Hasta La Gadget!

On July 21, 2011, the day before Joe Brown began his 1.5 years as editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, he wrote 16 moving and influential words. "Fuck Natural Scrolling. This Is Bullshit. Yours truly, a concerned Lion user. Returning to unnatural scrolling." Lion had debuted almost two months prior, introducing natural or inverted scrolling. Ever since that fateful summer of 2011, Windows users have been finding ways to adopt it, and tons of Mac users have happily adjusted. Young ones may not even remember anything else. But as Brown so eloquently points out, users can turn natural scrolling off if they don’t like it. And Windows still defaults to "unnatural" scrolling.

Read more…

Some cats are small but terrible – in a good way of course. Like they say, the best surprises come in the smallest of packages, and cats fit this description to a tee: they might not be the biggest pet in your home or the biggest creature in the world, but they’ve got personalities as big as can be and they’re often not afraid to show it.

This is why the Lion Hat is so appropriate and fitting for your feline companion.

It’s basically a miniature mane that’ll transform your cat into a miniature lion. It’s probably already the king (or queen) of your home as speak, so why not make it official and crown it with a fiery mane of glory?

Of course, it’s not limited to feline use, as the Lion Hat fits most average-sized cats and dogs. So if you want, you can also dress your canine pals up to be the king of their own domains. The hat is made from synthetic fur, while the ears are crafted from plush felt.

It’s as adorable as pet hats and costumes can get, and it’s available online for $38(USD) at Nesta’s Nest on Etsy.

[via Incredible Things]

OS X Mountain Lion, or version 10.8 as it’s known according to Apple’s numbering system, accounted for 32 percent of all web traffic measured by Net Applications, a firm that charts OS share and other web metrics. This marks the first time Mountain Lion has accounted for a majority share of web traffic from Apple computers, with Lion dropping down to 28 percent.

In November, Mountain Lion only just trailed Lion, with 29 percent of web traffic, vs. 30 percent for Lion. Snow Leopard use actually remained relatively steady between November and December, losing less than a percentage point and suggesting that most of the Mountain Lion upgraders are coming from Lion, and not jumping up two versions. Mountain Lion requires that Lion be installed in order to upgrade (unless you have a USB stick version of 10.8), so it makes sense that the pool of upgraders is coming from Lion, where there are relatively few barriers to upgrading (it’s handled directly through the Mac App Store).

Snow Leopard continues to be very tenacious, with a 29 percent share of Mac web traffic, which makes it the second-most frequently used version of OS X over even Lion. But Mountain Lion’s growth is still impressive, and it seems to be attracting users faster than Lion was ever able to. Lion took until May 2012 to overcome Snow Leopard in terms of share of web traffic as measured by Net Applications, meaning it required nearly 10 months to unseat Snow Leopard as the dominant Mac OS. By contrast, Mountain Lion took around five months to reach the top spot, or about half the time.

Speedy adoption of new OS X versions is key to keeping a solid software ecosystem in place, and lessening headaches for developers both internal and external. That makes this particular development promising news for Apple, especially now that they’re on an annual update cycle for OS X, which makes getting people on the newest version as quickly as possible even more crucial.

Not every update Apple makes to its RAW support in OS X merits attention, but when a new revision covers several of the biggest camera launches of the year in one fell swoop, we’ll have our eyebrows raised. The company’s not very elegantly titled Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 4.01 supports the unprocessed photos from Nikon’s ‘starter’ full-frame DSLR, the D600, as well as a handful of hotter mirrorless cameras like the Canon EOS M, Nikon 1 J2, Panasonic Lumix G5 and Sony NEX-F3. Those who aren’t keen on swapping lenses still get native RAW support for higher-end compacts like Canon’s PowerShot G15 and Sony’s Cyber-shot RX100. Provided you’re running the necessary OS X Lion or Mountain Lion, Apple just gave you free rein to pick a cutting-edge camera and shoot (in full detail) to your heart’s content.

Filed under: Cameras, Software, Apple, Sony, Nikon, Canon

Apple camera RAW update for OS X supports Canon EOS M, Nikon D600, compulsive photography originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  Apple  | Email this | Comments

Over the years we’ve come across a few signs that pointed to the possibility of touchscreen-enabled iMacs, but Steve Jobs had already dismissed this as a possibility for current Mac form factors. Quoting the man at the “Back to the Mac” keynote from two years ago: “It gives great demo, but after a while your arm feels like it’s going to fall off. Touch surfaces want to be horizontal.”

So perhaps our fantasy’s still stuck in the “research project” phase.

Luckily, the more adventurous touchscreen lovers can look to third-party solutions. For MacBooks you have Axiotron’s Modbook, except you lose the keyboard and you can’t perform the modification yourself. As for iMacs and Cinema Displays, we’ve been following Troll Touch for its resistive touchscreen replacement panels, but they aren’t exactly affordable and most of them have to be installed by the company. Even its user-installable SlipCover series starts from $899, anyway.

This leaves us with the Zorro Macsk, a cheekily named iMac accessory hailing from TMDtouch of Shenzhen, China. The 21.5-inch model is priced at just $199 on Amazon with no modifications required. Plus, it supports multitouch — a glaring omission from Troll Touch’s Mac lineup. So is this truly a bargain? Or is it just a case of “you get what you pay for?” Follow past the break to see how we got on with the Zorro Macsk.

Continue reading Zorro Macsk review: instantly add touchscreen functionality to your 21.5-inch iMac

Filed under: Peripherals

Zorro Macsk review: instantly add touchscreen functionality to your 21.5-inch iMac originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments