It's official, Apple buys Beats for $3 billion, Iovine and Dr. Dre to join Apple

So, the premature celebration a few weeks ago was sort of merited. Apple has bought the Beats Music streaming service as well as Beats Electronics, which makes those insanely popular headphones. The deal cost Apple US $3 billion but aside from the established Beats brand and cache of hipness, they also get two of the most powerful players in the entertainment industry. Rap mogul and pioneer Dr. Dre as well as industry impresario Jimmy Iovine. 

“Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “That’s why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world.” It will be interesting to see if the Beats brand will continue or if it will be turned into an Apple product. Hit jump for the full details of this blockbuster acquisition.

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Skype's awesome real-time language translation feature demoed by Microsoft

Skype is pushing the envelope in real-time language translation and this was clearly demonstrated recently during an on-stage Q&A with Re/code’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg the Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about how we are entering a new era of more personal computing. He discussed Microsoft’s goal of creating computing experiences that are more natural, more human, more like us. Very cool.

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The Apple Beat: A week away from WWDC 2014, let the games begin

Image from MacRumors.comBy Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla 

Apple's yearly World Wide Developer's Conference is taking place next week in in San Francisco. Over 5,000 developers and partners are expected to come to the Moscone West conference centre to learn more about Apple's plans and products for the coming year and you can believe that the rest of the world will be watching.

Mostly focused on upcoming software builds, namely the next version of iOS and its desktop counterpart OS X, Apple's used WWDC as a launching pad for notable hardware products, some of which are available for purchase right after the keynote and others are offered as a sneak peek, just like the redesigned Mac Pro was last year.

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SonicPics digtial storytelling app for iOS sells 100,000 copies

Michigan based Humble Daisy has announced the 100,000th sale of SonicPics its popular digital storytelling app for iOS. SonicPics lets you create, narrate and share custom photo slide shows. The app records your voice while you flip through your images and automatically synchronizes your images to the audio recording. Publish your recordings to YouTube, share them via WiFi, save to your photo library, or email to your friends. To celebrate, SonicPics will be 1/2 price for the rest of the week. 

Ann Arbor, Michigan - Humble Daisy has announced that it has sold its 100,000th copy of SonicPics ($1.99) digital storytelling app for iOS. In celebration of the milestone, Humble Daisy is discounting SonicPics for the of the week. During from May 27th through June 1st SonicPics will be available for $0.99 

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