applenews
Latest
KFC-flavored nail polish gives new meaning to 'chicken fingers'
KFC is taking its "finger lickin' good" slogan a bit too far. The fried chicken fast food chain made two "edible" fingernail polishes for its fans in Hong Kong. Teaming up with ad agency Ogilvy & Mather and food experts at McCormick, two shades were created that incorporate the restaurant's top secret blend of 11 herbs and spices: Original Recipe and Hot & Spicy.
Domino's has built an autonomous pizza delivery robot
For a pizza chain, Domino's actually has a pretty rich history of innovation. It's embraced social media, created a one-click Easy Order button and even built a delivery car that has its own pizza oven. Now it's looking at robots. More specifically: delivery robots. What you see here is DRU (Domino's Robotic Unit), an autonomous delivery vehicle built in collaboration with Australian technology startup Marathon Targets that Domino's says is the first of its kind. It's filled with thousands of dollars worth of military robotics tech, but its covert mission has been to deliver fresh pizza to the residents of Queensland.
Ads on Apple's news app will soon look like normal articles
Apple is planning to offer ads that look like typical articles inside its News app. Ads will be showed right in your content feed "inline with News articles", looking almost indistinguishable from not paid-for articles. There will be a tiny "Sponsored" byline beneath article-ads, for easily fooled people like me. That said, advertisers can also choose to omit their name, and readers will simply see "sponsored" -- someone's paying for this placement, but you won't know who. The new ad format was discovered in new developer documents recently updated here, and we've added an example ad after the break
Researchers grow crops in simulated Martian and Lunar soil
Researchers from the Dutch Wageningen University and Research Center announced on Tuesday that they had successfully cultivated 10 food crops in soil that simulates what astronauts would encounter both on the Moon and on Mars. The team managed to harvest tomatoes, peas, rye, garden rocket, radish and garden cress -- a much better result than the team's initial experiments in 2015 which saw only a few individual plants even germinate.
Apple News is reportedly getting subscription articles
Apple is getting ready to bring paywalled articles to its News app, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters. If true, this would signify a major change in the service, since it would provide publishers with paywalls (such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal) a new way to display their entire content. Currently, these publications can only provide excerpts from articles to Apple News users, and the app doesn't support account logins for subscribers. That's very different than the full reading experience offered by free, ad-supported publishers.
Scientists find a way to make concrete on Mars
If humans are ever going to have a long-term presence on Mars, they'll need to make their own buildings -- they can't count on timely shipments from Earth. But how do they do that when the resources they have will share little in common with what they knew back home? Northwestern University researchers have an idea. They've developed a concrete that uses Mars' native materials. You only have to heat sulphur until it melts, mix it with an equal part of Martian soil and let it cool. The finished concrete is very strong, easy to work with and recyclable -- you just have to reheat it to get some building supplies back.
Apple doesn't know how many people are using its News app
Apple has admitted that it has no idea how many people are using its News app, according to the WSJ. The confession doesn't put the company in too bad a light, because Apple believes it has been undercounting its users. VP Eddy Cue said that, "We don't know what the right number is. We're in the process of fixing that, but our numbers are lower than reality." He added that was better than being too optimistic, but some publishers are concerned. Atlantic Magazine CEO Bob Cohn, for one, said that his organization needs precise figures for Apple's audience, "and that's still an open question."
Apple News comes to the UK with iOS 9.1
As part of iOS 9, Apple introduced its own news curation app called News (an unimaginative name, but it's straight to the point at least). Like Flipboard, Google Play Newsstand and others, it's designed to collect the best online journalism and present it in a simpler, more beautiful way for readers. Apple device owners in the US were able to check it out straightaway, but so far device owners in the UK have been left out in the cold. Well, that's all changing today. iOS 9.1 is rolling out now and, as expected, it comes bundled with a tweaked Apple News app for Brits featuring some UK-specific journalism.
Apple's News app is disabled in China
The News app in iOS 9 is officially available only in a handful of places, but you can still access stories when you're traveling abroad... unless you're visiting China, that is. A New York Times source understands that Apple has completely disabled News access in China, preventing you from reading anything new even if you're using one of the country's few uncensored connections on a US device. Apple hasn't commented on why it's switching things off, but the theory is that it would rather turn off News access altogether than deal with the many hassles of censoring individual sources and articles.
Apple pulls ad-blocking apps that can 'compromise' security
Apple has removed several ad-blocking apps from its Store that created a risk of "man-in-the-middle" security breaches. While Apple now permits ad-blockers for Safari, the banned apps also block ads from native apps by installing their own "root certificates" and shunting all traffic through a VPN. From there, they read the unencrypted traffic and remove ads, provided you enable the feature. As spotted by Techcrunch, one of the apps Apple removed was "Been Choice," software that even removed ads from Apple's own News app. However, it was also gathering "behavioral data" and sharing it with other companies, offering users points and cash rewards in exchange.
The only way to win a gold PS4 bundle is to eat a lot of Taco Bell
If you like to fill your pie hole with Big Boxes from Taco Bell, you could leverage your habit for a new console. Starting September 24th, the fast-food chain is giving away 6,000 limited-edition gold PlayStation 4 bundles. For a chance to win, though, you'll have to have to suffer through enjoy any of the restaurant's Big Boxes before November 4th. One bundle will be given away every 10 minutes, and the package includes a gold DualShock 4, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, and one year of PlayStation Plus. Of course, if you really want to win one, you'll have to buy a lot of fourth meals.
Samsung's creating its own curated news app for Galaxy devices
Apple isn't the only one developing an exclusive news service for its mobile customers. Samsung has announced a partnership with Axel Springer, a publisher of European newspapers including Die Welt, Bild and Fakt, to develop a news platform called "UPDAY." It'll be exclusive to Samsung Galaxy devices, and a beta version is set to land in the Google Play store this Thursday. What isn't clear, however, is how much content, if any, Axel Springer will be producing exclusively for the service. UPDAY is being pitched as an "aggregated news content platform," with stories selected both algorithmically and by a local team of news editors. Initially, the app will be restricted to Galaxy device owners in Germany and Poland -- the countries where Axel Springer is dominant -- before rolling out to "other European markets" early next year. If it's successful, or Samsung thinks it has potential, there's every chance it'll be launched further afield in the future.
Apple will have human editors running its News service
The big pitch for Beats 1 is that, rather than leaving the finding of new music to algorithms, humans will actively seek out and curate fresh tunes for our ears. Now we've learned that Apple will do the same thing for its Flipboard-style news aggregation service for iOS 9. 9to5Mac has unearthed a job advert confirming that Apple News will be run not by software, but by fleshy editors who will cherry-pick the most important stories to be delivered to your phones and tablets.
Apple News app brings 'beautiful' personalized content to iOS
. Today at WWDC Apple announced a Flipboard-like news curator called, wait for it, Apple News. Like Facebook's Instant Articles push, it includes articles specifically built for the app, but can also pull in content from elsewhere on the internet. The New York Times will push 30 free articles through the app every day, while other partners, like ESPN, will bring videoclips and infographics. The secret to the app is the new "Apple News Format" that allows for custom fonts, multitouch gestures and layouts that scale from phones to tablets.
These seven climate science projects could save the world
The human race is doomed, and it's all our own fault. With the quantity of carbon in our atmosphere now well beyond the safe limit, it's almost certain the planet's temperature will continue to rise. Climate change is causing natural disasters of biblical proportions; a situation that's only going to get worse as time progresses. We all need to work harder to improve this situation by using less energy and behaving more responsibly. But since some people will never be convinced the Earth's rapidly approaching the end of its humanity-hospitable era, we're now in dire need of alternative options to save us from ourselves. To help get the word out, we've compiled a list of some of the most exciting scientific projects we've seen of late that could, if successful, undo some or all of the damage we've caused. [Image: Lisa Werner / Alamy]
Adult Themes: Digital sex just isn't 'sexy'
The attic room is sparsely furnished, with just a bed, a side table and a bookcase made from cheap plywood, shelves sagging from overuse. It's sufficiently cold in here that clouds of vapor peel from my lips, but the location, at least, offers the privacy I need. After balancing my laptop on some books, with the webcam strategically pointed above waist-height, I slide my trousers down and pull out the ominous, black cylinder from a bag. It's a Kiiroo Onyx, a $249 teledildonic device that, the company promises, will enable me to have sex with my significant other (or anyone else) through the internet.
Five questions for the man who's determined to put life on Mars
Bas Lansdorp has sunk his fortune into Mars One, a nonprofit with a singular aim: to put a human expedition on Mars by 2025. Before then, the outfit intends to put an unmanned probe on the red planet by 2018, shortly followed by a rover in 2020. It's an ambitious project, and one that's unique given that it'll raise the majority of its planned $6 billion budget by selling the broadcast rights to the event and by covering the exploration rover in advertisements. In the run-up to launch, there'll also be a reality TV show that documents the selection and training of the volunteers who've signed up for this one-way mission to the stars. We're going to sit down with Lansdorp at Engadget Expand on November 8th*, and you can come see the show for free, but to get you in the mood, here's a short Q&A with the man himself. *2:30pm at the Javits Center, the big glass building just off the High Line.
Atari's betting its future on gays and gamblers
"If I had a hole in New Mexico, maybe that one [the Project Runway game] would have made it there." Todd Shallbetter, Atari's chief operating officer, is just joking of course. He's referencing the company's infamous 1983 move to bury countless amounts of unsold gaming hardware and E.T. game cartridges under a slab of cement in the desert. Shallbetter doesn't deny his company's rocky legacy. On the contrary, he embraces it, using its failures as a counterpoint for a new version of Atari he's helping to build. To push the company past the €31.7 million (about $42 million) in revenues it earned in the 2011-2012 fiscal year (PDF), Shallbetter is targeting markets that most companies would rather ignore; markets that represent hundreds of billions of dollars. Atari is going after gays and gamblers.
Daily Update for August 30, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top stories of the day in three to five minutes, which is perfect for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Daily Update for August 29, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top stories of the day in three to five minutes, which is perfect for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
