From 9to5Toys.com:
[tweet https://twitter.com/atari/status/241944410517016577]
Download the app free here and you can activate all 100 games for free today. And if you want to play 8 of these games re-imagined in HTML5 for you’re browser, head over here.
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From 9to5Toys.com:
Amazon has the KomputerBay 2x8GB 1333Mhz Laptop RAM Upgrade for $59.99 with free shipping. While we don’t have personal experience with this brand, it gets 4+ star rating from 500 Amazon reviewers, many of whom have put this upgrade inside their Macs.
Use OWC’s handy guide to make sure your Mac is compatible. For the most part, 2010 iMacs and most Macs released in 2011 are compatible:
iOS developers: If you were unable to fly to Melbourne, Australia in May for the One More Thing Conference, you can now download presentations given by the impressive array of developers.
http://onemorething.com.au/videos/ — Videos for all the talks from both days in 720p HD, no DRM, and streaming and download for just $49.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJPE0-z8fA&feature=youtu.be]
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While we certainly cannot vouch for the quality of this “iPhone 5 conversion mod kit” for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, it appears to be a back-plate mod kit based on leaked next-generation iPhone designs. Available in both black and white, the kit is based on the next-gen metal iPhone backs that we first posted high-resolution photos of in May. The mod kit is currently shipping worldwide within seven days for $30. The sellers claim the kit uses “camera glass lens of same quality as original iPhone back panel,” while the back plate includes “glass-like acrylic” and aluminum.
The kit also comes with Phillips and Pentalobe screwdrivers. The iPhone 5 mod kit is available here, and a short promo video of the result is below. For comparison, images of the “real” thing are here.
From 9to5Toys.com:
Too cheap to buy Apple’s $70 Bluetooth keyboard? It’s O.K. you cheap bastard, we have you covered.
Right now, a “white Bluetooth wireless keyboard,” which connects to second-generation and third-generation iPad and iPhone 4S (or any Bluetooth device), is available on eBay for $16.99. The deal features free standard shipping with delivery on or before Aug. 25. It looks almost exactly like an Apple keyboard (Samsung involvement?), but we wouldn’t bet it is aluminum. With that said, the seller has a 99.6-percent positive rating from 116,000 customers.
Check it out:
Buyer beware:
@9to5mac I bought that keyboard and it had two letter “E” keys. Also, half of the other keys stopped working after the first use.
— Don Southard (@binaryghost) August 21, 2012
@9to5mac Related: instagr.am/p/LGBPZDEBKO/
— Don Southard (@binaryghost) August 21, 2012
A number of Mac software bundles are popping up on 9to5Toys.com today:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7FcsdP58qc]
First we have the RapidWeaver $99 bundle for creating websites.
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Next up, we have MacLegion’s 10 app $49.99 deal with the first 5,000 customers receiving FX Photo Studio Pro from MacPhun.
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Finally, affiliate partners Stack Social have a number of excellent deals happening right now including a number of Freebies and hardware.
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From 9to5Toys.com:
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Today only, Amazon chops a big chuck off of SanDisk storage products as shown above. The discount yields the lowest prices we’ve seen on speedy SanDisk product but these usually dry up quick – so hurry! Amazon doesn’t charge shipping if you are a Prime member or the order is over $25 and doesn’t charge tax in most states.
Best bets are the 64GB Cruzer USB stick for $31.99, the Ultra 64SDXC card for $44.99 and the 240GB SSD for $154.99 and not on the page: $349.99 on SanDisk Extreme 480 GB SSD
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From 9to5Toys.com:
It appears that Apple is offering $50 off across the board yielding savings of 6-10% depending on the original price. This is the first time Apple has offered the 3rd generation iPad refurbished at the Apple Store.
Apple’s refurbished iPads get a new battery and encasement and come with the same 1 year warranty as new iPads.
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Press Release 8/6/2012 9:03 AM EDT
INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — To support Apple’s announcement of the release of their latest operating system, OS X Mountain Lion, John Wiley and Sons, Inc. is bringing to market a series of new instructional books covering the topic for every level of user. Seven titles are publishing from Wiley on the topic of OS X Mountain Lion including:
“With over 200 new features in OS X Mountain Lion, users will be able to quickly gain knowledge on everything the new operating software has to offer through Wiley’s latest books,” said Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus, author of OS X Mountain Lion For Dummies, “From For Dummies guides to the OS X Mountain Lion Bible, Wiley is one of the first publishers to market with their extensive list of books on Mountain Lion, offering something for every level of end user.”
