A San Francisco teenager recently found themselves on the receiving end of a massive $2,021.07 phone bill — courtesy of iOS 9’s Wi-Fi Assist feature, which automatically switches phones to use cellular service when the owner is in an area with a weak Wi-Fi signal.
Teen Ashton Finegold made the unpleasant discovery that his bedroom was such a place, which meant that while he thought he was connected to his home Wi-Fi setup, his iPhone actually clocked up 144,000 MB of cellular data.
For managing multiple mail accounts on the go, nothing beats the brilliant CloudMagic. It packs everything you need in an email app — and a whole lot more — and supports almost every mail service you can throw at it. And now it’s finally available on your Mac!
We like HomeKit; don’t get us wrong. Apple’s automation framework has taken our relationship with our lights to strange, wonderful, and not at all awkward new places. And we like the potential of saving money on energy with smart thermostats, getting smoke and carbon monoxide alarms directly on our phones, and using our iPhone or Apple Watch like a virtual bouncer to control who gets into our homes.
That’s the problem, though — that’s basically all anyone’s done with HomeKit. And it’s mostly lights and plugs.
But First Alert has arrived to bust us out of this rut with a promising device that sounds both useful and eminently futuristic: a HomeKit-compatible safe. And if that doesn’t fill you with dreams and vision for what automation can mean, we’re sure you’ll enjoy your bulbs. We really do.
LAS VEGAS — It’s not gadgets that are making the news here at CES 2016, but cars.
For example, at a press event this afternoon the Korean car giant Kia said all of its cars will be fully autonomous by 2030. Not just its high-end vehicles — all the cars it makes. And that’s just 14 years away.
That means you be able to curl up in the back and sleep while the robot drives — or not be in the car at all. It’ll drive itself to the airport to pick you up.
Kia is joined by dozens of other companies with futuristic visions of the car. Both Detroit and Silicon Valley are here at CES 2016 to talk up future cars, which are mostly electric and autonomous. It includes Ford, VW, Toyota and lots of others.
It’s all good news for Apple, which is widely believed to be working on its own car.
iDevices is doing a better job at pushing HomeKit than Apple is.
That’s the impression we’re getting, anyway, as the peripheral maker just keeps churning out products that are compatible with the home-automation framework built into your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
The four new devices, which the company is showing off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, bring its total number of things digital assistant Siri can control up to seven.
You now have a new buddy to enable you to binge watch TV like never before.
DishTV just rolled out the Hopper 3 DVR, which lets you record up to 16 programs at once. Sixteen! Consider that the first DVR player in 1999 only let you record one show at a time.
It seems like DishTV is putting its eggs in a basket that contrasts nicely with the Apple TV streaming model; the Hopper 3 will store all your shows for you and not have an effect on your bandwidth bottom line.
Consumer electronics company Netatmo has made a camera that is easily overlooked as it keeps a lookout outside your door.
The outdoor surveillance camera Netatmo named Presence uses an algorithm to detect whether something in its view is a person, car or animal. It then immediately sends a notification through a companion iPhone or Android app along with an option to see what the camera recorded.
LAS VEGAS — There was a whole lot of sniffing going on at the Sensorwake booth here at CES Unveiled. The first olfactory alarm clock promises a kinder, gentler start to mornings, using scents instead of noise to wake up sleepyheads.
The quirky gadget couldn’t be any simpler: Set the alarm and wake up to one of six dry-air infused cartridges. Sensorwake is similar to a Glade Plugin but with cooler scents. It’s made by a French company, so it pumps out crazy European aromas.
Apple is expanding its presence in Reno Technology Park in Nevada by building a new data center adjacent to its current one. The company filed a permit with Washoe County for “Project Huckleberry,” the codename for the new facilities that will stand next to the current “Project Mills” data center.
Kodak is not prepared to let analog filmmaking disappear into the digital world.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, the film-stock maker is showing off a prototype for a new camera that will combine time-honored, physical shooting techniques with the latest in digital technology. This powerful combination hopes to capture the best of both traditions, allowing present and future filmmakers to continue to produce their art in whichever way they see fit.
Music can set the mood for everything and the Prizm, a new music player described as “the music brain,” is hoping to reinvent the way we listen to music.
It listens to sounds in the room you’re in and identifies who’s in the room, then selects the perfect track for the situation. Lots of people making noise late at night? Prizm thinks it’s party time and plays techno music. Nothing but heavy breathing or kissing sounds? It’s time for some Barry White.
