One of the big new features in the upcoming iPhone 5S, Apple's next generation smartphone, is expected to be a built-in fingerprint sensor. To be fair, we've yet to see any evidence of this, but reports have been consistent over past 6 months.
Up until now, most folks have presumed that if Apple were to outfit its handset with such a sensor, that it would build it into the Home button. But according to a new patent filing from the company, it could build it right into the display...
The wireless provider industry here in the United States is dominated by 4 major carriers: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. You could actually narrow it down even further, to two carriers, as Verizon and AT&T are much larger than the other two.
And both carriers have their strengths. Verizon is known for having an expansive and reliable network, offering more coverage in more places, while AT&T is known for its network's speed. But AT&T is now claiming it has the most reliable network too...
Apple is reportedly teaming up with Google, Facebook, Microsoft and a number of other tech companies that will demand dramatically increased transparency from the US government regarding surveillance by the NSA and other agencies.
In a letter to be published tomorrow, the alliance—which includes 63 companies, investors, and non-profit orgs—will call upon President Obama and congressional leaders to allow them to report more specifically on security requests...
Despite the fact that Apple showed up to the 7-8-inch tablet game late, it has taken the lead in the space. Admittedly, Amazon doesn't offer sales numbers and Apple doesn't break up iPad sales, but it's widely believed that most of them are minis.
But it appears Google is looking to de-throne the Cupertino company next week, by introducing a new version of its Nexus 7. The search giant issued media invitations to a July 24 event this morning, and there's been several leaks since then...
Readers over 30 need no introduction to Sierra's Leisure Suit Larry series of adventure games. Back in the 1980s, when computer games were all blocky, the concept of point-and-clicking one's way through the game was still in its infancy.
It was then that programmer Al Lowe had set out to create Larry Laffer: a lovable, balding virgin character in his 40s.
Each game in the series featured a simple premise: Larry had to talk young women into having sex with him. Two years ago, Replay Games acquired a license for the whole franchise.
Following the successful "Make Leisure Suit Larry come again!" campaign on Kickstarter (14,000+ fans chipped in to bring Larry back to life), the small development studio has started re-releasing Larry games on a number of platforms.
And thanks to Kickstarter crowd-funding, Replay was able to basically write Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded from scratch and update the game's appearance for the 21st century technology...
Earlier this year, developer Eric Castro previewed a gorgeous-looking jailbreak tweak called LyricFlow. The utility is essentially a standalone music player, though it can be integrated into the stock Music app, that offers up a number of features.
As the name suggests, LyricFlow provides the lyrics to your favorite songs—that's the main focus of the tweak. But it also enables you to browse through your music in several interesting ways, like spinning through your albums on a carousel...
Google yesterday pushed a major 2.0 update to its native Maps iOS app.
The software has brought native iPad support, offline maps, a much cleaner interface, improved navigation, indoor maps of building floors and other enhancements.
By the way, today's Chrome iOS update lets you open map links in the Google Maps app instead of the browser.
To go along with the new Maps app, Google yesterday issued a version 1.4 of its Google Maps SDK for iOS. The new frameworks make it easy for Apple's registered iOS developers to write apps that incorporate such new features as Street View, Indoor Maps, and a new look and feel...
Can Apple more than triple the percent of iPhones sold at its retail stores, pumping up sales of its flagship smartphone?
While CEO Tim Cook is pushing the idea, some observers question whether the goal of selling half of all iPhones in Apple Stores is in fact attainable.
The Apple CEO says he'd like in-store sales of iPhones - now at fifteen percent - to match the fifty percent of handsets serviced by Apple Store Geniuses. Currently, around 90 percent of iPhones are purchased either through U.S. carriers or third-party resellers...
The Internet giant Google has just pushed a major update to its Chrome browser for the iPhone and iPad, sporting better voice capabilities and containing a whole bunch of new features that make the browser fully interoperable with major Google apps available on the iOS platform.
In addition to advanced voice control achieved through additional enhancements to voice search and improved text-to-speech, this edition of the Chrome 28 build boasts tight interoperability with Google's other native apps on iOS.
For starters, there's a handy option to open links for YouTube, Maps, Google+ and Drive in Google's native iOS apps instead of the browser. On the iPad side, there's a new full-screen browsing mode (finally) along with other tidbits, mentioned after the break...
We've been waiting and waiting (and waiting) for a Liquidmetal Apple gadget ever since that 2010 deal saw Apple acquire worldwide exclusive rights to use the amorphous alloy (also known as metallic glass) in consumer electronics applications. 2012 went and gone without a Liquidmetal iPhone, or iPad or MacBook for that matter.
At the end of 2012 Apple extended the deal with Liquidmetal Technologies (a Caltech spinoff) or another two years, through 2014. Still, the iPhone maker has yet to use the alloy in gadgets, even though it's owned the rights to it since 2010. This could change soon, if a new patent gain unearthed Wednesday is an indication.
That the United States Patent & Trademark Office awarded Apple's patent on a process for mass production of amorphous metals is a sign of Apple potentially moving to commercialize Terminator-like alloy. Liquidmetal iWatch, anyone?
Square Enix drew lots of heat for itself after it was discovered that its new premium iOS game, Deus Ex: The Fall, contains a restriction preventing weapon firing on jailbroken devices, making it impossible to progress past the tutorial without applying the xCon tweak from the ModMyI repo in Cydia.
Square was quick to apologize and attribute the risky decision to a bug, promising to remove the odd limitation in a future update. Making good on its promise, the company has just released an update to The Fall which does away with the anti-jailbreak measure...
With both big media, Chinese blogs and everyone and their mother in between seemingly betting on the arrival of Apple's polycarbonate-made mid-range handset later this year, small wonder purported spyshots of the device's casing have been leaking out from Far East.
iOS developer Sonny Dickson, who has previously proven himself a reliable source of information about unreleased Apple products, has been on a roll these days tweeting out a number of purported plastic iPhone images. The newest series of authentic-looking images depict several colorized plastic iPhone shells, including one comparing the current iPhone 5 to the purported less-pricey model...