Apple iMac Pro Out This Week; AmEx Drops Signatures; Switch Passes 10 million in As Many Months; Clapboss Wins the Irritating War

Posted: December 12, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As Jobs used to say, ‘One more thing’…yes, Apple kicked the HomePod down the road into next year, but today announced that the iMac Pro will go on sale Thursday. Businessinsider.com reports that the pricey and powerful (starting at $4999) iMac sports a 27 inch Retina display, and can be upgraded (pushing up the nosebleed price even further) to 128 gigs of RAM, 4TB of storage, and an 18 core Intel Xeon processor. The Pro is really made for pros…audio and video pros who need all that power. Unlike the MacBook Pro, which has irritated Pros with only USB C ports and not even a Mag Safe connector, the iMac Pro rocks 4 USB ports, 4 Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, and a wired ethernet port. Did I mention it starts at almost 5 grand? My eyes are still watering!

American Express has announced that it will stop requiring signatures for purchases. Engadget.com notes that in the last few months, both MasterCard and Discover had announced the same, but only in the US and Canada starting in April. AmEx is dropping signatures globally. All say that tech advances have made signatures obsolete. In some regions people will still have to sign where required by law. This should move lines at check stands faster and increase the spread of cardless transaction systems like ApplePay.

Gaming is more than alive and well! Nintendo has announced that it has pumped out 10 million Switch consoles in 10 months! Variety.com says they are on track to pass up the Wii U soon, which took 5 years to sell 13.6 million! Three games account for over half of game sales: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey, and Splatoon 2.

If you’ve ever been irritated by thos obnoxious TV ads with the guy clapping to turn lights and Christmas trees on and off…or worse, been to Grandma’s and she actually bought and uses one, get ready for the ultimate annoyance….the Clapboss! Techcrunch.com says it’s a net connected dongle that lets you clap to turn things off and on. The Kickstarter is $39, and the irritating little dongle…which has a smug, smiley face on it…will be $80 retail. It supports 6 different clap patterns so you can turn on and off 6 different devices….and annoy the hell out of anyone living with you nearly to the point of justifiable homicide.

Apple Going for Glasshole Market; Twitter Adds Mute to Convos and Hashtags; Nintendo’s ‘Super Mario Run a Month Away; Spotify Has Been Wearing SSDs-Patch Is Out

Posted: November 15, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yes, they were clunky, but that wasn’t the main reason people who had Google Glass were called ‘glassholes.’ Apple has revolutionized portable music players with the iPod and phones with the iPhone, can they do the same with digital glasses? Bloomberg.com says they’re working on some. A great AR headset would go a long way in bringing in the future, which at lot of people think will involve AR. The real trick will be having small enough components to produce a good AR experience, and batteries that power it which won’t weigh you down. It’s a huge challenge, but think about the iPod and iPhone…maybe by 2018 we’ll see the iAR or will it be Apple AR?

A lot of criticism has been thrown at Facebook and Twitter over fake news and trolls since the election. Now, bgr.com reports that Twitter has added a mute feature to conversations and hashtags to try to contain harassment. Previously, you could only mute individuals, and their friends could still gang up on a person. You will also now be able to mute keywords and hashtags.

Super Mario Run for iPhone and iPad will launch December 15th. Geekwire.com says it will sell for $10, and is specifically designed for mobile devices. Gamers can try before they by for free with elements of the games 3 modes. The game is designed to accomodate one-handed play….Mario runs forward on his own. Just tap to make him jump.

After sucking up life out of SSDs for months, Spotify has released a fix. According to bgr.com, a bug has allowed the app to continually rewrite data to your drive, even while in idle mode…up to 5 to 10 gigs an hour. Over a day, it would write up to 700 gigs. SSDs have a limited number of writes available, although most should last 10 years with normal use. Look for V. 1.0.42, it’s out and you should have it or upgrade to it on your desktop or laptop.