While Tim Cook had revealed earlier in the year that a “Made In U.S.A” Mac was on its way that would be manufactured in the U.S. rather than overseas, he has now revealed that a number of smaller parts for the Mac will be built within America as well.

Tim Cook sat down yesterday for an interview with Politco, where he said that the Mac will include parts manufactured in various states, in addition to the manufacturing of the entire computer which will also take place in the U.S. Cook states that it is all part of a $100 million investment Apple is putting into domestic manufacturing.

“We’re going very deep in this project,” Cook said, noting that not only will the final product be manufactured in the U.S., but so will many of its components. Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Kentucky are among the states he mentioned as having parts and assembly located.

Production of the Made in U.S.A Mac is set to begin sometime in 2013. Apple has still yet to announce which model Mac will be receiving the treatment, however, the most popular predictions are either the Mac Pro or the Mac mini.

The post Tim Cook Reveals The “Made In U.S.A” Mac Will Be Thoroughly American appeared first on Macgasm.

Canadian telecommunications giant Telus is trying to purchase the smaller and relatively new telecomm company Mobilicity for $380 million.

Mobilicity’s chief restructuring officer, William Aziz, states that the company has been losing a “significant amount of money every month” and that he thinks an acquisition by Telus is “the best alternative.”

The deal, however, must first be approved by the CRTC, Canada’s board that ensures the telecommunications market within the country remains fair and competitive. The CRTC has recently been pushing for a more competitive market, so this purchase attempt by Telus is controversial. If the deal goes through, Mobilicity’s 250,000 customers will be transitioned over and Telus will gain the wireless spectrums owned by Mobilicty.

Mobilicity came in to Canada in 2009 and helped disrupt the mobile phone market with its alternative plans and cheaper prices.

The caveat is that since Mobilicity is rapidly losing money, refusing Telus the ability to buy the company could result in Mobilicity going bankrupt. This is why Telus and Mobilicity are arguing that the deal should go through.

While it’s uncertain right now if the CRTC will approve the purchase, it certainly wouldn’t be a good outcome for Canadian customers. With already some of the highest cell phone and internet prices in the world, the country certainly can’t take a decrease in competition.

The post Telus To Buy Mobilicity For $380 Million, Bad News For Canadians appeared first on Macgasm.

It seems as though Apple is prepping to unveil a new version of the Macbook Air at next month’s WWDC. This conclusions comes after almost every major store is reporting that they no longer have any stock of the 13-inch default high-end Air that comes with a 1.8GHz processor and 256GB of flash storage.

One of the most telling signs of an upcoming new Apple product revision is when the current stock for that product starts drying up at stores. Apple always chooses to stop shipping and producing its old computers to ramp up production of their new model and to free up space at retail stores for the new device in the weeks leading up to its release.

AppleInsider reports that the Air is currently sold out at Amazon, B&H, MacConnection, MacMall, and J&R. The only Apple reseller they found that was actually still selling the device was Best Buy.

Rumors have been circling for some time that a new Macbook Air would be unveiled at WWDC and that it would include Intel’s new Haswell processor. The Haswell processors are set to launch in a couple of weeks, so the timing works out perfectly.

Long story short, if you’re thinking about getting a Macbook Air, you should probably wait a month.

The post Low Macbook Air Stock Suggests Updated Model To Come At WWDC appeared first on Macgasm.

While the word has been that Apple was planning to unveil its “iRadio” music streaming service at WWDC, it seems as though the company may not hit this June date due to licensing agreement problems with music publishers.

While previous reports have said that Apple has already signed a deal with Universal Music Group, The Verge is now reporting that the largest music publisher, Sony/ATV, has recently rejected signing to Apple’s current terms. The report also states that the fourth largest publisher, WMG, is still holding out on closing the deal as well.

If the deals cannot be made soon, we may either not see iRadio at WWDC at all, or we may see it launch with a limited selection as the companies continue to negotiate.

Apple is likely more keen than ever now to get its streaming service out into the world, with Google’s recent launch of its own music streaming service.

WWDC is just less than a month away, stay tuned.

The post Apple’s ‘iRadio’ Announcement May Miss WWDC Due To Licensing Woes appeared first on Macgasm.

Earlier this month, Samsung and BlackBerry devices received Pentagon approval for military use and today the U.S. Department of Defense announced that Apple’s devices running iOS 6 or later have also been approved for use on government networks. It looks like Apple’s rivalry with Samsung and BlackBerry will continue in a whole new space.

This market has long been dominated by BlackBerry, but with Samsung and now Apple’s approval, there might be a shift. The Department of Defense has over 600,000 mobile devices, which includes 470,000 BlackBerrys, 41,000 Apple products and 8,700 devices running Google’s Android operating system. A lot of the Apple and Android devices in use aren’t connected to military networks except for testing.

The military has said that it wants its employees to have more flexibility and choice to use commercial products on its networks. According to Bloomberg, it’s planning to create a military mobile applications store and hire a contractor to build a system that could handle as many as 8 million devices.

Image Credit: TweakTown

The post Apple iPhone And iPad Officially Approved For Military Use appeared first on Macgasm.

You’ve probably all been on crowd funding website Kickstarter at one point in your life to take a look at either a weird or wonderful project requiring a little bit of money in return for some kind of reward. Every so often, a really genius idea crops up that achieves its funding goal quickly — and deservedly so — but the rest are sometimes lacking in the sanity department.

With so wannabe entrepreneurs making use of app integration to improve their projects, it’s easy to see the same inspiring or ridiculous iOS-based concepts. So, here’s a list of particularly outstanding app-based ideas from Kickstarter.

Ubooly

Here’s a project that will be a big hit with the kids, but probably scare adults. Essentially, you place your iPhone into a cuddly toy body, and an iPhone app make the smartphone an interactive face. Ubooly will read or play games with children designed to make them think, which is a noble idea. Of course, the obvious issue here is the trust you place in your kids handling your precious iPhone

This project reached its funding goal and is now available to buy on its own website.

Melon

Ever wondered how much you waste at work being distracted instead of knuckling down? The Melon headband and mobile app could help answer that. You put the headband on, fire up the iOS app and get to work. Once you’re done, the Melon app will show you how focused you were, and can compare the activity to previous sessions to see if you focused better. This could be useful if you need to know when you work best, but wearing the headband in public might be tricky if you’re easily embarrassed.

Pixel Press

This app idea will probably appeal to everyone. How does an iPhone and iPad app that lets you draw your own video game — no code required — sound to you? Start by doodling five “floors” of your game on provided graph paper, and then take a photo with the Pixel Press app. The app digitizes the design into a playable game, so all you have to do next is color it in and pick the music. If you don’t want to build your own, you can play other users’ games too. Hopefully this one will reach its $100,000 goal.

Friend Your Pet

Looks like the meme Text From Dog (language NSFW) had a lasting effect on some people. If you ever wanted to talk to your cat, hamster, bird and so on as though they could hold human conversations, Friend Your Pet is for you. You basically fill in information about your pet, and it then sends you texts throughout the day as though it’s your housebound animal companion.  You can reply to them too! Of course, telling your co-workers that last text conversation was between you and a gerbil will make you the crazy one to avoid, so it’s doubtful this project will hit its funding target.

Pebble Watch

How could we forget the Pebble Watch? This project made Kickstarter history for not only achieving its goal of $100,000 quickly, but also surpassing it by over ten million dollars. This proves the simplest ideas tend to win out: it’s just a app-customizable smartwatch that connects to your iPhone and can alert you to the likes of incoming calls, emails and messages.

Of course there are plenty of rumors about Apple and other companies building their own iterations of smartwatches, but until those come true, this is the alternative.

Focus Microscope Camera

If you like looking at microbes and such up close wand wish to demonstrate your findings, the Focus Microscope camera puts your iPad to great use. The camera plugs into your microscope and streams to the iPad Focus app, so you can save images or make annotations or measurements. Seeing as this could be useful in not only labs and bedrooms but educational institutions, creator Exo Labs will donate a number of these apps and cameras to schools too. Best of luck to them gaining the backing needed.

The post Six Wacky and Wonderful Kickstarter Projects Using iOS Apps appeared first on Macgasm.

As if things couldn’t get worse for Nintendo, Kotaku has just confirmed, straight from EA, that the company does not have any games in development for the Nintendo Wii U.

From to Kotaku:

We have no games in development for the Wii U currently,” company spokesperson Jeff Brown told Kotaku yesterday. He did not rule out the chances of EA developing for the Wii U again. EA publishes many of gaming’s biggest franchises, including Madden, The Sims, andBattlefield.

Nintendo recently lowered its sales forecast for its hardware,  and has only managed to sell 3.45 million consoles worldwide from November 2012 until March 31, 2013.

Though EA made a few games for the Wii U early on, this move parallels a similar situation that played out years ago with the Sega Dreamcast in 1999.

EA decided to stop supporting the console entirely, figuring it wouldn’t be worth its efforts, and recouping costs would be unlikely. The Dreamcast ended up being Sega’s last console, despite a bevy of quality, albeit niche, titles.

This is not a telltale sign that Nintendo’s fate will be the same as the one that plagued its competitor; Sega’s problems were building for years. Ultimately, the first time around the move led to Sega leaving the console behind them, and eventually developing games for iOS.

I’m not going to lie, Nintendo games for iOS would be amazing.

The post Confirmed: EA Not Currently Developing Games For The Wii U appeared first on Macgasm.

The Angry Birds phenomena is everywhere. From shirts, to toys, to blankets, to TV shows and commercial, and of course any system that plays games, those infuriated birds are easy to find. Now the birds have been confirmed to be coming to the big screen, with Sony Pictures Entertainment announcing that they have signed on to distribute the film.

Not much is currently known about the movie, besides that its anticipated release date is set for July 1, 2016 and that it will be in 3D. Gamespot also reports that Iron Man producer David Maisel will be working on the project as executive producer and that Despicable Me producer John Cohen will also be helping produce the film. The film itself will be self-produced by the game’s developer Rovio, who has its own large video animation team.

Sony Pictures reportedly won the rights to the film through a bidding war with several other movie studios. Sony Pictures’ CEO and co-chairman Amy Pascal released a statement sharing their excitement over the acquisition.

“”Every studio in town would love to add Angry Birds to their slate. There are few titles out there that bring this kind of excitement, brand awareness and built-in audience to the table. We’re thrilled to be distributing this film and we hope this is just the beginning of what will be a long relationship with Rovio as we look for ways to work on future projects together.”

Banking on Angry Birds and 3D to still be hugely popular in 2016 sounds like a slight gamble to me, but people sure damn love those birds.

The post The Angry Birds Movie Is Happening, Coming To Theatres in 2016 appeared first on Macgasm.

Apple has released another minor update for iTunes, this time with a couple visual enhancements.

The biggest update of iTunes 11.0.3 comes to MiniPlayer, the tiny sized iTunes player that lets you play songs without having the fullscreen iTunes open. Besides general aesthetic improvements, MiniPlayer now comes with a new, slightly larger view that also incorporates album artwork. You can also now see a song’s progress bar within iTunes.

Other improvements include the ability to see album artwork when browsing through the Songs list, better support for multi-disc albums, and some typical bug fixes.

This version of iTunes comes with several new features and improvements, including:

• New MiniPlayer. MiniPlayer now includes a beautiful new view that showcases your album artwork. In addition, a progress bar is now built right into MiniPlayer.
• Improved Songs View. You can now enjoy your album artwork while in Songs view.
• Multi-Disc Albums. Albums with multiple discs now appear as a single album.

This update also provides performance improvements when searching and sorting large iTunes libraries.”

There you have it. Get your update on…

The post iTunes 11.0.3 Released, Brings Better MiniPlayer And Songs View appeared first on Macgasm.

Apple has reportedly submitted plans to open a new store in San Francisco’s Union Square, replacing the current flagship location it has on Stockton and Ellis just a few blocks away.

The new location will be both bigger and will feature a much more unique design, with glass making up the entirety of the building’s front facing wall. The store will be roughly 45% bigger than its old location, and will go from 350 employees to 400.

The old store has been in operation for nine years, and is one of the three total Apple stores located within the city.

City officials are reportedly excited about the move, hoping that it will bring significant amounts of business to Union Square thanks to all the additional foot traffic.

Apple is likely making the move to deal with its problem of being “too popular” and having too much of a crowded location, something that Tim Cook stated has been a problem with a number of Apple’s stores.

The post Apple Relocating Flagship Store In San Francisco, Giving It A Glass Makeover appeared first on Macgasm.

Amazon has announced that it will be bringing more NBC shows to its Prime Instant Video thanks to an expanded content licensing agreement with NBCUniversal & New Media Distribution.

All previous seasons are exclusive to Amazon and Prime subscribers will have access to the following:

• NBC’s dark fantasy drama Grimm, based on the collection of Grimm Fairy Tales, available today
• USA Network’s legal drama Suits and serialized spy thriller Covert Affairs, available today
• NBC’s new psychological thriller Hannibal, based on the novels by Thomas Harris and produced byGaumont International Television, available later this year
• Syfy’s new futuristic sci-fi and drama series Defiance, available early next year

“Our expanded agreement with NBCUniversal gives Prime members access to even more exclusive content that they can stream instantly, at no additional cost. Compelling shows like Covert Affairs, Defiance, Grimm, Hannibal and Suits are big wins for our customers and we look forward to adding more titles soon,” explained Brad Beale, Director of Digital Video Content Acquisition for Amazon.

Amazon’s Prime Instant Video offers more than 40,000 movies and TV shows. An annual subscription costs $79 a year.

Image Credit: Caprica TV

The post Amazon Adds More NBC Shows To Prime Instant Video Streaming Cataloge appeared first on Macgasm.

Not everyone has a smartphone, but Verizon is helping push people in that direction. Gotta Be Mobile has received confirmation that Verizon will be offering a 50% discount on the 16 GB iPhone 5 to select customers. Who qualifies as a select customer? Well, according to Verizon the company is only targeting people who are looking to upgrade from their dumbphones. People rocking retro phones from the 90s and early 2000s will be offered the iPhone 5 for $99.99.

Most of the money spent on a cell phone is for the service plan, but people still balk at the upfront cost of buying the device. This temporary deal will help ease people into their first smartphone purchase, and usher in a contract long remorse once they see their first bill.

The deal is presumably not being done to clear inventory; it’s only a temporary deal and Apple will likely continue to sell the iPhone 5 when the next iPhone launches later this year.

The next iPhone is rumored to be announced at WWDC, but will probably instead be announced some time in the fall, as Apple has wisely moved their key product announcements to the fall in order to sync up with the Christmas buying season.

The post A Sweet iPhone 5 Deal for Select Verizon Customers appeared first on Macgasm.

Here is a smartphone with an interesting, but old-tech kind of feature: NEC has just announced the Medias X 06E, an Android device that is the world’s first smartphone with a water-cooled CPU. Oh, and its also targeted towards women.

The goal of a water-cooled CPU is to keep heat away from the CPU so it can run at higher speeds without overheating. Running at an optimal temperature is important for any device, though your typical gadget today does not need nearly as much cooling as a PC from the early 2000s.

What makes this a phone for women? It has 2 different light-up pendants, which include a Tokyo Skytree and an earring. The phone also comes in both pink and white colors.

