…what if you never got into sci-fi in the first place? Where would you start?
Since its inception, speculative fiction has worked as social commentary, satire, and a creative answer to the question “What if?” Here are my personal picks to get you started.
If you or anyone you know would like to get into SciFi, you won’t go too far wrong with this
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Crowdsourced review service Yelp has come under attack again over reports of business owners complaints that reviews are "too self-centered and not trustworthy" and that the company hides reviews to its own benefit. A blog post by Yelp's Vice President of Communications Vince Sollitto refutes the claims which have been reported to the media, and hopes to clear up the service's reputation.... ...
| Read more »At the CTIA conference on Wednesday, mobile device case maker OtterBox announced that it has purchased TreeFrog Developments Inc., DBA LifeProof, known commercially as "LifeProof," for an undisclosed sum and has officially dropped allegations of patent infringement against the company. ...
| Read more »Microsoft is airing a new TV ad for Windows 8 tablets targeting their main competition, the Apple iPad. The spot points out that the iPad is missing equivalents to Windows 8 features like Live Tiles and true multitasking, and that at $449, a 64GB ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet is far cheaper than a comparable 64GB iPad, which is $699. Narrating everything is a Siri-like voice trying to defend Apple.... ...
| Read more »Google has announced plans to start deprecating most download options for projects hosted on Google Code. Beginning today, both existing and new projects without any downloads will lose the ability to create them. Existing projects that do have downloads will no longer be able to create additional ones as of January 15th. "All existing downloads in these projects will continue to be accessible for the foreseeable future," Google adds.... ...
| Read more »We're still a few years away from the self-opening home front door of the Jetsons. But that's okay -- we're making progress. A few weeks ago we told you about Unikey and Kwikset's Kevo, a keyless entry system for your own front door. Now the fine folks at Engadget have had a chance to work with the system hands on, and they seem to be impressed.
The system uses the iPhone's Bluetooth LE to connect with the smartlock. Simply walk up to your front door with your phone in your pocket, tap the lock, and turn the knob. Users and security are handled via iPhone and desktop apps that allow you to share keys with family and friends as administrative, normal or scheduled users.
Having someone house sit for you? Register their iPhone with the house for the week and never worry...
| Read more »Twitter has released a new version of its free Mac client, v2.2.1. While mostly a maintenance update, it also adds OS X Notification Center integration, pushing alerts whenever a mention or direct message is received. Some of the update's fixes solve broken Growl notifications, the account switcher going missing in the composer window, and a bug that prevented un-favoriting tweets.... ...
| Read more »Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer testified before a U.S. Senate committee on the company's tax practices and the need for tax law reform. Jeff and Bryan dive into that and take a look at Samsung's delusions of relevance in the smartphone market at Google's expense.
A recently aired Microsoft ad pits a tablet running the company's Windows 8 against the iPad, with the spot featuring an unlikely narrator: Apple's Siri virtual assistant. ...
| Read more »In what seems to be a response directed at rumors saying upcoming smartphones, including Apple's iPhone, will switch from Gorilla Glass to sapphire as a cover material, Corning put its latest generation product to the test in a bid to show the material is comparatively superior. ...
| Read more »Microsoft’s latest television commercial for Windows 8 tablets uses a Siri voice-over to mock the iPad’s pricing and capabilities. The ad appears to frame Windows 8 tablets as more capable for productivity and more valuable for the price (via The Verge). Microsoft’s ad is in similar style to Apple’s late 2012 advertisement to introduce the iPad mini. Apple’s ad below:
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| Read more »With Google Reader fading into the sunset in July more and more users are looking to replace its functionality. Zite for iOS (free) has some solutions that should please many news hounds. The app was originally born out of a desire to replace Google Reader with something that learned your interests and had a more compelling display. In a new release, released today, Zite is trying to go further to embrace what's good in Google Reader and add some bells and whistles.
First, Zite has increased the prominence of sources. Those sources now appear in a topic drawer after you mark an article that you like. Another welcome feature is that articles grey out ofter you read them. One of the best additions is the ability to highlight sources that are obscure. Google Reader always had a bit of a signal to noise problem because...
| Read more »A longtime industry watcher moves to Cupertino, Steve Jobs’s email to James Murdoch is marked as read, and Tim Cook dodges an inane “rumor.” The remainders for Wednesday, May 22, 2013 are live, in the flesh.
Longtime Tech Industry Analyst Michael Gartenberg Joins Apple (Forbes)
Occasional Macworld contributor Michael Gartenberg—who has served as an analyst at Gartner, Jupiter Research, Altimeter Group, and Interpret, in addition to a brief stint at Microsoft—has joined Apple in a role that reports to Apple senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller. Let the iBagel rumors begin!
Here’s That Steve Jobs ebook Email to James...
| Read more »I wonder what all those people that heckled Apple Maps will say when they see this.
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An an unusual show of solidarity, leaders of the US Congress intellectual property and antitrust subcommittees submitted a letter to the US International Trade Commission (ITC) reiterating the prior request that "the Commission carefully assess the substantial public interest considerations that exist with regards to this and other cases at the ITC in which SEPs are at issue."... ...
| Read more »OtterBox, a pioneer in smartphone case technology based in Ft. Collins, Colorado, today got a little bit larger. The company acquired LifeProof, a company that builds a line of waterproof cases that provide superior protection without adding a lot of bulk or weight to devices.
OtterBox will begin incorporating the LifeProof line into its own line of cases over the next month, and it appears that both companies will retain existing employees for the time being. OtterBox has about 650 employees worldwide, while LifeProof has about 250 in its San Diego office.
It will be interesting to watch this acquisition unfold. Could this be the start of consolidation of accessory manufacturers in the booming Apple market? We'll keep an eye out for other rumor or takeover talk.
Show full PR text
FORT COLLINS, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OtterBox(R), the global leader in protection for handheld...
| Read more »Apple is yet again pursuing patent infringement claims against Samsung (and Samsung is counter-suing Apple too). The pair's newest patent battle is happening in the US District Court of Northern California and it's a similar lawsuit to the infringement case heard last year that resulted in a $1.05 billion verdict in favor of Apple. However, this time around Apple and Samsung are pursuing claims against the latest generation of products.
Last week, Apple added a footnote to a filing, saying it hoped to include Samsung's Galaxy S4 in its infringement suit. Now, the company has ...
We recently asked if Apple's ongoing legal battles with Samsung were worth the effort for the computer giant. As if to answer our question, this week Apple amended their infringement claims with a new motion filed in the second California patent case targeting five patents that the Galaxy S4 infringes on. But the motion contained a new component; the targeting of Google Now's search app.
Foss Patents has a thorough run down of Apple's claims, including the specific five patents Apple says Samsung is in violation of. The main point of contention that the Android Quick Search Box and Google Now infringe upon several of their patients covering their own voice search program Siri.
In a footnote found in their motion Apple sums up their claim thusly:
Apple determined that...
| Read more »An anonymous reader writes "The open-source Intel Linux graphics driver has hit a milestone of now being faster than Apple's own OpenGL stack on OS X. The Intel Linux driver on Ubuntu 13.04 is now clearly faster than Apple's internally-developed Intel OpenGL driver on OS X 10.8.3. when benchmarked from a 'Sandy Bridge' class Mac Mini. Only some months ago, Apple's GL driver was still trouncing the Intel Linux Mesa driver." ...
| Read more »I don’t think being the perfect device for stalkers is what Samsung was going for, but who knows.
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While remodeling his newly purchased home in Elbow Lake, Minn., David Gonzalez noticed something unusual amid the old newspapers that had been used as wall insulation.
It was a copy of Action Comics No. 1 from 1938, the very first comic to feature the granddaddy of all superheroes, Superman.
I’m going to rip apart my house.
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‘iWatch’ Concept (many more here)
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has provided seemingly accurate information about previous Apple hardware releases (timing non-withstanding), claims that Apple’s much-rumored wearable wrist device will not arrive until late 2014. The analyst pinpoints production to begin sometime in the second half of the year:
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Apple may not have adequate resources to develop...
| Read more »At an event today at this week's CTIA conference, major casemaker OtterBox announced the acquisition of one of its chief rivals, LifeProof. The former says it will keep LifeProof's San Diego location, and that workers will remain in their current place. "Over the next 30 days, OtterBox will begin incorporating the LifeProof brand into the OtterBox family," an OtterBox statement reads. "More information about product availability and alignment will be determined at the completion of the integration."... ...
| Read more »From 9to5Toys.com:
A large majority of the deals we cover each day come from a variety of ‘Daily Deal’ websites that feature a couple exceptional deals for just 24 hours. We know you can’t be at your computer every second of the day, so we’re going to roundup the best daily deals to make sure you have a fair shot at the deals you want.
Be sure to follow Follow 9to5Toys so you never miss a deal... Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook
Today’s Featured deals:
Otterbox announced today that it has acquired fellow case maker LifeProof, one of its main competitors in the protective case market. “This is a big strategic move for us,” Otterbox CEO Brian Thomas said. He said the LifeProof name will remain part of the brand. Thomas cited the…
| Read more »A new study from BookNet Canada notes that the ebook market may be in trouble. Paperback books, says BookNet, made up 58% of all purchases last year, with hardcover taking 24%. But ebooks were only 15% of total sales last year, a figure that's down overall from 2012's first quarter, where they made up 17.6%. In other words, ebooks are selling, but they're hardly taking over the market.
Now, those numbers reflect sales in Canada. In the US, ebooks make up 22% of the market, so the numbers are higher here. But still, given how ubiquitous ebooks now are, it's surprising to not see them taking more of the market. BookNet says buyers cite the convenience of shopping for other items at the same time and pricing as two reasons they're still looking for books in brick-and-mortar stores rather than online.
