Mobile menu toggle

21 places to stick your GoPro. And no, not there.

By •

Drinking water becomes a spectator event when a GoPro camera is placed at the bottom of a bottle. Photo: Burger Fiction/YouTube
Drinking water becomes a spectator event when a GoPro camera is placed at the bottom of a bottle. Photo: Burger Fiction/YouTube

We all know how exciting a GoPro camera can make our lives look. Mount one to the end of a surfboard, on the handlebars of a mountain bike or to the helmet of a wingsuit diver and the viewer can get a similar stomach-churning thrill.

But what if extreme sports are not on the day’s agenda? Can GoPro make loading the dishwasher or drinking bottled water exciting?

The filmmakers for YouTube channel Burger Fiction set out to challenge our point of view by mounting a GoPro in 21 random places. And behold, there’s an extreme side to such random events as a woman reaching into her purse or a child reaching into a toy box.

U.S.-China relations in good hands as Tim Cook meets with China’s vice premier

By •

China
Tim Cook is turning on the charm offensive. Photo: News.cn
Photo: Tim Cook

Tim Cook’s visiting Beijing at the moment and, when he’s not posting from popular micro-blogging network Weibo, he’s meeting with some pretty high-powered people.

Among them is Chinese vice premier Liu Yandong, who Cook met with on Tuesday to discuss how Apple can do more to promote scientific and educational cooperation between China and the United States.

Steve Jobs’ business cards sell for $10,000

By •

Photo:
Three slices of tech history. Photo: Marin School

Three of Steve Jobs’ old business cards — each representing a different phase of his career — have sold at auction for a whopping $10,050.

Spanning the years 1984 to 1990, the cards name Jobs as president of NeXT and chairman of the board at Apple and Pixar, the three companies Jobs was deeply involved with during his career.

So who bought them? Read on to find out.

Apple Watch uses even Cupertino didn’t see coming

By •

It has a lot of talents, but first and foremost, it's a great watch. Photo: Cult of Mac
It has a lot of talents, but first and foremost, it's a great watch. Photo: Cult of Mac
Photo: Erfon Elijah/Instagram

Early adopters of the Apple Watch have had a few weeks with their new gadgets, and they’re having experiences that may not be worthy of one of Apple’s austere presentations. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t getting a lot of use out of the things and finding occasionally odd ways to integrate them into their lives.

A bunch of reddit users have been sharing their stories, and here are some of the more peculiar things Apple’s new wearable can do.

Verizon snaps up AOL for a cool $4.4 billion

By •

AOL just got bought by the king of mobile.
AOL just got bought by the king of mobile. Photo: Verizon
Photo: Verizon

Mobile giant Verizon has announced that it will acquire the former media kingpin AOL in an all-cash deal worth $4.4 billion.

Although AOL is virtually an afterthought these days, Verizon has said that it will use the deal to help push its online video content, which it has made efforts to become a leader in.

Notably, the deal also makes Verizon the owner of The Huffington Post, Techcrunch, Engadget and others.

Customers complain their new MacBooks come pre-dented

By •

Some users are complaining their new MacBooks come pre-dented. Photo:
Some upset users say their new MacBooks come with dents. Photo: tizi

Some customers who have ordered Apple’s gorgeous new 12-inch Retina MacBook are in for an unpleasant surprise. After prizing the pristine white lid off the device’s box, they’re discovering that their new notebook is already damaged.

The complaint was noted by Apple accessory maker tizi, whose newly arrived MacBook came with two large dents on its underside. And the company thinks it’s discovered the cause.

The Apple Watch is already improving the lives of deaf users

By •

The Apple Watch is already improving lives. Photo: CNN Money
The Apple Watch is already improving lives. Photo: CNN Money

For many years Apple has been a great company when it comes to pushing the accessibility of its products for disabled users — from features like VoiceOver, which allow for descriptions of apps to be read aloud for the blind, to FaceTime which represented a breakthrough in allowing deaf people to communicate with one another using a mobile device.

In a new video for CNN Money, the latest step of that evolution is shown as a deaf Apple Watch owner demonstrates how he can use the device to control his hearing aid.

iPhone 6s could be Apple’s biggest ‘incremental’ upgrade of all time

By •

Apple is hoping for big things from its next-gen iPhone.
Yep, the iPhone 6s is sounding better than ever. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Photo: Cult of Mac

The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus may just be the biggest incremental “s” upgrades Apple has ever done, according to a new report.

As per well-connected KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone 6s will feature twice the RAM of its predecessors, a significant processor upgrade, better camera, new color option, sapphire display, strengthened shell, improved Touch ID and Force Touch.

Just about the only thing that would stay the same, in fact, are the two size options!

Jetpack duo soars over Dubai in astonishing 4K video

By •

Jetman Yves Rossy and his new stuntman sidekick Vince Reffet fly in formation over Dubai. Photo: XDubai/YouTube
Jetman Yves Rossy and his new stuntman sidekick Vince Reffet fly in formation over Dubai. Photo: XDubai/YouTube

They promised us all jetpacks — these guys got them and took them to one of the world’s most remarkable locales. And you get to ride along if you dare.

The latest eye-popping (and possibly stomach-churning) video from Yves Rossy (aka the Jetman) shows the Swiss daredevil inventor and his new sidekick soaring in formation over desert sands and Dubai’s awesome skyline with nothing but jetpacks and a total lack of fear.

