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...
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...
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...
Apple's implementation of auto-correct in iOS has long been the subject of criticism. When it works, it works, but it has the reputation of being inconsistent. Sometimes it won't notice slight misspellings of a word, and other times, it'll offer wrong suggestions. And apparently, there's a handful of words that auto-correct won't touch at all.
The Daily Beast ran a few low-grade, in-house tests on the feature, and it found that, on top of the obvious curse words, there are at least 12 often-used, 'hot button' terms it seems to purposely ignore.
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?
The smart device duopoly of Apple and Samsung is set to continue into 2014, new research finds. Although growth is slowing amid lack of 'wow' factor, smartphones will account for three-quarters of the 2.5 billion devices expected to sell next year.
In other words, smartphones will comprise an astounding 1.9 billion handsets sold next year.
Google's Android mobile software will have 42 percent of the market with Apple's iOS garnering fourteen percent in 2014. Microsoft is predicted to become the #2 platform with a fifteen percent share of next year's market, according to Gartner...
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...
It has been six years since Apple introduced the original iPhone. The event was likened to a seismic shift that ignited the push to adopt smartphones in the United States. Now with up to 70 percent of subscribers owning smartphones, the big three carriers are searching for ways to encourage upgrades.
However, the push comes as consumers complain the 'wow' factor is missing from the industry. The slowdown in smartphone upgrades - evident in Samsung and Apple's sales - fell nine percent in 2012 with 68 million U.S. subscribers upgrading their devices, according to a Wednesday Wall Street Journal report...