Finally, Apple's iPad only made its way up to number three on the list of the most popular ebook readers in Canada....
| Read more »KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has on a number of occasions offered accurate information about Apple's product plans, issued a new research report this week outlining his expectations for Apple's rumored smart watch device, informally dubbed "iWatch". Despite some expectations that the device could launch later this year, Kuo believes that both hardware and software issues will result in the iWatch making its debut in the second half of 2014.Apple may not have adequate resources to develop an iWatch version of iOS because it may require big changes to iPhone and iPad iOS this year. In addition, wearable device components aren’t mature. For these reasons, we think mass production of the iWatch is more likely to begin in 2H14, not 2H13 as the market speculates.Sony SmartWatch (left) and Pebble e-paper watch (right) On the hardware front, Kuo projects that the iWatch will use a 1.5-2.0 inch display and unsurprisingly believes that Apple will draw on the iPod nano when it...
| Read more »Noted KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes Apple's much-rumored iWatch will hit store shelves late next year, not in 2013 as many market watchers expect, with a 1.5- to 2-inch screen, focus on biometrics and deep integration with existing iOS devices. ...
| Read more »Nearly a year after Apple introduced its own Maps service in iOS 6 with Flyover 3D satellite views, Google is expanding its own online Maps to support similar 3D satellite imagery, with the same sorts of buckled roads and visual distortions Apple was castigated for last summer. ...
| Read more »Realmac Software is on the brink of launching its fun new camera app Analog Camera for iPhone, but it has one more major task to mark off its list before we all get our hands on it. With its latest update to Clear, that item can now be swiped right off the list.
Clear on the iPhone and...
Today on TUAW TV Live, cohost Shawn "Doc Rock" Boyd and I will be conversing about a number of topics. Yesterday saw Apple CEO Tim Cook being grilled by a Senate committee about corporate taxes and at the same time passing along a hint that a "refreshed Mac line" will be manufactured in the Great State of Texas, so both of those are worthy of banter. There are also some new products that have made it to the TUAW Labs in recent days, so we'll have some quick unboxings for your viewing pleasure.
To view the livestream and join the chat, visit the TUAW TV Live page here. Be sure to bookmark that page on your browser for future TUAW TV events. Past episodes can be found on our YouTube channel, and today's show will also appear on this page within 24 hours....
| Read more »Former Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg has been hired onto Apple's marketing staff, Forbes sources say. Exactly which position he's filling is unknown, but he's expected to work under Apple's head of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller. Gartenberg is well-known amongst analysts; aside from employment at Gartner, he was once an analyst and partner at the Altimeter Group, and a research director at Jupiter Research.... ...
| Read more »Otterbox and LifeProof executives announcing the deal at CTIA
At CTIA, notable case maker Otterbox announced that it has closed an acquisition deal for competing iPhone case maker LifeProof. Both companies offer similar cases with a focus on durability.
During a question and answer session, executives from both companies revealed that the deal was 120 days in the making.While LifeProof will be embedded into Otterbox, the companies shared that the LifeProof branding is well-known and will be...
In a post to its Chrome blog on Wednesday, Google announced plans to bring intuitive voice searches directly into the Chrome Web browser for iOS. ...
| Read more »In case you needed some proof that the rumors of Apple switching from Corning glass to sapphire crystal are unlikely, Corning has posted a video on its website showing how its current Gorilla Glass is superior to sapphire for mobile devices.
Recently, speculation has arisen that manufactured sapphire crystal might become an alternative to Corning’s Gorilla Glass. “Sapphire’s performance as a cover for high-end watches probably leads to the current speculation. But those covers are much smaller than a mobile phone and are two to three times thicker than Gorilla Glass. In one of our commonly accepted strength tests, sapphire breaks more easily than Gorilla Glass after the same simulated use. Additionally, sapphire’s cost and environmental hit are huge issues,” Steiner said.
There have been a couple rumors floating around that smartphone makers are...
There are a couple of Warhammer-related titles on their way to iOS soon, but this is the most interesting yet. Developer Slitherine has revealed that it's working on a title called Warhammer 40K: Armageddon, a turn-based, hex-tiled strategy game coming to PC and iOS next year. The game will set Space Marines against Orks across 35 different scenarios, and feature over 100 units with upgradeable stats and attributes, along with a modding system and a separate set of maps balanced out for multiplayer.
Armageddon joins a number of other Warhammer games in progress, including Warhammer Quest and the upcoming Space Hulk adaptation. This is an extremely popular game franchise, and iOS is quickly becoming the home of choice for its games....
| Read more »Apple released three updates for its Windows products on Tuesday. The company released iTunes 11.0.3 for Windows and Windows 64, as well as QuickTime 7.7.4 for Windows. The iTunes update brings the new MiniPlayer features released for Mac last week, while the QuickTime update includes security patches.
AnandTech has posted a preliminary analysis of the Xbox One’s hardware and compared it to the PS4.
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Following Apple's testimony before the US Senate, Ireland's finance minister Michael Noonan declared that neither he nor his country would be the "whipping boy" for US tax loopholes. The US-led investigation demonstrated that Apple had paid two percent of $74 billion in international income, assisted by Irish tax law -- in particular, one holding company including Apple's retail effort throughout Europe had paid zero tax in five years.... ...
| Read more »It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked selections that include some sweet deals on iOS and OS X software (all prices are USD).
Deals from Dealnews
Pandora Radio is the granddaddy of streaming music apps, and for years now, the company's iPhone app has been one of the most popular ways to use and interact with the service. Just today, the app has nabbed a big update, bringing it to version 4.3. The new update adds a redesigned interface, which lets you tap an album to see lyrics, artist info, or other notes. You can also publish information directly to Facebook and share recommendations with your friends.
The update has been able to share tracks to Twitter and email for a while now, so the Facebook integration just adds to the functionality. The Pandora app itself is free, and you can subscribe to a premium service, called Pandora One, from directly inside the app.Pandora...
| Read more »Following Apple's adoption of sapphire crystal as a strong and durable covering for the rear cameras on the iPhone 5 and fifth-generation iPod touch late last year, rumors of expanded uses for the material have gained some traction. Back in March, we covered a report suggesting that sapphire could see wider adoption as coverings for displays on mobile devices, and just last week a sketchy rumor claimed that Apple is planning to use a sapphire-covered capacitive home button with integrated fingerprint sensor for the iPhone 5S. Amid these discussions of the potential of sapphire, Corning has published a feature outlining why its latest Gorilla Glass 3 is in fact...
| Read more »A voice search option is being added to the iOS version of Chrome in "the coming days," according to Google. Users will just have to tap a microphone icon and ask the same sort of queries Google supports in Android and the iOS Google Search app. The change should in fact reduce the need to use Search, although that app is still iOS' gateway to Now and various other Google services.... ...
| Read more »German users have noticed one other change from the Apple Store downtime last night, and that is that Apple will now accept Paypal payments their Apple.com store. You could previously use Paypal as a payment service on the iTunes and Mac App Stores, but you can't (in most places) on the official Apple website. The German store, however, has now implemented Paypal. So German users can now use that extra eBay money to pick up a new accessory or charger cable.
Odds are that this is a pilot program over there, and it will likely make its way out to the rest of the world very soon. I just checked, and unfortunately this option isn't yet available on the American Apple.com store. But if German users can use their Paypal accounts to buy Apple products, there's no reason why the rest...
| Read more »Penguin Group today agreed to a $75 million settlement deal with the US State Attorneys General and a group of private plaintiffs. The settlement stems from allegations that Penguin, along with four other publishing houses, colluded with Apple to raise the price of e-books on Apple's iBookstore.
Attorney General George Jepsen today announced that Penguin Group (USA) Inc. has entered into a settlement agreement to resolve claims asserted by Connecticut and 32 other states and territories in a lawsuit alleging price-fixing and collusion in the market for electronic books, or eBooks.
Since allegations of price fixing were first levied in April of 2012, all five of the accused publishing houses have reached settlement agreements with the government, cumulatively agreeing to pay $164 million in damages to affected consumers nationwide.
"Consumers are entitled to a fair, open and competitive...
| Read more »Learn about the security content of QuickTime 7.7.4.
| Read more »Veteran tech analyst Michael Gartenberg is jumping the fence to work for a company he has spent decades covering during stints at Gartner, Altimeter and Jupiter Research. Forbes reports, and AllThingsD has independently confirmed, that Gartenberg has recently taken a job at Apple. Details on his role at the company are slim, though sources say he’ll be working for Apple’s marketing group, a division overseen by SVP Phil Schiller.
| Read more »Scanner Pro, which lets users scan documents, receipts, and more using their iPhone or iPad, recieved a big update to version 4.5 this week. The update enables live border detection, which allows the app to intelligently find the edges of whatever is being scanned while you photograph it.
In our testing, the border detection was very accurate, although it did have a bit of trouble when the paper and the background where different shades of the same color. The app does still allow you to manually edit the borders to fit the document perfectly, just in case there is a detection error, so any small problems are easy to correct.
The app itself is well-designed and features a solid storage solution for your documents. Multi-page scans are...
Autodesk has announced that its first major update for Smoke 2013, Extension 1, will go live on May 29th. The update adds two main features, beginning with support for Blackmagic video IO devices including the DeckLink, UltraStudio, and Intensity lines. The other is a new Trim View, accompanied by a set of dynamic trimming tools which should allow for faster editing.... ...
| Read more »Cody Brown writing on how the New York Times sent him a cease and desist for showing how to replicate “Snow Fall” and then demanded he not even mention their name on his site.
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It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.
You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.
No Flash? Click here to listen.
