Apple rumored to be creating original shows, Netflix-style

Netflix has established a successful model of business within the streaming scene by offering exclusive, originally produced content, and now it seems that Apple wants in on that original programming action, too, according to Variety.

Apple has reportedly been in discussion with several Hollywood executives over the last few weeks, with a source close to Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, stating that the Cupertino company is gauging interest from possible content producing partners.

It's unknown whether Apple is interested in producing TV shows, movies or both, though it's rumored that the company made a huge bid to try and secure the stars of Top Gear after their recent exit from the BBC, though Amazon eventually won out.

Apple's feeling MacStreamy

Also unclear is Apple's level of investment regarding original programming – one Variety source suggests that Apple wants to compete with Netflix directly by creating long-form content, while another suggests that Tim Cook & co. are simply flirting with the idea.

With Apple rumored to be announcing new Apple TV hardware at its upcoming event on September 9, it would make sense that the tech juggernaut would want to explore a new video content strategy.

Though no official announcement has been made by Apple, rumors of the next Apple TV getting its own streaming service have been around for quite some time, with a live TV service also reportedly in the works.

• Here's everything we know about the iPhone 6S

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Mac Tips: Pages for Mac: best tips

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Apple's Pages is a solid starting point for anyone looking to do a little writing or page layout, and while the program is pretty simple, it packs more of a punch than you might think. As evidence, we present the following 13 tips, which are sure to turn you into a word-processing pro.

1. Add a watermark to every page of a document

Just to set your levels of expectations for this tip, we haven't uncovered a way by which Pages can add a real watermark to your documents – that is, a design that becomes visible when you hold the paper up to a light. No, this just adds a light-colored graphic automatically to every page of a word processing document – perhaps a company logo or the word "Confidential."

Prepare your graphic, and if you're doing anything even remotely complex, the easiest way to do it is in a page layout document rather than a word processing document (even though you'll eventually use it in the latter). So, create a new document, choose the Blank template, and then immediately click File > Convert to Page Layout. Now prepare what you want in the watermark. It might just be the word "Draft" or a more involved design. Once you're done, select everything, group it (from the Arrange menu), and then copy and paste it into your word processing document.

When you do this, don't worry if all the text moves around. With the graphic still selected, click the Format button (top right of the document window), then make sure Stay on Page (not Move with Text) is selected, and drop the Text Wrap option down to None.

Get it to the right position and size (perhaps setting it to a jaunty angle), then tweak its opacity. For this you'll probably need to ungroup complex objects so the Style tab shows up to enable you to drag the opacity slider down. Immediately after, group everything again so you can't break your design by dragging something out of place. The last step is to select Arrange > Section Masters > Move Object to Section Master. Your watermark now appears on every page. If you need to tweak it afterwards, select Make Master Objects Selectable from the Arrange > Section Masters menu.

2. Make a letterhead appear on every page of a document

You can use a similar technique to add a company logo and address to every page of your correspondence, and one advantage of using the Section Master feature is that the page elements appear to be completely "burned-in" on the pages, and people can't move them around. You just have to omit the opacity tweak step from the watermark technique. It's easy to distribute a template and default to it when you're starting new documents, too – read on!

3. Export and import templates

Lots of what we'll show you in these tips is helpful in setting up standard, reusable templates so that you won't need to do the same work over and over again. Once you've set up your styles, letterheads, and so on, you can easily share the template with others just by selecting File > Save as Template. You'll be given the option of adding it to your Template Chooser – the gallery of options that pops up when you create a new document – or saving the file externally so you can share it with others. Your recipient should just double-click the ".template" file, and they'll be given the option of adding it to their own Template Chooser.

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4. Create media placeholders

If you frequently update images in a document – like, if you're a teacher with a lesson plan template, or a real estate agent creating listings sheets – you should use Media Placeholders. With these, you create drop zones on a page, onto which you can drag new images. Images are immediately scaled and cropped to the correct size and have any object styles applied to them. Set an image how you want it to look (with crops, borders, reflections, and so on), then choose Format > Advanced > Define as Media Placeholder. New images can be dropped onto this, and scaled and moved within it. Optionally, save as a template.

