Cult of Mac

From the Vulcan salute by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station to the pancake artist who created a batter likeness of Mr. Spock, the tributes to the late Leonard Nimoy have been touching and creative.

Canadians have gone as far as putting Mr. Spock on the $5 bill though the Bank of Canada is not that thrilled.

The Canadian Design Resource tweeted a request after hearing of Nimoy’s passing on Friday. They asked Canadian’s to “Spock their $5 bills to honor of the iconic Star Trek science officer played on television and in movies by Nimoy.

Fancy pizza but can’t be bothered to find your phone? We’ve all been there, and it’s not a pretty place. But now you don’t have to fall asleep hungry wondering what you’re doing with your life, because Domino’s finally lets you order and track a pizza from your smartwatch.

With Kanye West’s astute analysis of Apple’s business, his close friendship with Steve Wozniak, and his unabashed love for “Jony Ives” (sic), Tim Cook must count his lucky stars every day that he managed to scoop the role of Apple CEO out from under Mr. Kim Kardashian.

Perhaps Yeezy was too busy laying down vocals for Watch The Throne to take over running Apple business back in 2011.

Whatever the reason, Apple probably wouldn’t be in too great shape under the control of Kanye since in a new interview he reveals what he thinks Steve Jobs should’ve done as his final move at Apple: given all the company’s patents away.

Yes, really.

You taking a selfie and a dolphin hunting for prey don’t seem to have much in common. But what if you could operate your smartphone with signals similar to the ones dolphins use to find food?

Elliptic Labs, which has bases in San Francisco, Norway and China, used the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, to show off advances in ultrasonic touchless gesturing Tuesday that will be available on some smartphone models later this year.

“We are excited about this,” chief technology officer Haakon Bryhni told Cult of Mac in a phone interview from Barcelona. “We’ve been working with touchless gesturing for years and now we have a real breakthrough. The technology enables you to wake up the phone, take a selfie or engage any other functions on the phone without touching it.”

It’s not just technology and environmental credentials where Apple’s helping lead the way; the company is also doing its bit to secure the futures of those service employees working further down the payscale in Silicon Valley.

Like many tech companies, Apple has previously been the recipient of protests from its own security guards, who have been hired as contract workers rather than full-time employees. Last summer, 50 such individuals blocked the main doors of Apple’s flagship San Francisco Union Square retail store, protesting over their lack of job protection. “If [security officers] miss a day of work, they don’t know if they’ll have the job the next day,” one protestor noted.

To combat this, Apple has now announced that it will dramatically expand its in-house security team, which will see the workers receive the same benefits as other Apple employees. The move will mean that the majority of the day-to-day security staff who work at Apple will become full-time Apple employees, entitled to full health insurance, pension plans and lave for new parents.

Apple Pay might be taking over the world of mobile payments, but as with any new technology there are scammers looking to misuse the service. In the United States, criminals are reportedly using Apple Pay to buy expensive goods, often from Apple Stores, using stolen names and identities.

“I was surprised by the irony, but not by the fact that Apple as a merchant is seeing Apple Pay fraud,” Drop Labs commerce and fraud expert Cherian Abraham tells Cult of Mac. “As a luxury retailer it’s not a surprise that they are a retailer of choice to commit fraud.”

Abraham says banks are scrambling to solve the problem, which is already running into tens of millions in losses for financial institutions. Asked how widespread Apple Pay fraud is, he describes it as “rampant.”

This time last week, Pebble announced Pebble Time, its brand new smartwatch for 2015. And if you’ve already backed that thinking it would keep you going until a more extravagant successor to the Pebble Steel came along, you’re going to be pretty disappointed with today’s Pebble news.

Just one week after the company announced Pebble Time and raked in more than $12 million (and counting) in funding, it today revealed Pebble Time Steel, a high-end version of the device that’s made of metal, and boasts better battery life.

Bill Gates may never have creatively made the same impact on computing that Steve Jobs did, but we doubt he’s too upset about it, since according to Forbes‘ newly-published annual ranking of global billionaires, the former Microsoft mastermind-turned-philanthropist is once again the world’s richest person.

And you know what the crazy bit is? Gates earned more money last year from his return on capital than he ever did from Microsoft wages. Wowza!

Of the smartphone stories which played out in 2014, two of the biggest were the triumph of Apple’s iPhone 6, which sold a massive 10 million+ units in its opening weekend alone, and the faltering of Samsung, which fell from the dominant position it had enjoyed since 2011.

Today, a new report from Gartner (paywall) breaks down both the 1.2 billion smartphone sales that took place worldwide last year, and also the sales from Q4 2014 — revealing how Apple leaped ahead in the smartphone category, while the South Korean tech giant Samsung started to lose its footing.

Make no mistake about it: this was the year everything changed.

SAN FRANCISCO — When I went to meet Peter Dijkstra, the business guy at Dutch game developer Vogelsap, I had to wait in line to see the small, indie team’s new horror game, The Flock. I wasn’t too upset, though, as the guy in front of my was none other than famed Doom and Quake developer, John Romero.

Dijkstra’s The Flock is an upcoming horror multiplayer game that takes place in one of three different arenas. Playing the game with three other people Monday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco brought back memories of those long-ago sessions of Quake Arena, as well as more modern examples of asymmetric multiplayer like Left 4 Dead and Evolve.

A new book about Steve Jobs is coming later this month, and it’s the first look at the late Apple co-founder that the company has aided in making since Walter Isaacson’s biography.

Becoming Steve Jobs is written by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, two veteran journalists who scored interviews with people like Tim Cook, Jony Ive, Eddy Cue, Pixar’s John Lasseter, Disney CEO Bob Iger, and Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs.