Subscribe via RSSDaily Update for May 22, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 May 2013 14:45:00 EST. Please see our...
| Read more »Publisher Penguin and parent company Pearson have proposed a settlement with 33 US State Attorneys General and other plaintiffs for $75 million to resolve its lawsuit accusing it of price fixing in conjunction with Apple and the iBookstore. If accepted by the judge, the settlement resolves all antitrust complaints against Penguin related to the suit on the state level.... ...
| Read more »Google announced today on its Chrome blog that a new update will soon be rolling out to its Chrome app for iPhone and iPad that will allow users to access voice search features previously limited to the Google Search app. Using the same omnibox currently included in the app, Google will soon allow users to tap a microphone icon to search using only their voice with a UI similar to the recently redesigned voice search on Mac.
Google said the updated Chrome app should be landing on the App Store in the coming days.
Google also noted that the updated iOS app would provide faster reloading of web pages and an option for third-party apps “to open links in Chrome and then return to the app with just one tap.”
Earlier today Google...
Just when you think we got rid of the RIM co-CEOs, Mike Lazaridis comes back.
BlackBerry (BBRY) founder Mike Lazaridis said he’s confident that users of iPhones and other devices will embrace the company’s BlackBerry Messenger platform, which will be offered on rival phones later this year.
“BBM is by far the most compelling wireless experience and wireless social-networking environment,” Lazaridis, who stepped down as co-chief executive officer in early 2012, said yesterday at the Bloomberg Canada Economic Summit in Toronto.
GO AWAY!
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Apple informed the court last week that it intended to amend its infringement contentions in the second California patent litigation with Samsung to target the latest Galaxy S4. Yesterday, Apple followed through on their intentions and filed its motion against Samsung Electronics (Korea), Samsung Electronics (America) and Samsung Telecommunications America with the court in San Jose California. Apple's motion lists a series of specific patents allegedly infringed by Samsung's S4 as well as ...
| Read more »Ireland is in the spotlight following the U.S. Senate's investigation of Apple's alleged tax avoidance, and the low-tax nation is now calling for an international crackdown on tax dodging by multinational corporations. ...
| Read more »This week's roundup of iOS accessories features not one, but two ways to elegantly convert your iPad into a cash register. But the iPad and iPhone aren't all business, as there's fun to be had, too!
| Read more »On May 19, 2001, the first two Apple retail store opened up for business. One was located in McLean, Virginia while the other was situated in Glendale, California. At the time, there were no shortage of critics who expressed serious doubt as to Apple's effort to get into the retail business.
12 years later, Apple's line of retail stores play an instrumental role in Apple's overall sales, and more importantly, give consumers a chance to actually use Apple products in a fun and inviting environment. It may sound absurd to anyone born after 1986, but I distinctly remember a time when the only place I could test out and potentially purchase a Mac was at a local OfficeMax -- unless, of course, I wanted to mosey on down to a shady corner electronics store that somehow managed to become an authorized Apple reseller.
In short, Apple's retail stores enabled the company to put its products out in front of consumers on its own terms. Today, Apple stores, given their ubiquitous...
| Read more »Neil Hughes:
Despite growing competition from other tablets, Apple’s iPad still accounts for a whopping 89.28 percent of e-commerce website traffic, and also rakes in more money on a per-user basis than any other platform.
Where the hell are all these Samsung tablets I keep hearing about?
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For all those conflicted souls who say the iPhone is a piece of art that should not be covered by a case, but who wish they could really protect their gear, the AL13 aluminum bumper will allow them to have their cake and eat it too.
Michael Gartenberg, a longtime industry analyst who most recently covered technology for Gartner, has taken a job on Apple's marketing team working under executive Phil Schiller. ...
| Read more »A German Mac enthusiast site has noticed that the Apple online store in Germany is now accepting PayPal as a payment option, a new wrinkle that could appear in the US and other countries over time. While PayPal has been an option for payment in the iTunes App Store and the Mac App Store, it was never previously available for any kind of hardware or online retail purchase from Apple.... ...
| Read more »A German Mac enthusiast site has noticed that the Apple online store in Germany is now accepting PayPal as a payment option, a new wrinkle that could appear in the US and other countries over time. While PayPal has been an option for payment in the iTunes App Store and the Mac App Store, it was never previously available for any kind of hardware or online retail purchase from Apple.... ...
| Read more »Twitter for Mac is continuously receiving updates and today it received a highly requested feature: Notification Center integration. Users can configure the setting in the preference window within the app.
OS X already offered Twitter integration, but notifications deferred to the web rather than its native client. It was less than a month ago when the app received its first update in countless months, and today’s update demonstrates Twitter’s dedication to its continued development.
Twitter 2.2.1 is now available in the...
The Omni Group has released OmniPresence, a new way for users to sync documents. This completes the effort to bring full synchronization to each of the Omni Group’s five applications.
OmniPresence syncs everything within a folder between many devices using a standard web server. Because of the way OmniPresence was designed, customers also have the advantage of being able to keep all data under their own control, says says Ken Case, CEO of the Omni Group. This is sometimes a necessity for confidential data within companies, he adds.
read more
Twitter joins a growing club of sites that let you reduce the chance of a hijacked login with two-factor authentication. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.
| Read more »That is very impressive.
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Google's Chrome browser for OS X has had the ability to do voice search for about two years now, but the latest version of Chrome appears to bring something a bit more Siri-like to the mix. Now, when you ask Google certain questions about the weather, sports scores, stock prices, directions, and calculations, you get a spoken answer.
The latest version is 27.0.1453.93, which you can update to by selecting About Chrome from the Chrome menu, and approving any updates or restarting the browser if prompted. Once Chrome is up, head on over to the google.com search page and you'll see the familiar microphone in the search field (note that the mic does not appear in the Chrome "omnibar"). Click the mic, respond to any requests to let Chrome have access to your mic and video camera, and then start asking questions.
The result is not quite the conversational search that was touted during the Google I/O...
| Read more »Simply put. iPad 2 is the best gadget I have ever used. Welcome to the post-PC era.— Michael Gartenberg (@Gartenberg) March 10, 2011
I may abandon my quest for a proper CA home, just buy a really good car and park in other people’s driveways at night— Michael Gartenberg (@Gartenberg) May 22, 2013
According to Forbes, long time technology analyst Michael Gartenberg has joined Apple. According to the report he is now officially working under the marketing team led by Phil Schiller. Gartenberg has always been Apple-focused/leaning in his coverage and a...
Prosoft Engineering's Data Rescue 3 has been named "The Best Mac Hard Drive Recovery Software" by the review site TopTenReviews. It was rated number one out of the other seven recovery programs.
Data Rescue 3 scored a perfect 10, meeting all the criteria in the review at 100%. The utility was launched in 2002 and has continued to be the most-awarded Mac hard drive recovery software on the Mac market.
Data Rescue 3 works even when your hard drive fails to mount or boot. It's available for purchase at www.prosofteng.com for US$99.
He is working on the marketing team under Apple’s global marketing chief Phil Schiller, according to sources.
Michael is one of the good guys. Congrats.
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An iMessage notification sent to Glass
Adam Bell (@b3ll), a well-known developer for many software platforms, has figured out a way to route all notifications from an iOS device through Google Glass. The implementation, even in its early stage, seems to work quite well. Bell notes that all notifications, such as iMessages and Tweets automatically are shown via the Google Glass interface. Video and more details below:
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Video provided to 9to5Mac by Adam Bell
Notably, as also shown in the video, users are able to swipe between old and new notifications via Google Glass. Because opening up iOS Device notifications through Google Glass requires some tweaking of the core of Apple’s mobile operating system, the functionality is currently solely available to those with...
Penguin is a step closer to ending its headaches over ebook price fixing allegations now that the publisher has agreed to a US$75 million settlement with states and consumers. The proposed settlement is part of a deal in a lawsuit that claims the company colluded with other publishers and Apple to artificially raise the price of ebooks.
The Mac Observer Spin:
Spending $75 million to end this civil anti-competition case on top of the settlement Penguin agreed to last year in the DOJ case is a lot of money, which means the publisher was probably facing the prospect of even higher penalties if it lost in court. Ouch.
Apple sent three top executives to Washington, D.C. yesterday to testify in front a congressional hearing on Apple's tax practices. Making the journey from Cupertino were Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, and Phillip Bullock -- Apple's head of Tax Operations.
The hearing went on for a few hours, and as one might expect from such a controversial issue, the lively debate became intense at times. Michigan Senator Carl Levin took an especially tough stance on Apple, calling its tax practices "unacceptable."
Nevertheless, there were moments of levity we can extract from the hearing.
For starters, Senator John McCain, following his pointed questions for Apple's panel about taxation, thought it high time to ask Tim Cook about updating apps on his iPhone.
"What I really wanted to ask," said McCain, "is why the hell do I have to keep updating apps on my iPhone all the time?"
I can't really blame him though. I mean, McCain had to either ask...
| Read more »We already knew back in December that Pearson, along with a handful of other publishers had decided to settle with the U.S. Department of Justice in the high-profile Apple ebook price-fixing case. Today a statement from Peason’s Penguin unit confirms that it has now also reached an agreement that will see the publisher pay $75 million in consumer damages to the US State Attorneys General on behalf of people that were overcharged due to the alleged price fixing:
Penguin...
SteerMouse is an advanced driver for USB and Bluetooth mice. It also supports Apple Mighty Mouse very well. SteerMouse can assign various functions to buttons that Apple's software does not allow, including double-clicks, modifier clicks, application switching, assignment of shortcut keys, "snap to" cursor movement, which moves the cursor to target (such as an OK button), and more. SteerMouse lets you control the cursor's Sensitivity on top of the Tracking Speed. (Apple's software only allows adjustment for the Tracking Speed.) By adjusting both configurations, you can customize the ideal setting for the cursor to fit the movements of your hand.Version 4.1.6: New features:
OS X 10.4.3 or laterDownload Now
| Read more »Following a big update to the Pandora Radio app earlier today, the subscription based Rdio iPhone and iPad app has been updated today with UI improvements, a new “Find People” feature for finding artists and friends to follow, and the ability to search by record label to find artists and albums.
