LAS VEGAS, CES 2014 – We’ve been hearing for months that Apple may or may not launch a larger screen iPad in 2014, but this afternoon Samsung tried to get a jump on the competition with its new lineup of PRO Galaxy and Note tablets for the common working man, and in typical Samsung fashion, they’re busting out a couple of screen sizes, including a 12.2inch monster.
The original Jet Car Stunts rocked the App Store back in 2009 — blowing away our memories of fiddly pre-iPhone racers with a colorful speedster of a game that took full advantage of the device’s touch interface and accelerometer to create something truly addictive.
Four years later the game has received a sequel-sized overhaul and we’re back for another dose of fast-paced, rocket-powered action. The original’s innovations may no longer be new, but our love of a good high-octane racing game hasn’t gone anywhere in the intervening years.
So have developers True Axis delivered?
Apple will hold its earnings call for the first fiscal quarter of 2014 on Monday, January 27th. During the call, Apple executives will talk about the company’s sales during this last holiday season.
Most notably, this will be the first quarter to see how sales of Apple’s latest iPads have been, and iPhone sales should also be interesting. Apple announced a deal to sell the iPhone on China Mobile last month, but sales from that big partnership won’t be very noticeable until after preorders are over and sales officially start.
With all of the pressure Apple faced in 2013 from Wall Street, the U.S government, legal disputes with other companies, and growing competition in the smartphone market, this earnings report will show us just how well Apple managed to close out the year. Based on Apple’s own guidance to investors, it could turn out to be the company’s best quarter ever.
Source: Apple
LAS VEGAS — Square sells its own cash register replacement for the iPad, but the mobile payments company has yet to debut any iPhone-compatible accessories for its card reader. Well, until now.
Griffin has made a Merchant case that is designed specifically to work with Square’s tiny reader, and it doubles as an added layer of protection for the iPhone.
Videotapes can deteriorate over time, and your old videos will have color bleed, white specks, and other distortions. Now is the time to save your collection before it’s too late with this all-in-one VHS conversion solution.
With Honestech Video Conversion for Mac, any Mac user can easily convert old VHS, Betamax and camcorder tapes to DVDs and digital formats and save those precious memories captured on home video. This software solution is currently available for only $54.99 thanks to Cult of Mac Deals.
LAS VEGAS — Not to be confused with “Blue Steel” from Zoolander, the Pebble smartwatch brand is branching out into the more premium, classic world of timepieces with Pebble Steel.
Announced today at CES, Pebble’s new watch has the same OS current owners know, but the physical materials have been upgraded from plastic to CNC-machined stainless steel. With a new developer SDK and its own app store on the near horizon, Pebble is leading the smartwatch race. But does it have what it takes to make the smartwatch cool?
LAS VEGAS — Remember the Hammerhead? It’s a device that attaches to your bicycle, links to the GPS on your phone via Bluetooth, and guides you along a pre-chosen route by flashing a left or right light when you need to turn.
Schwinn‘s new CycleNav does one better. Like the Hammerhead, it attaches to your bike (via quick release) and flashes an LED light to alert you to an upcoming turn. But it also speaks voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation to you through a speaker, just like your iPhone does.
There you are, in an important meeting. You’ve silenced your iPhone with the button on the left-hand side of the device like a good employee. You set your iPhone on the table to show your boss you’re not afraid of the ringtone.
Suddenly, your buddy texts you. Like, four texts in a row about some foolishness that you’d love to read, but you can’t, because you’re in a meeting. But your iPhone betrays you, buzzing like a mad bee, over and over. Your face turns red, you grab the device off the resonating wood conference table and mutter, “I put it on silent…um…sorry.” And then you jam it into your pocket, your plan to impress the chief gone in an instant.
You could have avoided this embarrassing scenario fairly easily, though.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2014 – Belkin is really hopping onto this connected-home thing with fiery fervor. They already have a formidable array of Internet-connected devices in their WeMo line — switches, plugs, motion detectors — and now they’ve added light bulbs and a DIY WeMo interface that can be adapted for use with practically anything that’s powered by electricity. Oh, they’ve also just come out with a big, shiny cloud-connected crockpot so you can cook dinner from the office.
LAS VEGAS — Home security, solar-powered gadgets and health accessories will be big technology themes of 2014, if what’s on show at CES is to be believed. At the kickoff media event here, manufacturers provided first peeks at their wares for the new year.
Here are some the best gadgets we saw:
Guzzling up websites on your iPhone is now quicker than ever thanks to 4G LTE. It also means that your monthly data allotment can disappear in a poof if you go on a YouTube binge, but at CES this morning AT&T announced it has a plan to help customers consume even more data by allowing advertisers to foot the bill on their content.
Simple Additives — Health & Fitness — $0.99 (lite version available)
Food labels can be scary places. Reading the ingredients of whatever you’ve just crammed into your gob can be confusing or even the worst decision you’ve made all day. I don’t know how to keep the stuff in your food from terrifying you, but for those perplexing moments, try Simple Additives. It’s an app that will tell you what those unpronounceable things in your snack do and also whether or not they’ve been linked to cancer or harmful side effects.
I don’t know if I’m really doing you a favor by pointing you toward this, though. Everything’s tasted like poison for like three hours now.
If you played the original Feed Me Oil a couple years ago, you probably fell in love with its surreal graphics and fun, physics-based puzzles. If you didn’t, the name is probably confusing the hell out of you. Because you really shouldn’t feed anything oil, right? That’s super gross.
