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Caturday: Under the (MacBook) cover
Pink is a lovely cat who, according to owner and TUAW reader wouter, loved to sleep on his old white MacBook back when she was only about six months old. All I can say is "that can't be comfortable"! Pink resides with Floyd, naturally, in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Wouter says: We've got two cats: Pink and Floyd. This is Pink. When she was just about 6 months old, she was a real fan of my white MacBook and loved to sleep on it. I've switched to a 15" MacBook Pro, but apparently she doesn't like the all aluminium body, because these days it is the sleeve that is her favourite sleeping place. Floyd is more of a Samsung fan, because she loves to watch nature films on the 40" Samsung. No wonder they're fighting all the time... And now for some very sad news. I regret to say that Ruby, the Internet Famous Cat passed away on June 7, 2014 at the age of nineteen years and six months. She will be greatly missed by her human mom and dad, as well as her fans on TUAW TV Live. In addition, we'll be starting up our Dog Days of Summer feature on July 5, so we'd like to ask our canine-owning readers to start sending in those pics of their favorite pups hard at work on "their" Apple devices. If you have a Dog Days nominee to share, let us know via our feedback page (and please remember that the photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple and its products -- don't just send us a photo of your canine buddy). For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Many thanks to Wouter for the humorously uncomfortable picture of Pink!
YouTube Find: Animals go insane over the iPad
We all know how much cats love the iPad, but did you know that dogs, birds and lizards love it, too? Check out this entertaining compilation video below showcasing our furry and not-so-furry friends enjoying some quality time with everyone's favorite tablet.
Kittyo looks after your cats so you don't have to
What does the internet love more than cats? App-connected devices that let you feed and entertain the furry monsters when you're out and about. Kittyo is a coffee maker-shaped device designed to do just that, packing a webcam, laser and a treat dispenser. That way, you can check your moggies are safe, keep 'em entertained and drop pellets of kibble, even if you're at the office or on holiday. The product launched on Kickstarter, naturally, where it's already smashed its $30,000 target four times over. However, there's still time to make a pledge and get the Kittyo for $120, versus the $180 you might expect to pay if you waited until the product goes on sale in November.
Caturday: I caught a mouse
We found this lovely cat and picture while doing a search of Flickr recently. Brian Wilkins shot this gorgeous black and white image of his cat -- which had just "caught a mouse" -- with a Canon EOS 400D. Beautiful cat and picture, accentuated by the sleek lines of the Apple Magic Mouse. We'd love to see photos of your favorite feline soaking up the warmth of an Apple product, chasing a Magic Mouse, or just being a general nuisance while you're attempting to work on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Please let us know via our feedback page and please remember that your cat photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple or its products. For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Many thanks to Brian Wilkins! Image via Flickr.
Caturday: Mater surveys his domain
For cats, Macs are devices to keep warm next to. Bryn Behrenshausen's lovely cat Mater has his choice of Apple products to cuddle up to, including a new Apple AirPort Express, an iPad, and an iMac. Bryn says, "My cat Mater stands watch over my Apple gear in our home office. He likes to sit by the window to watch over the birds and often walks behind the iMac to get a blast of warm air." It must be nice to be a cat... We'd love to see photos of your favorite feline soaking up the warmth of an Apple product, chasing a Magic Mouse, or just being a general nuisance while you're attempting to work on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Please let us know via our feedback page and please remember that your cat photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple or its products. For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Many thanks to Bryn Behrenhausen! Image via Img.ly.