Wiley’s new OS X Mountain Lion books will be available for purchase online and at retailers nationwide in both print and all e-book formats. For additional information, visit http://lp.wileypub.com/osxmountainlion/.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH1u-DP1fws&feature=player_embedded]
For Americans, coverage of the Olympics in London is mainly limited to NBC’s video stream offerings. Unfortunately, the network’s coverage, especially online, is receiving a ton of complaints as witnessed by the #nbcfail hashtag on Twitter. Fortunately, there is a way to bypass NBC altogether and take advantage of the BBC’s official live stream coverage from inside the U.S. of almost every major event. There is not much to it; all you have to do is use a DNS routing service to get around the BBC’s region blocked streams. Below is a quick guide courtesy of Lifehacker that uses the Unblock Us service. It is free for a week, and then it is $5 for the month.
[tweet https://twitter.com/MiaFarrow/status/230373185923710976]
First, you will have to sign up for the service on its website. Once that is finished, you can configure the service for BBC using the steps below:
A new Wi-Fi scanner tool is in Mountain Lion’s refreshed Wi-Fi Diagnostics Utility, allowing users to easily discover Wi-Fi networks within range and view related data not available from Apple’s Wi-Fi menu bar item. Comparable to third-party Wi-Fi stumbler tool iStumbler, the scan tool provides data for BSSID, band, protocol, channel, signal strength, security, and more. It also has Active and Passive scan modes.
From the window, you can see what networks are in your area and their strength. Some maneuvering of base stations can increase coverage to the outermost areas of your house, and it is much, much easier to see slight differences in numerical signal vs. noise strength over those four waves Apple uses in its Wi-Fi menu.
Additionally, by looking at what Channel (1-13) your base station is on, compared to your neighbors (or other base stations in your house), you can often find the least used channel in your area to improve reception.
If you are interested in using the new Wi-Fi scanner tool, OSX Daily provided the necessary steps for quick access:
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While Safari 6 brought a number of great new features, including unified search and offline Reading List for Lion, many were disappointed that Apple dropped the RSS button next to the URL bar. Luckily, developer Daniel Jalkut at Red Sweater Software wrote an extension to add the functionality:
My beta-quality, more-or-less unsupported Subscribe to Feed extension adds a handy button to the toolbar that, when a page offers RSS or Atom feeds, can be clicked to easily open the feed:// link, which should automatically open your favorite news reader… I hope this extension fills a void for those of you missing the beloved RSS button.
It is not perfect… it currently defaults to 9to5mac’s comments feed. It is better than nothing, though, especially if you are missing the feature from Safari 5.
[tweet https://twitter.com/stuartmiles/status/228174290149842945]
A nice new feature many MacBook users have noticed in Mountain Lion when using Dictation is that the MacBook’s fan briefly turns off in order to hear the user more clearly. Hit the links below for all the news surrounding today’s Mountain Lion launch:
As pointed out by OWC, a step-by-step instruction guide has popped up courtesy of Mac user Jabbawok that details the steps necessary to get Mountain Lion running on a MacPro1.1 (the models first introduced in 2006). It is not the easiest process ever, forcing you to upgrade the graphics card, have access to a spare SATA HDD, and go through a couple of dozen or so more steps inside Chameleon bootloader, terminal, and elsewhere. The good news is this means there are not a lot of Intel Macs that won’t be able to handle Mountain Lion. You can check out the instructions here, if you are interested, and the author gave a brief explanation below on what prevents the MacPro1.1 models from running Mountain Lion in the first place:
There are two things that prevent 10.8 from installing on a MacPro 1,1. The first is the lack of EFI64. Mountain Lion as has no support for 32bit kernel and extensions so it will not boot. This is true of many early Intel macs… The other thing is that checks are made by the installer; against a supported machines list. If your mac isn’t on the list, it refuses to install.
On a related note, you might make use of popular Mac backup and cloning app Carbon Copy Cloner throughout the process. The app was just updated to version 3.5 with a number of new features including Mountain Lion compatibility.
