Cult of Mac

Back in early December, Apple and Google joined forces to purchase a patent trove from Kodak, the once-reigning photography king. Kodak’s collection includes 1,100 imaging patents that can be used to diffuse litigation between big companies in the tech industry.

To keep bidding wars from escalating, Apple and Google teamed up for the purchase. After filing for bankruptcy, Kodak said that its patent trove was worth $2 billion, but the U.S. court approved a $527 million price tag instead.

What the companies involved with this deal plan to do with the acquired patents remains to be seen.

Source: Bloomberg

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The Consumer Electronic Show is winding down. Friday is the last day. There are so many weird and wacky wonderful things, it’s worth another gallery.

Elvis — an icon of Las Vegas — is posing for pictures and representing the United States Post Office, posing next to his commemorative stamp. He has the snarl down.

Apple issued the first beta of iOS 6.1 to developers back at the beginning of November. Since then, the software has undergone four beta revisions. The latest version was seeded on December 17th.

A new rumor from German blog iFun claims that the final iOS 6.1 GM (the same version that’s released publicly for everyone) is in the final internal testing stages, and the software is about to be released to registered devs. Apparently the iOS 6.1 GM could ship as early as today or Monday.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Griffin’s Survivor+Catalyst might have a goofy name, but it’s the first ruggedized waterproof case I’ve seen which isn’t hugely oversized or just plain fugly. In fact, it might be slim and stylish enough for everyday use.

Here’s a neat idea that will make you wonder why you hadn’t thought of this already. I know that’s what I thought as soon as I saw it.

Even though we have stuff like Find my iPhone and Find my Mac available, what about that honest person who finds your iPad or iPhone on a bus or in a restaurant and wants to return it to you? If you haven’t engraved your contact information onto the iPad (and who does that, really?), and you’ve set a passcode to get past the lock screen, that kind individual will be out of luck in trying to find you to get your iPad or iPhone back to you.

What’s a helpful iOS device owner to do, then, to help a good samaritan return a lost item?

Rickshaw, maker of most of my favorite bags, is hawking this neat new sack on Kickstarter. It’s a version of the venerable Zero Messenger bag, with the addition of a glowing LED strip along the back.

When Microsoft launched the Surface with Windows RT, it was supposed to be the answer to all of their iPad problems. It runs on cellphone chips, yet still looks like regular Windows 8. It’s supposed to be awesome. But sales of Windows RT tablets haven’t been strong, and now Samsung is saying that they’re second guessing the platform.

In a recent interview at CES, Make Abary, Samsung’s senior vice president who oversees the company’s tablet business, said that Samsung has decided they won’t launch their Windows RT tablet in the U.S. after discovering there’s not much demand for them.

It’s pretty rare to find quality sounding earbuds that look as good as they sound. But you’ll find just that in our latest Cult of Mac Deals offer. That’s because you can get a pair of brown BodyGuardz Moxy earbuds with a mic by for just $35…but only for a limited time.

This is Canon’s Instagram camera. That’s right – this little point and shoot is designed to work with your smartphone, connecting via Wi-Fi and even pre-processing some of your pictures for you.

The Caliber Advantage is yet another iOS gaming pad, but this one has one major advantage: It comes from Zagg, well-known accessory maker and purveyor of some of the finest iPad keyboards known to mankind.

Reduce is a slick and polished universal app which puts your photos on a diet. It’s aimed at photographers, but will be great for anyone who needs to shrink a lot of images, and who doesn’t hate themselves. Why? Because Reduce is the first such app I’ve tried that doesn’t make me tear my hair out.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Now that the iPad is quickly replacing PCs in the workplace, your office is probably packed with tablets everywhere that need to be charged. Rather than letting you suffer through some half-baked homemade solution, iLuv introduced the MultiCharge-X at CES this year.

If you’ve been around on the internet for any length of time, you’ll have probably heard about a site called Xtranormal, which converts text you enter into a simple little video starring cute animal characters. (If you haven’t heard of it, go and have a play there now, it’s fun.)

Tellagami is a new free iOS app that does something similar. I say “similar”, but the two are not in the same league. Tellagami is very simple, and its features limited. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it, though.

Welcome to the most awkward booth at CES. There are battery packs for your iPhone and MacBooks. You can check out a new stylus. On display in the corner is an external iOS drive. They even got some new iPad cases on too. But don’t let those products distract you from the real show: the four naked women standing on display.

Scantly clad booth babes are a common sight at CES, but HyperShop has taken it to a whole new level by unabashedly displaying naked women at their booth. They claim it’s art, and maybe it is (what is “art” anyway?), but what the hell do these naked women have to do with battery packs?

Third-generation iPad owners became understandably upset last November when Apple announced a new sixth-generation iPad eight months after theirs went on sale. It was the first time the Cupertino company had launched an iPad within 12 months of its predecessor, but it looks like we’d better get used to it.

Rumors have this week suggested that Apple is now looking to update its iOS devices every six months, introducing two every year. And according to one analyst, that’s exactly what’s going to happen with the next-generation iPads.

pod2g, an iOS hacker famous for his many jailbreaks, most recently the Absinth 2.0 release for devices running iOS 5.1.1, has released today released his first iOS app. It’s called podDJ, and it turns your iPad into “the most realistic virtual turntable you have ever seen,” allowing you to mix and scratch any track in your iTunes library.

Microsoft’s Windows operating system is often mocked for its blue screen of death, the dreaded error message that appears on an all-too-often basis when attempting to work the computer too hard. And now it seems the company’s Windows Phone platform has a nasty error message of its own.

This particular error message, spotted on the HTC 8X, rather hilariously asks you to “insert your Windows installation disk” and “repair your computer” to continue.

Video streaming service Watchever is now available to Apple TV users in Germany following an update to the set-top box that was released by Apple on Friday. Launched by Vivendi just this month, the monthly subscription service is a lot like Netflix, giving users the ability to watch local and international movies and TV shows over the Internet.

If you’re a Mac user who picked up a Microsoft Surface RT tablet out of curiosity when they went on sale last October, and you’re yet to find a use for it, then don’t despair. Earlier this week it was revealed that it’s possible to jailbreak the device and install desktop apps that are designed for ARM processors — something Microsoft doesn’t officially support.

One developer has taken advantage of the exploit to run an early version of Apple’s Mac OS operating system inside a emulator.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 –

In a departure from many of the other products being shown off at CES, MPowerd debuted what they call Luci, the collapsible, solar powered lamp. The entire product only weighs 4 ounces, and can easily collapse for storage if you’re traveling.

By simply placing the lantern in the sun for 4-6 hours, you can get up to 12 hours of light. MPowerd says that Luci is perfect for the developing world, where not everyone has access to electricity. It’s also a great idea for camping trips and other outdoor activities.

The Luci is available now from MPowerd for $15.99. MPowered is also setting up a program that will allow them to distribute lanterns to less fortunate countries when you purchase one.

Xerox has today announced that Luca Maestri, executive vice president and chief financial officer, is leaving the company on February 28 to become the new corporate controller at Apple. Xerox has credited Maestri for his contributions, which have strengthened the “financial foundation” of the company, it said in a press release today.

That’s a wrap, folks! The 2013 Consumer Electronics Show is done and over, but after walking the tech-packed floors and press events for days, we’re ready to reveal the gadgets that had us yelling “shut up and take the money!” Get the full scoop on our newest CultCast!

Plus, don’t miss our own Deputy Editor John Brownlee regale us with the hilarious story of a press event gone so wrong, the internet can’t stop buzzing about it.

All that and more on our newest and final live-from-Vegas CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes to catch our all-new episode, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App. And while you’re at it, be sure to download our other 3 daily CES recap episodes to hear our favorite booths of shows past and funny stories from the show!

Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, reportedly shot down suggestions that the Cupertino company will launch a low-cost iPhone later this year during an interview with a Chinese newspaper earlier this week. According to the report, Schiller said that the budget devices will “never be the future of Apple products.”

Reuters was one of the first media outlets to cover the report, but in an interesting move, it has this morning pulled its piece after “substantial changes” were made to the original article. Could this mean Schiller didn’t really say those things?

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When I worked in an office, I shared several playlists from my Mac’s iTunes Library, including a Holiday music playlist and a couple of artist-specific playlists. I didn’t want everyone to be able to log in and share my tunes, however, as a few of the playlists contained songs with Explicit lyrics. I would have loved to have been able to protect these playlists from certain co-workers while allowing others to listen to the tunes I had set up.

Here’s how to do just that.