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Is Apple Working On Building An iRobot?

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The Steve Jobs robot, invented by the genius humorists over at Scoopertino.com

One would think that the self-evident answer to the question posited in this post’s headline would be “No,” followed by a pregnant pause, a licking of the lips and then followed it up with the words “You idiot.”

And, in fact, that probably is the answer. But if Apple’s not working on a robot, then why the heck is Apple hiring one of the country’s foremost robotics experts, John Morrell?

LIT Tracker Measures Big Air, McTwists And General Rad-Ness

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Remember when your phone seemed neat because it could actually tell you where you were on a map? That seems pretty quaint now that the gyroscopes and compasses and magic location beetles [1] not only tell our photons where they are, but how they’re moving and even which direction they’re pointed in.

And now that same quantum leap is about to happen in the world of personal fitness trackers. Oh boy.

Use iCloud-Enabled Notes App To Store Bookmarks [OS X Tips]

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Bookmarks are a great way to return to the websites you’re most often interested in. However, there are a ton of times when you just want to remember a specific website once, maybe to show to another person or do some research with. There are a ton of online bookmarking services, like Delicio.us and Pinterest, but they have a whole social networking layer that maybe you just want to skip.

If you want to save the URL of any website in an iCloud-synched app, look no further than Apple’s own Notes app.

Xerox PARC Legend Alan Kay Says Apple Is Dysfunctional, With Or Without Steve Jobs

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Alan Kay is a bit of a legend at Apple. A computing pioneer, Alan Kay’s lab at Xerox PARC led Steve Jobs to commercialize the concept of a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, and Alan Kay’s philosophy that “people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware” is one of Apple’s core principles.

But Kay doesn’t think much of Apple these days, and in fact, seems to think the company has always been broken.

Ulysses 3 Lands In The App Store With $20 Introductory Price Tag

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Ulysses 3, the awesome next-generation text editor from the Soulmen, has just landed in the Mac App Store. It's $20 for a week, going up to $40 after that, and is worth every damn penny. And lest you think I'm some pussy-assed blogger who gets everything for free, I'm not. I just dropped my $20 like everyone else. And this is despite the fact that, so Killian tells me, I have a quote right there on the MAS page.

Beautiful Acoustic iPhone Speaker Dock — With DIY Plans

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You could easily make your own iPhone amplifier dock from a shoebox. Or better, an old wooden wine case. Or best of all, you could get out your clamps, drills, router and hot glue and go medieval on some pile of wood’s ass. If you choose the latter route, then you should download the plans (totally SFW) from Renee at Red Bird Blue – her amazing creation is what you see in the picture above.

What Your Instagram Filter Says About You

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What’s your favorite Instagram filter? We all have one. Mine is X-Pro, and I almost never use anything else (except for no filter, which – according to Statigram – is my second most used “filter.”)

But what does this excessive use of one particular look say about me? Or – less importantly – about you? Luckily, there’s an info graphic for that, and it tells you your personality type according to InstaFilter Preference:

X-Pro II

The Optimist

The users see the world a little brighter and they want you to see it that way too. So what if it’s a gray day? They’ll make sure those raindrops pop against a windshield – and will then make the photo their new wallpaper.

Better is the definition of a “Normal” shooter. Anyone who goes commando in Instagram is either a techno-illiterate idiot, incapable of even tapping on a brightly-colored thumbnail, or “tech-savvy frauds, passing off pictures they fixed in other applications as #nofilter works of art. You’re not fooling anyone.”

As somebody whose first Instagram picture was a “#nofilter work of art,” imported into my iPad 2 from a Panasonic GF1, I can say that this entry at least is pretty accurate. Go check the rest out at the links below.

Source: Marketo

Via: Apartmant Therapy

Digested Sucks Notes And Highlights From iBooks And Spits Them Out In Evernote or PDF

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It seems like just yesterday that I was complaining about the lack of sharing and export in iOS reading apps… Maybe that’s because it was only yesterday. I was actually moaning about Read Later apps, but I mentioned Kindle and iBooks as being equally bad.

Now, just a day later, I discover that there’s a free Mac app which will suck the notes and highlights out of your iBooks and package them up in a nicely-formatted PDF, or direct to Evernote. It’s called Digested, and it does exactly what it says it does.

Lightroom 4.4 Updated With Support For Fujifilm’s Awesome X100S

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If you’re the proud owner of a Fujifilm X100s camera, then today is yet another happy day for you: Lightroom has been updated to v4.4 and now supports your camera’s wacky X-Trans sensor, the clever sensor which removes the need for an anti-aliasing filter by placing the color pixel filters in an irregular grain-like pattern.

And of course the update supports a whole bunch more camera (listed below), as el as fixing bugs.

Securely Backup Your Digital World With SOS Online Backup [Deals]

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Cult of Mac Deals wasn’t just going to let World Backup Day pass you by without offering you a great deal on a service that makes backing up easy. With SOS Online Backup you can backup 100 GB of your files for three years – and you can do it in a secure online backup application so you can share, access, and maintain all of your important files right in one place. This award winning automatic backup web application that will have you covered on up to five PCs, Macs, Android devices, iPhones, and iPads.

With this deal you can free up 100GB of space on your gadgets for just $29. That’s a savings of 88%!

Double Fine’s New Broken Age Trailer Looks Amazingly Poignant [Video]

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Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions have made some amazing games over the years, including gems like Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, Costume Quest, and Brütal Legend. Then they took to Kickstarter to see if they could get their community to support them in the development of a new game, generically called “The Double Fine Adventure Game.”

Well, it’s named now, and it’s got its first trailer ready for you to see, above. The trailer itself looks at once whimsical and heartfelt, with a poignant musical piece and a bit of gameplay footage.

iOS 7 Is Running Behind As Apple Pulls Engineers Off OS X 10.9 To Finish It [Rumor]

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There’s a great discussion unfolding over on Branch between some Apple reporters about the future release date of iOS 7.

According to the sources of those involved in the discussion, Jony Ive’s fingerprints will be all over iOS 7, the only problem is it’s taking longer to develop than originally planned. In fact, Apple might have even pulled engineers away from OS X 10.9 to work on it.

Google-Owned Quickoffice Comes To Android, iPhone, For Business Users

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Acquired by Google last June and updated last October, Quickoffice for iPad is a great solution for iPad owners to work with Office files, especially ones that aren’t supported in Google Docs.

Today, the company announced that its bringing the app to Android, as well as a version to the iPhone. The app will let anyone edit Office documents on any mobile device, via Google’s own Drive system, something that wasn’t possible until now.

Here’s The First Glimpse At What Facebook’s Phone Looks Like

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In two days, Facebook will gather a bunch of people into a room and Mark Zuckerburg will tell them all about Facebook’s new smartphone. It’s made by HTC. It’s got a custom build of Android, and tons of Facebook integration. And it looks pretty boring.

Evleaks just posted a picture of what is probably Facebook’s smartphone. It’s called the HTC First, and it looks like millions of other Android handsets on the market. No details on the specs, but I’m sure Mark will give us an ear full on Thursday.

 

Source: Evleaks

Google Apparently Ranking iTunes App Links Lower Than Normal

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A common method for finding apps in the iTunes App Store is to do a quick search in Google. Searching the App Store for “Tweetbot” can take a lot longer than Googling “Tweetbot App Store” in a browser.

Links to iTunes have always been near the top of the first page when you search for an app, but iTunes results have recently started appearing lower in Google’s search results with no explanation.

Spotify Adds Ford SYNC AppLink Support So You Can Control Your Tunes With Your Voice

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Music streaming services like Spotify and Rdio are great because you get to listen to as much music as you want, without having to pay for it. They’re especially great on roadtrips, and if you have a car with Ford’s SYNC AppLink platform you can now keep the tunes cranking on your drive without touching a thing.

Spotify just updated its app to include Ford SYNC AppLink support. To get Spotify in your Ford all you have to do now is log into your premium account on your iOS device and connect to SYNC AppLink. You can manage all your music and playlists with SYNC’s voice-controls so you won’t get distracted while thumbing through albums in search of that new JT album.

Secret iOS Gestures: The Claw Swipe – iPad Multitasking Made Easy [iOS Tips]

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It’s probably true that you’ve learned some great iOS gestures with two or three fingers, like pinching in or out to zoom and the like. But did you know that you can use some multitasking features with just the addition of another finger or two?

Use the claw technique to activate the following swipes on your iPad and you’ll be one step closer to gestural iOS nirvana. Or is that nerd-vana. Either way, I suppose.

T-Mobile Will Send Out Update To Enable LTE For Unlocked iPhones On April 5th

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Photo by Scoobyfoo - http://flic.kr/p/36jTkj
Photo by Scoobyfoo - http://flic.kr/p/36jTkj

The only way to get an iPhone on T-Mobile the past few years was to go out and buy an unlocked iPhone and put a T-Mobile SIM card in it. Now that T-Mobile has become an official carrier, a lot of iPhone users that are already on the carrier want to be able to use LTE but can’t.

To make things better, T-Mobile says they’re going to rollout an update for all unlocked iPhones on the network starting April 5th. The update will flip the switch on features that aren’t currently available, like LTE and Visual Voicemail.

Move Over Instapaper And Pocket: DotDotDot Adds Notes, Tags And Comments [Opinion]

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Just before the weekend, a new Read Later app launched. Yes, you rightly shout, there are a ton of these apps around already. Hell, even Safari can save pages off line for reading later. But the new app/service, called DotDotDot, shows what these services should be. It’s not polished (it’s an early beta), but it already shows up the competition.

Which brings me to “the competition.” I just ditched Instapaper, the grandaddy of read-later apps, for Pocket. Why? Read on.

Kordl Makes Straightening Out Your Tangled Earphones Easy [Review]

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Kordl makes detangling balled-up headphones a cinch
Kordl makes detangling balled-up headphones a cinch.

My pre gym ritual, aside from beating my chest with my bare fists and grunting, always seems to include 2-3 minutes of loathsome headphone detangling. How those confounded white wires always weave themselves into a tangled ball, I do not know, but now there might be hope.

Kordl by J2 Product Development
Category: Accessories
Works With: Earphones of all kinds
Price: $7.50 for three!

Kordl is a little clip that secures the pod and plug ends of your headphones together, thus, theoretically speaking, making annoying detangling sessions a thing of the past. Kordl’s founders, now trying to fund their product, go so far as to promise Kordl will make your headphones tangle proof.

Bold claim! So I decided to clip a preproduction Kordl to my Earpods and find out how well it really works.

Apple Will Begin New iPhone Production In Q2, Launch This Summer [Rumor]

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We’ve heard rumors that Apple will unveil the iPhone 5S in June of this year, and it turns out that there might actually be some truth to the rumors.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Apple plans to begin production of the next iPhone in Q2 of 2013. The new iPhone will have the same shape and 4-inch screen as the iPhone 5S and will probably launch this summer.

Firefox 20 For Mac Goes Live With Tabbed Private Browsing And New Download Manager

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Mozilla has released Firefox 20 for Mac users, and this major update brings several new features and improvements to the web browser. Two of the biggest features are “per-window” private browsing and a redesigned download manager.

You can now open a private browsing tab instead of having to open an entirely new window and close the current session. The new, Safari-like download manager is a little arrow that sits in the browser’s toolbar next to search. You can click it to see and interact with all current downloads.