Valve's ultra-convenient Steam Family Sharing program has just entered beta, with the first 1,000 participants receiving emails instructing them on how to get set up on the service. Steam Family Sharing allows up to 10 additional users to access any individual's Steam game library, though each game collection can only be accessed by a single user at a time.

If you're interested in participating in the Family Sharing program, all you need to do is join the Steam Family Sharing group on Steam. Additional users will be chosen to help test the program as Valve moves the feature through the beta phase, so good luck!

Steam Family Sharing program hits beta originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 16:30:00 EST. Please see our...

With over 2,400 votes from iLounge readers, our latest poll – “Do you plan to purchase one of the new iPhone models this year?” – has now ended. With the release of not one, but two new iPhone models this month, we asked our readers to let us know whether…

Apple's contributions to the Global Fund against AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, made via (Product) RED, have amounted to somewhere over $65 million since the company joined the program in 2006, according to Bono, U2 singer and founder of the RED initiative. He made the comments during today's annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. "Apple is certainly leading the crew," he added, indicating that the company is so far generating the most money amongst RED participants....
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Diit Media brought NextGuide to iPhone on Thursday. I've been following this app closely, because I often forget to watch some new show that caught my eye. NextGuide 1.6 is a hybrid app, the first time it's been available for the iPhone. With it you can track TV shows, get reminders for new episodes (push and email), track which season you're on for shows you're catching up on, track season premiers, and much more. It's a very cool service, and if you enjoy TV, you should check it out.

When he's not working behind the scenes at AOL to make sites like Engadget, TUAW and Joystiq look great, Brett Terpstra spends his time writing books and developing amazing apps. Today Brett announced the availability of Marked 2 (US$11.99), the latest iteration of his Markdown preview application for OS X.

To start with, here's what Marked is all about: if you use a text editor to write formatted documents in Markdown, Marked provides a real-time preview of how that formatting will look once your document is posted online or printed. The original version of the app is still supported and available on the App Store for $3.99, but longtime users of Marked will definitely want to point themselves in the direction of the Marked 2 website and get the new version with all of its many features:

• Built-in...

Apple TV may still just be a hobby for Apple, but the company sure has been devoting a lot of time in recent months shoring up the channel selection on its nimble little black box.

Earlier today, Apple issued an over-the-air update for the Apple TV which adds two new channel selections for users; an Major League Soccer (MLS) channel and a Disney Junior channel.

If you're an avid soccer fan and need your MLS soccer fix while not watching international play, the MLS channel really delivers the goods. The channel offers free on-demand video highlights, game analysis, news updates, fantasy soccer advice, player profiles and more.

If you sign up for a US$14.99/month subscription to MLS Live, you'll also gain access to live game streams in addition to archival game footage from past matches. Naturally, an MLS Live subscription can be purchased via...

Apple has contributed more than $65 million to the fight against AIDS in Africa. This according to U2 singer and (RED) charity head Bono, who said Friday that “Apple is certainly leading the crew” of fundraisers with its (Product) RED Special Edition iPods and accessories.

A German court has declared an early Apple photo-management patent invalid because of evidence in a video in which Steve Jobs presented the original iPhone, back in January 2007.

Apple had won injunctions against both Samsung and Motorola using its patent in different European jurisdictions, according to patent blogger Florian Mueller, who observed the proceedings today in the Munich-based Federal Patent Court of Germany. The problem was that Apple disclosed the "bounce-back effect" when Jobs demonstrated the photo gallery back in 2007—but the...

Just for the hell of it, let's say that Apple's iPhone unit was a separate company. Businessweek has done a bit of speculation and determined that the iPhone unit would be the ninth largest company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average based on revenues. Those revenues, which currently reach over US$88 billion annually, are alone enough to beat out those of entire mega-corporations.

Think that consumer goods Procter & Gamble is huge? iPhone revenues just exceed that company's revenues (about $85 billion). Surely all of those huge aircraft rolling out of Boeing's plants have to be worth more than a pile of iPhones, right? Wrong. Boeing's revenues are less than those of the mythical iPhone-only company. And remember, Apple also has other product lines -- the iPad, Macs, and various services including iTunes -- that also contribute to the bottom line...

