Hidden object games don’t usually catch my fancy, to be honest. I’ve never been a big fan of the mechanics, which typically require you to find objects to then reveal other objects, which can then be combined to become actual useful objects. I’ve also never been too taken by the typical romanticized story lines, either.

Big Fish’s new game, developed by India-based IronCode Games, Pahelika Secret Legends has found a way to convince me otherwise,t hough, and I find myself being drawn back to playing it often. There’s a fairly interesting story, and the puzzles are tough enough to provide a challenge without busting a brain.

If you’re like me and have been ambivalent about trying a game like this out, perhaps this is the one to start with.

It’s hard to get more visually expressive and emotive than with the stark contrast of a black and white photograph.

Now with digital photography, creating black and white images is as simple as pressing a button. But if you’re confused about which black and white conversion techniques to use, unsure about how to adjust the tonal range and balance of your black and white photos using curves and masks, or have no idea what any of those things even mean – this course is for you. And you can get it from Cult of Mac Deals for a limited time for just $39.

Steve Jobs’ ex-girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, who dated the Apple co-founder for five years in the early days of Apple, is coming out with her own book, called The Bite In The Apple, where she describes all the glorious details that went into her and Jobs’ ill-fated relationship that ended after Brennan became pregnant with Steve’s first child, Lisa.

While the book focuses on more than just sex, the NY Post has published an excerpt that dives into Steve and Chris’ nights of lovemaking that were so epic Steve had to give her a call 15 years later to say thank you.

LitBound has made the jump from Android, and is now available on iOS. If you’re a fan of books, or just a library geek at heart, this game offers you hours of trivia fun, testing your knowledge of best sellers, great works of literature, children’s books, and genre fiction like science fiction, fantasy, and graphic novels. Oh, yes, and movies.

Editor’s Note: This article is from 2013.  Here’s the one on the 2018 event:

Apple sets ‘More in the Making’ event for Oct. 30

It’s official. Apple just send out press invites for an event on October 22nd where the company is expected to reveal its new lineup of iPads. The invite features the top of the Apple logo with the tagline, “we still have a lot to cover,” perhaps hinting that we’ll see a lot more than just iPads.

UPDATE: Again, the new iPads will be unveiled on October 30, not the 22nd..

The keynote is set to kickoff at 10AM PT. Expect the unveiling of the fifth-gen iPad with faster internals (including the 64-bit A7 chip from the 5s) and a slimmer design. The second-gen iPad mini is also rumored to come with faster specs and a more lightweight exterior, and depending on who you ask, it will also have a Retina display. If the mini does go Retina, expect supplies to be incredibly constrained throughout the holidays.

Source: AllThingsD

Apple announced today that Burberry’s CEO, Angela Ahrendts will be filling the company’s vacancy as Senior VP of Retail and online stores, and while the move came as a surprise to many, Tim Cook says he had been eyeing the Burberry CEO for sometime now.

In an internal email sent to employees this morning, Cook says that he’s wanted to steal Ahrendts away from Burberry from the first time they met in January of this year. Cook describes Angela as “wicked smart” while also being an extraordinary leader with a proven track record. Ahrendts is set to join Apple in spring 2014 as she transitions over from Burberry.

Here’s Tim’s full email:

Sparrow was once my favorite third-party email clients for Mac and iOS, but after its creators were bought by Google last year, the likelihood of improvements and new features seemed to go out of the window. And indeed, the app has been all but ignored since the acquisition — until it got a surprise update today.

We’re still waiting for Apple to send out invitations to a press event on October 22, where we expect the Cupertino company to announce new iPads and possibly new MacBook Pros. According to a new rumor that has surfaced today, the new devices will go on sale before the end of the month, while the new Mac Pro will make its debut in mid-November.

CUPERTINO, CA — The spaceship is cleared to land.

After a meeting that stretched over four-and-a-half hours, the Cupertino City Council gave Apple’s new campus the green light.

Two years have passed since Steve Jobs pitched the futuristic new headquarters to the town where he met Steve Wozniak as a high school student. Designed by Sir Norman Foster, at 176-acre Apple Campus 2 will be one of the largest building complexes in the world.

Dozens of locals came to testify that, in effect, this is a modern company town  — the sentiment from former Apple employees, enthusiastic local business owners (“Apple engineers need our coffee!”), retired teachers and even environmental groups was overwhelmingly positive — concerns over what happens when you land such a huge project in one’s backyard were numerous.

Naysayers (one of them called himself the “loneliest man in the room”) complained about the inevitable traffic brought by 16,000 Apple employees (a number expected to blossom to 24,000) who will be driving to and from work when the massive project is completed.  Other concerns were voiced about the security measures that keep the campus closed to the public and shut off a stretch of Calabazas Creek to hikers.

The 60-foot-high “fruit loop” will change the profile of the town of about 60,000, that’s for sure. Here’s hoping it’s for the better. More on the meeting and its impromptu tribute to Steve Jobs here.

Stay tuned, after this unanimous vote the council has one more procedural vote before Apple can break ground.

iOS 7 had been available to the public for just 27 days as of Monday, October 14 — and it had already been installed on 71% of all iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. That’s according to the latest report from Mixpanel which suggests iOS 7 could be the fastest-spreading iOS update to date.

Touch ID has received all kinds of praise since it made its debut on the iPhone 5s last month, so naturally, the question everyone’s asking is whether the new fingerprint-scanning technology will make its way to other iOS devices.

