News - page 2156

With the release Thursday of 5.0 Beta for Mac OS X, Internet communications giant Skype took a big step on the path to aligning the Windows and Mac versions of its flagship calling platform.

Mac users who’d grown used to the modular UI of previous versions may find the new, more unified interface arresting initially, but there’s no question Skype designers have brought their software well within the confines of the “iTunes” UI model and new Skype for Mac users, should there be any left on the planet, ought to feel right at home from the get-go.

The big news with the new release is support for group video calling, for which Skype borrows from Safari’s curved pane effect to display the feeds of individuals on a group call, with the more important feature being that it just works.

If you’ve decided to pick up one of Apple’s miraculously thin new MacBook Airs, but have a large media or photo library, you’re probably going to have to pick up an external USB hard drive to go with it: those SSDs are blisteringly fast, yes, but they’re not exactly voluminous.

What external hard drive can match the Air’s resplendent svelteness, though? Try the Hitachi G-Drive Slim. It’s only 0.39 inches thick and clocks in at 320GB for $99.99. That’s not a lot of storage space for the price, but then again, neither is the Air.

The super slim runway model MacBook Air is the best MacBook I’ve had so far. It’s thin, light, and zippy fast for the work I need to do – like this blog post and everything I need to do while mobile so far. Unfortunately it managed to slip out of manufacturing and into our hands with a few issues.

Now there is definite proof that at least some of the video issues are related to sleep/wake and that Apple, who has been completely quiet about it – knows that the problem exists, but isn’t publicly acknowledging it.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LriKSoDzZOI&feature=player_embedded

Well, what do you know: the guys over at Plex, who make one of my favorite media center apps for the Mac, have jailbroken their second-gen AppleTV and managed to get the Plex client up and running on the little $99 box.

The proof of concept’s a little rough around the edges, but once this is polished up, it could be a huge boon for AppleTV owners hoping to expand their box’s capabilities. Sure, you still need to stream your media from a paired Mac, but Plex supports a lot more codecs than AirPlay. I can’t wait to see this project progress.

This is a pretty neat spin on the freemium model: Capcom Arcade is a free title that bundles many of Capcom’s classic arcade games — including Street Fighter II, Commando and 1942 — together in a virtual arcade. Just like in a real arcade, to play the games, you need tokens, which you can buy in-app. Otherwise, Capcom Arcade is happy to dole out free tokens every day, which you can then use for a limited number of plays.

It’s a clever little approach. Usually, freemium games use in-game virtual goods to make money, but Capcom’s turned that idea on its head by making a play of their games themselves into a virtual good to be consumed. I wonder if other classic arcade publishers with a presence in the App Store will catch on: Sega, I’m looking at you.

[via Touch Arcade]

Been holding out for redsn0w before jailbreaking your iOS 4.1 device. Good news: the Dev Ream has just released the latest version which will allow you to jailbreak your iPhone 4, 3GS, 3G, 3rd or 4th generation iPod Touch and second generation AppleTV on either Mac or Windows machines. It uses geohot’s limera1n exploit, and also adds “custom bootlogos for iPhone3G/iPhone3GS/iPod2G users (with qualifying bootroms)” and an option that implements the ‘DFU’ button in PwnageTool” in Windows.

Interested? Grab it here, and let the hacking commence.

Last week, Steve Jobs responded to a Mac owner’s question about future USB 3.0 support by saying that Cupertino didn’t see it taking off yet, specifically because Intel has yet to support it.

When we reported that story, we speculated that Apple might view USB 3.0 as a technology that may — like Blu-Ray — be technically superior to what preceded it, but would be quickly made obsolete by an entirely different approach. In Blu-Ray’s case, streaming video came along; in USB 3.0’s case, we suspected it would be Light Peak, a new optical cable technology that Intel is working on that would be a single universal replacement for pretty much any digital cable out there, from USB to SATA to HDMI.

Maybe we were right. According to Cnet, Light Peak is on target for a 2011 debut, and Apple is expected to start shipping machines with that standard in the first year.

It’s too late for Halloween, but there’s plenty of time to get a mask of your distorted mug taken with Apple’s Photo Booth to make a splash at carnival celebrations.

Brooklyn-based designer Mark Pernice first made these huge grimacing masks out of his own face working with F/X superstar sculptor Christian Hanson. People liked these disturbing, wearable doppplegangers so much that Pernice is stumping to raise money to make more masks.

