports Macs with Intel processors.

Finally, the developers via a standard Apple-like statement declared that “Many Bug Fixes and other small improvements” were included in this update.

Get your copy of HandBrake for Mac OS X on Intel Macs in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The 64-bit version of HandBrake requires the 64-bit version of VLC. If you are still using a Mac with a PPC you can still get version .094 here.

Tablet sales are expected to more than double in 2011, not so much due to first-time buyers, but from upgrades. The iPad could follow the trail broken by Apple’s iPod, creating a brand-loyalty that lasts for years, one analyst reasons.

Of the 24 million tablet sales projected this year, growing to 44 million by 2015, “the lion’s share will be iPads, despite many would-be competitors that will be released at CES, we see Apple commanding the vast majority of the tablet market through 2012,” Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said.

Apple has been granted its first patent related to Liquidmetal, a space-age metal alloy. But the patent isn’t for a new iPad enclosure or iPhone antenna, as experts have predicted. Instead Apple’s Liquidmetal patent is for an internal component of a fuel cell.

Apple’s new patent describes “amorphous alloy” collector plates for fuel cells, an electrochemical battery that uses hydrogen to generate electricity. Although the patent doesn’t reference the Liquidmetal trademark, the material is an amorphous alloy or “metallic glass.”

Last year, Apple signed an exclusive agreement to use the Liquidmetal Technologies’ IP in consumer electronic products. But of course, the ever-secretive company hasn’t hinted at its plans for the material. The possibilites are endless. Liquidmetal is a super lightweight, high-strength, scratch-proof metal that NASA says is “poised to redefine materials science as we know it in the 21st century.”

Scientists who helped develop Liquidmetal have previously predicted that Apple will use it to build the next iPhone. So why is Apple interested in fuel cells?

Proving that news embargoes and electronics trade shows attended by tens of thousands of people do not play well together, word of Blue Microphones’ new Yeti Pro USB microphone leaked from the desert Tuesday night as the giant Consumer Electronics Show began picking up steam in Las Vegas.

The highly anticipated successor to Blue’s successful, top-of-the line USB microphone, Yeti Pro is the first USB mic to combine 24 bit/192 kHz digital recording resolution with analog XLR output, making it potentially one of the finest, most versatile recording tools on the market.

Like its predecessor, the plain old Yeti, Yeti Pro features premium condenser capsules set in Blue Microphones’ proprietary triple capsule array, which supports four different recording patterns for capturing a wide range of recording situations.

Yeti Pro looks quite promising from here, an assessment shared by CES judges, who made Yeti Pro a 2011 CES Innovations Winner in High Performance Audio. The mic is set to retail for $249 and should be available at authorized Blue Microphone distributors later this month.

LAS VEGAS — Griffin revealed something really cool today: a sensor that hooks up to your car’s diagnostic computer and feeds all kinds of info to your iPhone. Griffin calls it the CarTrip, and it attaches to your car’s OBD-II sensor (the thing car mechanics uses to diagnose problems), collects and stores the data, then sends it to your iPhone (we’re not sure how, because the press release doesn’t say), which then displays the data in realtime with the help its free partner app, CleanDrive.

The app/hardware package will reveal all kinds of information, like fuel consumption rates, acceleration, and it’ll interpret diagnostic codes. It’ll also display a “Carbon Score,” so you can figure out how much you’re befouling the planet by driving around.

CarTrip should be available in early 2011 for $90.

Update: CarTrip is equipped with Bluetooth for relaying the data to an iPhone. Thanks Levi!

LAS VEGAS — After hours of driving through the cow-infested flatness of California’s Central Valley, CultofMac Editor Leander Kahney and I have finally arrived in Vegas, primed to report from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. The doors only officially open on Thursday, but here’s some of the sparkly new stuff we saw released today that we’re mega-pumped to get our hands on at this year’s show:

Here’s more evidence that the iPad is a day-to-day computing device, not just a media consumption toy.

Silicon Valley supergeek Jack Dorsey says he’s using his iPad for most of his computing needs.

“90% of my computing is now on the iPad (with a keyboard dock),” Dorsey said on Twitter. “And I love it.”

Dorsey is the creator of Twitter, and serves as the company’s chairman. He’s also the CEO of Square, a startup that turns the iPhone into a personal credit card terminal.

It’s not all roses though. There are a coupe of things Dorsey says he can’t do:

“Only thing I can’t do are big presentations & code,” he says.

Android reportedly may soon not be the monolithic threat it once was. The operating system codenamed “Honeycomb” from Google reportedly will be optimized for tablets, creating two tiers for products. The first tier will be using the first-gen Android, originally designed to compete with Apple’s iPhone. The second tier will use Android 3.0, require more powerful chips, and be aimed at the iPad 2.