We’ve already seen evidence that suggests it will come to the second-generation iPad mini, and the blurry picture above seems to prove that Touch ID is also coming to the fifth-generation iPad, alongside its all-new design.

When you open up a new Finder window, at least in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, you’ll see a snapshot of all the files on your Mac. Apple calls this view, “All My Files,” and it’s a good way to just see what you have on your Mac.

It’s also an annoying view if you’re looking for stuff on your Desktop or Documents. If you want to change the default view for any new Finder windows, here’s how.

Although his products now touch every aspect of our modern lives, we all tend to be agnostics when it comes to Jony Ive. Even as he appears on video during Apple’s developers’ conference to speak with soft-spoken intensity about the design of the latest iPhone or iPad, his personality seems inherently unknowable. Yet it is possible to know Jony Ive. He’s at least one person’s friend.

Granted, that friend, Marc Newson, is a design legend in his own right. For over 15 years, he and Ive have laughed together, talked about cars together (a mutual love), and vacationed together. During that time, they have shared countless conversations about the purity of form, material, and process that drives them both. About designs they like, and designs they don’t like.

So when you look at the (RED) Desk, which will be auctioned off on November 2nd by Sotheby’s to raise money for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, it’s important to see something more than just a collaboration between two of the most influential designers on Earth. It is also the physical embodiment of a friendship.

Check out the full story below.

Source: Co.Design

You may have heard of Valve’s new Steam Controller, an integral part of their living room push that makes PC games past, present and future playable on the big screen. The Steam Controller looks pretty crazy, with two trackpad-like controls instead of thumbsticks, and a touchscreen instead of face buttons, but how will it play? Pretty well, from the looks of things.

No matter what you think of Apple’s new iPhone 5c case — and, just for the record, I think it’s an eyesore — I think we can all at least agree that it ooks an awful lot like Mattel’s famous game, Connect Four. If only it actually worked that way…

Well, now it does, thanks to a clever app called Flipcase.

Want to use popular iOS app Snapchat as a way to communicate covertly within your criminal empire? In a new blog post, Snapchat Director of Operations Micah Schaffer explains how Snapchat handles requests from law enforcement agencies for Snaps. And there’s good news and bad news.

Just a week or so ago, we quoted a Square Enix producer saying that there were a lot of fans in the offices who wanted to see a Final Fantasy VII port happen. But don’t hold your breath, as millions of fans appear to have done, promting Square Enix to set the record straight: it’s years away from happening, if ever.

Twitter has today introduced the ability for users to receive direct messages from people they choose not to follow. Until now, users had to be following each other to communicate privately, but the new option lets you receive DMs from anyone who follows you.

Still waiting for BBM to come to Android and iOS? Aren’t we all.

It’s been almost four weeks since BlackBerry attempted and then stalled its cross-platform BBM rollout, and the Canadian company has remained pretty quiet about its plans ever since. But according to chief marketing officer Frank Boulben, we could see BBM in the App Store and Google Play before the end of the week.

Apple has today announced that Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, will be joining the Cupertino company to take up a newly-created position as senior vice president of retail and online stores. Ahrendts will report directly to CEO Tim Cook and will oversee the strategic direction, expansion, and operation of Apple’s retail business.

The second-gen iPad mini is widely expected to get a Retina display, although the rumor mill has been going back and forth on the notion for several months. But as the release date for the tablet draws nearer, the consensus seems to be that Retina is a go.

Apple is known for aggressively slimming down its products with each new iteration, but to accommodate a Retina display, it’s very possible that the second-gen iPad mini could actually get a little thicker.

Ok, I’ll admit it; I occasionally use Siri in the car. It’s not a perfectly hands-free system, but it is great to be able to send a quick text to let someone know I’m running late without touching the phone too much.

The other day, though, I was sitting in the car at my son’s school, waiting for the final bell to go in and get him from class. I had my iPhone set up in the car, and was sending a text to a friend. I realized that somehow, in the transition to iOS 7, I no longer had access to the Emoji keyboard.

As the iPhone was propped in it’s in-car holder (a Breffo spiderpodium), I just activated Siri, out of habit.

The now 14-year-old app developer we introduced to you last year, Nicholas G, has just released a second app, putting all of us adults to shame yet again.

This year, Nicholas has put together a rather impressive looking tip calculator that makes it super easy to figure out an accurate tip without all that pesky math.

Called Quick Tips!! (yes, the exclamation marks are part of the charm), Nicholas’ latest app uses all the visual style of iOS 7 and it looks to be pretty as well as functional.

Tim Cook and the gang are set to take the stage in eight days to announce the newest lineup of iPads, but if a new set of leaked iPad shells are the real deal, we’ll have already seen all the new iPad colors before Schiller and Jony can wax poetic about how the iPad is unapologetically gold.

A new set of images allegedly showing both a gold iPad 5 and iPad mini 2 rear shell have been leaked by the Chinese site CTech, however it’s questionable whether they’re real, so have your salt shaker ready. If the images are accurate, the iPad will follow the same course as the iPhone 5s with Apple offering both models in silver, space gray, and gold.

Here’s another pic of the puportedly gold iPad shell:

The iPad 5 is set to be unveiled on October 22nd, but thanks to all the leaks of rear shells, displays, and more, we pretty much already know what its going to look like when Cookie finally drops the curtain next week.

However, if you’re just dying for more glimpses of Apple’s new tablet before it comes out, our friend Martin Hajek has got you covered with these new renders that show what Jony’s latest slab of silicon, glass and aluminium will look like once its resting peacefully in the Apple Store sanctuaries.

Take a look: