Amazon makes drastic changes to prevent another Fire phone disaster. Photo: AmazonAmazon makes drastic changes to prevent another Fire phone disaster. Photo: Amazon
Amazon has dismissed dozens of engineers and ditched a handful of hardware projects following its dismal attempt at tackling the smartphone market, according to a new report.
The retail giant has also restructured what’s left of its hardware division, combining what was two separate units into one.
An early radar gun used by a Dodgers scout during the 1970s. Photo: efastball.com
Michigan State University baseball coach Danny Litwhiler was reading the campus newspaper one day in 1974 when he decided to call the cops on some of his pitchers.
An article and photo of campus police showing off the department’s new radar gun to catch speeders caught Litwhiler’s eye and he wanted police to swing by the ballpark with the new toy to see if it could read the speed of a pitched baseball.
Litwhiler – a flawless defensive player in the bigs who evolved into a beloved college coach – changed the game of baseball that day. No longer would myth and mystery surround the fastball. Pitchers, for better or worse, would be scouted and evaluated based on a new number – miles per hour.
You're about to murder so many snakes, you have no idea. Screenshot: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac
I’m anxiously awaiting Lara Croft’s next outing on consoles this fall with Rise of the Tomb Raider, but in the meantime, developer Square Enix is tiding us over with Lara Croft Go, a miniaturized adventure starring the iconic graverobber and dinosaur fighter. It’s out now for iPhone and iPad (reviewed version), and like its predecessor, Hitman Go, it’s more about strategy than all-out action.
This game diverts slightly from Hitman, however, doing away with the board game/diorama theme and just sticking our hero into an ancient, turn-based ruin. But that doesn’t diminish its charm or fun at all.
Would you take a dive for a brand new iPhone? Photo: top2best
Anyone who has ever watched a soccer game knows that players will take a dive for any possible strategic advantage. But what about to get their hands on the latest iPhone?
According to a new report, the answer is a resounding yes. Highly-paid Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli — a man known for his erratic behavior — is said to have feigned an injury during a training game in 2014 so as to get hold of Apple’s latest handset.
Apple is working on cutting-edge noise cancellation tech. Photo: USPTO/Apple
Apple’s EarPods could be about to get much smarter, thanks to a newly-published patent application which describes how a wireless headset could use sensors to determine which sound data to pass along to a listener.
The iPhone 6s is on its way. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
We’ve had various glimpses of the iPhone 6s itself, but until now we’ve not seen the beautiful, crisp white packaging it will come in.
That (may have) changed, with a new leaked photo appearing to show the box for the phablet-size iPhone 6s Plus. Like the next-gen iPhone itself, the box doesn’t differ substantially from the design of its predecessor, although the packaging does feature a few revealing details.
Coming soon to a pocket near you? Photo: iPhonesoft
The much-rumored iPhone 6c won’t be enough to let Apple compete for marketshare with super-low-cost Android smartphone makers, claims analyst group IDC — a.k.a. commentators who appear to have totally misunderstood Apple’s entire business model.
Obi Worldphone’s first smartphones are here. Photo: Obi WorldphoneObi Worldphone’s first smartphones are here. Photo: Obi Worldphone
Backed by ex-Apple CEO John Sculley, Obi Worldphone is a startup company that’s hoping to shake up the affordable Android market with two new devices that combine stylish designs and decent specifications with even more attractive price tags.
Meet the Obi Worldphone SF1 and SJ1.5, which start at as little as $129.
A plague upon all your houses. Photo: Yacht Club Games
Indie favorite Shovel Knight is getting a new, free update based on a popular bad guy from the first release.
Called Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, the new expansion will include a whole new way to play in the Shovel Knight universe with new levels, music, art, and platforming. The villainous Plague Knight, master of alchemy, is the star of this new addition, which will come along with the original game, Shovel Knight, and as a free update to owners of the original game, which won over 70 Game of the Year awards in 2014.
Check out the video below to see all the chaos of this action-packed expansion.
No other companies have scheduled trade shows here, reports say. Photo: Hoodline
According to a San Francisco website, Apple is confirmed as the reason behind all the mysterious logistics happening at the city’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, the same venue at which Steves Jobs and Wozniak introduced the world to the Apple II.
Email addresses from some of the top tech companies are on the list of outed accounts following a hack on the infidelity site, Ashley Madison. Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac
Some of the tech world’s brightest may have been caught with their hard drives in the wrong place.
Email accounts from some of the biggest technology companies, including Apple and IBM, were among those outed as a result of the recent hack on Ashley Madison, the dating website for infidelity.
Apple Watch’s Force Touch is coming to iPhone. Photo: Apple
The addition of Force Touch on the next iPhone has been churning through the rumor mill practically since Apple unveiled the technology with the Apple Watch last year. We’ve yet to see any component leaks that confirm the tech is actually coming to the iPhone 6s, but one developer may have just found evidence that it’s definitely on the way.
iOS developer Hamza Sood discovered key references to Force Touch in iOS today that appear to confirm the iPhone 6s will indeed come with pressure sensitive technology, and it may also add the new trackpad gestures that Apple is adding to iPad with the release of iOS 9.
Jony Ive doesn't find failure very interesting. Photo: Vanity Fair/YouTube
Jony Ive seemed embarrassed when Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter started their interview by calling Ive the “greatest industrial designer in the world right now.”
The Apple design guru closed his eyes, rubbed his head, and then provided a soft-spoken but enlightening 25-minute peek inside his head during 2014’s Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. Wonder what he’ll say this year?
The app update wants to fill your pocket with recommended stories and videos. Photo: PocketThe app update wants to fill your pocket with recommended stories and videos. Photo: Pocket
Pocket updated its apps for Android and iOS to version 6.0, which now tailors to your interests. The release brings a new Recommendations tab that scans your activity in Pocket and, armed with that knowledge, presents you with new stories and other content you might find interesting.
NightStand is the first third-party Apple Watch accessory available in the Apple Store. Photo: ElevationLab
You no longer have to depend on the Internet to provide you with third-party Apple Watch accessories, as the company has started stocking them in its gleaming, glass-covered retail locations.
The first accessory on offer is a minimalist charging dock that will be compatible with watchOS 2’s Nightstand Mode when the firmware update launches this fall.
There they are! Hello, contacts! Screen: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
iOS 8 introduced the idea of showing your most-contacted contacts in the multitasking screen. You’d simply double click on the Home button to see the list of the most recent apps as well as a row of the folks you contacted the most across the top.
If you’re looking for that feature in iOS 9, you might have noticed that the contacts are no longer in the multitasking screen. Never fear, though, they’ve just moved.
The XY Share It lets you transmit photos to only those you want looking at them. Photo: XY
You have a great picture of your kid on their first day of school and you would like to share it with just two people. You could post to Facebook or Instagram, but then everyone sees it. You could attach it to an email or text or you could just pass the phone over the next time you see them.
The company XY has another option. It has designed a Bluetooth device the size of a keychain that lets you share an album of pictures with select people.
El Capitan coming to an iPad near you? Photo: Cult of Mac
Microsoft recently launched Windows 10 to the public, but it looks like that won’t be enough to help increase PC shipments next year as IDC estimates PC shipments will fall by -8.7% in 2015 and not stabilize until 2017.
PC shipments aren’t the only tech item on the decline either. Tablet sales are expected to decline even faster than IDC’s previous forecast of a 3.8%. The firm currently projects tablet shipments will drop 8% in 2015, however there is a silver lining for Apple.The 2-in-1 tablet market is expected to grow 86.5% in 2015, right as Apple’s preparing to launch the iPad Pro.
After years of speculation, we’ve finally gotten the official movie poster for the forthcoming Steve Jobs biopic — and, man, does it ever look great!
Keeping to the same minimalist style as the Walter Isaacson book jacket it’s based on, the poster shows Michael Fassbender striking a typically Jobsian pose, complete with plenty of white space.
This limited-edition flier that packs an amazing amount of moves in its palm-sized frame. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
It’s fine to admit it: you get a little jealous every time you see someone playing with a drone. Why not join the fun with a little drone of your own? We’ve found five deals on compact, fully-equipped and affordable drones to get you flying, filming, and having fun in no time and for next to nothing.
The battle to win Apple's chip orders is hotter than ever. Photo: Apple
Taiwan’s top court ruled in favor of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in a lawsuit involving a former employee who allegedly leaked trade secrets to Samsung.
The accused party — TSMC’s former senior director of R&D, Liang Mong-song — allegedly helped Samsung catch up in the chip-fabrication business and win orders for Apple’s A-series processors..
The Note 5 has super specs, but can’t match iPhone 6’s speed. Photo: Samsung
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is one of the most beefed up and powerful smartphones the world has ever seen. In terms of raw specs, the Note 5 blows the 2014 iPhone 6 out of the water with 4GB of RAM and a zippier processor, but as Apple has taught us for so many years, specs don’t always translate into better performance.
To see how fast the Galaxy Note 5 is compared to last year’s iPhone hardware, DroidModderX pitted the two devices against each other in a speed test designed to mimic everyday use, and the results were quite surprising. The iPhone is running on weaker hardware, but thanks to Apple’s software it managed to blow the Note 5 out of the water, thanks to Samsung’s horrible TouchWiz UI that bogs down all the memory.
Apple didn't invent the Slide to Unlock gesture. Photo: Jared Earle/Flickr
Swiping a finger across a smartphone screen to unlock it may soon become a universal gesture, even on devices not made by Apple, because Germany’s top civil court has decided Apple didn’t invent “slide to unlock.”
You can use Gmail's web app and get Notifications in OS X with Aura. Photo: Cross Coded
If you use Gmail – and let’s face it, most of us do – one of the biggest draws of using an external app, like OS X Mail, is being able to get Notifications when new emails arrive. Unfortunately, many email apps don’t support Gmail’s best features natively, like labeling, search or automatically filtered inboxes.
If you’d like to get Notifications when a new Gmail comes in, but continue to use the Gmail web app instead of a dedicated client, here’s how.