Firewatch is already raising the bar for 2016. Photo: Campo Santo
If you’ve forgotten why it’s great to be a gamer, you just have to take one look at Firewatch.
The first-person mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness is a visual masterpiece that’s being praised by just about everyone — and you can get it today on Mac, PC, Linux, and PlayStation 4.
Become fluent in one of the most fundamental languages underpinning the Internet itself. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Leaving your mark on the Internet shouldn’t just extend to the comments section. But to build useful, beautiful things online you need the skillset and the toolset, whether languages like JavaScript and HTML, or publishing platforms like WordPress and Photoshop. All of that and more is covered in this collection of web development bundles.
Apple employees can make thousands selling their login info. Photo: Apple
Apple employees are being assaulted with offers from hackers to give them login details to Apple’s internal servers, and they’re willing to pay a king’s ransom if you’ve got the right info.
In Ireland, employees have received offers of over $20,000 for their Apple ID login, but it appears that Apple is well aware of the problem and has launched a new program to combat the problem.
Andy Rubin allegedly dated a colleague at Google. Photo: GoogleAndy Rubin wants more eyes on the road. Photo: Google
Andy Rubin, who co-founded Android before leaving Google in 2014, is building dashboard cameras that he wants to give away for free. But in exchange for an extra eye on the road, Rubin wants you to give up all the data your dashcam collects.
Unauthorized repairs could brick your iPhone. Photo: Apple
A U.S. law firm is considering filing a class-action lawsuit against Apple for the “Error 53” security measure that permanently disables iPhones that have been fixed by unauthorized repair shops instead of Apple’s Genius Bar.
Controversy surrounding the Error 53 message erupted last week after it was found that repairs involving Touch ID can potentially brick iPhones without any warning. Apple insists Error 53 is a feature of iOS, but many have pointed out that the company appears to be using it as a tool to keep iPhone users from getting their devices repaired by anyone but Apple Stores.
German Klimenko wants Apple and other U.S. tech companies to pay more taxes. Photo: iPhones.ru
Russia’s new internet czar loves his Apple devices. Google the name German Klimenko and up pops a series of pictures, many of him either at a MacBook or using an iPhone.
But that doesn’t stop the tough-talking, Cold War-minded Klimenko from wanting to suck more tax-generated revenue out of Cupertino and other American technology companies.
I've heard of chimps eating people's faces for less than this. Photo: Simon Pierro
Simon Pierro, the “iPad magician,” thought he should find an appropriate way to ring in the Chinese New Year. And it’s the Year of the Monkey, so the obvious call was to perform his feats of tech-assisted illusion for a bunch of increasingly aggravated chimpanzees, even though they aren’t actually monkeys?
Alright, so they don’t really get that mad, considering Pierro has the intelligence and sense of self-preservation to actually give them some peanuts after cruelly magic-ing them away. But the tension is real.
Finding and merging duplicate contacts has never been this easy. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
If you want to clean up your contacts list so you can better utilize the power of keeping track of people’s contact info on your iPhone, you’ll need to clean it up.
My contacts list has always been a mess. I’ve kept a running list, saved to various services and such, since my first iPhone in 2007.
It’s annoying enough that I went looking for an app that will destroy all the crazy duplicates I have on my iPhone. When I found an app called Cleanup Duplicate Contacts, I took it for a spin and found out how easy it really is.
Rick Rubin and Star Wars collide to make this new electronica album. Photo: Hollywood Records
Looking for a way to express your love for both the greatest sci-fi movies of all time as well as your penchant for electronic dance music (EDM)?
Hollywood Records, American Recordings, and legendary producer Rick Rubin have got you covered with a new official album, Star Wars Headspace, a compilation of original EDM tracks that have various Star Wars sounds and effects within them.
Sounds hot, right? You can preview three of the tracks thanks to Beats 1’s Zane Low, below.
Charging up every night will be a thing of the past. Photo: freestocks.org/Flickr CC
Intelligent Energy is a company with a mission: It wants to get fuel-cell battery technology in smartphones everywhere to dramatically improve battery life. Today, it signed a joint development agreement with an anonymous smartphone manufacturer to put that plan into action. The two will work together on embedded fuel-cell technology, which would be capable of delivering a staggering seven days of battery life to smartphones.
A decent tripod and a few great apps can help you capture stunning light trails, motion blur, and low-light photos. Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor
Long-exposure photography lets you capture light trails, motion blur and better low-light shots. While the iPhone’s built-in Camera app doesn’t let you control shutter speed and light sensitivity, lots of apps do. Slow Shutter Cam is my favorite — here’s how I’ve used it to capture long exposures with nothing but my iPhone 6 and a tripod.
Account switching is coming to Instagram. Photo: Instagram
Switching between multiple Instagram accounts will get a whole lot easier this week.
Instagram has tested a new feature for months that allows users to manage multiple accounts without logging out and signing in again every time. The company revealed today that its account-switching feature is finally ready for prime time and will roll out to iOS and Android very soon.
The Hullo is a perfectly simple gift for the tech-saturated. Photo: Hulltex
This post is brought to you by Hulltex, maker of the Hullo Pillow.
The challenge: You want to commemorate Valentine’s Day by getting your significant other something they don’t already have. But like so many people, you find yourself poring over product reviews, wondering which new shiny thing your loved one wants or could use but doesn’t already have.
Which version of the iPhone do they have again? Was that a PlayStation 3 or 4, or maybe an Xbox One, and are they more into RPG games or RTSs? Pretty sure they already have a lot of thumb drives…
The next big app might be yours. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Just a few months after release, the Apple TV has just about 3,600 apps in its App store. That’s a ton of entertainment, games, and media apps waiting to be discovered on the big screen.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a single killer app among them.
AppLovin, a mobile adverting and analysis firm, is hoping to change all that with the first ever Apple TV contest and hackathon, to be held in San Francisco this coming April.
Apple has unleashed a huge batch of beta updates today for all of its platforms today, including a new beta build of OS X El Capitan 10.11.4 that promises to squash more bugs and bring better performance than ever to your Mac.
Priority makes owning a bike simple. Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac
Best List: Priority Bicycles Classic Diamond frame bike
When it comes to bicycles I am profoundly inept. Riding is fine. Just don’t ask me to fix it when it breaks.
My assembly and maintenance skills are so bad, the last time I reviewed a bike I put a critical piece on the wrong side and didn’t realize my error for weeks until someone finally pointed it out in pics.
So when the folks at Priority Bicycles told me they have a bike that pretty much never ever needs repairs, I couldn’t wait to saddle up and see how well it rides.
Will Apple finally deliver one of our most-requested features for watchOS? Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Developers can now download the third beta builds of tvOS 9.2 and watchOS 2.2, which bring a number of changes to the Apple Watch and Apple TV platforms.
Apple’s release notes for the software updates don’t contain clues about the new features, but users who have already installed tvOS 9.2 beta 3 report that it adds the ability to use dictation to insert text in search fields as well as the ability to use Siri search in the App Store.
The third beta of iOS 9.3 has been seeded to developers today two weeks after Apple pushed out the last update that brought new features for Control Center, NightShift mode, and more.
Twitter is not impressed with Tim Cook's photography skills. Photo: Tim CookTwitter
Apple didn’t shell out for a super-expensive Super Bowl commercial last night, but CEO Tim Cook still managed to bring tons of attention to the iPhone — just not in the way he intended.
Celebrating the Bronco’s ugly victory over the Panthers last night, Cook tweeted a picture of the post-game festivities from the 20 yard line. It’s a position millions of people would’ve died to be in, but the only thing Twitter seemed to care about was how horribly blurry Tim’s photo turned out, leading to a flood of “shot on iPhone” jokes.
YAAAR mateys! The Pirate Bay is now streaming. Photo: The Pirate Bay
The world’s largest torrenting site is making it easier than ever to watch all the movies and tv shows your too cheap to pay for.
Starting today, visitors of the Pirate Bay can use a new plugin called Torrents Time that allows you to stream torrents directly in your browser so you don’t need to download anything.
These 14 courses cover essential Adobe photo software and the key skillsets in photography itself. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Adobe’s software products have become an key part of photography for pros and amateurs alike. Photoshop and Lightroom are industry standard platforms, but this bundle of 14 Adobe certified courses extend beyond software and into photography itself. It’s over 65 hours of top quality instruction in shooting and editing photos, and using Adobe’s essential software to bring your photos to their highest realization. Right now, you can get the whole thing for $69.
SuitX, a company driven to lower the cost on bionic technology to help people walk, won a prestigious robotics competition that will help it fund a pediatric exoskeleton for children with neurological disorders.
Last week started with SuitX debuting an exoskeleton for $40,000 and ended Saturday with a $1 million prize in the United Arab Emirates AI and Robotics Award for Good.
It won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
The most popular social network in the world is ruining your iPhone’s battery life.
Facebook’s iOS app is in the hot seat again this week thanks to a new report that reveals iPhone users can get up to 15% more battery life if they simply delete Facebook’s resource hogging app and just use the Safari app instead.
Apple wants to dramatically improve its 2 percent share on the smartphone market in India. Photo: Tim Cook/Twitter
India has indicated it will bypass the usual regulations for foreign companies and grant easy approval for Apple to establish retail outlets there.
This comes as CEO Tim Cook tries to tap new global markets, especially India, a country of 1.3 billion people where it has seen small gains in iPhone sales.
Secure and accelerate your Internet experience with one of the top VPNs in the business. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
It doesn’t take long for the information superhighway to start feeling more like a hazardous dirt road from Mad Max. All sorts of bad guys and obstacles await us in the Internet — identity thieves, unscrupulous advertisers, location restrictions. Virtual private networks (VPNs) are a great way to secure passage to your favorite sites online, and PureVPN, one of the fastest options for securing and anonymizing any online connection, is available for the last time at just $59.