The updates to the app’s UI are most noticeable in a “new, cleaner look for sliding side navigation.” (as pictured to the right)
What’s New in Version 2.2
- Find People. New feature makes following friends and artists easier than ever.
- Labels. Search for a...
WaterField Designs has announced the launch of a new leather wallet that doubles as an iPhone 5 case. Available in two sizes, a compact version for cash and cards and a slightly longer version to fit an iPhone 5, the Finn Leather Wallet is made from a naturally deer-tanned leather. The wallet features self-locking zippers to secure all contents and is offered in six different colors, including black, camel, grey, red, green and brown. Both sizes of the Finn are sold through WaterField's website for $29.... ...
| Read more »The Sun is one of the most important stars in our galaxy. It gives us light, enables the growth of plants, is a source of energy and is the cornerstone of our calendar. To learn more about this spectacular star, you should check out the Sun By Kids Discover app.
The iPad app features interactive 3D models as well as audio and HD video to teach you about the sun. You'll learn the difference between the solstice and the equinox and follow the steps as a star is born. The app is packed full of stunning photos, clever animations and easy-to-read trivia about the Sun. Think you are an expert ? Then test your knowledge using the puzzles, quizzes and games included in the app. There is even an activities section that teaches you how to study the Sun in real life.
The Sun By Kids Discover app is available for...
| Read more »Last week Apple told the U.S. District Court in California that it planned to add the Samsung Galaxy S4 to its patent lawsuit already underway against Samsung. As promised, Apple today filed a motion (via Foss Patents) that details five different patents that the S4 allegedly infringes on. The filing includes two Siri-related patents violated by Google Now, Google's robust voice activated search assistant. Patents '604 and '959 cover a "universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system." The other three...
| Read more »Despite growing competition from other tablets, Apple's iPad still accounts for a whopping 89.28 percent of e-commerce website traffic, and also rakes in more money on a per-user basis than any other platform. ...
| Read more »Om Malik:
HTC was the shining star during the early days of Android. Now it is reeling under the pressure of cheap Androids, a dominant Samsung and a management disarray. It’s a damn shame, as the new HTC One is actually a nice device.
I thought it would do better than it has.
∞ Read this on The Loop
Apple has filed its amendment to its ongoing courtroom battle with Samsung, adding the Galaxy S4 to its list of infringing devices, just as it told the US District Court in California last week. The filing specifically names five patents said to be infringed by the Galaxy S4 itself, two of which are apparently infringed by Google Now.... ...
| Read more »You've heard about the phablets, notably the Samsung Galaxy Note II with a 5.5 inch display, running Android. Unfortunately, not all of the writing about the device, and phablets in general, has been phabulous. Here is an in-depth, no holds barred, technical analysis and detailed review of the Galaxy Note II by John Martellaro. It may not be what you were expecting.
| Read more »In a article that could have been written by Samsung's advertising department, the Sydney Morning Herald has published an article detailing claims from "social researcher" Michael McQueen, who tracks the ever-shifting tastes of the group he calls "Gen-Y" (meaning people who reached their teenage years after 2001). In it, he says that despite wide evidence to the contrary, Apple is "losing its cool" with youth.... ...
| Read more »OmniGroup, the Seattle-based developers of OmniOutliner, OmniGraphSketcher, OmniGraffle, OmniFocus and OmniPlan, has announced that today they are shipping OmniPresence document syncing.
OmniPresence rounds out the automatic syncing solutions that OmniGroup added first to OmniFocus in 2008 and OmniPlan in 2011. OmniGroup CEO Ken Case noted in a May 20 blog post that OmniPresence works well with Mac apps that support OS X Auto Save and Versions. To quote Case, "Using the same underlying document coordination as Versions, OmniPresence lets your app know when a document has been changed on another device, and double-checks to make sure it always syncs a current and complete copy of any documents currently being edited. OmniPresence can't prevent conflicting edits from multiple devices-but when that happens it automatically saves both versions of conflicting edits so that no edits are...
| Read more »LifeProof has introduced its Frē case for iPad mini. As expected from a LifeProof case, Frē for iPad mini is billed as waterproof, dirtproof, snowproof, and shockproof, notably sharing its name with the previously-released Frē for iPhone 5 rather than the Nüüd for iPad. The company says…
| Read more »Syncing is a hot topic these days, with plenty of alternatives and lots of angst over their perceived limitations and shortcomings.
If you happen to be a user of the Omni Group’s apps, like OmniGraffle and OmniFocus, you’ll be happy to know that the company is releasing its own sync solution—aptly dubbed OmniPresence—on Wednesday, bringing yet one more option into the fray.
Easy and powerful
From the user’s point of view, OmniPresence is designed to be simple while still offering a powerful feature set. The core of that is compatibility across both OS X and iOS apps, allowing you to effortlessly sync data back and forth.
On the Mac, OmniPresence runs in the background and resides discreetly in the menu bar, where it can be accessed at any time. Once...
| Read more »It may not seem like all that much changed after last night's Apple Store downtime, but the company actually made a number of design changes that, according to MacStories editor Federico Viticci, bring "a cleaner, more subdued style for graphical elements and larger image-centric spots for products and accessories."
Rolled out just in time to start selling the goods for Father's Day on June 16, the new design does away with the thin sidebars in favor of wider blocks that provide space for larger images of items on sale. Here's the old design:
And here's the new:
The changes are more pronounced on the Accessories page. As an example, the old iPad accessories page wasted space by using a short sidebar on the left side to list different categories. The result was that the entire page was narrower than it needed...
| Read more »Jon Hicks isn’t happy with Adobe’s decision.
∞ Read this on The Loop
Earlier this month we noted that Apple was asking courts to add the Galaxy S4 as an infringing device in its ongoing patent dispute with Samsung in California. Now, Apple has officially filed a motion (via FossPatents) outlining five patents infringed by the Galaxy S4 and another two Siri related patents infringed by the device’s Google Now voice controlled search feature.
Apple had previously claimed that the Android Google search box feature on Samsung devices infringed the same patents, but is now moving to have Google Now included alongside the S4. Excerpt from Apple’s filing below:
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To further complicate matters, Apple’s infringement...
| Read more »Logitech has introduced its Wired Keyboard for iPad ($60), which the company is billing as “[t]he first wired keyboard for iPad specially designed for the classroom.” The keyboard comes in two versions, with either a Lightning or 30-pin connector. It features a spill-resistant design and a promised key lifespan…
| Read more »It has been busy in the App Store with a handful of new apps landing on iOS and OS X. Take a few minutes and check out our list of standout apps from the past few weeks!
iOS Apps
Video Filters [iOS Universal; Category: Photography & Video; US$3.99] Pro HD Video Camera with 100 Fully Customizable, Real-Time Video Filters.
HeartPhys [iPad; Category: Medical; $1.99] Learn physiology through interactive diagrams.
Stria [iOS Universal; Category: Music; $8.99] Multilevel Interactive Sound Synthesizer "Stria" is the title of a very important composition by John Chowning. This computer music piece rapresents the manifest of Frequency Modulation technique applied to audio synthesis, invented by...
| Read more »Prompted by a study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research about perceived sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, columnist Mark Morford of SFGate.com has penned a powerful commentary about why some people may suffer very real symptoms from seeming exposure to radio waves from Wi-Fi gateways and cell phones. He doesn’t dismiss either the severity of these symptoms or the fact that there are innumerable aspects of modern life that have been proven detrimental to human health, but emphasizes that we similarly cannot discount the power of suggestion or conviction. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live...
| Read more »Google and Samsung “innovation” continues.
∞ Read this on The Loop
In most of the world, the asymmetric nature of your average Internet connection means that, unless you are lucky enough to be on a corporate network or fiber reaches your house, sending large files to your friends and colleagues is often an exercise that requires a lot of patience. Most of it is spent waiting for files to upload and dealing with complex workflows that tend to take up more time than they're worth.
This is where the recently-launched Minbox comes into play. Its developers have set their sights on turning file sharing into as frictionless a workflow as possible, while keeping costs down to a rather cool zero dollars.
There is, of course, no shortage of competing products that attempt to reduce the stress of sharing data—Dropbox and ...
| Read more »Large tech firms are coming under scrutiny over their tax avoidance measures, following the testimony of Apple executives to a US Senate Permanent Subcommittee. Google, Yahoo, Cisco, and others have been found to be using an assortment of tax loopholes and off-shoring in order to avoid paying governments in the US and Europe at least $100 billion.... ...
| Read more »Apple has revamped the look of its online store’s homepage, placing a considerably stronger focus on Apple-developed hardware and high-margin accessories. Fewer and generally more expensive items have been given prominent positions on the Store’s main pages, while text and links have been reduced. Notably, the redesign removes front-page…
| Read more »Jeff Gamet, The Mac Observer's Managing Editor joined MacVoices host Chuck Joiner to discuss Apple CEO Tim Cook's testimony in a U.S. Senate hearing on corporate taxes, and accusations that the company has been sheltering revenue to avoid tax payments.
Book publisher Penguin announced on Wednesday it has reached a $75 million "comprehensive agreement" with U.S. State Attorneys General and private class plaintiffs over e-book price fixing allegations connected to Apple and its iBookstore for iOS. ...
| Read more »The Saturday Evening Post, one of America's most iconic magazines, thanks in part to cover artist Norman Rockwell, is finally on Apple's Newsstand. Apparently many people don't know the magazine is still in publication (I didn't, and even the magazine's technology director Steve Harman admits to TechCrunch that many people don't think so either), yet it still has a subscription base of 300,000 annually. And now it's ready to enter the digital age on iOS.