5. Set a default template

If all you ever use Pages for is standard word processing documents, you're probably sick of creating a new document and then having to pick Blank from the Template Chooser. Go to Pages' preferences and you can specify what template it should use when you press Command + N. This could be the Blank template, one of the more fancy ones, or your own custom template. But what if you then want a different template? Easy: just hold down Option after you've clicked the File menu, and you'll see that New changes to "New from Template Chooser…" Alternatively, press Option + Command + N.

6. Define capitalization

See that little cog in the Text pane of the Format sidebar, next to the buttons for Bold, Italic, and Underline? There's also an option for capitalization in there. Select some text and you can force it to uppercase, for example. Note that the mixed or lowercase text you typed is still stored behind the scenes, and Pages merely displays it in whatever style you chose for capitalization. This is especially handy with Styles. You might have a style for captions which is set to All Caps, but if you change your mind and change that option, then — so long as you wrote in mixed case to begin with — words such as "THIS" will automatically change back to "This."

7. Apply styles with a keyboard shortcut

You can apply styles quickly by pressing Function keys. In the sidebar, click the downward-pointing disclosure triangle next to the style name, then hover to the right of the style you want to associate with an F-key. Click the rightwards-pointing chevron that appears, and pick an F-key under Shortcut in the pop-out menu. On Macs that don't have dedicated F-keys, hold the fn key and tap the corresponding number key on the top row.

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8. Define (and tweak) text styles

Most of us tend not to bother with styles – collections of characteristics such as font, size, line spacing, and so on that govern, say, how a paragraph of text looks – but it's something worth getting your head around. Not only do styles make your documents look more consistent, but they make it easier to change your mind later on.

Let's say you define the subheading style as bold, 14pt tall, and colored red. With that style applied to all your subheadings, if later you decide that italic, 16pt, and blue text would look better, you just need to update the style once and all your subheadings will change without you having to go through your document and laboriously update each of them one by one.

Your Pages documents will have a range of styles already, and it's easy to tweak them to suit you. Type a headline, select it, then apply the Title style from the Format sidebar. Now change all the formatting options you want. As soon as you make any change, you'll see "Title" change to "Title*" in the list, indicating that the current text is based on the Title style but doesn't use it exactly. You'll also see an Update button. When you're done, click this, and the style is then redefined, and the appearance of any text with that style applied to it is updated to reflect your choices.

You can also add completely new styles. Format some text as you wish, then click the downward-facing disclosure triangle next to the style name, click the + symbol in the top right corner of the pop-up that appears, and give your new style a suitable name.

9. Cascading styles

If you always switch to your Body style after using a style you've created called Pullquote, for example, you can have Pages switch automatically for you.

While on a piece of text formatted with Pullquote, click More in the Format sidebar, and ensure Body is selected for the Following Paragraph Style option.

10. Configure live word and character count

It's not particularly obvious, but Pages does have live word count, which you can activate from the View menu or button. Once it's showing, you can click it to see other statistics about your text or selected text, and from that menu switch which stat is always visible. You can also drag the word count anywhere on the page, and it will snap to the horizontal center.

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11. Customize the toolbar

This often-forgotten trick works in lots of apps, but it can be especially useful in iWork to set up your workspace with the tools you use most often, and dispense with those you don't. Right-click the toolbar at the top of a Pages window and choose"Customize Toolbar." Drag features you use often onto the toolbar, drag out those you don't, and rearrange and group the buttons using spaces and flexible spaces.

12. Adjust spacing between characters

Professional designers frequently tweak the spacing between characters, especially in headlines and titles, in order to D O E F F E C T S L I K E T H I S or to tighten things up. Although you don't have fine-grained kerning control between two characters in Pages, you can tweak the spacing for a word or more from the cog menu next to the Bold, Italic, Underline buttons in the Format sidebar.

13. Create custom bullet points

You probably know that Pages' controls for bulleted and numbered lists are rich with options, but unless you've really dug into them you may not realize quite how much flexibility they give you. One of their best tricks is the ability to use anything you like as a bullet point for each level of bullets. If you choose to use Text Bullets, you can replace the "•" with any character you can type – including emoji! Just hold Control + Command and press the spacebar, and browse or search in the Characters palette. Alternatively, switch to Image Bullets and you can use any graphic stored on your Mac – a small element of a company logo, perhaps?

