Leander Kahney's Blog, page 78

White House wants to jump-start self-driving cars

Pretty much every company in Silicon Valley is working on a self-driving car project, and if the Obama administration has its way, they may hit the road sooner than expected. While Apple and Google are busy developing their visions for our future Autopia, the Obama administration plans to announce its effort to boost the development […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

Voice-boosting TV speaker makes sure you never miss a word

Grace Digital’s Voice Enhanced TV Speaker promises to enhance the sound of your television and potentially give it a volume boost. The sound was engineered with voices in mind because, more than anything when watching TV, dialogue is what you need to hear. As a bonus, a Bluetooth connection lets the speaker work with any Bluetooth-enabled computer […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

iOS devices finally outnumber Windows PCs

Surprising no-one, the number of shipped iOS devices has overtaken Windows devices in 2015. The number of iOS devices shipped equalled that of Windows PCs just last summer, but this is perhaps the final blow in the post-PC world that Apple’s been predicting (and promoting) for some time now. Asymco analyst Horace Dediu sent out […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

What iPhone 6s ads designed in MacPaint would look like

Apple’s marketing team creates gorgeous ads that show every minuscule detail of new iPhones, but what would the images look like if they were produced using the original Macintosh and MacPaint? Some redditor with way too much time on his or her hands decided to dig out an old Mac and find out, and the […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

iOS 9 adoption rate continues to pick up steam

Apple’s iOS 9 has been adopted by users at a pretty rapid rate, one that’s faster than even iOS 8 enjoyed. Apple just updated its developer information page, claiming that iOS 9 is now on 75 percent of all iOS devices out there. This is four percent more than it was just a month ago, […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

Check out Siri’s mad beatboxing skills

We think Siri’s been holding out on us. It turns out that Apple’s digital assistant has been quietly working on a skill that we only recently discovered. It’s not very useful, but it should give you a smile: A simple request will make Siri beatbox for you. That’s it up there; you just have to […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

Apple assumes you’ll own more than one Apple Watch

We were a little skeptical (and sarcastic) when we heard that Apple was trying out a feature in iOS 9.3 and watchOS 2.2 that will let Apple Watch owners pair multiple devices to one iPhone, but some new details have us rethinking our position. The feature, reportedly called “Auto Switch,” does exactly that, and based […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

Mobile Skype finally gets group video calls

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of its free video calls, Skype is giving everyone a present: group video calls on mobile devices. It was only six years ago that Skype video calling premiered on mobile phones, setting one-to-one video calls free from the laptop or desktop. Now, you’ll be able to group video chat […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

Classy poster captures how little we’ll miss Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is dead, and some nerdy designers are taking their good-riddance to Kickstarter. The campaign will produce classy, poster-sized screen prints of a fictional speech that perfectly captures how little anyone will actually miss the maligned web browser. It’s seeking a measly $500 to start production, with extra money going toward making the prints […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

‘Play any video’ app VLC comes to Apple TV

Finally, the play any video everywhere convenience of super-video app VLC is coming to your new Apple TV. As the go-to video player app on OS X and iOS, it’s about time we see it on the big screen, considering it was planned last September. Once you search for and download VLC on your Apple […]

(via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)