Fascinating rumor posted by Cult of Mac today: according to author Leander Kahney, Apple almost acquired the company behind today’s Microsoft’s Kinect controller in 2008. According to the rumor, Inon Beracha, CEO of Israeli company PrimeSense, had been visiting many companies in the Silicon Valley to sell the technology, developed by engineers in the Israeli military.
Based on cameras and an infrared sensor to recognize users’ movements in space, Beracha thought Apple would be interested in applying the technology in its products. Read more
As tweeted by iPhone hacker and developer Musclenerd a few hours ago, Cydia is undergoing a major update that will bring overall performance improvements, a refined UI and a more native interface to the iPad.
As we can see in the screenshots posted by both @Musclenerd and developer @chpwn, the “Who Are You?” window has been completely redesigned and now provides more explanation about the categorization of packages in Cydia.
The iPad version will sport modal windows and, finally, landscape support – the current version of Cydia only works in portrait mode. We can also see in the bar sources and installed packages no longer live in a single “Manage” tab. Seems like a good choice to me.
According to chpwn, the new Cydia will be released “when it’s ready”. We’ll wait.
Just like every Friday, today Apple launched new sections and new games / apps of the week in the App Store. We already noticed the App Store Hall of Fame which showcases the 50 best apps of all time. Together with that section, Apple is also featuring the best cooking apps users can download aheda of the holiday season.
The section is organized in 5 sub-sections: Recipes, Chefs & Cooks, Drinks, Shopping and Tools & Basics. Free and paid apps for iPhone and iPad are featured, with notable examples such as Epicurious, The Photo CookBook and 20 Minutes Meals.
The App Store was launched exactly 848 days ago in July 2008. Today, Apple launched a new section in the App Store called “App Store Essentials: Hall of Fame” which is aimed at presenting the “very best of the best” and contains 50 apps for iPhone and iPad, both paid and free.
Among the apps, there are true gems such as Angry Birds, Hipstamatic, Instapaper, Reeder for iPhone, Siri (which was acquired by Apple), Zen Bound 2, Facebook and Photogene. Surprisingly enough, the official Twitter app didn’t make the list, nor did other clients such as Twitterrific or Weet. The list will likely grow during the weekend and the holiday season, so perhaps more apps will be added.
You can check out the Hall of Fame by following this link in iTunes.
As noted by 9to5mac, Apple just seeded Mac OS X 10.6.6 (build 10J521) to registered Mac developers. 10.6.6, another version of Snow Leopard – we thought the upcoming 10.6.5 would be the last before Lion.
The only information provided in the changelog:
- Contains developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts. See “Validating App Store Receipts” for more details.
The release of a first 10.6.6 seed means the 10.6.5 version we’ve been talking about for months could be coming later today, tomorrow – any day. It’s ready, just waiting to be released publicly.
A few minutes ago Apple released an updated version of iPhoto, which reaches version 9.1 and adds support for Calendars, a feature that mysteriously went missing in the first iteration of iPhoto ‘11. Apple already announced an update with Calendars support was on its way.
Check out the official changelog below:
This update adds several new print product options to iPhoto ‘11. It also improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues.
- Provides the ability to create and order calendars in iPhoto.
- Additional letterpress holiday greeting card themes are now available.
- Fixes an issue that prevented videos downloaded from MobileMe or Flickr from importing correctly into iPhoto events.
- The update is recommended for all users of iPhoto ‘11.
It appears that Apple has flipped the switch on iAds, which are now showing up for iPhone users outside the United States and United Kingdom. I’ve personally downloaded a free iAd-supported iPhone app and I got to see two different campaigns: a CitiBank one and an AT&T one. Both the iAds are working fine in Italy.
With Apple getting ready to release iOS 4.2, a worldwide launch of iAds for iPad as well wouldn’t be much of a surprise. Read more
Good news, Xmarks fans: the service is not dead. Actually, it’s definitely alive and looking forward to introducing free and premium plans under a new owner, the official Xmarks blog reports.
I’m pleased to announced that we’re in the final stages of completing a sale of Xmarks to a new owner who is 100% committed to keep our great browser sync service running smoothly.
The Xmarks service will evolve to have both a free component and a premium component – we’ll share all the details once the deal is done.
Many doubts and questions arose when Xmarks announced it was shutting down back in September due to the impossibility to find a feasible plan to keep things going. Loyal and regular users of the free bookmarking service signed dozens of petitions to keep the service alive and pledged thousands of dollars through unofficial campaigns to save Xmarks.
According to an industry source contacted by CNET, Intel’s Light Peak technology development is nearing completion and it should be ready to go public in the first half of 2011 – earlier than initially expected. Light Peak is faster than USB 3.0 and can transfer up to 10 Gigabits per second in both directions simultaneously. USB 3.0 is not supported by Apple and a very few other PC makers have implemented the technology in their computers. Most of all, Intel itself hasn’t released chipsets compatible with USB 3.0 yet.
On the other hand, Light Peak has the chance to be backed next year by two major computer makers in the industry, Apple and Sony. Back in 2009, in fact, Intel stated that they had showed early prototypes of Light Peak to third parties and incorporated the feedback they got into their next designs, adding that Apple is an “an innovating force in the industry”. The demo Intel run on stage was based on a Mac, and Sony showed its appreciation for Light Peak in the past, too.
Even though Intel claims that, actually, they’re committed to the USB 3.0 project, it is clear that the money’s on the table with Light Peak, which is faster and lightweight enough to be implemented in new computers without adding bulk or extra space. Apple is expected to reveal new MacBook Pros in the April - June 2011 timeframe – that would be a good time to announce Light Peak coming to the next generation of OS X, wouldn’t it?
With Lion coming next summer, new MacBook Pros and a developer conference in June, the pieces might be coming together pretty soon.