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New Apple TV remote said to be well-versed in gaming and Siri

The new Apple TV is said to include a smarter remote, which could help it compete with today's set-top boxes in terms of smart functionality, and could show Cortana a thing or two in the process.

The upgraded remote is said to connect with the next Apple TV via Bluetooth instead of using an IR signal, 9to5Mac reports. If true, that means the remote will work much better without a direct line of sight to the set-top box. It's also said to operate on replaceable batteries rather than a rechargeable one.

Regarding the remote's appearance, it's reported that it will feature a few physical buttons, as well as a touchpad and internal microphone with which you can chat with Siri. A source familiar with the new Apple TV told 9to5Mac that "you can navigate [mostly everything] on the new Apple TV [solely] using the new Siri button." Maybe this is Apple's way of saying "Bring it on, Cortana."

Is this Apple's big go at gaming?

If gaming is your thing, the remote is rumored to be stocked with motion sensors, which will allow compatibility out-of-the-box with tilt-heavy gaming apps through the version of the App Store said to be coming to Apple TV.

However, if your game requires more inputs that just tilting, the report also states that the new Apple TV might come equipped to offer Bluetooth support for all iOS-compatible controllers, like the SteelSeries Stratus XL.

Though this move likely won't coax hardcore gamers away from their PC, Xbox One or PS4, it might be enough to convince the era of gamers brought up on apps and bite-sized games to make the leap to Apple's next TV box.

• Want to know more about Apple TV 2? Here you go

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Google+ Brings Its Interest-Based “Collections” Feature To iOS

 Google+ Collections, the company’s effort at establishing its Google+ social network as more of a Pinterest competitor (since taking on Facebook didn’t go so well), has launched today in the iOS version of the Google+ app. The idea with this newer feature is to allow users to congregate around their shared interests, like video games or cooking, for example. With Collections, any… Read More

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Apple TV 2 reportedly pricey, but it could be worth it

Apple's next set-top box could be twice as expensive as its current Apple TV, if not more. Fortune reports that while the next-gen Apple TV might have a price tag as high as $199, it could introduce some exciting features to help offset the cost.

We reported recently that the new Apple TV might include a new and improved remote capable of motion controls, a la Nintendo's Wii. It's also rumored that the revised set-top box will feature Siri support, a interface rehaul and, the feature everyone has been asking for, its own App Store.

Not just that, the announcement of Apple's latest TV box will likely coincide with the company's oft-delayed plans for streaming live television. For the last few months, we've been hearing whispers about Apple's struggle to streamline the process of securing the rights to broadcast local television programming. Assuming that it has all been settled, the Apple TV's killer app, and the monthly subscription price, could be introduced on September 9.

Apple will continue selling the current Apple TV model, according to 9to5Mac, but it isn't clear if it, as well as older models, will receive the refreshed interface.

• Here's everything we know about Apple TV 2

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Wiselike, The Q&A Platform For Professionals, Picks Up $1.25M In Seed Funding

 There is no shortage of Q&A platforms on the web. But today, a new startup with fresh funding is looking to repurpose the Q&A format into something more valuable for the asker, the answerer, and the general viewer. Meet Wiselike, which has just picked up $1.25 million in seed funding led by GGV Capital, with participation from 500 Startups, GREE and more. Here’s how it… Read More

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AOL Acquires Photo And Messaging Startup Kanvas Labs

 AOL is announcing another acquisition — Kanvas Labs, maker of mobile social apps. An AOL spokesperson told me that the company will continue to offer the existing Kanvas Labs products. Those include photo editing app Kanvas; Kanvas Keyboard, which allows users to include GIFs and stickers in their mobile conversations; and Kanvas for Messenger, which integrates the startup’s… Read More

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movie week: Fear The Walking Dead's Greg Nicotero on creating new zombies and adapting to 4K

The Walking Dead is a global phenomenon. It's currently the most watched show on cable TV, sending comic books sales of the source material through the roof and establishing its own spin off series less than five years after starting out.

