Whenever a new phone comes out, there are always a bunch of drop-test videos, keen to see how the handset fares when dropped onto various surfaces. Rated RR‘s tests are a little more … extreme. Generally involving a 50-cal rifle.

So when they wanted to see how the iPhone 5s 120fps slo-mo performs, what else would they do to find out but shoot a defenceless iPhone 5c? It may not be quite as pretty as some demos, but it’s certainly impressive.

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Global provider of ergonomic work and lifestyle products Ergotron announced today the launch of its newest sit-stand solutions, the WorkFit-A and WorkFit-P workstations with aluminum construction designed specifically to complement Apple desktop and laptop products. They are available for pre-sale now, and will be released in the United States and Canada in late October 2013 through Apple-authorized resellers....
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National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson has praise the new camera in the iPhone 5s after using it to shoot over 4000 photos on his recent trip to the Scottish highlands. In a blog post on NationalGeographic.com Richardson writes:

With intense use (I've made about 4,000 pictures in the last four days) I've discovered that the iPhone 5S is a very capable camera. The color and exposures are amazingly good, the HDR exposure feature does a stunningly good job in touch situations, the panorama feature is nothing short of amazing-seeing a panorama sweeping across the screen in real time is just intoxicating. Best of all it shoots square pictures natively, a real plus for me since I wanted to shoot for Instagram posting.

Once I...

Historically, 'S' versions of Apple's iPhone lineup have led to stronger margins than full-fledged redesigns. That's why one analyst expects the newly released iPhone 5s to push Apple's gross margins toward 40 percent in the coming quarters.
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Britain’s Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets.

Half a century after their original work, the new building block of nature was finally detected in 2012 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) centre’s giant, underground particle-smasher near Geneva.

The Higgs boson is the last piece of the Standard Model of physics that describes the fundamental make-up of the universe. Some commentators – though not scientists – have called it the “God particle”, for its role in turning the Big Bang into an ordered cosmos.

Higgs’ and Englert’s work shows how elementary particles inside atoms gain mass by interacting with an invisible field pervading all of space – and the more they interact, the heavier they become. The particle associated with the field is the Higgs boson....

Japan’s DoCoMo, a carrier which was late to adopt the iPhone, lost more than 66,000 subscribers last month through a combination of having limited stocks of the iPhone 5s, and competitor carriers offering better deals. CNET alerted us to the number in a Nikkei report yesterday.

The iPhone has been reshaping Japan’s telecommunications market — one of the largest in the world — as...

The A7-powered iPad 5 expected to be announced next week will accelerate the trend of people using tablets instead of PCs, argues an investment note from Deutsche Bank Equity Research.

We…expect growing [desktop] virtualization and iPad deployments in the enterprise to pressure corporate PC sales through 2014-15…We expect AAPL’s [Apple's] iPad refresh to include 64 bit architecture, which should enable a greater array of enterprise App development and facilitate greater enterprise penetration over time.

Deutsche Bank had previously forecast that PC shipments would decline by 8 percent in 2013 and 6 percent in 2014, but has now lopped two points of each to predict -10 and -8 percent.

Apple is expected to unveil the new iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2 at a media event on...

Ricoh has added a new digital SLR to its Pentax K camera series, one with a 24-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor. The Pentax K-3, rumored late last month, uses its new PRIME III imaging engine, as well as an anti-aliasing simulator that has the same level of moiré reduction as an optical anti-aliasing filter, which can also be adjusted in tensity or switched off altogether....
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Apple is expected to make English-speaking and Nordic countries the first wave of its expansion of iTunes Radio into non-US countries, pulling ahead of main rival Pandora in terms of international reach, Bloomberg reports. Citing "people with knowledge of the situation," Apple expects to bring the new streaming-radio feature of iTunes to Canada, the UK, several Nordic countries, Australia and New Zealand in a timeframe said to be aimed for early 2014....
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In part due to the frenzy of buying that accompanied the debut of the latest iPhone models, Taiwan-based suppliers have indicated to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White that sales for Apple jumped between nine and 10 percent compared to August. In the same breath, however, White told investors that he expects Apple's sales overall to be down three to four percent from the previous quarter, in part because the new iPhone 5s went to backorder status so quickly....
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Booq is best known for its stylish protective bags for iPads and MacBooks, but last week they surprised the iPhone accessory market by announcing the Complete Protection Kit for iPhone 5s and 5c (both US$34.95).

