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 ]]> 2012-02-08T17:35:04+00:00 http://www.gearlive.com/news/article/upgrade-imac-or-macbook-pro-to-32gb-ram/ Apple, Hot Deals, PC / Laptop

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.

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?

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.

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!

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!]

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.

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.

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.

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.

This afternoon, Apple announced that it has posted a record-breaking holiday quarter for fiscal Q1 2012, led by massive sales of iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers. In a nutshell, the company made a ton of cash, selling over 37 million iPhones, 15,430,000 iPads, 5,200,000 Macs, and 15,400,000 iPods. Full release after the jump.

Apple iBooks 2 was released to the public just a few days ago and the support for it has been astonishing. Within the first 3 days of the new iBooks being available, 350,000 iBooks Textbooks were downloaded from the iBookstore. Alongside this, 90,000 copies of Apple’s iBooks Author e-book creation software were downloaded from the Mac App Store in the same period of time.

iBooks Textbooks are seen by Apple as the future replacement to the current bulky classroom textbooks that cost a small fortune to make. Apple’s iBooks can reduce the cost of producing a textbook by up to 80%. This means cheaper books for students, as well as a more available book source.

Many iPad 2 owners have waited almost a full year for this moment, and it has finally come. Both the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S now have their own bona fide jailbreak tool in Absinthe A5. To be clear, Absinthe A5 is an untethered jailbreak method - this is the one you want, otherwise you have to have your iOS device connected to your Mac or PC with a cable whenever it boots up. This has no such requirement.

iOS hacker p0sixninja says that the jailbreak software works for A5 devices that are running iOS 5.0 and iOS 5.0.1. If you've updated to the iOS 5.1 beta, then you're out of luck if you wanna jailbreak. Your best bet might be to downgrade. To get started, you'll need to download the latest version of greenpois0n, and it currently only works on a Mac (Windows is "coming soon".) The specific builds that are supported are iPhone 4S with iOS 5.0 build 9A334 and iOS 5.0.1 builds 9A405 and 9A406, as well as iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 build 9A405.

Alongside the release of iBooks Textbooks this morning, Apple has also released an app called iBooks Author. Available for free on the Mac App Store, iBooks Author is a tool that allows anyone to create a textbook, storybook, or any other kind of book with relative ease. These books aren't just text either--you can add videos, 3D objects, photo galleries, web widgets, and more. Once you're satisfied with your book, you can then export it for personal use, or publish it to the iBookstore for sale or as a free download. Check out the video above for a full rundown of how it all works.

Today Apple took the stage in New York City to unveil its education initiative, and at the heart of it all is the release of iBooks Textbooks. Textbooks require an iPad running iBooks 2, and Apple hopes this will open up a whole new world of learning to the masses. Bringing with them dynamic, interactive, and updateable content, textbooks on the iPad become instantly relevant and engaging. Apple also made sure to point out that an iPad is much lighter than a backpack full of heavy books. The video above demonstrates Apple's vision for the future of the textbook. iBooks 2 is available now, as are a handful of textbooks from publishers like DK, Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, focusing on the K-12 market for now. Textbooks are $14.99 or less, which is another breakthrough (although you won't be able to sell these back when you're done with them like you can an actual book.)

Apple also released iBooks Author, a free Mac app that lets anyone create an interactive book for the iPad. It's available now on the Mac App Store.

Apple has just added another iOS 5 beta update to its Dev Center, and today developers can go and grab iOS 5.1 beta 3. If you are already running iOS 5.1 beta, you can just do an OTA update and be done with it. If not, you'll need to download the update and connect to iTunes to install the beta. You can now grab iOS 5.1 beta 9B5141a for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, alongside Xcode 4.3 Developer Preview 7 for Lion (4E71d.)

It's expected that Apple's next mobile iOS processor, which will likely be called the A6, will debut alongside the new iPad 3 that should be introduced sometime in the next month or two. Today we're learning that the latest iOS 5.1 beta includes processing core management controls that support both dual-core and quad-core chips. One would of course conclude that the expectation here is that the A6 processor will be a quad-core chip. There's nothing more than rumor for now, but it definitely wouldn't surprise us, based on Apple's update cycle. There are already quad-core Android tablets floating around, and we find it a little hard to believe (though not impossible) that Apple would stick witha dual-core chip rather than iterating to a quad-core design for the next iPad and the iPhone 5.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments!

Read More | 9to5Mac ]]> 2012-01-06T20:49:19+00:00 http://www.gearlive.com/news/article/top-10-gear-live-videos-2011-q411/ Accessories, Apple, Cell Phones, Features, Handhelds, Home Entertainment, Microsoft, Video Games, Videos

2011 will come to an end in just a few short hours, and we are just in time with our annual top 10 list of the most-watched Gear Live video episodes. Over the past year, as expected, there was a bunch of Apple gear that made the list, but the HTC Thunderbolt gets two of the top spots, as does the Motorola Xoom.

Oh, and if you wanna be sure to get our new video episodes as they come out in 2010, be sure to subscribe to us in iTunes, on YouTube, or in your RSS reader!

Also, you can check out the top ten videos from 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007 - and when you're done, be sure to check out the top 10 most popular Gear Live stories of 2011 as well!

Sure, we've given you a list of our top 10 most popular stories of 2011, but we figured we'd go a bit more broad than that. We also thought it would be interesting to give you a look at the top ten most read stories on this site this year, period, regardless of what year they were posted. We must say, we're just as surprised as you are at what did (and didn't) make the list! For example, you guys seem to really like Monster's Beats by Dr. Dre audio line. Here we go:

1. ColorWare now offering custom-painted Beats by Dr. Dre Studio headphones


2. Limited Edition white Beats by Dr. Dre headphones hands-on: You can't deny that Monster has a hit on their hands with the Beats by Dr. Dre line of headphones.


3. SLEEPTRACKER Watch review: This one focuses on a watch that tracks your sleep data and aims to wake you up when you are in your lightest phase of sleep. The result is that you wake up feeling more rested, and more refreshed.


4. Exclusive: Pink Beats by Dr. Dre Charles Hamilton customs


5. iOS 5 review


6. Yes, Steve Jobs is back at Apple Campus


7. iPhone 3G vs iPod touch 2G in pictures: Odd that an image gallery featuring the iPhone and iPod touch from two years ago made our top ten list, but there it is!


8. Modify your Xbox without a mod chip: This one comes as no surprise--there are a lot of modders out there.


9. White iPhone 4 vs. black iPhone 4 comparison


10. Exclusive: Red Beats by Dr. Dre LeBron James customs

Any surprises? We've also compiled a list of the stories that have dropped out of the top ten between 2010 and 2011, which you can check out after the jump, and don't miss the ten most popular Gear Live videos of 2011 either!

We've come to the end of another year, and as we wave goodbye to 2011, we figured it was only fitting that we share the most popular stories published on Gear Live this year, as determined by our readers (we've also got the top ten most read stories regardless of publish date, as well as the ten most popular Gear Live videos of 2011!) These are the ten stories that were read the most, and when you consider that fact, it's pretty surprising to see what made the list. Let's kick it off with our most read story of the year:

Giveaway: Apple iPad 2 32 GB!:
The iPad 2 certainly got a lot of attention this year, and our iPad 2 giveaway served as our most popular post out of them all for 2011.