The series of six masks his making this time will eventually end up in an exhibit– we’ll keep you posted on details — and if you pledge the most, he’ll make one of you.  Or your favorite pet, or maybe a relative.  (Kick in $20 to the cause and you get a poster of one of his masks).

Cult of Mac talked to Pernice about which figure in Apple history he’d most like to make a mask of and why he decided to dress up as Freddie Mercury this Halloween.

Right now, if you want live television on your iPad, you are basically limited to using the EyeTV to stream it from your computer. What if you don’t want to be umbilicaled to your desktop, though>

Meet the Tizi, a small peripheral box being sold in Europe that pairs with your iOS device over WiFi and watch the terrestrial boob tube wherever you are.

Yesterday, Facebook hosted a media event to announce the company’s plans to tie local business advertising into its Places functionality, but at the Q&A following the event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a surprising claim: the iPad’s not mobile.

The characterization came after an attendee asked Zuckerberg when the iPad would get a native Facebook app.

The answer? Never. Facebook expects you to use the Facebook website on the iPad. And why? Because Facebook only makes app for mobile devices, and “the iPad’s not mobile… it’s a computer.”

Ask most iTunes users and they’ll agree that 30 second song previews are simply too short to inform a decision on whether or not to buy a song… but if the music labels had their druthers, they wouldn’t even allow that, which makes it amazing to me that Apple has successfully employed its clout to triple the length of iTunes song samples.

If you’re a Mac developer hoping to squeeze some more sales out of your software by bringing it to the Mac App Store, rev up your engines: Apple has notified developers that they are now accepting submissions.

The Android-based Galaxy S from Samsung has dethroned the iPhone in Japan. Sort of. The headlines are based on just one week of sales during the last week of October, and may represent just pent-up demand. The other proviso is the Samsung device defeated the 16GB iPhone and the 32GB iPhone individually, but not together.

The iPhone has held the No. 1 position in the gadget-hungry nation for more than 18 weeks. Samsung hopes to sell 10 million Galaxy S phones by the end of the year. The device with a four-inch screen launched in the U.S. this summer.

When owners of the iPhone 3G started reporting massive performance issues with iOS 4, we knew it was only a matter of time before the first lawsuit dropped, and here it is, lodged by plaintiff Biana Wofford in the Superior Court of California for San Diego.

The lawsuit’s even crazier than what we expected though: it thinks Apple conspired to make iOS 4 on the iPhone 3G suck so that users would be forced to upgrade to a new model.

Bringing home your new Mac only to notice a perpetually stuck pixel in the display can be teeth-gratingly irritating, especially when it proves impossible to convince a blank-faced Genius that that lodged speck is so distracting that it absolutely demands an LCD replacement.

Here’s some information that will help you know if Apple will be willing to replace your device due to stuck pixels. An internal source at Apple has leaked the complete internal policy on the acceptable number of anomalies in a display required for Apple to issue a replacement.

All aboard! Enterprises can either jump on the hurtling iPad express or hop on the slow-moving freight that other tablet manufacturers promise will be coming along any time now. That’s the conclusion from the analyst gurus at the Gartner Group.

“The iPad looks set to become a market disrupting device, like the iPod before it,” the research firm tells companies. “Even if you think it is just a passing fad, the cost of early action is low, while the price of delay may well be extremely high,” it warns.

Designed for the Harley rider with an iFetish, Hell’s Foundry has introduced the Dashlink Docking Console for the iPhone and iPod touch.  Integrated atop a replacement gas tank, the Dashlink charges your iDevice while integrating it with your bike’s audio system.  A smart charging system detects when a device is present, and built-in drainage channels are designed to route liquid away from the device and dock connector.  1996 and newer FLHT/FLTR & FLHR models are currently supported.

Sweet. Though how you can actually hear anything while riding a Harley remains a mystery…

[via Born Rich]

Paul Riegler at the Executive Road Warrior blog wrote an interesting piece about what made him switch from an iPad to a new MacBook Air.

In short: the iPad was a nice portable computer, but the Air is better. It offers more flexibility and freedom. The iPad was a good solution but bulky (because Riegler was toting a keyboard for it too), and sometimes – not often – he found himself wishing for a plain old USB port, or the chance to see something in Flash.

Because Apple is already using the brand name iPad, two companies have tried to name their competitive tablets something completely different: The nPad.

Not recommended. Here’s why.

