Jony Ive given prestigious award

Our beloved Jony Ive (Senior Vice President of Design at Apple Inc., duh)  was crowned King of San Francisco recently!

Not really. That crown might actually belong to Madison Bumgarner.

But Mr Ive did get honored by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art recently when they awarded him with the 2014 Bay Are Treasure Award, recognizing his as a creative individual who has influenced visual culture.

That’s a pretty rad award to get.

“Ive is our generation’s most innovative and influential figure in the field of industrial design—no other design mind has done more to transform the way we visualize and share information,” said SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra.  “SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast to establish a department of architecture and design, and we’re thrilled to celebrate Ive’s revolutionary achievements.”

Yay Jony! This is not the first prestigious award for him, amongst others he has also been made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in a ceremony held in 2012. A Bay Area Treasure and a Knight Commander of the British Empire?

Too Cool, dude. Too cool.

Here’s Mr. Ive discussing design process with Vanity Fair earlier in October in a rare public(ish) appearance.

Amazon Echo

Amazon has a new product called Echo. We wrote about it in our most recent Deals Of The Week Blog article, the folks over at Amazon are very excited about it, BUT the product does have it’s naysayers (particularly concerning the price and similarity to other services).

So let’s have a look!

It’s a futuristic little guy, a black cylindrical speaker with a voice, called and responding to ‘Alexa’. It functions very similarly to how Siri does within an Apple device.

Little Alexa sits in a room in your house, waking up when the word ‘Alexa’ is spoken. A nice hands-free touch that will be great for solving general knowledge arguments. It answers any questions you have, as well as having the ability to complete functions and tasks for you such as playing music, setting an alarm and creating and editing lists.

Echo (slightly confusing with the 2 names, Amazon) has 7 microphones and far-field voice recognition capability that can detect a request from anywhere in a room and speakers that can fill any room.

If you buy Echo, you are also purchasing access to Amazon Music, Prime Music, iHeartRadio and TuneIn, and as Echo has Bluetooth, you will also be able to play music from a phone or tablet though the Echo. Which is definitely cool.

Similar to Siri, it’s designed to learn over time, and you can use part of the functionality (such as shopping lists and alarms) through the accompanying Amazon Echo App (unfortunately but not unexpectedly only on Android or Fire O/S), or through a web interface.

We can definitely see the opportunities and futuristic functionality of Echo, but perhaps the current price is a little high for something that is so similar to the free (within purchased devices of course) services of Siri and Google Now. We do look forward to having a play with the little dude.

Right now if you’re an Amazon Prime member you can purchase the Echo/Alexa for only $99 which is $100 off the real price tag of $199 for everyone else, however you still have to request an invitation to be able to buy it.

Apple Stops Selling Fitbit Products

In what has seemed like a long time coming, Apple has pulled another line of products from it’s retail stores. You’ll remember not long ago Apple stopped selling Bose products, and now they’ve stopped selling Fitbit products in both online and physical retail stores.

This move was not unexpected by anyone, as FitBit products are not only seemingly in direct competition with what the iPhone and more specifically the Apple Watch will provide in combination with the Healthkit, but Fitbit had recently announced that they had no plans to integrate with Apple Healthkit as it was ‘working on other exciting projects’ for it’s users.

Last week, Fitbit announced a new Surge “Fitness Super Watch” that also includes GPS functionality and a heart rate monitor, bringing the similarities to the health functionality of the Apple Watch even closer.

Apple is still selling other fitness tracking products, such as the UP from Jawbone and the Nike Fuelband. It is unclear how much longer these products will remain in Apple stores, or if the specific ban is less to do with competition and more related to Fitbit’s unwillingness to integrate with Apple’s Healthkit.

You can still get Fitbit products in most major retailers.

Important Judgement affecting fingerprint protected devices.

A recent ruling by a circuit judge in Virginia could have long casting implications for security features such as Touch ID and other fingerprint protected devices.

According to the Judge, Judge Steven C. Fucci, whilst passwords (and hence password protected devices) are protected under the Fifth Amendment, fingerprints are not.

This means that a police officer can make a criminal defendent give up your fingerprint in order to unlock a device. Uh Oh.

The Fifth Amendment states that “no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”  This protects memorized information and knowledge such as passwords and passcodes, but it DOES NOT extend to fingerprints in the eyes of the law, because, as the judge ruled, giving up a fingerprint is just like providing a DNA or handwriting sample or an actual key, which the law permits.

Interesting.

The case that the judge was ruling on was against a David Baust who is accused of strangling his girlfriend to death. The cops believe that he has video of the crime recorded on his phone. prosecutors are obviously trying to get access to that video and were trying to get the judge to force the defendant (Baust) to unlock it.

Here’s the thing, however: If the phone in question is an iPhone with Touch ID, it is probably passcode locked at this point and, hence, protected by the fifth Amendment. Touch ID requires a passcode after 48 hours of disuse, a restart, or three failed fingerprint entry attempts and it’s pretty unlikely that Baust has had his phone in prison.

Unless the judge’s finding gets overturned, it does seem like this ruling might have some pretty big ramifications for fingerprint protected technology and privacy versus security in the future.

More Data for Verizon & AT&T customers!

It’s the holidays! Which means, what, exactly? Well, friends and family and food and champagne and thinking about others and toys and all kinds of wonderful things. AND PRESENTS.

Verizon and AT&T seem to have gotten onto the present giving early as they’re both offering their customers more data! Yay! We love us some data.

Verizon has increased data for customers on the $80 and $100 More Everything plans. You can now get 10GB for $80 and 15GB for $100, which has increased from the 6GB and 10GB previously offered.

More GB is always welcome, are we right?

This deal isn’t even restricted to new customers like more good deals are, but it is only available for a short time. Go check it out here.

If you are a new customer, you can also be eligible for a $150 Bill Credit per smartphone when you bring your number to Verizon. Cha CHING.

AT &T has also increased monthly data for it’s $40 and $70 plans, with 3GB for $40 and 6GB for $70. Check it out here.

Go forth and get more data!

Deals Of The Week Wednesday

Hi!

DEALS!

* Get a 60″ Sony KDL60R510a 1080p 120Hz Smart LED HDTV for just $798 PLUS Free Shipping at Walmart. If you have brand allegiance, Best Buy has the same T.V. for $799.99, also with free shipping.

*Get the Conair All-in-One Battery-Operated Beard and Mustache Trimmer for just $8.99 from Amazon (with free shipping on orders over $35)

*Next week we’ll be telling you all about Amazon’s new release –  ‘Echo’ – a Siri-like-robot-helper-person-hands-free-speaker. Right now Amazon Prime members can get the Echo for just $99 (down from $199), however you also must request an invitation. Because it’s fancy, we think? You can request an invite here. 

* Get a Max Speed Speedometer Car Watch for just $17.99 from Groupon. 

* Get a 47″ LG 47LB5900 LED HDTV PLUS a $200 eGift Card for only $479 PLUS Free Shipping from Dell.

*Get a 2500mAh Credit Card Sized USB Power Bank for $8.97 PLUS Free Shipping from iTechDeals.  Use coupon code TAKE2OFF.

* It’s getting cold out, and no-one likes cold handsies, so might be time to get some new Winter touchscreen gloves. Get these ones from Groupon for $7.99.

Stay tuned next week for our bumper Black Friday Deals Of The Week edition!

Apple Watch updates

We have a quick round up for you on the recent rumors and updates regarding the (hopefully) super awesome Apple Watch.

When it was announced, Tim Cook advised that the Apple Watch would be seen ‘early in 2015’. There have been a few updates on that since, but nothing too specific.

A secret sauce has leaked that we would be pretty lucky if the watch was released by Valentines day (14th February for the unromantic amongst us) next year.

According to the guys over at 9to5Mac, a more reliable sauce – Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts – revealed to retail employees in a video message that the Apple Watch will be launching in the Spring of next year.

Back in September when the watch was announced, Apple advised that the starting price would be $349. This price is most likely for the Apple Watch Sport Edition.