Don’t get stuck on that, though, because Feed Me Oil 2 is out now, and it features the same addictive gameplay with shinier graphics and some new tools to get that oil where it needs to go.
And where it needs to go is, like, right into the mouth of a weird, animal-like hill or something. But again, don’t dwell on that because if you do, you’re missing out on a great game.
LAS VEGAS — Maybe tech journalists are prone to ADHD, and simply attracted to things that flit about. Or maybe the rest of the gadgets strewn about the room at CES Unveiled, the press-only event that customarily kicks off CES for journalists, just weren’t all that zingy this year. Or maybe Parrot‘s Lilliputian drone really is that cool.
Whatever the reason, Parrot’s new MiniDrone — a miniaturized version of their AR Drone with no camera but detachable wheels that let it roll about on the ground or “climb” a wall — drew throngs of tech bloggers and had camera crews lined up to film.
Some people prefer to keep their phone unfettered with additional functionality. But for the pocket-space-optimizing pros out there…this is a dream come true.
Introducing the new Vaultskin Lexx Wallet Case for iPhone 5/5S. It’s a protective phone case, it’s a wallet, and it’s only $35.99 – including free shipping – during this very limited time offer.
The New Year is finally upon us, and while your resolutions to eat less and run more are admirable, they’re certainly not a lot of fun. So to kick off the year we’ve teamed up with Aio Wireless to hook up one lucky reader with a brand new blue cyan iPhone 5c.
Entering the contest is certainly easier than your newfound commitment to stop munching your fingernails and to make the prize even better, Aio is tossing in a free month of unlimited talk, text, and data on its contract-free 4G LTE network.
Here’s how to win the iPhone 5c:
LAS VEGAS, CES 2014 – For those with cardiovascular issues, keeping tabs on your blood pressure and heart-rate means spending extra time and money going to the doctor’s office for frequent check-ups. To cut down on the trips to the doctor, Qardio is releasing the QardioArm – a wearable blood pressure band that is completely integrated with iOS.
Worried about what the sun’s harmful rays are doing to your skin? With June, a new smart bracelet from Netatmo that’s aimed at women, you can find out exactly how much exposure your skin is getting, then decide what kind of sunscreen you need to stay safe.
This post is brought to you by Leawo, creator of Blu-ray Ripper and Tunes Cleaner software.
Having a New Year cleanout this holiday? Thinking of chucking out that old DVD player but still want to watch all your favorite vintage DVD/Blu-ray movies? Then why not convert your collection of movies on plastic optical disks to iOS-compatible video files to watch on your mobile devices?
In this holiday season giveaway, Leawo Software is offering free 1-year licenses and discounted lifetime deals on its Blu-ray-to-mobile converter Blu-ray Ripper Mac as well as its Mac/iOS music library file sorter, so you can brush up your song playlists as well….
Although the vast majority of us now take for granted being able to carry super powerful cameras around in our pockets at all times, there’s still something joyful about taking a photograph and having it instantly print out, creating a physical artifact of a moment.
Over the last few years, Fujifilm’s Instax series of Polaroid-like cameras have managed to capture that joy in a number of ways, but their newest gadget melds the strengths of the Polaroid with the flexibility of an iPhone.
Last year we featured the Bluetooth fork that vibrates when it thinks you’re overating — and this year’s wackiest CES unveiling so far goes to the Bluetooth toothbrush (Bluetoothbrush?).
Shown off for the first time at a preview event on Sunday, the toothbrush (made by French startup Kolibree) aims “to reinvent oral care” — according to company co-founder Loic Cessot.
One of the nicer things Apple does every year is its “12 Days Of Gift” promotion, in which iTunes account holders in the Europe (and most recently, the United States) are given twelve digital gifts in the days following Christmas for the considerate price of nothing.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and Apple has just released its last free offering as part of this year’s “12 Days Of Gift” promotion. Luckily, it’s a good one: a free mini-album by the Rolling Stones themselves!
If you were a kid in the 1970’s or 1980’s, you probably had a Trapper Keeper, a famously popular line of loose-leaf binders and folders featuring velcro flaps and bright, colorful, kitschy designs. Trapper Keepers are still out there, but they’ve lost a lot of their cool kid cachet over the last couple decades… but if you grew up in their heyday, just the site of a Trapper Keeper is enough to bring a smile to your lips.
Over at If Industries, a Seattle-based maker of Etsy gear, they have mocked up an awesome look at what an officially sanctioned Trapper Keeper iPad case would look like, right down to the retro-tastic Back to the Future and Lisa Frank designs. And there’s even an embedded Bluetooth keyboard in each one!
Parisian tech company KEECKER promises to let users project movies, listen to music, surf the Internet, make video calls and play videogames through a new smartphone innovation.
So far, so normal, you might think. Instead of simply acting as a universal remote control for the devices around you, however, KEECKER offers this functionality courtesy of your very own personal robot!
In Spike Jonze’s latest film, Her, a mustachioed Joaquin Phoenix plays a man who falls in love with a Siri-like “digital assistant,” Her, played by Scarlett Johansson.
You’d think Siri would appreciate having a movie made about her, but instead, kitty’s got claws when it comes to her filmic counterpart: thanks to Apple’s cheeky and surprisingly timely programmers, if you ask Siri “Are you her?” she will respond: “No. Her portrayal of an intelligent agent is beyond artificial”, “No. You know that it’s just a movie, right?” and “No. In my opinion, she gives artifical intelligence a bad name.”