I know that you are probably wondering if water-cooling is even necessary in this phone, and frankly we have no idea. But, other smartphones with the same quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor haven’t needed to include any type of water cooling system to keep temperatures down.

It kind of makes the addition of water-cooling more of a spec boasting, chest-thumping claim to fame than anything included out of necessity.   For anyone interested, NEC’s newest creation is only available in Japan and will launch on NTT Docomo in June.

Also, Dafuq?

The post Introducing The World’s First Water-Cooled Smartphone appeared first on Macgasm.

If you’re a big fan of Google, today is basically your Superbowl. Google held its annual Google I/O event today, and with it came a number of big announcements from the tech giant.

Starting off with a hardware announcement, Google unveiled its next Nexus phone, which turns out to actually just be a rebranded Samsung Galaxy S4. The device will feature the same hardware as the recently released Galaxy S4; however, in typical Nexus fashion, the OS will run a stock Android experience. The device will come completely unlocked and will be able to run on both T-Mobile and AT&T’s LTE networks. The device, which is yet to have an official name, is set to go on sale June 26th for $649.

Google’s Music Streaming Service

Image Credit: http://www.androidcentral.com/google-play-music-all-access-unveiled

Another big announcement out of the conference was Google’s new music streaming service Google Play Music All Access. The service is designed to rival sites like Spotify and Rdio, and will cost users a monthly subscription fee of $9.99. The service acts as an extension of the existing Google Play music store, with members getting access to unlimited music on their desktops and Android devices. The service will also put emphasis on guiding users to recommended music that they haven’t heard before. Another cool feature is that when using the app on Android, it will seamlessly merge the user’s song library on his phone with the service’s online streaming library. Google also took a slight jab at Apple’s rumored ad-driven music service, touting how the app can let users create their own radio stations with their favorite artists, without any ads or restrictions. Those interested can sign up for a free 30 day trial right here. (U.S. users only for now, sorry)

Google Plus Design Overhaul And New Photo Features

Google’s social network Google+ is also receiving a major update, complete with an overhauled layout and significant improvements to photos. The new design features a 3 card layout, that has 3 horizontal columns giving users more information to see on screen and getting rid of the old vertical list of posts. It also puts more of an emphasis on photos and video. Google has also added some flashy animations to the desktop version, such as having cards literally flip over to reveal the comments section.

Photos have also gotten significant updates in the Google+ update. Whenever users upload new pictures, they’ll have the option to automatically use a new feature called Auto Enhance, which essentially just adjusts sliders like brightness, contrast, saturation etc… to make for a better looking picture. Google also showed off how the feature will remove things like zits from an image. Another cool feature is “Auto Awesome”, which automatically does a number of cool things depending on the photos you upload. It will automatically make a GIF for you if you upload a sequence of pictures taken in a short time and if you upload a number of similar group pictures, it will provide you with one perfect group picture that ensures every one is smiling. The feature “Auto Highlight” will make sure that if you upload an album with a ton of pictures, the best quality ones will be prominently shown off while blurry ones will not.

Massive Google Maps Redesign

Next is Google Maps, which will be receiving a massive update to the desktop version. Maps is getting a complete redesign that will incorporate the entire page of your web browser, and a major focus on having Maps get more intelligent the more you use it is being put into effect. It will do things like make a nearby bowling alley more visible on the map if you search for a bar that is close to it. It will also make locations you frequent like your house and work more prominent on the map so that you can use them as landmarks when going somewhere. Google says that it’s adding a ton of new features like this with the intention that the average user doesn’t even notice them, rather that they just subconsciously use them. The new version of Maps is currently in a preview build that people can sign up for to help get it ready for public release. Here’s a video that shows you what the new Maps is all about.

Hangouts Messaging Service For iOS And Android

Google also announced the release of the new Hangouts app, available today on iOS and Android. The app is essentially a unified messenging app made to replace Google Talk, Google+ Messenger and the old Google+ hangout video chat feature. Download it today and watch the video here to see what it’s all about.

While those are what we thought were the biggest announcements out of Google’s I/O, other announcements included “Google Play services,” which is pretty much Google’s version of Game Center for Android and newly announced functionality for Google’s Siri competitor Google Now, bringing things like Public Transit Support and the ability to make reminders.

If you have some spare time, you can watch the full event right here.

The post Google I/O: Everything You Need To Know From A New Nexus Phone To A Massive Google Maps Redesign appeared first on Macgasm.

Microsoft Points, Microsoft’s controversial virtual currency system for the Xbox, seems like it’s on the way out. The Verge is reporting that Microsoft plans to switch over to a gift card system like Apple’s iTunes gift cards that uses real currency as opposed to Microsoft’s magical fairy money.

Microsoft Points have been criticized for trying to trick people into spending more money than they think they are. Instead of spending $1 on the Xbox Marketplace, Microsoft has its users spend 80 Microsoft Points. This makes it harder to realize how much money you’re actually spending, and makes it harder to tell how much things in the store actually cost. If the average user sees a game in the store that costs 2400 Microsoft Points, they’re going to have no idea how much that actually is in real dollars.

Microsoft is reportedly planning to get rid of this system, however, as they plan to adopt a gift card method that uses real currency. Customers would go to the store and buy a $20 Microsoft Card, that would not only allow them to buy things on the Xbox Marketplace, but also the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store.

The switch in currency would likely be set to happen in time for the release of Microsoft’s next Xbox console, which is expected to be released sometime this fall.

The post Microsoft To Get Rid Of Microsoft Points System, Switching To Real Currency appeared first on Macgasm.

If there was ever a case for a walled garden, and tighter control from Google for the Android platform, this may just be it. According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung has captured 95% share of global Android smartphone profits during the first fiscal quarter of 2013.

Stop and think about the implications for a moment. If Samsung decided to fork Android like Amazon did, 95% of Google’s Android marketshare would evaporate in an instant.

At this point, it has to be an inevitable that Samsung will fork Android. Right?

The post It Should Probably Be Called Samdroid At This Point appeared first on Macgasm.

Google’s I/O event will be taking place a little later on today, but a newly designed Google Maps with new features has already leaked ahead of the event. The page has since been taken down, but not before a few screenshots were taken for everyone to see.

The screenshots reveal that a completely redesigned Google Maps is on the way. But what exactly does this mean? The sign-up page mentioned a “tailored map for every search,” so from the sounds of it a map will show you what’s important based on your search. It sounds like a whole new generation of mapping is on the horizon with custom “smart maps.”

There’s also a new “smarter search box,” which was revealed during a previous leak. You’ll be able to find the search box on top of the full-screen maps, which will make information, like destinations, ratings, reviews, and indoor maps, available during your search.

Other leaked images show Google Maps images using Google Earth. The new Google Maps will also incorporate Google’s flight search, a comparison of various modes of transportation, and will adjust according to previous searches and ratings.

The images didn’t reveal if these changes would also be for mobile devices, but they’ll probably end up there at some point.

Image Credit: Droid Life

The post New Google Maps Design Leaked Ahead Of I/O Event appeared first on Macgasm.

Google CEO Larry Page took to Google+ today, where he publicly revealed for the first time that he has been suffering from vocal cord paralysis for the past 14 years.

Page has written an extensive post on his Google+ page discussing the history of his condition as well as reassuring people (and shareholders) that it is nothing to be overly concerned about. Page also shows that he takes his condition with some lighthearted humor, saying things like, “Sergey says I’m probably a better CEO because I choose my words more carefully.”

Page goes on to say that he will be personally funding an extensive research project that could potentially help treat those suffering with his condition.

Here’s Page’s complete blog post, which is definitely worth a read:

About 14 years ago, I got a bad cold, and my voice became hoarse. At the time I didn’t think much about it. But my voice never fully recovered. So I went to a doctor and was diagnosed with left vocal cord paralysis. This is a nerve problem that causes your left vocal cord to not move properly. Despite extensive examination, the doctors never identified a cause — though there was speculation of virus-based damage from my cold. It is quite common in cases like these that a definitive cause is not found.

While this condition never really affected me — other than having a slightly weaker voice than normal which some people think sounded a little funny — it naturally raised questions in my mind about my second vocal cord. But I was told that sequential paralysis of one vocal cord following another is extremely rare.

Fast forward to last summer, when the same pattern repeated itself — a cold followed by a hoarse voice. Once again things didn’t fully improve, so I went in for a check-up and was told that my second vocal cord now had limited movement as well. Again, after a thorough examination, the doctors weren’t able to identify a cause.

Thankfully, after some initial recovery I’m fully able to do all I need to at home and at work, though my voice is softer than before. And giving long monologues is more tedious for me and probably the audience. But overall over the last year there has been some improvement with people telling me they think I sound better. Vocal cord nerve issues can also affect your breathing, so my ability to exercise at peak aerobic capacity is somewhat reduced. That said, my friends still think I have way more stamina than them when we go kitesurfing! And Sergey says I’m probably a better CEO because I choose my words more carefully. So surprisingly, overall I am feeling very lucky.

Interestingly, while the nerves for your vocal cords take quite different routes through your body, they both pass your thyroid. So in searching for a cause for both nerves that was an obvious place to look. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in 2003. This is a fairly common benign inflammatory condition of the thyroid which causes me no problems. It is unclear if this is a factor in the vocal cord condition, or whether both conditions were triggered by a virus.

In this journey I have learned a lot more about voice issues. Though my condition seems to be very rare, there are a significant number of people who develop issues with one vocal nerve. In seeing different specialists, I met one doctor — Dr. Steven Zeitels from the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital Voice Center — who is really excited about the potential to improve vocal cord nerve function. So I’ve arranged to fund a significant research program through the Voice Health Institute, which he will lead. Thanks a bunch to my amazing wife Lucy, for her companionship through this journey and for helping oversee this project and get it off the ground. Also, thanks to the many people who have helped with advice and information many of whom I have not had a chance to thank yet.

Finally, we’ve put together a patient survey to gather information about other people with similar conditions. As it’s fairly rare, there’s little data available today — and the team hopes that with more information they can make faster progress. If you have similar symptoms you can fill it out here: voicehealth.org/ip

Page’s voice has always sounded somewhat soft and strained, but until now no one really knew the cause of it. It’s definitely good to hear that Page’s health is, for the most part, doing fine and that he’s able to view his condition with such a positive and optimistic attitude.

The post Google CEO Larry Page Goes Public About His Vocal Cord Paralysis appeared first on Macgasm.

Netflix has announced a change to its API that will likely make a number of developers less than happy. The company has chosen to stop sharing its content expiry dates within the Netflix API, removing the ability for site and app developers to easily see what date TV shows and movies will be removed from the site.

Websites like instantwatcher.com used to use this information provided by Netflix’s API to easily sort movies and shows by what date they were expiring. This way, people could look at what movies were expiring soon so they could watch ones they were interested in before they lost the chance.

Netflix has now removed that feature, stating that the dates the company sets can occasionally be inaccurate and can often change at the last minute. “We are making this change because the expiration date can be inaccurate as a result of frequent, often last minute, changes in content flow.”

Unfortunately for sites like instantwatcher, this means one of their site’s key features has now been completely killed off.

Netflix will, however, put a fake date in the API code for all titles as January 1st, 2100, rather than removing the code altogether to try and avoid breaking any sites or apps that have been using the code.

Users will still be able to see when content is expiring soon by going on the title’s Netflix page, although, your drunken days of finding crappy B-horror movies to watch right before they expire are likely over.

The post Netflix Updates API, Makes It Harder To See When Movies Will Expire appeared first on Macgasm.

One of BlackBerry’s biggest selling points is headed to iOS and Android this summer. BlackBerry announced today that its popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service will finally be opening up to non-BlackBerry devices, a move that has been rumored for some time.

BBM is a messaging service with over 60 million active users, with 51 million of these being daily users that use the service for an average of 90 minutes a day. “BBM set the standard for mobile instant messaging with fast and reliable service and an added layer of engagement with delivered and read statuses,” states BlackBerry in its blog post announcing the new upcoming versions.

Here are the features you can expect from the BBM app when it first hits your iOS device sometime this summer:

• The immediacy of BBM chats
• Multi-person chats
• Voice note sharing
• BlackBerry Groups, where BBM users are able to set up groups of up to 30 people and share calendar, photos, files and more

BlackBerry executive Andrew Bocking had this to say regarding the announcement,

For BlackBerry, messaging and collaboration are inseparable from the mobile experience, and the time is definitely right for BBM to become a multi-platform mobile service. BBM has always been one of the most engaging services for BlackBerry customers, enabling them to easily connect while maintaining a valued level of personal privacy. We’re excited to offer iOS and Android users the possibility to join the BBM community.

BlackBerry also says that it plans to bring voice and video chat to the iOS and Android apps at a later point within the year.

If you’ve always been curious about the phenomena behind BBM but never dared buy a BlackBerry, your curioisity will soon be quenched.

The post BlackBerry’s BBM Coming To iOS And Android This Summer appeared first on Macgasm.

Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to bring more people over to its new Outlook.com webmail service. It started by getting rid of Hotmail and bringing millions of users over to the service and now it has integrated Google Talk contacts into Outlook.com’s messenger service to entice Gmail users to switch.

Starting today, you can now chat with any of your Google Talk contacts from the web portal, right from your Outlook.com inbox, SkyDrive app or calendar. All of your Google contacts will move to your messenger list, which already includes your Facebook friends and Skype contacts.

“The notion here is it’s very much about choice,” Dharmesh Mehta, the Senior Director of Outlook.com, explained. “You may want to chat with your Facebook friends, Google friends, or Skype friends – you can decide. It’s just built in.”

Outlook.com allows users to chat across multiple platforms and create contact lists from a number of social platforms, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, which is something that Gmail doesn’t do currently.

Previously, Microsoft had announced how easy it is to import contacts from Gmail as well. The company didn’t give a specific number as to how many people have actually moved from Gmail to Outlook.com, but it did say that one-third of its initial 60 million preview users came from Gmail. Mehta said at that time that the top request from former Gmail users was the ability to chat with their Google contacts.

Microsoft’s new webmail service already has 400 million users, and with the added integration of Google Talk, Oulook.com might boost that number even higher.

Image Credit: Wired

The post Outlook.com Luring Gmail Users By Letting You Chat With Google Contacts appeared first on Macgasm.

At today’s BlackBerry Live 2013 event, CEO Thorsten Heins made a couple of announcements regarding updated software and a brand new BlackBerry device.

Heins revealed that BlackBerry 10.1, an updated version to the operating system that shipped with the Q10, will start rolling out to Z10 users starting today. It’s a free update that will be rolling out with carrier partners over the next few weeks.

Some of the new BlackBerry 10.1 features include PIN to PIN messaging in the BlackBerry Hub, more customization options for notifications, fine cursor control, HDR photography, and a lot more that makes the BlackBerry 10 OS easy and “more improved.”

Heins said that most international carriers will be distributing the new update by the end of this week, while US carriers are expected to receive the updated software by the end of May. To download the new software, just wait for the alert in the notifications section of the BlackBerry Hub, or you can manually check for the software update in the settings menu.

During the event, Heins gave an update on the BlackBerry 10′s growing app catalog, which now includes more than 120,000 apps for the new OS that are available for download. Some of these include iHeartRadio, SoundHound, Bloomberg Hub, and Skype.