The much-anticipated Skyfire Browser finally came to iOS today albeit briefly before vanishing from the App store. If you haven’t heard about it Skyfire is a new app that would allow users to watch Flash video on their iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch by converting it to HTML5.

It was an unexpected surprise to find out that Apple didn’t pull the app — the vendor did. The vendor advised me that Skyfire’s launch was actually very successful or should we say overly so – not like that hasn’t happened before right?

According to Kevin Jordan, a spokesperson for Skyfire Labs, Inc., “The app is actually SOLD OUT while Skyfire increases server capacity. They’ll open up a new batch for download very soon. Skyfire is working to increase server capacity as we speak and in the end, this will result in the best possible user experience once they hit the store again. ”

In any event the app, which has initially sold out in only five hours,  will make a reappearance in the App Store soon.

Read the complete Skyfire Labs, Inc. press release here.

NY-based DJ Rana Sobhany is fully committed to Apple’s mobile hardware — iPads and iPhones — as the technology that will be used to create the next generation of mobile music production. Her website Destroy the Silence chronicles her iPad Music Experiment and is filled with audio and video clips showing how the author and former instrumental musician is warping the boundaries of nightclub and dancefloor music production.

Sobhany notes in a recent interview that the strong emotional connection usually present between audiences and traditional live music performers can be lost in the transition to computer-based performance. She feels the touch-screen UI of Apple’s flagship mobile device may be able to help bridge that divide. “The iPad creates complete audio and visual engagement with the audience because I’m not just clicking a mouse,” she says, adding “I’m actively using these apps and mixing beats.”

This link points to a 10 minute clip of music Sobhany created during a recent set at the House of Blues in LA. It was mixed live on two iPads with one additional synth/drum machine controller powered by an iPhone.

[FastCompany]

Belkin’s a big name in accessories, and you’ve probably got at least a few of their iPod or iPhone cases floating around your house. Today they’re expanding their line-up for the iPad with two new offerings: the Grip 360 + Stand and the FlipBlade.

The Grip 360 is an all-in-one accessory that can be used in three configurations: as a carrying case, a handheld case and as a stand. On the back is a flexible hand strap that makes the iPad easier to hold one-handed; the strap titularly rotates 360 degrees depending on which configuration you want to hold your iPad in, or removed entirely. It sells for $69.99.

The FlipBlade is a bit different: it’s a compact support for the iPad that allows you to prop your tablet up in either of its orientations, and which folds up for easy traveling. The design’s nice, but at $29.99, seems a bit overpriced for something a cheap plastic business card holder will do with more portability for less than a buck.

Eager to get the full iTunes experience on your AppleTV? It’s one step closer to reality: Apple will introduce support for iTunes LP and iTunes Extras on the new AppleTV sometime soon, according to a letter from Steve Jobs.

Back in 1993, Trilobyte and Virgin Interactive released The 7th Guest… one of the games to be done mostly in full-motion video, and the first game to ship exclusively on CD-ROM. Now it’s got another laurel to add to its belt: Trilobyte says that it’ll be coming to iOS sometime in December.

It’s not the only FMV Trilobyte title planned for the App Store. Shortly after The 7th Guest launches for the iPhone, Trilobyte says they will re-engineer the sequel — The 11th Hour — for iOS as well.

When The 7th Hour hits the App Store, it’ll cost $4.

To be completely honest with you, the thing that amazes me most is that The 7th Guest can even fit on an iPhone. I remember when the game first came out and I was amazed at the seemingly dozens of CDs it shipped on: I remember being astonished that a single title could possibly encompass that many discs.

Of course, in retrospect, most of those discs were taken up by badly compressed full motion video… and compression’s come a long, long way since then. Still, I’m staggered: has technology really come so far? Obviously, but it’s still sometimes hard to deprogram my expectations.

Just a couple weeks ago, Apple updated their iLife suite up to the year 2011… but despite the fact that iLife ’11 requires Snow Leopard to run, Cupertino did not see fit to upgrade the executables to 64-bit…. even though programs like iMovie ’11 would certainly have benefited from the support.

What about Final Cut Studio, then? Last updated in July of 2009, Final Cut Studio is one of the top movie-editing software packages around… and it too could desperately benefit from some 64-bit support.

Evan Agee recently emailed Steve Jobs to see about Final Cut Studio, expressing his hopes of a 64-bit update to the package. As he’s sometimes wont to do, Apple’s CEO fired back a reply: “Stay tuned and buckle up.”