News - page 6

Panasonic’s new Lumix DMC-FZ70 flaunts a nonsensical 60x optical zoom range, completely unaided through the use of Viagra.

UpTo might be the best social calendar app ever made. I’ve never really seen anything like it; so if it isn’t the best (or really the only) social calendar app around, whatever else is out there must be perfect — because UpTo is pretty damn fantastic.

The whole point of UpTo is to create a social experience around calendars, in a way that’s at once instantly recognizable and ridiculously simple to use.

Social weather iPhone app Weathermob has just seen a big, fat update, which Weathermob‘s PR people describe as “a deeper, more delightful and safer understanding of weather.”

With new activity-based (surfing, hiking, golfing, gardening) channels and additional detail added to the realtime weather trends aggregated from its users, this is social weather, and unlike anything else available at the app store.

It’s not exactly the belle of the ball, and its name is in serious need of some marketing help; but the LifeTrak Move C300 activity tracker makes up for its lack of charm with some powerful bonus features, like waterproofness (to 90 feet!) and the ability to also measure heart rate.

On top of all that, the device’s energy requirements are so low that its coin-sized, non-rechargeable battery will last a year.

Remain calm. Your laptop is not about to bellow wildly and charge while you bolt frantically down a narrow, cobblestoned street with a red scarf around your neck.

No, you’re actually looking at the Amped Wireless ACA1, the first Mac-compatible gizmo to generate a turbocharged 802.11ac wifi signal (it also works with PCs, but who cares).

The words “fun” and “email” probably don’t belong together. But of the small handful of email apps available for the iPad, Birdseye is certainly the most fun. It’s also the most dynamic, with some cool tricks that should come standard with the stock iPad Mail app.

TeamViewer has been around at the App Store since 2010, when its first iOS app allowed users to remotely pilot a PC or Mac.

Now TeamViewer has pulled a pulled a 180; the company’s latest trick allows any Mac or PC user to remotely peer into an iPhone, iPad or an Android device equipped with their new TeamViewer QuickSupport iOS and Android apps.

ForeverMap 2 is one of those great apps that should be a no-brainer download for any even moderately frequent map user. Unlike either the standard iOS Maps app or the Google Maps app, ForeverMap 2 can download and store custom maps on your device — allowing you to use the map and accompanying navigation features even without a wifi or data connection.

Today, ForeverMap 2 has been updated with behind-the-curtain improvements to make it much faster, and it now also includes guide information from Wikitravel. It can even route bicycle trips. Best of all, Skobbler has dropped the price from $3 to free till the end of the day.

Mailbox, the miracle mashup of mail and to-do lists, has just seen the first fruit of its Dropbox ownership – Dropbox Attachments. Thought the release notes don’t make a big deal of this at all – they read “Dropbox attachments integration,” and there’s not even a new screenshot to show it – it’s actually a pretty great new feature.

Sennheiser must have thought what I thought: That their amazing-sounding Momentum headphones perhaps appeared a tad too Teutonically severe (in the case of the red-and-black version) or stuffy (in the case of the brown version) to appeal to everyone (read: women).

So the Germanic, family-run company gave the Momentum a big fashion makeover, dressing them up in three soft pastels — pink, blue, green — with a fourth in a chic ivory-earthy combo.

Important new features have popped up in Tumblr’s iOS app, just a month and a half after the blog-platform powerhouse was snapped up by Yahoo.

Today sees the release of the Mac version of Civilization V’s Brave New World, the original title’s second expansion pack, following last year’s Gods and Kings expansion.

And it’s being released right alongside its PC version twin, also released today — which means multiplayer is gleefully cross-platform.

By now you’ve probably caught wind of the short list of great apps that’ve gone free in celebration of the App Store’s fifth anniversary (if you haven’t grabbed these apps yet, take a look now before all the free ends).

Missing from that list of free apps is Localscope, a fantastic navigation and discovery tool that Apple called the best navigation app of 2011.

Nothing screams “summer!” like a bag full of beer and ice. The messenger-bag gurus at Timbuk2 know this, and have re-clad and re-released their stealthy party-in-a-bag bag, the Dolores Chiller Messenger — this time in Pilsner Urquell’s signature green and white colors.

You may be asking “can’t I just dump all the stuff out of my own messenger bag and fill it with beer and ice?” Why no, you can’t. Your bag’s interior isn’t insulated; and more importantly, your bag doesn’t come with a handy bottle opener.

I know — if you see another @&#%$ post about a smartphone watch, you’re going to run screaming though the streets tearing out your hair. But bear with me, because this one’s different — and it’s got more tech packed into it than an entire region of Best Buys.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown, inarguably the best turn-based, squad-level strategy game on the Mac, is now available from the Steam store — with some big differences from its Mac Store sibling.

What do Woz and Stephen Fry have in common, besides a fascination with technology and love of all things Apple? The answer: They’ve both been using (and plugging) a free iPhone app from Ireland called Soundwave Music Discovery that lets you see — in some rather novel ways — what other people are listening to. In a way, it’s sort of like Twitter for music.

Remember Pixa? You should, because it’s awesome. Pixa was my pick, sir[1], to replace iPhoto on your Mac with a non-sluggish, non-horrible photo organizing app. And now it has added extensions for popular Online Web Browsers Safari and Chrome.

Quick quiz – How do you hold your iPhone when you’re taking video? And when you’re shooting photos? If your answer is “Uhhhh…. Depends? I don’t know…” then you are just like me. I never quite know which way up it is, or whether my finger is on the shutter release (volume switch), or whether the app I’m using even lets me use the volume switch to take a picture (cough Instagram cough).

The ShoulderPod is designed to fix that, adding a stand and a fat grip to the iPhone.

Capsule is another “save your place” app, where by “place” I mean “actual location” and not your current page in a book. This one has a beautiful UI and ties in with Foursquare’s database to let you search and pinpoint locations quickly.

You just know Al Gore is going to order up three of these bad boys and hook them up to his new trashcan Mac Pro – just for checking the weather reports (spoiler – getting warmer). And the good news is that you can too: these 31.5-inch 4K displays from Asus are now available for pre-order at the low, low (?) price of $3,500. A shame. If Asus had added another $500 to the price my headline could have been “4K Monitor For $4K.”

After last week’s Mac update, Skitch for iOS has gotten the same neat new features. Now you can use the new arrows, add white space around pictures for clearer notes, and enjoy the new smallness of smaller shapes.

TeeVee 2 is a great iPhone app that tells you when your favorite TV shows are airing. I’ve tried a bunch of these apps in the past, and TeeVee wins out for a couple of reasons – it’s fast, it’s simple and it looks gorgeous.

You can read about the full spec rundown of the new Canon 70D SLR elsewhere (DP Review is a good bet). Here we’ll just take a look at the big (and it is big) new feature – the fancy video-friendly autofocus.

Pure is an iPhone Flickr app which looks ready for iOS 7 already. As the name suggests, there’s a focus on plain and simple design, and the lack of button-shaped buttons makes even the cleanly-designed official Flickr app look cluttered. However, you mightn’t be switching to Pure just yet, as it lacks a fair bit of basic functionality.