Heins also announced a new smartphone that is expected to launch this summer: the BlackBerry Q5, which also runs BlackBerry 10. The Q5 features a QWERTY keyboard and is designed for emerging markets. It has a 3.1-inch touchscreen on top of a physical keyboard and comes in red, white, black and pink. Starting in July, it’s expected to launch in parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. No price has yet been set for the new device.

The BlackBerry Q5 “is for youthful fans that are passionate, confident and bold, and it makes it easy for them to have fun, create, share and stay connected,” Heins explained.

The post BlackBerry Announces The Q5, Starts Rolling Out 10.1 Today appeared first on Macgasm.

Raspberry Pi owners in the UK who have been waiting for the new Raspberry Pi Camera Board will be happy to know that it has launched today.

With only limited quantities available, CPC is limiting initial order quantities to one per customer. Those who are signed up for notifications from CPC probably already know this and have been invited to order their Raspberry Pi Camera Board today.

If you’re interested, here are a few specs. The Raspberry Pi Camera Board measures 25 x 20 x 9mm. It has been designed as an add-on to use with the Raspberry Pi, which lets you capture 2,592 x 1,944-pixel images and capture video at 1,080p (30fps), 720p (60fps) and VGA (60 or 90 fps) once it’s installed.

The Raspberry Pi Camera Board is priced at £19.87 inc VAT. You can order your Raspberry Pi Camera Module now over at the CPC website.  For a first look at what it will look like, make sure to check out the brief video above.

Image Credit: Open Compute Project

The post Raspberry Pi Camera Board Module Now Available In The UK appeared first on Macgasm.

Google has unified account storage from Google Drive, Gmail and Google+ into one data pool, giving free users 15GB of usable web storage. This 15GB of storage can be used across all Google services without any form of allocation. The same applies for people who have purchased additional storage for their Gmail or Google Drive account.

Google unifying its storage accounts will be a huge win for most Google users that don’t use the full potential of a Google service. For instance, I’m not a huge Gmail or Google+ user, but I use Google Drive on a daily basis. It will be nice for me to be able to use my unused Gmail storage on Google Drive and not let the storage go to waste.

This change will also make Google Drive a more worthy competitor to Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive. These services only offer 2GB and 5GB to free users respectively, making them hard to use for photo backups. Google Drive has a wide range of well-designed mobile apps as well as desktop clients and was launched in April of 2012.

The post Google Combines Drive, Gmail and Google+ Storage appeared first on Macgasm.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wants phone theft rates to drop. To do this, he’s pointing his finger at the phone and OS manufacturers themselves, saying that they aren’t doing enough to deter their devices from being targets for theft.

Schneiderman has sent letters to the offices of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung, extending an invitation for the companies to work together with his office in order to develop new antitheft measures.

“Surely we can work together to find solutions that lead to a reduction in violent street crime targeting consumers,” says Schneiderman. In the letters, Schneiderman references a number of specific incidents that have occured in the city which involved violent or fatal altercations over people trying to steal iPhones.

One of the major reasons New York wants to address this issue is because it causes bad press for the city and the police department. For example, overall crime rates would have decreased in the city in 2012 if it weren’t for a massive increase in Apple product thefts. If the thefts hadn’t occured, the city would have been able to tell its citizens that crime had decreased by 4%.

Schneiderman doesn’t cut the companies any slack with his letters, going as far as to imply that they might be purposefully enabling theft as it earns them more money in replacement device sales. “I would be especially concerned if device theft accrues to your financial benefit through increased sales of replacement devices.”

While companies like Apple offer features such as Find My iPhone, which offer a number of security measures to users, Schneiderman doesn’t think it’s enough. Schneiderman thinks these companies should find a way to render a phone completely useless if stolen, as a means of deterring theft.

It will be interesting to see if any of the companies respond to Schneiderman’s letter and if they do end up agreeing to sit down with him.

When people are able to steal iPhones like this, you know you have a problem.

The post New York Wants Apple, Google, Microsoft And Samsung To Make Their Phones Harder To Steal appeared first on Macgasm.

CBS News has released some previously unaired footage taken from its 60 Minutes interview with Bill Gates earlier in the week. The new footage shows Gates getting teary-eyed when discussing his final meeting with the then very ill Steve Jobs.

Gates says that in his last meeting with Jobs, the two talked about retrospective things like “what we’d learned”, as well as conversations about things like family. Jobs was also excitedly showing Gates the plans for his yacht that he was having built, although the former Apple CEO never got to see it finished.

Gates states that Jobs didn’t seem at all angry or bitter about his sickness, and rather that he felt disappointed by their failures such as having never made as much of an impact on education as he wanted to up until that point.

When asked by interviewer Charlie Rose what Jobs had that Gates wishes he had, Gates without hesitation said, “His sense of design.”

Watch the full video to get a closer look at the interesting and unique relationship that existed between the tech leaders.

The post Bill Gates Emotionally Recounts Last Words With Steve Jobs appeared first on Macgasm.

If you were to think of all the things you could write a Steve Jobs/Steve Wozniak graphic novel about, you’d likely never come up with the concept for Steve and Steve.

The comic follows Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who have become trapped within a large dome in the middle of the forest for no explicable reason. The two get high and have deep talks that are loosely related to technology and that sometimes last for pages on end. They talk about anything from braiding hair to lesbian witches, all providing for a trippy yet entertaining experience.

The graphic novel is surprisingly funny and does a great job at mocking the well known personality traits of Jobs and Wozniak. Currently just the prologue is available, however, the prologue still manages to give a ton of content and a good setup for the future story, which is expected to be continued sometime this month. Plus, ya know, it’s free.

The whole comic, created by acclaimed comic writer Patrick Sean Farley, is available to read online with a nice easy to read interface.

If you have some time, definitely check out the graphic novel here. It’s fair to say you’ll never read anything like it.

Via Cult of Mac

The post Steve and Steve: A Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak Comic You Have To See To Believe appeared first on Macgasm.

By the year 2020, 4G LTE speeds will be so yesterday. Samsung announced today that it has successfully developed 5G technology for the first time and expects to give the speed-bump to users by 2020.

According to Samsung, with 5G speeds, users will be able to access a stream of data much faster than with the current 4G speeds and movies will be downloaded in less than a second.

With the new 5G platform, users will be able to download data at speeds of up to tens of gigabits per second (Gbps). Compare this to the current 75 megabits per second (Mbps) with the 4G LTE service.

Samsung has reportedly done successful testing of the platform using 28 Gigahertz (Ghz) waveband to transmit data at a speed of 1 Gbps. Before now, this was considered a “conundrum by global industry players.”

Samsung apparently used 64 antenna elements to solve the problem. This let the device exchange real-time signals under the platform.

So if 4G LTE data speeds aren’t fast enough for you, you’ll only have to wait another seven years to get your hands on 5G speeds. Brace yourselves, iPhone 5G rumors are coming…

Image Credit: Gizmodo

The post Need For Speed: Samsung Readying 5G For 2020 Release appeared first on Macgasm.

ABC is gearing up to revolutionize the way people watch TV by live-streaming content on iPhones and iPads with a “live” button. But don’t get too excited just yet — there’s a catch. Only people living in New York and Philadelphia will be able to live stream content from ABC’s local stations there. This is pretty major as ABC is the first major broadcaster to enable such a feature, even if it’s only for a limited number of users.

The other catch is that the live stream will only be available to paying subscribers of cable and satellite providers, despite the stations’ signals being available for free over the public airwaves.

ABC, which is part of the Walt Disney Company, said that the feature would be available in the other six cities where it owns stations sometime this summer.

ABC’s mobile app could prompt other broadcasters to make similar moves, just like seven years ago when the network started to stream full episodes of shows the morning after they aired on TV. ABC was planning to introduce the new “live” feature for its app in 2014, but decided to introduce it much sooner.

Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, explains: “We keep a very close eye on consumer demand. We watch how people are behaving with their devices, and we really felt that we needed to move faster.”

Apple devices are the first to be supported with this feature, but other phones and tablets will be supported in the coming months, according to Albert Cheng, Vice President for Digitial Media. Securing the necessary rights from program providers was the hard part, but ABC will be able to stream all of its local newscasts, syndicated talk shows like “Katie,” and national series like “Grey’s Anatomy.”

ABC is set to feature the new service on Tuesday at its upfront presentation for advertisers.

The post ABC To Start Live Streaming TV Shows Through Its iOS App This Week appeared first on Macgasm.

WWDC is coming closer and we’re already beginning to see early evidence of iOS 7 via web traffic. That bit of news was tied to some early concept ideas about iOS 7, one about the overall design and the other about possible App Store trials.

Hardware rumors kicked up as there were stories that said the Retina iPad Mini was due to enter production in a few months. The cheaper iPhone rumors resurfaced as a supplier reported a 40% increase in it’s workforce.

Our Features, Tips, and Funny Posts

• Caught Watching Porn On Google Glass, SNL Sketch
• New YouTube Trends Map Feature Wants To Steal Your Free Time
• Apple’s Aged iOS Apps Tell The Whole Story
• I Hated Jailbreaking Then I Figured Out What Tweaks To Install
• Repair Just About Anything With Sugru

Stories from around the web

• The myth of Inbox Zero and the path to peace of mind, Why you fail at Inbox Zero and how to reframe the process.
• Apps are too cheap, an argument that the community and Apple needs to do more to help ensure developers make a living.
• Incestuous, Kickstarter-driven, hatred of casual: why one developer dropped out of the “indie scene”, one developer explains that the “community” might not always be a good thing.
• Privacy Breach on Bloomberg’s Data Terminals , Bloomberg News is accused of using the company’s terminals to harvest data to break stories.
• Coralbots will restore and rebuild damaged coral reefs, Robots lulling us into thinking they’re here to help.

Our Weekly Deals

• The NYOP Adventure Gamer Bundle
• Apple Depot Earbuds With Mic & Remote
• Build iOS Apps From Scratch Without Programming
• A Retro Phone For Your Smart Device
• Easily Create 3D Animations For The Web

The post Here’s 15 Posts That You Should Catch Up On This Weekend appeared first on Macgasm.

It turns out that Apple’s innovative Smart Cover might be more dangerous than its colorful appearance would tell.

14 year old Gianna Chien has done a study proving that the smart cover’s built in magnets have a high risk of turning off implanted defibrillators for those with serious heart problems. If someone with one of these devices inside of them falls asleep with their iPad on their chest, it could potentially turn off their defibrillator, putting them at serious risk.

Read the full story at Bloomberg.

The post Turns Out The iPad’s Smart Cover Can Kill, Turns Off Implanted Defibrillators appeared first on Macgasm.

The security software Apple uses to protect its iPhones is good. Perhaps too good.

The devices are allegedly so hard to crack that police need to go to Apple themselves to retrieve information from them. Sometimes Apple can put these police on waiting lists that last for over a month until they can finally get the information they want.

Read the full story over at CNET.

The post Even Police Can’t Decrypt An iPhone Without Apple’s Help appeared first on Macgasm.

One of the best innovations that has happened with the advancement of smartphones is camera quality. Thank goodness the days of watching flip phone quality footage on YouTube are pretty much all behind us.

The folks behind the Camera+ app wanted to show just how far camera quality has come along just since the introduction of the original iPhone. It’s incredible how much better what we have now in our iPhone 5s is than what we had back in 2007 with the first iPhone camera.

To really show off the evolution, they have taken a variety of pictures, all from the same angle, with an iPhone, an iPhone 3G, an iPhone 3Gs, an iPhone 4, an iPhone 4s and an iPhone 5.

Check out one example below, but be sure to visit the original blog post to get a look at all the different pictures.

iPhone

iPhone 3G

iPhone 3Gs

iPhone 4

iPhone 4s

iPhone 5

The post See The Evolution Of The iPhone Camera, From Original To iPhone 5 appeared first on Macgasm.

Sharp, a company that has found itself on hard times lately, caught a break a month back when Samsung invested over $100 million into the company. This clearly wasn’t enough to advert all disaster, however, as Sharp will reportedly announce plans Tuesday to let go of 5,000 employees over the next three years.

The Asahi Shinbum reports that Sharp’s corporate head office in Osaka, Japan will have half of its executive staff cut. Besides its head office, most of the job cuts will reportedly take place outside of Japan. The job cuts are being made in an attempt to bring the company back to a profitable state, somewhere it has not been in sometime.

The company will also allegedly begin to focus more on creating high-end TVs for U.S. customers by producing more 4K TVs and TVs that are over 70-inches. Sharp will also be putting more focus on small-panel smartphone displays.

Even for a company like Sharp that has nearly 60,000 employees, getting rid of 5,000 people is a significant number.

The post Sharp To Let Go 5,000 Employees, Change Company Focus appeared first on Macgasm.

With WWDC quickly approaching, more and more iOS 7 concepts are popping up. The latest comes from Simply Zesty’s Art Director, Philip Joyce, who rounded up the latest iOS 7 rumors and put together a stunning visual concept of the best iOS 7 features.

There’s been a lot of debate about what direction Jony Ive will take with iOS 7, with many arguing he will do away with the traditional design elements of iOS and turn to a more modern and flat look. So what exactly does Ive have in mind? There’s no way to know until it officially launches, but Joyce’s concept definitely takes an interesting approach in trying to answer that question.

Joyce has given the app icons a complete makeover, getting rid of the gloss and sheen and turning to a flatter, cleaner and completely square look. He also included a widget-capable home-screen and completely redesigned core apps, including Calendar, Music, Siri, Facebook, and more.

The post Concept: Is This Close To What We Can Expect For iOS 7? appeared first on Macgasm.

While iTunes can still be used in “desktop” mode on Windows 8, Microsoft would really like Apple to come out with an official iTunes app for Windows 8. In an interview with CNN Money, Tami Reller, CFO of Microsoft’s Windows division, said that Microsoft has been trying to convince Apple to build an iTunes Windows 8 app, but it doesn’t look like it’ll happen “any time soon.”

“You shouldn’t expect an iTunes app on Windows 8 any time soon,” Reller explained. “iTunes is in high demand. The welcome mat has been laid out. It’s not for lack of trying.”

iTunes is one of the most searched for applications in the Windows Store, so it’s not surprising that Microsoft would like Apple to make one. So far, Apple has been willing to write some software for Windows, like iTunes, Safari, and Quicktime, but Apple’s footing in the tablet market is different than in the PC market. The iPad is the best-selling tablet out there right now, so there isn’t much incentive for Apple to release something that will make the Surface a better product.

Despite this one hole, the Windows app store is securing more and more apps with over 60,000 apps available to date. Users have downloaded about 250 million so far. The company hopes to have most of the popular apps for iOS available for Windows 8 in time for the next holiday season.

The post Microsoft: iTunes App For Windows 8 Probably Isn’t Happening appeared first on Macgasm.

It seems like Amazon may be looking to expand its hardware offerings beyond its Kindle tablets and eReaders. The company is reportedly working on an array of different products, including a smartphone with a 3-D display and a device that functions as some sort of “audio-only streaming device.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that it has been tipped off by reliable sources about Amazon’s “Alphabet Projects.” The Alphabet Projects are a collective of four different hardware projects Amazon is working on, Project A, Project B, Project C, and Project D.