Yes, Google can wiretap your Hangouts for the government

By •

This text isn't the only message that's insecure. Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac
This text isn't the only message that's insecure. Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

If you’re looking to plan a heist, you’d probably best stay clear of Hangouts: Google has inadvertently confirmed that its chat platform is susceptible to police and government monitoring.

While the tech giant usually keeps quiet about Hangouts’ security features, the revelation (of sorts) came out of an “Ask Me Anything” session Friday on Reddit that included members of Google’s public policy department and legal team. Its proposed topic was “the current status of U.S. government surveillance law reform and how Google thinks about these issues,” but the questions were less about laws or reform and more about Google’s practices.

The scientifically perfect way to organize your Apple Watch apps

By •

Is Apple Watch demand waning?
You're probably not organizing your Apple Watch efficiently, according to science. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

The Apple Watch’s tiny screen has already proven to be a boundless landscape for creatively organizing app icons, but one obsessive reddit user has created the most scientifically convenient app layout we’ve seen yet.

Quantified smells: This gadget tracks farts

By •

Place this gadget near your external emissions port, and let fly. Photo: Kickstarter
Place this gadget near your external emissions port, and let fly. Photo: Kickstarter

The future is here, folks, with a little gadgety box called a CH4 that you place near your rear end to measure the amount of gaseous emissions from your nether regions.

Pair that with an app on your iPhone that tracks the foods you eat and compares that with the amount you fart, and you’ve got one handy device for your office, car, or dorm room.

Now all it needs is to deliver a little electric shock each time you fart, and this thing would be perfect.

GIF-wrap your email with Giphy for Gmail

By •

post-322265-image-6a1dcfabfe02532d7b3d5bc8ba80882b-jpg

Email seems antique for modern communication, but Giphy freshens it up a bit with a new Chrome extension that makes it easy add animated GIFs to Gmail messages.

Just download the free Giphy for Gmail extension extension and you’ll see Giphy’s rainbow icon in your Gmail composition window. Click on the icon to search a handful of popular GIFs, then select one to be embed into your Gmail message.

How to use Handoff with Apple Watch

By •

An unfortunately named tech for Apple devices, that's what. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
An unfortunately named tech for Apple devices, that's what. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

There are some things your Apple Watch just cannot (or should not) do, like sending emails or searching the web.

You can still ask Siri to do these things, but she’ll ask you to take your request elsewhere — namely, to your iPhone. Here’s how Handoff works with Apple Watch.

Sorry, fanboys: TRON light cycle could have been yours for $77,000

By •

Take a seat and ride. Photo: Sotheby's
Take a seat and ride. Photo: Sotheby's

If you’ve been secretly longing to recreate that famous light cycle scene from TRON in real life, you’re now out of luck, as the only working model we know of has now sold at auctioneer Sotheby’s for a not-horrendous price of $77,000.

While it’s great that someone grabbed this fully-functional homage to a nerd cult-classic, the bad news is that it wasn’t you.

iOS 8.4 beta 3 brings more tweaks to Apple’s Music app

By •

Apple has big ambitions for its new music streaming service.
Beats redesign might not show up at WWDC. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple continues to improve its redesigned Music app, as evidenced by today’s release of iOS 8.4 beta 3.

The new beta is available now in the iOS Dev Center and includes plenty of bug fixes for the Music app, which was updated with new features like a new MiniPlayer, global search, Up Next, personalized playlists and more in iOS 8.4 beta 1.

Apple Watch takes an Olympic-size plunge, lives to tell about it

By •

Apple Watch is ready to take the plunge. Photo: DC Rainmaker
Apple Watch is ready to take the plunge. Photo: DC Rainmaker

Summertime is finally upon us, and here in the Valley of the Sun, that mostly means one thing: cliff-jumping season.

I’ve been worried that my Apple Watch might not survive some of the 50-foot cliffs my friends and I like to hurl ourselves off of, but the folks at DC Rainmaker have put the waterproofing of Apple’s new wearable to the test by jumping off an Olympic diving platform. Despite momentarily being exposed to water deeper than the 1 meter it’s rated for, the Apple Watch keeps on ticking.

Watch the full test below:

Ousted VP Scott Forstall is ‘delighted’ Apple still makes great products

By •

Scott Forstall. Photo: Apple
Scott Forstall. Photo: Apple

Scott Forstall, the Apple executive who lead the creation of iOS and was then kicked out the company in 2012, says he’s not staying mad at Apple.

In a recent interview about the Broadway play he’s producing, Forstall addressed his split with Apple for the first time since leaving the company after the disastrous launch of Apple Maps. Rather than cheering for Google and Apple’s other competitors though, Forstall told the Wall Street Journal he’s ‘delighted’ that Apple is still making beloved products.

Hacked Apple Watch proves the web wasn’t meant for 1-inch screens

By •

Safari on the Apple Watch would suck. Photo: Comex
Safari on the Apple Watch would suck. Photo: Comex

Apple Watch is great at many things like checking weather, tracking fitness and sending notifications. But when it comes to surfing the web, Apple Watch is unsurprisingly the worst device for the task.

An Apple Watch version of Safari wasn’t included with Jony Ive’s smartwatch, but that didn’t stop notorious jailbreaker Comex from hacking a web browser onto the wearable. Comex posted a video of his hacked Apple Watch running a web browser on the Google homepage over the weekend, showing it is possible to browse the web from your wrist — but you’ll never want to.

Check it out: