As you may already know, Google Reader will shutdown as of July 1, so now’s the time to look for a new RSS reader. If you’re a longtime user, you may not be familiar with the other options available to you, but don’t worry — there are plenty out there, so you don’t need to go without your news.
We’ve compiled a list of the best cloud-based and local news readers around to help you find the best solution for you. Check them out below.
If you didn’t hear the news already, Samsung announced their new flagship phone last night, the Galaxy S 4. It looks a lot like the Galaxy S 3. It’s made of plastic. Has a huge screen. And it comes with some weird software features you might use, but probably won’t.
We were on hand last night to test out the Galaxy S 4, and while it’s an impressive phone, it leaves the door open for companies like HTC and LG to capture the Android crown.
Here’s a video comparison of the Samasung Galaxy S 4 next to the iPhone 5:
Even though Mailbox for iOS has only been out for a month, it’s taken no time at all for the buzzworthy app to get bought up by a bigger fish.
Dropbox is buying Orchestra Inc., makers of the popular new email app, Mailbox, that allows users to control their email in a new way.
We iPad owners can be pretty smug about all the things we can do with our device while everyone else is using paper like some kind of cave man, but as this commercial by COlumbia’s SiceVENDE proves, there’s at least one thing you can’t — or wouldn’t want — to do with an iPad.
Via: TUAW
Apple has been sued by THX, the company founded by Star Wars producer George Lucas, in a patent case filed in a federal court in Northern California. The case was part of a list of new filings in the court clerk’s office, Bloomberg reports.
Fingers is a concept design, but it’s so simple and clever, and so easy to make for yourself with just a piece of stiff card and a pair of scissors, that it seems worth taking a look. It’s yet another desk-tidying cable manager, but you’re going to love it, I promise.
John Browett, who spent nine months as Apple’s senior vice president of retail before being ousted alongside Scott Forstall last October, has admitted that he “just didn’t fit” in with the way Apple ran its business. Browett still feels Apple is a fantastic company and says he loved working there, but he told The Independent that he was “rejected for fit rather than competency.”
MyEditor is another iOS text editor. It works with iCloud, it’ll export to Dropbox, yadda yadda yadda. But this one has a couple of very neat features that might just be enough to make you forget the plain and frankly ugly user interface. It has a clipboard history, it can capture your clipboard whilst in the background, and it can run your text through Javascript, uh, scripts.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has replaced Tim Cook as the highest-rated CEO in tech, according to employee approval ratings on Glassdoor. Cook’s 97% approval rating from 2012 has dropped down to 93%, which takes him from first position all the way down to 18th. Zuckerberg now has an impressive 99% approval rating.
Remember Unbound? I called the iOS app “the best dropbox browser I have ever used,” and it’s still up there in the top two (the other is the excellent Heliog). Now — or at least soon — Unbound will be coming to the Mac. What’s more, it’ll be compatible with the neat little Leap Motion box that lets you control your Mac with wavy hand gestures.
We mix it up on this week’s CultCast! Join us for a very special hour with guest Jeff Cannata, former co-host of The Totally Rad Show (TRS) on Revision3 and current co-host of CNET’s Always On.
For all of you who used to watch and love TRS, we remember the show and relive how its cutting-edge virtual set — all made with just one camera and a Mac Pro — made it one of the most popular and beloved podcasts on the internet. Plus, what’s it feel like Kickstarting over $100,000 for a new show? Jeff knows, and shares his amazing experience.
All that and Mr. Cannata reveals his favorite iPad apps and gadgets! Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes to download our newest episode, or just hit play in the player below to listen right in your browser.
Show notes up next!
KitCam has become one of my favorite photography apps for the iPhone, and it continues to improve with every update. The latest promises to bring you better low-light photos, and a number of nifty new features — including a front-facing flash, TIFF support, live exposure, and more.
A lot of us use our USB thumb-drives (flash drives, data sticks, whatever you call them) as little repositories for our daily document work. We keep Word docs, text files, photos, and other daily data ephemera on the small four to eight gigabyte drives, making it easy to shuttle stuff between computers at work, home, and on the go.
But what happens when that little drive stops working, or gets lost? That’s where Flash Drive Backup, a five dollar investment, can come in handy.
My 27-inch iMac hangs on my wall, freeing up desk-space and terrifying me that it will fall off as I sleep and crush me in my bed. To get it up there I had to hit up Amazon and order the VESA wall mount, plus an adapter to replace the iMac’s huge foot with a VESA-compatible set of holes.
The result is very sturdy, and very neat. But there’s one problem: where the hell do I put that giant (and heavy) aluminum foot? If I were buying new iMac, I could just order a version without the stand, and instead equipped with a built-in VESA mount.
Gameloft’s Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour is, without doubt, the best first-person shooter available on mobile. It’s the latest edition to the company’s Modern Combat series, and it promises to “push the boundaries of mobile gaming even further” with stunning visuals, an awesome campaign, and a completely redesigned multiplayer mode.
If you haven’t already got it and you’re a fan of FPS titles, then you’re crazy. But now’s the best time to pick it up, because its price tag has just been slashed from $6.99 to $0.99 for a limited time.
At one point during Samsung’s tacky Galaxy SIV launch event at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, the emcee — upon asking what the point of a screen that could react to gestures in mid-air without actually touching it, and being treated to a Greek chorus of answers from a constabulary of shrill, histrionic shrews — said of Samsungs new Air Gestures: “Okay, I see how that might be useful.”
Those words really sum up everything Samsung put up on stage tonight. I see how that might be useful.
The Galaxy SIV is a phone largely unchanged from the SIII. It’s a little thinner, a little lighter, a little more powerful. It has a bunch of new features. And all of them require a small one-act play on one of the most important stages in Manhattan to explain why, in a certain circumstance, they might be useful.
Just one year after the launch of the analog land-grab board game, Small World, Days of Wonder released Small World for iPad, bringing the fantastically fun board game to the digital world. Soon after, the gaming company brought Ticket To Ride to the iOS platform, cementing its claim to best digital version of an actual board game, ever (ok, maybe that’s just me).
Secretly, however, Days of Wonder tasked a small group of developers with coming up with a bigger, better sequel to Small World. They’re now on Kickstarter, almost funded, and ready to bring the game to Android, iOS, and even Steam with the funds from the crowd-sourcing website.
3D Realms (Max Payne, Duke Nukem) and Intercepter Entertainment (Rise of the Triad) announced today the upcoming release of Duke Nukem II for iOS. Coming in April 2013, Duke Nukem II lets you guide a 2D Duke of mayhem across 32 classic levels from the original game, blowing the crap out of everything that gets in the way.
The Galaxy SIV is official, and it is a beautiful powerhouse of a phone with features unseen in any other device, but how does Samsung’s latest flagship phone stack up against the competition, spec-by-spec? Check out the chart below to find out.
Tonight at Radio City Music Hall in New York, Samsung unveiled the latest version of its flagship Android phone, the Galaxy S4, the successor to Samsung’s super popular Galaxy SIII. The first thing you may notice is how similar the new S4 looks to the SIII. It’s nearly the same size, even wiht a bigger 5-inch, 1080p Super AMOLED screen: the first such in a mobile phone.
If you haven’t heard, Samsung’s got a new phone that they’re going to debut in New York right now.
The event was supposed to start at 7pm EST, but thanks to some delays, reporters are still waiting to sit down. Even though the show is all about the Galaxy S 4, which has been leaked everywhere by now, LG and HTC are at the event to troll the hell out of Samsung, and it’s beautiful.
Here’s some pictures of the trolling in action:
After releasing the 14th beta build of OS X 10.8.3 to developers earlier this week, Apple has now released the latest build of Mountain Lion to the public.
OS X 10.8.3 includes a couple of new features, such as the ability to redeem iTunes giftcards in the Mac App Store using Mac’s FaceTime camera. Support for installing Windows 8 via Boot Camp, is now available, along with some other bug fixes.
Here are the full release notes:
I thought I’d heard everything there was to hear from wireless speakers. I have tested everything from the smallest, crappiest pocket speaker to the big booming Big Jambox. Then I “hooked” the Libratone Zipp up to my iPhone, and I started to enjoy music again.
Battery life in the iPhone age, right? It’s a conundrum we’ve all had to adjust our behaviors for. Before the iPhone, I can remember going days, maybe even a week or so in between battery charges. The advent of an iPhone in my life brought with it a new behavior – charging it every night. I use my iPhone for almost everything these days, including getting around town, communicating with loved ones, and checking email while out and about, so it makes sense that the battery drains quickly.
There are a few third-party apps out there that keep track of your battery usage for you. Turns out, though, if you just want a quick looksee at how much life you have left in your iPhone or iPad’s battery, you can look in the iOS Settings app itself.
Even though the iPad mini and iPad 4 have been on the market for over 5 months, Apple hasn’t offered any refurbished models until now.
The Online Apple Store just added refurbished iPad Minis and 4th-gen iPads to its catalog, so if you’ve been waiting to get a better deal, this is your chance.