Cult of Mac

Apple has made another interesting hire in the form of Bobby Hollis, a former vice president of NV Energy who will serve as the company’s new Senior Renewable Energy Manager.

The appointment took place earlier this year, while Hollis took his post back in April.

At NV Energy in Nevada, Hollis worked as the Vice President of Renewable Energy and Origination. He also served on the board of the Solar Electric Power Association, and was recently named one of Las Vegas’s 40 Under Forty business leaders.

Could iBeacons help improve the air travel experience? Sir Richard Branson thinks they could.

Branson’s majority-owned Virgin Atlantic is the latest company to hop aboard the iBeacon bandwagon — announcing plans to use the technology to send customized messages to passenger’s iPhones in London’s Heathrow airport in the UK.

The program, which is being created in conjunction with beacon startup Estimote, will use Apple’s iBeacons technology in conjunction with the Passbook iOS app.

Until today, you had to use the Dropbox-like Google Drive app or web interface to access Google Docs on iOS. But now Google has official apps to work on documents and spreadsheets, called Google Docs and Google Sheets. An app for presentations called Slides is coming soon.

You can view, edit, and share any documents or spreadsheets stored in your Google account through the apps. And unlike Office for iPad, everything is free.

Hulu is finally unleashing its video library to the mobile masses this summer and you won’t even need a Hulu Plus subscription to access it.

Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins announced today that starting this summer you’ll be able to stream Hulu’s shows to your iPhone, iPad, or Android device for free, as long as you’re cool sitting through some ads during your TV show binge-sessions.

Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 10 minutes, Cult of Mac has once again waded through the iTunes store to compile a list of the best new albums, books and movies to come out this week.

We’ve some hard-rocking Flamenco (!), a love story that stars Siri, and a moving book about the Civil Rights Act.

Enjoy!

Rodrigo y Gabriela – 9 Dead Alive

Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero had trouble launching their careers as heavy metal rockers in Mexico, so they turned to something more traditional: Flamenco. Your eardrums will be shocked how well the heavy guitar licks from metal translate into traditional Spanish folk music. No dueling guitar duo is more entertaining than Rodrigo y Gabriela, especially as they opt for a more minimalist production on their fifth studio album 9 Dead Alive, giving it the feeling of an intimate conversation between two virtuosos.

iTunes – $9.99

Ought – More Than Any Other Day

Montreal-based Ought hit the music scene this week with their debut album, More Than Any Other Day, that is electrifying, endearing, and bubbling with thoughts on disaffection and dislocation. The band’s talkative brand of art-punk is full of anxious energy thanks to singer Tim Beeler’s lyrics that flip between panic and ecstasy over the band’s gritty grooves.

iTunes – $7.92

Damon Albarn – Everyday Robots

After serving as the frontman of Blur for 20 years, Damon Albarn has perfected the art of writing sad songs, so why should his first solo album be any different? Albarn combines dub-oriented elements with a dazed electronic ambience that’s rich in emotional depth. Albarn’s experimental rock simplicity provides the perfect notes of melancholy as he reflects on the album’s theme of isolation in the digital age.

iTunes – $14.99

Movies

Her

What happens when you fall in love with Siri? That’s pretty much the plot for Spike Jonze’s acclaimed film, Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix as a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching letters. Heartbroken after the end of long relationship, he is intrigued with an advanced new operating system called “Samantha” (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) to which he finds himself developing an unconventional love for.

iTunes – $19.99

Blue Ruin

Blue Ruin follows Dwight, a gentle Southern drifter who embarks on a mission of vengeance once he learns of a convict’s release from prison. Extracting revenge proves more difficult than imagined, and Dwight finds himself on the run from an escalating cycle of bloodshed that threatens to consume him in this darkly entertaining indie thriller.

iTunes – $19.99

The Legend of Hercules

Hollywood loves making the same movie twice, so before you go watch Dwayne Johnson don the mantle of Ancient Greece’s most epic hero this summer in Hercules, you should catch Kellan Lutz in the titular role of The Legend of Hercules on iTunes to see who wins the title of most bad ass dude in a loincloth.

iTunes – $14.99

Books

Natchez Burning
by Greg Iles

Greg Iles returns with an explosive crime thriller set in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. The novel weaves the legacy of the Deep South’s disturbing racial violence of the 60’s, into the narrative of Penn Cage (the mayor of Natchez in 2005) and small-town doctor father who was accused of murdering a black nurse.

