LAS VEGAS — Bryan Chaffin loves his Casper mattress.
“I don’t even know where to start,” effused the Mac Observer executive vice president. “It’s the most comfortable mattress I’ve ever slept on. It was dead-easy to set up. It’s just incredibly comfortable.”
Chaffin is a satisfied customer of Casper, a New York startup shaking up the tired old mattress industry. Casper is doing everything differently, from the design of its all-foam mattress to the way it sells and ships direct to customers.
LAS VEGAS — It’s hard to say what’s most amazing about Elio Motors’ three-wheeled car: its sexy frame, its extreme fuel efficiency or its jaw-dropping $6,800 price tag.
That princely sum — a little less than a 12-core Mac Pro costs — gets you a sleek two-seater that looks like something you’d see in a sci-fi flick. It’s got two wheels up front, one in back and a built-in holder for your iPad.
And on the International CES show floor here, Elio’s got a team of breezy boosters who tout its many forward-looking features with the quick-witted humor of the best car salesmen.
“For $6,800, we ought to charge you for the air in the tires,” Elio Motors rep Don Harris told Cult of Mac when we asked if the iPad was included in the purchase price.
LAS VEGAS — I hate hunting. Not because I’m morally opposed to needlessly slaughtering animals, but because I’m a horrible shot.
I couldn’t hit a deer even if it was only 100 yards away, which is why I need TrackingPoint’s Internet-connected rifles. They boast the same type of precision-guided technology that fighter jets use to blast targets from miles away, while letting your family and friends watch the slaughter from the comfort of their couches.
LAS VEGAS — Keith Nothacker is living proof that persistence pays off.
Nothacker is here at the giant International CES gadget show to introduce a key-size version of his pocket breathalyzer — the first personal, police-grade breathalyzer approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Connected by bluetooth to your iPhone, a quick puff into the $49 BACtrack Vio will tell you instantly if you’re too juiced to drive — or take part in any other activity best done sober.
But 13 years ago, Nothacker was fighting the FDA to bring the device to market.
LAS VEGAS — With its wide base and gently sloping sides, the Archt one speaker looks a little like an egg pod from Alien or the business end of a bomb.
Its outer shell is sleek black plastic, with a flat ring around the top that gives it a space-age feel. If the killer looks aren’t enough to grab your attention, the speaker’s ground-thumping bass will.
“It gets really loud,” Archt CEO Evan Foo told Cult of Mac.
While the all-in-one wireless speaker is certainly loud — it was ballsy enough to cut through the background noise here at the International CES trade show — the goal is to deliver CD-quality sound, no matter the source of the audio.
LAS VEGAS — The wait for the world’s first Lightning headphones is almost over.
Philips’ upcoming Fidelio M2L bypasses the analog headphone jack, instead sending the digital audio signal through the Lightning port used in late-model iOS devices.
“You keep the digital signal as far as possible until you have no choice,” Benoit Borette, a Philips audio engineer, told Cult of Mac.
LAS VEGAS — For eight years, Paul Chavand been working hard to bring the world a pair of motorized skates. Why? To revolutionize the simple act of walking. Chavand’s dream is turn a simple stroll into an effortless glide on motorized wheels.
But don’t call them skates. Chavand, a mathematics teacher from France’s Burgundy region, gets rather upset at that. Skates imply imbalance, falling over and wildly flailing arms. Chavand’s Rollkers require no “skating.” You just stand still and the motorized wheels zip you along. Balancing is as simple as standing up, the inventor says.
So instead of “skates,” he calls his invention, rather comically, “under shoes.”
The big question is why you’d want them.
LAS VEGAS — The small but humbling act of loosening your belt after a big meal is finally over!
Inventor Bertrand Duplat has developed a motorized belt that automatically loosens its grip when your gut bulges.
“The experience of the belt hasn’t changed in centuries,” Duplat told Cult of Mac at CES International. He calls his invention, which certainly will change your belt experience, Belty.
“When you sit down and eat a long dinner, it loosens automatically. It tightens up when you stand up,” he said.
LAS VEGAS — Not every wearable launched this year will get slapped on your wrist.
Quell, a new electrical-stimulation device designed to help alleviate chronic pain, gets wrapped around the wearer’s calf.
“I like to say it’s like a USB port into your central nervous system,” said Frank McGillin, SVP and general manger of Quell.
While a wave of fitness trackers and the upcoming Apple Watch are drumming up a healthy buzz about wearables, more and more medical devices work with smartphone apps and tap into Apple’s HealthKit platform. Quell doesn’t yet work with HealthKit, but McGillin told Cult of Mac that’s certainly in the cards.
LAS VEGAS — For more than 10 years, Michael Wallace and Darin Barri were toy designers. Depressed about plummeting sales because of video games, the pair went on a week long bender to drown their sorrows.
They both loved lychee martinis, which are tricky to make. They dreamed of a smart cocktail mixer that uses weight — rather than volume — to make mixed drinks. So they hacked a kitchen scale with some electronics and coded an app. The resulting system, called Perfect Drink, makes it impossible to screw up martinis and dozens of other cocktails. They took it to Brookstone, who loved it and put it on the market. Eighteen months later, they’ve sold 120,000 units.
Now they’re back with Perfect Bake, a foolproof baking system that uses the weight of ingredients, rather than volume, to guide clueless home bakers.
One of the selling points of a Mac these days is the ability to run Windows software on it, via virtualization or Apple’s own Boot Camp. Running Windows lets you play PC games that haven’t been ported to the Mac, or stay completely compatible with your documents from a PC-centric workplace.
Virtualization software like Parallels or VMWare Fusion (two of the best apps to run Windows software on your Mac without partitioning your hard drive for Boot Camp) isn’t free, though these applications do allow you to try before you buy. Windows 8.1, the current version of Microsoft’s operating system, will run you about $120 for a plain-jane version.
You can run the next-gen OS from Microsoft (Windows 10) on your Mac using virtualization for free, however. We took a quick run at doing just that, as originally sussed out by the fantastic folks over at iMore.
As the company’s first major new product category since the iPad, Apple fans are understandably excited about getting their hands on an Apple Watch sometime in 2015.
But while Apple has so far given just “early 2015” as a vague launch date, a look at the Apple Watch micro-sites for around the world paint a different picture; suggesting Apple’s eagerly-awaited wearables debut will follow a gradual iPhone-style rollout which may keep some customers waiting much further into the new year.
Of course, this is highly speculative based on the fact that Apple’s verbiage can change from market to market, but there’s no getting around the fact that currently major markets like the U.S. describe the Apple Watch as “Coming Early 2015” while others simply advertise “Available in 2015.”
So if this is to be believed, when will an Apple Watch land in your market? Check out the (possible) answer after the jump:
As per Japanese tradition, Apple has started handing out its Fukubukuro (a.k.a. “Lucky Bags”) to customers at its brick-and-mortar retail stores in Japan — giving some fortunate buyers massive discounts on the latest Apple products and accessories.
The bags are part of a special New Year offer, and are available in only limited quantities, with customers not knowing which they’re going to get until they’ve stumped up their ¥36,000 (around $300).
Check out the bag’s contents (as well as how you can get your hands on one, even if you don’t live in Japan!) after the jump:
2014 will go down as one of the biggest years in Apple history. The stock hit record highs. The company’s first wearable was revealed. And Apple dropped $3 billion on its biggest acquisition ever. But of all the huge news Apple dropped in the last 12 months, nothing is likely to have as big an impact as the previously unthinkable announcement that Apple and IBM buried the hatchet and partnered up.
The move was significant not only for the historic aspect of the two rival tech titans uniting, but also for how it will impact all of us in the workplace. In his final note of the year, top Apple analyst Horace Dediu dubbed the IBM partnership “the most significant technology news of 2014.”
That may sound ridiculous considering how much hype Apple Watch is getting ahead of its release, but Dediu points to the first wave of apps created by the partnership. These offer an early indication of just how transformative the relationship could be. For the first time, enterprise apps are being designed for their users (the employees) rather than their employers.
Just take a look at the difference between IBM’s new Expert Tech app compared to the closest equivalent from Oracle, and see which one you’d rather work with:
I asked Siri to set a 6:30 a.m. alarm so I could get this article written before my morning spin class. And that got me wondering what other things the young woman on my iPhone 6 Plus could do to help me meet or exceed my plans to dominate in 2015.
