The Los Altos family home that Steve Jobs grew up in will soon become a historical site, if the seven-member Los Altos Historical Commission approves a recently scheduled “historic property evaluation” on the home.
Steve Jobs and his foster parents moved into the house on 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California, when he was in 7th grade and continued to live there though his high school days.
Amazon is gearing up to launch a new set-top box that hopes to compete with the Apple TV and other video streaming devices this holiday, The Wall Street Journal reports. It’s understood the device is small and resembles a Roku, and it will run apps and provide content from a variety of sources, including Amazon’s own Prime service.
Apple has contacted developers to inform them that Mac applications will soon be eligible for its Volume Purchase Program, which gives businesses and educational institutions the ability to purchase software in bulk at a discounted rates.
I’m big on saving time, no matter what you do. So when an offer pops up that allows you to go to one place to get everything you need, I’m all for it – especially if the quality is top-notch. So if you’re a designer, there’s an offer available right now that gives you a “one stop shop” for plenty of your design needs.
With this offer, you’ll get a slew of design elements for 98% off the regular price – just $49 – in The Premium Design Bundle from Cult of Mac Deals.
Thanks to the popularity of Apple’s iOS devices and the Cupertino company’s knack for product marketing, you don’t have to be a regular Siri user to recognize her voice. Two years ago today, she made her debut alongside the iPhone 4s, and she’s been our virtual personal assistant ever since.
But who is the real Siri? Who provided that voice that we’ve all become so familiar with?
Her name is Susan Bennett, and she’s been a voice actress since she was young. She recorded the Siri voices back in 2005 — six years before Apple unveiled the feature — but she had no idea they would ever end up in the iPhone.
One of the things we get a lot here at Cult of Mac, especially in our coverage of games, is folders full of promotional images. Now, for a variety of reasons, we often need to change the type of those images from, say, PNG to JPG files.
You can use Preview, of course, opening them all at once, and then selecting them all, then exporting them all to a new folder with a new image type. It’s workable, but it’s tedious.
Using Pixelmator, an affordable image editing program for the Mac, Automator (no relation), a scripting app bundled in Mac OS X, and Alfred, a pretty slick app launching application, you can make these changes much faster.
Here’s how.
Gameloft has announced that it has been forced to postpone the launch of Modern Combat 5 for Android and iOS until 2014 to “fully achieve [its] vision” for the game. The first-person shooter was first confirmed in an impressive teaser trailer back in June, and we initially expected it to be available before the end of the year.
Now we’ll have to wait a little longer.
Microsoft is trying to persuade HTC to make new smartphones that run both Android and Windows Phone, and it’s willing to cut or eliminate its own license fee to make it happen. The software giant is hoping the move will encourage consumers to try out the Windows Phone platform and eventually make the switch to it — but could the scheme backfire?
Ebook subscriptions are on their way, and I don’t know whether to be happy or terrified. The newest service to let you pay a flat monthly fee for as much as you can read is Scribd, the popular ebook and document sharing site.
The Mission Cycling Wallet is a lot like those iPhone card wallets you see all the time, only this one zips your iPhone safely inside, and lets it face out through a see-through screen so you can read it and use it without taking it out or opening the case.
You can even use it in the pouring rain.
DP review has tested the iPhone 5S’s camera and – surprise – it’s awesome. At ten long pages (all requiring a click to reach, as is DP Review’s annoying style) it’s an epic read that you’ll probably want to add to your Instapaper queue, but you can always skip to the conclusion and read the rather amusing list of “bad” points that the reviewers have come up with to make the article “balanced.”
What color is that lovely jacket your friend is wearing? And that movie poster up there on the side of that building? Wouldn’t that blue make the perfect color for your new website’s background?
But how can you make sure you’re getting the exact color? After all, your cellphone camera is affected by all kinds of external factors, including the color of the light falling on the jacket/poster, as well as the colors of the surrounding items. What you need is a handheld, iPhone-controlled colorimeter.
Apple has released the Golden Master (GM) version of OS X Mavericks to developers ahead of the software’s reported launch later this month. The GM build of Apple beta software is always the version that ends up shipping to the public.
I live in a part of the world where the permissible alcohol levels for drivers is very low. Now I’m not condoning drinking and driving, but I will say that many folks in my area – especially restaurant owners – have been particularly critical of these levels because what it’s done has caused patrons to not order anything to drink at all to have with dinner. Not even a small glass of wine or beer. Why? Because they’re afraid they’ll “blow over” the legal limit, even though it’s possible that they’ll be well below it.
With this Cult of Mac Deals offer, you can get a good idea of where you’re at on that front with the BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer. You’ll save 25% on this product through this promotion, as it’s only $112.49 for a limited time – including free shipping!