Booq's unique idea is to keep the focus on Apple's amazing product designs, and as such they've created extremely thin snap cases (one black, one clear) that are protective, but somewhat understated. According Booq's lead designer S. Kema Subsomboon, "We've heard so many people say that they wish they didn't have to have a case on their phone because they love the iPhone the way it is. That was the thought process behind the kit; thinking about the beauty of the iPhone and the complete protection it deserves in an intelligent and simple way."

In addition, each...

Last week, we reported that Apple has begun development of the successor to the upcoming OS X Mavericks: OS X 10.10. We reported hearing that the future operating system is internally dubbed “Syrah” (a type of wine), and now we have received evidence of the codename. Above is a screenshot of operating systems available for installation by Apple employees internally. As you can see, “Syrah” is available as an operating system newer than Mavericks and the recently released OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5…

We also understand that...

Image scanner manufacturer Fujitsu today introduced the newest addition to its ScanSnap product lineup, the ScanSnap SV600 -- featuring a new technique to quickly and easily digitize bound, fragile and large documents. While still maintaining the ScanSnap goal of providing one-button scanning and advanced imaging technology, the SV600 utilizes its compact scanning design to turn hard-to-scan objects into PDF or JPEG files which can then be easily stored, shared and accessed....
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We have a long running series on 9to5Google called “Talking Schmidt” and the Chairman of Google keeps loading it up with amusing quotes on the technology industry.  Today’s comes from the Gartner Symposium where our pro/antagonist was asked by Gartner analyst David Willis about the security of Android (which has taken some hits lately to put it mildly).

To which Schmidt, without batting an eye, said:

“Not secure? It’s more secure than the iPhone.”

The comment drew laughter from the crowd, comprised largely of  CIOs and high level IT personnel. Keep in mind, this is the same quote-smith who forecasted...

Music lovers will soon have another option for music streaming, as Beats is set to launch an iOS app in the next few months. Meanwhile, photography app Camera+ saw an update that improves its burst-mode feature.
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According to Bloomberg, Apple is targeting a launch for iTunes Radio in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia for early 2014. The report positions this iTunes Radio launch as beating Pandora to launch in these English speaking regions.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) plans to expand iTunes Radio to English-speaking countries outside the U.S. by early 2014, beating industry leader Pandora Media Inc. (P) to the U.K. and Canada, people with knowledge of the situation said. iTunes Radio is also set to start early next year in Australia and New Zealand, where Pandora already operates, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. Nordic countries are also being targeted in the same time frame, the people said.

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Mmmmm...feel that washing over you? That's the good feeling you could only get from knowing your iPhone case was made out of solid (14-karat) gold. That is, if you have the US$10,000 to buy one from Miansai. The company has apparently been selling such a case since the iPhone 4S was introduced about two years ago, but I saw it from a MarketWatch piece. The pictures below show the original case, but I bet if you kicked in a few grand more they'd make one for your iPhone 5 or 5s. This is yellow gold with a matte finish, but the company offers a shiny finish, and then rose gold in either matte or shiny finish. If that doesn't grab you, Miansai plans to introduce a solid silver case in the next six months. With silver priced at about 1.7 percent the price of gold, my guess is that it'll be about $300.

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The mere mention of Lodsys can often evoke a visceral response of disgust, not too surprising given that Lodsys in the eyes of many epitomizes the worst type of patent troll. Lodsys, if you recall, is a patent holding company that began targeting independent iOS developers back in May of 2011.

One of the four patents Lodsys has been asserting covers "methods and systems for gathering information from units of a commodity across a network" and Lodsys has been using it to go after any company that makes use of in-app purchasing.

While Lodsys has since gone after larger development companies, Lodsys' original strategy involved going after small and independent iOS developers without the requisite resources to mount a viable legal defense. As a result, many view Lodsys as nothing more than a shakedown artist insofar as it demands...

When it comes to accessibility options, Apple's iPhone has traditionally done a rather good job of being as all-inclusive as possible. For blind Arab iPhone owners, iOS 7 changed that, and now they are begging Apple to change it back.

For the visually impaired, the iPhone's (and iPad's) VoiceOver feature is a godsend. Using gesture controls, blind users can navigate their devices the same as anyone else, relying on a built-in voice to tell them exactly what they are doing. It's a system that has worked well for many iOS generations now, but with the upgrade to iOS 7, something happened to the familiar "Majed" voice that Arabic speakers were used to: it disappeared.