iTunes – $12.99

The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act
by Clay Risen

After being submitted to the racist bile of Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy, we could all probably use a little reminder on the battles America has been through just to pass the Civil Rights act, as well as the obstacles still ahead, which is exactly what Clay Risen offers in his new book The Bill of the Century.

iTunes – $14.99

Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace
by Nikil Saval

Cubed reveals the unexplored yet surprising story of the places where most of the world’s work gets done. From open farm cubicle plans to The Office, Cubed gives readers the fascinating story of how the white-collar work world came to be the way it is, and what might lay ahead.

iTunes – $11.99

Sid Meier’s Civilization V is the best “4X” (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) game out there, and it can be yours for 67 percent off the regular price of thirty bucks right now in this exclusive to Cult of Mac offer from publisher Aspyr.

Civ 5, as it’s colloquially known, is the distillation of all that is good about the $x genre, which is why the game received universal acclaim and a score of 90/100 on review aggregator site Metacritic.

Aspyr wanted to find a way to acknowledge the support of Cult of Mac readers.

“It’s an exclusive deal for Cult of Mac readers on one of our most beloved titles,” said Aspyr’s Michael Blair. “This is a big ‘thank you’ to the Cult of Mac readers and to Cult of Mac for covering Mac gaming!”

Sometimes it’s difficult to fall asleep, even after a long day. While listening to music can help some, they wake only to find their device’s battery dead from playing all night. In this episode of Cult of Mac’s how-to, find out how to use your iPhone’s hidden sleep timer, thanks to our quick and easy steps.

Take a look at the video to see what to do.

You may not need a mouse much these days if you’re rocking a Macbook or Magic Trackpad, but if you do any kind of gaming on your computer, you know a mouse is essential kit.

Pro gamers rely on lag-free, incredibly high-tech controllers and gaming mice, and Steel Series is one of the top contenders in the field. Their series of gaming mice and keyboards are precision engineered to provide whip-fast response to any twitchy input a gamer needs in their chosen gaming environment.

The Steel Series Sensei wireless gaming mouse is an ergonomic marvel with ten buttons, its own software control app and some scary-quick response times.

Despite all that high-tech nonsense, it’s super easy to use and feels good in the hand. Which is important when I’m jacked into an all-night MMO session with 12 of my besties, raiding the lair of whatever monster it is that we’re all trying to kill.

I love this damn mouse more than I can say.

High-school senior Omar Martin Del Campo and his small team of developers have found a way to make text messaging even more secure. Peek lets you chat with friends via the app and your messages are erased as you read them.

The app asks you to authenticate with Twitter or Facebook to ensure your identity to your friends, and then you can chat away in the fairly clean, purple-themed interface on offer.

“Our focus,” said Del Campo in an email with Cult of Mac, “is a great user experience, beautiful design, simplicity and safe and secure messaging.”

The deals keep on coming at Cult of Mac Deals!

This time around we’re offering an iOS 7 Dev Bundle that will teach you to build and monetize your own apps for 79% off the regular price – just $79 – and a portable, lightweight Handheld Luggage Scale that keeps you from second-guessing the weight for your cargo for only $19!

Facetune is a great iOS Photo app to have laying around on your iPad or iPhone. It’s a photo-retouching app that will very quickly let you fix up funky faces. Not only does it take care of old foes like red-eye, but it’ll whiten teeth, smooth over the cruelest spray of acne, and even fix up folks whose eyes are too close together.

There’s a reason T-Mobile’s offer to pay off new customers’ early termination fees sounds too good to be true. In certain cases, it’s a rotten deal compared to just paying the fee yourself.

However, with a little hackery, you can flip T-Mobile’s deal from bad to fantastic — and save hundreds on a new iPhone (or any smartphone).

Color Suite is a ridiculously comprehensive color-identification app with an easy sampling tool and a wealth of information. Just point the little dot at the color you want to identify, and it’ll tell you pretty much everything about it, including its complementary color, how it appears to eight different kinds of color-blindness, and even which Crayola is most similar.

It actually has an insanely long list of products you can match, like several brands of house paints, colored pencils, and make-up.

So basically, if you see a color, you can use that color for everything. This app really, really wants you to do that.

Source:Color Suite – Free | Chocodev

When Google announced the Google Maps Pokémon Challenge for April Fools’ Day, I immediately opened the app on my phone and began my hunt for little pocket monsters. Unfortunately, the novelty was short-lived, and I only found about 15 before I got bored and stopped looking.

But I’m pretty sure I would have stuck at it and found all 151 if I’d have known a surprise gift from Google was the reward.

