Setups: My hardware setup for podcasting and voiceovers [Video]

As someone who regularly does voiceover work and records podcasts, I need a setup that allows me to easily record on a whim. Any modern Mac could work for this setup, but I’m especially fond of the 12″ MacBook with its USB-C port. That single port, which handles data transfer, power, and display output, helps to simplify my setup because all it requires is one cable to get started.

In this post, I’d like to share with you my setup for voiceovers and podcasting. What you’ll find is a setup that’s extremely easy to use and happens to look decent as well. more…

Filed under:
How-To
, Mac Tagged: 12″ MacBook, audio mixer, audio-technica, Audio-Technica ATH-M50x, Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X, MacBook, Mackie, microphone, Microphone preamplifier, Podcasting, Setup, USB microphone, video, voice over, XLR

Apple Pay rival MCX ending CurrentC beta test, deactivating all user accounts

After laying off some 30 employees last month, The Merchant Consortium Exchange, or MCX, announced today that it is ending its the ongoing CurrentC beta test and postponing all future releases. The beta test will be suspended on June 28th, according to an email sent to beta testers in Columbus, Ohio and obtained by The Consumerist.

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Filed under: Apple Pay Tagged: Apple pay, currentc, MCX

Google makes its TensorFlow artificial intelligence platform available on iOS

Google this week has published a new version of its TensorFlow machine learning software that adds support for iOS. Google initially teased that it was working on iOS support for TensorFlow last November, but said it was unable to give a timeline. An early version of TensorFlow version 0.9 was released yesterday on GitHub, however, and it brings iOS support.

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Filed under: iOS Tagged: Artificial Intelligence, TensorFlow

Apple Pay comes to over 30 new banks and credit unions in the United States

After coming to over two dozen new banks last month, Apple Pay today has expanded to over 30 new banks and credit unions in the United States. The new banks join the increasingly large list of existing banks and credit unions that support Apple’s mobile payment service. Below are the new banks and credit unions that now work with Apple Pay:

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Filed under: Apple Pay Tagged: Apple pay

iTunes U for iOS can now add materials from iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, & more

Apple is out today with a new update to its iTunes U app for iPhone and iPad. The latest version of iTunes U adds a document picker that supports cloud services like iCloud Drive as well as others including Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box. Adding documents from non-iCloud services requires having their apps installed and being signed in.

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Filed under: Apps Tagged: iTunes U

Google’s Motion Stills app turns Live Photos into stable GIFs and movies w/ cinematic backgrounds

Google’s latest photography app — following behind others such as Google Photos and Snapseed — stabilizes iOS Live Photos and turns them into shareable GIFs and short movie clips. The app can create still images by freezing the background of a Live Photo and makes short videos that feature sweeping cinematic pans. The free Motion Stills app comes to us from Google Research and is only available on iOS…

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Filed under: Apps Tagged: Apps, GIFs, Google, iOS, Live Photos, motion stills, stable, update

Snapchat updates Stories and Discover with new look and subscriptions

Snapchat’s latest update brings some new and more easily understandable iconography to the app alongside changes to the Stories and Discover view. The update today puts a heavy focus on the Discover view within Snapchat, making ignoring it nigh near impossible. The Discover feed is now directly below a user’s personal stories and above their friend’s stories in a small card carousel view.

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Filed under: Apps Tagged: Snapchat

Opinion: Why we need a Podcasts app for Mac, not just iTunes

Yesterday in my WWDC wish list I included a request for pulling Apple’s podcast player out of iTunes and promoting it to a dedicated app on the Mac just like it is on iOS. iTunes in its current form can be a mess as a music player, but at least that tries to be its primary function; being a good podcast player is hardly the focus of iTunes. Aside from removing part of the bloat from iTunes, promoting podcast playback on the Mac to its own app would solve several existing problems.

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Filed under: Opinion Tagged: iTunes, Podcasts