News - page 1358

Ever looked at a column of numbers on your Mac’s screen and wished that they would just add themselves together already? I do. Ever since my “special” cat died, I’ve been adding things up manually.

My cat, who was called “Rain Cat,” used to take one look at a page full of numbers, twitch its cute little head a few times, and then tap out the answer with its paw. Admittedly, getting the answer usually took longer than doing it myself on a pocket calculator, and sometimes Rain Cat would fall asleep in the middle of a particularly long answer, but it was pretty convenient most of the time.

Now, Rain Cat can be replaced with Brett Terpstra’s Total Number service.

Here’s how to do Spotify voice search on the iPhone or iPad.

1. Tap the search field in Spotify
2. Tap the Siri dictate button on the keyboard
3. Say the name of whatever you wan to hear
4. Tap Siri button again
5. Browse results.

Alternatively you can buy the new Vela app for $0.99, and skip all the tedious screen tapping.

Oh man, I just can’t wait for this week to be over. First the entire Internet turns out to have been broken for the last two years. Then Dropbox hires Condoleezza “Cruella de Vil” Rice to help out with security. And now Amazon has bought out ComiXology, the digital comic book store/platform.

I’m ready for the weekend.

T-Mobile’s new deal on LTE iPads is a doozy. The ‘Uncarrier’ is shaking things up again by offering LTE iPads for the price of their WiFi-only counterparts. And on top of that, more free data is involved.

Apple released a new update for its iMovie for Mac video editing software today that adds a number of tweaks, bug fixes, and a small sampling of new features.

iMovie version 10.0.3 is the third small update since the app was received a big update last fall, but new improvements are mostly minor with new sorting options, adjustable font sizes and colors, and better speed effects.

Here’s a rundown of the changes:

Heartbleed sent the web reeling with the discovery that the catastrophic security hole quietly left passwords and other private data open for the taking on nearly 66% of the Internet’s servers.  Luckily for Apple customers, iOS and OS X were never vulnerable to Heartbleed but some of the most popular sites and services on the Internet weren’t so lucky.

Many companies are still working to patch their hole, but Mashable has compiled a list of the biggest sites hit by Heartbleed. There’s no way to tell if your info was actually snatched by attackers, but if you have account on the following sites that were affected and subsequently patched, you should change your password ASAP:

Fancy building your own glittering high-tech utopia, or a bustling cosmopolitan metropolis?

Either way, gamers will be happy to know that SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition today became available for download, exclusively in the Mac App Store. Combining both SimCity 4 and the Rush Hour expansion pack — which adds bonus disasters like UFO attacks and Autosaurus Wrecks — the game is a steal at $19.99.

Apple has confirmed that none of its products, including web services like iCloud.com, are vulnerable to the nasty Heartbleed web bug that was recently uncovered.

Heartbleed allows hackers to intercept sensitive traffic and steal information like logins from websites using OpenSSL encryption. So when you visit a website with a little padlock in the address bar and think you’re safe, you maybe aren’t.

Monument Valley is one of the most original iOS games ever. A triumph of isometric design, it’s a trippy puzzle game in which you guide a white-clad princess through a series of twisting, turning structures, inspired by the mind-bending art of M.C. Escher.

Creating a world of this complexity might sound like a nightmare project, but for the UK-based game developers at ustwo, coming up with such an audacious creation was something of a dream.

“One of the first things we did when designing Monument Valley were to try and come up with images that seemed impossible,” says lead designer Ken Wong.

Still reeling from the success of the game — priced at $3.99, it was the top paid iPad app in its first week of release — Wong cracked open his sketchbooks to give Cult of Mac readers a glimpse at how Monument Valley‘s breathtaking designs came to be.

Here’s what we found.

We’ve heard multiple reports that Apple will release a larger-screen iPhone 6 (possibly in two different sizes), but who really wants a bigger iPhone with a larger screen anyway? Actually, a lot of people: as much as 40% of prospective smartphone buyers are chomping at the bit for a bigger iPhone.

Slowly but surely, the worldwide PC market is drying up. In the first quarter, a recent report from IDC says that worldwide PC shipments have slipped 4.4% year-over years. And not even Apple has proven immune to the wasting away of the PC market, but they’re still making up for it on other ways.

When we think about the iWatch, we tend to think of a little smartphone that you wear on your wrist, or at least a bit of technology, but if the latest reports are anything to go by, Apple’s iWatch play is going to much bigger than that: with the iWatch, Apple intends to do nothing less than conquer the world of fashion, becoming just as synonymous with luxury watches as Rolex. But how?

Could Apple’s revolutionary re-imagining of Apple TV not be a set-top box at all, but rather an Oculus Rift style headset?

A patent published Thursday hints that this might be the case, as it refers to a head mounted display (HMD) capable of providing a personal media viewing experience for users.

The patent describes how data processing circuitry could feature optical component capable of adjusting left and right images to display 3-D media, or else to account for a user’s eyesight limitations.

