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Your heart rate sets the pace of Massive Attack’s new album

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Massive Attack fans, take note.
Massive Attack fans, take note.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Massive Attack just jumped ahead of the curve with a new app called Fantom Sensory Music. It uses your iPhone camera, motion sensors, location data and even the heart rate from your Apple Watch to remix one of four new tracks from the trip-hop collective that hasn’t had an album out since 2010.

The app itself is a trippy, almost spooky black and white affair that will have you listening to the tracks as you point the camera in all directions, shake your iPhone, and jog in place to raise your heartbeat. Or, at least, that’s what I was doing.

Forget Adobe, here’s an easy way make PDFs your BFF

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PDFelement makes wrangling PDFs simple.
PDFelement makes wrangling PDFs simple.
Image: Wondershare

This post is brought to you by Wondershare, maker of PDFelement.

If you work with a computer (which, since you’re here, is likely), you have to deal with PDFs. And while PDFs are a great and reliable way to send forms, presentations and contracts — basically anything that can be read or written on — they’re not exactly flexible. In order to edit, add to, remove from, or otherwise alter them, you might think your options are limited to pricey software from Adobe.

Face palm, bacon, water polo and 71 other emoji may be coming to iOS 10

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Some of the new emoji in Unicode 9.0.
Some of the new emoji in Unicode 9.0.
Photo: Emojipedia

iOS 10 may come with a big batch of new emoji, including pictograms for things like shrimp, croissant, owl, wrestlers, a bunch of hand gestures, a shrug emoticon and more.

The Unicode Consortium has recently accepted the updated Unicode 9 emoji set that contains as many as 74 new emoji that companies like Apple and Google will be able to add to their software keyboards. The consortium will make a final determination on which emojis to add later this year, with the release of Unicode 9.0 set for June 2016. That’s pretty good timing for Apple which is expected to unveil iOS 10 at WWDC in June, with a public launch scheduled for the fall.

Here’s the full list of new emoji:

Exploding Kittens iOS game is absolutely claw-some

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Boom goes the kitty.
Boom goes the kitty.
Photo: Exploding Kittens

I’d imagine it’s difficult to bring a beloved tabletop card game to iOS without losing something in the translation, but Exploding Kittens has found the trick.

Created by gaming veterans Elan Lee and Shane Small, and illustrated by internet cartoonist The Oatmeal (Matthew Inman), Exploding Kittens is like Russian Roulette, only with detonating felines. The game is fairly simple, but it has something not many gaming apps include these days: you’ll play with other people in the same room as you.

Even better, the devs have made all the in-app purchases (extra decks, new avatars) free as a launch special over the next four days. You don’t want to miss out on all the extra fun now, do you?

You’ll really like this adorable little speaker

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You just want to touch it, right?
You just want to touch it, right?
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Best List: Sugr Cube wireless speaker by Sugr

Oh, my, is this a cute little speaker. It’s so adorable that I’ve waited through three software updates and spent more time charging the speaker to test than almost any other one I’ve ever reviewed.

Why? Because this thing is drop-dead adorable. The Sugr Cube looks like something straight out of Cupertino: I wouldn’t be surprised to find one sitting on an Apple retail store display table before long.

Cherie Blair thinks Apple needs to hire more women

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Cherie Blair, women's rights advocate and wife of a former British prime minister, chides Apple for its lack of diversity.
Cherie Blair, women's rights advocate and wife of a former British prime minister, chides Apple for its lack of diversity.
Photo: HuffPostRise

Apple CEO Tim Cook continues to take fire over the company’s lack of diversity, the mostly white, male makeup of management described by one investor last year as a “bit too vanilla.”

Women’s rights activist Cherie Blair chose words Wednesday with a little more bite. The British barrister and wife of the former prime minister Tony Blair called Cook “so shortsighted” in Apple’s seemingly less-than-urgent effort to add more women to leadership.

Pay what you want for invaluable photo tools, tips and training [Deals]

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Pay what you want for this bundle of photo courses and top quality assets from some of the world's top shooters.
Pay what you want for this bundle of photo courses and top quality assets from some of the world's top shooters.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

We live in an image-driven culture, and as a result photography is undergoing a new renaissance. If you work in any form of media, you can benefit from having resources and experience in photography, which is exactly what this bundle offers, from massive photo asset libraries to comprehensive lessons. The best part, you can pay what you want for the whole thing and support the work of Save the Children in the process.

Proposed law could ban Apple from selling iPhones in California

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The iPhone isn't ditching LCD screens.
Designed by Apple in California. Just not for sale there.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple could be banned from selling iPhones on its home turf of California if a new bill banning unbreakable encryption is passed.

Called bill 1681, the proposed law was put forward by California assembly member Jim Cooper, who wants any smartphone sold in California after July 1, 2015 to be “capable of being decrypted and unlocked by its manufacturer or its operating system provider.”

Is iOS 9.3 Night Shift toggle coming to Control Center?

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This official Apple image might prove Night Shift will be part of Control Center.
This official Apple image might prove Night Shift will be part of Control Center.
Photo: Apple

For our money, Night Shift is one of the coolest additions to iOS 9.3 beta 1. In fact, it could be the most important UI/UX improvement iOS has added in years.

Even the guys Apple ripped off to come up with the feature are cool with it. But it could get even better before iOS 9.3 is finally released to the general public.

The future of UI for iOS 10 … or iOS 20?

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This video has lots of great ideas about how iOS 10's UI should work.
This video has lots of great ideas about how iOS 10's UI should work.
Photo: Cult of Mac

A lot of “next-gen iPhone” concepts are pretty crappy. Whimsical fancies that have nothing to do with the reality of industrial design. And hey, that’s true of this iPhone 7 concept, which imagines an edge-to-edge display that totally ditches a physical home button. You will not see an iPhone like this anytime in the near future.

But that’s not to say the concept isn’t cool. Because eventually, Apple will release a full-screen iPhone. And when it does, this concept has a lot of cool ideas about how future iOS UIs will work, once the hardware catches up.

Foxconn wants an even bigger slice of the iPhone 7 pie

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iPhone 6s
Foxconn could be acquiring the company which builds iPhone displays.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Foxconn is looking to take over more of the iPhone manufacturing process as it has offered ¥625 billion ($5.3 billion) to acquire Japanese manufacturer Sharp, which currently manufactures displays for Apple devices.

Apple opening R&D facility in hotbed for driverless car research

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2016-01-20-10-52-01-411 Legget
Apple is opening an exciting new R&D facility.
Photo: Colliers

Apple may not spend the same percentage of its revenue on research and development as rivals like Google, Facebook and Qualcomm, but that’s not stopping it from opening new offices dedicated to R&D projects.

The latest of these is based in Canada, with Apple apparently leasing space at a Kanata office complex as a way of establishing a presence in Ottawa. And for those hoping for an Apple Car, that location may turn out to be a significant one.

Concept ad gets us revved up for the Apple Car

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Screen Shot 2016-01-21 at 10.56.35
Better start saving now.
Photo: ConceptsiPhone

Apple building an alleged Apple Car is supposedly an “open secret” in the automotive industry, but even if it’s true we’re still a few years away from actually seeing it.

That’s too long for the folks at Luca Wrede and ConceptsiPhone, who have taken it upon themselves to create a tantalizing 2020-era concept ad showing an Apple Car with Apple Watch and iPhone integration, plus the Apple Maps, Safari, and other software features we’d expect.

You may not be able to get your check book out just yet, but you can watch it below.

Apple will open Europe’s first iOS App Development Center in Italy

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Apple has lost its third appeal for ownership of the term App Store in Oz. Photo: Apple
Apple is using Italy to test drive its new concept.
Photo: Apple

Apple constantly talks about how many jobs its created through the App Store, and it’s putting its money where its mouth is by creating Europe’s first iOS App Development Center in Italy — designed to give students the practical skills and training necessary to help them develop apps for the iPhone and iPad.

Why you should upgrade your older iPhone to iOS 9.2.1

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iOS 9.2.1 vs 8.4.1 speedtest
Aaaaaaaand ... go.
Photo: iApple Bytes

Some informal testing reveals that if you’re still rocking an old iPhone, you should probably upgrade to iOS 9.2.1.

iApple Bytes put three different models of older iPhones — the 4s, 5 and 5s — up against each other in a variety of tests designed to see which of them was faster starting up, using apps and running Siri, Apple’s digital assistant. Half were running the brand-new iOS 9.2.1, which arrived yesterday, and half were still on iOS 8.4.1, which has been around since August 2015.

You can see their results below in iApple Bytes’ series of videos.

VR porn partnership takes viewing out of your hands

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VR goggles by Florian Pircher vr porn
I mean, we don't know for sure that this mannequin head isn't watching porn, do we?
Photo: Florian Pircher/Pixabay

Two high-tech companies are joining forces for the latest development in immersive VR porn: goggles plus machines.

The partnership is between virtual-reality porn producer BaDoinkVR and “teledildonics” maker Kiiroo. And once you get past the basic idea of it, it still sounds super weird. But that’s just kind of how the future works. The deal will allow BaDoink’s content to sync up with one of Kiiroo’s “personal devices” to create an experience so authentic that the companies assume you will forget about all of the fancy mechanical rigs you’ve attached to yourself.

Apple’s new Music Memos app makes songwriting chimp-simple

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Easy to use music creation app means the end of complex demos.
Easy-to-use music creation app Music Memos does away with complex demos.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Apple’s new app, Music Memos, is hands-down the best free music-creation app I’ve ever used on my iPhone. The amount of tech packed into this tiny little iOS app is nothing short of amazing, and it shows Apple’s continuing commitment to the creative community.

Music Memos lets you sit down with your iPhone, tap the screen, and record music. Then it will totally figure out what you played, and supply fairly decent drum and bass tracks to complement your chords. Wow.

I’ve played in live bands that can’t even do that.

Take my word on this: If you can play even rudimentary guitar, piano or even ukulele, you owe it to yourself to give Music Memos a try.

Chrome is about to load the web even faster

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Chrome
Chrome's new data compression will make for faster web browsing.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

Users of Google Chrome on both the desktop and mobile should see a speed improvement soon when it comes to loading web pages. A Google engineer confirms that a new type of data compression is ready to ship, with the next release of Chrome set to be the first browser with the new technology baked in.

The improved compression engine, dubbed Brotli, is said to be up to 26 times faster than the current solution, Zopfli.

Paws and check out how cute this game is

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Paws game
Oh no, our feelings! Why are swans so cruel?
Photo: Might and Delight

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a game that looked as simultaneously adorable and mysterious as Paws, but here it is.

The upcoming title, which will drop on both Mac and PC March 24, puts you in the role of a sweet, lost lynx cub trying to find its way back home. And that sounds really sad, but the graphics in today’s announcement trailer are so charming that we could probably power through the pain.

Check it out below.

Price cuts pay off: Apple hits all-time high in India

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india
Apple is doing all it can to grow in India.
Illustration: Cult of Mac

Apple posted record sales in India during the final quarter of 2015, positive financial news for Cupertino amid forecasters predicting a rough start to the new year.

Apple shipped a record 800,000 devices to India from October through December, a record spurred by a wider distribution base, discounts, buybacks and installment plans.

Weird attachment spikes your drinks with negative ions

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Cocktail by Steve Buissinne beverage power
These bubbles could be coming from you. But not in a farty way.
Photo: Steve Buissinne/Pixabay

Sometimes, you look at your boring glass of ginger ale and think, “This could really use more ions.” Or maybe you don’t, but the makers of the Beverage Power have done that thinking for you.

It’s a small device that the company says will attach to any drinking glass or water bottle. It has a contact on its side that your hand activates, and you complete a circuit when the drink touches your mouth. That introduces a “small, safe electric current” that floods your drink — and, therefore, your body — with negative ions.

And here’s why the company says you’d want to do that.