And now for something completely different…

So guys, it’s almost 2014, which means it’s almost the future, right? And what better way to realize that then by realizing that sharks are now using Twitter?

Yup, You heard us correctly.

Off the coast of Western Australia there are 320 sharks ( Great Whites included) outfitted with transmitters that automatically update Surf Life Saving Western Australia’s Twitter feed when the sharks get too close ( within 0.6 of a mile) to any of the coast’s popular beaches.

The move is to keep surfers and swimmers safe and aware of the sharks’ presence, which is vitally important with 6 deaths due to shark attacks off Western Australia in the past two years.

For example, a tweet sent early Saturday in Australia reads: “Fisheries advise: tagged Bronze whaler shark detected at Garden Island (north end) receiver at 06:0700 AM on 27-Dec-2013.”

We love this. Sure, it’s a program designed to protect life and it seems to be working and all that good stuff, but it’s also sharks sending tweets. 

Welcome to the future, kids.

Images courtesy of  Memecenter, & Comediva

Tim Cook’s end of year letter to Apple employees

Thanks to 9to5Mac, we have the full letter that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, sent to his employees. The letter reflects on the last year, cements the ideals of the company and looks forward to 2014.

Team,

This holiday season, tens of millions of people around the world, from all walks of life, are experiencing Apple products for the first time. Those moments of surprise and delight are magical, and they’re all made possible by your hard work. As many of us prepare to celebrate the holidays with our loved ones, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on what we’ve achieved together over the past year.

First and foremost, we introduced industry-leading products in each of our major categories in 2013, showing the breadth and depth of innovation at Apple. We extended our lead in the smartphone market with iPhone 5s; launched iOS 7, an extraordinarily ambitious project; released OS X Mavericks for free to our customers; introduced the iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina display; and this week began shipping the Mac Pro from a manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas. We also marked our 50 billionth download on the App Store – a milestone no one could have predicted we would reach so quickly.

Together we’ve shown the world that innovation at Apple goes beyond our products to the way we do business and how we give back to our community. This year, Apple raised and donated tens of millions of dollars for important charities and relief efforts like Red Cross aid to typhoon victims in the Philippines, and we continue to be the largest contributor to (PRODUCT)RED, supporting the Global Fund in its fight against the spread of AIDS in Africa. Just a few weeks ago, Jony Ive led an unprecedented effort that brought money and awareness to eliminating the transmission of AIDS from mother to child.

And finally, Apple is standing up for what we believe is right. We know that equality and diversity make our company and our society stronger, so we’ve urged the U.S. Congress to support workplace protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. We are also laser focused on our contribution to several environmental initiatives and we will increase our efforts even more in this area in the future.

We have a lot to look forward to in 2014, including some big plans that we think customers are going to love. I am extremely proud to stand alongside you as we put innovation to work serving humankind’s deepest values and highest aspirations. I consider myself the luckiest person in the world for the opportunity to work at this amazing company with all of you.

Happy Holidays,

Tim

Makes you feel all kinds of goo inside, right? in 2014 we as customers can look forward to a bunch of new and updated software and hardware releases such as the iWatch, iTV, iPhone 6 and a larger iPad.

We’ll be going into the ins and outs of everything we can look forward to early in the new year. It’s very exciting!

Meanwhile, it’s Christmas eve eve! We hope your holiday season is everything you guys could have wished for so far, and is set only to get better!

We wished for a kitten wearing a santa hat and drinking eggnog, as well as a bunch of stinky old iPhones, so things are going excellently!

Images courtesy of qz.com and Efunlist.com

Google’s turn to make us cry!

Man, the tech companies did pretty good with their end of year stuff this year.

Here’s Google’s attempts at pulling at our collective heart strings. It makes us feel sad, it makes us feel happy, it makes us feel good to be humans!

Thanks Google!

Google’s top trending searches 2013

What did we search for this year? Was it how to solve the never ending riddle behind how Pharrell doesn’t age?

Nope!

Google just released their annual year in review, with the worldwide and US based top trending searches listed from Most to Aaron Carter.

Just so you guys know, this is not actually or accurately the things that were searched for the most- as if Google would give us any kind of specific information like that! They have to keep all their knowledge and hence power in their sanctum! Duh! ( BTW we totally think the sanctum is kept on Larry Page’s super yacht)

Instead, trending searches, according to the Googleheads, “represent queries that had the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period in 2013 as compared to 2012.”

Here’s the worldwide top 10.

1. Nelson Mandela

2. Paul Walker

3. iPhone 5s

4. Cory Monteith

5. Harlem Shake

6. Boston Marathon

7. Royal Baby

8. Samsung Galaxy S4

9. PlayStation 4

10. North Korea

In the US, Paul Walker was number 1, the Boston Marathon was number 2, Nelson Mandela was number three, Cory Monteith was Number 4 and the iPhone 5S was number 5.

We feel like maybe we gotta start searching for some more happy things.

Google did give us some specific information on the most searched for people this year, and, you guys, it’s kind of disappointing.

1. Miley Cyrus

2. Drake

3. Kim Kardashian

4. Justin Bieber

5. Beyonce

6. Rihanna

7. Taylor Swift

8. Selena Gomez

9. Katy Perry

10. Kanye West

Kanye’s 10th?! He’s gonna be so upset, sitting there eating his fish sticks.

If you want to check out the lists for yourself, head here right now! 

Images courtesy of Iconarchive, Sodahead, Luxuo & Blacksportsonline.

How cool is Amazon’s new Mayday button?

Kindles have always been pretty cool, but they just recently got a whole heck of a lot cooler.