One of the key elements behind the show's success has to be the incredible attention to detail that goes into making-up the show's stars. Forget Rick Grimes, it's all about those walkers. Whether it's bicycle girl from the pilot episode, the well walker from Hershel's farm or Michonne's pets – everyone has their favourite walker.

And the likelihood is Greg Nicotero had something to do with your favourite mound of rotting flesh. He's co-executive producer, special FX make-up designer and sometimes director on the series and is now producer on the new spin off series Fear The Walking Dead.

With special effects credits ranging from Scream to Kill Bill, Day of the Dead to Deadwood, Inglorious Basterds to Breaking Bad – you name it, Nicotero has had something to do with it.

We spoke with the effects mastermind before the premiere of Fear The Walking Dead to discuss the new series, its effect on the main show, and what he and his mate Quentin Tarantino have got up to in the meantime.

Fear The Walking Dead is set at the start of the zombie apocalypse – does that pose a lot of new opportunities for the special effects team?

It does. When we first started out on the original series we were about six to eight weeks into the zombie apocalypse so we were able to play up more decomposition.

Here one of the things Dave Erickson and Robert Kirkman were very specific about was we wanted to make sure you had to look twice at some of these infected people to tell they had something wrong with them.

That was kind of fun. It means we're not getting into a bunch of rotting flesh but we are taking advantage of the opportunity to see people struggle with the zombies and the exact result of stab wounds, gun shot wounds and things like that.

The damage to the infected is much more immediate.

What's your favourite example in the new series?

In the first three episodes there are all examples of what I'm talking about. In episode one, the first walker we see, she turns around and there's a knife sticking out of her chest. That was something I pitched to Dave as it'd help sell this.

Nick is having this hallucination but we were implying violence in and amongst what has happened in this moment.

She was clearly attacking someone who'd stabbed her but they'd died in the attack so the knife stayed embedded in her chest. It's all those little nuances that help tell the story. It's something that's very important to me in any character or make up effect that I design – it has to tell part of the story.

The nice thing is in episode two and episode three we have similar instances where the effect is not just done for the sake of a cool gag or gore. But it's done in service of the story. It goes to show and educate our characters what the world is now about.

Has the introduction of 4K meant you have to make any changes to the effects?

For sure. The amount of detail that you're able to see in digital versus film is exponential.

The blend edges on the pores, the colouration of the make-up and prosthetics, all of that has to be much more precise. Even going from the pore texture on our performers compared to the pore texture on the prosthetics. You really see everything in 4K, the colours are much more vibrant.

One of the reasons that we initially chose film for The Walking Dead was because we felt it gave a much more classic horror kind of feel. The grain of the film works to the benefit of what we wanted to tell.

In Fear The Walking Dead we wanted a much crisper, cleaner look in that instance. There have been times when we've had to be cautious. When you're filming a close up of an infected person, they have contact lenses in and you have to be careful you're not seeing where they end.

So we did a lot of different make up tests during our prep and photographed them. We looked at the colours of the blood and the way the make-up reacts to different lighting scenarios.

These are all things that we still test when shooting on film but we had to learn our ground rules a little differently on the new series.

For visual effects, shooting digitally helps and actually saves money as you don't have to digitise a negative. You can just use digital information to begin doing your CGI work. In that instance it gives us big savings in terms of money and time.

Are there more digital effects in Fear The Walking Dead because of that?

No, but the digital effects are different.

We're dealing the start of the outbreak so seeing areas of Los Angeles and areas of Southern California become increasingly more desolate as the outbreak occurs and as the curfew bursts, things like that.

I think the visual effects are not as noticeable as they are on The Walking Dead when you see someone being decapitated, when the blood really sprays, or herds of thousands of zombies, where you know they're digital augmented shots. I feel in Fear the Walking Dead the shots will be a lot less visible to the viewer.

How have you found the location change to LA?

The nice thing about the Los Angeles location is it gives a new character. We have LA as a character in the show and Adam Davidson, our director, really embraced that so that you get a real flavour for it.

In The Walking Dead the prison was its own character and Woodbury was its own character, even the woods where we were shooting in after the prison were their own character.

It gives us a lot of opportunities in terms of visuals and it gives us a great opportunity in terms of diversity of the cast. In the long run, when we get into future seasons, it gives us a great opportunity to explore different locales. I know we've talked about desert and seaside locations potentially.