Tabby is not impressed with the Mac mini
Ok, so it's not the most powerful Mac of all time -- and this 2009 model is definitely a bit out of date -- but there's no reason to look at it with such disdain. [Photo Credit: Michael Gorzka]
Mew-Genics explains heredity through the miracle of kitten birth
Mew-Genics is an upcoming Team Meat production focused on cats: Cat breeding, cat sex, the horrors of cat genetic manipulation and, as the below .gif demonstrates, the adorably icky parts of cat birth. Though the cloud of afterbirth is a nice touch, the important thing to notice here is the kitten unceremoniously plopped onto the ground. He bears his mother's spots, but since his father is nearly pure white, the lil' fella's spots are less prevalent than they were in the prior generation. As Team Meat explains, this (and every other trait the kitten inherits) may change as the cat ages. Of course, Mew-Genics also allows players to influence the way their cats change over time. With a few subtle environmental tweaks, a kitten destined to grow into the feline equivalent of Mother Teresa might instead pledge allegiance to the thug life. Mew-Genics is currently slated for release at some point during 2014.
Cat's super-rugged B100 is pretty cool for a feature phone
I know, I know, it's a feature phone. But still, pretty cool as far as these things go. Granted, though, when we played around with the Cat B100, we had to get ourselves back into that pre-smartphone mindset (a phone without a touchscreen? Whaaa?). Like its older sibling, the B15, the B100 is as rugged as you'd expect of a device bearing the Caterpillar branding and a black-and-yellow color scheme. The B100 feels solid, owing much to its metal sides. The phone can take up to a 1.8-meter drop, and thanks to covered ports, can survive being submerged in one meter of water for half an hour. In place of the 15's touchscreen is a large-button keyboard, which you should theoretically be able to operate while wearing work gloves while on the job. On the rear is a three-megapixel camera and flash, along with a large speaker -- or you can just open up the headphone jack located on top of the phone. As for availability, well, we know it's coming to Germany and other parts of Europe this year. No word on if/when it'll be available here, though a rep assured us that more news would be forthcoming on that front later this year. Nicole Lee contributed to this report.
Caturday: Matej the multi-purpose cat
Whether it's laying comfortably in front of a classic slot-loading iMac in 2003 -- presumably there to clean off CDs and DVDs going into the drive -- or getting exercise more recently batting at fish in the Friskies iPad app (below), Matej knows his Apple products and loves 'em. Matej hails from Prague, Czech Republic, hanging out with TUAW reader Juraj. We'd love to see photos of your favorite feline soaking up the warmth of an Apple product, chasing a Magic Mouse, or just being a general nuisance while you're attempting to work on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Please let us know via our feedback page and please remember that your cat photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple or its products. For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Many thanks to reader Juraj for sharing the photo and video with us. Veselé Vánoce!
Caturday: Lula doesn't appreciate Jony Ive's work
Lula's gorgeous, she's smart, but she obviously doesn't appreciate Jony Ive's designs. Says owner Rafael Najmanovich: Here is a photo of Lula, our 7 month old kitten. She really likes my retina Macbook Pro. Not just sitting in my keyboard and occasionally restarting my mac but also trying to chew on the edge of the screen and the power cord. If Lula only knew the amount of work John Ivy put in designing this, she'd think twice before treating it like any old cardboard box... From the number of cats we've seen that like to gnaw on Mac and iPad screens (not to mention the occasional iPhone), Ive must have his engineering and design staff infusing the devices with catnip. We'd love to see photos of your favorite feline soaking up the warmth of an Apple product, chasing a Magic Mouse, or just being a general nuisance while you're attempting to work on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Please let us know via our feedback page and please remember that your cat photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple or its products. For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Many thanks to Rafael Najmanovich for sharing this photo with us.
Shadowy platformer A Walk in the Dark now on Steam
Indie platformer A Walk in the Dark is now available on Steam. Priced at $6.99, the game has players leaping around lethal obstacles in shadowy levels as a cat named Bast, searching for its owner Arielle. The game draws apt comparisons to other challenging platformers like Limbo, VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy, as each game was a key influence for developer Flying Turtle. Similar to Limbo, the platformer includes "gravity inversion" mechanics in some levels, and seen in the screen above, a rather nefarious-looking spider. A Walk in the Dark was among a group of 100 games that were granted distribution on Steam thanks to Valve's Greenlight service in August.