[tweet https://twitter.com/lfstudios10/status/227501498630823936]
Barnes & Noble is launching Nook for Web today—a browser-based version of its eBook platform to compliment its other native reader apps. While B&N claimed the new web reader works with any PC or Mac supported browser, it does not appear to be supported on iOS browsers by default. The native iOS Nook app might seem like a better option, however, as noted by TechCrunch, because the app still requires you to purchase books from the web. Fortunately, if you want the complete Nook web experience on your iOS device, there is a way to access it.
Using the Chrome iOS app, navigate to the Nook for Web reader (here). From the menu in Chrome, select “Request Desktop Site.” It is not an ideal solution, but it is definitely usable on the iPad. For a limited time, you will be able to get six of the platform’s best-selling books for free to celebrate the launch.
B&N’s full press release is below:
Barnes & Noble Introduces NOOK® for Web, Giving Readers Instant Access to NOOK Books™ from any Web Browser – No Sign-In, Download or NOOK Required
Get Started Today with Six FREE Bestsellers Available through July 26
New York, New York – July 17, 2012 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today introduced NOOK for Web, an innovative and free new browser experience that offers readers the ability to explore the hottest digital titles and bestselling books right from their computer – no sign-in, software download or NOOK account required to begin reading. With fast and easy access from any PC or Mac® browser, NOOK for Web seamlessly combines NOOK’s award-winning digital reading experience with access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Store™. Now, anyone who loves to read can browse, sample and become instantly immersed in a NOOK-like reading environment from any browser, with support coming this fall for Internet-enabled tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices.
Beginning today, Barnes & Noble is offering six bestselling NOOK Books in their entirety at no charge for readers to try NOOK’s award-winning digital reading experience online. With popular summer titles the entire family will enjoy, customers can visit www.nook.com/NOOKforWeb to browse the list of complimentary titles available, including Map of Bones by James Rollins, Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell, The Vow by Kim Carpenter, The Boxcar Children Summer Special by Gertrude Chandler Warner, Brave by Tennant Redbank and Perfect Island Getaways by Patricia Schultz, instantly read the sample, and then download the entire book for free on any browser now through July 26.
“NOOK for Web makes it easier than ever for anyone – from NOOK customers to those experiencing digital content for the first time – to access and read books online,” said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products at Barnes & Noble. “There’s no need to download special software to access your digital library – NOOK for Web seamlessly combines Barnes & Noble’s best-in-class digital reading experience and unrivaled NOOK Store to deliver an immersive, easy-to-use solution for readers to consume millions of titles right from their Web browser.”
With NOOK for Web, it’s also now easier than ever for NOOK customers to read their NOOK Books virtually anytime, anywhere. The perfect complement to NOOK devices and free NOOK Reading Apps™, customers can simply go to www.mynook.com to pick back up from their last page read or start reading a new book using any Web browser.
NOOK for Web features the elegant, immersive digital reading experience millions of NOOK customers have come to know and love:
Through Barnes & Noble’s free, stable and secure NOOK Cloud™ service, NOOK for Web now gives existing NOOK customers even more flexibility to Read What You Love, Anywhere You Like™ with seamless account integration and synchronization. Customers can read any book from their personal NOOK Library by signing in using a valid NOOK account. Sync the last page read from a NOOK tablet or Reader, multitude of computing and mobile devices with free NOOK Reading Apps and NOOK for Web, and keep reading virtually anytime, anywhere – all without losing the page. And customers can send free NOOK Book samples directly to an existing NOOK Library to automatically access new content on the go from any NOOK device or one with free NOOK Reading Apps.
NOOK for Web is now available at www.nook.com/NOOKforWeb with no download required. Simply browse for books in the NOOK Book Store and look for the “Read Instantly” icon to begin reading any book.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QmCfwyA2wc&feature=player_embedded#!]
Engineer Evan Long posted the video above (via Engadget) showing what is apparently an iPod touch equipped with a slightly modified Square credit card reader capable of playing back audio from an old reel-to-reel tape player:
The magnetic stripe reader on the Square basically works exactly like the magnetic read and write heads on an old school cassette player or reel-to-reel machine… Since the headphone jack on most iPods and the iPhone doubles as a microphone input (that’s how the Square reader transfers data) all you then need to do is fire up your favorite audio recording app, and find an easy way to thread the audio tape through.