They recently released new tablets which are awesome, BUT it is their massively increased customer service that is funneled directly from their understanding of their customers experience with the tablets that has us impressed.

We’re talking about the Mayday Button.

This is magic portal (other wise known as an icon you can press on screen) which connects you to a live Amazon representative through a video feed. Whoever you connect to can’t see you (hooray for Pajamas!) but they can talk to you, they can draw on the screen and they can take control of your device to fix any issues. These magical Amazon elves are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and they will respond within 15 seconds.

For free.

Very cool. See?

Uh, customer service win? Bye hold music!

Video courtesy of Kindle. Images courtesy of Geek.com & Fonolo.com

Apple’s Christmas ad might be one of the best Christmas ads ever.

Apple wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas by making us feel the big feels and pulling on our sparkly light entwined Christmas heart strings whilst (kinda) subliminally advertising their products.

It totally works.

We’re not crying, it’s just been raining on our faces!

Mac Pros on sale TOMORROW!

Wheeeee!! The redesigned Mac Pro will go on sale tomorrow!

Apple today announced that it’s new cylindrical baby will be available to order online and in store starting tomorrow, with Tim Cook tweeting a picture of it on the assembly line and saying

“We have begun manufacturing the Mac Pro in Austin.  It’s the most powerful Mac ever.  Orders start tomorrow.”

Redesigned from the inside out, the all-new Mac Pro features the latest Intel Xeon processors, dual workstation-class GPUs, PCIe-based flash storage and ultra-fast ECC memory.
Pricing for the Mac Pro begins at $2999!

Hands up who Wants one? We do! We do!

Images courtest of Macrumors & Grandfather.

No more subsidies?

No more subsidies?! That makes us go:

Alright, crash course in subsidies!  A Subsidy is something you more than likely have used or been a part of. It’s a form of financial or in kind support extended to an economic sector, institution, business, or individual generally with the aim of promoting beneficial economic and social outcomes.

It’s also what happens when you buy a smartphone in this country, unless you buy it outright.

If you paid $199 for an iPhone 5S, or $99 for an iPhone 5C, your carrier subsidized the real cost of the smartphone. This means that you paid a certain amount, and because you signed a two year contract with them guaranteeing your continued business for a locked in period of time, they paid Apple the rest of the cost price of the iPhone.

All good, right?

Well, for now, yeah. Last week however AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson came out and dropped a little mini iPhone world bombshell on the future of subsidies in the smartphone industry.

His main point was that with smartphone saturation climbing rapidly towards 90% (!) carriers will need to move on to a different way of doing things, because the current model can’t be maintained at that rate.

Carriers like AT&T use the subsidies to drive demand, but with such a high percentage of the population of the country already owning a smartphone, demand moves to upgrades and the companies subsidy system was never meant to support a predominantly upgrading model.

So what now? & how will it affect you?

We’re heading towards a smartphone world with financing rather than subsidies. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said the company’s new AT&T Next program, which offers no-money down and 0-percent financing, “drives smartphone penetration in a way that is more sustainable over time.”

So if you buy an iPhone in the future, you’re still likely to sign a contract. That contract however will be broken up in a way where you can see that each payment period you are paying off a stated amount from the total cost of the smartphone. Separate to that amount would be what you are paying to use the carrier’s service- calls, texts, etc. You would of course also always have the option to buy the phone outright.

It’s the way that it’s done in a number of countries around the world and it will be interesting to see if and how the market here adapts and changes.

Images courtesy of 9to5Mac,  Macrumors, 

Beyonce’s new album is exclusively on iTunes and breaking records!

The Queen Bee has a new album! AND it’s breaking all sorts of records because, well, duh, she’s Queen B. Beyonce dropped her very unexpected self titled visual album late on Thursday night, exclusively on iTunes.

In a press release, Apple has proudly announced that the album is the fastest selling ever on the iTunes store, moving 828,773 united worldwide in the the first 3 days and going straight to number one  in 104 countries. Try naming 104 countries, and then think about being number 1 in all of them. It’s pretty mind blowing.

Here’s a slice of the press release for you:

“The self-titled, BEYONCÉ, is the fifth solo studio album from Beyoncé, which was made available exclusively worldwide on the iTunes Store on December 13 by Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records. The self-titled set is the artist’s first visual album. BEYONCÉ is infused with 14 new songs and 17 visually stunning, provocative videos shot around the world from Houston to New York City to Paris, and Sydney to Rio de Janeiro, all before the album’s release. The album represents Beyoncé’s biggest sales week ever.”

“Beyonce’ is being billed as a ‘visual’ album because each song has an accompanying music video. If you would like to check out some previews for the songs before buying, they’re loaded on her Youtube channel. You can buy the album on iTunes.

Here’s a taste!

“Self-Titled” is a mini art feature comprised of several parts that give a glimpse into the entire project. It details her mind-set and artistic vision throughout the making of BEYONCÉ.

Video courtesy of Beyonce Youtube Channel. Image courtesy of Vibe.

What’s the top selling Smartphone of the last 3 months?

A dude named T. Michael Walkley, an analyst over at Canaccord Genuity did some counting, as analysts do, and figured out the top selling Smart phone at AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile for the months September, October and November of this year.

And the winner is?

The iPhone 5S!

Here’s the figures! (Via Appleinsider.)

The figures were following the same trend last year, with the iPhone 5 being the top selling smartphone of the last quarter of 2012, followed by the Samsung Galaxy S III, and then the iPhone 4 and 4S.

Yay iPhone 5S!

Images courtesy of  Youtube & Afuntab.