One of the four projects is reportedly a high-end 3-D smartphone that doesn’t require 3-D glasses to use. What’s interesting about this reported phone, is that unlike other glasses-free 3-D displays that give the appearance of depth going into the screen, images on this phone will reportedly seem to float above the display like a hologram and will be visible at all angles. The device will reportedly use retina-tracking technology to help with the technology, and will also let users scroll through content using only their eyes.

The second project seems to be another smartphone, however, it is not detailed in the report. Perhaps this will be a more traditional smartphone offering from the company.

The third project is described by The Wall Street Journal as an “audio-only streaming device.” This sounds as though it could try and offer a cheap device that is dedicated just to streaming audio files. Whether this means it can connect to sites like Rdio or whether this just means it uses Amazon’s cloud to play songs purchased off Amazon is unclear.

The fourth project is a set-top box, similar to an Apple TV, that is designed for streaming movies and TV shows.

The sources claim that Amazon’s goal is to release some of these products within the next few months, although they also apparently say that any or all of the devices have the potential to be shelved due to things such as financial or performance concerns.

While an Amazon smartphone sounds like it could be a really interesting proposition, this report seems too unclear to take anything as a certainty. Hopefully we hear more information confirming the devices in the coming months.

The post Amazon Working On A 3-D Smartphone, Other Hardware appeared first on Macgasm.

China is a highly valuable country for any company, especially when it comes to the smartphone market. China’s smartphone market has recently grown to three times the size of the U.S.’s, with Apple being one of the top 5 smartphone vendors in the country.

Apple has retaken its spot as the fifth largest smartphone vendor in the country, with the company now possessing 8% of the country’s smartphone market. Apple trails Samsung, the top vendor in the country, that has a 20% share. Between Samsung and Apple, there also sits Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific, Huawei, and Lenovo. Samsung and Apple are the only two non-Chinese companies to feature in the country’s top 10 smartphone vendors.

Apple had previously fallen to 6th spot in the country, but analyst Nicole Peng states that, “iPhone 5 sales, along with price cuts to older iPhone models, propelled the company’s smartphone shipments in China’s intensely competitive market.”

There seems to be a massive smartphone boom happening right now in China. In Q1 2012, U.S. vendors shipped roughly the same number of smartphones to China as it produced for America. Now, however, 82 million smartphones were shipped to China by U.S. vendors in Q1 of this year versus just 27 million that were shipped to the U.S.

If Apple wants to catch up to Samsung in this exploding market, the company will likely have to release a lower-cost iPhone to appease the region’s poorer residents. While people often think of how a lower-cost iPhone would succeed in the U.S., it’s really countries like China that Apple is after with such a product.

The post Apple’s Popularity Rising In China, Now 5th In Country’s Smartphone Market appeared first on Macgasm.

The lazy man’s version of Netflix just got lazier with version 4.1 of the iOS app. The update brings with it the ability to auto-play episodes of TV, movie recommendations, and enhanced second screen options.

I refer to the iOS version as the “lazy man’s Netflix,” as the only time I ever use it is when I’m too lazy to get out of bed to go to my full-sized TV, so instead I stay and watch it on my iPhone or iPad. With this new update, Netflix takes the “post-play” feature from its other apps and brings it to the iOS version. This update makes it so that when an episode of a TV show finishes, Netflix automatically begins to load up the next one in the season. Now I don’t even have to worry about tapping around the screen to watch the next episode, I can simply lay in my bed and wait for it to happen.

The update also brings with it movie recommendations, where after you watch a movie, the three top recommended movies for you pop-up so that you can easily begin watching one of them. While binge viewing is certainly a lot more popular for watching TV shows than movies, it’s still a nice way to find out what movie you should choose to eventually watch next.

Also included in the update are “enhanced second screen options.” Second screen is the ability to use your iPhone or iPad as a sort of remote for Netflix that lets you select a movie from your iOS device and have it then play from Netflix on your PS3. It’s unclear what exactly the added options are that are included with the update.

Download the app for free on iTunes.

The post Netflix For iOS Updates, Adds Auto-Play Episodes And More appeared first on Macgasm.

Since rumors of Apple acquiring Waze quickly fizzled out, Facebook is now reportedly in talks to acquire the navigation start-up for somewhere between $800 million and $1 billion. According to business daily Calcalist, Facebook and Waze started discussing the possibility about six months ago and a term sheet has already been signed.

Waze uses satellite signals from users’ smartphones, which generates maps and traffic data. This information is then shared with other users, providing real time traffic information. Waze also offers voice-guided turn-by-turn navigations, notifications for police traps, accidents, road hazards, and traffic jams.

Waze and Facebook first partnered in October of 2012 when Waze released a new updated version that lets users share their drive information with Facebook friends.

In the last year, Waze tripled the number of users it has to 45 million with 1.5 million signing up in March alone.

If this deal goes through, it’ll be Facebook’s third acquisition in Israel. In 2011, it bought Snaptu for $70 million and Face.com for $60 million in 2012.

Image Credit: BGR

The post Facebook To Acquire Waze For $1 Billion? appeared first on Macgasm.

Apple wants Google to hand over documents relating to Android that will help it in its case against Samsung. Apple, which is in a patent-infringement lawsuit with Samsung, claims that Android “provides much of the accused functionality” of Samsung’s infringing products and that doing a thorough search of these documents is essential to proving Samsung is intentionally infringing on its patents.

Lawyers for Samsung argue that Apple intentionally left Google out of its lawsuit and only targeted Samsung as Google doesn’t have as many rights when its a third party to the trial, and thus there’s more of a chance that the company will be forced to hand over the documents that Apple is after.

“It’s a question of transparency,” Mark Lyon, a lawyer for Apple, told Grewal yesterday, referring to the documents. “We have concerns that they’re not doing a full search,” Bloomberg reports.

Samsung and Google are concerned that Apple will find information that can hint at future Android products or updates that will give them an unfair competitive edge. Apple claims that it is simply trying to protect its patents from Samsung.

This is the second major patent case between the two companies. Apple won the first one and Samsung was forced to pay Apple $639 million in damages.

Don’t think it’s the last one, however, as It is fair to expect back and forth patent wars between these two companies until the end of time.

Image Credit: Extreme Tech

The post Apple Goes After Android Source Code With Lawsuit appeared first on Macgasm.

As WWDC and the unveiling of Apple’s iOS 7 draw closer, it is likely that Apple is ramping up testing of its upcoming OS to ensure that it is ready to be shown off to developers and the public. Several sites have now been getting a significant increase in traffic from devices running iOS 7, with these devices originating from Apple’s set of IPs.

Apple news site MacRumors and mobile site creator Onswipe both reported seeing massive spikes in iOS 7 usage from users visiting their sites. Onswipe claims that on May 2, 23% of all iOS visitors to its sites were running iOS 7, with the majority of these visitors being from Cupertino or San Francisco. It reports that this is the largest amount of iOS 7 traffic its sites have ever gotten. Out of that 23%, 3/4 of users were using iPhones, while the other 1/4 were on iPads.

Popular pages that were visited by iOS 7 users included things such as news about Apple’s stock and information regarding Kid Cudi’s next album.

For us simple folk who don’t work for Apple, we’ll have to wait until June’s WWDC to see all the cool new features that these testers are using right now.

The post Apple Ramps Up Testing Of iOS 7 Web Traffic Shows appeared first on Macgasm.

If there’s one thing Samsung loves doing, it’s bashing Apple and Apple fans, so it’s only fitting that its S Voice assistant is programmed to throw a few punches as well. When asked if it’s ever used an iPhone, the S Voice assistant responds with a biting remark: “No, I have standards.”

Even though it takes a shot at Apple, the S Voice assistant can’t help but admit that it also likes to think of itself as Siri. When asked, “Are you Siri” the response is, funnily enough, “I like to think I am.”

According to Android Central, the S Voice gives these responses on the Galaxy S4 and varying results to these questions might be seen on other Samsung smartphones.

S Voice is Samsung’s equivalent to Apple’s Siri, and first launched last year with the Galaxy S III, just a few months after Siri arrived on the iPhone 4S. Both assistants offer similar functions, like being able to ask questions, set reminders, and make phone calls.

The post Samsung S Voice Secretly Wishes It Was Siri appeared first on Macgasm.

Are teenage girls in New York City watching the same videos as elderly men in Texas? Hopefully not, but now with YouTube’s new Trends Map feature, we can know for sure.

The site youtube.com/trendsmap is a new page that lets you see just what Americans are watching and lets you apply filters to see how the most popular videos differ between different demographics. The site allows you to filter by gender, age and region. For example, you can see what the country’s top video is for teenage boys in Miami and then see if this matches up or is different from what the rest of the country is watching.

There are a number of cool things you can do with the feature, and it also functions as a nice discovery tool for new and interesting videos. Currently the U.S. is the only country that is mapped out, but it sounds as though YouTube plans to expand the trend viewing feature to other countries in the future.

Try it out here.

The post New YouTube Trends Map Feature Wants To Steal Your Free Time appeared first on Macgasm.

With the release of the iPhone 5, some Apple fans are starting to get concerned with where Apple goes next with its smartphone. With the phone’s size and display being arguably almost perfect, there doesn’t seem like there’s much the company can change in the upcoming versions. That’s why former Apple advertising expert Ken Segall predicts that it is time for the iPhone to follow the path that was set out for it by the iPod.

Segall, who used to work for Apple overseeing the company’s marketing efforts, says that its now time for the iPhone to follow the same product cycle that the iPod went through. In his most recent post on his blog, he writes:

“Back when the very first iPhone was about to launch, it was assumed by many inside Apple that iPhone would follow the path of iPod before it. The first year or two would be devoted to evolving and perfecting the device — and then the iPhone line would be expanded to address various types of customers.

iPod’s biggest years came after it had expanded into a family of products.

Given that history, and given the growing demand for certain variations on the theme, there’s a good chance that the next iPhone will actually be a family of iPhones.”

Segall goes on to list a few iPhone variants that he thinks Apple might soon decide to launch.

The first is the iPhone Mini, targeted to be a lower-cost iPhone. The device wouldn’t be cheap by any means, but it would feature things such as a plastic case and an iPhone 4 sized screen to help significantly reduce costs.

The second is a line of colorful iPhones. Whether this comes with the iPhone 5s, or the lower-cost iPhone, the phones will come in a variety of different colors that help customers add more personality to their device. “Color is personal, and our phones are more personal than iPod ever was. Color will make the new iPhone instantly recognizable as something new.”

The third is an “iPhone Max.” This would be a phone to rival devices like Samsung’s Galaxy S4, which captures a market of consumers looking for a massive vibrant screen.

“The smartphone audience has grown exponentially in recent years,” says Segall. “The simple reality is that different people have different needs. Creating a family of devices would widen iPhone’s appeal as it squelches the perception that Apple is somehow losing touch.”

As long as I can get a low-cost neon pink iPhone Max, I’ll be happy.

The post Ex-Apple Marketing Wizard Predicts iPhone Is Set To Get iPod-ified appeared first on Macgasm.

A new report out of CNET claims that Apple is finally gearing up for the launch of its rumored Retina display iPad mini, and that mass production of the device is set to begin in either June or July.

NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim says that the device’s display will pack a resolution of 2,048×1,536 for a PPI (pixels per inch) that is roughly equivalent to what we currently have on the iPhone 5, which has a PPI of 326. This will make it one of the most pixel dense tablets to date.

LG Display will reportedly be the main manufacturer of the device’s display.

Shim also claims that while the Retina iPad mini is scheduled to be released this fall, he says that Apple will release a 3rd generation iPad mini with an updated processor in Q1 2014, similar to what happened with the 4th gen original iPad.

The iPad mini turned out to be tremendously popular for Apple, so it should be interesting to see how big of a launch a Retina version will have. The original iPad mini’s display was the center of much of the device’s criticism, so the launch of a Retina version should sway both tons of new customers and those looking to upgrade from their old device to run over to an Apple Store.

The post iPad Mini With Retina May Enter Mass Production As Early As Next Month appeared first on Macgasm.

It was already going to be a hard sell to get the tech enthusiast to use Google Glass in public due to its slightly ridiculous nature, but now that mainstream media is making fun of it, Google has even more of an image problem.

This week’s Saturday Night Live featured a three minute skit completely dedicated to ridiculing Google’s upcoming piece of technology. It made fun of everything from the the device’s look, to its voice commands, to its head gestures. It finally ends with the device’s owner being caught watching porn while using Google Glass.

To be fair, SNL greatly exaggerates problems such as reliability of voice commands and head gestures that make it seem like the device isn’t at all functional. These are likely the aspects of Glass that Google will end up getting right for the most part, while things such as its battery life and its public image are things that deserve to be made fun of.

When it comes close to the launch of Glass, Google will certainly have to make a significant advertising push to try and convince consumers that its device is in fact user friendly. Otherwise, the company may have a marketing disaster on its hands.

American users can watch the video in HD below on NBC. Other users can try the low-quality YouTube version below it, although expect it to be removed fairly soon by NBC.

The post Caught Watching Porn On Google Glass, SNL Sketch appeared first on Macgasm.

Fortune Magazine came out with its Fortune 500 list for 2012 today, a list that ranks the top 500 U.S. corporations based on their annual gross revenue. The famous listing reveals Apple to have jumped several spots this year, with the Cupertino company having gone from 11th to 6th spot, the first time the company has ever been in the list’s top 10.

Apple is joined by giants such as the likes of Walmart in 1st and Exxon Mobil in 2nd. Microsoft also came in at 35th and Facebook made it onto the list for the very first time at 482nd place.

Apple still has a long way to go if it wants to catch Walmart. Walmart’s revenues for the year sat at a massive $469 billion, while Apple’s revenues only hit $156 billion. Apple still has the upper hand when it comes to profit though, as the company raked in over $41 billion in profit in 2012, second only to Exxon mobil with $44 billion.

Fortune’s list is a pretty good indicator as to how well a company is doing, with only the world’s most successful companies being able to break into the top 10. As Apple’s stock prices remain low and with some analysts questioning Tim Cook’s ability to launch new products and run the company, it will be interesting to see if Apple will be able to hold the position in the coming years.

The post Apple Hits Fortune 500 Top 10 For Very First Time appeared first on Macgasm.

Google Glass may turn out being just as functional when paired with an iPhone as it is when paired with an Android. Google has told Tech Crunch, that text messaging and navigation support for Glass, currently Android exclusives, will soon make their way to iPhone users, as well as for users of any other type of phone.

Currently, Glass requires the MyGlass companion app for Android in order to use navigation and text messages. This is because Glass itself doesn’t include its own GPS, or even its own data connection for that matter. The device instead pairs up with a phone to in order to use these features. Currently Glass is able to connect to an iPhone to connect to the internet, but not to use its GPS or SMS.

In Tech Crunch’s report, it’s unclear just exactly how GPS and texting will become “independent of the device the user has paired to it.” It seems as though in the future, Glass will no longer require the companion app for GPS and texting and that this information will be integrated right into the Glass device itself. Whether this will be able to be done with a firmware upgrade, or whether Google’s simply referring to a future non-early model of Glass is uncertain.

At the end of the day, however, Glass is still $1,500. Once that price loses a digit or two in a decade or so, I’ll be ready to start listening.