If you find fault with the OWC’s Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G MacBook Air SSDs, there is now another MacBook Air SSD upgrade option.
RunCore announced this week that it would offer its own SSD upgrade option: the RunCore Rocket Air SSD.
We are hoping to get a test unit and post a review soon.
RunCore also announced something else interesting this week: a SATA SSD so small that it could almost fit within the free space inside a MacBook Pro enclosure. Are you thinking what I am thinking?
Last month, I put the full-sized Logitech Boombox up against the Jawbone Jambox in a $150 Bluetooth speaker battle. I liked both devices, but they had separate strengths and weaknesses and were best suited to different tasks. For instance, I liked the portability of the Jambox, its speakerphone capability, and charging via USB. I liked the sound and simplicity of the Logitech Boombox, but I did not like the proprietary AC adapter.
After the review, Logitech got ahold of me and said if I liked the Jambox and the Boombox, they made another product that I would love called the “Mini Boombox.” Unlike Logitech’s full-size Bluetooth speakers, the Mini charges via Mini-USB, can fit in the palm of your hand (or cargo pant pockets), and it acts as a speakerphone for an iPhone. This one retails for $100, but it can be found for $79.99 at both Amazon (with $30 of MP3s) and Best Buy.
How did it stack up against the two $150 Bluetooth speakers mentioned earlier?
Update: Coda 2 is $49.99 at the Mac App Store now (half off today only) and Diet Coda is now available as an iPad App for $9.99. [iTunes]
Panic, the makers of Coda, a popular development platform for web developers, just announced a new $9.99 iPad version and a second version of its Mac software. The demo videos (here and here) look delish.
The software will land May 24 and be available through the App Store for both platforms.
Is there any possible way this is an accident? Jony Ive has done it again!
[tweet https://twitter.com/#!/padbury/status/197936833231994880]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOCA-nqIzz4&feature=player_embedded]
Since the introduction of Nuance speech technology in OS X Lion, which provides several new voice options in system preferences for the System Voice, many have compared the voice of Nuance-powered Siri on iPhone 4S to the improved text-to-speech included as free downloads within Lion. As noted by Reddit user Moosehadley, what you might not have realized is the downloadable “Samantha” voice for Lion is the same as Siri’s in the United States. Here is how to download it:
Open System Preferences> Speech> Text to Speech>System Voice> Customize> and select “Samantha” from the list. Apple will ask you to confirm the 469MB install.
iFixit introduced its iMac Mid 2011 Dual Hard Drive Kit ($69.95) last month for adding an SSD to both the 21.5-inch and 27-inch models. Meanwhile, OWC Macsales made its own kit available today for 2011 iMac users, which allows you to install any 2.5-inch Serial ATA SSD. The kit will work with most compatible SSDs, but OWC recommends its $99.97 OWC Mercury 6G SSD (up to 480GB) shown in the installation video below. As for the kit itself, it is now available through Macsales for $44.99. Here is what you will get:
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With iCloud’s Photo Stream feature, photos taken on a iOS device and photos imported to your computer are automatically sent to all your devices including Mac, iOS devices, Apple TV, and PC. On iOS, the photos are stored in the Photos.app and on Mac through iPhoto or Aperture. Understandably, launching iPhoto or Aperture just to pull a screenshot off an iOS device can be cumbersome. Most users would typically opt for Dropbox or email, which also requires several steps.
One way to avoid these steps is to create an auto-updating folder on your dock that allows access to Photo Stream images stored in the cloud. In this scenario, you will be able to instantly access photos on your Mac without having to use Dropbox or a similar solution. The Iconmaster (via LifeHacker) pointed us to an easy trick that allows you to save a search for PNG screenshots and filter them based on resolution and the type of image. The trick could also be used to access Photo Stream files depending on your search criteria.
After enabling Photo Stream on your devices, The Iconmaster walked us through how it works:
[slideshow]
FireCore announced today that it successfully jailbroke the Apple TV 2 (not the new Apple TV 1080P that released earlier this month). The jailbreak is tethered, which requires the Apple TV to be connected to a Mac/PC when first powering it on (only once). You also have to pay fireCore $30, but it has been plenty good about updating.
What’s new in the 5.0 AppleTV software? Should I update?