It provides us with a much richer landscape compared to say this urban scenario of you know what Los Angeles gives us.

How does it feel to leave directing and head back to special effects?

Special effects are always my first love and big passion.

While we were shooting the Fear The Walking Dead pilot, I think it was a 12 or 15 day shoot, I was also supervising the effects for The Hateful Eight and a couple of other projects.

During Walking Dead we shoot for seven months of the year so I have five months hiatus I'm able to work on other projects and most of the time I'm working with Robert Rodriguez and in this instance I was working on The Hateful Eight with Quentin.

I love it. Having the opportunity to direct on The Walking Dead has made me a much better make-up effects artist because I'm able to present ideas to directors with a different perspective.

That started on Django Unchained where I was able to design effects that are based on coverage I anticipated the director will shoot.

When Jamie Foxx is hanging upside down in Django Unchained being tortured, I thought as a director we can't hang that actor upside down for more than four minutes, but we could make a full size dummy that's articulated. You could shoot past the dummy in the foreground at Sam Jackson and it won't bother anybody.

So the opportunity was to shoot more coverage than it seems, so when we were prepping this movie I thought, "yeah this is great, we never would have thought that we'd need this."

You might not think it now but when you get into shooting you want to have the freedom to move the camera around to where you see fit so having the opportunity to direct on The Walking Dead has allowed me to look at make up effects from that perspective. And I think it benefits the projects.

Any plans to direct away from The Walking Dead?

I do have to say that currently The Walking Dead is a full time job. I'd love to do more, Robert Rodriguez has offered me other things to go shoot, but by the time I start on The Walking dead in April and wrap at Christmas time I haven't really been able to figure out how to squeeze another movie into a four month period.

Now Fear The Walking Dead will be shooting during our hiatus it's going to be 365-days a year zombies for me. Which I'm not complaining about at all.

How do you feel about the recent trend of horror making its way to TV?

I love that people have embraced horror on TV. It has always been the one genre that's been challenging to pull off.

Science fiction has always been very popular on TV starting with Star Trek to the Twilight Zone, to the X Files.

They're all fantastic shows but horror has been a lot trickier. I think one of the big reasons that The Walking Dead was successful was because it really took its roots from Night of the Living Dead.

I think with American Horror Story and Bates Motel on, there's some genuinely scary stuff on TV. The filmmakers that have been putting the material forward have been pushing the envelope.

I love the idea that American Horror Story has a different tone and story every season. It's not just going back to the same well each week, it's really bold, ground-breaking and original. I love that, it just gives you a little more bang for your buck.

With The Walking Dead we've been able to raise the bar in terms of what we could do on TV.

I remember when Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead came out – those movies were unrated. You couldn't even go to the movie theatre to see those films unless you were over 18. And now we're able to put like material on cable and stuff we couldn't do literally 10-15 years ago in the theatres, without getting an unrated film, we're now able to do on television.

What can you tease from the rest of Fear The Walking Dead?

I think the most exciting thing about Fear is the story we've been able to craft over the first six episodes and the level of suspense. I love the idea of being able to learn about our society through the character's eyes. The big challenge is the viewers already know what's going on.

It's much more of a Hitchcockian suspense in terms of that bit where you're waiting for the characters to catch on and you're screaming at them going "don't go in that door" or "don't go to that person". It's a different dynamic.

What can you share about season six of The Walking Dead?

Every season I always feel like I'm talking about how the fact it's us doing more than we ever have before – we're doing bigger, our stories continue to get more ambitious and our cast grows.

We have 18 characters somewhere in there and we have a responsibility and an obligation to their characters and their storylines. It's a very complex season so far.

The season premiere has got to take the ship out of the hangar and set our story on the water. It's a fantastic episode that Scott Gimple wrote and I directed; it really does launch our characters story which will lead us through the entire first half of the season.

It lays all the groundwork in the first episode.

Fear The Walking Dead premiers in the UK tonight at 9pm on the AMC from BT channel in HD or for those on Freeview it'll also be on BT showcase. In the US the series continues Sunday nights at 9PM.

The Walking Dead returns October 11 in the US and October 12 in the UK with a special 90-minute premiere episode.

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