Google is planning to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Virgin Galactic to gain access to satellite launch technology and an equity stake in the company, Sky News reports.
The deal, which is believed to be in its final stages, is thought to be part of Google’s plan to put hundreds of satellites in space that will provide Internet access to billions of people.
Instead of trotting out the cliché question, “Are games art?,” an exhibit at the Electronic Entertainment Expo aims to explore the actual artwork from upcoming and recently announced video games.
Long gone are the pixellated abstracts of yesteryear: these are fully realized, gorgeous works of art in various styles, hung for all to see in the Los Angeles Convention Center, where the Expo takes place this week.
Developing today’s graphics-rich video games –mobile, console, or PC — takes a lot of time, talent, and passion, and the images above show the kind of artistic energy that is put into them. From the painterly styles of artwork from Assassin’s Creed Unity and Destiny to the poster illustration of The Banner Saga and Sunset Overdrive, there’s a lot to like in the images above.
All photos by Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
In four months, Apple will reveal new iPhones. It’s as certain as the changing of summer to fall: Leaves die, kids go back to school, and the world gets a shiny new iPhone, delivered with love from Cupertino.
But when Tim Cook takes the wraps off this year’s version, what’s to become of the poor, sad, unloved iPhone 5c, still begging the world to caress its unapologetically plastic frame?
Will there be a sequel?
Yahoo’s iOS Flickr client got a revamp this morning, adding several handy features — including new options related to sharing, tagging, and describing your photo albums.
Users now have the ability to share their albums via Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter, in addition to Mail and SMS. The update also provides users with the chance to add and edit both tags and descriptions of their photos from inside the app.
Rovio has officially launched its latest Angry Birds game, Angry Birds Epic, for iOS devices worldwide.
Unlike previous Angry Birds sequels which have flapped their wings since the original game flew into the App Store back in 2009, Angry Birds Epic takes the form of a fantasy RPG starring both the Angry Birds and the Bad Piggies. The game soft-launched in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand back in March, but today marks the first time gamers from across the globe can get their hands on it, too.
NBA superstar (and Samsung shill) LeBron James reportedly made some serious bank as a result of Apple’s $3bn Beats acquisition in May — ranking as the largest equity cash payout for a professional athlete in history.
Citing sources close to the issue, ESPN claims that James struck a deal to promote Beats headphones back in 2008, in exchange for a minority interest in the then-new company. Although it’s not known exactly how many shares he owned (Beats has always framed it as a “business relationship” without giving further details), it was enough to earn him a whopping $30 million in both cash and stock when the Beats deal was finally done.
Although Apple-watchers have been buzzing about OS X 10.10 Yosemite since last week’s WWDC, Apple hasn’t forgotten about its current generation Mavericks Mac OS.
To prove it, the company has released three new betas for developers to test out — including OS X Mavericks 10.9.4, OS X Server 3.2, and Safari 6.1.5.
Apple stores are iconic throughout the world for the level of design that goes into their construction. In fact, it’s almost like they’re Apple products themselves.
Today Apple posted a video to its YouTube channel showcasing the preparation for its new store in the Omotesando area of Tokyo, Japan. With giant glass panes stretching stories-high, it’s a big store in a country that Apple is doing very well in right now.
With so many new features in OS X Yosemite, we couldn’t fit them all into one video. Today we take a look at Handoff and Phone Calls, two of the hottest additions to Apple’s operating system. These two powerful features will link your Mac and your iPhone like never before.
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App launchers on the Mac have always been geared toward power users, and lately tools like Alfred have become even more sophisticated, with user-created scripts and extensions. When Apple debuted the new Spotlight in OS X Yosemite at WWDC, it took many of the best features from existing launchers, like the ability to find any app you have installed with a couple keystrokes.
LaunchBar was the original app launcher on the Mac, and today a brand new version was released with a themable interface and new features.
Will tools like LaunchBar and Alfred live on when millions of Mac owners start using the new Spotlight this fall? Now that Apple has capitalized on the more consumer-friendly aspects of what makes a good launcher, third-party alternatives are going after power users like never before.
Apple has a massive pile of cash sitting overseas and the U.S. Senate is now weighing options on how to entice Cupertino to bring all $138 billion of it back to American soil.
Senate Democrats and Republicans are reportedly in discussions about passing legislation that would give American companies like Apple and Google a one-time tax break if they repatriate profits stashed overseas.
Swipeable keyboards are finally coming to iOS thanks to Apple’s addition of third-party keyboards in iOS 8. We’ve already seen teasers of Fleksy’s wicked fast keyboard in development, but now TouchPal is giving us a taste of what gesture-based keyboards will be like with it’s working demo of the TouchPal Keyboard.
TouchPal’s captures texts as you slide your finger over the letters to form a word. Sliding up for numbers, or down for a symbol. It’s super fast and convenient, especially if you’re a sloppy texter like me.
Checkout the full demo:
For thrills, skills, and power, there is nothing like the SKEYE Mini Drone. It may be palm-sized, but this quadcopter isn’t small on features.
It flies with acrobatic precision and can squeak between the narrowest of nooks! With 4 coreless motors, performing flawless takeoffs, vertical climbs, 360s, figure eights, and banked turns is a breeze – whether you’re taking to the skies under a roof or out in the open. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for just $99 during this limited time offer.
