NASA’s spaceship of tomorrow might make a critic of skeuomorphic design cringe.

Orion, which flew successfully on an unmanned test Friday and is seen as a critical first step toward flying a crew to Mars, is guided by sophisticated computer control panels.

But instead of a modern digital interface, NASA designed the controls to look like something from the Gemini missions from the ’60s. Orion’s computer screens are full of virtual flip switches and levers that would put Yuri Gagarin at ease.

It’s a little like Apple putting a virtual rotary dial on an iPhone.

Christmas is still a few weeks away, but Apple is getting into the holiday spirit by activating a number of its festive-themed curated iTunes Radio stations — ranging from collections of country Christmas songs, to stations featuring the kind of Christmas standards we all know and love.

The ten stations include Children’s Christmas Holiday Sing-Along, Country Holiday, Classical Holiday, Holiday Classics, Holiday Hits, Latin Holiday, Rockin’ Holiday, Soulful Holiday, Swingin’ Holiday and The Sounds of Christmas.

Apple was forced by major record labels to implement digital rights management technology in iTunes, according to testimony in an ongoing class-action lawsuit that accuses Cupertino of stifling competition with competing music services.

Apple contemplated licensing its DRM, called FairPlay, to other companies, “but we couldn’t find a way to do that and have it work reliably,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services.

My team slid in under cover of night over at Harfeld Manor, an easy run into a low-security data vault that my old shadowrunner pal Monica promised would be an easy in and out.

It wasn’t, of course, but it took the death of our mutual friend, the mage Deitrich, to really wake us up to that fact.

Sure, we hit that place hard, but there was a ton of security both on the ‘Net and in the premises themselves, and we paid dearly for our hubris.

It would take us another several runs to really figure out what was going on in the dark shadows that we came across in our shadowy dealings, but I think we’re getting somewhere. If only we knew where this will finally lead.

This, then, is Shadowrun: Dragonfall in the special Director’s Cut edition, out now from Harebrained Schemes for your iPad. Check out the game trailer below to get a sense of how it all plays out.

For almost a decade, between 1985 and 1994, award-winning documentary photographer Doug Menuez photographed Steve Jobs — focusing particularly on his work at NeXT, but also getting some fascinating snaps of what was happening at Apple at the time.

Menuez was recently interviewed by the BBC World Service about his time with Steve Jobs, with the photographer telling a few of the stories behind some of his iconic images. The resulting short video, which shows off a few of Menuez’s rarer images alongside his best known ones, can be seen after the jump.

For anyone who enjoys hearing stories about Steve Jobs (including how he wooed investor Ross Perot, and his dream that one day someone would use one of Jobs’ computers to cure cancer) it’s well worth checking out:

We here at Cult of Mac love bicycles almost as much as we love our iPhone 6 Pluses and iMac Retina 5Ks.

Maybe it’s the feeling of almost flying. Or the passionate design coming out of the bicycle industry. Or maybe it is just the idea of being a part of something else that drives intense passions in people. Whatever it is, we love it.

So we scoured high and low to bring you a list of crazy gift ideas for yourself or for your two-wheeled companions.
Take a look, but remember to take a deep breath before firing up your Apple Pay.

Tim Cook made a visit to Washington D.C. this week to discuss the U.S. technology policy with one of the most tech-focused Senators on Capitol Hill.

The Apple CEO met with Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah on Tuesday, reports The Hill, after Cook paid a visit to the nearby Georgetown Apple Store the previous day for Worlds AIDS day. Senator Hatch’s Innovation Agenda for the 114th Congress was the focus of the conversation, as Hatch currently serves as the chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force.

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HP just announced its newest business laptops today – the HP EliteBook Folio 1020 – and even though the company is touting them as the thinnest and lightest ‘business-class’ notebooks ever made, they certainly look a hell of lot like the MacBook Air.

This isn’t the first time HP’s design team ripped off Apple’s work, but the copycats have fine-tuned the design of their previous MacBook Air rip-off, the 1040, by removing the unsightly ventilation fan on the side, so it looks even more Apple-esque.

Here’s another look:

There have been rumors of a possible 12.2-inch “iPad Pro” for ages now, and a new video from YouTube user Canoopsy offers a glimpse of what that might look like — comparing the giant-sized tablet the current iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, and recent iPhones.

While Apple isn’t the first company that would “go big” with its tablet (Samsung has its GALAXY NotePRO 12.2, for instance), the idea of a larger iPad frankly has us salivating. And given the success Apple has had with its “phablet” iPhone 6 Plus, it would be surprising if Apple was feeling any different.

Check out the video after the jump: