Christmas is over and 2012 is winding down, meaning it's about that time where folks start reflecting back on the year. As such, Instagram has posted a list of its most popular picture-taking locations for the past 12 months.
Out of anywhere else in the world, Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport was the most popular, with over 100,000 photos taken there in 2012. Interested in the rest of the list? We've got the whole thing for you after the break...
Tablets appear to be more popular than eReaders, at least in the U.S., according to researchers. Devices such as Apple's iPad are owned by 25 percent of Americans responding to a Pew Internet & American Life survey, compared to 19 percent for eReaders, such as Amazon's Kindle.
Most telling, however, is the November survey finding that a third of people own a tablet, eReader or both to view electronic publications. That's a two-fold increase over December of 2011, when 10 percent of people surveyed reported owning either a tablet or eReader. In another sign readers are shifting away from traditional publishing, the survey found 23 percent of the U.S. population 16-years-old or above are using eReaders. In 2011, the researchers found that number at 16 percent. For authors, eReaders also increase their audience, Pew also found...
http://youtu.be/W_mn5rkwyCs
Seen above is the iSiri, the intriguing iWatch concept we recently shared. Plenty more iWatch concepts are circulating around the web as watchers increasingly believe Apple will some day enter the wearable computing space. Patent filings indicate as much and last December The New York Times reported that Apple was working on a Siri-controlled add-on that interfaces with the iPhone. And now, the German blog Mobile Geeks relays a Chinese site rumor claiming Apple and Intel are collaborating on an Apple-branded Bluetooth smart watch set for releases some time next year...
Apple, usually the benchmark for customer satisfaction, fell from its lofty perch during the all-important Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping period. After quickly jettisoning its senior vice-president of retail and suffering questions surrounding supplies of new products, the company "stumbled", falling to a four-year low, according to a customer satisfaction analytics firm Thursday. The iPhone maker fell 3 points to 80 out of 100, dropping it from the overall top five online holiday retailers and behind #1 Amazon.com, which was rated 88 out of 100 by Forsee...
Tim Cook's CEO salary for the calendar year 2012 was $4.17 million, which includes a $1.36 million salary and $2.8 million in compensation related to incentive plans, reveals a document Apple filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, a bunch of media outlets pointed out that Cook's salary dropped 99 percent versus 2011. Such sensationalist reporting couldn't be farther from the truth.
Cook's $376 million compensation in 2011 and $52 million in the year before was given to him in stock options and these won't vest until 2016 and 2021.
So yeah, Cook's 'salary' did drop 99 percent this year versus 2011, but without stock awards (his base salary last year was $900,000). The filing also reveals the company gave a pay raise to a select few members of its executive team to reflect their increased responsibilities following the departure of SVP of iOS software Scott Forstall, announced in October...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAV-Kkq-GtY
While the iTV rumors have continued unabated right throughout 2012, little concrete supply chain leads do we have of Apple building a full-blown television set. Meanwhile, the sunset of Japan's television business and ongoing struggles of Sharp, Sony and Panasonic combined have paved the way for the rise of new competition from South Korea, chiefly Samsung Electronics whose Smart TV sets have taken over the entire television market by storm. And as Apple is pondering its next move, its frenemy is building up on the CES 2013 hype with a teaser that promises a new TV launch...
Apple is reportedly in talks with Sharp to use the company's IGZO (Indium gallium zinc oxide) technology in its next-generation iPhones and iPads. The backplane tech, which has been a hot topic over the past several months, allows for thinner, high resolution displays that require substantially less power...
Earlier this month, Tim Cook sat down with Rock Center's Brian Williams for his first major TV interview since becoming Apple's CEO. And among the many topics covered in the conversation, Cook spoke about Apple's plans to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US.
Initial speculation suggested that Apple was going to start making Mac Pros in the States, because of the desktop's pricing and sales volume. But according to a new report out of Taiwan, it will actually be the smaller Mac mini that will soon be shifted to US production...
Great news today for Windows users with a jailbroken Apple TV2. The popular jailbreak tool known as nito Installer, which was released for the Mac platform back in August, is now available on Microsoft's OS.
Like its counterpart, the Windows version of nito Installer allows you to easily install XBMC — a free, open source media player application — and other tools to your jailbroken ATV with just a couple of clicks...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zhEuFwoVns
I love my iPhone for what it does and even more so for what it might be capable of doing the next year and the year after - and beyond. Heck, a whole cottage industry of mockups and concept renders has sprung up around forthcoming iPhones.
If you ask Aatma Studios, a future iPhone will have a holographic keyboard (Fox News shamefully thought the concept was real!). Another guy, a student, dreamt up a Vibrative Virtual Keyboard that lets you “type” on flat surfaces. Taking their design cues, YouTube user "FranSnk3d" last week posted this nice clip.
I know it is too easily admissible, but so would had been the original iPhone if someone had laid out the concept for you years prior to the January 2007 introduction. Let's also not forget pico projection is here and that holographs have come quite a long way.
Indeed, who's to say this won't be a future iPhone five or so years from today?
Ryan Petrich is back at it again, this time with a new jailbreak tweak that enables a hidden Topography mode found in the recently released Google Maps app. The tweak, available via Cydia on his beta repo, adds a fourth option to the sidebar featured within Google maps to easily enable Topography.
As it turns out, the Topography Mode enabled via this tweak was already built into the Google Maps app from the get go. Why Google decided to keep the feature disabled in the public release is anyone's guess, but if you install this tweak, you can easily enable the option.
Check out our full video demonstration inside for more details...
Everything is different in Asia than over here in the United States (or Europe, or most other parts of the world for that matter). Whereas we celebrate Christmas and Santa Claus and kick off the holiday shopping season with Black Friday mega discounts, there's no such thing in Japan. Instead, they have Fukubukuro - aka Lucky Bags or Mystery Bags - a New Year's Day custom where retailers entice buyers with grab bags containing unknown random contents.
These are usually sold with a significant discount, usually 50 percent or more off the items' list price. Honoring the local custom, Apple on its Japanese retail page confirmed that a one-day Lucky Bags sale will take place in seven stores across the country on January 2...