On Gear Live: Absinthe A5 iPhone 4S and iPad 2 jailbreak tool now available

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Hasbro iOS lazer tag

Remember NERF guns? My cousin and I used to drive my parents insane running around the house in a battle for supremacy, taking out a few planters in the process. Now Hasbro is changing its NERF game a bit for the new generation of children everywhere.

The new line of NERF LAZER TAG will have an iPhone / iPod touch dock built in, and the device will serve as a heads up display. How sick is that? I know I had imagination and all growing up, but this to a child is the equivalent of being James Bond. I’m not gonna lie, I wouldn’t mind owning a pair of these guns for myself. But the main benefits of adding an iPod or iPhone to the gun, beyond the cool factor, is that your shooting range increase to 250 feet, and the iOS device stores all your scores and power ups using the NERF app. Apart from the multiplayer benefits, when another player is not available you can play in a single player mode. The guns, which you’ll probably end up using more than your children, will hit stores on August 1 and will sell for $40 each, or $70 for a set of two.

Read More | Engadget

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iMac 32GB Upgrade KomputerBay

I make the Macs we use at Gear Live work pretty hard, and am always looking to squeeze out any extra performance that I can. I've used SSD drives for about three years now, long before they were as available and affordable as they are today, even in a Mac Pro. I recently downgraded from a 2009 Mac Pro to the 2011 iMac, and had to make a few concessions as it related to a bunch of things. I mean, the Pro was a beast with an SSD, 3 HDD drives, 16 GB RAM, 3 video cards, etc. Going from that to an iMac gave me some concern. Using the iMac, though, had been fine, with the exception of slowdowns once the computer was out of RAM. Even matching it with the 16GB RAM that was in the Mac Pro wasn't enough for what we do. Granted, right now I've got about 15 tabs open in Chrome and over 40 tabs open in Safari, while iMovie is exporting a 1080p video episode of Bleeding Edge TV, with 20 apps running in the dock. I may be an edge case, but I deserve a speedy computing experience just as much as the next guy! I recently maxed out the RAM in the iMac to a ridiculous 32GB, and now things are flying.

I took a chance on an unknown (to me) brand called KomputerBay that I found on Amazon, and they sell 8GB RAM modules in sets of two (so 16GB total) for less than I've seen anywhere else, by a substantial margin. After installing, performane was markedly improved, and I have yet to experience any of those "out of RAM" slowdowns that plagued me before. Not bad for inexpensive RAM. If you've got a 2011 iMac, your system has four RAM slots and can support up to 32GB RAM. Alternatively, if you're running a recent MacBook Pro, you have two slots and can bump it up to 16GB using these modules. Each 16GB set currently costs $139.


Siri Jailbreak

The first legal Siri port has been developed and released for jailbroken iPhone 4, iPhone 3G and 3GS, iPod touch 3rd and 4th generations, and both iPads, and it's called Spire. The way the tweak works is by using an external proxy server to mimic Apple’s own Siri servers, which are used exclusively for the iPhone 4S. Spire has a quick install and a simple setup that takes no time at all to get up and running. There are some minor issues with the method however, namely that for every iDevice connected to a proxy server, Apple is losing money. The problems don’t stop there though. This also leaves the "official" iPhone 4S Siri possibly open to vulnerability for use with these proxy servers, which can potentially lead to unreliability within the phone itself and possible personal information being leaked from all the connected devices.

Moving away from the negatives to the positive, looking at the Spire, it functions exactly like its older sibling for the iPhone 4S as you are not running it on the iPod Touch 3rd generation (the tweak takes full advantage of the external microphone.) Have you got Siri up and running on your jailbroken iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch?

Click to continue reading Install Siri on any jailbroken iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with Spire


Apple Airport Utility 6.0

Apple has been on fire these last few weeks rolling out all kinds of updates. Most recently Apple updated its Airport Express, Airport Extreme and Time Capsule base stations to include iCloud support for Back to My Mac and a few bug fixes with the 802.11n wireless network problems.

Also included with this update is the ability to wirelessly access your backed up data on these devices. It should be noted, however, that in order to take full advantage of the remote access included in this update you will have to be running OS X Lion. Run Software Update to grab the new hotness.


iTunes iPhone ringtones

With recent updates to iTunes, Apple removed the native funtion that  allowed you to create ringtones from the songs you've purchased. You can still purchase ringtones directly from iTunes for about a buck, but seriously, who would wanna pay a $1 for a 30 second clip of music that will get old in three weeks? That's where we step in and bring you our tutorial on how to use iTunes to create iPhone ringtones using any track you've got in your library, completely for free. Yep - you aren't limited just to tracks purchased from iTunes, and you don't have to give up any money that would be better spent on something at the dollar menu at the nearest drive-thru. Read on for our full walkthrough!

Click to continue reading How to create free iPhone ringtones with iTunes


As part of his Joe Paterno eulogy, Phil Knight recounts a discussion he had with Apple CEO Tim Cook regarding the death of Steve Jobs. It's a candid glimpse into the friendship shared by Cook and Jobs.

[Thanks, Jason!]


Apple TV sales

We could be wrong, but today's Apple Q1 2012 earnings call may have been the first time that the company has revealed any tangible sales figures for the Apple TV. According to CEO Tim Cook, Apple sold a record-breaking 1.4 million Apple TV units last quarter, which is exactly half of the 2.8 million units that it sold in the entire prior fiscal year. As expected, Cook wouldn't comment on the rumors of the imminent release of a bona fide Apple TV set. We're sure it's in the pipeline, but don't expect Apple to say anything on the record until it's ready to be shown off to the world.

The 1.4 million Apple TV units added to a record-breaking holiday quarter that also included sales of 37 million iPhones, 15 million iPads, and over 5 million Macs.


iCloud 85 million accounts

During its Q1 2012 earnings call where Apple announced a record-breaking holiday quarter, CEO Tim Cook also announced that there are now 85 million iCloud accounts. What's impressive there is that iCloud is just three months old, coming in as a replacement for the aging MobileMe, so that's a tremendously positive number as it pertains to user adoption. In fact, that 85 million number is 50 million more than iPhone 4S units sold.


iPad q1 2012 sales

Apple has had an amazing Q1 2012 holiday quarter, breaking all sorts of records. Alongside selling over 37 million iPhones, iPad growth continues to climb. In fact, over the holiday quarter Apple sold over 15 million iPads, which is a 111% increase over the same quarter the year before. Anyone who thought that the Kindle Fire was gonna slow down the iPad juggernaut were simply incorrect.


iPhone 4S Q1 2012 sales

As we'd mentioned a few minutes ago, Apple has set company records in Q1 2012 for net income ($13.06 billion) and revenue ($46.33 billion.) The company owes a large bit of thanks for that milestone to the iPhone. To put it into perspective, Apple sold as many iPhones in the holiday quarter as there are people in the state of California. That is twice as many iPhones as the company sold in the same quarter the year before, and of course, sales were led by the iPhone 4S, but the company did note that sales of the $99 iPhone 4 and the free iPhone 3GS certainly helped hit that 37 million number.


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