In its place is "Tariq," a different -- and by many accounts, inferior -- voice that appears to be not only a lower quality, but also quite buggy. The new Arabic VoiceOver option frequently adds random syllables to words, making it difficult to comprehend, and...

Singing Machine, a home karaoke producer, has announced its new Bluetooth product: Singing Machine Home. The at-home karaoke device offers a compact design, as well as a number of features for accessing content. This includes Wi-Fi support for accessing an online library of more than 8,,000 HD karaoke videos, and a wireless microphone that doubles as a remote for browsing through a music library. The device plugs into a user's TV via HDMI and connects to cloud software Singing Machine Play -- the company's reaming platform. The Singing Machine Home will be priced at $300, and be available from...
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Apple Inc. announced on Monday that it will hold its quarterly conference call with analysts on October 28th to discuss results for the September quarter, the company's fiscal 4th quarter. The call will take place at 2:00 PM Pacific, 5:00 PM Eastern.

International communication platform Skype has updated its app for iPhone and iPad, following the recent launch of iOS 7. Version 4.13 showcases a revamped interface, reflecting a similar aesthetic to iOS 7; general bug fixes are also included. Accessibility features have been improved, such as touch-type support for the dialpad, and VoiceOver can now announce the sender's name when messaging, as well as provide improved accuracy during group chatting. Though optimized for iPhone 5, Skype 4.13 is compatible with all devices using iOS 5 or later, and can be downloaded from iTunes for free....
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Apple said Monday it plans to announce its fourth fiscal quarter results immediately following the close of the stock market on October 28.
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Apple doesn't love us enough to send us devices for review, nor can we afford to purchase one of every new Mac that hits the market. Fortunately, our sister site TechCrunch was able to take a close look at the 2013 iMac and did a short-but-sweet review of the top features of Apple's all-in-one desktop machine.

Darrell Etherington notes that the 2013 model still uses last year's slimmer design, and that the 27-inch iMac is "no longer an absolute horror to move and reposition." He loves the Fusion Drive's ability to speed up boot times while still providing huge amounts of storage, but it's the performance of the new iMac -- outfitted with the 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7 "Haswell" CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M -- that made him note that "this iMac isn't one that will back down to a gaming challenge."

The bottom line? "Apple still definitely makes the best all-in-one available."

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Samsung seems intent on proving the company is incapable of learning lessons from...well, anything. Bloomberg reported that Samsung wants the White House to veto an import ban on some older Samsung devices the same way an import ban on a couple of Apple devices was recently vetoed, but Samsung is relying on a false equivalence to argue that this would be "fair."

AT&T updated its U-verse applications for iPad and iPhone on Monday to enable live television streaming to iOS devices, both inside and outside the user's home.
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Apple is searching for two power engineers to "help improve the performance and battery life of OS X," according to a Twitter post by OS X team member Anthony Chivetta. Both jobs will be based at the company's Cupertino headquarters. Listings ask one of the engineers to "design the latest tools to automate the collection of power information," and the other to improve the power efficiency of both OS X and its included apps....
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There are carry cases for a MacBook Air that have room for accessories, and there are snap-on, plastic clamshell cases to protect a MacBook Air, However, another very elegant, professional approach is a finely crafted leather slip case from Mint Cases. John Martellaro was impressed, and here's his review.

For far too long, I've lived in a world of Candy Crush. It seemed like the perfect time waster, designed for quick games when you've got a few minutes to kill. Heck, I even managed to get out alive without ever paying for any extras. But something was lacking. I needed a better class of time waster. Finally the clouds parted, spilling bright letters forth. SpellGrid had arrived and my eyes were opened.

SpellGrid is a shockingly simple game that combines the best parts of Boggle and Scrabble. Players are given a seven- to nine-letter word with no repeating letters. The idea is to use the letters to quickly build as many other words within a minute.

This anagram-building game is tight, fun and forgiving. SpellGrid is just as much about word discovery as it is building high scores. A little checkmark...

Ahead of iLounge’s upcoming 2014 iPad/iPhone/iPod Buyers’ Guide, we have just opened voting for the 2013 edition of our Readers’ Choice Awards. Held annually for years, our Readers’ Choice Awards give you the opportunity to vote for your favorite third-party developers across both accessories and software. Vote now using

Back in 2011, Haje Jan Kamps came up with a fascinating idea for a Kickstarter -- the Triggertrap. The idea was to create an interface that would go between a digital SLR camera (DSLR) and a smartphone, with an app on the smartphone to control activation of the shutter on your DSLR. The Kickstarter project was a success, and the Triggertrap is a reality. I had an opportunity to test a Triggertrap and the app with my Canon EOS Rebel T4i DSLR and found it to be a well-designed and implemented product.

Design

The Triggertrap uses a combination of a dongle that attaches to the headphone port of your iPhone and an adapter cable that plugs into the dongle on one end and the camera on the other. The two-part design is quite smart; not only does it provide electrical isolation between your smartphone and camera, but the dongle is always the same -- it's just the adapter cable that changes depending on your...

Samsung is rumored to be working directly with Google to build a device similar to Google Glass. In a tweet posted by Eldar Murtazin, described by CNET as an analyst and "occasional leaker" with sources at Samsung, the product is said to be called the Gear Glass....
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It's always busy in the App Store with a never-ending flood of new apps landing on iOS and OS X. Take a few minutes and check out our list of stand-out titles from the past few weeks! If that's not enough, you can also follow our ongoing coverage of new apps as they are released.

New iOS Apps

• Frax [iPhone; Category: Entertainment; $1.99] Frax raises the fractal in 3D height, uses complex color gradients to smoothly tint and shade them, adds two light sources for glossy reflections and infinitely scaleable chaotic textures.

• Frax HD [iPad; Category: Entertainment; $3.99] Frax raises the fractal in 3D height, uses complex color gradients to smoothly tint and shade them, adds two light sources for glossy reflections and infinitely scaleable chaotic...

The New York Times last week provided a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what it was like working on the original iPhone development team. Much of the article is sourced from Andy Grignon, a former Apple engineer who helped work on the wireless components for the iPhone.

Needless to say, working on the first iteration of the iPhone was an exhilarating and harrowing experience. Grignon recalls working seven days a week and relays that he gained about 50 pounds during the two or so years the original iPhone was in development.

What's particularly interesting is that the iPhone was still a wonky beta product at the time Steve Jobs introduced it during Macworld 2007.

The iPhone could play a section of a song or a video, but it couldn't play an entire clip reliably without crashing. It worked fine if you sent an...

Former Apple executive -- and the man who took over Steve Jobs' position of head of Macintosh development when Jobs was forced out of Apple -- Jean-Louis Gassée has written an enlightening op-ed for The Guardian today lamenting over all the "Apple is doomed" commentary from internet and tech pundits we see all the time.

In the op-ed, Gassée points out a number of common "Apple is doomed" arguments and then refutes them with quotes pulled from John Gruber and Philip Ellmer-DeWitt, among others. While those bits are entertaining to read, it's the central theme of Gassée's piece that is enlightening about the "Apple is doomed" narrative:

"This is something I heard 33 years ago when I signed up to start Apple France in 1980, and I've heard it constantly since then...

I recently experienced a small epiphany: I think the never-ending worry about Apple's future is a good thing...

Patrick Haney

Last year, the Federal Communications Commission told Verizon Wireless that it had to stop blocking applications that let cellular customers use their phones as mobile hotspots. Verizon could still require extra payments for tethering from customers with grandfathered ...

It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring exclusive TUAW Deals, a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked iOS and OS X selections.

TUAW's Daily Deals

The 3-in-1 Universal USB Charging Cable [On sale for $19, down from $59]

If you just upgraded to the new iPhone 5s or 5c, but still have an older generation iPad or iPod, this product is your charging solution. Most of us have more than one device that needs charging, but cords get tangled, power strips get overcrowded and USB ports get used up quickly.

The 3-in-1 Lightning/30-Pin/Micro USB to USB Charging Cable replaces three cables with one that SIMULTANEOUSLY charges all of your devices at once. Whether you need to juice up an iPhone 5s/5c/5, iPhone 4/4S, 3G/3GS, iPad,...

Attackers have stolen Adobe source code and information on 2.9 million customers. How did this happen and how can you protect yourself?

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Portable Bluetooth speakers can sometimes feel as if they're a dime a dozen, at this point. Here at MacNN and Electronista, we seem to get word of new ones launching several times a week -- it's reached a stage where it's simply impractical to cover everything. The Mini Boom is a natural exception, since both Logitech and Ultimate Ears are well-known names. In our review, ......
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It turns out that the Galaxy Gear isn’t a very smart watch. Sure, it might do more than the watch you are wearing right now — at least on paper — but your everyday watch can tell time faster than the Gear, and is certainly more comfortable and attractive. And while the Gear does put some smartphone functionality on your wrist, it still requires you to grab your phone quite a bit, whether it is for installing apps or checking for more information about certain notifications. And that’s all assuming you can keep it on for long enough, given the comfort and battery life hurdles.

Joanna did a great review of the Galaxy Gear. Samsung’s entry into the smart watch market was more about being first than actually helping users. That is very clear.

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It looks like Sharp is planning full support for OS X in its upcoming 32-inch 4K IGZO touchscreen LCD LED monitor (PN-K322B) expected to launch in the US this fall. Sharp previously announced the 36 mm thin 4K panel with pen support in July, but Macotakara.jp snapped the photo above of Sharp demoing the display running OS X from a connected MacBook at the Ceatec Japan 2013 show over the weekend.

From the translated report, it sounds like Sharp plans compatible OS X drivers as a download in 1-2 months.

Apart from touch support, the monitor is much the same as the 32-inch 4K IGZO display that we were quite impressed with when Sharp first showed them off at CES in January.

You can get a better look at the display from earlier this year in the video below:...

SpamSieve’s about ready for Mavericks.

Michael Tsai’s must-have shareware program, SpamSieve, has just been updated to version 2.9.9. The new version, a 10.8 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:
- SpamSieve is now compatible with the GM build of OS X 10.9 Mavericks. It is recommended that you update to SpamSieve 2.9.9 before installing Mavericks. If you’ve updated to Mavericks first, and you don’t see the SpamSieve commands in Apple Mail’s Message menu, be sure to choose Install Apple Mail Plug-In from the SpamSieve menu.

- Made various changes to improve SpamSieve’s filtering accuracy.

-...

This is pretty much unparalleled.

Or at least it’s a decent case of schadenfreude.

Per CNET, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer saw his pay docked this year as a result of the disappointing performance of the company’s Windows Division over the past year.

The Microsoft head received US$1.26 million in compensation for fiscal 2013, with US$697,500 of that in base salary and US$550,000 in bonuses. Ballmer’s “incentive plan award” for 2013, which is calculated by the Microsoft board, was only 79 percent of the total he could have gotten, while in 2012, the Microsoft chief received 91 percent of his eligible incentive award.

The reason for the pay dock: the...

I’m a huge fan of the $20 Capo app on the iPhone, which lets you easily learn songs from your iTunes library by slowing them down, changing the pitch, and more. But Capo didn’t originate on iOS—it's been a Mac app since 2009. And with SuperMegaUltraGroovy’s Monday release of Capo 3 for OS X, I figured I should finally give the Mac version a spin.

Same great interface, better tools

Capo for OS X has all the features I loved in iOS—voice reduction, speed and pitch modulation, and clean, easy-to-see song waveforms—with a ton of additional tweaks. Capo 3’s new addition is automatic chord detection: When you import a song, the application automatically maps out chords for your guitar, bass, mandolin, ukelele, or banjo; you can move the chord earlier or later in the song by dragging on it, and...

SlideStory (free) is a very nice, fully automated slide show creation tool. It lets you assemble short slideshows easily, right on your device, and the results look good.

Photos can be grabbed from your camera roll, Facebook, Instagram or Flickr. To make a show you need at least five and a maximum of 15 slides. When you have your slides selected, you are taken to a page to select filters for the slides, or none at all. From there you can select some built-in music that works for your subject material, and you can pick an ending slide. The last slide is white type on a black background, and there are some pre-selected slides, or you can add your own text.

From there, the rendering takes place on your phone, and you can then save to your camera roll, or you can upload your slide show to Facebook.

I liked this little app. It's a no-hassle approach to creating a quick slide...

AskingPoint provides Mobile App Analytics, In-App Messaging (great for cross promotion), and SaaS for Mobile Apps. Push messaging and Ap Monetization tools are coming later in October and November.

AskingPoint let’s you use your App Analytics to control anything in your Apps, in real-time. Check it out, and learn how to remote control your Mobile Apps!

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple has drawn criticism for pulling an app from China’s App Store that circumvents firewalls and allows access to restricted sites. OpenDoor, which is still available in other markets, is a free app that uses a randomized IP address to browse anonymously. It was removed from the Chinese App…