As a result, some earlier Android-powered devices, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, may soon be obsolete. But does it really matter? Surveys find most iPad owners use their tablet for checking email, surfing web sites, and keeping up with their social media contacts.

We all may have started 2011 with a New Year’s resolution, but Apple seems to have found the best way to get started on the right foot. The Cupertino, Calif. company gained $6 billion in value on the first business day of 2011, pushing the iPhone maker to a market capitalization of $302.32 billion.

Monday, investors rewarded Apple for its long string of popular electronic gadgets with a 2 percent jump in the stock’s price at $329.57 per share. If breathing down the neck of Exxon, history’s most profitable company isn’t enough, there’s even better ahead for Apple, if you believe Wall Street analysts.

New features have quietly been introduced to iTunes movies that allow users to search for specific words within a film’s script, and select their favorite clips to share with their friends through social networking sites. The features are being “quietly tested” in recent movies released by Sony Entertainment Pictures, as noted by PaidContent.org.

The movies that are known to include the new features at present are “The Other Guys,” which provides users with a search button enabling them to enter words to be found within the film’s script; and both “Salt” and “Resident Evil: Afterlife,” which include the “clip & share” function that allows users to select their favorite scenes and then share them with their friends through social networking sites. Users also have access to a playlist of songs from the movie and an opportunity to purchase them from iTunes.

The introduction of these new, iTunes-only features gives movie fans an incentive to purchase the latest films through Apple’s iTunes Store, rather than on DVD or Blu-ray. According to PaidContent.org, the capabilities found in the latest Sony movies are unique to iTunes, and not just a repackaging of additional content available on the Blu-ray or DVD counterparts:

“Mind-blowing add-ons? No, but they do represent the intent of studios like Sony, which declined comment, to offer differentiating value on digital platforms from that on DVD, where extras are often nothing more than a collection of additional short videos.”

These new features are only accessible to users who choose to purchase movies from iTunes, rather than rent them.

About a week after the first successful modification to the new iPod Nano’s .plist file was made — whisking away one of the pre-installed icons from the home screen — dev Steven Troughton-Smith has brought the nano one step closer to jailbreaking: he’s figured out how to put his iPod nano into the equivalent of the iPhone or iPod Touch’s DFU recovery mode.

The feat is accomplished by holding down the restart buttons across two separate reboots, at which point iTunes will see the device and alert the user. Once accomplished, Troughton-Smith is apparently able to push firmware files to the device and execute them.

Pretty exciting stuff. For more information on what this means for the possibility of iPod Nano hacking, check out Erica Sadun’s informative post over at TUAW.

Google’s new Cr-48 laptop is supposed to usher in the future of cloud-based operating systems thanks to the search giant’s own Chrome OS, but surprise surprise: a computer made for early developers to hack to their hearts content ends up being Hackintoshable. It’s apparently a lot of work, but honestly, it seems appropriate in a way: the Cr-48 always channeled a lot of the elegance of the old black plastic MacBook, and it’s nice to see a doppelganger of the old girl live again.

According to popular theory, we should either have the Verizon iPhone confirmed at CES later this week, or not hear anything and keep on scuttlebutting about it amongst ourselves until it eventually does come out.

The latest fodder for Verizon iPhone rumor mongering? Verizon’s Trademark services department has just snatched up iphoneforverizon.com and iphoneonverizon.com… a couple of two year old domains purchased from the previous owner (and alleged link farmer) Jim Benton.

Honestly, this is probably just business as usual, in which a company protects its trademark and brand by snatching up domains. Still, the very fact that this news hit during the week the Verizon iPhone is rumored (almost definitely wrongly) to debut was pretty choice timing.

All good things come to those who wait. That could be the motto for Apple fans anxiously awaiting what new goodies emerge from the folks in Cupertino.

If you are looking for Apple to introduce the long-awaited CDMA iPhone for Verizon customers, you will likely need to cool your heels until the March financial quarter of 2011, according to a prominent analyst out with his predictions for the upcoming year. Additionally, if you have your eye on an iPad 2, Apple’s second-generation tablet, you may need to wait until the flowers of Spring.

Samsung sold 10 million Galaxy S smartphones in 2010, the Suwon, South Korean company announced Monday. Although the handset helped goose Samsung’s third-quarter profits by 20 percent, the Android-powered device still lags behind Apple’s iPhone. The Cupertino, Calif. company sold 14.1 million iPhones in the September quarter.

“For the time being, Apple’s presence in the smartphone market will remain solid,” Seoul-based analyst Young Park told Bloomberg. However, Samsung could continue its rise “based on their brand power and their relationship with telecommunication companies,” Park adds.

Where do you characterize the iPad and iPhone in the music making process? They can be your instruments, recording console, video edit system, and playback devices all in one. With new tools comes new talent, taking advantage of what progress has to offer. The Age of the iDevice in Music has only just begun.