The post Google Glass To Get Native GPS And SMS Support appeared first on Macgasm.

Both Samsung and Blackberry have received approval from the Pentagon to have their devices used by the Department of Defense. This is a pretty big deal for Samsung as the Galaxy S4 is the first Android-powered smartphone to ever receive Department of Defense approval. What’s even more impressive is that it did so before Apple’s iPhone.

Late on Thursday, BlackBerry announced that the Department of Defense approved smartphones and tablets that run Blackberry 10, the new operating system. BlackBerry must be happy about that as although it has lost its footing among many consumers, it hopes to maintain its position in corporate and military areas.

Samsung devices with Knox, the company’s new security software offering, also received approval from the Pentagon on Thursday, according to a spokesman for the Department of Defense. Apple can expect to receive approval as well in the “next few weeks.”

“This approval will enable DoD customers to connect their BlackBerry Z10 or BlackBerry Q10 smartphones to DoD networks and securely access assets from work, while enjoying the wealth of consumer-oriented functionality that BlackBerry Z10 brings to the market,” BlackBerry senior vice president for security, Scott Totzke, said in a statement.

Similarly, Samsung Chief Executive, JK Shin, said “This is a significant milestone for Samsung as we work to grow our relationships within government and large corporate enterprises.”

It’s unclear why Apple’s iPhone has taken longer to receive Pentagon approval, but it is still going through Department of Defense testing and the result of these tests should be revealed in the new few weeks.

Image Credit: CNET News

The post Samsung And Blackberry Devices Receive Pentagon Approval Before Apple’s iPhone appeared first on Macgasm.

If you’re considering buying a 16GB Samsung Galaxy S4, you might want to reconsider. As the first people are beginning to get their hands on Samsung’s new phone, they’re discovering that there isn’t actually quite 16GB of storage available to them. In fact, the actual number is almost half that, with the phone containing roughly just 8.5GB of usable storage.

While Samsung markets the device as a 16GB phone, almost half of those 16GB are taken up by the OS and pre-installed apps which can’t be deleted. This means that while users buy the phone expecting to be able to put 16GB of apps on it, they’ll actually only be able to put around 8GB on the phone.

Samsung has issued a statement defending itself, stating that the inaccessible 8GB is essential “in order to provide [a] high resolution display and more powerful features to our consumers.” The company adds, “To offer the ultimate mobile experience to our users, Samsung provides [a] microSD slot on Galaxy S4 for extension of memory.” While it is true that users can expand their S4′s memory by up to 64GB with an SD card, it is only possible to store things such as photos, music and video on the card, it is not possible to store apps on it.

Many are criticizing Samsung for not marketing the device as having 8GB of storage instead of 16GB. They claim that Samsung is getting away with charging more for the phone than they would be able to if people knew it only had half of its advertized storage space.

In comparison, Apple’s iPhone 5 has just under 14GB usable of its advertised 16GB.

If you’re thinking about getting a Galaxy S4 and know that you want a lot of apps, perhaps you should consider the 32GB model. Or should I say, the 24.5GB model.

Image Credit: CNET

The post 16GB Samsung Galaxy S4 Only Has 8GB Of Usable Storage appeared first on Macgasm.

Has it been a life long dream of yours to send self-destructing pictures to an American Tex-Mex fast-food giant? Well don’t worry, because your best friend Taco Bell just got SnapChat.

Taco Bell sent out a tweet yesterday inviting its fans to add the corporation on the popular picture messaging app, with the promise that it would send out a “secret announcement” through the service at some point today. What this announcement has to do with remains unknown.

We’re on @snapchat. Username: tacobell. Add us. We’re sending all of our friends a secret announcement tomorrow! #Shhh

— Taco Bell (@TacoBell) May 1, 2013

This is the first time a major company has adopted SnapChat as a marketing tool. It’s still unclear as to how much of a partnership Taco Bell has with SnapChat, however, if any. SnapChat has yet to announce any official advertising partnerships and the company continues to have no official revenue strategies. SnapChat is at least aware of Taco Bell’s campaign, as SnapChat has tweeted back at the taco company, so its possible that SnapChat could be helping Taco Bell behind the scenes to complete a sort of test run to see how advertising could work for SnapChat the future.

It’s expected that SnapChat will later open itself up to advertisers looking to send picture or video advertisements to its users. Advertising on the app could function in a way where after a certain number of SnapChats are sent, the user is forced to view a SnapChat sent from an advertiser.

Be sure to add Taco Bell on SnapChat under the username: tacobell if the idea of receiving Snap Chats of quesadillas excites you.

Personally, I think it would be hilarious if this is all just build up for an explicit picture of Taco Bell’s CEO.

The post Taco Bell Wants To SnapChat You Its Secrets appeared first on Macgasm.

Enjoy reading with your ears instead of your eyes? Amazon has just updated its iOS Kindle application to include text to speech features that will let you turn books into audiobooks. VoiceOver, Amazon’s new accessibility feature will be supported in 1.8 million books.

Dorthy Nicholls, Vice President, Amazon Kindle:

With this update, we’re also making customer-favorite features—such as X-Ray, End Actions, sharing, highlighting and bookmarking—more accessible. We look forward to continuing to develop and extend our accessibility features on Kindle Fire and our other Kindle apps.

There’s a bunch of other accessibility features being built into the applications, and a lot are present in this update, so it’s worth updating it. A lot of menu systems and other navigation elements are streamlined as well.

The post Kindle App Update Lets You Read Your Books With Your Ears appeared first on Macgasm.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) releases a report every year that tests how well big tech companies protect users from government data demands, and this year is no exception. In the 2013 report, “Who Has Your Back?,” the EFF looked at some of the world’s biggest companies, including Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google.

The EFF evaluated the companies’ privacy policies based on six privacy criteria, for which stars are awarded for each category. The criteria includes:

• Requiring warrants before delivering content
• Telling users about government requests for their data
• Publishing reports that list agencies that made requests
• Publishing guidelines they have for responding to government requests
• Going to court to fight for users privacy
• Lobbying Congress to establish privacy rights by joining the Digital Due Process coalition

Of all the companies included in the study, only Twitter and US ISP Sonic.net received gold stars in all six categories, with Verizon and MySpace receiving none. Dropbox, Google, LinkedIn and Spider Oak scored five stars to tie second place.

Apple, AT&T, and Yahoo! scored just one star each. Other companies scored in between these: Amazon with 2 stars, Comcast with 2, Facebook with 3, Foursquare with 4, Microsoft, with 4, Tumblr with 3, and WordPress with 3.

The EFF notes that there have been improvements in protecting user privacy in 2013, but says location service providers and mobile carriers need to step up and join other companies in publishing their own law enforcement guidelines and regular transparency reports.

“There’s a lot to celebrate in this report, but also plenty of room for improvement,” EFF Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo said in a statement. “Service providers hold huge amounts of our personal data, and the government shouldn’t be able to fish around in this information without good reason and a court making sure there’s no abuse.”

The post Twitter Has Your Back When It Comes To Protecting User Privacy appeared first on Macgasm.

Path, already on the hook for an 800,000 dollar fine from the FTC, is back on the hot seat again today for allegedly spamming people’s friends and family by pilfering address books and sending text messages to unsuspecting people, requesting that they sign up to view shared photos.

Steven Kenwright installed the app, apparently opted out of letting people know he was using it, uninstalled the app, and then noticed Path started spamming people for signup requests.

At some point along the broken-down path between Path and its users, the company has been accidentally sending text messages to home phones and letting people know that friends have photos that they would like to share, then prompts you to download the application.

Thing is, a Path spokesman says it’s a user error, and a result of improperly directing the application to stop inviting your friends.

Kenwright laments:

Path has called two plumbers; an electrician; a dentist; my girlfriend’s grandparents and a local takeaway, letting them know I have photos that they should probably see (I don’t have photos for them).

Fool me once. Fool me twice. Fool me three times? Not so fast.

Thing is, there’s plenty of people having similar problems, and most tech blogs reporting on this incident have been reporting that journalists were aware of this bug for a while. If that’s true, why hasn’t anything been done yet?

It’s probably just a “coding” glitch, but it’s hard to look the other way when the company has been in the press for privacy problems over and over again lately.

The post Path On The Privacy Hotseat Again, Blames User Error appeared first on Macgasm.

We’ve already had the “I’m A Mac” commercials where Apple took on the dull drudgery of PC lifestyle choices, but what about a Google Glass versus Mac Monocle encore? I vote yes.

This awesome cartoon from Lunchbreath not only had me laughing, but it also had me wondering if douchey white guys would look less idiotic in a monocle instead of Google Glass. Yes, there’s a site dedicated to white guys wearing Google Glass.

After voting below, check out the Lunchbreath website. The comics are pretty good and worth taking a peek at when you have a moment.

Let’s have a vote. Google Glass or Mac Monocle?

The post The Mac Monocle Kicks Google Glass Ass appeared first on Macgasm.

With Apple’s 11th German store set to open May 3, construction on the Berlin location is now complete and we can finally get a good glance at what the Apple Store will look like.

The store is certainly one of Apple’s more visually striking locations, with an elegant looking design that matches the brick buildings on the rich Berlin shopping street of Ku’damm. Apple has gone for a minimalistic look, with just two small square Apple logos on either side of the store’s massive entrance to let you know that it is in-fact an Apple store.

Apple has also chosen to showcase some interesting modern art pieces in front of the store that show off the company’s iPhone 5. This further helps draw the attention of shoppers over to see Apple’s products and helps ensure that people know that it is in fact an Apple store.

Prior to the arrival of the Apple Store, the location used to house a movie theater.

The store’s hours will be 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. from Monday to Saturday, with the store closed for Sundays. The grand opening is set for this Friday, May 3.

It’s certainly interesting to see what Apple can do with its Apple Stores when it goes for something different than the typical aluminum look.

Image Credit: apfelpage

The post See The Beautiful New Berlin Apple Store appeared first on Macgasm.

In trying to stay relevant in the growing market of wearable health and fitness devices, Jawbone has acquired BodyMedia, a 14-year-old Pittsburgh-based company that makes health-monitoring armbands, for more than $100 million.

This is just another of the health product companies that Jawbone, the maker of the wearable UP fitness-tracking wristband, has managed to nab. Just a few months ago Jawbone acquired data and digital-design companies Massive Health and Visere.

While Massive Health and Visere were acquired mainly for talent, BodyMedia has a different sort of appeal for Jawbone, which mainly concerns the company’s patents. BodyMedia has had more than 80 patents issues throughout its 14 years of existence, a lot of them in the area of multi-sensor technology. Combined, BodyMedia and Jawbone will hold more than 300 issued and filed patents.

The Jawbone UP wristband has a lot of functions, including tracking your movements and sleep patterns and syncs with a compatible app for iOS and Android that lets you keep track of what you’re eating, track your weight, map your runs, and more. Despite all this, it’s missing some of the high-tech sensors that BodyMedia products have.

“I think the first phase of this market has been about accelerometers and what those can do,” Hosain Rahman, Jawbone CEO, said in an interview. “Now it’s about getting even more granular, and also, how we can get all that tech into an efficient form factor.”

BodyMedia’s armbands contain four types of sensors that measure skin temperature, heat flux, galvanic skin response (GSR) and overall movement. Unlike the sleek Jawbone UP wristband, BodyMedia’s armbands are bigger and bulkier. BodyMedia also has the only one of its kind that is registered with the FDA as a Class II medical device that is clinically proven to enhance users’ weight loss.

Rahman didn’t specify when a Jawbone UP wristband that includes BodyMedia’s sensor types would be available, but did say the company is working on a lot of different things.

The BodyMedia team will stay in intact in Pittsburgh, but its CEO, Christine Robins, will no longer serve as CEO and will become the general manager of BodyMedia and a vice president of business development at Jawbone.

Jawbone also announced that its opening up its Up mobile software to ten different fitness-app makers, including RunKeeper, MyFitnessPal, LoseIt, Withings, Sleepio, and IFTTT for workout prompts. Jawbone UP users with iOS devices will be able to share data with these partners using the UP app for iOS.

Image Credit: Co.Design

The post Jawbone Acquires BodyMedia For Over $100 Million appeared first on Macgasm.

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said a few controversial statements yesterday during an interview at the Milken Institute conference. The CEO claims that tablets will be gone and dead in five years and that within five years, Blackberry will have surpassed Apple as the absolute leader in mobile computing.

“In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore,” stated Heins. “Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.” It’s no surprise that BlackBerry may feel a little stingy towards the tablet market, following the company’s massive flop with the BlackBerry Playbook. From Heins’ statements, it sounds like BlackBerry doesn’t have any plans to try releasing a new tablet anytime soon.

Another interesting thing that came out of the interview was BlackBerry’s belief that it will become the leader of the mobile computing market within the next five years. “In five years, I see BlackBerry to be the absolute leader in mobile computing — that’s what we’re aiming for,” Heins said. For a company that was just recently struggling more than it ever had before and that was close to selling itself, this sounds like a bold prediction.

BlackBerry doesn’t plan to acquire this success by copying ideas from Android or iOS either. “I want to gain as much market share as I can, but not by being a copycat,” said Heins.

No iPads and we all use BlackBerrys eh? Not quite the future I was expecting.

Image Credit: Techno Buffalo

The post BlackBerry CEO Thinks Tablets Are Dying And That BlackBerry Will Surpass Apple appeared first on Macgasm.

Opera Software, the Norwegian web browser company, declared today that it is suing former employee and consultant Trond Werner Hansen for 20 million Norwegian Krone/$3.4 million USDs for damages he has done to the company.

Opera is accusing Hansen of giving away the company’s trade secrets to Mozilla (creators of Firefox) after the rival company hired him in 2012 to work on an iPad browser codenamed Junior. Hansen originally worked for Opera from between 1996 to 2006 as well as another year as a consultant from 2009 to 2010. He was one of the company’s top designers and helped usher in a number of changes as to how we browse the web today.

Opera points to a video from last year that shows Werner and other Mozilla employee Alex Limi giving a talk about what they had in the works for their browsers. Opera claims that a number of the stuff that was shown off during the talk were secret ideas originally created at the Norwegian company. Opera is claiming that Werner took this information from the company and then brought it to Mozilla.

Here is a statement sent to The Next Web as issued by Opera’s lawyer:

This dispute is pending before the courts, and due to the pending court hearing that will take place late august, Opera chooses not to comment on the case in detail.

Hansen is a former employee and consultant of Opera Software ASA. Opera Software ASA is of the opinion that Hansen, after he left Opera, has acted contrary to his contractual and other legal obligations towards Opera, among other things, the duty of loyalty and his contractual and statutory confidentiality obligations.

Opera Software ASA is an innovative company which has developed software and technology which have proved to be successful internationally. It is only natural that Opera Software ASA acts on any violations in order to protect its interests.

While it should be a long while until we see the results of this lawsuit, we’ll continue to keep you updated on new developments.

The post Ex-Opera Employee Sued For Allegedly Taking Secrets To Mozilla appeared first on Macgasm.

Two days ago, we told you that if you were feeling like a nice cup of coffee with Tim Cook, the date would run you an estimated $50,000. We’re sorry to say that the price is going to end up being a little higher than that, as bidding on the charity auction has reached $560,000 and continues to climb.

