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In the future, your car will tell you to walk instead

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Brandon Nee, an engineer at Automatic, designed an app to get people out of their cars, even though he doesn't have one to get into. Photos: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Brendan Nee, an engineer at Automatic Labs, designed an app to get people out of their cars, even though he doesn't have one to get into. Photos: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

SAN FRANCISCO —  Brendan Nee is a walking contradiction. He’s car guru who doesn’t own one, a 21st-century geek with an 18th-century mustache who has come up with a novel bit of nagware that could help Americans get off their spreading behinds.

An engineer working on “smart car assistant” Automatic, he spends many of his weekends at hackathons and has a coder’s physique to show for it. In January, he won the Clinton Foundation Code4Health Codeathon by developing a working prototype of an app called Walkoff in just a weekend. A few months later, Nee and team rolled out a more polished version that mashes up the data Automatic pulls from cars with info gathered by a Jawbone Up fitness tracker, showing a user how much time they’re spending behind the wheel versus walking.

“Clearly, without an actual car, I’m not the ideal tester,” admits Nee. The closest he comes to owning a set of wheels is a retired public bus dubbed the PlayaPillar that he only rolls out for Burning Man.

Godzilla collides with Pacific Rim in this awesome fan-made trailer

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It’s a slippery slope when it comes to fan trailers (seriously, type the word “trailer” next to any possible future sequel on YouTube and see how many hits come up!) but this is pretty awesome.

If you were a fan of the recent Godzilla reboot, along with last summer’s superb Pacific Rim — which featured giant mechs battling monsters from below — then you’ll likely love Paczilla: a fun mash-up by YouTube user MOVIECLIPS Trailers. The well-edited trailer gives an idea of what it would look like if Gipsy Danger and the other Jaegers came to the rescue when the monsters of the Godzilla universe began stomping on cities.

Lenovo claims to be beating Mac in U.S. sales

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Mac sales have been growing impressively for the past few years, but according to a new press release they’ve run into a Lenovo-shaped obstacle in their climb.

That’s according to new figures released by (surprise, surprise) Lenovo, which claims that it has overtaken Apple in personal computer sales in the U.S. market for the first time ever. If these figures are accurate, it means that Lenovo has kicked Apple aside to take third place in the U.S., taking its position behind PC giants Dell and HP.

Survivalist gear reveals individual nature of fear

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Curtis' Bug Out Bag is just one of the grab-and-go emergency kits documented in Allison Stewart's Bug Out Bag photo series.
Curtis' Bug Out Bag is just one of the grab-and-go emergency kits documented in Allison Stewart's Bug Out Bag photo series.

Everybody packs differently for the apocalypse.

Photographer Allison Stewart reveals the fears and foresight of survivalists in her photographs of bug-out bags, the emergency preparedness kits put together by individuals ready to flee an impending disaster. In her photo series Bug Out Bags, the contents of the grab-and-go bags get splayed out against a stark white background, showing the wide variety of items deemed necessary by the preppers.

Stewart, raised on the Gulf Coast under the annual threat of hurricanes, comes by her fascination with the subject naturally.

“When I lived in New Orleans, I was stuck in my house for four days without electricity or fresh water,” Stewart told Cult of Mac in an e-mail. “The water in my street was waist-deep and lapping at my front door. I was very thankful for my water supply, my transistor radio, and of course the wine supply.”

No two packs in her Bug Out Bags photo series are alike, a fact Stewart attributes to the individual nature of fear. One is loaded with forestry tools; another includes a gas mask; a third is stocked with canned food. While basements from Tornado Alley to the Ring of Fire hold stockpiles of emergency supplies, she found bug-out bags truly explore the unique psyches of their owners.

Notifyr lets you read iOS notifications on your Mac

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Notifyr is a great new iPhone app which lets you route iOS notifications over to your Mac.

Optimized for Bluetooth low energy (LE)-compatible iPhones and Macs, it allows you to receive notifications regarding phone calls, text messages, and iOS apps (such as WhatsApp messages, or Instagram follows) in the right-hand corner of your Mac’s display.

