Lovely Planet is a twee little game for your Mac (or Linux/Windows box) that distills the essentials of the first-person shooter genre down to the basics: shoot, jump, run.

You’ll do this, over and over, across five distinct worlds and hundreds of levels armed with nothing more than your adorable little bow and arrow and a sense of adventure.

Be warned, though — you’re going to die repeatedly, especially at first, because while the visuals and soundtrack are kawaii as heck, the levels are designed as diabolical tests of your gaming sanity. But please, don’t throw your Macbook across the room when you have to re-start a level for the hundredth time. Maybe take a break.

According to findings by researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell, USB security may be profoundly broken, with no way around it.

Nohl and Lell have highlighted a flaw in USB devices which potentially offer hackers the ability to sidestep all currently known security measures used by a computer. Called the BadUSB exploit, the vulnerability allows hackers to meddle with the firmware which controls the functions of various USB plug-ins, such as mice, keyboards and thumb drives.

Where there’s a popular idea, you can be sure the clones will follow. Earlier this year the popular app in question was Flappy Bird, and here in July it’s simplified message app Yo, which has to date received $1.5m in funding.

A few weeks back we wrote about Yo spoof Hodor, but it seems that there’s another more pressing clone out there, called Yolo, which Yo founder Or Arbel describes as “a complete fake copy of our Yo app.”

In response to Yolo, Arbel has filed a complaint with Apple, asking it to remove Yolo from the App Store since it allegedly infringes on Arbel’s copyright and trademark.

You already know that your Mac computer is one of the best designed machines on the market. Even the best machines, though, can fall victim to a variety of problems, either on the software or hardware side of things.

Keep your Mac in peak condition with Techtool Pro 7 and Checkmate. Both would normally cost you around $125 but, for only a little while longer, you can get them together in one sweet package for $49.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple is set to open a new Apple Store in Toledo, OH’s Franklin Park Mall sometime during the fourth quarter of 2014. This will be Ohio’s eighth Apple Store, with its seventh opening last month in Dayton.

The company has already posted 15 job openings via its website, while it recently advertised a full-time retail general manager post via the website CareerBuilder.com.

When you hit the road, you take your iPhone charger. If you’re hitting the road for a long time, you might also take a portable battery along with it.

So redundant. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way for you to roll up your charger and your portable battery pack into a single device? Now, thanks to Nomad, there is, and it’s so ingenious, I can’t believe that Apple hasn’t done this themselves.

Song recognition service Shazam has launched a cool new Mac app. Called, originally, Shazam for Mac, the always-on app lives in your Mac’s menu bar, and offers some neat features.

Constantly listening for songs to identify, Shazam for Mac springs to life whenever it finds a song you want to know about, creating a playlist as it goes along, and alerting users via a standard Notification Center popup. Once a song has been ID’d, the app gives you the option of one-click access to lyrics, music videos, or the option to buy the track on iTunes.

On the Mac, 1Password is a perfect Swiss Army Knife of tools for the forgetful and lazy, guaranteeing that they never have type in a password, address field, or credit card number into an online form ever again.

But on iOS, 1Password has been a more convoluted thing. Lacking deep integration with other apps, 1Password for iOS has never been as good as it’s Mac counterpart. But with iOS 8, that’s about to change, thanks to a 1Password app extension that any third-party app can use.

As has been seen time and time again, all Apple needs to do is hint at an area it’s interested in exploring (see: smart watches) and much of the tech world will trip over itself trying to beat it to market (see: Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smart watch.)

The latest company to jump on this bandwagon is, apparently, VIVO, the Chinese manufacturer which previously released the world’s first QHD/2K smartphone. According to sources cited by the Chinese media, VIVO is taking a big swing at Apple (and, yes, the iPhone 6 was specifically mentioned) by rushing to release its new 5-inch flagship handset, with an all-metal frame and sapphire glass display.

A comic book movie about misfit space superheroes might not seem to have much in common with Apple’s long-rumored entry into wearable computing. However, for a handful of reasons, Guardians of the Galaxy is to Marvel Studios what the iWatch is to Apple –- a high-profile release that’s critical to the company’s future success.

Here’s why.

Does the iOS-centric IBM-Apple deal equal the end of the road for desktops? Absolutely it does, if you believe Bob Tinker, CEO of the newly-public company MobileIron.

Discussing the recent alliance between the two tech giants during his company’s first earnings call, Tinker pointed to the IBM-Apple deal as something of a signal moment for mobile. “I think of it as a positive that IBM’s committed to building mobile apps for enterprises, switching away from Windows to mobile platforms,” he noted.

“This signals the end of the desktop era. IBM once made a deal with Microsoft in the late 1980s that ushered in the era of the desktop, and now they’re ending it with Apple.”

For years now, the Modbook has been giving Apple fans the devices that Cupertino won’t. Before the first iPad came out, Apple delivered the Modbook, a white plastic Macbook transformed into a tablet. They then followed it with the Modbook Pro, which gave the same treatment to the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

With hybrid tablet/laptops like the Surface hitting the market, Modbook’s once again getting ready to give Apple die hard what they want. The Modbook Pro X is coming, and it promises to be a convertible MacBook Pro that is also a tablet when it wants to be.