The magazine will keep its general-interest focus while attempting to appeal to younger readers with articles on technology and movies. Considering the magazine's history (publishing some of the best short stories by America's most famous writers) and beautiful artwork, I'd love to see the Post begin selling digitized back issues starting with ones that featured F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories....
| Read more »Microsoft announced its upcoming Xbox One console yesterday.
And threw in some interesting iOS cooperation with it.
Per Mac|Life and Wired, Microsoft’s new gaming console will be “fully integrated” with Xbox’s SmartGlass application, thus allowing users of iPhones and iPads to connect seamlessly with the next generation of Microsoft’s popular console series.
Introduced last year and allegedly downloaded by over 10 million people, SmartGlass currently allows users...
| Read more »You can’t knock an application that’s updated this frequently.
On Wednesday, Google released version 27.0.1453.93 of its Chrome web browser. The update, a 49.8 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- Web pages load 5% faster on average
- Chrome.syncFileSystem API
- Improved ranking of predictions, improved spell correction, and numerous fundamental improvements for Omnibox predictions. Please see the Help Center for more information on our updated policies.
Security fixes:
- [235638] High CVE-2013-2837: Use-after-free in SVG.
- [235311] Medium CVE-2013-2838: Out-of-bounds read in v8.
- [230176] High CVE-2013-2839: Bad cast in clipboard handling.
- [230117] High CVE-2013-2840: Use-after-free in media loader.
- [227350] High CVE-2013-2841: Use-after-free in...
As first spotted by our friends over at German language publication Macerkopf.de, Apple appears to be rolling out an option to make purchases on the Apple Online Store using PayPal. The feature appears to be limited to Germany currently, but it could mark the start of a broader roll out to other users.
Apple has never been opposed to offering the option to use PayPal for some services. Users in the U.S. have long been able to setup PayPal as a payment option for their Apple ID on the desktop, allowing them to purchase iTunes content with PayPal on iTunes & the Mac App Store. It also allows its education customers to use PayPal for volume purchases of iOS apps, but the privilege didn’t extend to making purchases from the online store at Apple.com.
Apple’s help page for payments and tax...
As is traditional for the time of year, Apple has updated its main US homepage to promote items from its store in tune with the upcoming Father's Day holiday. In addition to the iPad and iPad mini, such items as iPhone 5, the Nike+Fuel band, the iGrill meat thermometer, the HipKey proximity alarm, the Nest thermostat and other suggestions are highlighted. The page also features a subtly cleaner and more geometric design.... ...
| Read more »Flickr has announced that all users will now have 1 TB of storage for free. With that much space, surely it would be interesting to figure out how to use Flickr as a cloud drive.
Ricardo Tomasi has done just that with Filr, a command-line tool that turns Flickr into a storage repository. This solution isn't ideal, since it's only available for now from the command line, and has only been tested with certain types of files (images), and only on files of up to 15 MB. But it's worth highlighting, and I'm sure others will come up with better solutions very soon.
| Read more »Apple wants to add the new Galaxy S4 to an ongoing case involving Apple and Samsung being heard in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Division, according to a new filing with that court, reports "Macworld" (http://tinyurl.com/p4fww6e)
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Following a U. S. Senate hearing where lawmakers suggested Apple is sheltering revenue from taxes by using a subsidiary company in Ireland, the country is saying the real issue is that companies are working they system across borders and that international cooperation is needed to make real changes. Ireland's government is right, but some of that change needs to happen in the U.S., and there isn't any guarantee politicians want to take on that fight with corporations.
Samsung's Galaxy S4 infringes on 5 Apple patents, according to a court filing by Apple.
Apple wants to add the new Galaxy S4 to an ongoing case involving Apple and Samsung being heard in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Division, according to a filing with that court on Tuesday.
Samsung's newest flagship smartphone was launched in March and went on sale in the U.S. in late April.
"Apple obtained the Galaxy S4 on April 27 and immediately began its infringement analysis, including Samsungs customizations of the Android Jelly Bean platform, covering the eight asserted patents," Apple stated in the filing, adding that it tested S4's sold by AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. "That analysis revealed that the Galaxy S4 infringes five of Apples asserted patents in the same ways as Samsungs already accused products," it added...
| Read more »Popular as Apple’s iOS mobile platform is, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There’s also Google’s Android—a widely used mobile OS in its own right. Last week, Google held its I/O developers conference in San Francisco. And more than a few announcements coming out of that event should be of interest to iOS device owners—for how it may or may not influence what Apple does with its own mobile platform, if nothing else.
I’m joined by senior editor Dan Moren and senior writer Lex Friedman to talk Google I/O. Specifically, we look at where Android is playing catch-up to iOS and where Apple is lagging behind what Google has to offer. (Here’s a hint: It rhymes with “maps.”) We also briefly discuss subscription music services, like the one Google just unveiled as well as Google CEO Larry Page’s unusual Q&A session.
...
| Read more »Just as Apple appears to be readying its music streaming service and Google just announced its subscription music service, Pandora Radio has released a sturdy update to its iPhone app.
Users can now publish Now Playing activity to Facebook as it updates, similar to Spotify or Rdio, allowing friends to interact with the music you enjoy. Sharing individual tracks and stations to Facebook, Twitter, and email is built right in now as well.
Pandora 4....
Apple is looking to bring even more Mac production back to the states.
Andrew Cunningham
Last week, we learned that Apple was looking to devote about $100 million to bring the manufacturing of one of its Mac product lines back to the United States. At yesterday's Senate hearings on the company's untaxed overseas pile of cash, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the new Mac would be manufactured in Texas. The computer will also "include components made in Illinois and Florida and rely on equipment produced in Kentucky and Michigan.”
Moving away from solid facts and into informed speculation, AllThingsD notes that longtime...
In its ongoing litigation against Samsung, Apple has added five new patents to its claims, targeting both the company's new flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone, as well as the Google Now service for Android. ...
| Read more »The Creative Pro Group Network have announced that the London SuperMeet will return to the Great Hall at the Kensington Conference and Event Centre in London, England on Friday, June 28.
This SuperMeet follows the success of the recent Las Vegas SuperMeet held in April during NAB Show 2013. Tickets are on sale now. Oscar winning film editor Tom Rolf is set to headline. Doors to the SuperMeet will open at about 17:00 with the SuperMeet Digital Showcase.
read more
Las Vegas! is a popular dice game that Ravensburger put together last year. It's not exactly the most complicated board game on the block (you roll dice, and then can place them into certain numbered slots that represent stakes in money-making casinos), but it's fun for families especially, and provides a nice relatively casual mix of luck and skill.
Perhaps because the game is so approachable, the German company Ravensburger has elected to bring an iOS version out to iPhone and iPad, and you can now pick it up on the App Store for $2.99. Just like the real world game, the iOS version is fun but simple -- you select your players (or you can play online via Game Center), you roll the dice, and then you try to lay them out in casinos wherever you think they'll earn you the most money. Play goes on like this for four rounds, at which point...
| Read more »A new reliability report from Rescuecom shows Apple placing in second place, beaten by Samsung by a wide margin. The new report for the first quarter of 2013, which now takes into account tablets as well as computers, also puts Apple ahead of Lenovo, Asus, Toshiba, HP, Dell, and Acer, with both Sony and Panasonic dropping out of the rankings entirely.... ...
| Read more »Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony could drop one of those divisions in the near future, as the company's board will soon discuss spinning off its entertainment division in order to help its electronics arm better compete against Apple and Samsung. ...
| Read more »Philips Monitors's brand licensing partner, EPI, has announced three new extended resolution Philips displays that offer multiple simultaneous inputs, allowing users to see more and do more on one screen.
The US$799 P-Line 27-inch Quad HD Monitor (272P4QPJKEB) is designed for professionals who require a display with image definition and greater content density within the conventional 16:9 screen shape. The $699 P-line 29-inch UltraWide Monitor (298P4QJEB) is also aimed at the professional user, but provides an expanded UltraWide 21:9 screen space with an ergonomically adjustable stand .
read more
iLoveHandles, a company that makes unique iOS device accessories (Facet and Pinhead come to mind), today announced...
| Read more »A fellow gets thirsty.
∞ Read this on The Loop
Autodesk ha announced Autodesk Smoke 2013 Extension 1 professional video editing software, which is due to ship May 29. The upgrade will feature enhancements to help improve functionality, add flexibility and increase speed.
The Smoke 2013 Extension 1 release will introduce support for Blackmagic video IO devices: DeckLink (PCIe video boards); UltraStudio (Thunderbolt boxes) and the Intensity product line. Other new features and improvements include:
Trim View and new dynamic trimming tools for faster editing
° Support for SonyRAW footage from Sony F5 and F55 cameras;
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Apple today rolled out some updates to its online store, not only posting new features advertising Father's Day gift purchases but also introducing a new, cleaner look for the store. While the main page of the online store had previously consisted of a main center column with product promotions flanked by sidebars with additional links, the new look brings an all-feature design focusing more on product images. Previously, the left sidebar had offered quick access to accessory categories for Apple's various product lines, as well as links to the company's refurbished and clearance stores. Shoppers looking for accessories must now drill down through the product categories along the top "shop" navigation bar to reach the various accessories, while links to the refurbished and clearance stores are listed at the bottom of the page. A similar situation exists for the former right sidebar, which offered links to Apple's other stores such as for...
| Read more »I must admit, I missed this part of the Senate hearings yesterday, but I think Cook brought up some good points.
∞ Read this on The Loop
Walt Mossberg: Will there be an Apple product ever made again in the United States?
Tim Cook: I want there to be.
Walt: You what?
Tim: I want there to be.
Walt: You want there to be.
– Apple CEO Tim Cook and Walt Mossberg at D10, May 2012
When Apple announced its intention to manufacture one of its existing Mac lines exclusively in the U.S. last December, the company didn’t say which line, or where in the country it planned to build it. Now, some five months later, the answer to one of those questions has finally emerged.
During...
Audio accessory maker Ultimate Ears has announced a new wireless Bluetooth portable speaker, the UE Boom. Available in six colors, the mini-speaker is intended to be portable and offers 360-degree sound from all sides of the easy-grip device. The device features an acoustic skin to be water and stain resistant, a long and rechargeable battery life (up to 15 hours) and is easily paired with other UE Boom units.... ...
| Read more »TUAW has covered the alternative energy accessories from Etón before: the BoostTurbine is an excellent way to charge up an iPhone or iPad when the power is out, the FRX3 acts as an emergency radio and has both solar cells and a hand crank for providing a charge to your iPhone when you need it, and the Mobius solar case for iPhone is a smart way to top off your phone. Now the company has announced the Rugged Rukus (US$99.99), an "all-terrain, solar-powered, wireless speaker."
Designed to work with any of your Bluetooth-equipped goodies, the wedge-shaped Rugged Rukus sports a 20-square-inch...
| Read more »During its Google I/O keynote earlier this month, Google announced that it would be bringing conversational, Google-Now like voice search to the desktop. Using a UI similar to voice search and Google Now in its mobile apps, Google would soon allow Chrome users to search and drill down further into results using only their voice.
Today, Google appears to have finally started rolling out the feature for Chrome users on the stable and beta channels of Chrome....
Google Chrome is a Web browser by Google, created to be a modern platform for Web pages and applications. It utilizes very fast loading of Web pages and has a V8 engine, which is a custom built JavaScript engine. Because Google has used parts from Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox browsers, they made the project open source.Version 27.0.1453.93:
Though they weren't grilled before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday like Apple, Google and Yahoo rely on Irish subsidiaries to avoid taxes on billions of dollars in income, and they go one step further than Apple by utilizing offshore accounts. ...
| Read more »Getting frustrated with that red "archive" button when you try to delete a message on your iOS device? Melissa Holt is here to report that there's a trick to select whether you want to archive or delete each message, and you can also turn off the archiving feature entirely. Hooray! She also reports that she likes pie, which is somewhat less relevant.
The Apple Store was briefly down as Apple updated the homepage with a special Father’s Day gift promotion and updated the page to a new squarer & cleaner look – more possible evidence of Jony Ive’s growing design influence …
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The page leads with the iPad and iPad Mini, highlighting the free engraving option, as well as suggesting a range of alternative gift suggestions ranging from the $79.95 iGrill cooking thermometer to $399.95 GoPro HD Hero 3 Black. The homepage has a link to shipping deadlines for a range of products to reach buyers in time for Father’s Day on June 16th.
The redesign has replaced rounded corners with square ones, more of a...
Apple CEO Tim Cook defended his company's tax policies in Congress Tuesday, after the Senate released a report that condemned it for tax policies that used global subsidiaries to avoid paying billions in U.S. taxes. The report alleged that Apple dodged paying taxes on as much as $44 billion in foreign income from 2009 to 2012. The company reportedly used subsidiaries to get around certain tax responsibility. When the senators spoke in percentages, Cook spoke dollars and cents.
Intel has tapped former Apple VP Mike Bell to head up the company's new Smart Devices Unit, according to AllThingsD. Bell last worked at Apple in 2007, and then Palm after that and has a long experience in mobile device development. Recently he has been co-leading Intel's mobile chip business. His new position as the head of Intel's new Smart Devices Unit signals a shift in strategy for the chipmaker.
As AllThingsD notes, Intel's competitors Qualcomm, Nvidia, MediaTek, Broadcom and other ARM-based manufactures have a strong foothold in the mobile device market -- a place Intel knows it needs to be to stay competitive in the future. While Intel did not explicitly state what the Smart Device Unit would produce, it did say "The group...
| Read more »Splasm Software has updated CheckBook Pro (http://www.splasm.com/checkbook/), its personal finance manager for the Mac, to version 2.5. You can now sync accounts with iCloud on Mac OS X Mountain Lion and sync accounts with others on a local network.
Version 2.5 offers full Retina display support. It's also "sandboxed" for the Mac App Store on OS X Lion and Mountain Lion.
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bCODA, a manufacturer of wireless accessories and devices, has announced the availability of its new smartphone app for the JAK streaming USB product. The free app is used in conjunction with the JAK to wirelessly stream content from a smartphone or tablet to an audio/video system, PC or a mobile entertainment system via Wi-Fi.
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The American Customer Satisfaction Index, a large-scale annual survey of consumer satisfaction across a wide range of products, shows that Apple retained the top ranking, but Samsung closed Apple’s lead from 12 points to just five …
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In the survey of 70,000 US consumers, Apple scored 83 percent, two points down on 2012, while Samsung climbed from 71 to 76 percent.
Image: Wall Street Journal
Yesterday’s Senate subcommittee hearing, in which Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked to explain alleged tax avoidance measures, turned into something of a damp squib, each side effectively stating their respective positions rather than engaging in any head-to-head debate …
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Senator Carl Levin, Chair of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, gave a lengthy introductory speech which merely repeated the claims already made, and Cook responded with a pretty general statement saying little more than Apple complied with the law and did not use any tax gimmicks. Cook did take the opportunity to argue for tax reform, proposing both lower domestic corporation tax rates and a special ‘single digit’ rate for cash...
| Read more »Ergonis Software has announced KeyCue 6.5, an update to the cheat sheet for learning and remembering keyboard shortcuts. It includes shortcut descriptions for the popular music notation software Sibelius. The descriptions can be imported in KeyCue to reveal 272 hidden keyboard shortcuts in Sibelius.
With KeyCue, whenever the command key is kept pressed for a while, the software displays a table with all keyboard shortcuts available in the currently active application, systemwide hotkeys, as well as key combinations for triggering macros in Keyboard Maestro, QuicKeys and iKeys.
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Avenza Systems -- producers of MAPublisher and MAPublisher LabelPro cartographic software for Adobe Illustrator as well as MAPdataUSA, MAPdataCanada and MAPdataWorld royalty-free GIS data sets -- has released Geographic Imager 4.2, which adds support for new formats.
This includes writing to the DEM TIFF format that saves raw DEM values and exporting web tiles to Google Maps or Microsoft Bing Maps format. In addition, there are a number of new features and enhancements.
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Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) estimates that mobile app revenues in the U.S. and Canada will reach nearly US$22 billion in 2017, fueled mainly by in-app purchases and in-app advertising revenues.
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Powerocks says its US$34.99 Tarot is the world’s thinnest portable power bank. It’s designed to fit in a wallet, pocket, or small purse to provide an emergency charge for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
It's very useful when you're running low on juice. the Powerock device is available for the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPod, HTC, Blackberry and other smart phones.
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Zagg has debuted a pair of new iPad mini Bluetooth keyboard accessories at CTIA Las Vegas. The ZaggKeys Cover for the iPad mini, pictured, is the latest in its iPad line of popular keyboard covers. According to the company, it is the thinnest Bluetooth keyboard accessory for the iPad mini available, measuring just 6.3mm (0.25-inch) thick. It also incorporates backlit keys with seven color options and three lighting levels.... ...
| Read more »Labels & Addresses is a home and office tool for printing all sorts of labels, envelopes, inventory labels, and price tags. Merge-printing capability makes the program a great tool for holiday seasons by helping users to design and print multiple greeting envelopes and postcards with automatically substitutable addresses and postal barcodes. Quick video tour of Labels & Addresses available. Key features:
Apple on Wednesday updated its online storefront, adding a special section for Father's Day with a heavy emphasis on the iPad, the iPad mini and related accessories. ...
| Read more »As anyone who has read TUAW over the past few weeks can tell there's no shortage of IPad keyboards on the market these days. All of them tend to use Bluetooth to connect to the iPad, which is fine -- except when you're a school teacher or IT person who needs to figure out which keyboard is paired with a particular iPad. So that students can simply grab a keyboard, plug it in, and start typing away, Logitech has announced the Logitech Wired Keyboard for iPad (US$59.99, available later this year).
The keyboard will come in two flavors; a Lightning-equipped model that will be shipping in August, and a 30-pin connector version that is expected in October. Since it's designed to be used by students of all ages, the Wired Keyboard has a spill-resistant design and is expected to put up with the pounding of over 5 million keystrokes.
There are shortcut keys for the regular iPad functions, such as Siri, app switching, and copy...
| Read more »Unity, the company behind the eponymous game rendering engine, announced on Tuesday that it will no longer be charging an $800 licensing fee to developers looking to make apps for Apple's iOS and Google's Android. ...
| Read more »We know that Bluetooth keyboards are usually the go to solution for a bringing a traditional typing experience on the iPad. We’ve reviewed plenty from Logitech in the past that we highly recommend, but today the company launched what it says is a better solution for iPad keyboards in the classroom. Logitech says having to connect multiple iPads to Bluetooth keyboards in classrooms is a big hassle for teachers, and to combat that it is introducing a plug-and-play, wired keyboard in both Lightning and 30-pin variants:
“Schools are increasingly purchasing iPads for use in the classroom,” said Mike Culver, vice president and general manager of mobility at Logitech. “While tablets are enabling new ways of teaching and...
Scanner Pro has always been one of the best iOS document scanners applications around, and it just got better. Readdle has updated Sacnner Pro to include real-time border detection.
Scanner Pro allows your iPhone or iPad to scan receipts, whiteboards, or any single or multi-page document. "Why not just use your device's built-in camera?" Scanner Pro has got you covered. It'll auto-crop your documents, remove shadows, correct awkward perspectives and save in multiple formats. Images can be sent right to Evernote, Dropbox and Google Drive.