Google has introduced an updated search experience for mobile devices, along with several new features for its Knowledge Graph tool. An upcoming update to the company's iOS app will provide notifications across any devices, regardless of platform, enabling users to add a reminder from an iPad and then receive the alert later in the day on their Android smartphone....
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In this issue, Philip Michaels takes a humorous look at bad songs from otherwise great artists; Michael T. Rose looks at raising children in the modern day of TV; Marcus Mendes wonders why people aren’t as fanatic about what guitars people play as they are about what gadget you use; Chris Domico surveys friends and family to see what they do for backups; and Matt Dusenbury gives us a guide to coffee shop co-working.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple has updated its iCloud Status page to allow users to check if iOS Device Activation servers are active. These are the servers that allow customers to start using iOS Devices and connect them to carrier networks.

We have noted activation server outages several times, and these outages could be some of the most frustrating ones for customers who purchase a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Additionally, Photo Journals (Apple’s iPhoto for iOS cloud photo sharing feature) has disappeared from the Status Page, but the reason is currently unclear. The feature still functions normally in iPhoto.

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I am happy to welcome Smile back as this week's sponsor here at TMO, and especially so this week because they've asked me to talk about their brand new product, PDFpen Scan+. Your iPhone's got a great camera, and it also has a really killer processor. Put those two things in the hands of the smart folks at Smile, and they turn out an app that will use the camera to scan documents and the processor to perform optical character recognition (OCR) on the text contained therein. The result can be a PDF with real text, not just a picture, or the raw text itself for you to edit.

I've not found a ton of bugs in iOS 7, some weird behaviors (mostly in older apps) and visual artifacts, sure. Bugs? Thus far the biggest one I've found is the Decline button for incoming calls disappears, seemingly at random. I've had two calls from the same number over the course of a couple of days and sometimes the Decline button is there, and sometimes it isn't.

Of course, 7.0.2 hit just as I was writing this, so maybe it's fixed. Are you seeing it?

Is the Decline button missing from incoming calls in iOS 7? It's not just you originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | ...

In the past, Google has created alternatives to widely used networking protocols such as SPDY in order to deliver search results as fast as possible. Apple is now doing something similar by having Siri use Multipath Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP). MPTCP is an extension to the TCP protocol that's used for about 85 percent of all Internet traffic. Generally, it allows TCP to operate over multiple paths at the same time. However, Apple seems to use MPTCP for one very specific purpose: to allow Siri to switch between Wi-Fi and 3G or LTE as quickly and seamlessly as possible.

An interesting difference between Google's and Apple's approaches to networking improvements is that Google came up with SPDY first and then went to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to have SPDY adopted as a standard. Apple wasn't involved in the development of MPTCP, but the company...

Evernote used its annual conference on Thursday to show off the usual array of updates to its signiture apps and services. But its most
significant announcements were a series of partnerships aimed at further bridging the digital and analog worlds.

The digital notetaking software maker partnered with 3M for a line Evernote-compatible Post-It notes and expanded a deal with notebook maker Moleskin. The company has already sold hundreds of thousands of the Moleskin notebooks, Evernote said. Now there will be a broader array of Moleskin products including lower-cost journals.

“We realized that paperless is not the goal,” CEO Phil Libin said, kicking off the company’s EC3 conference in San Francisco. “Great experience is the goal. We want to eliminate the stupid uses of paper.”

But there are lots of good and convenient uses for paper that Libin says Evernote is...

Apple has released iOS 7.0.2 for all iOS devices — unlike the previous iOS 7.0.1 update, which was only for the iPhone 5c and 5s. The release fixes bugs that could allow someone to bypass the Lock Screen passcode. Also included…

A new video shows what are allegedly redesigned Smart Covers for the fifth-generation iPad. To demonstrate this, two of the covers, obtained by Unbox Therapy, are attached to a leaked chassis for the fifth-gen tablet. The covers fit exactly, even though the chassis is narrower than the current fourth-gen iPad. Gray, black, red, pink, orange, blue, white, and green colors are reportedly in production....
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The fact that Apple is on the receiving end of more lawsuits than any other company in tech is hardly surprising. In contrast, the fact that patent disputes pertaining to the iPod are still being litigated is somewhat surprising.

Kyodo News is reporting that Apple recently found itself on the losing end of a $3 million judgement for patent infringement. Specifically, the Tokyo District Court found that the click wheel on Apple's now iconic iPod infringes upon patents owned by a man named Norihiko Saito.

Engadget adds:

Saito's damages come more than five years after he filed the patent lawsuit, during which time he demanded damages of ¥10 billion ($101 million), based partly on the number of iPods Apple had sold during that period. Fortunately for Apple, the final figure was substantially less...

In a tweet from its official Twitter account, Product (RED) revealed today that Apple has raised more than $65 million to support the fight against AIDS. U2 lead singer, Bono, commented that “Apple is certainly leading the crew,” referring to the Product (RED) partners.

Another week, another iOS update: Apple’s pushed out iOS 7.0.2, which it recommends for all users. The update fixes a few security vulnerabilities and a bug. (iOS 7.0.1 came out last week, but it specifically fixed issues with the iPhone 5c and 5s.)

Among the security flaws in question is one reported on last week, where a little bit of manual dexterity lets you bypass the lock code on the homescreen. Version 7.0.2 also patches another bug, which allowed a user to make phone calls to any number from the Emergency call screen. In addition, the update brings back a Greek keyboard option for passcode entry.

iOS 7.0.2 is a free download and is available by going to Settings > General...

After investor Carl Icahn made a big splash by purchasing about US$2 billion worth of Apple Stock last month, he said via Twitter that he was going to have dinner with Tim Cook to discuss the "magnitude" of Apple's share buyback program. CNBC is reporting that the two will be meeting Monday in New York City, although it may not be over dinner.

Icahn isn't a "top ten" shareholder in the company, but his stake -- and influence -- is still impressive enough that Cook wants to meet with him.

For more on the "date" and other breathless banter by CNBC's morning team, check out the video embed below.

It's a date! Carl Icahn and Tim Cook to meet next Monday originally appeared on ...

With the new iPhone 5s and 5c rolling in and many users wanting to upgrade to the new devices, it might be wise to increase the value of your phone by unlocking it. Chronic Unlocks, the go-to company for unlocking iPhones (and various Nokias, LGs, BlackBerrys and other smartphones), offers a quick, reliable, and low-cost unlocking service.

An unlocked phone means that the device is no-longer connected to the carrier for which you purchased the device. You can then put in any SIM-card and use the phone worldwide. With international pre-paid SIM-cards and an unlocked phone, you do not have to worry about international roaming charges. For those in the U.S., unlocking an AT...

New supplemental update fixes a security hole that let anyone gain access to iOS apps without having to enter the passcode.

Originally posted at News - Apple

Apple released iOS 7.0.2 on Thursday, a maintenance release that fixes an important issue that allowed someone to bypass the Lock screen on iOS devices and access some aspects of your device. The problem was first reported over the weekend, making this a quick fix for the company.

Ad Hoc Labs today updated Burner, its popular disposable phone number app, with a handful of new features that'll make it easier for users to manage their calls and text messages.

Burner is a disposable phone number app that debuted on iOS in early 2012. It climbed in popularity on iOS, expanded to Android earlier this year, and received $2 million in VC funding to expand the service even further.

The app allows people to create a disposable number they can use to send text messages and make calls. It works just like a regular phone number, except everything is filtered through the Burner app. The latest update refreshed the app with an iOS 7 look and feel. The new design makes it easier to manage multiple burner numbers, adds phone-book lookup and improves text messaging. I've used it a few times for Craigslist sales, and it works wonderfully.

You can download...

A new video released on Thursday by Unbox Therapy claims to show a number of Smart Covers designed for Apple's slimmer fifth-generation iPad. The magnetic covers fit perfectly on leaked components that also match the dimensions expected for the next iPad, though an unusual design choice casts doubt on the products' authenticity.
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The addition of Control Center to Apple's iOS platform opens up new possibilities with regard to ease of operation on iPhones, iPods, and iPads, but it also makes it more necessary for iOS users to better understand the security implications that accompany that increased accessibility.
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Apple may be forced to abandon its proprietary 30-pin dock charger (shown above) if European politicians get their way.