Caturday: Gracie's private heat source, the AirPort Extreme
It's starting to get chilly all over the Northern Hemisphere, and tech-savvy cats around the world are seeking out their favorite Mac or accessory for a little warmth. The "old" AirPort Extreme was notorious for running quite hot, making it a favorite for Apple-loving felines. Here, Don Moody's cat Gracie is enjoying the warmth and bandwidth of an AirPort Extreme (I'm sure she's sending cat pictures through her mind-to-WiFi link). Don says "Gracie loves 'soaking up the warmth of an Apple product'. When the weather gets cold, this is one of her favorite spots!" We'd love to see photos of your favorite feline soaking up the warmth of an Apple product, chasing a Magic Mouse, or just being a general nuisance while you're attempting to work on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Please let us know via our feedback page and please remember that your cat photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple or its products. For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Many thanks to Don Moody for sharing this photo with us.
Caturday: Gorky catches a mouse
Yeahhhh, it's a good thing that those USB mice operate at a low voltage and current, since Gorky the cat has apparently decided that the "tail" of this mouse was good enough to eat. Gorky's human Jeffrey H. let us know that this was the first time that he had caught a mouse... We'd love to see photos of your favorite feline soaking up the warmth of an Apple product, chasing a Magic Mouse, or just being a general nuisance while you're attempting to work on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Please let us know via our feedback page and please remember that your cat photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple or its products. For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Many thanks to Jeffrey H. for sharing this photo with us.
Plasma thruster could propel small satellites into deep space for cheap
A few years from now, we might be able to send small satellites into deep space for cheap using a new propulsion system being developed by University of Michigan engineers -- assuming they raise enough money via Kickstarter. Called CAT (CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster), it's designed to propel 10 x 10 x 10 centimeter CubeSat blocks far beyond the planet's orbit using only solar energy for fuel. Thus far, similar satellites can only orbit the Earth after going along for a ride on current rockets that are larger and more expensive. In the future, CATs could head to the asteroid belt, or even as far as Saturn and Jupiter to investigate water on their moons. The $200,000 its engineers aim to raise (in exchange for your name etched on the golden layer of a spacecraft panel) will go towards the CAT engine's development and testing. The team could send an experimental thruster to space as soon as 2014 with help from NASA-Ames and Google, with a spacecraft launch targeted for 2015.
Patch 5.4 PTR: Crazy Cat Lady/Man title added
When the Crazy for Cats achievement was discovered on the PTR, the first thing players asked for was a title to go along with it. Namely, something to do with being a Crazy Cat Person. Good news! We got what we asked for: The Crazy Cat Lady and the Crazy Cat Man were both added as titles in the latest patch 5.4 PTR build. Keep in mind that you need 20 out of the 24 cats listed under the achievement. Overall, the achievement doesn't seem too difficult for a battle pet collector to earn, especially since one-third of the cats on the list are purchasable via NPCs. A few felines on the list are harder to come by, including the Nightsaber Cub and Spectral Tiger Cub from the TCG, and the Spectral Cub awarded to players participating in the Shanghai 2012 Battle.net World Championship. I'm crossing my fingers for the title off the bat when the patch drops!
Swiss scientists create catbot: a robot that runs like a cat (video)
Someone call MIT's researchers and tell them their terrifying cheetah robot has a long-lost teensy sibling in Switzerland. Developed in the laboratories of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the "cheetah-cub robot" is a four-legged metallic critter modeled after a house cat. The scientists focused on designing legs that can move like our feline friends', paying particular attention to their stability while moving on uneven surfaces. While it has a long way to go before it becomes a graceful daredevil, it's a fast little bugger that can run seven times its body length in one second. The researchers hope their creation gives rise to more robots for exploration and search-and-rescue missions in the future -- a far more noble goal than some cat-owners' dream to have their pets' pictures land on the front page of Reddit.
Caterpillar CAT B15 rugged smartphone hands-on
Caterpillar's signature yellow and black CAT branding was definitely spinning heads and getting passerby's attention as it showed off its rugged B15. As far as tough goes the handset's corners are wrapped in rubber with the connections in between covered with anodized aluminum. The B15 is IP67 certified, which means both protected from dust and waterproof up to 3.3 feet for 30 minutes and can be dropped from about six feet and live to tell the tale -- you, however, may not. Other notables include a 4-inch WVGA display, dual-core 1GHz Cortex-A9 and a 5-megapixel camera that'll shoot 720p video and can do continuous pic shooting. Sadly, we forgot our rubber mallet at home so we couldn't try to beat it to pieces but we did appreciate the housing on the CAT phone it's surprisingly nice to hold and well put together. Sure, there's a wee bit of overkill with the tough machine branding, but we're sure this phone will garner a bit of a following. Our favorite bit? The Caterpillar phone features something called wet finger tracking, so even if you happen to fall into a deep puddle while using your B15, you can finish whatever you were up to before tumbling. The B15 ships in March for a cool $436, though, there's no word on what carrier's planning to scoop this up -- see what we did there? There's a gallery of the B15 in all its tough guy splendor after the break.
Caterpillar CAT B15 smartphone offers a taste of rugged Jelly Bean
We've seen our fair share of rugged smartphones, but there's a certain amount of attention due when a heavy equipment builder like Caterpillar gets involved. Its newest smartphone, the CAT B15, undoubtedly has the survivability you'd expect from a company that makes bulldozers: the aluminum-and-rubber shell can survive 5.9-foot drops on to hard concrete, stay immersed in 3.3 feet of water for half an hour and keep working in temperatures between -4F to 122F. Just don't expect top-flight performance elsewhere. While we're big fans of the CAT B15 shipping with Jelly Bean, its 4-inch WVGA screen, dual-core 1GHz Cortex-A9 chip, 512MB of RAM and 5-megapixel camera won't have many of us giving up our faster, more fragile devices. The phone's £299 and €329 European prices (about $437) could still lead to the more accident-prone among us picking up a CAT B15 when it ships in March.
Daily iPhone App: Hackycat makes kicking the cat fun
Stick with me on this: Hackycat is basically a game about kicking cats. In real life, of course, I love cats, and would never want to kick one. But Hackycat, designed by a very talented artist named Ken Wong, is all about playing hackeysack with a bevy of cartoony, colorful and surprisingly serene cats, kicking them in mid-air by tapping on your iPhone's screen to keep them up ... and letting them grab cheeseburgers along the way. Yes, as you might have figured already, Hackycat is a silly game, but it is a lot of fun. The gameplay itself is relatively simple, as all you'll need to do is tap the screen to keep the cats bouncing where you want them to go. If any of them falls to the bottom of the screen (or if you hit a bird bomb as it flies by), it's game over. The game's progression system is very well-designed, however: as you collect cheeseburgers, you can use them as currency to unlock more cats to play with, open up new heroes or powerups, or help yourself to completing certain goals. And since the game uses Wong's great art, all of the designs are very slick and fun. Hackycat is not extremely complicated, but then again that's part of the charm. It's a solid game with an unlock system that will keep you playing for quite a while if you want to open up everything. You can grab a universal version on the App Store now for just US$0.99.
Mew-Genics reveals the sordid world of sewer cat racing
In the underground world of sewer cats (and we do mean underground), racing is the thing to do. At least in Mew-Genics it is – today's tidbit about the game teases Frank's Cat Races, a sewer-based scheme where players will be able to test how fast their felines are and potentially find their fortunes, Team Meat writes.We met the mastermind behind the cat races, Frank, in November, and if you'll recall, he has "head problems." He also has a tail, though apparently it's not much of a problem.