That’s right — the search giant is sending free mystery gifts to users who found all 151 Pokémon in Google Maps.

Every once in a while, something drops into the App Store that makes my Grinch heart grow three sizes. So after I take the pills my doctor gave me to keep me from dying when that happens, I spend some time with the game and see if it’s any good. And this one, which a 7-year-old boy designed, is actually pretty fun.

Greedy Ladder is a new free-to-play game in which you play as one of eight boys or girls (the differences are cosmetic) climbing a ridiculously tall ladder in one of six major cities. It’s a racing game: The goal is to reach the top as quickly as possible while eating healthy foods that will speed you up and avoiding junk food and inedible objects that slow you down.

All proceeds from the game go to charity, apparently, so that’s pretty cute, too.

We knew Apple had improved Touch ID recognition in iOS 7.1.1, but now – thanks to Redditor iOSecure – we know how and why.

Apparently, the reason that accuracy would decay over time was down to users screwing up their first scans, when the auto-correction feature needed a perfect start to work properly going forward.

Nothing sells like a sequel.

A decade after Burger King choked out Subservient Chicken, the bizarre fast food mascot is poised for a comeback. The wacky dude in a chicken suit, who magically submitted to the Internet’s commands in one of the weirdest and most successful viral-marketing campaigns ever, will return with a clucking vengeance Wednesday with a short film “chronicling the rise and fall of internet celebrities,” according to Advertising Age.

In some ways, it’s perfect timing: Sequels and viral magic have become staples of marketing and pop culture. But can the burger chain recapture the glory of its 2004 campaign, which racked up more than a billion views with its camgirl-inspired creepiness? While we’re waiting to find out, here are 15 bizarre brand mascots that demand a reboot.

CNBC has named Steve Jobs the most influential person of the last 25 years. On a list entitled “First 25: Rebels, Icons & Leaders,” Jobs ranks above the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffet — along with the founders of Google, Amazon, and other tech giants.

The organization claims Jobs deserves the spot because, “his vision spurred changes far beyond his industry and put an indelible stamp on the wider culture.”

If you don’t have several hundred million in the bank, and a massive company to lord over, it’s hard for us normal folk to emulate Steve Jobs.

But you could build a sound system like Steve’s.

Based on an iconic portrait of Jobs in his almost empty Woodside, California home in 1982, Wired pieced together the various stereo components needed to build a hi-fi system, endorsed by the man with a taste for nothing less than excellence.

Just as I thought I was close to curing my Reddit addiction — I’ve been “clean” for almost three days — confirmation that official Reddit apps are incoming for Android and iOS means I’m almost certainly destined for a relapse.

Job listings have revealed that Reddit is on the hunt for app developers with skills in Java (for Android) and Objective C (for iOS) who can make it “easier for people to find great content” on Reddit using mobile devices. The ads appeared this week in the company’s “for hire” subreddit.

Details about Gameloft’s delayed FPS Modern Combat 5 have been in short supply, but we finally have a full name at least: Modern Combat: Blackout.

If you ever want to see the difference between Apple and Google as companies, look no further than the fact that Google’s latest Chrome update for the simply-named iOS 7.0 is the bafflingly-titled version 34.0.1847.18.

That minor irritation aside, the mobile update does add some nifty new features — including a new “feature tour” that shows off the browser and its new enhancements to first time users.

There’s also an included tweak to Chrome’s omnibox, which means that the omnibox now supports right-to-left languages: something that should prove useful to some international users.

Each week we pull the best Apple-related gadgets from the Cult of Mac and collect them here for your perusing pleasure.

I’ve always hated running. When I’m asked, I jokingly say that the ten years of life I probably lose by not focusing on cardio-vascular exercise, I make up for by not feeling compelled to jog in a big circle each day after work, or talk about running shoes at dinner parties.

But if there’s one thing that could get me running it’s a zombie apocalypse — in which members of the once-dead rise again to try and feast on my brain and internal organs. And I’m definitely not the only one.

Gamified fitness app Zombies, Run! was launched a couple of years ago, but has just been updated with a number of new features.

For those unfamiliar with it, Zombies, Run! replaces your regular running soundtrack with a zombie story in which you are the main character — with your level of physical exertion playing a part as you outrun zombie hordes, collect supplies, and eventually return (brain intact) to base camp.

Clear, everyone’s favorite swipe-based to-do list app, now integrates with the native Reminders app on the Mac and iOS. Originally planned for February, the latest update lets you get reminded to do things on that list.