By Kelly Faircloth 12/13/12 8:00am

Linkages

Whoops. (Photo: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps)

Booting Up: Okay Can We Stop Talking About Maps Now?

John McAfee is back in the U.S. Where he goes now is anyone’s guess. The Vice offices, maybe? [Washington Post]

Google Maps is available once more on the iPhone, so please adjust your excuses for lateness accordingly. [Google]

Also, before you download the app, please take a moment to enjoy this video of Apple Maps getting Bilbo Baggins lost in L.A. [Daily Motion]

Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates will now be helping advise Khosla Ventures’ portfolio companies on government affairs. [TechCrunch]

NBD, North Korea’s new satellite is just careening around space right now. [Gizmodo]

Rural England is now getting government-subsidized broadband, a tidbit you can trot out next time your ISP disappoints you in any way. [BBC]

By Jessica Roy 12/10/12 8:50am

:(

(Photo: MetroWeekly)

‘I Created Emojis’ Apparently Not a Good Pickup Line

In recent years emojis have transitioned from an SMS-based shorthand primarily used in Japan to text decoration employed by everyone from iPhone-obsessed tweens to twenty-somethings still on their parents’ family plan. Emojis officially appeared on the iPhone 3Gs back in 2009, and have since experienced numerous updates, with the newest version finally incorporating a pizza icon into its visual repertoire. Read More

By Jessica Roy 12/05/12 8:08am

Linkages

(Photo: Caters News Agency)

Booting Up: Trampoline to Work Edition

The Gmail app for iPad and iPhone got an upgrade. [Gmail Blog]

Despite the cluttered app market, half of all revenue from the app store goes to just 25 developers. [The Register]

Techstars company Karma has launched its $79 4G mobile hotspot that rewards users for sharing their connection. [TechCrunch]

If the Curiosity Rover can last eight more years, it will get a friend. NASA plans to send another rover to Mars in 2020. [BBC]

Why walk or drive to work when you could trampoline? [The Guardian]

By Jessica Roy 11/02/12 9:54am

Apple in Your Eye

Like this, but with less light. (Photo: Mac User)

Not Even a Blackout Can Keep New Yorkers From Buying Apple Products

Though lower Manhattan is still shrouded in darkness, some local businesses have stayed open, serving whatever’s left in the kitchen by candlelight. But restaurants and bars aren’t the only ones working to return some sense of normalcy to neighborhoods ravaged by Hurricane Sandy. Tekserve, the retail and service store for Apple products in the Flatiron, has remained open throughout the blackout, its customers illuminated only by flashlights. Read More

By Jessica Roy 10/22/12 9:24am

Metadvertising

(Screencap: YouTube)

Your Obnoxious Tweet Could Now Make It Into a TV Commercial

Shooting off some borderline-rude half-baked review of a product or service is kind of a Twitter rite of passage; the platform would simply cease to exist if crochety tweets were suddenly outlawed. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that your anti-iPhone 5 tweets are actually being used by competitors to mount compelling advertising campaigns. Hey, at least you’re not just shouting into a void? (You’re mostly shouting into a void.) Read More

By Jessica Roy 10/16/12 9:21am

Dumb Smartphones

(Photo: AFR)

Blackberries Now So Embarrassing People are Hiding Them Under iPads

If you’re not Beyonce and you’re still carrying around a Blackberry, chances are you are over 55, wear a three piece suit to work or–like a family itself–you are desperately beholden to a family plan from which there is no escape.

Where once we touted Blackberry Curves like prized possessions, obsessively BBMing friends and humblebragging about the jitters induced by that phantom blinking red light, we now cluck our tongues in derision at the behind-the-times fogies who dare to wield a device that isn’t an iPhone or Android. Read More

By Jessica Roy 10/15/12 1:50pm

App for That

(Photo: Circa blog)

Ben Huh’s News Startup Circa Aims to Change the Way Users Consume Mobile News

In recent months, LOLcat emperor and  Bravo TV star Ben Huh has systematically leaked handfuls of details about his news startup, Circa, to the press. Back in April, Circa raised $750,000 from a slew of investors (many of whom were named David). In May, Nieman Lab caught up with Mr. Huh at ROFLCON, where he provided buzzword-laden answers and metaphors involving newspapers and teenagers to their questions about the startup. But today, Mr. Huh’s efforts have finally solidified into a cohesive company: Circa is an iPhone app that wants to change the way readers consume news.

Circa isn’t just a news aggregator. It employs teams of editors who curate and synthesize news stories into digestible bites, optimized for reading on mobile devices. The point is to write stories that are designed exclusively for mobile, instead of repackaging stories released on other platforms and trying to fit them into a mobile setting. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 10/11/12 1:15pm

TUMBLRGAZE

Use it to show off all angles of your sick ride. (Photo: Tumblr)

Tumblr Debuts an iOS App Just for Photosets

Some good news today if you’re tired of relying on Instagram and/or that boring old smartphone camera to take breakfast pics for your Tumblr. The company has just released Photoset, a new app devoted wholly to “creating and sharing beautiful high-res photosets on your iPhone or iPad.”

Those of us still pecking away on lousy Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5:34pm

No Thanks!

Just take whatever you want, okay? (Photo: flickr.com/wstryder)

Rash of Apple Thefts Said to Include Hypodermic Needle-Wielding Bronx Bandit

The NYPD warned us that our precious iPhones were in danger, and they’re quickly being proven right in the most alarming manner possible. The Daily News reports that a man seems to be jacking Apple devices in the Bronx–at hypodermic-needle-point.

This isn’t even the first hypodermic needle-related crime of the week. Yesterday a bus driver got stabbed by a passenger with one. This of course poses the question of what is wrong with people?

The Daily News says the biohazardous offender has “accosted eight Bronx victims since mid-August, stealing iPhones and other electronic gadget, police say.” The neighbors sound worried, because duh:  Read More

By Steve Huff 3:43pm

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

Ravi Borgaonkar demonstrating Galaxy handset flaws. (Screengrab)

Samsung’s Galaxy 3 is Vulnerable to Remote Wiping by Hackers [VIDEO]

During a recent security conference in South America, a Berlin-based researcher revealed that Samsung has a major problem with its iPhone challengers, the Galaxy 3 and Galaxy S2 smartphones.

Both can easily be remotely wiped by code embedded in a web page.

Ravi Borgaonkar found that the Galaxy’s “service loading” feature, its method of communicating with application servers, can be exploited with just one line of code tucked away in a web page’s HTML. If the attack is successful, the malicious code reverts the phones to their factory settings. Worse still, once the attack begins, the phone’s user can’t do a thing about it.

That’s bad enough. There’s also this: Read More