Southwest Airlines app adds mobile boarding pass support in 28 airports

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Given the extra security you find at airports these days, we’re grateful for anything that makes the experience of checking in and boarding your flight that bit quicker and easier.

With that in mind, Southwest Airlines has just posted an update for its official iOS app, adding several notable improvements, including faster access to tools like the Checkin and Mobile Boarding Pass options, right from your home screen. There’s also info about your upcoming trip card on your homepage, which means that you can view information related to Flight Status, Boarding Position, and Gate Information more easily than ever.

Better yet, the app update coincides with support for mobile boarding passes being added at 28 airports around the United States — rather than just Austin, where the technology was previously trialed.

Controversial weed-growing iOS game pulled from App Store after hitting No. 1 spot

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Controversial cannabis-growing game Weed Firm has been booted out of the App Store.

Essentially Farmville for stoners, the app put you in the role of a marijuana dealer, as you try to grow your business (literally)  and stay one step ahead of “thugs and cops.” Somehow making it past Apple’s usually stringent guidelines for adult content, the app had made it to the top of the App Store’s Top Free iPhone games prior to its expulsion.

Survey claims that Apple is no longer the world’s most valuable brand

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Google has overtaken Apple as the world’s most valuable brand, according to a new survey.

As per Millward Brown’s BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, Apple’s brand value fell by 20% in the past year to just under $148 billion, while Google’s value increased by 40% to $159 billion.

“Google has been extremely innovative this year with Google Glass, investments in artificial intelligence and a range of partnerships,” says Benoit Tranzer, regional managing director of Millward Brown Europe. “All these activities send a very strong signal to consumers about the essence of Google.”

Duty calls as Modern Warfare sequels finally come to Mac

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Itching to take on the future techno-war depicted in the hyper-realistic Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise? Well, if you’ve finished off the original Modern Warfare game on your Mac, ported in 2011 by Aspyr, it’s time to lock and load your weapon of choice for the next two installments in the series, Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3.

These huge sequels are available now for the Mac platform, on Steam or porting publisher Aspyr’s own GameAgent distribution service. The new Mac versions of the game have all the downloadable content (DLC) packs from each game ready for your first-person shooter marathon.

The classic iPhone ringtone gets a sweet remix

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There have been a lot of remixes of the iconic iPhone ringtone over the years, and this one may be the best. The guitar solo at the end is an unexpected twist.

The remixer goes by the name MetroGnome, and his YouTube account features countless remixes of popular songs. He’s got some original stuff on iTunes, and it’s pretty standard electronic music.

You can download the above track yourself and turn it your own ringtone if you want to be that kinda guy at the party. It’s not free, but I recommend Ringer in the Mac App Store.

iWork for iCloud gets upgraded with enterprise in mind

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iWork's interactive graphs in action
iWork's interactive graphs in action

Today Apple made some upgrades to its web-based version of the iWork suite that are more suited for those working in large teams. The number of people that can collaborate on a single document has been doubled to 100, and the maximum storage size for files and docs has also been increased.

Apple to pay ISPs for direct iPhone connection

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iTunes is down!. Photo:
iTunes is down!. Photo:

Apple wants to deliver content directly to your iPhone, iPad or Mac and according to a report, it’s ramping up development of its own Content Delivery Network (CDN) to take make it happen.

Dan Rayburn at Streaming Media reports that Apple’s CDN plans are ramping up as the company has begun negotiations with the US’s largest ISPs to secure paid interconnection deals that would let Cupertino beam updates directly to your iPhone more efficiently than the third-party providers it currently uses.

Never burn another bag of popcorn with Perfect Pop

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Whether you’re watching television at home or a new feature film at the movie theaters, popcorn always serves to be a tasty viewing companion. While popcorn is delicious there’s nothing more frustrating than smelling the buttery cooking kernels only to find it burnt when finished. Luckily the app Perfect Pop can save you from destroying your snack and filling your home with unpleasant smells.

Take a look at the video to see what you think.