French website iGen.fr has recently come out predicting (with the help from some secret sauce no doubt) the price of the stainless steel Apple watch ($500) and the gold Apple Watch ($5000!).

Other estimates have the gold Apple Watch at a more wallet friendly $1000- – $2000.

Let’s just say that Valentines Day might be an expensive one next year.

Google Doodle Celebrates important moment in history.

In case you missed it, Google just celebrated a huge moment in history on it’s homepage. Yesterday marked the 25 year anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down and Google created a special Google Doodle that shows where pieces of the wall are now – all around the world including London, Madrid, Washington D.C. and Mountain View, California.

It also features footage from Nov. 9, 1989, the day that the 10-mile-long wall which separated communist East Berlin from democratic West Berlin during the Cold War, was torn down.

Google gathered the footage from organizations such as the German Federal Archives using video production marketplace Veed.me.

Check it out:

New Steve Jobs biopic news

There’s another Steve Jobs biopic coming! It’s currently in the middle of production and the cast is being decided. So who will be big friendly Woz? Who will play the man himself? What kind of film should we be expecting?

We think this film will make a much larger impact than the previous Ashton Kutcher movie jOBS, for a number of reasons, including the fact that Steve Wozniak himself is acting as a creative consultant on the film, that the movie is from big money player Sony and that it’s based on Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography and will focus on three intense 30-minute scenes showing three of Apple’s product launches.

Additionally, it’s the creative forces behind the movie. Aaron Sorkin, most well known for writing The West Wing and The Social Network, penned the flick and has finished with the screenplay.

It will be directed by Danny Boyle, allegedly after David Fincher was dropped because of his demands – a $10,000,000 salary and full creative control -. Danny Boyle has previously directed pretty awesome films such as 28 days later, Sunshine, Slumdog Millionarie and 127 hours.

The cast is still being decided, but some pretty respectable names have been thrown around so far. Leonardo DiCaprio was initially attached to play Steve Jobs, but has since dropped out, as has Cristian Bale (he decided he wasn’t right for the part), and the producers are now apparently in talks with Michael Fassbender to play the main man.

Wozniak is currently set to be played by Seth Rogen, although it appears to be not totally set in stone yet. Jessica Chastain is also unofficially linked to the film, playing an as of yet unspecified character.

The general consensus is that this film will be a much more serious and artistically resonant take on Steve Jobs life and work at Apple. We’re excited to see it, although no release date has been announced yet, so it might be a while!

How to tell a fake iPhone charger!

So, you know that the best way to charge your iPhone or iPad is using a Apple branded charger, right? Yes, they are expensive, yes, you can get hella cheap ones off eBay or Amazon, but what you’re paying for when you buy that expensive Apple charger is not just a super safe purpose built charger, you’re also paying for peace of mind.

Using off brand or knock off chargers can not only be incredibly frustrating because they don’t last, but they can also be super dangerous. You really, really shouldn’t use them. If you find yourself in a position where you want to charge your phone, but are unable to do so with your own charger here’s what you should look at in a potential charger-

If it’s just off brand and not a knock off, it should be ok to use. Examples of good off brand chargers include Belkin and Griffin or you can look for text that says ‘MFi certified’, which means Apple has licensed it.

If you think what you’re looking at might be a cheapie knockoff Apple charger, here’s what to look for.

*The finish on the plug pins on genuine chargers is matt and uniform, however on counterfeit chargers the finish can be glossy/shiny and the pins irregularly angular.

*The position of the USB sockets on the knock off chargers can be upside down when compared to the real product.

*Knock off chargers weigh less then genuine chargers, with the real thing weighing in just over 40 grams.

*The printed text on the faceplate can be darker on knock off chargers, and the text itself will often be strange. On a real charger, look for  “Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China” imprinted on the cable about seven inches from the USB connector. A serial number with either 12 or 17 digits is imprinted at the end of this text.

If you live with someone who has a knock off and insists on using it, make sure to mark your own genuine Apple charger with a marker so you know which one is the right one to use.

And then wait, patiently, for truly wireless charging.

One day, friends,  one day.