Almost exactly one year to the day after being announced, it’s now possible to order a Mac Pro and have it ship to you within 24 hours.
Costing between $3,000 and $4,000, Apple’s gorgeous stealth powerhouse of a machine went on sale December 19, but right from the start began suffering shipping delays due to a limited production cycle. One possible explanation for this was the Mac Pro’s “Made in the USA” status, in contrast to virtually all other Apple products, which are designed in California but assembled overseas — often in China.
The Walden is the first of Pad & Quill’s top-notch cases that I would actually use. That’s because it ditches the wooden frame of the company’s usual bookbindery cases, instead offering a minimal slipcover that uses adhesive strips to hold an iPad Air in place.
The result is a case as beautiful and classic as other P & Q cases, but slim and light enough to match the slender Apple tablet it protects.
Macs are solid machines, but just like their owners they have a tendency to get lethargic as they age. Launching and switching programs takes longer, simple tasks become arduous, and the dreaded beach ball of doom appears more often than it did when your machine was new. The operating system just starts to feel crufty, and can get worse over time. I see these issues in my IT consulting business regularly.
You may be asking, why does this happen? There are many reasons, but some are more common than others. Sometimes your hard disk (or solid-state drive) gets too full and interferes with normal computer operations. Crashes or misbehaving programs can corrupt the disk directory or application cache files. Remnants from old software may still be running behind the scenes, or you don’t have enough RAM to deal with your OS and workflow.
Is there some sort of tune-up you can do to sort it out? Your tech always tells you to just reboot the computer, but there’s got to be more than that. The good news: Yes, there are some things you can do. And, perhaps, adopt some more-efficient computing practices for yourself along the way.
Apple paid just 3.7% tax on its non-U.S. income last year — and the European Commission isn’t happy about it.
Registering its overseas business in Ireland, Apple is one of three companies being investigated for abusive transfer pricing and other forms of corporate profit shifting, with the other two being Starbucks and Fiat Finance and Trade.
The subject of corporate tax avoidance has become an increasingly hot-button issue in recent years, as the result of probes into international businesses like Apple and Google, which use convoluted structures as a means of slashing their tax bills.
Kenan Aktulun founded the iPhone Photography Awards (IPPA) the same year the smartphone launched, when the idea that taking great pics with a camera phone was still pretty optimistic.
Seven years later, iPhone photography has developed to the point of documenting New York Times war coverage and tops four out of five of the most-used cameras on Flickr.
This year’s IPPA winners cover a suitably broad range of the world (54 photographers from 17 countries) and topics ranging from kids and architecture to landscapes and food.
New photos purporting to be of the iPhone 6 have shown up. The above image was one of two posted by user dreamerjimmy on the Chinese social network Weibo. Seemingly confirming what we have heard in previous reports, it depicts the iPhone 6 as featuring curved edges, a larger display and thinner bezel to maximize the screen size. It also features a shorter gap between the display and the Touch ID Home button.
Other images reveal additional notable changes.
Unless you’re a retired British gangster gone to seed in the Costa del Sol, chances are that as a man you don’t wear chunky rings on a frequent basis. Nor, as a member of the less-fair sex, have I had the experience of missing a phone call or text message because my iPhone was buried somewhere at the bottom of my handbag.
I do, however, appreciate that neither of these are necessarily true for female readers of Cult of Mac — and that Ringly is therefore not necessarily a product aimed at me.
Ringly is a startup that creates smart rings offering customizable Bluetooth notifications, with different-colored LED lights and vibration patterns for different types of alerts. It’s designed to be a functional but also stylish notification system that connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth LE. Notifications can be tweaked on a user-by-user basis, so that it might be possible to have a red light signal an urgent email or phone call, while a blue light could notify you of, say, a retweet or a FarmVille notification.
The iMac could get a refresh next week according to a new report, which suggests that Apple is planning to update its computer line with faster processors and lower prices.
The report cites the same sources that correctly predicted the MacBook Air update back in April, and goes on to suggest that the iMacs might include Thunderbolt 2 ports, and that they will arrive later in the week than the Tuesday release day usually used for new Apple products.
Nest, which is now owned by Google, pioneered the idea of a smart thermostat. Now several years later, Honeywell has a Nest competitor that might actually do well in the consumer market.
Called Lyric, Honeywell’s new WiFi-connected thermostat costs $279 and will be available at a Lowe’s near you by August. While it may be too late for the Lyric to compete with the Nest, Honeywell sees it as just the beginning of its entry into the world of the the smart, always-connected home. And being a launch partner with Apple’s HomeKit in iOS 8 could mean that more people buy the Lyric over Nest in the months to come.
With the release of iOS 8 just months away, there is plenty for users to look forward to. While fitness fanatics have had to rely on third-party apps, the upcoming version of iOS introduces a dedicated Health app. Today’s video brings an inside look at the new app and how you can anticipate using it later this year.
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Sports fans are finally getting more love from the nerds at the mothership, just in time for the World Cup.
Starting today, iTunes Radio users will be able to stream live broadcasts of ESPN’s acclaimed radio shows for free as well local snoozcasts newscasts from the fine folks at your local NPR station.
Yesterday Skype announced a major redesign of its iPhone app that was scheduled to hit the App Store sometime next week. For some reason the update is already available. It packs several new features that are designed to make the app easier to use.