Of course, I have no way of knowing whether space aliens actually had a hand in designing the Booq Boa Squeeze. I ran into a couple of Booq bigwigs in an elevator at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas once, and they seemed pretty cheery, completely normal, and not at all alien-like — too not-alien-like, considering Booq is based in Southern California (I consider myself a Southern Californian; we’re all weirdos). And Booq’s Sierra Madre HQ is suspiciously close to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories…

Anyway, whether or not of alien origin, what’s clear is that Booq’s bags are unlike any others on this planet — and their new lightweight, zillion-pocketed Boa Squeeze laptop backpack is no different.

A trademark lawsuit brought against Apple in regards to its use of the term “iBooks” was dismissed today in federal court. Black Tower Press sued Apple in 2011, saying that it owned a trademark acquired in 2006 and 2007. The lawsuit also noted that Apple had a trademark for the term “iBook,” which describes one of the distinctive plastic laptop Mac computers sold between 1999 and 2006, but that the current term was being used to describe a delivery method for electronic books beginning in 2010.

The judge did not agree, dismissing the case in a 71-page ruling.

In the latest free-to-play iOS game from the makers of Critter Escape, you’ll take on the role of a crystal mining critter who must take care of an endearing blob of muck named Chuck. You’ll be tasked with escaping the crystal mines with some flinging-action and bouncy platforming skill. You’ll need to keep Chuck fed with crystals, all while navigating through dangerous places and avoiding guards and exploding things along the way.

If you didn’t catch our post the other day about the newest game from living legend Sid Meier, the creator of Civilization and a heap of other ground-breaking games, here’s the nitty-gritty.

Meier’s newest masterpiece is called Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol; it’s a sort of turn-based tabletop miniatures game of whirling World War I dogfights, digitized for an iPad’s (or iPhone’s screen). It’s also partially free, looks amazing and is bound to be an instant classic.

One enterprising soul over on the Apple boards at Reddit has taken a bunch of comparison photos from the Camera+ app website and put them together to show just how far the iPhone camera has come, with the same image taken with the original iPhone, the iPhone 3G and 3GS, the iPhone 4 and 4s, and then the iPhone 5.

The difference between the first and last photos is stunning, but there’s an initial ratio of improvement between two models of the iPhone that’s simply stunning.

Apple’s plans for an ‘iRadio’ streaming service are still being stalled by reluctant music labels, according to a report today from the Financial Times. Last month it was reported that Universal was about to partner with Apple, and the deal has allegedly been sealed between the two companies since then. Now Sony is demanding more money before it signs on.

This morning we covered a report from Reuters that said Pegatron, one of Apple’s supply chain partners in China, is increasing its work force by 40% in anticipation of producing a budget iPhone in the coming months. The news was based on Pegatron’s investors conference yesterday and anonymous supply chain sources adding the iPhone ‘mini’ bit to Reuters.

Bloomberg decided to slant Pegatron’s comments and cite “falling iPad mini demand” as the reason for the company’s forecasted 25%-30% drop in revenue during the second 2013 quarter. Never mind the fact that the drop was expected for the entire consumer electronics division of Pegatron; it’s still the iPad’s mini fault.

Mainstream publications love to take hits at Apple whenever they can, but this specific instance has turned out to be an example of Bloomberg putting words in Pegatron’s mouth.

Apple is counting down to 50 billion app downloads in the App Store, and the ticker is currently front and center on the company’s website. Some taglines rotate under the countdown, like “With 50 billion bricks, you could build 12 Great Walls of China.” Each tagline is associated with an iPad app Apple is highlighting.

The countdown is identical to when the iTunes Store hit 25 billion song downloads back in February. This time around, the lucky person to download the 50 billionth app will receive a $10,000 iTunes Store gift card from Apple. The next 50 app downloaders will each receive $500 gift cards.

What are you waiting for? Get downloading!

Source: Apple

Want to get an iPhone or iPad App on the App Store, but don’t want to take the extensive process to learn how to code it? Have you considered outsourcing it, but don’t want to fork over the $5,000 to build it?

Then this is the course for you. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for the low price of $79 – but only for a limited time.

No, Aplomb is not a new third-party app to help you manage your Passbook items, cars, or passes. But if any developers plan to make one, please let me know.

Really, once a card, coupon, or time-based ticket is expired in Passbook, you’ll want to delete it to prevent Passbook clutter, right? Well, it’s super easy to do so, and here’s how.

As travel chargers go, The Goal Zero Switch 8 kit is about as convenient as it gets. The two panels fold into one easy-to-carry pack, and on the back is a zippered mesh bag in which the battery pack and USB converter sit. There’s space in that bag for a phone or other small device, and there are enough paracord loops around the edges to secure the pack, open or closed, to just about anything.

So how does it perform?

For the last two years there has been a lot of speculation that Amazon is working on its own smartphone to go head-to-head with Apple and Samsung’s offerings.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Amazon Kindle Phone is real, and that it might come with a high-tech glasses-free 3D display.

Whether you love video games or not, there’s no doubt that games like Halo and Dead Space feature some incredible artwork to breathe life into the make-believe worlds populated by crazed gamers looking for thrills.

Usually a game studio will publish a physical book of all the fantastic concept drawings and sketches that helped bring form to a video game, but Titan Books is releasing the latest Dead Space and Halo art books on iPad this week instead.

