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Showing posts with label December 16. Show all posts
Showing posts with label December 16. Show all posts
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Every day, Amazon brings a new selection of incredible deals to its website. Here at BGR, we want to make sure you find the very best electronics and gaming deals, so we've rounded up three that you're not going to want to miss. These are the best deals at Amazon on Tuesday, December 16th.


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Netflix January 2015 Streaming Lineup

Netflix is starting the new year with a bang. This week, the popular streaming service announced all of the new movies and TV shows that will be appearing on Netflix Instant throughout January. Plenty of classics made the list, such as 101 Dalmatians, Cast Away and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Just to make things easier, we've posted all of the new titles, along with their release dates, below.


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Apple has temporarily halted online sales in Russia due to fluctuations in the value of the ruble, reports Bloomberg . The online store will be down until Apple is able to revise its prices in the country.
"Our online store in Russia is currently unavailable while we review pricing," Alan Hely, a spokesman for the Cupertino, California-based company, said today in an e-mailed statement. "We apologize to customers for any inconvenience."

Similarly, an Apple spokesperson told Russian site Lenta.ru that the store was offline due to "extremely sharp" fluctuations of the Russian ruble.



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As of right now, the Apple Online store for Russia is down, displaying Apple's typical "We'll be back" message that is offered when a store is taken offline. It is not clear how long it will take to making the pricing adjustments.



Due to the weak Russian ruble, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in Russia were priced much lower than other the devices in other European countries. Ahead of the store closure, the 16GB iPhone 6 was priced at 39990 rubles, equivalent to €447 or $558. The 16GB iPhone 6 Plus was priced at 46990 rubles, or €550/$681. In many other European countries, the 16GB iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are priced closer to €700 ($876) and €800 ($999), respectively.



This is the second time in recent weeks that Apple has had to adjust pricing in Russia. Last month, Apple increased the price of the iPhone 6 by 25 percent in the country. The ruble fell as much as 19 percent today to exceed 80 per dollar before rebounding somewhat. The ruble is down roughly 50 percent against the dollar this year.


















High-end Swiss watchmakers have generally been publicly dismissive of any threat posed by Apple's upcoming smartwatch, but now that the Watch is creeping closer to launch, fashion watch leaders are starting to take notice. According to Reuters , Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer has changed course and begun preparing a smartwatch and is willing to forge partnerships and acquire companies in order to produce an original luxury offering to compete with Apple Watch.



TAG Heuer

This endeavor is a marked change for the luxury watch maker, which is the largest brand under LVMH's umbrella. Following Apple's Watch announcement, LVMH watch chief and TAG Heuer interim chief executive Jean-Claude Biver dismissed the smart watch, saying it was "too feminine" and looked like "it was designed by a student in their first trimester." He added that smartwatches such as the Apple Watch will soon be outdated, while "luxury always has something timeless."



Biver admits he has changed his mind on the smartwatch category and already has outlined plans for a smartwatch device. He also has negotiated several partnerships and is open to future acquisitions if necessary to help jumpstart this smartwatch project.
"We started on the project about four months ago. We have done several partnerships and might also do acquisitions," Biver, head of LVMH watches and TAG Heuer interim chief executive, told journalists at the brand's headquarters at La Chaux-de-Fonds in western Switzerland.

Among the companies rumored to be working with TAG Heuer are Google and Intel, the latter of which could provide the microprocessor that drives the watch. The TAG Heuer watch is rumored to include mechanical actions accompanied by sensors to monitor physical parameters such as steps moved and calories burned.



Biver said his company would only do a watch if the company can be "first, different and unique." He also confirmed he won't make an announcement until he has a quality product to showcase, which could take as long as late 2015.



If it does launch a smartwatch, TAG Heuer will have to compete with Apple's Watch device, which is scheduled for an early 2015 debut. Apple is producing several variants of its Watch including a standard model, a sports model and a luxury Watch Edition, which features an 18-karat gold casing, sapphire crystal display, and exquisitely designed band selections.


















Apple Pay Vs. Google Wallet Samsung

Google Wallet has been out since 2011 but it apparently took the launch of Apple Pay for Samsung to get serious about making a mobile payments platform of its own.


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For the first time in two years, the Instagram app for iOS has been updated with all new filters. Added today, Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Perpetua, and Aden are subtle filters that are designed to slightly enhance photos without overwhelming effects.



According to Instagram, early filters were designed to compensate for lower image quality, while the filters released today take into account higher image quality while providing tools to capture the mood of a moment.



instagramfilters
Inspired by the photography, art, fashion and design of the global Instagram community, we're releasing five new filters that we believe are our best yet. You'll see the filters at the front of your filter tray: Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Aden and Perpetua. They soften and subtly shift colors to achieve the look and feel you want for your each photo.

In addition to the five new filters, Instagram for iOS has also gained the ability to upload slo-mo video, real-time commenting, a customizable filter tray, a new look for previewing filters, and photo perspective adjustment options.



Instagram can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]


















Jury deliberations for the iPod antitrust lawsuit Apple faced in court last week began on Monday, and it appears the jury has already reached a verdict just a day later. As reported by The Verge , the jury has sided with Apple, finding the company not guilty of harming consumers with anticompetitive practices.



In the class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that Apple had deliberately crippled third-party music services by locking iPods and iTunes to its own ecosystem, which in turn artificially raised the price of Apple's products. At issue was a specific iTunes 7.0 update that disabled the DRM workarounds put in place by RealNetworks, a competing music service, allowing its music to be played on the iPod.



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Apple argued that the iTunes update in question was done mainly to improve the iTunes service rather shut down third-party music services, a point that the jury agreed with.
Delivering a unanimous verdict today, the group said Apple's iTunes 7.0, released in the fall of 2006, was a "genuine product improvement," meaning that new features (though importantly increased security) were good for consumers. Plaintiffs in the case unsuccessfully argued that those features not only thwarted competition, but also made Apple's products less useful since customers could not as easily use purchased music or jukebox software from other companies with the iPod.

During the trial, Apple also explained that its DRM efforts and the blocking of competing music services was done at the behest of record companies. According to Apple, its iTunes updates were designed to preserve deals and protect consumers from hackers and malicious content.



Apple executives like iTunes chief Eddy Cue and head of marketing Phil Schiller testified during the trial, and former Apple CEO Steve Jobs also had a large role, in the form of emails and a 2011 videotaped deposition that was shown in court.



The plaintiffs in the trial were asking for damages of $350 million, which could have gone up to $1 billion under antitrust law. Apple's victory means the company will not have to pay out any money at all.


















Apple wins big in $1 billion iTunes antitrust suit

Apple store logo

It looks like draconian digital rights management practices that included deleting songs from some users' iPods if they came from rival stores wasn't enough to convince a jury that Apple violated antitrust regulations. The New York Times' Bruce X. Chen reports via Twitter that a jury has tossed out a years-old lawsuit against Apple that alleged the company engaged in anticompetitive behavior to make sure its iTunes Store remained the dominant marketplace for digital music.


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Apple iPhone 7 Concept Pictures

The iPhone 6 is one of the world's best smartphones but there's always room for improvement. As we've noted before, one area where Apple could actually take a page from LG's newest smartphones is the way LG maximizes its devices' display space while eliminating as much extra space around the display as possible.


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