If you make music of any kind, or are just looking to upgrade your sound system from the decent-yet-not-audiophile Bluetooth speakers you currently use, you know you want a set of speakers that can handle the highest of highs, the deepest of lows and everything in between without sounding muddy or overly tinny, middy or bassy. You want a speaker set that can handle the deep boom of drum ‘n’ bass and the sweet, high melodies of a Mozart concerto along with any type of loop you can throw at it from your own collection.

Studio monitors are a big deal when making music, as they offer up sound that is as true to the source as possible. You want to hear everything going on in your mix so you can make sure to create the sound that best captures your musical vision, whether during the recording, mixing or mastering phase.

The Reveal 402 studio monitors from Tannoy promise to deliver unparalleled sound and fury without a huge footprint, letting you create music properly on today’s ultra-portable MacBooks. They also let you just plug in any sound source, from XLR to mini-audio jack, with ease, making these ideal for both music creation and plain old rocking out while you’re working.

SAN FRANCISCO — Sébastien Leidgens wants to put a new angle on the business card.

His invention, Cubr, is a six-sided die that connects people through private mobile web chat. When a red, blue or green Cubr is tossed your way, you hit the website or download the app, then enter the code to start your instant message convo or share photos with the person who gave you the die. The enterprising Belgian, a former project manager at a digital marketing agency, is taking a gamble on the idea that people are tired of handing out one-dimensional cards.

“It’s a business card for non-business people,” Leidgens says in an English heavily influenced by his native French. “Young people don’t have business cards. This you can use for private situations in everyday life. It’s a lot more fun and outside of the usual public circles.”

If you’re a runner or a gym user, chances are that at some point you’ve put together a workout playlist of some sort, full of the kind of Rocky-esque power ballads you want entering your ears and coursing through your veins as you strive toward physical perfection.

According to a patent application published Thursday, Apple could be looking to take a lot of the pain out of that kind of gain. The application in question deals with a handheld or wearable device capable of controlling the tempo of music so as to affect the mood and behavior of users during exercise.

Apple is finalizing its acquisition of Beats Electronics ahead of the August 1st closing date, and while most of Beats’ top talent will be migrating to the mothership, about 40% of Beats’ global workforce will be cut during the transition.

Around 200 jobs at Beats Electronics will be cut as part of the merger, according to the NY Post, which reports offers were sent to from Apple to employees last week, some of which are just transitional offers with a set end date.

The impending fall release of OS X Yosemite has been on the minds of most developers since WWDC, but Apple is continuing to make improvements to OS X 10.9 Mavericks with the release of the first OS X 10.9.5 beta that’s slim on new features, but big on bug fixes.

For those tired of shelling out a few hundred bucks every time Cupertino announces a new iPad with the most minor of upgrades, late night TV show host Conan O’Brien has teamed up with comedian Matt Walsh to create a step-by-step instructional video that will guide you through the delicate process of constructing your very own iPad.

All you’ll need is some simple household items, like an etch a sketch, basic speaker wire, lots of peanut butter, and of course, duct tape.

Watch the full DIY video below:

Do you still dream of the day when the iPad and MacBook finally converge in beautiful harmony? Are you also really jazzed about the Apple’s big ass iPad rumors? Well if you’ve got a measly $4000 laying around, Modbook is ready to sell you the tablet of your dreams.

The company created a new Kickstarter campaign to the support the launch of its new ModBook Pro X tablet which transforms any 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, into a quad-core OS X tablet so powerful you might as well toss your desktop in the trash.

Watch the full sales pitch below:

We’ve been waiting more than two years to get a decent upgrade for the AppleTV, but a new report suggests that Apple isn’t planning to launch the device this year, thanks to cable companies dragging their heals on deals.

The pending merger of Comcast and Time Warner have also been holding up the release, according to sources at The Information, who says Apple has told its engineers not to expect a launch until 2015.

While we wait for this weekend’s highly-anticipated Marvel movie, The Guardians of the Galaxy, we thought it’d be fun to pass along this sweet speed-painting from filmmaker Matthew Pearce.

It shows an illustration of Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, created on a 1984 Macintosh using MacPaint. Now that’s some serious special effect magic, right there.

Check out the video below.

It’s definitely trailer week, especially for comic book and other genre movies, but here’s one for an upcoming DC television show based on the Vertigo property, Hellblazer. The show will cover the exploits of a certain John Constantine, supernaturally sensitive wizard-type who wears a trench coat, smokes incessantly (in the comics, at least) and does smart-ass battle with the angels and demons who plague us mere mortals.

The trailer really brings on the horror tropes: the creepy bugs on the wall revealing a scary message, the creepy flat-affect kid with the sharp knife, the broken-neck demon in a human body shot. You know, all the hits.

Check out the trailer below for all the creepy footage from what could be the best comic book show of the upcoming season.

If you work and play in creative environments, you already know that design software can be pretty darned expensive. Still, if you want to be the best designer you can be, you’re going to need that software, so you have no choice but to shell out a boat load of cash. If that sounds like you, then you’ll be ecstatic to learn that you can get over $900 worth of awesome creative programs for your Mac at a whopping 95% off.

Yep, The Productive Design Mac Bundle gives you 7 amazing programs that allow you to design killer animation, make 3D art, and more for the unbeatably low price of $39.99, available for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

As the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War continues to unfold, Russian officials have proposed that Apple hand the government access to its entire source code, just to make sure there aren’t any spying bugs in it.