Apple will be allegedly reducing orders of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus to suppliers by as much as 30 percent this quarter. iPhone 6s and 6s Plus sales are apparently considerably less than that of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the year-ago quarter. If this is true, it seems that Apple has been making too much supply for simply not enough demand.
Huawei took to the stage at CES this morning to show off a bunch of stuff that looked really familiar — although the stage wasn’t free of some killer features.
The world’s number three smartphone brand is ready to take on Apple and Samsung, and it brought its own versions of the big three devices on stage to show off what they can do. And they can do quite a lot, it seems, but not all of it has us wanting to defect from our iPhones.
Here’s what Huawei brought to the party.
This post is brought to you by You Need A Budget.
Given today’s economy, there’s a good chance you’re a freelancer. The self-employed, as much as and maybe more so than the salaried, can only benefit from being strategic and disciplined in handling money.
Of course many of us don’t have the bandwidth to plan beyond next week, let alone the next six months. But with shifting sources of income and hard deadlines for bills, improvising with your finances is a sure way to lose cash you could be keeping.
Say goodbye to the 140-character limit that made Twitter famous and say hello to something much longer. According to a report, Twitter is getting ready to launch a new feature that will let users include as many as 10,000 characters in one tweet — 9,860 more than before.
If you’re like the rest of us, you’ve got a nice Mac with plenty of video, photos, and apps on it. Time Machine is a fantastic way to keep your stuff all backed up and safe, so you’ll need a high-capacity drive to do that with.
Samsung’s new external solid state drive (SSD), called the T3, has the capacity of multiple terabytes to keep more of your data backed up and the speed to make it easy.
“Following the successful worldwide launch of the Portable SSD T1 in 2015, we made several significant upgrades to the T3 based on the feedback and needs of our customers, which included content creators and business professionals in particular,” said Samsung’s Un-Soo Kim in a statement.
Chinese New Year is just a few weeks away and the Apple Watch is gearing up to celebrate the occasion with two new color options that will add a lot of red (and hopefully some good luck) to your wrist.
If you want to listen to the same corporate pop music as you do on your terrestrial radio, you can do so from the comfort of your couch.
iHeartRadio’s streaming app can now also reside on your Apple TV, assuming you have one of the newer fourth-generation set-top boxes from Apple.
The new Apple TV app will give you all the main elements of the iOS app, including Live Stations, Custom Stations based on songs or artists, and podcasts from the behemoth media network.
No, that car you see above is not a real Batmobile — but it is just as exciting. Built by Faraday Future, the FFZero1 is a concept smart car that’s back from the future, with a 1,000-horsepower electric engine that goes from zero to 60mph in under three seconds.
LAS VEGAS — Can you use lasers to regrow hair?
The folks at HairMax are at CES 2016 to show that yes, it is totally possible to stimulate hair follicles to regrow your skimpy, thinning head of hair into a thick, furry mane. However, there is a catch: You have to have the right type of baldness.
The LaserBand 82 brings laser revitalization to the home with its 82 medical-grade lasers that provide a full treatment for hair loss in 90 seconds. Cult of Mac caught up with HairMax at CES, the largest orgy of tech gadgetry in the world, to get a heads-on look at the funky futuristic headgear.
Apple CEO Tim Cooks gushes about his iPad Pro. But you, on the other hand, don’t see it as ready to replace your MacBook.
Accessories company Brydge is rolling out new keyboards it says will make your iPad feel as productive as a laptop.
After having initially been promised for a Christmas deadline, it now appears that both Apple and Ireland will have to wait until February to receive the verdict of European Union regulators on whether or not Ireland has broken international tax rules by letting Apple shelter profits worth tens of billions of dollars there.
These days, coding for mobile is one of the most valuable professional skills you can acquire. If you want in on the action but didn’t spend your teen years coding a the console, you’ll need help getting your hands dirty with the nitty gritty of mobile development. That’s exactly what this course provides, offering the chance to build 20 hands-on iOS 9 apps, an invaluable learning experience that’s just $19.
Fitbit has upped its game to take on Apple Watch and Android Wear with a brand new fitness tracker called Blaze. It packs a premium, smartwatch-like design with color display, and it promises to run for up to five days in between charges.
Pounding coffee and Red Bull can only do so much to keep a driver from falling asleep at the wheel. But one company has developed a discreet Bluetooth headset that nudges you before you doze off.
The Vigo Bluetooth headset uses an infrared sensor, an accelerometer and an algorithm that tracks blinking patterns and head motion and notes changes to quantify mental energy in real time.