LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The Canopy Sensus case puts a multi-touch surface on the back and the right edge of the iPhone. It recognizes all of your fingers at once, and in my brief time trying it out, it works great. But who the hell is going to buy it?
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – LG’s mission for 2013 is to help you “touch the smart life.” At least, that’s what CEO Wayne Park claimed when he jumped on stage at CES this morning. They make a lot of products that are smart, and LG just wants your life at home to be simple and stress-free.
LG makes everything for your home. I mean literally everything. Yeah, they make smartphones and TVs, but they also make ovens, refrigerators, robot vacuums, microwaves, washing machines – EVERYTHING.
Nearly every major appliance that you have in your house could probably be replaced by an LG version. If any company could make a Siri-controlled iHome before Apple, then it’s LG. But because they’re trying to do so much, their version of the smart home still sucks, and it gives Apple an advantage to become the company that controls your home.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 –
The Nectar fuel cell is yet another attempt at freeing our devices from their relationships with power outlets. And technically, it looks great – compact and easy to use with a simple USB socket.
But unlike charging your cellphone via the mains, which is so cheap that a single charge is virtually free, the Nectar costs a buck a pop.
At CES in Las Vegas, Madfinger Games just announced Dead Trigger 2, the sequel to its mobile first-person shooter Dead Trigger, to be available on iOS and Android in the second quarter of this year.
We’re in Vegas! That’s right, team Cult of Mac has descended on Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show, the largest and in-chargest technology show in North America. And to bring you the best and worst tech we’re seeing here at the show, we’re releasing a brand new episode each night until Thursday.
On our newest episode (#51), discover some of the cool tech we’ve seen so far at the show, and our why we think Apple is gunning to transform your house into an all-connected iHome.
All that and more on our CES 2013 special edition CultCast! Stay caught up on the best of the show, subscribe now on iTunes or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
Lego Mindstorms has just evolved. The latest announcement from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from the Denmarased toy company is that their popular robotics hardware and software, Mindstorms, is getting a new command module, the EV3. It will be iOS and Android compatible from the start, letting even more kids and the young at heart program and control their robots from mobile devices.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – What do a four-rotor, remotely-piloted vehicle, touch-screen car audio and a little, Bluetooth-armed facsimile of a plant stem have in common? Not much. Yet they’re all concoctions from French-based Parrot; the latter is their newest gadget, a sensor-laden gardening device they’ve named the Flower Power.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Withings has now added a heart-rate monitor and an air-quality sensor into their WiFi Body Scale, which previously just measured weight and body-fat percentage. In fact, their scale now has so many sensors, they’re not even calling it a scale anymore.
According to mobile industry analyst, Bernie Evans, Facebook reported a huge growth in mobile app Facebook use, with Android users growing from 66 million users in September 2011 to 175 million users this past September. iPhone users also increased greatly, with the number of users of the iPhone Facebook app growing from 91 million last year to 140 million this year.
Lunatik’s new Taktik Extreme case for the iPhone 5 heads a lineup of rather overprotective phone prophylactics. If cases were condoms, the Taktik extreme would be the extra-strength safety model, the Seismik would be the ribbed version, and the Flak would be the ultralight, “natural feel” member of the group.
Apple is one of just two smartphone makers currently seeing any kind of growth in the United States at the moment, and together with Samsung the company is slowly but surely clawing away at the market share held by the likes of LG, Motorola, and HTC. One analyst believes, however, that the Cupertino must make big changes if it wants that growth to continue.
Apple’s either has to dramatically reduce its iPhone profit margins and make the handset cheaper, or face losing valuable market share to cheaper smartphones.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Here’s a question for you: it’s CES, the world’s largest electronics trade show. So where the hell are all the Lightning accessories?
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Party rockers were in the house last night at CES. Ion unveiled several new products from their 2013 catalog. Two in particular caught my eye.
Hyundai is set to showcase a number of new vehicles at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, and the company has announced that they’ll all include Siri Eyes Free technology. The feature allows iPhone owners to perform a whole host of tasks using the intelligent assistant — such as taking calls or creating Reminders — without taking their hands off the wheel.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Unless you’ve got a bizarre predilection for robophilia, there’s nothing exotic about cellular antenna boosters, but we stopped by Wilson Electronic’s booth at CES Unveiled last night to take a look at their latest booster anyway: a cradle for your car that can amp any 4G signal up to five bar status, even when you’re zooming down the causeway.
You wouldn’t normally associate HP devices with the Android or iOS platforms, but the company’s latest gadget plays nicely with them both. It’s called the Pocket Playlist, and it allows you to stream all of your media wirelessly to all your smartphones and tablets. It boasts 32GB of internal storage, and it can stream to up to five devices simultaneously.
Pentax has just announced a new retro-styled point-and-shoot zoom camera, the MX-1. The trend for cameras that look like they’ve fallen through a time warp from the 1960s is trickling down from the high-end and into lower-cost, consumer-oriented models.
Griffin has a new lineup of charging accessories at CES in Las Vegas, one of which is ideal for those who have collected an entire family of iOS devices. It’s called the PowerDock 5 and it charges up to five devices at any one time, storing them away neatly to save space on your desk.
A company called Spicebox is showing at CES a hardware-software product called Mauz that turns your iPhone into a mouse that can also read motion gestures through the camera.
The product comes in three parts: a snap-on thing for your iPhone, an app for your iPhone and a driver for your Mac.
Mauz connects with your Mac over WiFi. It works like a regular mouse. But it can also register movement of the phone like the Nintendo Wii remote, as well as register in-air gestures like the Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360. Here’s a video.
The product should sell for less than $70 when it becomes available in June.
Remember that tip, way back in 2012, where we showed you how to use the “caffeinate” command in the Terminal to prevent your Mac from sleeping for a specified amount of time? Well, it’s a new year, and with that comes a new way to keep your Mac from sleeping.
Sleep No More is a free app for your Mac that allows you to set a specific duration to postpone your Mac’s regularly scheduled sleep time. It’s a simple, graphical way to make this happen, without all that Terminal stuff, as it’s a nice little menu bar app.
Apple has today announced that the App Store has surpassed a whopping 40 billion downloads, with almost 20 million seen in 2012 alone. A record-breaking December, helped by another successful Christmas, boosted this year’s figures, with more than two billion downloads during the month.
When Apple’s all-new iMacs made their debut in late November, a super speedy Fusion Drive was only available as a build-to-order option with the 27-inch models. But that’s no longer the case. Over the weekend, Apple made the 1TB Fusion Drive an upgrade option for the entry-level 21.5-inch iMac, too.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The biggest problem I have with my iPad is the speaker volume. Every time I try to watch a movie or TV show, I have to cup my hand around the bottom by the speaker. I feel like an old codger in reverse: cupping my hand around my iPad instead of my ear.
Here at the Consumer Electronics Show, Kubxlab is showing off an iPhone case that works really well at boosting volume acoustically.
Stick-n-Find is a clever – and very small – object tracking device that talks to an app on your iDevice via Bluetooth, over a range of about 100 feet. After a hugely successful fundraising program on Indiegogo that raised six times more than required, the makers will be showing off the gadget at CES.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – When Sandy hit NYC and New Jersey last year, hundreds of thousands of people were left without power and no way to recharge their iPhones. After the 2,463rd round of Temple Run and your iPhone dies, what are you supposed to do? Talk to people?
Eton’s newest line of portable battery packs will make it possible for anyone to power-up their iPhone even during a diaster. All you need to do is put in a little old fashioned manual labor for a few minutes and you’ll create enough juice to make a short phone call.