Oh, come on. Star Wars drones where you can have mock battles? I don’t know whether to lament how lame my childhood was or revel in the fact that an adult child I can get such things all day long! Here’s the deal: there are three models of these drones, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, and a 74Z Speeder Bike, and we’ll suspend our disbelief enough to imagine how the speeder bike could fight with the spaceships. There’s a companion app with training missions, and the come with their own controller. AND THEY CAN FIGHT! With infrared lasers. COME ON! These things are $49.99 (each) through our deal, but coupon code CMSAVE20 brings it down to $40 at checkout. Choose your model on the deal page.
Anchor Will Help Podcasters Connect With Advertisers
Podcasting app Anchor wants to make it easier for podcasters to connect with advertisers. It’s launching Sponsorships on its platform.
Starting this week, Sponsorships will be integrated into Anchor’s platform, letting users turn the feature on for the full show or on a per-episode basis. Anchor will then match a custom sponsor based on various factors, including size, recording location and podcast topic, sending hosts a note when they’ve found a proper match.
Sounds like a good idea for beginners and experienced podcasters alike. So far the advertisers on board are SeatGeek, Cash App, Ro, Dirty Lemon, Baboon, Living Proof, The Citizenry and Squarespace.
Camera App Focos Comes to the iPad With Version 1.6
Focos is a Portrait Mode editor that lets you control bokeh in your photos. The latest update added support for the Apple Pencil and iPad Pro.
The Ultimate Guide to iOS 12 Apple Books
iMore put together a great guide for iOS 12 Apple Books. It covers everything from book samples, downloading/highlighting, PDFs, audiobooks, and more.
Apple Books will now automatically organize your library into several collections, and you can add as many of your own as you wish. In addition to books and audiobooks, you can store PDF files in the app—and all of it can sync among your Apple devices through iCloud.
As you may have known, I’m a big fan of the new Apple Books app and I hope Apple continues to improve it.
Apple Sells Refurbished iPads With 15% Discount
The models are the sixth-generation 9.7-inch iPads released in March 2018.
Sennheiser Headphones Plus Mac Equals Vulnerability
The company has already sent out a fix, but let’s find out what happened.
Consumer Groups Want to Block T-Mobile Sprint Merger
A total of 14 organizations recently sent a letter to Congress saying that the T-Mobile Sprint merger should be blocked.
The concerns range from job losses, it being an anti-competitive and anti-consumer deal, to even incentivizing Verizon, AT&T, and the new T-Mobile to “collude.”
After T-Mobile and Sprint shifted their arguments for why the merger would be beneficial, and this latest barrage of concerns from 14 organizations, the odds of it happening seem to be diminishing.
This quote from The Washington Post says it all: “The general view on Wall Street is that as a result of this deal, there are likely to be job cuts and prices are likely to rise,” he said.
Elon Musk Might Move to Mars. You Could Join Him
For an estimated US$200,000 you could pack up and move to Mars some time after 2024 via SpaceX. Elon Musk might even join you. “Musk told Axios there’s a ’70 percent’ [chance] he’ll make the voyage to the red planet. When asked why he’d [go] in light of the dangers, Musk said, “There’s lots of people that climb mountains. You know, why do they climb mountains? Because people die on Mount Everest all the time. They like doing it for the challenge.”
What to Know Before Buying an Apple TV 4K
The holidays are upon us, and so John put together (most) everything a buyer might need to know about the Apple TV 4K before purchase.
Tim Cook's Expected Privacy Bill May See Light of Day in 2019
You might remember Tim Cook expecting tech giants to be subjected to regulation through some sort of privacy bill. Reuters reported that a privacy bill is indeed in the works, and that it might see daylight in early 2019, while AppleInsider noted this might be what Mr. Cook was expecting. Of course, this is the world of politics, so who knows what final shape this bill will take, but here’s a glimpse at where it is now:
A subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee discussed elements of the bill on Tuesday, including the possibility that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could be given the authority as enforcer to oversee telecommunications companies and non-profits, exact civil penalties and create regulations.