There were other games I enjoyed growing up, but the Mortal Kombat franchise was the first series of games I ever loved: from the cool character designs of Scorpion, Kano, Goro and the rest, to the ultra-violent Fatalities, which made the games seem so much more grown-up than the rival Street Fighter II titles.

Is there any better news, then, than the fact that more than twenty years after its inception, Mortal Kombat is finally coming to mobile, courtesy of a port of the forthcoming Mortal Kombat X? Provided this is done well, it could be early pick of most exciting iOS game of the year.

Color me (cautiously) optimistic. And check out the trailer after the jump.

Australia has a flying superhero and his name is Sheldon.

A camera mounted on the helmet of his helmet captures Sheldon McFarlane’s successful pursuit of an unconscious skydiving student during a terrifying freefall last November in Australia.

In a YouTube video posted on Sunday, the student, Christopher Jones, is seen rolling on his back as he suffers a seizure during a dive. McFarlane races to Jones, his hand reaching into the frame to pull the parachute’s ripcord. It took McFarlane two attempts to reach Jones.

If you’re anxious to try, Photos, the successor to both iPhoto and Aperture, is now available as a public beta for the first time ever.

Apple released a beta version of OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 that includes the first early access to the new Photos app on OS X. The public beta is available now to all registered public beta testers.

Other new additions included in OS X 10.10.3 include a new single-pane emoji scroller, racially diverse emoji, and two-factor authentication for Google. You can download it through the Mac App Store.

Apple and IBM’s partnership to bring iOS apps into the workplace produced 10 apps last year. Today at Mobile World Congress, IBM announced that it is launching three more MobileFirst apps aimed at the banking, airline, and retail industries.

The three new iOS apps are available for deployment and customization starting today. The apps are part of Tim Cook’s initiative to change the way people work by giving companies access to high-quality iOS apps. IBM says its clients for the MobileFirst apps include American Eagle Outfitters, Sprint, Air Canada, Banorte, and more than 50 others.

Here’s a quick look at the three new apps:

Ever since Tim Cook took over at Apple he’s been as outspoken about social issues as he has about the company’s latest insanely great product. During his recent whistle-stop world tour, that included Israel, the United Kingdom and Germany, Cook took the time to speak with German newspaper BILD (paywall).

Despite Apple’s March 9 Apple Watch event being just one week away, Cook used the coverage to speak about a topic as dear to his heart as Apple’s next-gen wearable: privacy.

“We don’t read your emails, we don’t read your messages, we find it unacceptable to do that,” Cook said, adding that, “I don’t want people reading mine!”

A billion dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool, Justin Timberlake? A trillion dollars!

Three point four trillion to be exact.

That’s how big Apple’s target market (the money it could potentially make if it had no competitors) could be by 2020, according to the latest estimates from Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty. Apple’s current target market is only $800 billion. Huberty’s projections show that the Apple car could be the biggest money maker Apple’s ever known, adding up to $1.6 trillion of value to the company.

Take a look at the mind boggling numbers Apple could add to its bottomline in these markets:

Apple’s secret electric car project has been met with heavy skepticism from some of the biggest players in the auto industry, but according to Nissan’s CEO, he sees Apple entering the market as a good thing.

During a presentation at the Mobile World Congress on Monday, Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan-Renault Alliance said he welcomes the idea of outside companies getting into the electric car business.

You are in the middle of an executive meeting and your mobile device, which you use for note taking and organizating your presentations, suddenly gives you a low battery warning. What do you do? Just let it die? Disturb everyone else and plug in your charger into a nearby wall socket? Because, you can do those things if you like getting fired.

Or you can keep your job by carrying a back up supply of power so you can discretely recharge your device anywhere and at any time. The Power Vault 18,000mAh Portable Battery Pack is a great option and it’s available for purchase at 72% off at Cult of Mac Deals for a limited time.

After finally lifting the lid on its new Apple Pay competitor this morning, Google confirmed plans to take on carriers as well. The search giant will launch its own wireless service within the coming months, but it will serve only as a proof of concept to “show what’s possible.”

Apple Man, the “sickest” drummer on virtual skins, added black nail polish to his fast-flying fingers in his latest YouTube video to display his iPad-pounding prowess.

We never see his face, so there’s no telling whether he went full Marilyn Manson with the makeup when he produced a drum cover video on Feb. 26, drumming on the iPad to the song, The Beautiful People.

Apple Man of Japan prefers to remain anonymous, but as you can probably tell by the name, he is a fan of Apple products. He is always willing to share his drumming passion with Cult of Mac readers.

Google’s ready to take on Apple Pay with a new mobile payments platform called Android Pay. It will work over NFC, and it will come with an API that will allow third-party developers to integrate the service into their own Android apps.

Ahead of Apple’s March 9 event, the Apple Watch has popped up in another non-tech magazine, boasting some fashion shots of it being worn by a male model. The magazine is East Touch, a Hong Kong-based Cantonese magazine aimed at (predominantly female) readers between the ages of 20-30, and covering mainly celebrity, fashion and entertainment news stories.

This is just the latest fashion publication to feature a look at the Apple Watch, following shortly after the devices was profiled with a multipage spread in the March issue of Vogue.

Leonard Nimoy’s portrayal of unflappable calm and logic during dangerous space travels on TV and in movies inspired those whose stage is actual space.

NASA is mourning the loss of Nimoy as if Mr. Spock was one of their own. Since news of Nimoy’s passing Friday, astronauts have tweeted, uploaded a YouTube video tribute and issued statements, thanking the iconic Star Trek actor for the courage to “boldly go” into professions involving space exploration.

One of the more touching tributes came from astronaut Terry Virts, who tweeted a photo of his hand in Spock’s iconic “Live Long and Prosper” gesture at a window in the International Space Station looking over Earth.