Korean musician Yoari and an all-iDevice band performed this cover of Beyonce’s Sweet Dream in June 2010. The apps used in the piece are noted during the performance – a nice touch. And not a bad jam!

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and design head Jonathan Ive are so close they are called “Jives” around the Cupertino campus for short.

The dynamic duo have been inseparable since the mid-1990s, when Jobs returned to Apple to find a young Ive stuck in a basement surrounded by hundreds of prototypes. Jobs recognized immediately that the company had a great resource that should be put to work.

NPR did a nice piece delving into how Jives have been working together to create some of Apple’s most memorable products.

Most tech companies go out of their way to publish product roadmaps, so their customers know what’s coming next. But Apple is not most tech companies. Ask anyone from Steve Jobs to the guy at your local Apple Store, and you’ll hear the same refrain, “we don’t comment on unannounced products.”

It’s this dearth of hard facts on what’s coming next from Cupertino that makes speculation so irresistible. And with the new year now upon us, it’s the perfect time to ponder what Apple may have in store for us in 2011.

Blogger Deon Devine, from Houston, Texas, has sent Cult of Mac some very interesting predictions.

It’s already being dubbed Apple’s biggest glitch of 2011: iPhone alarm Clockgate.

Apparently, iPhone alarms aren’t ringing as clocks shift into the new year, according to users in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

“We were the first to find out in New Zealand with thousands of shift workers late to work for relying on their iPhones as alarm clocks!” wrote reader Greg Ball.

Twitter is awash in frustrated users screaming about the problem. Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac has already dubbed it iPhone alarm Clockgate.

It sounds similar to the Daylight Savings Time alarm problem that surfaced in November, except the problem affects with users with one-off alarms, not repeating alarms.

The fix is to set a recurring alarm (select multiple days). See the screenshot:

Thanks to the advent of Steam for Mac, the dedication and ingenuity of indie developers and the App Store’s raising of awareness of Apple and its products, 2010 was the best year for Apple gaming since, well, the Big Bang.

We can’t even pretend to have played all the games that came out this year, or even a tenth of them. There were a lot of great games that escaped our radar, or we just didn’t get the time to play. Heck, we don’t even have editorial consensus amongst ourselves.

After the jump, though, you can find at least my list of 2010’s iOS and Mac games that siphoned away most of my time, causing me to miss deadlines, emotionally neglect my girlfriend, and extend my index fingers by three inches through callus mass alone. What were the games that extended yours? Let us know in the comments

A company has sued Apple and a number of other technology firms, alleging their smartphones and other touch-screen devices violate a patent covering “double-click input.” Apple’s iPad and iPhone were specifically mentioned because the handset and tablet allow users to “double click or double tap a visual element representing content and interact with a second version of the interactive content.”

The lawsuit by Hopewell Culture and Design asks an Eastern Texas District Court to award “adequate damages” for the supposed violations. The U.S. Patent No. 7,171,625 was first filed in 2002. Also named in the lawsuit are Adobe, HTC, Nokia, LG Electronics, Motorola, Opera, Palm, Samsung and Quickoffice.

Following its success built from offering Android-powered iPhone alternatives, Taiwan-based handset maker HTC seems to now have the iPad in its sights. The company reportedly filed a patent application Dec. 26 for a “handheld device, namely a tablet computer.”

According to the report, the device is named the “HTC Scribe” and is seen as the company’s inevitable move into the burgeoning tablet market now controlled by Apple. The HTC device may “provide an alternative to the iPad,” IDC program Will Stofega told Bloomberg. The new tablet would rival the iPad’s price while providing an experience “as good or better” than the device from Cupertino, the analyst adds.

Following an analyst note blasting a tablet hoping to compete with the iPad, maker Research in Motion responded, saying its PlayBook tablet “offers superior performance with comparable battery life.”

Tuesday, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu told investors RIM’s tablet has a battery life of just a “few hours” compared to the iPad’s 10 hour lifespan or Samsung’s six hours. As a result, RIM has delayed introducing the PlayBook until later in 2011 for “a bit of re-engineering.”

Another analyst is fueling reports Apple will soon shift from the initial iPad design to the unreleased iPad 2. The Cupertino, Calif. company produced 1.6 million of the tablets in December, a sharp drop from the 2.1 million units created in November. The shift has also allowed Amazon’s Kindle e-reader to match iPad shipments.

Amazon’s ability to keep pace with iPad production in December is a sign that the Kindle “is going to mass market from niche market” and that the iPad’s erosion of Kindle’s market “is not obvious,” according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Equity Research.

2010 was a huge year for Apple news. As we close out the year, we look back at some of the year’s biggest stories and what they might mean for 2011.