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Search results for: Apple One

YubiKey wants to be like Touch ID for your Internet life

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YubiKey opens the way to online security. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
YubiKey can make online security easy -- if it gains widespread adoption. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

LAS VEGAS — Nobody wants to get hacked like Jennifer Lawrence’s iCloud account. Everyone, including Apple, is pushing two-factor authentication in the wake of the high-profile hack that exposed dozens of celebrities nude selfies, but verifying an account login with a code sent to your phone is a total pain.

Cult_of_Mac_CES_2015 In the not-so-distant future, we might all be storing two-factor authentication on our keychains.

Yubico is already providing eight out of 10 Silicon Valley companies with a tiny USB dongle called YubiKey that securely verifies an employee’s online identity. You just plug it into a computer and tap it when it’s time to log in. Now that Gmail has started supporting YubiKey on the front end, anyone can use it as the second verification step for getting into their inbox.

Sexy sci-fi car gets 84 mpg, costs less than a Mac Pro

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Elio Motors' three-wheeled, fuel-efficient vehicle is a real eye-grabber. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Elio Motors' three-wheeler is easy on the eyes -- and the wallet. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
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LAS VEGAS — It’s hard to say what’s most amazing about Elio Motors’ three-wheeled car: its sexy frame, its extreme fuel efficiency or its jaw-dropping $6,800 price tag.

Cult_of_Mac_CES_2015 That princely sum — a little less than a 12-core Mac Pro costs — gets you a sleek two-seater that looks like something you’d see in a sci-fi flick. It’s got two wheels up front, one in back and a built-in holder for your iPad.

And on the International CES show floor here, Elio’s got a team of breezy boosters who tout its many forward-looking features with the quick-witted humor of the best car salesmen.

“For $6,800, we ought to charge you for the air in the tires,” Elio Motors rep Don Harris told Cult of Mac when we asked if the iPad was included in the purchase price.

WhatsApp now has 700 million active users

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By our calculations, Facebook's $19 billion investment in WhatsApp works out at $27.14 per user. Photo: WhatsApp
Photo: WhatsApp

WhatsApp has come a long way from its early days, when creators Jan Koum and Brian Acton were inspired to create a cross-platform messenger app by Apple’s addition of push notifications to iOS 3.0.

Having been snapped up by Facebook for a cer-azy $19 billion almost a year ago, the popular app has now announced a personal record-breaking 700 million monthly active users — a whole 100 million more than were using the service back in August.

Santa gives iOS 8 adoption a boost after holiday season

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A new iOS 8 update is here.
iOS 8 adoption might not be breaking records for Apple, but it's way ahead of the competition. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

We’re coming up to four months since the public release of iOS 8, and according to Apple’s own stats, 68 percent of users are now running the latest version of its mobile operating system. This is up five percent from one month ago — most likely buoyed by the massive number of iOS device activations which took place over the holidays.

iOS 7, meanwhile, fell 3 percentage points to 29 percent of the total active iOS user base, while earlier versions of the OS now hover around 4 percent. (Yes, we know those numbers add up to slightly more than 100 percent: it’s likely due to rounding-up the figures involved.)

Drop an audio bomb on your party with this room-filling music machine

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The Archt one wireless speaker uses patented technology to fill a room with sound. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
The Archt one wireless speaker uses patented technology to fill a room with sound. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
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LAS VEGAS — With its wide base and gently sloping sides, the Archt one speaker looks a little like an egg pod from Alien or the business end of a bomb.

Cult_of_Mac_CES_2015 Its outer shell is sleek black plastic, with a flat ring around the top that gives it a space-age feel. If the killer looks aren’t enough to grab your attention, the speaker’s ground-thumping bass will.

“It gets really loud,” Archt CEO Evan Foo told Cult of Mac.

While the all-in-one wireless speaker is certainly loud — it was ballsy enough to cut through the background noise here at the International CES trade show — the goal is to deliver CD-quality sound, no matter the source of the audio.

HumanScale’s HealthKit desk tells you when you’re being lazy at work

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Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac
The standing desk gets HealthKit. Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

LAS VEGAS — I’ve had a standing desk for two years now, and while it’s practically the greatest piece of furniture to ever enter my life, I somehow forget to actually stand at it while working.

Cult_of_Mac_CES_2015 HumanScale is all too familiar with lazy people like me using their ergonomic desks without reaping the full benefits, so the company teamed up with Detroit startup Tome to create a standing desk solution called OfficeIQ that syncs with HealthKit to tell you when you’re being too damn lazy.

Will the iPad slump cease in 2015?

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iPad Air 3 will be the smartest iPad yet.
Will the iPad rebound in 2015? Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple did amazing things in 2014, but when it comes to growth, the iPad wasn’t exactly a blockbuster success. In fact, they’ve been slumping. Although Cook views slowing iPad growth as a “speed bump,” iPad upgrades are inarguably closer to the upgrade rate of laptops than smartphones.

Cook’s optimistic. “Because we’ve only been in the market for four years, we don’t know how long the upgrade cycle will be for people,” Cook said during the October earnings call. “So that’s a difficult thing to call.”

So what does 2015 hold for the iPad? Sadly, it’s not clear.

Only 5% of Monument Valley installs on Android were paid for

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One of the biggest reasons why many app developers continue to snub Android is piracy. The platform’s “open” approach, which allows applications to be downloaded from third-party sources and installed manually, makes it incredibly easy for users to circumvent Google Play and obtain paid apps completely free.

Piracy on Android is so rampant right now that just 5 percent of installs of Monument Valley — one of the best mobile games of 2014, which is currently priced at $3.99 in the Play Store — have actually been paid for.