Innehållsförteckning för #153 från AppleMagazine

PayPal, Apple and others are betting on billions in mobile payments. But so far, trying to use my phone to pay at restaurants and retailers has been frustrating. It's easier just to pull out my plastic credit card than to figure out which card works with which app and which app works with which store. In theory, mobile-payment services such as Google Wallet are easy to use. You simply download an app and enter your card information. With Apple Pay, you can even snap a picture of the card or use the one you already use with Apple's iTunes. Then, when you're ready to pay, you typically hold your phone near the store's payment terminal. The transaction is authorized through a special wireless chip embedded in many Android phones and…

European skies may soon be alive with the sound of small talk with new safety rules allowing the use of all portable electronics, including cell phones, at any time during flights. Under the guidelines issued Friday by the European Aviation Safety Agency, European airlines can allow passengers to use electronics during the entire flight, without putting them into "airplane mode." "We're basically opening the door where, in theory, you'll be able to continue making your phone call through the gate throughout the flight ... like you would on a train," spokesman llias Maragakis told The Associated Press. Standing in the way is the difficulty of getting a cell phone signal at high altitudes, and also how passengers will react to the thought of sitting next to a chatterbox across the…

Andrea Jackson, the chair of Cambridge's Licensing Commission, said Uber was oversimplifying the challenges emerging business strategies pose to cities. "We know that these things are likely here to stay," she said. "My only concern is that they are safe. I want to make sure the drivers have background checks. I want to make sure they have adequate insurance." Safety mandates have been imposed in other cities. Chicago, for example, assesses licensing fees and requires rideshare companies to submit to background checks, vehicle inspections, driver tests and random drug screens of their employees. The companies are also required to obtain $1 million in commercial auto liability coverage. Uber spokesman Taylor Bennett said the company understands the need for thoughtful regulations but will fight attempts to protect the local taxi industry.…

iOS #01 – Five Nights at Freddy’s By Scott Cawthon Category: Games / Price: $2.99 Requires iOS 5.1 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #02 – Minecraft – Pocket Edition By Mojang Category: Games / Price: $6.99 Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #03 – Goblin Sword By Eleftherios Christodoulatos Category: Games / Price: $0.99 Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #04 – Sleep Cycle alarm clock By Northcube AB Category: Health & Fitness / Price: $0.99 Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for…

Google Ine is planning new and revamped streaming-music services in coming weeks, searching for a way to stand out in an increasingly crowded field of rivals from Apple and Amazon, com to Spotify. Nailing music is one way for Google to raise chances of continued success as people spend more time on mobile devices. Google's YouTube service has become a lowprofile titan in streaming through the popularity of music videos. Currently, videos must be chosen one track at a time. YouTube in coming weeks will launch new subscription and ad-supported YouTube music services able to play several tracks in a row, a person familiar with the plans said.…

Denzel Washington brought his might to the box office yet again with his latest action film, "The Equalizer/' The R-rated movie, based on the gritty 1985-89 CBS series starring Edward Woodward, topped all other films with an estimated weekend gross of $35 million in the U.S. and Canada. Produced by Sony Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures, the film cost about $55 million to make. The studios had predicted a modest $25 million to $30 million opening. "From the first minute we saw footage of this film, we knew we had something that was special," said Rory Bruer, distribution president for Sony Pictures. "It's been a really great weekend." The Washington box-office results shouldn't come as a surprise: Washington's last 10 wide releases, including "Flight" (2013) and "Déjà Vu" (2006), have…

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is getting some unsolicited advice on how to turn around the long-struggling Internet company, just like some of her predecessors who tangled with investors dissatisfied with management's performance. In a letter Friday, activist investor Jeffrey Smith urged Yahoo Inc. to buy another fallen Internet star, AOL Inc. and take steps to reduce the future taxes on the company's lucrative stake in China's Alibaba Group. He also chastised Mayer for spending $1.3 billion to acquire an Internet blogging service and more than two dozen other startups during the past two years with little to show in return so far. To bolster his arguments, Smith says he has built a "significant" stake in Yahoo through Starboard Value LP. The size of the stake wasn't quantified in the letter…

MAIN SLATE SELECTION NOW CHOSEN Who doesn't appreciate a film festival? If you're a cinema fanatic, you've always had a good choice of such events here in America, with the Sundance and Toronto festivals being the perfect place to discover what you'll be chomping on popcorn to for the year ahead. However, let's not forget another of the must-see events in this vein, the New York Film Festival. It's back on the streets of the Big Apple from September 26 to October 12, for its 52nd running - so what better time to reflect on the delights of an event that has been described by Indiewire as "the grand daddy of American festivals"? Indeed, it's been running since 1963, with the showcased films being selected by the city's Film Society…

Should the company that supplies your Internet access be allowed to cut deals with online services such as Netflix, Amazon or YouTube to move their content faster? The Federal Communications Commission is tackling that question this fall after the public submitted a record 3.7 million comments on the subject - more than double the number filed with the regulatory agency after Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl. The FCC's chairman, former industry lobbyist and venture capitalist Tom Wheeler, says financial arrangements between broadband providers and content sites might be OK so long as the agreement is "commercially reasonable" and companies disclose publicly how they prioritize Internet traffic. But not everyone agrees, with Netflix and much of the public accusing the FCC of handing the Internet over…

Two Night Stand Two twenty-something strangers, played by Analeigh Tipton and Miles Teller, have a one night stand - only to find the following morning that a blizzard has put the whole of New York on ice. Snowed in, the pair are forced to learn more about each other than they would have ever anticipated. FIVE FACTS: 1. Other cast members include Jessica Szohr, Leven Rambin and Scott Mescudi. 2. The film was directed by Max Nichols. 3. Asked what separated Two Night Stand from other rom-coms, Miles Teller commented: “I think this is one that hits all those right buttons. It’s just very witty. For me, for every comedy, I just have to think that it’s pretty funny.” 4. Nichols has said of the material: “I really thought the…

eBay agreement on Tuesday to spin off PayPal next year will give the unit more flexibility to strike deals in the rapidly evolving payments space as growth at the company's traditional e-commerce business slows. The surprise move is a huge about-face for eBay's leadership, including Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe, who resisted shareholder activist Carl Icahn's calls for a split earlier this year and led a months-long campaign to convince investors that eBay should remain intact. Icahn, eBay's sixth-largest shareholder, eventually backed off in April. But eBay directors and executives shifted their stance on the split in June after a six-month internal study of the payments landscape, Donahoe said in an interview. "We felt like a couple things were changing," Donahoe said. "Most notably, the pace of change in this…

JOURNALISTS INVITED INTO APPLE'S TESTING LABS We should have expected it... the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have barely had the time to get into people's hands, and yet they're already subject to a pretty big controversy. You might remember the 'antennagate' scandal that affected iPhone 4, and which probably didn't even warrant 'scandal' status in the grand scheme of things. Well, what has quickly become known as 'bendgate' might be in the same category of non-issue. Yes, believe it or not... some people are complaining that their new iPhone bends when they have it in their pocket. With the larger of the two new models measuring over six inches in length, one might have imagined them to be more susceptible to bending than the smaller iPhones of years…

A renowned technology hub that is home to some of the country's top universities, Boston is emerging as an unlikely battleground for webbased businesses like Airbnb and Uber, with some saying more regulations are needed to prevent the upstarts from disrupting communities and more established industries. Boston, prompted by the arrival of the mobile app Haystack, recently banned services that allow people to offer their public parking spaces for sale. Now the City Council is considering restrictions on ride-sharing services like Über, Lyft and Sidecar and lodging websites like Airbnb, HomeAway and FlipKey, which allow users to book short-term stays in private residences. Across the river in Cambridge, home to Harvard and MIT, officials have been trying for years to restrict rideshares. From New York to San Francisco, cities have…

iOS #01 - Facebook Messenger By Facebook, Inc. Category: Social Networking Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #02 – Spider-Man Unlimited By Gameloft Category: Games Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #03 – Yik Yak By Yik Yak, LLC Category: Social Networking Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #04 – Amazing Thief By Ketchapp Category: Games Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #05 – Bicolor By 1Button SARL Category:…

Not a single purchase has been made with Apple's new payment system, Apple Pay, which will allow people to pay for everyday goods with their smartphone. But the service, expected in the coming weeks, already has the technology industry scrambling to profit from a future in which apps could regularly replace cash, checks and credit cards. If doubts remained about the far-reaching implications of Apple's entry into the market, they were almost surely cast aside on Tuesday. In a surprise announcement, the e-commerce giant eBay said it would spin off PayPal, long the dominant digital payment service — a move meant to make PayPal more nimble in a fastchanging market. "The era of digital payments is upon us," said John Donahoe, chief executive of eBay, announcing the split to investors.…

Microsoft believes the next version of its operating system is such a big change that it's calling the software Windows 10, skipping the more logical product name, Windows 9, entirely. But compared to Windows 8, its muchmaligned predecessor, the rough sketch of Windows 10 that Microsoft showed for the first time on Tuesday will seem comfortingly familiar to many people. The changes reflect Microsoft's continued search for a formula that will reinvigorate Windows and along with it sales of PCs, which have flagged badly in recent years. While Microsoft has lost a lot of cachet to Apple, Google and other companies that shape the mobile market, Windows still runs the vast majority of PCs in the world. With Windows 8, Microsoft redesigned its operating system for a world increasingly populated…