If you have this great app then go right away and update it. If you don't, then go grab it from the App Store now. Scanner Pro has been a long-time friend of my mobile office workflow....
| Read more »The Apple Store went down around midnight ET. What will the refresh bring? We'll let you know as soon as the store is back up. Thanks to all the tipsters that let us know!Apple Store is down originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 May 2013 00:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments
| Read more »Optical character recognition purveyor IRIS has launched its next-generation IRIScan Book 3 and the IRIScan Book 3 Executive. These portable scanning solutions are battery‐powered, enabling mobile users to easily capture paper documents, receipts, photos and more without the use of a computer.... ...
| Read more »The Apple Store is down! The average Store downtime is about 2 hours and 52 minutes.What to do next?Fastest:Fast:Also fast:Medium:Slow:Slowest:Open the alarm page in your browser to know exactly when the Apple Store comes back onlineFollow @IsTheStoreDown on twitterInstall our Dashboard widget for Mac OS XSubscribe to the email function to receive an email when the Store status changesCheck the store yourself laterWait for the media to report anything newPlease feel free to share this information with your friends :-)
| Read more »Flickr Pro users have been informed by Yahoo about the future of the once-premium accounts. As long as the user's account is kept in good standing, customers paying $25 per year for unlimited storage will be allowed to keep the plan indefinitely, with no plans for the Pro benefits to be purged.... ...
| Read more »Burstly acquired the beta testing service TestFlight just a few months ago, and TestFlight released a mobile analytics service called FlightPath soon after that. Now, Burstly has announced that it is restructuring its offerings, to set up a full set of services to take developers from developing and testing their app with TestFlight, to preforming analytics with FlightPath, and then monetizing with Burstly's tools, now rebranded as SkyRocket.
This is a smart bit of revamping -- TestFlight is very popular, but FlightPath has just started out and SkyRocket's name is brand new to most developers, so combining these tools under the same umbrella should make them all more accessible to developers. All of these services are still...
| Read more »Unity has announced that its mobile game development tools are now free to use for smaller developers. The Unity platform is popular amongst iOS and Android developers, but its creator previously charged $800 to publish a game to the App Store or Google Play. Under the new rules, that barrier has been lifted.... ...
| Read more »CS Odessa has posted a minor update for ConceptDraw Project, the developer's project management software. The v6.4 release adds new resource types, which should let organizers better describe both resources and resource behavior. Separately, new filters can be used to generate custom views of a project, which in turn can be saved for later use.... ...
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When Jony Ive took over the role of leadership for Apple’s Human Interface in October of last year, many speculated that the style of Apple’s design language across iOS and Mac OS X would also shift towards a flatter, more clean style. This speculation was fueled mainly by Ive’s feelings towards skeuomorphism and his minimalist design aesthetic.
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In April, we reported that iOS 7 would have a fresh, yet familiar interface, embracing a flatter style thanks to Jony Ive’s new leadership....
| Read more »Escape Motions has released Flame Painter 2.0, an update of the developer's illustration software. The v2.0 upgrade brings in a host of new features, such as smoother antialiasing, unlimited layers and editable vector layers in the Professional edition. Brush options include new Flame, Follow, and Ribbon brushes; presets; Normal, Lighten, and Darken modes; gradient transitions; and lastly, the ability to drag-and-drop brushes from a website.... ...
| Read more »Unity has announced that it's making its mobile game development tools free to use for most independent and small studios. Unity has always been a popular engine both for mobile game development and for cross-platform game creation, but up until now, you had to pay about $800 to actually publish Unity-created apps on the iOS or Android stores. Those basic add-ons have now been made free, so anyone can now download Unity, and then use it to publish an app for iOS or Android without paying a fee for the engine.
Unity still has pro versions available for sale to both iOS and Android developers, and anyone making over $100,000 per year with their releases is required by Unity to go ahead and purchase a pro license. So there are still some limits on exactly how this all works, and if your iPhone app does hit it big, Unity still would like its due. But starting off...
| Read more »Seagate Technology has announced the new Seagate Video 3.5 HDD -- the industry's first 4TB, 3.5-inch hard disk drive engineered specifically for use in video applications such as digital video recorders, set-top boxes, and surveillance systems. Purpose-built for video solutions, the Video 3.5 HDD can store up to 480 hours of high-definition (HD) content. The drive supports up to 16 simultaneous HD streams or 20 standard-definition streams as well as 24-hour operation capabilities optimizing it for video content applications.... ...
| Read more »Apple remains in first place on an annual BrandZ ranking of the world's most valuable brands, notes MarketingWeek. Apple's brand is estimated to be worth $185.071 billion, putting it well ahead of next-closest rivals Google ($113.669 billion) and IBM ($112.536 billion). Other companies in the top 10 include McDonald's, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Microsoft, Marlboro, Visa, and China Mobile.... ...
| Read more »The team at Olloclip has taken the wraps off of their newest product, a case for the iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5 called the Quick-Flip Case (US$49.99) that works with the Olloclip 3-in-one lenses to produce a lightweight solution for all-purpose iPhoneography. Let's take a look!
Design
At first glance, this doesn't look like much of a case. It's made out of a smoked translucent black or opaque white polyurethane material and looks like any of a thousand other slip-on hard cases for iPhone. But then the little features start to appear and you realize how the Quick-Flip case can be used to assist in taking photos with your iPhone.
Gallery: Olloclip Quick-Flip Case and Pro-Photo Adapter...
| Read more »Wal-Mart-owned video-on-demand service Vudu has updated its iOS apps to allow movie downloads for offline viewing. The Android phone version of the app has had this feature for awhile, but Android tablets are still unable to download and view their Vudu/Ultraviolet collection on their tablets.
Other additions to the update include a reworked player to make the app easier to use, as well as support for closed captions on the iPhone. It's worth noting that the Flixter iOS app already allowed for Ultraviolet downloads. Ultraviolet is a digital rights authentication service that allows DVD and Blu-ray buyers to redeem unique download codes for digital viewing later.
You can find the updated app for free in the iTunes store now.Vudu adds ability to download movies...
| Read more »Apple Inc.’s real tax bill isn’t as big as the one it reports to its investors.
Among the findings of an investigation by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations are figures that show Apple’s reported taxes substantially exceed the sum it actually pays the U.S. Treasury.
One factor: Apple uses a conservative approach to accounting for taxes on its overseas earnings. It has been setting aside billions of dollars a year in provisions against possible taxes on income that it earned abroad. But those taxes wouldn’t be due until Apple brought the funds home to the U.S., something Chief Executive Tim Cook said he has no intention of doing.
Read the rest of this post on the original site »
Video-on-demand service Vudu on Monday rolled out a major update to its Vudu Player iOS app, granting users the ability to download movies and TV shows directly onto an Apple device for offline viewing. ...
| Read more »Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer had a straight-forward and direct message for a Senate subcommittee questioning the company about its tax practices: we comply fully the law, we don't hide profits from the U.S., and if you don't like what we're doing, change the law. Note that in this analysis, Bryan Chaffin discusses the politics of the situation.
Those of us who use Google's Chrome browser for OS X are familiar with how Chrome web apps can be installed and launched from within the browser. Now it appears that Google is working on a way to bring those Chrome apps even closer to the heart of your Mac by creating a Chrome apps launcher for OS X.
Google engineer François Beaufort detailed the plans in a Google+ post, noting that OS X users can actually try out a beta of the Chrome OS app launcher right now. To do so, you need to install the most recent build of Chromium, then set the --show-app-list switch through the CLI.
After performing that magic, launch Chromium and click its Dock icon to display a grid of your Chrome apps, ready to launch (see image above). Put this on your MacBook...
| Read more »Apple’s executives speak before congress, Ireland doesn’t think it has a taxation problem, and iOS 7 looks to share and share alike. The remainders for Tuesday, May 21, 2013 are certain.
Tim Cook’s Opening Statement Before The Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations (Apple)
In case you missed Tuesday’s riveting Senate subcommittee action, you can now read the opening remarks from CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer on Apple’s site. But that does mean you’ll miss out on the full effect of the Tim Cook appearing before the body in a purple velour track suit.
Ireland says not to blame for Apple’s low tax rate (Yahoo Finance)
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Microsoft has announced a brand new game console today, though the company would probably disappointed to hear that I called it that. The Xbox One is really more of an entertainment center all-in-one -- it's designed to connect your games, your streaming media, and cable television all together in one set-top box. In some ways, it's a competitor to Apple TV. The Xbox One will also include a new Kinect camera, which will boast Siri-like voice control over all of its functions, and allow users to switch back and forth between live games, live TV, or any of the console's various apps.
Obviously, that release is only tangentially related to Apple and its products, but there are a few closer ties that might become more important in the future. First up, Microsoft has already confirmed that the Xbox One will work with its Smart Glass system, for which...
| Read more »Intel has noted that it has appointed Mike Bell to lead its emergent technology and product trend group, which includes ultra-mobile products. The new division will be "tasked with turning cool technology and business model innovations into products that shape and lead markets," according to Intel.... ...
| Read more »Smith Micro has launched Poser 10 and Poser Pro 2014, updates of the developer's core 3D rendering and animation tools. Both apps have gained a number of new features, such as subdivision surfaces, which let users set subdivision levels for props, figures, or body parts using Pixar's OpenSubdiv library. The technology should improve aspects like bending accuracy and object smoothness.... ...
| Read more »Every year, Millward Brown Optimor produces the BrandZ list, a listing of the 100 most valuable brands. As with last year, Apple is at the top of the list with a 2013 brand value of just over US$185 billion.
Apple's brand value rose only 1 percent this year, but that number is still well over #2 Google at $113.7 billion. How much of a gap lies in the brand value between Apple and Google? How about almost the value of the venerable Coca-Cola brand at $78.4 billion (the soft drink company is at #5 on the list).