Wolfenstein: The New Order may have the best gaming homage ever

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Modern gaming at its finest.
Modern gaming at its finest.

In the newest Wolfenstein game, out today for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC, you’ll play as Captain B.J. Blazkowicz, an American war hero out to take on the Nazi regime and the evil General Wilhelm Strasse.

In what might be the best homage to classic gaming I’ve ever seen, the new title has a beautifully recreated level from one of the original iterations of the popular gaming title Wolfenstein 3D, which came out in 1992 and made its way to every computing platform at the time, including the Apple II and Mac OS, and has recently been ported to iOS as well.

The video below shows this awesome throwback to the original game, blocky graphics and all, in what looks to be a dream sequence in The New Order.

Microsoft’s ‘iPad killer’ is enormous Surface Pro 3

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Instead of taking on the iPad Air’s 9.7-inch display, Microsoft is thinking even bigger with a 12-inch Surface Pro 3 that could make it the perfect competitor for Apple’s long-rumored 13-inch iPad Pro.

Like Microsoft’s other’s tablets, the Surface Pro 3, which the company revealed Tuesday morning, comes with a kickstand and a collapsible keyboard that Microsoft Surface chief Panos Panay says will remove all the conflicts you’ve had about buying a laptop or tablet, plus they’ve added a Surface Pen for seamless digital writing.

Get great apps and support a cause with The Name Your Own Price Mac Bundle 5.0 [Deals]

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Cult of Mac Deals regularly offers “name your own price” bundles, and we’ve got another here for you that assembles 9 apps and an iOS course that really deliver the goods…and the savings!

These types of bundles are time-limited opportunities to buy a collection of apps for whatever you want to pay! The bundles are exclusively constructed and are made for anyone looking to discover the best apps from around the globe. And The Name Your Own Price Mac Bundle 5.0 is no exception.

See super-rare prototypes of iconic Macs and other Apple marvels

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From Henry Plain’s collection, this clear-sided Macintosh SE was used for engineering tests to check airflow and heat dissipation. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
This clear-sided Macintosh SE from Henry Plain's collection was used for engineering tests to check airflow and heat dissipation. Photos: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Some Apple collectors gather one of every Mac, iPod or iPhone, while others specialize in portables or all-in-ones. Then there are the outliers, the super-collectors who search out the incredibly rare items most people never get a chance to see.

“I’m always on the hunt,” says Henry Plain, a California man who specializes in tracking down impossible-to-find Mac prototypes.

Plain owns some of the rarest, most unusual Apple machines ever produced. These are the speed bumps, works in progress or developer’s editions that the secretive Cupertino company never intended for outside eyes. His vast knowledge of Apple’s production gave him a role in facilitating the sale of the Storage Wars-esque Macintosh collection of Marion Stokes that came to light last month. I like to think of him as Prototype Man.

What’s in Plain’s amazing Apple menagerie? Transparent versions of the Macintosh SE and PowerBook 140. A Mac mini with a built-in iPod dock. Prototypes of the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM), the Power Mac G4 Cube and iDevices too numerous to mention. Even to other collectors — and I have a Mac Museum in my house — his inventory is crazy-impressive.

7 in-game cameos that actually make sense

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Celebrities have been lending their voices and likenesses to video games for years, and you need only look at the voice-cast lists for big games like epic first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops to see how prevalent they are.

But some appearances are more subtle, relevant or just straight-up awesome. Here are seven celebrity cameos that actually belong in their respective games.

Samsung’s ‘jihadist’ jibe could result in Apple peace talks failing

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George Orwell once wrote that, “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”

Yesterday we reported on the fact that Samsung and Apple were sitting down to negotiate an end to the ongoing litigation between the two companies — and unlike all the previous occasions, this time the plan was to make it stick.

Well, one day later, and talks between the two warring factions are reportedly breaking down — as lawyers from both sides express difficulty working with each other. What is seemingly particularly grinding gears in the Apple camp are statements made by Samsung’s top lawyer, referring to the protracted lawsuit as “Apple’s Vietnam” and Apple as “jihadist.”