The bid has put it over the site’s previous record high, which was last year’s $255,000 winning bid to spend a full day with Bill Clinton. At this point, a total of 78 people have placed a bid with still 18 days remaining. The Apple accessory company clearcrate.com currently holds the spot as highest bidder.

It’s hard to tell whether the companies placing these high bids are doing it because they want to talk business with Tim Cook, or whether it’s simply because when they’re the highest bidder their company name gets shown on the auction’s front page. Some companies may then simply place a high bid with no intention of actually winning the auction in order to get more exposure, with the hope that someone else will outbid them later.

It’s a risky move, however, as bids placed on the site count as legally binding contracts that will get you into significant trouble if you don’t follow through.

If the coffee date still interests you, get ready to potentially spend upwards of a million dollars to sit down with the Apple CEO.

The post Correction: Have Coffee With Tim Cook For Just $560,000 appeared first on Macgasm.

If you’re one of the lucky/wealthy people that managed to get their hands on an early pair of the Google Glass Explorer Editions, you now have your first official third party app to tinker around with. The New York Times released its app for the glasses today, which delivers users hourly updates on breaking news headlines.

“Experience the award-winning journalism of The New York Times on Google Glass. Get Breaking News alerts and hourly Top News updates. Tap to have article summaries read aloud.”

The app was one of the few third party apps that Google had previously previewed for the device, along with apps by Path and Evernote. In the app’s preview build, users were able to receive hourly updates that display news headlines in front of them. Users could then do a simple head motion to see the story’s full length article as well as any photos associated with it. It’s assumed that the full version will include all the same features, although so few people currently own their own Google Glass that it’s hard to actually confirm what’s in the new app.

People looking to connect their Glass to the NY Times App can visit this website to perform what seems to be a quick and easy setup. Expect a couple of other third party apps to start making their way to Glass sometime in the not too distant future.

The post The New York Times Headline App Released For Google Glass appeared first on Macgasm.

Whether you’ve been wanting to pitch a great idea to Tim Cook, or whether you just want to enjoy a nice latte with the Apple CEO, or whether you just want to admire the man’s good looks, you might now have your chance. That is, if you’re willing to pay a small one time sum of $50,000.

CharityBuzz.com is holding a charity auction that lets one lucky winner and one guest of their choosing have a 30 min to 1 hour coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.

The current bid for the outing sits at $10,500 after just a few hours of being posted. The site, however, lists the estimated value of the date at a whopping $50,000. The auction is set to stay open until May 20, so it seems likely that the top bid will either hit or pass that estimated cost.

The proceeds of the auction will go to the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. A fitting choice for a CEO who has tried to make an effort to improve working conditions at Apple’s Chinese factories.

If you’ve got an extra several thousand dollars to spend on what is likely some average tasting coffee, check out the auction page here.

The post Have A Coffee With Apple CEO Tim Cook For Just $50,000 appeared first on Macgasm.

About a month ago, Yahoo! acquired the popular news-summarizing app Summly for $30 million and now it looks like Google has acquired a similar app, Wavii, for the same amount, after competing in a bidding war with Apple for the app.

Apple was reportedly interested in the company, which developed its own aggregation technology and natural summarization algorithms, for Siri. Instead, the 25-person team, including founder Adrian Aoun, will be moving down from Seattle to join Google’s Knowledge Graph division, its semantic search knowledge base, in Mountain View, California.

Bringing Wavii on board to Google Knowledge could help it further contextualize the information that Google already shows on the sidebar of most searches. It could be used in a number of different areas of Google as well though, like Google Now which is the Android version of Siri, and possibly Google News.

When Summly was acquired by Yahoo! the app was immediately pulled from the App Store, while its core features were eventually added to Yahoo!’s official iOS app. Wavii is still available on the App Store at this point, so if you want to give it a try is a free download.

You can follow news on Wavii, just like you follow friends on Facebook or Twitter and it will give you quick status updates for any topic.  You can also personalize your news feed so you only get updates on what you’re interested in, and then share your comments and reactions to news with friends.

Image Credit: Mac Rumors

The post Apple Loses Bidding War To Google For Acquisition Of News-Summarizing App Wavii appeared first on Macgasm.

Have an old iPad laying around collecting dust? Why not turn the display into an external monitor for your PC. That’s exactly what a polish hacker did when he managed to get an iPad display online and then hacked the Retina display to run as an external display at maximum resolution.

Using the DisplayPort technology, an interface board (available on GitHub), and a lot of skills most of us don’t possess, Emeryth managed to get the display running in tip-top shape.

Creating the PCB was fairly straightforward, I just had to route all the FPC connector pins out to pads where I would solder DP cable wires. It was possible on a single-sided home-made board.

I tried to make the traces for DP lanes to be of the same length (that’s very important for high speed differential signals), and as it turns out, either my PCB design is pretty good, or DisplayPort is very forgiving. :)

Soldering everything was a little difficult, the FPC connector has tiny pins, but they stick out a little bit, so it’s doable with a regular soldering iron.
After the PCB was done, I cut open a DP cable and soldered all the wires in their places.

Unfortunately there is no standard for wire colors, so I had to open up the DP plug to trace them to the correct pins.

Talk about a badass project. The only thing that would make it more badass would be getting it to work in OS X so I can build one and slam it into my car with an old Mac Mini.

Hat tip to Franco Varriano for sending this one in to us…

The post Hackers Get Retina iPad Display Running On A PC appeared first on Macgasm.

Iconfactory’s Twiterrific has been updated to version 5.2.1. This update brings Favstar support to tweets and user profiles amongst other features. Favstar information on a specific tweet can be viewed via the ‘more actions’ button that is revealed by tapping on a tweet. If you’d like to view a user profile in Favstar, press and hold on the user’s Twitter avatar and tap the “Show User in Favstar” button.

Other additions to Twitterrific 5 include the ability to view Twitter Trending Topics via the search bar. The update has also brought app badges for push notifications. When enabled, you can view a notification count on Twitterrific’s icon on your home screen.

Twitterrific’s latest update brings a plethora of improvements and bug fixes to the app as well. The most notable improvements include support for Twitter stock symbols, faster tweet loading times, and VoiceOver updates amongst other improvements. The annoying pull-to-refresh display bug has also been squashed in the 5.1.2 update. A full list of bug fixes and minor improvements can be viewed on Iconfactory’s website.

When version 5.0 of Twitterrific was released in December of 2012, the application was given a complete revamp with a new design and universal iPad support. Twitterrific’s user interface is very minimal and features a helpful, color coded timeline. If you’d like a copy of Twitterrific 5 for your iOS device, expect to drop a mere $2.99 on the App Store.

The post Twitterrific 5.2.1 Released, Adds Favstar Support, Twitter Trends appeared first on Macgasm.

Netflix’s stock price has just jumped 25% during after-hours trading today, April 22nd. This jump comes directly after Netflix’s latest earnings call where the company raked in earnings of 31 cents per share, though some analysts only expected the company to earn 19 cents per share throughout the quarter. These earnings are excluding Netflix’s one-time debt related charges. During the same time period, Netflix brought in $1 billion in sales.

Netflix had a tremendous fiscal quarter due to massive subscriber growth and the addition of original content programming. The company reeled in 3 million new subscribers worldwide during this quarter, bringing the service to a total of 36 million subscribers. Astonishingly  during the first-quarter, less than 8,000 people canceled their free Netflix trial, this means that people are actually paying for the service, not just freeloading off of the free trial.

New Netflix subscribers may have been attracted to Netflix due to the service’s launch of original programming. Netflix has already launched its first original program, ‘House of Cards’, and is set to release more programs in the near future. The program cost the streaming giant $100 million for its first two seasons alone, leaving some investors shaking their heads. However, though the experiment may be costly, House of Cards created a ton of social media buzz as all episodes were made available for viewing at once.

Netflix also released an updated iOS app during its earnings call. This update brings the app to version 4.0 and adds bug fixes, a redesigned audio and subtitle selector as well as a new episode selection button on the iPad client.

The post Netflix Stock Jumps Over 20% Due To Subscriber Growth, Original Programming appeared first on Macgasm.

Grooveshark has been struggling recently as the company faces increasing competition with the growing businesses of competitors like Rdio and Pandora and the upcoming threat of streaming services from the likes of Google and Apple. To try and combat this, Grooveshark has announced its new upcoming feature “Broadcast”, which will help set it apart from its competitors.

Broadcast allows users to create their own radio station where they get the chance to DJ and select which songs are played for others to hear. Other users can then tune-in to the radio station and hear the tracks the DJ has chosen to play, as well as being able to suggest which songs they should play next. If they like the songs that are being played, they can stay in the room and continue to listen. If they don’t they can go to another room, make their own room, or simply use the traditional Grooveshark music playing experience.

DJs are able to upload and play their own tracks to shows and are also able to upload their own 30 second interludes and messages. There’s also a chat bar that lets both the DJ and listeners have simple casual chats on what they had for breakfast or heated debates on who the best Beatle was and whether Tupac is actually still alive.

The new feature is an important venture for the company which has had an incredibly rough past year or so that has left CEO Sam Tarantino broke and struggling to pay rent. Tarantino remains confident, however, that the worst is over and that it is now time for the company to begin growing again. “Look how effective we’ve been with headwinds. Now imagine what we could do with tailwinds.”

The service is expected to launch April 24.

The post Grooveshark To Let You DJ Your Own Custom Radio Shows With ‘Broadcast’ appeared first on Macgasm.

The Windows Start Button is reportedly making its way back to Microsoft’s OS in the upcoming Windows 8.1 update. Unfortunately for you, just like the goggles, it does nothing.

One of the biggest controverises surrounding Windows 8′s release was the decision to remove the Start Menu and replace it with the Start Screen. While the Start Screen is clearly more aesthetically pleasing and is better for tablets, many argue that the Start Menu is far better when it comes to pure productivity. Microsoft removed all traces of the Start Menu in Windows 8.

The Verge reports, however, that the Start Button, the button that leads to the Start Menu, will be returning in the upcoming Windows 8.1 update. Unfortunately, the button won’t be bringing you the Start Menu like it used to, it will be bringing you to the Start Screen. That’s right, the button will simply function as an aesthetic change that adds another way to take you to the Start Screen. At the moment, all it takes is a tap of the Windows key on your keyboard to launch the Start Menu, so the addition of an on-screen button seems like an odd one.

If you’ve been hoping that Microsoft was going to back-pedal on some of the drastic changes it made with Windows 8, it’s probably fine to stop holding your breath now.

Image Credit: Gizmodo

The post Windows 8.1 To Bring Back Start Button, SPOILER It Does Nothing appeared first on Macgasm.

Google has been slapped with a fine of 145,000 Euros, about $189,000, for violating “one of the biggest data protection rules” known in Germany. The violation? Google’s Street View cars illegally collected data from open Wi-Fi networks between 2008-2010.

German prosecutors dropped criminal proceedings against Google last fall when they failed to find “criminal violations,” but data protection regulators picked the case up again in hopes of discovering exactly what Google had done that was illegal, and did they ever. Between 2008 and 2010, Google’s cars collected data, including contents of e-mails, passwords, photos, and chat protocols, according to Hamburg data regulator Johannes Caspar.

Google’s global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, said the company has tightened up its system to address the Street View issue. He also said the Google’s Street View team was unaware of the collection and never looked at the illegal data that it gathered.

“In my view, this is one of the biggest data protection rules violations known,” said Caspar. Google’s “internal control mechanisms must have severely failed.”

$189,000 fine doesn’t seem like much of a fine for violating one of Germany’s biggest data protection rules. In fact, the fine represents less than 0.005% of Google’s profit last quarter. It’s like paying a third of a parking ticket for the average customer. Not exactly something that will convince a company to behave itself.

Right now fines for negligent data rule violations are limited to 150,000 euros under German law, but Caspar argues that this should be raised in order to deter unlawful behavior. How about handing out these fines on a sliding scale based on revenue? That’ll get Google’s attention pretty quickly.

Image Credit: Damon Tucker

The post Google Fined $189,000 Over Wi-Fi Data Protection Violation In Germany appeared first on Macgasm.

If you’ve always wanted an iCar, but are sick of waiting for Apple to produce one, Volkswagen has you covered. The German automobile company has just announced that it will begin to produce the iBeetle, a special version of the popular Beetle, in 2014. The company announced this edition of the Beetle at the Shanghai Motor Show, promising that it will be amongst the “first cars in the world to have a genuine integrative interface for the iPhone that was coordinated with Apple.”

So, what does the iBeetle have to offer, anyway? Unfortunately, not too much when compared to the standard Beetle. The automobile features an integrated iPhone dock that works with the newly developed Volkswagen app. The Volkswagen app allows users to view stats on their vehicle, read social networking statuses aloud, amongst other features. Even though these features may sound cool, they can more than likely be added to any existing car with Bluetooth integration, an AUX port or even a cassette adapter using Siri and third-party apps. Nothing special here.

Aside from the docking station, the iBeetle is offered in iPhone-matching color schemes and includes a special edition set of disc wheels. According to the press release, these color schemes include “Candy White,” “Oryx White Mother of Pearl Effect,” “Black Monochrome,” “Deep Black Pearl Effect,” “Platinum Grey,” and “Reflex Silver.”

As for me, I’m still looking forward to the iBicycle.

The post Good Morning, Who Wants An iBeetle? appeared first on Macgasm.

Google has released an iOS version of Google Places for Business. This application was released into the App Store on April 21st, 2013, and lets businesses manage their Google listings. For instance, business owners can update their business’s hours, address, contact info and description directly from the app. They can also track web traffic going to their business’s Google listing and post photos to their business’s Google+ page. Finally, the app can be used to complete verification of the business on Google.

The app’s interface looks similar to that of the Google Drive and Google Earth iPhone application. The application features low-key UI elements and dark colors. However, unlike these applications, the Google Places for Business app is for business owners, not the consumer.

If you’re an average Google Places user, you’ll want to download the Google+ Local app. This application allows you to view reviews, hours and other information on local shops, restaurants and other attractions. Like the Google Places for Business app, the Google+ Local app is available via the App Store free of charge.

The post Google Places For Business App Lands On iOS appeared first on Macgasm.

Amazon has been talking for a while about how it wants to get into the world of original programming to compete with rival Netflix and today that is becoming a reality. Amazon Studios today posted the pilot episode to 14 different original shows, with the intention of using user feedback to find out which ones to keep.

Amazon released six shows in its “Kids” genre, and eight in its comedy genre. The comedy shows include “Onion News Empire”, a show by the folks at Onion News as well as “Zombieland”, which is a continuation of the movie of the same name.

Amazon is offering these pilot episodes for free to everyone, and will then use the stats it receives to help decide what shows it should keep going forward and which ones are duds.

It will be interesting to see if Amazon is able to find a hit in this list like Netflix found in House of Cards.

Check out all 14 shows here.

The post Amazon Releases Pilots For 14 New Original TV Shows appeared first on Macgasm.

If you were wondering what software would be powering your Google glasses, Google’s CEO Larry Page confirmed today that it will be running on an Android based OS.

While it has long been speculated and assumed that Glass would run on Android, today is the first day that Google actually confirmed it. In a response to a question at Google’s first quarter earnings call today, Larry Page said, “obviously, Glass runs on Android, so [Android] has been pretty transportable across devices, and I think that will continue.”