After my wake-up alarm, I told Siri to “call me ‘Champ.'” What better way to get our relationship started than to establish a motivational nickname? I was going to go with “Tiger” or “Hero” or “Shnoogems,” but decided “Champ” was the least embarrassing if Siri shouted it out in public.
We’ve argued on many occasions before that 2014 was a superlative year for iOS games. But it was also a fantastic twelve months for video games in general, as the last generation’s consoles were pushed to their max, and the PS4 and Xbox 360 hit their stride.
So now that the dust has settled what are our picks for games of the year? Check out our choice of the ten titles you must play after the jump.
A great TV commercial will often be remembered for a lot longer than the product it’s trying to sell, so it’s no wonder companies spend hundreds of millions every year in pursuit of that one ad that will be a huge success. Some of the best ads we’ve seen this year come from the likes of Budweiser, P&G, Save The Children, and of course, Apple — and you’ll find them in the roundup below.
If you played last year’s Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U, you probably remember the “Adventures of Captain Toad” minigame in which an adorable little mushroom guy combed a series of square worlds in search of fortune and glory.
And if you couldn’t get enough of that mode, Nintendo has you covered with Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, a standalone Wii U title composed entirely of that gameplay.
Admittedly, building a $39.99 game around optional side content created as a diversion from a completely separate title sounds like a risky sell, but Treasure Tracker manages to provide a fun, challenging and surprisingly complete experience that lasts exactly as long as it needs to.
Reading that someone decided to put their MacBook Pro in the oven and then set about drilling holes in it sounds like one of those inane YouTube videos showing someone destroying a perfectly good computer for no reason whatsoever.
For iFixit employee “Sterling,” however, it was not a way to destroy his MacBook at all, but rather a means by which to extend the life of a dying machine.
“Unconventional electronics repair tools they may be, but that’s how I saved my MacBook Pro with a drill and an oven,” Sterling writes.
Here’s how he did it.
There were more viral videos in 2014 than you can shake a stick at, and you could spend weeks watching them all. From John Oliver to the Ice Bucket Challenge, we were absolutely inundated with stuff to watch throughout the year, and that’s a great thing.
Wishing you could relive some of the best viral video moments of 2014? We’ve collected some of the best for your enjoyment:
Riding high on the success of his iPhone video editing app Videoshop, developer Joe Riquelme decided to splurge on his parents for Christmas.
How much did he splurge? Let’s just say that he made every other kid on Earth look like little ingrates by comparison.
He paid off his parents’ mortgage in full. And he documented it for the rest of us, just so we could share in the joy.
We all make compromises daily when it comes to online security. Everybody wants to be safe and secure when making purchases online, but practically none of us do everything necessary to keep our data secure.
“People, myself included, are basically lazy,” web developer Joe Tortuga told Cult of Mac, “and ease of use is inversely related to security. If it’s too difficult, then people just won’t do it.”
With all the recent hacks into private as well as corporate data — like the credit card grab from Home Depot and the hack into Sony’s files, there’s no better time to learn some of the things we all can do to protect ourselves. We spoke to some online security experts to get their advice.
In a documentary set to air tonight called Apple’s Broken Promises, BBC One went undercover at Pegatron, one of Apple’s main supply chain partners in China. The findings from inside Pegatron’s walls show that “Apple’s promises to protect workers were routinely broken,” according to the report.
Another alarming revelation was that Apple could be using tin dug by impoverished children in illegal Indonesian mines. Apple is denying the allegations, but BBC One is committed to unearthing a sensitive topic the iPhone maker has spent years trying to put to rest.
A job ad that made a brief appearance on Apple’s website before being taken down has confirmed that Apple Pay is on its way to Europe. The listing called for a London-based intern who would “drive the roll-out” of Apple’s new mobile payment system across Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa.
Apple’s World AIDS week campaign has earned a big donation for Bono’s Product RED charity this month. The holiday project RED promotions that ran during two of the busiest shopping days of the year – Black Friday until Cyber Monday – raised more than $20 million, according to an internal email obtained by Recode.
Tim Cook sent employees an email revealing that along with raising another $20 million, the iPhone maker has donated over $100 million for Product RED to fight AIDS in Africa.
