Stem Innovation has announced the iZON Remote Room Monitor, a video camera that streams live audio and video to an iOS device anywhere in the world. It costs $129.95 and is available in select Best Buy locations, but is soon coming to Apple stores and other retail locations. (more…)
The original Songwriters Drumpack drummer Ricard “Huxflux” Nettermalm is back with another stunning MIDI pack: Songwriters Drumpack 3! Intentionally picking up where the other two packs left off, the new one focuses more on the up- and midtempo end of the scale. This is a must for all you songwriters out there looking for great, pro drum tracks, organized as different songs and in need of full song structure building blocks.
Great drum grooves and fills.
Absolutely priceless humor from Nitrozac and Snaggy!
Flapcraft is a cheerfully addictive game for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, where you play as a handsome Viking doing tricks in the air by flying on a wooden log. In addition to fun gameplay and beautiful graphics, the game takes advantage of many of the latest and greatest iPhone, iPad and iPod touch technologies.
Everyone knows I love the Mac image editing app Pixelmator, but now the team has come out with an iPhone and iPad game. Of course, the art was all put together using Pixelmator, but this game looks really nice. You can watch a video of the making of Flapcraft on the Web site or buy it on the App Store.
I first found Anthony Stauffer on YouTube a few years ago and loved his playing. He’s a blues player that teaches guitarists in all kinds of styles, including one of the best guitar players to ever pick up the instrument, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Stauffer’s lessons go from beginner to advanced and are always well done. My favorite lessons are the Blues boxes — basically the pentatonic scales — where he shows you how players like B.B. King, Albert King and Eric Clapton use them. Stauffer also sells his lessons on DVD or they’re available for download.
Highly recommended.
GuitarApprentice.com is a video system that takes the guitar part of hit songs and breaks them into easy portions on multiple levels so that they are as painless and fun to learn as a video game. On the lowest level, the player only plays a portion of the guitar part, while GuitarApprentice.com plays the rest. The player gets to rock out with the entire song by playing only a few chords. As the player improves he moves up through the different levels playing gradually and increasing portions of the guitar part. By the time the player reaches the highest level, he is playing the entire song and ready for the stage! At GuitarApprentice.com a player can download the free trial song of the week or subscribe to the entire catalog. New songs are added weekly. There is no need to read music—a player just lines up his fingers as shown on the fretboards moving down the screen and strums any guitar as the fretboards drop into place.
I’ll be very interested to see how this does.
The option to rent episodes of TV shows is no longer available on either the Apple TV, or when browsing content via Apple’s iTunes application. Previously, participating networks offered users the ability to rent a TV episode for 99 cents, with 30 days to begin watching and 48 hours to complete it.
“iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows. iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.”
Too bad, I really liked renting TV shows.
Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook got more than just a job at the biggest tech company in the world when he signed on with Apple. He also got 1,000,000 shares of Apple stock, a bonus worth $383 million at current prices.The news comes from an 8-K filing with the SEC that details the terms of Cook signing on as CEO.
The stock vests in two five-year increments – 2016 and 2021. Assuming Apple stock prices grow at the same rate it has been, that could make Cook a very wealthy man. Looks like Apple’s Board of Directors is very serious about making sure Tim stays in charge of Apple for a long time.
WSJ:
Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.
Some scary stories from musicians too.
TNW:
Benioff liked the name so much that he trademarked the term and bought the domain. It was only when Apple (and Jobs) introduced the App Store on the iPhone that the Salesforce chief decided he needed to something about the term and the domain, now that the Cupertino-based company was using it.
He gave the trademark and domain to Jobs as a thank you. That’s how much Jobs meant to the industry.
If you’re looking for a Digital Audio Workstation, this might be a good time to look at Pro Tools 9. (more…)
…rather than producing thick periodicals the size of the Yellow Pages, the Bucs have downloaded their playbooks on iPad 2s and distributed them to each of their 90 players.What’s more, players can use the tablet computer to reference video files of games, and practice and situational videos of any NFL team.
First iPads were used instead of flight manuals for commercial pilots. Now they’re being used for NFL playbooks. Is there any question that the iPad is more than a fad? This device is changing the world.
Localytics reports that iPad users spend a great deal of time reading news on their devices – more than twice the average length of time than other apps. Music, health and reference apps followed. (more…)
Cook concluded his remarks by assuring investors the release of upcoming Apple products such as the iPhone 5 would be postponed for at least four years so the company could throw all its time and resources into the creation of high-quality printers for the home and office.
Thanks to humor and satire site The Onion for injecting some much-needed hilarity into today’s Apple news.