Looking for a crop of holiday deals to popup before making your decision on the iPhone 5c? Well the iPhone 5c has only been on the market for two weeks but Best Buy is already offering a deal on Apple’s plastic beauty.
Customers can get the iPhone 5c for $50 from your local Best Buy store from now until Sunday. The price drop isn’t a true price cut though as Best Buy is offering a free $50 giftcards that can be applied to drop the price from $99 – the deal is also available for the Samsung Galaxy S4 if you’re interested in a $150 Android handset. Not necessarily the greatest deal ever, but it’s certainly one of the best we’ve seen for the iPhone 5c during its short life thus far.
Source: Best Buy
Steve Jobs passed away on October 5th, 2011, but his influence is sure to be felt for decades to come. As such, many artists across the globe have created mural, statues, paintings and other tributes to Steve Jobs and his amazing contributions to the tech world.
More statues and works of art are in the works for the man who revolutionized the personal computers, music, animation, smartphones and tablets, but here are some of the best coolest Steve Jobs memorials we’ve found.
The United States Patent Office Museum in Alexandria, Virginia created a monument of 30 gigantic iPhones to celebrate the 300 patents held by Steve Jobs. Each iPhone displayed 12 of Jobs’ patents certificates. The exhibit aimed to display the far-reaching impact of Steve Jobs’ entrepreneurship and innovation on our daily lives, while also serving as an example of the role intellectual property plays in the global marketplace.
Madame Tussauds Wax Mueseums are renowned for their life-like representations of famous celebrities, so to mark the first anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death, the Hong Kong branch unveiled a wax statue of his Steveness himself. The wax figure was modeled after the photos taken for his iconic Fortune Magazine cover in 2006.
To create this wax figure of a cutting-edge technologist, sculptors used methods that have been around for over 200 years, rather than embracing modern methods that remove a sculptor’s ability to manipulate each aspect of the design personally. The estimated cost of the figure is just under $200,000.
Hungarian sculptor Erno Toth unveiled his 6 1/2 feet tall bronze statue of Steve Jobs a few months after he passed away in 2011. The statue was commissioned by Gabor Bojar, founder of Hungarian software company Graphisoft. Steve Jobs and Bojar actually had a history of working together that stretched back to 1984, when Jobs came across Bojar’s software and was impressed enough to help the fledgling company out with cash and computers.
If you happen to wander into the courtyard of St. Petersburg’s National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (quite the mouthful), you will now find a giant iPhone. The monument stands about as tall as a fully grown man and a huge screen displays photos, videos and text about the late Apple co-founder.
The monument was unveiled to the public after the Progress IT Fund held a competition last year to see who would design the tribute. The winner was designed by Gleb Tarasov and named “Sunny QR Code.” The name refers to a QR code on the monument itself that links to a memorial website for Jobs. Not sure what the “Sunny” stands for.
Crafted by Ukranian artist, Cryil Maksimenko, the monument was installed in Odessa, Ukraine on the one year anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death. The hand features an Apple logo in the middle and is comprised of numerous gears, screws, bearings and other pieces from bicycles, motorcycles and cars, which took over a year to fashion together. Pretty fascinating when you look at it up close.
In the wake of his death, thousands of admirers flocked to Apple Stores across the globe and wrote their thanks to Steve on Post-It notes. A team of Apple fans took their tribute a bit further by creating this Steve Jobs portrait comprised of 4,001 stickies on the glass facade of an Apple Store in Munich, Germany.
Steve Jobs is mostly associated with Apple, but before he made his triumphant return to Apple and introduced the iPod, Jobs poured millions of his own money into Pixar. By keeping the company financially shored, John Lasseter and his team of animators were able to change movies forever with hit after animated hit. Now, Jobs has a permanent home on Pixar’s campus now that the studio’s main building has been renamed in his honor.
Mario Calvo created this Steve Jobs graffiti portrait in tribute to Steve Jobs’ legacy. The mural is located on the front of an advertising agency in Palermo district of Buenos Aries Argentina and took more then five days to paint.
Modeled after the Hollywood Walk of Fame in California, the Entrepreneur Walk of Fame at Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA, opened for the first time in 2011. Included among the seven inaugural inductees were Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Bill Hewlett, David Packard, Bob Swanson, Bill Gates and Mitch Kapor.
The small city of Jundiai is located near São Paulo, honored Steve Jobs by renaming one of its streets ‘Steve Jobs Ave.’ The street’s name isn’t the town’s only tie to Apple though. The avenue is the route that connects the small city to Brazil’s largest city — Sao Paulo, where Apple supplier Foxconn opened a iPhone assembly plant and is home to Foxconn’s new iPad plant, too.
