September 27, 2024

Category: News

News

Aperture Replacement ‘Photos’ to Offer Image Search, Editing, Effects and Plugins

Last week, Apple announced that the company would be discontinuing their Aperture photo management software to focus development on the new Photos app that was introduced at WWDC. Details on Apple’s new Photos app, however, remains scarce, leaving Aperture users with a lot of uncertainty.

Ars Technica was able to get additional information from an Apple representative, who indicated that certain professional-grade features would be coming to the new Photos app:

When asked about what Aperture-like features users can expect from the new Photos app, an Apple representative mentioned plans for professional-grade features such as image search, editing, effects, and most notably, third-party extensibility.

Some of these editing features are already depicted in the screenshot that Apple released of Photos at the time of the announcement:

newphotosClick for Full Size Screenshot
The screenshot shows an adjustments panel with settings for Light (Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Brightness, Contrast, Blacks), Color (Saturation, Contrast, Cast), Black & White (Hue Strength, Neutral Boost, Photo Tone, Grain), Definition, Vignette, White Balance, and Levels.

Apple has promised that existing Aperture users will be able to import their libraries into the new OS X Photos app. Photos is expected to be released early next year.



News

FTC Accuses T-Mobile of Knowingly Charging Customers for Fraudulent Services

The United States Federal Trade Commission today filed a complaint against T-Mobile, accusing the carrier of charging customers for unauthorized SMS subscriptions that delivered information like horoscopes and celebrity gossip at prices up to $9.99 per month.

T-Mobile reportedly collected 35 to 40 percent of the amount charged to consumers, at times continuing to bill customers even after it was clear the charges were fraudulent. According to the FTC, T-Mobile made “hundreds of millions of dollars” using these tactics.

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The FTC suggests that the charges were unauthorized because of the high volume of T-Mobile customers seeking refunds. The company has allegedly received a high number of consumer complaints since 2012. T-Mobile is also said to have made it difficult to detect the charges, as a summary bill did not show a third-party charge or a recurring subscription. T-Mobile bills also made it “nearly impossible for consumers to find and understand third-party subscription charges.”

After looking past a “Summary” section as well as an “Account Service Detail” section, both of which described “Usage Charges” but did not itemize those charges, a consumer might then reach the section labeled “Premium Services,” where the crammed items would be listed.

According to the complaint, the information would be listed there in an abbreviated form, such as “8888906150BrnStorm23918,” that did not explain that the charge was for a recurring third-party subscription supposedly authorized by the consumer.

T-Mobile also failed to provide full refunds to customers after the charges were discovered. The FTC is asking for a court order to prevent T-Mobile from continuing to charge customers for fraudulent services and to provide full refunds for its “ill-gotten gains.”

T-Mobile has not yet commented on the FTC’s complaint, but the company’s outspoken CEO, John Legere, will undoubtedly have a response.

In recent months, T-Mobile has worked hard to distinguish itself from other mobile phone carriers with its “UnCarrier” initiatives designed to disrupt traditional mobile service. The company has uncoupled device costs from service costs, introduced a Jump upgrade plan, provided unlimited texting and 2G data in 100 countries, offered customers up to $350 to switch carriers, and announced plans to allow customers to “test drive” the service.

Update 1:30 PM PT: T-Mobile has released a statement calling the FTC’s complaint “unfounded and without merit.” T-Mobile goes on to state that it stopped billing for Premium SMS services last year and has launched a “proactive program” to provide full refunds for customers.



News

NChart3D comes to Mac OS X

Nulana LTD says NChart3D 1.5, their charting framework for iOS, is now available for Mac OS X (10.7 and higher). It allows developers to make data visualizations in Mac OS X applications.
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News

Samsung Rumored to Produce Apple’s A9 Chips, Made in the U.S.A.

For a few years now, Apple and Samsung have been battling each other in courts around the world over patent infringement issues. While the lawsuits appear to be winding down, rumors of the strained relationship continue. Every few months or so, we hear that Apple is planning on dumping Samsung as the designer for its […]

News

PageMeUp for Mac OS X gets maintenance upgrade

Softobe has introduced PageMeUp 1.0.2 (http://tinyurl.com/ozgvtyr), an update of its layout editor for Mac OS X 10.8 or higher. It’s a maintenance release with bug fixes and improvements.
With PageMeUp, you create a document, choose its page format, s…

News

Reading List: Do it yourself

Stories, stories, everywhere a plethora of Apple-related stories. We’ve collected some of the more prominent floating around the Web on Tuesday.

Siri Will Soon Understand You a Whole Lot Better

Reports suggest that Apple is building up an internal speech-recognition team, perhaps to reduce its dependence on Nuance, the company whose technology currently powers Siri. A lot of the discussion in this Wired piece revolves around using neural networks to enhance speech recognition, something that other companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Google are using, but that Apple does not seem to at present.

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