Members of the European Parliament’s internal market committee on Thursday voted unanimously for a new law mandating a universal mobile phone charger. The MEPs want all radio equipment devices and their accessories, such as chargers, to be interoperable to cut down on electronic waste.

German MEP Barbara Weiler said she wanted to see an end to “cable chaos”.

This is not the first attempt to set a standard for universal phone chargers. In 2009 the European Commission, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and leading mobile phone manufacturers drew up a voluntary agreement based on the micro USB connector.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click...

Oh, sweet justice!

∞ Read this on The Loop

Customers are up in arms as news comes that the SIM-unlocked version of Samsung's latest Note "phablet" features DVD-style region locking, meaning that frequent intercontinental travelers must pay carrier roaming rates to use their devices on a cellular network overseas.
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The VideoLan Organization has released a major update to the VLC media player for OS X. VLC 2.1 adds a number of significant updates to the popular open source media player. For starters, VLC now supports "Ultra-HD video," otherwise known as 4K. That means VLC is now capable of outputting video that is over twice the resolution of BluRay. This, of course, requires you to have video files of 4K quality.

In addition to 4K support, VLC 2.1 now also offers OpenGL ES, which will make outputting video to iOS and Android devices much easier. The update has also added support for over a dozen other video codecs. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. VLC 2.1 offers dozens more new features in all areas including audio, formats, inputs, mobile, and for developers. On top of all the new features, over 1,000 bugs were also fixed.

VLC 2.1 is a free...

Apple CEO Tim Cook and influential investor Carl Icahn have set a September 30th date in New York City for their long-planned meeting, according to CNBC. The pair are expected to talk primarily about Icahn's push for an expanded buyback of Apple stocks. The company is already in the middle of a buyback plan that will cost it $60 billion by the end of 2015....
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Leading up to Apple’s rumored October iPad event, Youtube user UnboxTherapy has posted what he claims to be the next generation Smart Cover for the upcoming iPad 5.

Although design-wise, the cover appears to be similar to the current 9.7″ iPad Smart Covers, upon closer inspection, the dimensions are smaller than that of the current cover, and fit perfectly onto leaked parts from the iPad 5,...

When Apple announced on Monday that it had sold a record 9 million iPhones during the launch weekend for the new iPhone 5s and 5c, it also said that around 200 million iOS devices have been updated to iOS 7 since the update was released less than a week before on Sept.18. Apple said it was the “fastest software upgrade in history”, but didn’t compare iOS 7 adoption to previous releases.

Mobile app marketing platform Fiksu has been tracking millions of iPhones hourly since the launch of iOS 7 and it’s latest numbers show iOS 7 adoption is much higher than previous releases. Fiksu has iOS 7 usage at almost 58 percent just 7 days after release, compared to under 47 percent iOS 6 had in the same...

The built-in compass feature in iOS isn't anything new, but in iOS 7 it does have a handy new feature: a digital level. The level is great for doing exactly what its name implies, and it'll help you take more accurate compass readings, too.

This morning, Apple has sent an over-the-air update to the Apple TV to add two new apps of content: Major League Soccer (MLS) and Disney Junior. The MLS app allows Apple TV users to watch soccer games live, and Disney Junior includes several shows oriented toward young children.

The new soccer app will surely be a big bonus for sports fans, while Disney Junior will continue to attract kids to the Apple’s living room appliance.

Last week, Apple added iTunes Radio and many new features to the device. A few weeks ago, the company added a couple of Disney Channel apps, The Weather Channel, Vevo, and a Smithsonian app. Thanks DJ! 

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Standing desks are old news. How about a desk that breathes?

That’s the idea behind the Stir Kinetic Desk, a new adjustable standing desk dreamed up by a former Apple iPod engineer.

The desk has a small touchscreen on the lower left-hand side of the desktop. Tap it twice, and the desk rises. Tap the screen again, and it sinks to sitting mode. A thermal sensor detects your presence.

Pressing a button on the desk cues up “active mode,” which every so often reminds you to get up and slave away while standing, not sitting. It does this by breathing. It is seriously called Whisper Breath, not to be confused with Whispersync, Amazon’s content-syncing feature. The desk rises and falls just slightly, as a nudge to stand up.

And the Stir is also Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-connected, so it has the potential to sync with health and wellness apps like Fitbit.

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The Tokyo District Court has ordered Apple to pay $3 million in damages to a Japanese inventor, Norihiko Saito. Saito first filed a lawsuit against Apple five years ago, alleging that the clickwheel found on the Classic and some older iPods violates a patent of his. He originally called for 10 billion yen in damages, or about $101 million, based on the strength of iPod sales at the time....
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{Flixelpix} David

Put an iPad in a teenager's hands and the adolescent will quickly try to figure out the limits of what can and can't do with it; send a school-provided iPad home from school with that teenager and there's a good chance it will come back with its security...

The LA Times is reporting that the distribution of iPads to all 640,000 students in the LA school district may be temporarily halted after high school pupils worked out how to bypass the restrictions placed on the devices. Apple announced back in June that an initial start to the rollout was worth $30M.

While the school networks block apps such as facebook while at school, a personal profile was used to limit usage of the devices when taken home. Within a week, children at Theodore...

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn will meet with Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook in New York City on Monday to discuss Icahn potentially adding to his stake in Apple, according to a new report.
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Nest has announced that it will be releasing an API for its Nest Learning Thermostat. The new API was first announced at the CEDIA Expo in Denver, Colorado and later confirmed in a blog posting on Nest's site:

What if Auto-Away could turn off your lights? What if your dryer knew not to run when energy prices were high? What if your robot vacuum knew when you were gone and cleaned up before you got home?

Starting today, we're looking for partners to bring this vision to life.

The Nest Developer Program will offer a real-time Web API for the Nest Learning Thermostat in early 2014. The API is not only launching so other apps can integrate with the Nest thermostat, but also so the device can talk to other smart home systems, such as those that control lighting. Developers who want to get in on the API can register their interest...

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 won’t work outside of its geographical region. Just like your old DVD player. What a piece of shit.

∞ Read this on The Loop

VideoLAN has released version 2.1 of its popular open source video player, VLC. The update — codenamed “Ricewind” — brings new audio processing to the app, to improve both processing performance and audio fidelity. There is full support for surround sound outputs in addition to new effects and many new supported metadata formats for audio.

On the video side, the app has ported the OpenGL output to OpenGL ES, making ports to iOS and Android much easier. Notably, VideoLAN says that VLC is now ready for Ultra-HD content (otherwise known as 4K). The app update has also focused heavily on improving MKV compatibility, including better seek performance and subtitle metadata support.

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KGI’s Mingchi Kuo, an analyst with an excellent track record, has disputed an earlier suggestion by web analytics company Localytics that the iPhone 5s is outselling the 5c three-to-one, suggesting that actual sales are closer to 50/50 – with 5c sales actually likely to be somewhat higher.

KGI estimates that the 9M initial sales comprised 3.5-4.5M iPhone 5s, and 4.5-5.5M iPhone 5c.

The confidential briefing document points out that analytics data is based on activation (or, more specifically, use of the phone to browse the web and run certain apps), which is not the same as...

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (that is the name of the band) won this year’s Polaris Prize, given to the best full-length Canadian album for the album Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!. The album is brilliant, one of my absolute favorites, and you can listen to it in the embed below.

But what makes the linked article so worth reading is the band’s response to the folks who gave them the prize. Take a look.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Skype for Mac has been updated, fixing an annoying bug where chat messages would sometimes fail to appear, and screen-sharing now providing the option to share an individual window, rather than the entire screen or a fiddly hand-drawn area. The full change-log can be found on the Skype blog. The latest version can be downloaded here.

Skype for iPad & iPhone was updated last month, with HD video calls and improved call quality.

Continue...

After Apple topped analyst expectations by selling more than 9 million iPhones in its opening launch weekend, it didn't take long for the Apple haters and naysayers to scramble for some negative spin: iPhone buyers are just cult fanatics or iRobots, destined to buy the latest incremental update again and again until the rest of the world wakes up and realizes that Apple is just another fading tech company with no real innovation left. All this got me thinking: The new iPhone 5s and 5c are both innovative and incremental.