The success of The Simpsons: Tapped Out meant it was only a matter of time before Family Guy got similar mobile game treatment.

First announced back in December, today marks the arrival of Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff in the App Store.

A joint venture between Fox and TinyCo studios, the game lets you help Peter Griffin and the rest of the Quahog residents to rebuild their city after it’s destroyed.

Expect lots of fan service, in the form of regular Family Guy characters and reprised gags from previous episodes (Mermaid Peter, Rambo Lois, and the Petercopter, for instance.)

When you’ve got $158.8 billion in the bank, there’s not a huge amount you need to be envious of.

But while Apple is beating rival Samsung on both the quality of its products and adverts, it is perhaps losing out when it comes to the kind of big digital media strategies that really attract attention (and customers) — like Ellen DeGeneres’ famous Oscars selfie which Publicis CEO Maurice Levy recently valued at between $800 million and $1 billion.

With that in mind, Apple is reportedly changing up its marketing approach to invest more in digital marketing and social media support — adding four new digital agencies to its roster.

Look at this graph. Just look at it. The colored section represents all color visible to the human eye. The large black triangle shows the Adobe RGB color space, which is the space used by pro apps to process images, and can be captured by some cameras.

And the little white triangle, sat in the middle cutting out a fraction of the available colors? That’s the standard sRGB color space, which is what you’re looking at now on your Mac or iPad or iPhone (but probably not on the Retina iPad mini).

That’s because monitors don’t usually display so many colors. But the Eizo ColorEdge CG247 not only displays the full gamut of Adobe RGB, it calibrates itself too.

Apart from “correct horse battery staple,” the most secure passwords aren’t words, they’re phrases. You don’t even need crazy symbols or hard-to-determine numerals (is that an l or a 1, a 0 or an O?) – just a good, longish phrase made out of words.

And now you don’t even have to make one up. Using the XKPasswd generator, based on but not associated with Randall Munroe’s amazing comic strip XKCD, you can generate secure pass phrases easily.

The worst thing about losing a lens cap is having to buy another one. You can go with a generic but ugly replacement and save a few bucks, or you can buy the manufacturers official version, which will make you hate yourself.

Now there’s a third option – don’t lose the cap in the first place. Instead, spend $10 now on Photojojo’s Hufa Lens Cap Strap Holder, and never buy a cap again.

Unless you’re a hipster – you can still buy as many sweet ironic trucker caps as you like.

I wonder why every backpack doesn’t use a roll-top. They’re waterproof, they’re mechanically simple (and therefore they never go wrong), they let you extend the size of the bag and they form a handy grippy handle.

They also look cool, and the Becket bag has one.

“The best backpack we’ve ever made” — a heady statement from an outfit with a focus on making packs and cases to keep traveling Apple stuff safe. The Icon certainly looks impressive, with its Airflow channels and more specialized pockets than a troop of kangaroos. And at $200, it also might be the most expensive backpack the Southern California-based company has ever made.

When iTunes Radio was introduced, it was clear that Apple hadn’t made the true Spotify competitor everyone had hoped for. Instead, it was designed to get people to buy more music from the iTunes Store—hence the buy button at the top right of every song.

Sadly, iTunes Radio hasn’t helped drive music downloads for Apple, so the company is considering a “dramatic overhaul” of the iTunes Store.

Vodka is great for fruity drinks and drunken stupors; and beer is what you nurse, alone at the edge of the bar, after you’ve been dumped.

Wine, on the other hand, is the ultimate social lubricant. So it makes sense that Drync, a sophisticated app for oenophiles (the sophisticated method to describe wine-lovers), has just launched its own social-heavy website to go along with its new iPad app.

With busy schedules it can be easy to be consumed by the stress of our everyday lives. Sometimes sitting down and playing a good game can be a great way to escape from it all. The new app I’m Aquarius is an arcade game with intense action gameplay and a relaxing soundtrack. Avoid all obstacles as you tap to keep your ship safe for as long as possible. How long do you think you can last?

Take a look at the video and find out what you think.

A key executive within Apple is reportedly leaving the company due to a fallout with design chief Jony Ive. The result is that Ive will directly control even more of how Apple designs its software.

Greg Christie has been getting a lot of attention lately in the Apple vs. Samsung patent trial for his role as an engineer for the original iPhone. And that’s not all he’s known for; the guy has also patented nearly a hundred ideas for Apple, including the iconic “Slide to unlock” patent Apple is using as evidence in the ongoing case with Samsung.

Christie has been heading up Apple’s software design under Craig Federighi. But according to a new report, Ive is basically pushing Christie out because the two haven’t been getting along.

Alongside Mailbox for Mac and Android, Dropbox announced an entirely new app today at an event in San Francisco. It’s called Carousel, and it’s coming to the App Store and Google Play later today. Think of it like a Photo Stream replacement that might actually work.