While Glass may run on a modified version of the OS that we see on Android phones, this doesn’t mean that developers will simply be able to move apps over to run on the glasses. Google hasn’t released an API that gives developers direct access to the glasses’ hardware, so what developers can do with it is fairly limited.

Google Glass is still only available to those that won the contest to get early access to the device, so we will have to wait until its full release later this year to see how the product uses Android.

The post Google Glass Confirmed To Run On Android appeared first on Macgasm.

We’ve been covering the story of AppGratis and its removal from Apple’s App Store since it happened a couple of weeks ago, and it seems that now the app has been delivered another massive blow. AppGratis recently sent out an e-mail to its subscribers stating that Apple has shut down its app’s ability to send push notifications.

While Apple had already removed AppGratis from its App Store two weeks ago, the app remained accessible to its existing 7 million users. Apple wants to make it hard for AppGratis to continue to run its existing business, however, as the company has since disabled the app’s ability to send push notifications to its users.

Push notifications were one of the app’s essential features. For a service that is focused on informing users of new deals on apps, having push notifications disabled is incredibly damaging for the company. Especially when many of the advertising dollars given to the company were offered with the knowledge that its users would be receiving these push notifications.

AppGratis has stated that it will now rely on sending subscribers e-mail newsletters to inform them of daily deals.

“…we’re back to our roots. A crazy cool daily newsletter with millions of subscribers, that will very soon be complemented by the newest and nicest HTML5 WebApp you’ll ever see. Two things we fully own, and that no one can take away from us. So when I stated a week ago that the reports of our death were greatly exaggerated, I wasn’t kidding. Not kidding at all. AppGratis is just getting started,” stated AppGratis’ CEO Simon Dawlat.

While Dawlat remains confident in his business, I’m skeptical that if Apple doesn’t heed to the growing petition that is trying to have the app brought back to the App Store, AppGratis’ days are numbered.

The post Apple Kicks AppGratis While It’s Down And Disables App’s Push Notifications appeared first on Macgasm.

CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) has passed the United States House of Representatives just a year after SOPA was shot down. CISPA was passed by the House with a 227-193 vote, even with backlash from thousands of Internet users, tech companies and web freedom advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). However, some well known tech companies are actually backing the bill, including Intel and Oracle among others.

However, not all hope is lost for killing CISPA. United States President Barack Obama has threatened to kill the bill once it reaches his desk. The White House made the following statement on the issue:

The Administration, however, remains concerned that the bill does not require private entities to take reasonable steps to remove irrelevant personal information when sending cybersecurity data to the government or other private sector entities.

CISPA is a bill that was introduced in November of 2011 and passed the House for the first time in April of 2012. The bill was shot down last year, though it was reintroduced to the House in February of 2013. The bill is supposedly set to allow the government to view and share information on cyber security threats, but would likely allow the government to spy on our online activities as well.

What can you do to help kill CISPA? You can sign one of many petitions that exists on Change.org and Whitehouse.gov. You can also email and call your Senator and explain why you think CISPA violates your rights. If you don’t know your Senator, you can use Change.org’s call tool to call your Senator for free, though the tool seems to be down as I’ve tried using it numerous times with no luck.

Image Credit: Hay Kranen

The post CISPA Passes The House A Year After SOPA Was Shot Down appeared first on Macgasm.

Over 70,000 Verizon Wireless customers have signed a Change.org petition urging the company to kill contracts. This petition was set up  after T-Mobile’s recent decision to go ‘Un-Carrier’ by getting rid of its 24-month contracts and after Verizon extended its own upgrade period from 20 to 24 months.

The petition was started by Mike Beauchamp, a Verizon Wireless customer from Wichita, Kansas. He wants the wireless provider’s customers to “sign this petition to tell Verizon to end carrier contracts and create an affordable way for consumers to purchase their devices.” He also wants the company to kill off early termination fees. He thinks that these exist only to deter current customers from jumping ship.

Via the petition:

T-Mobile, just this year, revamped their plans and pricing models to eliminate contracts. Customers pay “full price” for the phone with a small down payment and then monthly installment payments thereafter. If you want to leave T-Mobile at any time, you’re free to go (of course you have to pay the phone off).
This approach is less intimidating to customers and embraces our newer ways of thinking, as well as the speed at which the wireless industry (and related technology) is changing.
If you want the latest and greatest phone, great. If you break the one you’ve got and need a replacement, no problem. If you get a new job and your employer provides you a phone, you can cancel with no penalty. If you move to an area where T-Mobile doesn’t have coverage (or overseas, even), that’s not a problem either.

Lowell McAdam, the current CEO of Verizon Wireless, recently stated that Verizon may bring T-Mobile-like plans to its customers. However, the CEO said that this would only happen if his customers showed demand. With tens-of-thousands of customers doing just that, we should see Verizon Wireless announce contract-free plans in the future. But, probably not.

Image Credit: mike.m.carlino

The post Over 70,000 Verizon Customers Rage Against The Machine, Want Verizon To Drop Contracts appeared first on Macgasm.

If you’re in Provo, you’ve just won the lottery. Google will be bringing its Fiber program to your lovely city. The third stop for the fiber train is in the heart of Utah.

From Google’s Fiber blog:

In order to bring Fiber to Provo, we’ve signed an agreement to purchase iProvo, an existing fiber-optic network owned by the city. As a part of the acquisition, we would commit to upgrade the network to gigabit technology and finish network construction so that every home along the existing iProvo network would have the opportunity to connect to Google Fiber. Our agreement with Provo isn’t approved yet—it’s pending a vote by the City Council scheduled for next Tuesday, April 23. We intend to begin the network upgrades as soon as the closing conditions are satisfied and the deal is closed.

My next obvious question is this… When’s Google Fiber coming to Canada? God knows sending packets from location to location on the backs of polar bears and moose isn’t exactly the most efficient way to surf the web these days.

The post Google Fiber Making A Stop In Provo, Utah appeared first on Macgasm.

Facebook’s iOS app received a new update yesterday, bringing with it the recently unveiled news feed as well as the Chat Heads feature that was introduced in Android’s new Facebook Home. The update also brings stickers to the app, which provides “a more visual way to express yourself in messages.”

The biggest feature of the update is Chat Heads, which allows you to maintain a conversation with your friends on chat while browsing through the rest of the Facebook app. It isn’t as good as the integrated Android version, which lets you maintain conversations across all of the Android OS, but it is still a welcome improvement.

The updated news feed has a newspaper inspired design that Facebook announced just over a month ago, which brings with it a bigger, more photo-oriented feed as well as an easier way to sort and filter updates from your friends and liked pages. It is the same news feed design that has been slowly rolling out to desktop versions of Facebook.

Stickers are new emoticons that you can send to your friends within chat. They simply act as much bigger, more stylized emoticons that you can now use while sending messages. Facebook’s plan also seems to include monetizing Stickers, as there is a Stickers store users can access that lets you download more of them. Currently all the Stickers in the store say “free” beside them, so it can be assumed that Facebook will begin selling the big emoticons sometime down the line. Which, of course, is just what you wanted to spend that hard earned money of yours on.

Update to the new Facebook iOS app now.

The post Facebook For iOS Updates News Feed And Gives A Taste Of Facebook Home appeared first on Macgasm.

Pop Chart Lab has released a nifty little poster that illustrates the evolution of video game controllers over the last seven decades. The poster is 27″ x 39″, and will cost you $29.00, but the image itself is worth taking a little peek at when you have a chance.

The Apple Bandai Pippin even makes an appearance, which is something we didn’t expect. The coolest part about the poster is that it lets you trace your steps from one controller to another backwards through time so you can see exactly how a controller ended up being what it was at the time of release.

The image is hu·mon·gous, so we’re not attaching it to the post. You’ll have to click through to see it in all of its glory.

The post The Evolution Of Game Controllers – A Poster appeared first on Macgasm.

Facebook has scooped up another former Apple employee. This time Richard Williamson is joining the social network’s team. Williamson was previously the head of Apple’s mapping efforts and was part of the original iPhone team. Williamson joined Facebook in the last few weeks as a manager within its expanding mobile-software group.

Williamson was employed at Apple for more than ten years. During his time at Apple, he was one of the engineers assigned by Steve Jobs to build software for the iPhone and was later put in charge of creating Apple’s own mapping system to replace Google Maps on the iPhone and iPad. Williamson was fired in November as part of a management shakeup after Apple Maps was released and widely criticized.

A number of Apple’s iPhone software group members have also moved to Facebook as CEO Mark Zuckerberg looks to reach customers on mobile devices with their own Home offering. Apple alumni played an important role in the development of Facebook’s recently introduced mobile product, Home.

Zuckerberg also hired other former Apple employees, including Greg Novick, a former iPhone manager who helped develop the device’s touch interface, Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris, software engineers who joined Facebook when it acquired their company Push Pop Press, and software engineers Scott Goodson, Tim Omernick and Chris Tremblay.

In a similar move, Facebook also hired Loren Brichter, the software designer behind Twitter’s original iPhone app and the word-puzzle game Letterpress. Brichter also previously worked at Apple, and has been hired by Facebook as a consultant.

Image Credit: ETCleanFuels

The post Facebook Hires Richard Williamson, Former Apple Employee And Apple Maps Executive appeared first on Macgasm.

David Miller, a securities trader at Rochdale Securities, has pleaded guilty to fraud after buying $1 billion of Apple stock without permission, which  ultimately resulted in bringing down the company he worked for at the time.

Miller bought 1.625 million shares on the day that Apple reported its third-quarter results in October 2012, hoping he would be able to make a profit when the share price rose.

Prosecutors have said that Miller’s plan backfired. The 40-year-old reportedly made the trade on behalf of one of Rochdale’s clients who had actually only order 1,625 shares. Miller allegedly conspired with another person to split the profit if the share price went up or claim “human error” if the price dropped.

When the share price ended up dropping, Miller claimed he had made a mistake in purchasing a thousand times too much stock, leaving Rochdale with 1.6 million shares it didn’t want and losing $5.4 million, pushing its assets below the legal limit for a brokerage and pretty much destroying the company.

Miller’s scheme was “deliberate, brazen and ultimately ill-conceived,” according to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission.

Miller is now looking at 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on July 8, but could get only five to eight years under a plea deal. Miller’s attorney said he’s sorry for what he did and the harm it caused.

“Those who know David know that what happened here was out of character for a kind and generous family man who has lived an otherwise law abiding and good life,” Kenneth C. Murphy said. “When the time comes he will accept his punishment and he will spend the rest of his life trying to make up for the wrong he committed.”

Image Credit: IT PRO

The post Man Admits To Fraud After Buying $1 Billion Of Apple Stock Without Permission appeared first on Macgasm.

The Dropbox-owned Mailbox has just been updated to version 1.20. This update brings smarter snoozing to the app and allows you to snooze your emails by both time of day and time of week. Previously, the app only allowed you to snooze emails by general times like “Next Week” or “The Weekend.”

Mailbox has also been updated with faster swipes, allowing you to swipe as many items as you please at once. Other improvements include UI improvements and bug fixes. Among these UI improvements is a feature that allows the user to double-tap a name bubble to view the sender’s email address. This is helpful if you have a contact that emails you from both a work and personal email.

Mailbox is a relatively new email client that was recently purchased by Dropbox, the cloud storage company. The app has an intuitive design and user experience that makes it easy to fly through emails. As of now, the app is only compatible with Gmail, though the developers have promised that other mail services are coming soon. Mailbox is free via the App Store, but you’ll have to reserve a spot in line in order to use it.

The post Mailbox Updated To Version 1.20, Adds Better Snoozes appeared first on Macgasm.

Samsung and a number of Canadian cellphone carriers announced today that customers can now begin to pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S4, which will be released in Canada on April 27. This announcement comes before any official word on when the phone will hit the U.S.; however, a leak that came earlier today suggests that AT&T might get the device a day earlier on the 26.

The S4 will be available on all major Canadian carriers for $199 on a 3 year contract or $699 off-contract and will be available in both the black and white models.

While an official U.S. release date is still unknown, a leak from an internal Staples document may have revealed when American customers will be able to get their hands on the new Android device. The leaked document shows AT&T getting the device on April 26, T-Mobile on May 1, and Verizon on May 30.

Expect to hear an official U.S. date soon, but until then, try and pacify yourself by watching the commercials Samsung has already released for the device here.

The post Samsung Galaxy S4 Launches April 27 In Canada, U.S. Date Still Unknown appeared first on Macgasm.

Verizon Wireless has announced that it will no longer be allowing subscribers to upgrade their phones early, changing the upgrade cycle from 20 to 24 months. This change goes into effect immediately, though it only applies to customers who purchased their current phones in January of 2012 or later.

Verizon posted the following on its website on the change:

In alignment with the terms of the contract, customers on a two-year agreement will be eligible for an upgrade at 24 months vs. today’s early upgrade eligibility at 20 months. This change aligns the upgrade date with the contract end date and is consistent with how the majority of customers purchase new phones today. The first customers impacted by this change are customers whose contracts expire in January 2014. As always, customers may purchase a new phone at the full retail price at any time.

AT&T and Sprint, Verizon’s two largest competitors, are still offering 20 month upgrade cycles. T-Mobile, on the other hand, has completely killed the contract, offering full-priced phones and financing plans to its customers.

Personally, I think this is a total scumbag move on Verizon’s part. Telling loyal customers that want to sign another two years of their life away that they can’t purchase a new phone for four months is just cruel. To customers that have a phone with a cracked screen or a dead battery, this can be a pretty agonizing four months.

The post Scumbag Verizon Moves Upgrade Cycle From 20 to 24 Months appeared first on Macgasm.

Pebble has released the Pebble watch face SDK to the public. This SDK allows developers to make custom watch faces for the smart watch and load them via the Pebble iOS app. Along with the SDK, Pebble has released a set of instructions and resources. Those who want to develop for the Pebble smart watch must be running Mac OS X 10.7 or higher or Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution (12.04LTS).

Pebble said the following on the release of the Pebble SDK:

Your patience has been rewarded…you have a brand new Pebble Smartwatch in your hands. And, of course, now you want to make it do your bidding.
This developer documentation will show you how to create your own functionality for a Pebble Smartwatch.

Pebble has long promised support for third-party apps and watch faces and seems to have finally delivered. However, it’s worth noting that custom watch faces cannot yet be transfered via the Pebble iOS app, though an update is pending Apple review. We will likely see the standard app SDK launch later this year.

The Pebble smart watch is a former Kickstarter project that finally started shipping to backers earlier this year. The Pebble watch connects to your phone via Bluetooth and shows notifications and other information about your device. You can pre-order a Pebble smart watch for $150 via Pebble’s website.

Image Credit: ewen and donabel

The post Pebble Watch Face SDK Launches To The Public appeared first on Macgasm.

While in North America we like to steal people’s cool technology with violence and threats, the thieves of China have a much more graceful method.

The man pictured here was recently spotted in China pickpocketing someone’s iPhone using only a pair of chopsticks. If stealing with a pair of chopsticks wasn’t enough for you, don’t worry, as this man also did it all while jogging behind an unsuspecting biker.

