| Cult of Mac

Apple acquires AI startup with a focus on privacy

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Silk Labs
Silk Labs' privacy policy reads like it was written by Tim Cook.
Photo: Silk Labs

Apple has reportedly acquired an artificial intelligence startup that specializes in on-device machine learning software.

Silk Labs’ technology processes data without sending it to the cloud, which is a perfect fit for Apple’s privacy-conscious approach to AI. It’s not clear how much Cupertino paid for the company when the deal was struck earlier this year.

Nab a special selfie light, 2TB of cloud storage and more [Week’s best deals]

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This week's best deals include a new way to take selfies, 2 TB of secure cloud storage, and lots more.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Another week, another round of awesome new deals on gear and gadgets in the Cult of Mac Store. This go around, we’ve got a special lens for taking ultra slick selfies, and 2 terabytes of secure cloud storage for life. On top of that, there’s a powerful VPN subscription, and a special podium stand for your iPhone. Plus, everything’s discounted more than 60 percent. Read on for more details:

Rock out while you conquer your inbox [Week’s Best Deals]

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Get a grip on your inbox, hard drive, and more with this week's best deals.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

As the weather warms up, we’re still rounding up the hottest new deals at the Cult of Mac Store. This go-round, we’ve got a set of future-ready wireless earbuds, a swiss army knife for iOS data, a full terabyte of super secure cloud storage, and a tool that’ll help you finally reach the bottom of your inbox. Best of all, everything is discounted by more than 60 percent. Read on for more details:

Top venture capitalist says Apple should be focused on AI

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Prepare for the Woz-pocalypse
The Apple execs of the future?
Photo: TriStar Pictures

Rightly or wrongly, Apple’s stock taking a prolonged plunge has opened the floodgates for people to hold court about what it is that Apple’s apparently doing wrong — and how the company can be righted again.

Today it was the turn of venture capitalist Fred Wilson, founder and managing partner of Union Square Ventures. His answer: that Apple is failing to invest enough in artificial intelligence and cloud cloud computing.

Apple adds Box veteran to boost enterprise efforts

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Kate Appleton will be in charge of getting more businesses to use iPhones and Macs.
Photo: BlackBerry

Apple’s push to become a great company for large companies as well as consumers is getting a big boost this week with the hiring of former Box employee Karen Appleton who has joined the company in an enterprise-focused role.

Appleton revealed last week that she was leaving Box after working with the company since 2007 as employee number 8, but she hasn’t said what exactly she will be doing for Apple.

Pump up your resume with these top-flight certifications [Deals]

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Arm yourself for the CompTIA-IT certification test with this bundle of 6 courses, clocking in at over 42 hours.
Arm yourself for the CompTIA-IT certification test with this bundle of 6 courses, clocking in at over 42 hours.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

In an age of increasing specialization, stepping up a career means showing certification. That’s especially true in the realm of information technology, and the CompTIA certification is one of the most widely recognized in the business. This CompTIA A+ test prep bundle and will make sure you’re ready to knock it out of the park. Normally going for thousands of dollars, right now you can get access to it for just $59.

A year of unlimited access to Backblaze — killer of cloud storage [Deals]

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Backblaze offers safe, fast backup across their massive server infrastructure at unbeatable prices.
Backblaze offers safe, fast backup across their massive server infrastructure at unbeatable prices.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Backblaze launched in 2007, accruing hard drives and building out a backup capacity of what amounts to some 150 petabytes of data on its servers. They’ve since become one of the most trusted providers of backup, with prices that beat out even Amazon’s impressively prices S3 service. How much cheaper? Right now you can get a year of unlimited backup on Backblaze for $24.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

End storage nightmares by creating your own cloud

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The Helixee is a hard drive that, with an app, can give you cloud-like functions for storage and access from any device.
The Helixee is a hard drive that, with an app, can give you cloud-like functions for storage and access from any device.
Photo: novathings

One click and your digital life gets stored in the Cloud. Where or what that is exactly is a mystery to most of us. Two startup companies are producing products aimed at the segment of the computing population that doesn’t want to save pictures, videos and documents to large cloud-based servers.

These products let you create your own cloud to store the personal stuff.

MiMedia wants to simplify cloud storage

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MiMedia is a cloud-based storage service that keeps the storage space on your device from filling up.
MiMedia is a cloud-based storage service that keeps the storage space on your device from filling up.
Photo: MiMedia/iTunes

The cloud is a pleasant yet mysterious name for that place our pictures, videos, emails and other digital bits of life go to be stored. With our vibrant lives taking up all the storage on our devices, we are slowly warming to cloud-based services that promise to keep our stuff safe and accessible.

A company called MiMedia has designed a cloud service it hopes allays reluctance with a clean user interface, quick uploading and easy, private sharing. Best of all, it can immediately free up storage space on your phone.

App lets you keep shooting photos when your iPhone is full

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Avoid this message with the IceCream app, which quickly helps free your storage to continue shooting photos.
Avoid this message with the IceCream app, which quickly helps free your storage to continue shooting photos.
Photo: IceCream

You’ve got the perfect photo lined in your sites and so you push the button on your iPhone camera. Instead of a memory etched in pixels, you get a message saying “Cannot take photo. There’s not enough storage.”

An iOS app called IceCream lets you quickly free up space without deleting photos, instead saving them to a secure cloud server with the tap of a button.