It’s been a terrific year for gaming. The next-generation consoles now offer a library of spectacular games that somehow keep getting better and better, while PC gaming just gets greater every year.
2015 brought exciting and long-awaited entries to wonderful franchises like Fallout and The Legend of Zelda, surprising indie smash hits like Rocket League, and must-play platform exclusives like Blooborne and Super Mario Maker.
Here are the best games that we couldn’t put down this year.
We were too busy taking our own pictures in 2015 to notice that something about photography had changed.
This was the year the photo moved. It shed its flat, two-dimensional constraints and showed a life once left to the imagination.
The movement could be slight, as in Apple’s Live Photos, a new feature on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus camera that records a snippet of video before and after the frozen moment to add an extra dimension.
Sony’s PlayStation app for mobile has always been something of a disaster, with a poor user interface and painfully slow performance. That’s still true today — but now you don’t have to use it when all you want to do is message friends on the PlayStation Network.
In an effort to be a better messaging service, PlayStation Messages has gone solo. With the new PlayStation Messages app for Android and iOS, you can keep in touch with the rest of your clan without having to use the main PlayStation app at all.
Sony has revealed that it is developing an official PlayStation 4 Remote Play app for Mac and PC, giving gamers the ability to play their favorite titles on their desktop. The announcements comes just days after an unofficial Remote Play app was made available for Windows.
Apple Watch is by far the most successful smartwatch to date in terms of sales, so perhaps it’s no surprise that Apple has been voted the “coolest wearables brand” by smartphone users.
The Cupertino company not only beat technology rivals like Samsung and LG to the top of the list, but also high-end watchmakers and fashion brands like TAG Heuer, Rolex, and Ralph Lauren.
Apple’s new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus may be packing its best iSight camera yet, but it’s not good enough to topple the latest Android devices.
In DxOMark’s expert camera tests, Apple’s latest smartphones achieve a score of 82, which is five points less than the current mobile leader, Sony’s Xperia Z5.
Sony’s new Xperia Z5 has the best smartphone camera available, according to the experts at DxOMark — but that could be about to change.
In a number of real-world tests, the Xperia Z5’s 23-megapixel shooter is outperformed by the 12-megapixel camera inside the iPhone 6s Plus.
iOS 9 has been out for two days, and it’s already running on more than 20 percent of compatible devices, according to the latest data. In comparison, Google’s latest Android release, version 5.1 Lollipop, is running on just 5.1 percent of devices ten months after it made its public debut.
These figures highlight the staggering difference between updates on Android and iOS. But is it fair to compare adoption figures between these two platforms, and do users really care?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over this very topic!
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
Apple was reminded of this after its keynote on Wednesday when rivals Samsung and Sony took to Twitter to mock the length of its presentation — and its new iPhone 6s.
Backed by ex-Apple CEO John Sculley, Obi Worldphone is a startup company that’s hoping to shake up the affordable Android market with two new devices that combine stylish designs and decent specifications with even more attractive price tags.
Meet the Obi Worldphone SF1 and SJ1.5, which start at as little as $129.
Sony’s second-generation SmartBand 2 is here, and it’s a big improvement over its predecessor. The wearable’s new design packs an intelligent heart rate monitor that constantly measures your excitement and stress levels throughout the day.
We’ve already got one “must see” tech-themed movie coming up this year with the Aaron Sorkin-penned Steve Jobs biopic, but Hollywood’s not done when it come to giving technology the big screen treatment.
In a deal reported to be worth close to seven-figures, Sony Pictures Animation has reportedly beaten out two other major studios to win the rights to a movie based on none other than emojis.
Jeans designer Ulrich Simpson likes to say he makes jeans for everybody. And when he says "everybody," he really means "every body."
The biggest problem with premium jeans is finding a pair that fits. They tend to come in a very narrow range of cuts and sizes. Not so Simpson's UBi-IND jeans, which are available in five styles and sizes from 29- to 48-inch waist.
They'll fit any body type, from skinny skateboarders to Olympic speed skaters with grotesquely overdeveloped quads (see the Athletic cut). In fact, Simpson's customers range from NBA stars to surfers and cowboys. Simpson's jeans are 100 percent made in the USA from premium Cone Mills denim. — Leander Kahney
Buy from: UBi-IND (online and in San Francisco), Union LA (Los Angeles), AB Fits (San Francisco) Standard & Strange (Oakland), Canvas (Malibu)
Ever imagined what it would be like if Sony, not Apple, had delivered the first truly modern smartphone? If the Walkman had never gone out of style, just evolved with the times?