While the thief was stealthy enough to successfully snatch the iPhone, he wasn’t able to avoid being photographed while doing it. The photographs blew up on Chinese news and eventually led to the man turning himself in a couple days later.

The thief claimed he was stealing to support his young daughter.

While this feat was certainly impressive, what I really want to see next is an iPad theft via chopstick.

Image Credit: Shanghaiist

The post Once You Can Snatch The iPhone From My Pocket With Your Chopsticks… appeared first on Macgasm.

Steve Jobs is often remembered for his legacy with Apple, but he also made a huge impact at Pixar, famously spending millions of dollars just to keep the company open. To honor Steve Jobs and remember all he did, Pixar has dedicated a tree on its campus to the late Apple CEO.

Pixar CCO, John Lasseter, often credits Jobs with encouraging employees to keep working for great stories. Jobs helped to keep the company afloat, long enough for Toy Story to be released, which was the studio’s first feature film. It went on to set a high bar critically and in box office success.

Pixar has done a couple of things to honor Jobs since his passing in 2011. The studio previously renamed the main building of its campus to “The Steve Jobs Building” and made a tribute to him during the end credits of the movie Brave.

Steve Jobs’ tree is planted alone near the main building of the Pixar campus with a plaque dedicated to Jobs. It reads:

Dedicated with love and gratitude to
Steve Jobs
Our partner, mentor and friend

These are the same words that appeared in the credits of Brave.

Image Credit: Pixar Times

The post Tree And Plaque On Pixar’s Campus Honor Steve Jobs appeared first on Macgasm.

Twitter has been rumored to be working on a standalone music app, and AllThingsD has confirmed that Twitter plans to launch the app sometime this weekend at the Coachella music festival.

The Twitter music app will play clips of music from existing services, like iTunes and SoundCloud. It will suggest artists and tracks to users based on personalized signals, like who you follow on Twitter. Users will also be able to watch music videos provided by Vevo, the music video service owned by Universal Music and Sony.

The app was originally tipped to be launch today, but AllThingsD has now said it will launch at some point this weekend. An exact date/time was not specified.

American Idol host Ryan Seacrest tweeted about the app yesterday, saying he was “playing with @twitter’s new music app (yes it’s real!).” The official Twitter Music account retweeted him, apparently confirming the app’s existence.  Seacrest’s tweet also prompted We Are Hunted, a music recommendation service, to tweet back. Twitter and We Are Hunted then confirmed that Twitter had bought the service last year and has since put staff to work on building the new music app.

We Are Hunted tracks the most popular songs that people discussed on Twitter, which Twitter’s music app is also expected to do. It will suggest other tunes you might like based on what you’ve listened to and let you buy tracks through iTunes.

The Coachella Festival is one of the biggest music festivals of the year. It starts today in Twitter’s home state of California and features some of the music industry’s top artists. Twitter’s timing for the launch of its app couldn’t be more appropriate. It’ll be interesting to see if rumors are really true that it is going to launch this weekend.

Image Credit: Mashable

The post Twitter To Launch New Music App At Coachella This Weekend appeared first on Macgasm.

LinkedIn confirmed recent rumors today when it announced that it had purchased the newsreader app Pulse. The purchase is a significant acquisition for the company, with the purchase costing LinkedIn $90 million.

Pulse is a newsreader for iOS and Android that aggregates news and presents it in a slick and easy to consume style. In the past couple years, it has grown in popularity, climbing to the top of the App Store’s charts, and now claiming to serve over 30 million users worldwide as well as receiving more than 10 million article clicks per day.

LinkedIn is trying to expand itself past a simple resume building app, and this acquisition is intended to help it with this plan. LinkedIn Vice-President of Product and User Experience, Deep Nishar, released a company blog post discussing the company’s big purchase.

Pulse’s core value proposition is to help foster informed discussions that spark the decisions shaping the world around us through news and information. This shared view that the power of professional information and knowledge can transform lives and the world makes LinkedIn and Pulse a particularly great fit. We couldn’t be more thrilled to be working side by side with the Pulse team to create new and better ways to help professionals contribute to and leverage this collective body of business knowledge to help them be great at what they do and from wherever they work.

It will be interesting to see how exactly LinkedIn plans to use Pulse over the course of the next several months. In the meantime, however, LinkedIn promises that Pulse users need not worry, as the app will continue to deliver news and operate the same way it always has.

The post LinkedIn Buys Popular News App Pulse appeared first on Macgasm.

As more and more of our lives revolve around the digital world and social media, what happens to a person’s online presence once they die is becoming an increasing concern. Google has now decided to address this issue with a new feature called ‘Inactivity Account Manager‘, which is made to help users manage their digital afterlives.

The feature allows for you to set up what happens to your account after not signing in for an extended period of time. You can choose a time period of three months, six months, nine months or a year of inactivity before Google takes action with your account. After the selected period of time, you can set Google to delete all information and profiles associated with your account or you can have Google notify a list of trusted contacts with all the data associated with your Google services.

The services that Google will share your data about are:
+1s
Blogger
Contacts
Drive
Google+ Circles
Google+ Stream
Mail
Pages
Picasa Web Albums
Profile
Reader
Voice
YouTube

Google will also send you a text message a month before your account expires to make sure that you are in fact buried underground and that you are not just taking an extensive leave of absence from the Internet.

If you are concerned about what will happen to your cat dedicated YouTube Channel when you die, be sure to check out Inactivity Account Manager (a name so bad that even Google makes fun of it on its blog) here.

Image Credit: Mashable

The post Google Launches New Feature, Grants You Powers After You Die appeared first on Macgasm.

Last week, Funny or Die released a teaser trailer for the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic, “iSteve.” The trailer showed a little of what we can expect when the full-length video is released on April 15, complete with dramatics, A-list actors, and every Steve Jobs cliché imaginable. Now, Co.Create has gone behind the scenes of “iSteve” to give us all a little more of what’s to come.

Co.Create had a chance to sit down with Ryan Perez, the writer and director of “iSteve,” to talk about Funny or Die’s first feature-length video. It took only eight weeks to get the whole thing done, and it’ll be the first of three Steve Jobs biopics to be released, though the other two look to be a bit more serious take on the late Apple co-founder.

According to Co.Create:

The goal was to be the first Jobs movie to debut, which means that the timeline was short and the budget tight. Perez wrote the movie over five days, using only Steve Jobs’ Wikipedia pages and various interviews as source material–he joked that “we couldn’t buy a paperback version of [Walter Isaacson's] book; it’s not in our budget.” Filming was done over another five days, and the editing schedule was also compressed. Overall, the process of going from idea to 80-minute final cut will have taken about eight weeks.

The video is intentionally funny and inaccurate, since it’s based primarily on Steve Jobs’ Wikipedia page, but Perez says it’s not supposed to be an extended comedy sketch. “I think my hope would be that people are interested in following the story,” he explained, even though “we’re barely making sure there’s a coherent story. If we made a coherent story out of this, it’ll be a miracle. A coherent story wasn’t the highest priority.”

Justin Long, star of the long-running classic Mac versus PC campaign, will play Steve Jobs, opposite Jorge Garcia from “Lost” as Steve Wozniak.

Whatever this film turns out to be, I don’t think it’ll be short of entertainment and I’m pretty pumped to see it.

Image Credit: Co.Create

The post “iSteve” Behind The Scenes: A Look At The Funniest, Least Accurate Steve Jobs Biopic appeared first on Macgasm.

ITG analyst Joseph Fersedi claims that the Z10 launch “started poorly and weakened significantly as the days passed” and that Z10 sales are “in line-to marginally ahead of anemic sales” of older BlackBerry models and the Nokia Lumia 822.

Fersedi said that the Z10′s initial share of sales was 4% at Verizon stores and 7% at AT&T stores, but those numbers have since fallen to 1% and 2%.

According to another report by Detwiler Fenton, customer returns of the Z10 are actually outnumbering sales.

“We believe key retail partners have seen a significant increase in Z10 returns to the point where, in several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before,” Fenton explained.

In a recent earnings call, BackBerry said that it has sold 1 million Z10s, but the quarter did not include U.S. sales. The company hasn’t commented on the U.S. launch other than to say that it has met its expectation.

Analysts still hold hope for BlackBerry though, and expect the upcoming keyboard-equipped BlackBerry Q10 to sell a lot better. The device just became available in the U.K. and Canada this week and is expected to ship at the end of April. It should arrive in the U.S. in May or June.

Image Credit: design boom

The post BlackBerry Z10 Returns Are Apparently Outnumbering Sales appeared first on Macgasm.

Usually it’s the other way around, but a new survey by Raymond James analysis asked participants which smartphone they would never use, instead of which one they’d be most likely to use. Results of the survey found that BlackBerry is the device that most people would never use.

The study looked at consumer smartphone purchasing intent, and the results are a pretty accurate reflection of the current smartphone market.

As part of the survey, Raymond James asked participants which features would make them more likely to buy a new iPhone, Android or BlackBerry device: big screen, lower price, better functionality, etc. It also offered people the option of indicating a particular device that they would never use.

Of the consumers surveyed, 20% said they would never buy an iPhone, 31% said they would never buy an Android phone, and a lofty 71% said they would never buy a BlackBerry.

With Apple and Google really dominating the current smartphone market, and BlackBerry struggling to catch up, it’s not all that surprising that a poll like this would yield these results. BlackBerry has a huge hill to climb if it’s going to regain relevance in the smartphone market.

Image Credit: ABC News

The post Survey Asks Which Smartphone People Would Never Use, Guess Who Gets No Love appeared first on Macgasm.

Rudy Richter, a former software developer for Ambrosia, tweeted the following:

End of an era, so long and thanks for all the fish, ambrosia. On to the next adventure,

Later, in a tweet to the Pebble Smartwatch Twitter account, Ricther said that his “employer closed up shop today.” Richter also stated that he and his co-workers are looking for jobs. Other Ambrosia developers including Jon Gary and Jeremy Knope have posted similar tweets.

Ambrosia Software was incorporated in August of 1993 and has developed numerous apps for the Mac, iPad, iPhone and Windows. These apps include iToner, a Mac app used to create iPhone ringtones, and SnapzProX, a screen recording tool, among other titles.

Ambrosia has not yet updated its company blog on the status of the company, but we’ll be checking back regularly for details.

The post Ambrosia Software Lays Off Team, May Have Folded appeared first on Macgasm.

According to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ John Doerr, Twitter and Path are working on making their services available for Google Glass. Doerr has a close relationship with both companies as his firm has backed both of the services in the past and is on the Glass Collective team.

Doerr said the following on Twitter and Path coming to Glass via the KPCB blog:

Some companies we’ve backed, such as Twitter and Path, are already working on experiences for Glass. So are Evernote and The New York Times.

Doerr also quoted Path CEO Dave Morin, who said:

Glass represents a future of freedom. A future where you spend more time focused on the people you are with and the experiences you are having, rather than focused on your mobile device. Glass brings you the important information, context, and moments when you need them most.

Glass Collective is an investment syndicate between three investment firms: Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Andreessen Horowitz. These companies will be working together to fund apps for the Glass platform.

Image Credit: Google Blog

The post Twitter, Path Working On Google Glass Apps appeared first on Macgasm.

Apple’s retail stores are often pointed to as an example of a consumer store that can still manage to look beautiful and unique. Apple may now be going for something new with their stores’ designs, as Marketing Magazine is reporting that Apple has hired architecture firm Foster + Partners to work on new retail store designs for the company.

Apple has history with Foster + Partners, as the firm has been responsible for the design process of Apple’s new “spaceship” headquarters. In the past, however, Apple has tapped Foster + Partners’ rival firm 8 Inc to design its retail stores.

Whether Apple plans to revamp the style of all its existing Apple Stores, or whether it simply plans to work with Foster to create unique one-off locations remains unknown. Either way, if the stores are able look nearly as cool as the spaceship campus, they will certainly be impressive.

When Apple was asked about the news, it gave the traditional “We don’t comment on rumor or speculation” line. Foster + Partners was also asked about the rumor, to which a spokeswoman replied, “Any project for Apple is confidential and therefore we are unable to comment.”

The post Apple Stores To Get A Fresh Look With New Architechture Firm? appeared first on Macgasm.

In his book “Finding The Next Steve Jobs,” Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari, writes less about Steve Jobs and more about what companies need to do to change their hiring practices.

In 1974, Bushnell took a chance on hiring Steve Jobs, a non-conformist who was as far from the straight-collared businessman mold as could be. Bushnell remained friends with Steve Jobs over the years, even after he left Atari to co-found Apple. In “Finding The Next Steve Jobs,” Bushnell reflects on what he learned from Steve Jobs and how companies need to hire more people like him.

Bushnell, in an interview with the LA Times, explains that companies today tend to hire away from creativity in favor of productivity. “For instance, they are requiring everybody to have a college degree. The most creative people I know couldn’t deal with college.”

“Most of these folks are non-conformists. Sometimes when you hire people who have to pass a Mr. Congeniality test, you end up losing some of the non-conformists who will give you different views and perspectives,” he went on to explain.

Bushnell argues that companies have to revolutionize themselves constantly just to remain relevant in today’s fast-pace digital age, and creative people are becoming more and more important in this.

Jobs is just one great example of a non-conformist. Bushnell and Jobs both agreed that creativity is “every company’s first driver. It’s where everything starts, where energy and forward motion originate. Without that first charge of creativity, nothing else can take place.”

Image Credit: TentBlogger

The post Atari Co-Founder, Nolan Bushnell, Discusses “Finding The Next Steve Jobs” appeared first on Macgasm.

The best browser for iOS continues to get better. Today, Google released a new update for its Safari competitor that brings with it a couple of new useful features.

The highlight of the update is the new ability to hide the browser’s toolbar when using an iPhone or iPod touch. Users can now simply swipe away the toolbar to have a fullscreen view of the web page they’re on. This is a super useful feature when you consider how limited space is on the small screens of the iPhone and iPod touch.

Another feature included in update 26.0.1410.50 is a quick new way to access the omnibox at the top of the browser. Now making a simple twitch gesture when scrolling down a page will send you back to the omnibox without having to manually scroll all the way back. Other features include the ability to print web pages with Google Cloud Print or AirPrint and the ability to save any page as a PDF to Google Drive. The update also includes the traditional bug/stability fixes.

As Chrome continues to widen its feature set from Safari, it’s beginning to get more and more frustrating that Apple doesn’t allow its users to use a third party browser as the default web browser on iOS.

The post Google Chrome For iOS Gets Even Better With New Update appeared first on Macgasm.

Considering the application has been around for less than four months, and has had its fair share of x-rated controversy, Vine has climbed the ‘free’ app listing charts on Apple’s iTunes store and now sits on top of the app-heap.

It seems like the team is pretty pumped about their short trek to the top too.

Hey guys, remember that time we made the No. 1 most popular app in the world? @ckb @dhof @bobby @vineapp twitter.com/rus/status/321…

— Rus Yusupov (@rus) April 8, 2013

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

For the uninitiated, Vine is a new-ish service from the folks at Twitter that lets users record short, six second video snippets to share on the web. It’s a lot of fun if you’re more creative than I am, and there’s a lot of pretty neat people doing fun things on it too. It’s worth checking out.

The post Vine Climbs The ‘Free’ App Heap On iTunes, Hits The Top appeared first on Macgasm.