News

A member of Apple’s elite industrial design team has just joined GoPro

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 13, 2016

A longtime member of Apple’s closely-knit 19-person elite industrial design team has joined action camera maker GoPro, according to an exclusive report published Wednesday by the former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin's The Information.

The article, hidden behind a paywall, states that Apple designer Danny Coster is now joining GoPro to head up a new hardware design group there as Vice President of Design.

On a somewhat related note, a murky rumor recently alleged that Apple was interested in acquiring GoPro. In a company-wide email today announcing the hire, GoPro said the executive would begin his role by month's end. Coster, who worked for Apple since the early 1990s, was apparently curious to explore the new opportunity at GoPro.

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Kindle Oasis is Amazon’s thinnest and lightest e-reader ever, but costs more than iPad mini 2

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 13, 2016

Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a brand new device, the $290 Kindle Oasis, its eighth-generation Kindle e-reader. Billed as its thinnest and lightest e-redear yet, the Oasis weighs in at just 4.6 ounces and measures a remarkable 3.4 millimeters at its thinnest point, which is less than half the thickness of Apple's iPhone 6s at its smallest point.

Its dual-battery charging system lets you read for months without plugging in if you're using the Oasis with the official charging case. Without the case, the device's built-in battery provides up to two weeks of reading based on 30 minutes usage per day.

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You can now attach Microsoft Office documents to your WhatsApp chats

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 13, 2016

After enabling complete end-to-end encryption for chats and adding support for sending and receiving PDFs and basic text styling, WhatsApp for iPhone in its most recent update brings the ability to attach Microsoft Office documents to your instant exchanges with friends on the service.

Although not mentioned in the official release notes accompanying the 59.1-megabyte app, the change was spotted this morning by the Italian blog iSpazio. This is a useful new feature for users that removes the need to convert Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents to the PDF format before attaching them to their WhatsApp conversations.

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Google Calendar can intelligently find time on your schedule to work on your personal goals

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 13, 2016

Yesterday, Google announced a cool new feature to mark the tenth anniversary of its online calendar service: Google Calendar will now scan your calendar intelligently to find the time on your schedule to work on your personal goals.

According to Google, the updated Google Calendar app lets you add a personal goal to your calendar.

These can be things like “run three times a week” or “hit the gym every day except weekend”. After parsing your natural language input, it'll schedule time automatically for you and help you actually stick to it.

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Facebook open-sources a camera design for capturing spherical footage in 3D

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 13, 2016

At its annual developers conference, the F8, which kicked off yesterday, the social networking giant Facebook announced an open-source spherical camera rig design which can shoot 360-degree video in 3D. Dubbed the Facebook Surround 360, the design consists of as many as fourteen wide-angle cameras bolted onto the horizontal ring.

There's also a fish-eye camera on top and two on the bottom for a total of seventeen cameras that are synced with a global shutter mechanism. The accompanying software stitches the individual videos together into one seamless 360-degree footage.

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This phone packs in a 10-core processor, 10-LED camera flash, 3D Touch clone and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 13, 2016

With each passing day, Chinese handset vendors are getting better at their game, producing phones with great technical specifications that often outperform flagship devices from the likes of Samsung, but cost half as much. Take, for example, Meizu, a Chinese consumer electronics company, which has built a new phone with some impressive hardware specifications.

Their new Pro 6 smartphone was just announced this morning: it has the world's first ten-core mobile processor, a 21-megapixel rear camera with a small ring two-tone flash consisting of 10 LEDs, a first for any smartphone, and a clone of Apple's 3D Touch.

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In this game, Steve Jobs was North Korean and started APeX Computers out of a garage

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2016

Homefront: The Revolution, an upcoming shooter developed by Deep Silver Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver, a division of Austria's Koch Media, is based on an interesting alternative history scenario in which Steve Jobs was North Korean and started APeX Computers out of a garage in the 1970s.

Set in the year 2029 when the United States is occupied by North Korea, the game is full of alternative history stories relating to Apple and comes with a complete timeline of events that detail the creation of the APeX II personal computer, an iPhone-style device called aPhone and other events from 1953 onwards.

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Netflix begins rolling out (very limited) support for HDR and Dolby Vision streaming

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 12, 2016

Netflix isn't wasting any time: they began rolling out support for high-dynamic range (HDR) streaming, with a spokesperson confirming that HDR programming will be delivered to compatible TVs anywhere Netflix is available.

“We are indeed live with HDR,” Yann Lafargue, Netflix's manager of corporate communications said to FlatpanelsHD.

The new streaming option works with compatible TVs, both in HDR10 and Dolby Vision, resulting in fewer compression artifacts and a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard streaming technologies.

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DisplayMate: 9.7″ iPad Pro has a ‘truly impressive’ display, much better than iPad Air 2’s

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 12, 2016

An in-depth analysis of Apple's latest display technology conducted by DisplayMate has shown that the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro is outfitted with “a truly impressive” Retina display, which DisplayMate described as a “major upgrade” over that used in the iPad Air 2.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro, DisplayMate has found, delivers “color accuracy that is visually indistinguishable from perfect”.

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Trigraphy photography app picks up new effects, gains albums and document support

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 12, 2016

Trigraphy by Nixes, a beautiful app for turning your photographs into low-poly artwork, was refreshed in the App Store earlier this week with a few new tricks. Bumped to version 2.1.2, the software gained two new effects alongside an effects bundle and other perks.

For starters, it's now possible to open images in Trigraphy from other apps because the app has gained its own Document Provider extension.

The built-in gallery now supports albums and users can change how images are saved and how 4K assets are handled, which should fix problems related to 4K download.

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Airmail gains iPad and Touch ID support, adds tons of new features in latest update

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 12, 2016

Airmail, the popular Mac email client, has made the leap to the iPhone back in February.

As of today, this powerful email application is available with a native interface on iPads, with full support for iOS 9's Split View multitasking mode, wireless keyboards with fully customizable shortcuts, Touch ID, the ability to draw sketches within the app and much more.

“Never before has e-mail been so powerful and productive across your Apple devices,” developers told me via email. “Use the extended screen real estate to compose and communicate like never before.”

The refreshed iPhone and iPad app is available now in the App Store at no charge for existing users.

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