Well, it’d probably look something like this.
In an effort to prevent rivals from stealing its ideas, Apple patents everything it invents — from the iPhone and the iPad, to app icons and even “magic” tactile gloves. But compared to its biggest competitors, Apple’s patent portfolio from 2015 looks surprisingly bare.
Microsoft, Sony, Google, and LG have all outrank Apple in the patent department this year, while arch rival Samsung has absolutely crushed it.
Your iPhone makes a compelling case to never buy another camera. But Sony seems to understand that the better you get with your photography, the more you will learn that the camera in a smartphone has limitations.
So when you are ready to try a more sophisticated tool, Sony will be waiting with its new RX100 IV.
Don’t let the size, weight and look fool you into thinking this is just another point-and-shoot. Some of the specs in this tiny box rival those of a professional-grade DSLR.
The first official trailer for the Steve Jobs movie we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. The one-minute clip gives us an early look at Michael Fassbender as Apple’s co-founder and former CEO, along with co-stars Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen and Jeff Daniels.
This post is brought to you by Sony.
We’re massive fans of Sony cameras, so we’re really interested in two new Action Cam models that challenge the GoPro status quo. To show off the eye-popping capabilities of its high-def duo — the 4K and the Full HD — Sony commissioned more than 20 short films shot on the tiny video cameras by directors from all over the world.
The first batch of the Never Before Seen shorts show how innovative filmmakers and artists utilize the Action Cams’ small size, enhanced image stability and other unique features to make Hollywood-level videos.
Sony is planning to invest $376 million dollars to boost capacity for chips used in smartphone camera sensors, including the iPhone. The company announced today that this will be the second boost to capacity made this year to meet demand.
Ever since Tim Cook unveiled the Apple Watch last September, it’s been one disappointment after another as far as I’m concerned. Apple’s first wearable won’t come in the minimalist form factor of the fitness bracelets I love. Worse yet, the launch version of the fashion-forward device will lack GPS, suffer from underwhelming battery life and fail to offer truly native third-party apps.
For the first time, I realized I would not be buying an Apple product when it first hit the market. “It’s not worth lining up for,” I told my dad when he asked what I thought after the Apple Watch’s big reveal.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Apple Watch’s launch day, which is coming sometime this spring. And I’m not talking about the previously unthinkable — an Apple fan calling the Microsoft Band the best smartwatch on the planet. No, I’m talking about wading through an ungodly sea of really bad smartwatches at International CES earlier this month and seeing indisputable proof of just how innovative and disruptive Apple Watch actually will be.
LAS VEGAS — Walk the halls of the massive International CES trade show and you’ll be bombarded by an outrageous number of pitches for products with radical new features.
You can glimpse the shiny happy future of consumer electronics at the show, although some of the innovations on display are clearly destined for the dustbin of gadget history.
At the biggest booths, reps for big companies like Sony and Samsung — but, sadly, not Apple — talk up the latest additions to their product lines. At smaller booths, inventors show off prototypes for products that may not ever roll off an assembly line. There’s a nonstop blitz of “world’s first” products.
It’s impossible to see everything, but it’s a blast trying. Here are Cult of Mac’s picks for the best of CES 2015, from Lightning-enabled headphones and massive TVs to drones and self-adjusting belts.
This new Android-powered ZX2 Walkman is for serious audiophiles only. Sony’s pushing the device as a high-resolution sound machine, and it’s set a price to match.
$1,119.99 seems a bit much for a portable music player, but I really can’t seem to stop wanting one. The design is gorgeous, with a black matte finish and glorious actual buttons that just beg me to touch it.
Whether you head to a theater or stream it in the comfort of your home, you really ought to watch The Interview this weekend.
The action-comedy, about two journalists on a mission to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, has become the unlikely must-see movie of the Christmas break — and it’s your patriotic duty to see it, like it or not.
Apple turned down the opportunity to distribute the controversial movie The Interview on iTunes, despite a plea from Sony to the White House aimed at getting Cupertino on board.
Sony hoped Apple would step up as its sole “technology partner” to distribute the film, according to The New York Times.
After an attack by a group of hackers-slash-cyber-terrorists, Sony Pictures is having a rough time. Countless embarrassing details about the organization — including executive salaries and salacious emails — have leaked to the media. Even worse, threats against theatergoers have caused Sony to pull The Interview — an upcoming Sony movie that is the motive of the hack — from distribution.
Behind the scenes, though, things are just as anarchic. According to a new report, Sony Pictures is now “stuck in 1992” at least as far as IT is concerned. But those on iOS or a Mac have gotten off much better.