Another tech brand rounded out the top three, with IBM coming in just behind Google at $112.5 billion. The value of the top 100 brands is a staggering $2.6 trillion globally, up 7 percent from 2012.
Although Apple's share price and investor sentiment have lagged in the last year,...
| Read more »Google is looking to bring a version of its Chrome OS app launcher to the Mac, possibly as an add-on to the Chrome browser, allowing users to access a slew of Web apps normally available only from within the ...
| Read more »During Apple's April 2012 earnings conference call, Tim Cook emphatically stated that he hates litigation.
"I've always hated litigation," Cook explained. "I continue to hate it. I just want people to invent their own stuff."
That notwithstanding, Apple today finds itself embroiled in a myriad of patent infringement lawsuits. With Samsung in particular, Apple has ongoing legal battles with its Korean-based competitor in 11 countries across 4 continents.
Oddly enough, Apple's legal battles were tangentially brought up during Tuesday's congressional hearing which was held to take a closer look at Apple's tax practices. At one point during the hearing, the narrative veered a bit of course when Tim Cook was asked to answer a question about Apple's challenges with respect to protecting its intellectual property in the U.S.
Cook took a moment to gather his thoughts and answered thusly.
I think the U.S Court system is currently structured in such a way...
| Read more »Starting this year, IBM's Watson intelligent agent technology will debut as a customer service assistant. Customers of Australia's ANZ Bank, Celcom, The Royal Bank of Canada, and Nielsen can query the system for general questions related to accounts with the companies. IBM claims to have the technology ready for deployment and integrated into consumer apps for computers and smartphones in the second half of 2013.... ...
| Read more »Apple pays a fair share of the taxes it owes the U.S. and other nations, its CEO said Tuesday, despite criticism from U.S. senators that the company is ducking taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries that the company does not consider tax residents of any nation.
Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee, saying that Apple uses no “tax gimmicks” in assigning about two-thirds of its worldwide profits to three subsidiaries in Ireland, where the company has negotiated a corporate income tax rate of less than 2 percent.
In reality, Apple has paid a far lower rate than the 2 percent negotiated in Ireland, with one subsidiary paying no income taxes in the past five years, and another paying 0.05 percent in Ireland in 2011, according to...
| Read more »Apple has posted the opening statements two of its executives -- CEO Tim Cook (PDF) -- and CFO Peter Oppenheimer (PDF) -- made during their testimony in front of the US Senate earlier today. The documents don't reveal anything new, but do constitute a record of Apple's stance during the Senate hearing. "We pay all of the taxes we owe -- every single dollar. We not only comply with the laws, but we comply with the spirit of the laws," Cook's statement reads.... ...
| Read more »Beethoven's 9th Symphony (free plus in-app purchases) is an epic iPad app that lets you explore one of the greatest symphonies ever written in a unique, compelling way. Classical music lovers will definitely want to check it out.
Beethoven's 9th Symphony uses every trick in the multimedia tool box. For starters, you can listen to 4 different performances of the work, taken from the well-known DGG catalog. As you listen, follow along with the the score in real time. The original manuscript displays each page as the music plays but with modern notation.
An interesting feature called the "BeatMap" offers an overhead view of the orchestra, complete with symbols of the various instruments that glow as they are played.
The app also features several interviews, both contemporary and historic, with notable people like Leonard...
| Read more »Apple is aiming to integrate Flickr and Vimeo into iOS 7, a source tells 9to5Mac. The integration is expected to work in much the same way as Facebook and Twitter support does in iOS 6, allowing single sign-ins via the Settings menu. In the case of Flickr, at least, signing in may not only add another option to iOS' built-in sharing menus, but also simplify apps with their own hooks for the service, such as Instagram. Flickr is already integrated into OS X Mountain Lion and the iOS edition of iPhoto.... ...
| Read more »No one laid a glove on Apple CEO Tim Cook, not even the subcommittee's "hostile chairman," in his appearance before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to explain the company's offshore tax practices, according to "CNNMoney" (http://tinyurl.com/lbfvd5x).
Cook's testimony was "calm and precise," and "the senators, for their part, were mostly respectful -- and on occasion fawning," the article adds.
read more
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∞ Read this on The Loop
There are several ways you can move a user account from one computer to another without having to set up the account again from scratch.
| Read more »Steve Wilhite, the inventor of the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), received a Webby Award for lifetime achievement. He reiterates that he intended it to be pronounced like “jif.” Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.
| Read more »I've been wrestling with the right way to put this for weeks. There was something about Samsung that's been bugging me since the bizarro world GS4 media event, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Yesterday's news about the Samsung Smart App Challenge 2013 helped crystallize it for me—Samsung has delusions of relevance.
ABC Aquarium ($3) by Peapod Labs is yet another release in the company’s ABC family of universal iOS education apps. Each app has brought a new theme, complete with an alphabet’s worth of new photographs, videos, and simple rub-on-the-picture activities, plus small user interface improvements. Aquarium leverages all of…
| Read more »Ireland has responded to criticism from Senater Carl Levin (D-Mich.) that Irish tax laws allowed Apple to avoid playing taxes on tens of billions of dollars in profits using Irish subsidiaries. So what did Ireland have to say for itself?
In a statement to RTE, Ireland's national broadcast network, deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore said:
These are not issues that arise from the Irish taxation system. They are issues that arise from the taxation systems in other jurisdictions, and that is an issue that has to be addressed first of all in those jurisdictions,
Ireland's answer is simple. If American companies like Apple are using loop holes in the American tax system to skirt playing their taxes, it's not Ireland's fault, and we should fix our system before we come after theirs. It's a good point.
The issue isn'...
| Read more »Jesus Christ, Silicon Valley on the belief that Yahoo bought his Tumblr blog:
In the meantime, whatever I want: mine. You want to talk excitement? That’s excitement. I just Amazon Primed a fucking speedboat.
| Read more »A ruling yesterday in the Northern District of California may have repercussions on the smartphone patent battles raging across the US court landscape. A federal judge granted a user of a standards-essential patent a preliminary injunction against enforcement of a possible US International Trade Commission (ITC) sales injunction. This decision by Senior District Judge Ronald Whyte is the first time a US district court is preventing the ITC's only option to combat patent infringers in conjunction with standards-essential patents.... ...
| Read more »It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.
You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.
No Flash? Click here to listen.
Subscribe via RSSDaily Update for May 21, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 May 2013 15:45:00 EST. Please see our...
| Read more »You can view Tim’s and Peter’s statements as PDFs
| Read more »In a brief sidetrack during his Senate testimony today, Apple CEO Tim Cook voiced his opinion on US intellectual property law. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) asked Cook about the IP benefits of running a company in the US versus other countries, but appears to have been surprised when Cook took a critical tone. "I actually think that we require much more work on IP in this country," he said.... ...
| Read more »After Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer appeared before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to explain the tech giant's offshore tax practices, the company has made available the opening statements as read in testimony. ...
| Read more »Apple CEO Tim Cook
Chris Foresman
There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International (AOI), which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world.
AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday.
Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), who...
Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.comApple, like all multinational corporations, works hard to minimize its tax liability, but it is in full compliance with U.S. tax law and the tax laws in nations where its subsidiaries operate.
That was the gist of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Tuesday: Apple is a good corporate citizen that pays all taxes due.
“We pay all the taxes we owe. Every single dollar,” Cook said during a Tuesday morning hearing. “We not only comply with the laws but we comply with the spirit of the laws. We don’t depend on tax gimmicks.”
No gimmicks, just standard U.S. tax code which, according to the Senate panel’s investigation, allowed Apple to pay little or no corporate taxes on at least $74 billion in profits over the past four years.
And to be clear, that’s not illegal. Indeed, the Senate investigation into Apple’s...
On Tuesday, software company Delicious Monster released version 3.0.2 of the shareware favorite, Delicious Library. Delicious Monster allows Macs with webcams to scan the bar codes of any book, movie, music CD or video game, then creates an archive based on background information from the Internet. Additional features help keep the library organized and reseller’s tools allow for items to be quickly posted for sale online.
The new version, an 80.3 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- Items without a cover show title and creator on shelf.
- Synopses can be added and edited. Custom synopses imported from Delicious Library 2 now display.
- Many changes to make...
I just love A Pale Horse Named Death. Deep, dark music and lyrics that will take you on a journey like few other bands can. Go buy this. NOW!
∞ Read this on The Loop
Mark Crump at GigaOm has an interesting piece on how the iPad is becoming an important tool for music bands. Crump is an amateur musician whose band is rehearsing for a gig. What's interesting is Crump's realization that the iPad is almost all his band needs at rehearsal.
Crump explains how his iPad fits into band rehearses. First, he chooses the songs in the Music player app and sends his friends links to the songs on YouTube. Next he'll use the AmpliTube app (free) to load up his selected song from the iPad's music app and play along with it via a Fender Squire USB guitar. To chart the songs during rehearsal, Crump uses Apple's Pages app (US$9.99). He...
| Read more »During his testimony before the Senate on Apple's tax strategies, CEO Tim Cook restated an earlier promise that a forthcoming Mac model -- not identified -- was going to be built in the United States, and further revealed that it would be assembled in Texas. While the exact site wasn't specified, Apple has established and is expanding an administrative campus in Austin, and manufacturing partner Foxconn has facilities in Houston.... ...
| Read more »A new and interesting e-book trend has emerged showing that e-books are still not the preferred choice for books in Canada. While the Canadian market for ebooks remains steady, the reality is that they've already plateaued. The stats show that paperback books comprised 58% of all purchases in 2012. Hardcover made up 24% and ebooks came in at a miserable15%. And within that dismal figure, Apple's iPad ...
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