App of the Week -Brigade

This year, the best day of the year- the 4th of July- bought about the 1 millionth opinion on the app Brigade. And it was good.

Brigade is the heart-child of Sean Parker (remember him from Napster? Perhaps the Facebook movie?) and it is a social network where those who care about the political side of life come to share their opinions.

The idea is simple and great- you scroll and find issues that matter to you, and you vote on which side of the fence you sit on. It’s a space for debate, meaningful and successful (hopfully) debate concerning issues that matter to the people.

The app is currently invitation only, on both iOS and Android.

Ideas floating around when we checked it out were:
“Congress should reform our electoral system to end gerrymandering and eliminate obstacles to voting,”

“Women should be given more paid maternity leave,”

People can vote for what they believe in by simply clicking a button and can add to their vote by commenting, as well as having the ability to see the percentage breakdown of how others responded, and read others comments.

Apple is for equality!

Great to celebrate with over 8,000 Apple employees, friends and families. Happy Pride everyone! #applepride pic.twitter.com/2A9YD9z95B

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 29, 2015

Apple is a company that likes to have it’s public image (and internal culture) aligned closely with the fight for equality.  Recently, Apple continued with this important fight by declaring support for the Equality Act of 2015, which would expand the Civil Rights Act of 1964 adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the legislation that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin.

From the sauce, in a statement to the Human Rights campaign:

“At Apple we believe in equal treatment for everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love. We fully support the expansion of legal protections as a matter of basic human dignity.

The Equality Act will ensure full federal equality for all LGBT Americans, including those who live in the 31 states that do not currently have non-discrimination legislation, protecting LBGT citizens from discrimination when seeking jobs, housing, public accommodations, education, and more.”

Apple is continuously and rigorously fighting for equality and anti-discrimination, especially in the workplace, and especially since Tim Cook has been CEO.

Kudos.

New Instagram search functionality!

Instagram is known for being awesome on your iPhone, obviously, but also for their… very simple non-mobile internet presence. Instagram on your Macbook is not what it’s built for and hence, doesn’t represent the multitude of functionality you can access on the mobile app. You can access and heart photos and that’s about it.

This changes now!

Instagram has just introduced the ability to search on the web version. You can search for hashtags, locations and user accounts directly on your Mac/PC.

If you’re not Instagramming, maybe you should give it a try? #whatareyouwaitingfor #grandad #don’tfallbehind #we’renotgreatathastagging

New 6th generation iPod Touch!

Hooray for Wednesday! Humpday bought us some goodies this week! Apple has just released the 6th generation iPod touch. Weeee!

Here’s what you’re looking at:

* 4-inch Retina display.

* 64-bit A8 chip & M8 motion coprocessor (faster, more power).

*iOS 8.4 preinstalled (So you can party to Beats 1 and Apple music).

* 8-Megapixel  rear facing camera and improved FaceTime HD camera.

* New colours! Bam! Blue, Pink, Silver, Space Gray, Gold and Red.

* Available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and 128 GB

* One of these shiny new devices will cost you $199, $249, $299 and $399 respectively.

* You can buy them TODAY. You can buy all of them through Apple right now. In the near future you’ll be able to buy them though resellers like Walmart EXCEPT for the 128 GB and Red Models which will be sold exclusively through Apple.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Yuppers, if you’re more of an iPod Shuffle kinda kid, or you like your iPod Nano sized, you’re also in luck this fine Humpday. These devices have also been updated with the colors listed above although no other hardware or software improvements were made and the price remains the same at $149 and $49.

Did you know you could do this Facebook trick?

Remember the good ‘ol days? You know the ones… the ones before the good current days?

If you’re having trouble remembering or just want a fresh face of blast from the past, Facebook have got you! Simple type in www.facebook.com/onthisday.

A feature they’ve been rolling out since the end of March, it’ll show you exactly what you were posting/checking in to/being photographed doing on this day on every year previous since the beginning of time(/beginning of Facebook).

You can also choose to subscribe to notifications so you’ll be alerted when you have memories to look back on.

Look! It’s you 9 years ago when you thought Facebook was just a weird thing that only your friends knew about! Wait.. what are you doing? Uh… you might want to take that down, bro. Just Sayin. And look! It’s you 2 years ago when you were having that party and everyone came and hey maybe you should have another party! And this day last year when you were so happy and in love.. good thing you’re still with whatsername.

Pretty cool and an excellent way to reminisce, but users beware, the past holds some tricky trapdoors amongst the good ‘ol day memories. The feature is still rolling out, so unfortunately it isn’t available to everyone yet.

Cool tech of the week! Hologram edition! Wot!

Our cool tech of the week is Holus, a device that does one simple and yet masterfully wonderful and forward thinking thing: It will convert any media on your smartphone into a interactive 3D hologram. Say whaaaat?

Yuppers. The world’s first interactive, tabletop holographic display. Pretty cool. The device isn’t commercially ready yet unfortunately, with the company H+ just completing a super seriously good Kickstarter campaign, raising $297,790 CAD over 30 days from 496 backers. The original goal was $40,000 and they reached that in 20 minutes.

Check it out on the Kickstarter vid below, and on their website here. 

Holus will retail for $850, and early backers can expect their device in mid 2016, with commercial buyers expecting it a little bit later. Hello Holographic life! We’ve been waiting so long for you!! Welcome Home!

Tech news of the Week – Delicious edition!

Guys Guys Guys!!!!

It’s almost Friday, and if you’re in Dallas, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, or Orange County, California, you’ve got some Taco eating to be done with your hungover self this party weekend!

200 locations of Taco Bell are testing home delivery of their entire menu – with the aim of expanding to 6000 locations across the country.

From the Sauce:

“Knowing that delivery is the No. 1 request from our consumers, we see a tremendous opportunity to bring the Taco Bell experience to fans where and when they want it most,” Said Taco Bell CEO Brian Niccol.

How did this come about? The advent of the Internet of Delivery. Right now, especially in the Bay Area, there is a huge array of things you can get delivered to your door by hopping online. It’s a new age, people. Taco Bell in particular are using internet delivery service DoorDash to deliver their deliciousness to your door.

There’s no minimum per order, though there is a $3.99 fee for each delivery.

Taco’s! Yay!

Apple Music Review – It’s good. Really, really good.

Hands up who’s been tied to their iPhone/iPad/iTunes today? If you haven’t, you may be asking why so many people are jumping around with their iPhones in their hand, big smiles on their faces. Well folks, this is Apple Music.

We knew it was going to be good, but we didn’t know it was going to be this good. In the words of various iPhone Antidote staff members or family members:

“I mean, no joke, this is the way to do music.”

“This will replace music as we know it. This is it. This is how we listen to music now.”

“I’m listening to songs I forgot I loved.”

“This is an E-40 music video that I‘ve never seen! ”

“This is the coolest thing I’ve actually ever seen”

“Quietly humming with a big smile on their face”

If music wasn’t known to be good for working, we might be a little bit worried. Seriously though guys, this ish? It’s good.

We’ve signed up to the free trial, so we’ve got full access, but even without it you get to access Artists materials on Connect, and can listen to the pretty epic (so far) Beats 1 Radio station.

If you haven’t tried it yet, we suggest you do. The catalog of music, even at first glance, is epic. The layout is super intuitive. The ability to create stations, make music available offline, and having access to playlists curated specifically with genres of music that you like is pretty special. Personal recommendations based on what you already like is, although not new, working fantastically.

To get your ears on it, you’ll need to update your iPhone or iPad to iOS 8.4. It took us about 4 minutes, and you don’t need much extra space. For your Mac, you’ll need to update to iTunes 12.2 which was made available today.

Both updates are free. The first 3 months of Apple Music is Free, but remember to turn off Automatic renewal at least 24 hours before your trial is up.

“It’s like the beginning of the end of illegally downloaded music. They solved it. Look at what they did.”

Apple music launch tomorrow! Here’s what you need to know.

Tomorrow, June 30th, Apple music will launch! And everyone in the world will be talking about it because 1. It’s newfangled and shiny, 2. It’s free for 3 months, and 3. It’s launching with an exclusive Hip Hop classic that everyone thinks is cool/pretends to be cool by knowing all about it.

Yup, The Chronic, the 1992 West Coast hip-hop album by Beats co-founder and now Apple God Dr. Dre. This is the first time the album has been on a streaming service (including Beats!), and will join the likes of much hyped 1989 from Tay Tay Swift. Another draw? Happy maker Pharrell will release his new single “Freedom” exclusively on the service.

A number of other Artists are said to be in talks with Apple about releasing exclusive content onto the platform. BUT WAIT THERE”S MORE!

Aside from the streaming service, Apple Music is also offering Apple Music Connect platform, a social network that lets artists share (more) photos, videos, and other content with fans.

And then there’s Beats 1 radio, which will feature special interviews and music curated by celebrities. Slim Shady himself, AKA Eminem, will be the first Beats 1 interviewee following tomorrow’s launch of Apple Music and Beats 1, and Dr. Dre will host his own radio show on the station.

Apple Music is expected to launch around 8AM PT Tuesday morning alongside iOS 8.4, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system. It will be available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac and PC through iTunes.

The first three months is free of charge thankyouverymuchApple, but after that there will be a subscription fee of $9.99 per month for a single user or $14.99 per month for a family plan of up to six users.

If you’re not down for commitment, you can still listen to Beats 1 radio, see what artists are posting on Connect, and hear ad‑supported stations on Apple Music (with limited skips) without a membership.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch..eck it out.

Deal of the Day Sunday!

Hi Guys! Happy Sunday! You know what would make the start of your working week so much better? Umm, how about a 42″ 4K TV for just $250? Or, if you like a few more inches on your entertainment, here’s looking at you 49″ TV for just $300…

Check out the deals over at NewEgg! Use Visa Checkout and coupon code VISACHECKOUTJUN15 for an extra 10% off and get up to $50 back after a mail-in rebate. Even without the rebate – these are hella good deals for shiny new fancy-a$$ 4k tv’s.

Go get ’em! Go suck eggs, working week.