(An e-mail purportedly sent by Tim Cook to Apple employees)I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.
Reassuring words, not only to Apple employees but to everyone who uses and depends on Apple products.
[via Daring Fireball]
In the last 12 hours I have been called by everyone from friends to MSNBC wondering what I thought of Steve Jobs’s resignation from Apple. I’ve read thousands of words that have been written about him, and realized that my thoughts are much shorter. This is what I would say to Steve:
Thanks for all of your hard work and products that have changed my life. Thanks for changing the world. Here’s to a long reign as Chairman of Apple’s board.
Cheers Steve.
Jim
Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.
Indeed.
WSJ:
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” [The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993]
There are so many good ones in there.
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent.
They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
In a letter addressed to Apple’s Board of Directors and the Apple Community, Steve Jobs explained his decision to step down as CEO. (more…)
Apple’s Board of Directors on Wednesday announced that Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO. The board has named Tim Cook, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, as the new CEO. (more…)
If you purchase your copy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution at a retail store, you’re supposed to receive a code that allows you to play the game for free using the online gaming service OnLive. It’s a neat giveaway, and it certainly gives gamers an incentive to try the service, but a leaked memo seems to show GameStop’s fear of digital delivery: employees are allegedly being asked to open every game and remove the coupon.
For the uninitiated, OnLive is a cloud-based game service that lets you play PC games on your Mac, PC or on a TV (using a hardware device). GameStop says the coupons for OnLive were slipped into the shipping boxes without its consent. So I guess that makes it all right for them to remove the coupons without your consent.
Screw those guys. If you were planning to buy Deus Ex for your Windows gaming rig or for a Windows partition on your Mac, do it from someone besides GameStop.
Apple is the top US retailer, at least in terms of sales per square foot, a RetailSails analysis indicates. The firm recently surveyed the last four quarters of over 160 retailers, and remarks that Apple’s sales were about $5,626 per square foot, up 49.1 percent year-over-year. The figures are based on global results, not just those from US stores, RetailSails points out.
The closest one to Apple was Tiffany at $2,974 per square foot.
Apple on Wednesday posted iMac graphic firmware update 3.0, available for download on its Web site. (more…)
Even if preliminary, the detailed decision handed today contains some interesting information, some of which is also relevant to some other lawsuits, such as Apple’s disputes with Motorola and HTC. In the United States, Apple asserts its slide-to-unlock patent (U.S. Patent No. 7,657,849) against those companies. Apple is suing HTC over it in Delaware, and Motorola in Southern Florida. The Dutch judge who wrote today’s decision declared the European counterpart of that patent (EP20080903) obvious (as compared to prior art presented by Samsung) and, therefore, invalid. An invalid patent cannot be infringed, which is why the Dutch decision doesn’t even address the infringement question.
The Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that Google has agreed to forfeit $500 million in online ad revenue generated through AdWords advertisements for online Canadian pharmacies. (more…)
It’s not restricted to Sony Ericsson handsets, either. HTC’s often held up as the paragon of Android quality — alongside Samsung — but my own Desire HD is riddled with stuff that I simply don’t want: 3Mobile-TV, 3Musik and Planet3 were all installed alongside third-party apps such as Amazon MP3, Bebo, Bejeweled Deluxe and a demo of EA’s Sims 3.Who’s responsible? Networks, largely, which receive clean handsets and then load them up with rubbish after signing deals with numerous partners. And it’s not like you can just get rid of this software, either — most of it’s there to stay, with hard-coded blocks in place to ensure you don’t uninstall any of the tat you don’t want.
Mike Jennings goes on for a while, but finishes with:
… after all, this sort of thing doesn’t happen on iOS.
Yep.
The Rechtbank ‘s-Gravenhage (a Dutch court in the city of The Hague) today issued a formally Europe-wide preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones — but not the Galaxy tablets — at Apple’s request. The decision follows a hearing held on August 10 and 11, 2011.
The injunction applies to European countries which recognize a particular software patent. FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller says 14 countries don’t, including Austria, Belgium, Iceland Portugal, and Spain.
Asian suppliers have begun making a lower-cost version of the hot-selling smartphone with a smaller 8-gigabyte flash drive that will arrive around the same time Apple unveils its much-anticipated iPhone 5, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Apple’s COO Tim Cook already said that the company is exploring all possibilities and all markets for the iPhone. Makes sense that Apple would start taking on Nokia in this segment.
Android is being slammed by malware, according to a new report released on Tuesday by Antivirus vendor McAfee. (more…)