Artist Olivier Lefebvre created this Steve Jobs tribute by using over 3,500 apples to recreate one of Steve Jobs’ portraits from Time magazine. The enormous portrait is 22 feet tall by 15 feet wide. Olivier brought in crates of deer apples and used a 2’x2′ grid system to guide his creation. The project took about 50 hours to complete and was left intact after completion but the orchard’s three resident deer eventually ate the remains.
At some point between the time Steve passed away on October 5th and the morning of October 6th, a mural celebrating his life was created in a local neighborhood. The original art on the wall originally read ‘Bad Apples Spoil the Bunch’ but it was changed to read ‘Good Apples Better The Bunch’ with a picture of the 80s Apple Icon.
Not only did Pixar decide to name its main building after Steve Jobs, but if you wander the campus grounds you’ll come across this tree in front of the Steve Jobs Building which was also dedicated to Steve Jobs by John Lasseter and the rest of the employees at Pixar.
If you’re a user of Google Play’s “All Access” music subscription service, then you’ll be excited to learn that Google has an official iOS client slated to arrive later this month.
Today Apple released a supplemental update to OS X Mountain Lion version 10.8.5. The update is available now in the Mac App Store and addresses a number of issues, including a bug that keeps the FaceTime HD camera on the 2013 MacBook Airs from working.
Here’s the full list of changes:
What you’ve always dreaded is about to come true. Get ready for ads in your Instagram feed.
Facebook’s photo sharing giant confirmed today that photo and video ads are indeed on the near horizon. Expect them to “occasionally” start appearing within the next couple months.
Apple has bought a personal assistant iPhone app called Cue for between $40 and $60 million, according to a report from TechCrunch. Originally called Greplin in the App Store, Cue specialized in using data from multiple social networks and users accounts to create a daily agenda. Cue recently pulled its app saying “the Cue service is no longer available.”
Cue was doing Google Now-like contextual notifications before Now and Siri were introduced. The purchase of Cue probably has something to do with enhancing the contextual awareness of the iOS calendar and Siri itself.
Brianna and Frank Wu didn’t set out to make a statement.
They just ended up creating a full-on spy-meets-spice-girls mobile game with the most distinctive look you’ve ever seen, and all the roles that matter are filled with women.
“I love the idea of powerful girls who are blowing stuff up,” says Frank Wu, “flying spaceships, diffusing bombs, and doing all the stuff that you associate with space marines, but it’s kind of irrelevant to the story that they’re girls.”
Irrelevant to the storyline, maybe, but in an entertainment media that is short on strong, normative female lead characters, upcoming iPad game Revolution 60 is a breath of fresh air.
iOS 7 has changed the look and feel of so much on the iPhone and iPad, that some of you may be looking for familiar bits, but find yourselves unable to locate them.
A case in point, here, is the Safari “Reader” button that used to be in the upper right hand side of any Safari window when it was showing a page that was Reader-able. I love Reader, especially on my iPhone, so I went searching for it the minute I upgraded to iOS 7 today.
Here’s where I found it.
Grand Theft Auto V has been out for a while now, which means if you’re like me you’ve probably wasted enough time to re-watch the entire Breaking Bad series, again. Rockstar has managed to fill the world of Los Santos with plenty of references to tech giants like Apple, Facebook, Google and others, however if you play the game long enough you start to notice some funny stereotypes Rockstar pegs to the Almighty Apple and its flock of loyal fanboys.
The name of the iPhone was changed to iFruit but it’s just as much a status symbol of wealth in the violent world of Los Santos as its has come to be IRL, but one watchful redditor spotted some funny Android and Windows Phone stereotypes too. Check ’em out below:
I switched from Apple’s default Calendar app to Fantastical for iPhone over a year ago, and I haven’t found a viable third-party alternative until I started beta testing today’s release of Sunrise 2.0. Completely redesigned with iOS 7 in mind, Sunrise has added support for direct iCloud calendar integration on top of the existing Gmail support.
Besides its gorgeous, lightweight design, Sunrise 2.0 sets itself apart from the competition by incorporating Google Calendar, iCloud, and Facebook events with social data gathered from services like Twitter and LinkedIn. It’s a creative, refreshing calendar experience for the iPhone that looks great in iOS 7.
Samsung’s chief product officer for the mobile division of Samsung Electronics, Kevin Packingham, has left the company after being a key player in the introduction of several of the past Samsung Galaxy devices.
Packingham’s reasons for leaving the company aren’t clear at this time, as the New York Times reports that Samsung and Packingham have declined to provide details about the departure. However, a Samsung spokeswoman did offer the following statement regarding the departure: