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Instagram is about to hit you with ads whether you Like them or not

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Instagram ads
Get ready to see this stuff all the time.
Photo: Progressive (via Instagram)

Are you tired of your Instagram feed being low on sponsored posts from companies trying to sell you things? If so, here comes the best news you’ve ever heard.

The company has opened up its advertising code to make it easier than ever for partners to get ads all up in the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app.

This intricately engraved Apple Watch is absolutely crazy

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MadeWorn's custom engraved Apple Watch is better looking than an Edition.
MadeWorn's custom engraved Apple Watch is better looking than an Edition.
Photo: MadeWorn

MadeWorn made a name for itself putting insanely detailed engravings on expensive Rolexes for celebrities willing to shell out thousands of dollars for the custom timepieces. Now the Los Angeles-based company has put founder and artist Blaine Halvorson’s touch on the Apple Watch — and it looks absolutely crazy.

Apple may launch five additional Beats radio stations

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Even Taylor Swift loves Apple Music.
Even Taylor Swift loves Apple Music.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple’s creation of the Beats 1 radio station has been one of the best parts about the company’s new Apple Music streaming service, but it might not be Apple’s only station for much longer.

As part of the deal Apple signed with major labels ahead of launch, Apple Music has the option to expand its lineup of Beats radio stations nearly at will, according to a new report citing sources with knowledge of the situation.

Ingenious braille smartwatch puts time at your fingertips

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The Dot smartwatch has a changing braille face to help visually impaired users receive digital information.
The Dot smartwatch has a changing braille face to help visually impaired users receive digital information.
Photo: Dot

We hear all the time how technology makes our lives better. But many such advances leave the world’s 285 million visually impaired people in the dark.

Not so with this invention: A South Korean startup has developed a smartwatch with a face that has four sets of six dots that represent braille characters.

Crazy-sounding smart clothing line claims it will chill your fat away

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Thin Ice smart clothing
Alright, so it's super weird.
Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

A lot of products promise to help you lose weight without requiring you to do any extra work. And here’s another one.

Thin Ice is a line of smart clothing, and its creators say that it will melt fat by tricking your body into thinking it’s colder than it is. And that’s it; that’s how they say it works. You can learn more in the occasionally awkward video below.

Need Publisher for Mac? Give Lucidpress a try

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Lucidpress gives you all the power of Publisher or InDesign.
Lucidpress gives you all the power of Publisher or InDesign.
Image: Lucidpress

This post is brought to you by Lucidpress.

Anyone involved in digital publishing is pretty much forced to work with one of two applications: Microsoft’s Publisher or Adobe’s InDesign. The pricing of the two reflects the fact that they’re the only two games in town. And since Publisher is PC-only, Mac users have only one option.

Lucidpress thinks people are hungry for a viable alternative, so it’s created a web-based publishing platform that’s as scalable and feature-rich as any of the big-name desktop software — but priced for access to anybody.

Fourth OS X El Capitan public beta arrives

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El Capitan beta is here to change your Mac.
El Capitan beta is here to change your Mac.
Photo: Apple

Apple seeded a new beta of OS X El Capitan yesterday, and now the company is making the same software available to its public beta testers.

The fourth El Capitan public beta comes less than a week after Apple released the last one. And while it’s light on major new features, it comes with a bunch of bug fixes and performance improvements.

T-Mobile sprints into U.S. top 3 carrier spot

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Sprint added new customers, but not enough to keep its bronze model from T-Mobile.
Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr CC

T-Mobile is doing pretty hot lately, but it’s unfortunately at Sprint’s expense. While the latter carrier has been declining in market share for the past couple of years, it’s finally now in last place out of the four major U.S. wireless carriers. T-Mobile snatched the bronze model.

In the quarterly earnings call, Sprint said it had 57.7 million customers with a net gain of 675,000. T-Mobile, however, gained 2.1 million customers last quarter for a grand total of 58.9 million.

CONTINUE READING »

Take the padlock off your PDFs with 50% off PDFPen 7 [Deals]

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PDFPen 7 lets you get into your PDF files to edit, add text, and lots more.
PDFPen 7 lets you get into your PDF files to edit, add text, and lots more.

It happens all the time: you spot a tiny error in a PDF document, and you’re powerless to fix it. Instead of accessing the original doc, opening it, making the change and saving another copy, what if you could just edit the dang PDF? That’s what PDFPen lets you do, along with a bunch of other functions that’ll make PDFs a lot more pliable, and right now it’s going for half off at $37.

At the International Space Station, it’s Suntory time

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Suntory whiskey mellows with age, but the company wants to know how it tastes after time in space.
Suntory whiskey mellows with age, but the company wants to know how it tastes after time in space.
Photo: Suntory

We should pity the astronauts on the International Space Station, especially the two who are currently there for a year.

Just feet away from where they probably drink their Tang, the Japanese Experiment Module will soon hold samples of that country’s legendary Suntory whiskey to see how it ages in microgravity.

Suntory announced last week that it was sending whiskey samples on a Japanese transfer vehicle that will take off on Aug. 16 to rendezvous with the ISS. Some of the whiskey will be stored for up to two years to see how it mellows in space.

Hit a high with this slow-motion video of swooping birds

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From
From "Birds in Slow Motion" by the BBC's Earth Unplugged.
Photo: BBC/YouTube

You understand bird’s-eye view. How about the view of its prey?

It’s likely that mouse or fish don’t even see the canopy of feathers coming. Our eyes and brains barely work fast enough to process the sight ourselves, so the guys who work in the studio for the BBC’s Earth Unplugged slowed it down for us.

The Earth Unplugged slow-motion studio, which loves to deconstruct the spit of cobras and the flight of fleas frame by frame, has compiled a 70-second clip of a variety of birds as they take off, float and hover and, of course, stick their landings.

El Capitan code confirms new 4K and 5K iMacs are on the way

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OS X El Capitan is coming
New iMacs will likely arrive with El Capitan.
Photo: Apple

New 5K 27-inch iMacs and a 4K 21.5-inch model are almost certainly on the the way, according to code discovered in yesterday’s sixth OS X El Capitan beta.

An in-depth look at the latest version of El Capitan reveals three new files referencing the new Mac resolutions, while an accompanying image suggests the exterior design of the machines will remain largely unchanged from current models.

Apple will make us wait until 2016 for the iPhone 6c

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Is the 4-inch iPhone coming or not?
Apple's next iPhones may offer small, medium and large options.
Photo: ModMyI

Apple’s long-rumored (and eagerly anticipated) iPhone 5c successor, the iPhone 6c, may not have been shelved after all — but instead pushed back to the second quarter of 2016, according to a new report.

Sources in the supply chain say Apple’s next-gen budget smartphone will also boast advanced “FinFET” processors to deliver increased performance and greater power efficiency.

This 3-D-printed case could save your iPhone 6 from accidental breakage

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625x465_2854418_11459487_1438293812
If you like it then you should have put a ring on it.
Photo: David Tsai

There are plenty of advantages to larger, phablet handsets like the iPhone 6, but an obvious disadvantage is that they’re less easy to transport by slipping them into your pocket.

Industrial designer David Tsai has come up with an interesting solution to that problem with his new 3-D-printed iPhone keychain case, which allows you to easily attach the device to a belt or similar in order to avoid accidentally dropping it.

Samsung’s so far behind Apple, it’s ripping off iOS 6

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CLhj3aSVAAEkXwE.png-large
Why focus on innovation, when there's imitating to do?
Photo: Samsung

Isn’t it the most Samsung thing in the world to introduce a new technology that’s actually kind of interesting, and then ruin any originality points it picked up by blatantly ripping off Apple?

That’s exactly what happened when Samsung recently announced the SE370, the industry’s first computer monitor with integrated wireless charging function for mobile devices — only to “borrow” the exact same charging battery charging icon Apple used back in its skeuomorphic days before iOS 7 came along.

Oh, Samsung, will you never learn?

CONTINUE READING>>

Super-durable leather cable is bad for cows, good for you

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Esbee leather cable
The Esbee leather cable hopes to be the last charging cord you ever buy.
Photo: Esbee

It’s usually a question of when, not if, your charging cable is going to start wearing around the point where the cord meets the connector. And maybe you’ll try to make it work for a little while, but sooner or later your denial will wear off and you’re going to have to drop the cash on a new one. And then the whole sad process starts over.

One company is hoping to break the cycle with a leather cable that is not only tough but also aims to be the best-working cord you’ve ever bought.

9 practical uses for your obsolete Apple TV

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AppleTV_TV-Movies-PRINT
Check out nine seriously cool ways to make the most out of your old Apple TV.
Photo: Apple

OK, play time is over. Last week’s article on five things to do with your obsolete Apple TV was meant to bring some light humor to your day, but we heard your comments loud and clear. Many of you looking for legitimate tips on what to do with an old Apple TV felt misled by the headline when you wound up scrolling through a sarcastic list. For that, we apologize. I apologize.

But we’re not all talk and no action at Cult of Mac. Without further ado, here is an actual list of nine things – four extras because we like you a lot – that you can do with your old or soon-to-be-obsolete Apple TV. For real this time. Seriously.

IBM’s bulk buy of 200,000 Macs isn’t enough for Tim Cook

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Photo of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs flipping off the IBM logo.
Steve Jobs sends a message to the competition.
Photo: Andy Hertzfield

IBM became Apple’s largest corporate customer this year when it agreed to buy 50,000 MacBooks from Apple, but according IBM’s chief information officer Jeff Smith, the company will more likely end up purchasing between 150,000 to 200,000 Macs when all is said and done.

In an internal IBM video, Smith describes how he and Apple CIO Niall O’Connor struck the deal that will see 50-75% of IBM’s workforce switching from Lenovo ThinkPads to Macs. Apparently that’s not good enough for Tim Cook though, who asked IBM VP Fletcher Previn, “well, what about the other third?” when the company told the Apple CEO of the massive bulk order they were planning.

Watch the video below:

Nico Gerard just invented the mullet of smartwatches

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Business in the front, party in the back.
Business in the front, party in the back.
Photo: Nico Gerard

Most luxury watch makers are desperately coming up with a plan to keep traditional watch wearers from upgrading to Apple’s decadent smartwatch, but California-based Nico Gerard has decided to follow the age-old adage, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

For the company’s new Pinnacle line of Swiss timepieces launching on Monday, the watch maker has created a special bracelet that lets you slap a 38mm Apple Watch to the inside of your wrist. It’s like the mullet of smartwatches, business in the front, party in the back.

Check it out:

Mark Hamill’s sense of humor has a Dark Side

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autographs005

Photo: imgur.com/raggedrabbit

Luke Skywalker is earnest, fiercely serious and seems to lack the sense of humor of, say, Han Solo.

But the force behind Skywalker, actor Mark Hamill, is as funny as Jabba the Hutt is fat.

Hamill’s mark on comedy is in his writings to fans on old Star Wars trading cards. He likes to quickly craft a funny sentence to go with the scene on the card, followed by an artfully penned signature.

In a card titled The Search for Vader, Hamill writes: “This Vader guy is a loser . . . Hope he doesn’t have kids!”

Apple buys massive development site in San Jose

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Apple hQ
Apple's building a new office in San Jose.
Photo: Apple

Apple signed a lease for 300,000 square feet of office space in San Jose last month, but the company might be eyeing a bigger expansion in the city, according to a new report that Apple just purchased a massive development site in North San Jose.

In a deal worth more than $138 million, Apple has purchased 43 acres of land at 2347 North First St., according to documents obtained by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Apple has yet to announce its plans for the property, but it will be the company’s first significant presence into San Jose in decades.

Here’s a map of the land Apple just bought:

Thunderstrike 2 worm can infect your Mac without detection

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12-inch MacBook
Get yours for just $999.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple has touted the Mac’s resistance to viruses for decades as a selling point over Windows PCs, but a team of researchers have created a new firmware worm for Mac that might just make you want to go back to doing work on good old pencil and paper.

Two white-hat hackers discovered that several vulnerabilities affecting PC makers can also bypass Apple’s renowned security to wreak havoc on Mac firmware. The two created a proof-of-concept of the worm called Thunderstrike 2 that allows firmware attacks to be spread automatically from Mac to Mac. Devices don’t even need to be networked for the worm to spread, and once it’s infected your machine the only way to remove it is to open up your Mac and manually reflash the chip.

Here’s a preview of Thunderstrike 2 in action: