2013 saw many great announcements and releases in the tech world, yet not even the latest Apple smartphone could upstage the inevitability of the next-gen console wars. Both Sony and Microsoft came through with their respective PlayStation 4 and Xbox One machines after months of teasers and revelations, and although it's too early to determine which of these two titans will reign supreme, both have enjoyed impressive starts in the video game market. Yusuf Mehdi, VP of Marketing, Strategy and Business for the Xbox, has written a reflective piece on the early progress of the latest and greatest, revealing that over three million units have been sold across 13 different countries already.
Jailbreaking an iOS device has always been about the freedoms that it brings to users. Freedom to install apps and extensions that haven't been vetted and sanctioned for sale in the official App Store. Over time, the freedom to customize the look and feel of the firmware’s user-interface elements has also become extremely popular, with some users opting for minor amendments while others revel in full system artwork replacements. The new Messages Customiser package is one of customization, is a lot more subtle than a full replacement and relates directly to the native Messages app in iOS 7.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada, has always been an arena for companies to showcase their latest and greatest products. Some use it as an opportunity to introduce periodical updates to existing consumer tech, whereas others seize the chance to introduce a whole new product to what is essentially a captive technology loving audience.
If you loved Orbotix's Sphero Robot Ball then the likelihood is that you'll be positively thrilled with their latest introduction at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The originally released Sphero was a quirky, fun and innovative smartphone controlled robotic sphere that provided hours of fun and entertainment. The latest edition to the Orbotix family is the Sphero 2B, a new cylinder shaped toy that takes on a slightly different form factor but still manages to pack in all of the fun and innocent glee that you would imagine a Sphero device would have thanks to its "mad speed" and "sick tricks".
The Siri digital assistant that ships with all mobile compatible devices running iOS has been known to put its foot in its mouth on more than one occasion. Barely a day could pass in the early days of the digital assistant without someone using Twitter, Facebook or Reddit to post screenshots of Siri replying to a seemingly innocent question with a ridiculous, controversial or opinionated answer. Long periods of silence on the Siri front seemed to suggest that we had passed that stage but the existence of Samantha in the movie Her seems to have ruffled a few electronic feathers.
P0sixspwn, the recently released tool behind the iOS 6.1.5, 6.1.4 and 6.1.3 untethered jailbreak, has today received yet another update. The development team behind the popular package recently released a version of the tool that would allow Windows users the opportunity to jailbreak their devices running legacy versions of Apple's iOS. Rather than rest on their laurels, the team has clearly been putting the hours in since that release and have quickly followed up with a new push that sees both the Mac OS X and Windows offerings upgraded to version 1.0.5.
Apple's Touch ID sensor on the 64-bit iPhone 5s seems to be what is currently hot at the moment among Cydia developers, with a number of them taking the opportunity to release tweaks that rely on biometric authentication to perform specific tasks. Ryan Petrich, of Activator fame, is the latest to adopt current trends with the release of his BioLockdown package, available to download now.
New version of Seas0nPass is out which brings untethered jailbreak for Apple TV 5.3 firmware running on the second generation Apple TV hardware. What’s more, FireCore promises that progress has been made on Apple TV 6.0+, and more news will follow in the days to come.
Having apparently given up on making money from selling smartphones, it looks like BlackBerry has instead decided to take its quest for cash to the law courts after it was announced that the former smartphone giant is suing a small iPhone accessory maker.
Snapchat's little security snafu has made quite the splash over the last day or two. The photo-based social messaging service has grown so popular that even mainstream media outlets have been frothing at the mouth about the hack that has seen 4.6 million users have their usernames and mobile phone numbers stolen and subsequently leaked on the Internet. It's certainly not Snapchat's proudest moment.