There’s been a lot of hullyboo about skeuomorphism in the Mac and iOS community right now. Ever since the debut of iOS, Apple’s software has become increasingly ornamented with unnecessary textures and details that many people consider tacky, such as the fake Corinthian leather in Calendar or the green felt background in Game Center. This style of design is called skeuomorphism, and outed ex-Apple VP Scott Forstall was one of Cupertino’s main proponent for its wide spread use in iOS and OS X.

All signs point to Jonny Ive getting away with a lot of skeuomorphic details in iOS 7, adopting instead a more modern, ‘flat’ design.

The way people talk, though, it’s like skeuomorphism is a unique problem of the digital age. It’s not. In fact, the ancient Greeks had a problem with skeuomorphism too. So before you revile Scott Forstall for using it too much, keep in mind, it’s a design technique as old as civilization.

Siri’s good at simple things like creating appointments, sending texts, calling people and looking up random bits of information on the Internet, but what I really want Siri to be great at is managing stuff in my house.

One Redditor decided he was tired of turning his Philips Hue bulbs on and off all on his own, so he employed some clever hackery to get Siri to do it for him. In the video above you can see that the results are a little bit clunky, but it makes us drool for Apple to release a Siri API so other smart products can be controlled through Siri.

To complete the Siri Hue Bulbs hack, a jailbroken iPod was hacked to re-route Siri functionality to a Siri proxy. The iPod’s Siri beeps were replaced with WAV files for Iron Man’s Jarvis, which adds a little flair to the project.

Source: YouTube

Via: Reddit

Netflix is one of the greatest tools ever invented for absolutely destroying your weekend with laziness. All you got to do is pull up one of your favorite TV series and watch the entire thing in one glorious weekend of binge TV viewing.

A new update for the Netflix iOS app just hit the App Store and it’s going to make binging even easier, thanks to to the added “post-play” feature that will start up the next episode after one ends. Other features included in the update are a recommendation feature after you’ve finished a movie and enhanced second screen options.

Here are the release notes:

Your Mac comes loaded with some great stock apps that can help you be more efficient and effective with your workflow, but there’s nothing wrong with adding some elements to the Mac environment that can push your productivity that much further.

That’s where The Mac Productivity Bundle 4.0 comes in.

In the latest version of this bundle, you’ll get 9 great Mac apps from Cult of Mac Deals for only $49.99 – a savings of $640 – that has been hand-picked to help you get the most out of your Mac.

Samsung’s recent success in the smartphone market with devices like the Galaxy S II, the Galaxy S III, and the Galaxy Note family have helped the company grab market share by the bucketload, and with that comes heaps of cash.

The Korean electronic giant now has almost $40 billion in cash and cash reserves, which, after taking away its debt, equals 31.2 trillion won ($28.5 billion) in cash stockpiled for a rainy day.

Apple is expected to launch a new low-cost iPhone later this year, but as long as you’re willing to buy an older model, you can already bag an Apple smartphone for as little as 50p a day.

British retailer Carphone Warehouse will offer the iPhone 4 on a two-year contract for just £17 a month from tomorrow, May 10, with no upfront cost. It will be the cheapest iPhone tariff available in the United Kingdom.

New MacBook Airs might be revealed at WWDC, but if you’re just looking for the cheapest price on the current MacBook Air lineup, then Best Buy’s got you set this week.

To celebrate Mother’s Day, Best Buy is taking $100 off the price of certain MacBook Air models. Then to make things even better, you can get $25 more off the price by entering the code MOM25.

Here are the prices you can expect after the discount:

Last week we reported that AT&T was planning to launch a new pre-paid brand to compete with T-Mobile and other pay-as-you-go carriers, and it looks like it’s finally here.

AT&T just pulled back the curtain on its new pre-paid BYOD service provider that’s a subsidiary of AT&T called AIO Wireless. The new pre-paid nationwide service is launching in Houston, Tampa, and Orlando today but new markets should be opened up in the U.S. over the next year.

An amicus curiae or amicus brief is when someone who is not a party in a lawsuit offers information that bears on the case but that has not been solicited by any of the parties. It’s used mostly as a way to make sure that various issues that wouldn’t otherwise come up are heard in court, in hopes against an overly broad legal ruling that might have widespread repercussions. Amicus curiae means “friend of the court.”

Got all that? Good. Maybe now you can understand Apple’s issue with Google trying to issue an amicus brief urging the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals to overrule Apple’s request for a sales ban on Samsung devices. Friend of the court? More like co-defendant.

Last year, there was a lot of debate about whether the iPhone 5 (the sixth iPhone at the time) would be called the iPhone 5 or the iPhone 6, and the same happened the year before as people bickered about whether Apple should call the iPhone 4S the iPhone 5.

As the seventh-generation iPhone approaches, the debate is opening up again: what should Apple call it? Ex-Apple ad man Ken Segall has raised convincing arguments saying that Apple is shooting itself in the foot with the “S” series naming convention, signalling to consumers that every other year, you get a half-baked iPhone instead of a fresh new one.

Now, some slim evidence is pointing towards the notion that Apple might be listening to their former advertising prodigy, and that the next iPhone might be called the iPhone 6.

Gameloft has today launched Blitz Brigade, a new online multiplayer game, on Android and iOS. It’s a class-based first-person shooter that’s clearly heavily influenced by Valve’s Team Fortress titles, and it’s a whole lot of fun.

This post is brought to you by Clickberry, creator of Tagger.

“Every video has something worth tagging” is the motto of iOS video software developer Clickberry. And their new free ($0.00) app Tagger does just that. You play your video, tap objects to add tags, then simply upload to Facebook or e-mail to your loved ones.

Watch the demonstration video here….