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HarvestMark Food Traceability

| FREE | YottaMark, Inc.

Apps That Offer Football Bettors Analysis and Tips - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

For the last several years, my wife’s uncle has racked up a nearly 0.750 winning average in the weekly family football pool — besting the rest of us by a solid 60 points, while claiming to devote little attention to the process. As of this week, I’m taking him down. At least I’d better. With a $90 app and a pair of free ones that hold some promise, even weak prognosticators like me should be able to challenge N.F.L. sharps like him. Of those apps, Pro Football Picks Insider ($90 for iPad, $60 on Android) is the most ambitious. It is the creation of Pro Football Weekly, a publication that is well known to more ardent football fans. Picks Insider featured by far the most information, with analysis of the teams that drew the most bettors this week, for instance, as well as a “Consensus Lock” pick for the week as voted by the publication’s editors. Last week it was the Chicago Bears getting three and a half points versus the San Diego Chargers. (My family pool doesn’t use a point spread, but the Consensus Lock still helped me, as the Bears won by 11.) For the price, though, the app could be better. For one, it should offer results, analysis and betting lines that are updated more frequently. Last Friday evening, for instance, Picks Insider had yet to acknowledge in all sections of the app Denver’s victory the previous night over the New York Jets. At that point, the app had updated the weather forecast for Sunday’s games, but here I would have expected some analysis. Partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-30s were forecast for the game between the Buccaneers and the Packers in Green Bay, the app said. Do Florida teams show any statistical tendencies when playing Read More

Google Shopper

| FREE | Google Inc.

Top 10 Must-Have Android Apps - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

A few weeks ago, I compiled a list of essential iPhone apps for people who are too busy to sift through the roughly 300,000 titles in the App Store. Browse all the mobile app coverage that has appeared in The New York Times by category, and see what Times writers have on their phones and tablets. Android users have it even worse. Although there are fewer apps to peruse (around 100,000 at last count), the Android Market is a nightmare to navigate compared with the iTunes App Store. Yes, even though Google is the master of search, its Android Market’s search feature is less effective than Apple’s. The Market also has no answer for the App Store’s “Staff Favorites,” “Essentials” or “New and Noteworthy” selections, which pull good apps to the front of the catalog. But that’s why I’m here. Android users, I hereby present 10 indispensable apps and then some. (This list and other lists of favorite apps can be found at http://nyti.ms/fKliAm.) Some apps on my list are unique to Android, even though app developers still seem to develop for iPhone first. Oh, and the best part about the list? Almost all the apps are free. Let’s start with Google, which created the Android operating system. The company may do a poor job with the Market, but it creates — and, more to the point, it gives away — stellar software for Android devices. Google Search (free) is a huge time saver, thanks to the voice-search function. (Ask it for Wikipedia entries and it fetches. Speak the name of a retailer and it finds the nearest location.) And Google Maps (also free) is a big money saver, since it provides the same turn-by-turn navigation features you would have to pay $10 a month for on other phone platforms. But Read More

Pulse News Reader

| $3.99 | Alphonso Labs Inc.

Pulse, Popular App, Moves to Attract More Users - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Publishers’ offices at print newspapers and magazines are tension-filled places these days, as executives watch readers and advertisers flock to the Web and cellphone screens. Contrast that to the atmosphere at a sunny office on a residential street here, where, amid start-up accoutrements like a bouncy ball chair and a stuffed moose, a few engineers are working on Pulse News Reader, a mobile app that allows users to build a personal newsfeed with the newspapers, magazines and blogs of their choice. Spirits are high here because the app has been one of the top-selling news iPhone and iPad apps since its debut in May. And its breakout popularity suggests that the people behind Pulse may have begun to answer a question that nags publishers everywhere — how to deliver news and make money in a post-print world. Pulse’s success is underscored by two announcements expected on Monday from the company that makes the app, Alphonso Labs. The first is that the app, which has cost $1 to $4, will now be free; the goal is to attract more users, and with them, paid partnerships with publishers and advertisers. The company will also announce that it has raised $800,000 in venture capital, the first step in moving along the path from building an app to running a profitable business. Pulse allows people to search for publications, connect their Google Reader accounts or share publications by connecting their devices together, using an app called Bump. The publications appear vertically on the screen, and users scroll horizontally through recent articles from a publication, tapping to read an item. Pulse sends readers to the newspapers’ or blogs’ Web sites. “We were increasingly reading news on our mobile phones, and we were getting our news from a lot of different sources,” said Read More

picplz

| FREE | picplz.com

Photo Sharing on the Go Is the Latest Hot Investment Niche - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

SAN FRANCISCO — In Silicon Valley, the three words on the tips of everyone’s tongues are mobile, social and local. Add a fourth word and venture capitalists get excited: photos. A flurry of new start-ups is focused on mobile photo-sharing, some of which plan to make money from local advertising. The smartphone apps transform cellphone photos so they look better, tag them with location data and post them in real time to social networks on phones and the Web. The apps, like Instagram, Hipstamatic, DailyBooth and PicPlz, are generally free or cost a small amount. So far, they have been small-time projects for the people who built them. But now a few are trying to transform themselves into real businesses. Mixed Media Labs, the company that makes PicPlz, will announce on Thursday that it has raised $5 million from Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent venture capital firm. “It is annoying to take photos with your cellphone and have them look good and get them off your phone,” said Dalton Caldwell, co-founder and chief executive of Mixed Media who previously co-founded Imeem, the now-closed music site. “That solves a real need.” PicPlz offers an Android and iPhone app and a Web site. People take photos with their phones and can apply eight different filters to change their look, such as “the ’70s” or “Russian toy camera.” They can upload them to PicPlz, where others can view photo streams from a particular user or location, so it is like a visual version of Twitter. They can also send them to Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare. PicPlz is one of the newest wave of consumer tech products being built first as mobile apps, with the Web site as second priority — an idea that would have seemed foreign just a few years ago. “I think for Read More

textPlus Free Text + Calls

| FREE | GOGII, Inc.

Group Texting Apps Have Benefits for Adults - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Group texting is an activity that, in the past, seemed largely confined to teenagers at sleepovers. But the applications are limitless for adults concerned with life’s important moments. Trash-talking with buddies on game day? Meeting up with your friends and their children for the trick-or-treat circuit? A quick opinion from the ya-ya sisterhood on the dress you’re considering? Group texting is a great tool for these situations, and free smartphone apps like Fast Society (iPhone), textPlus 4 (Apple and Android devices), BrightKite (Apple, Android and BlackBerry) and GroupMe (iPhone and, next month, Android) have emerged to make it easier and smarter. Download one of these apps, invite others to join your group, and fire away. Other members of the group don’t need the app, as long as they have a phone and, presumably, an all-inclusive texting plan. BrightKite and textPlus offer the bonus of free texting, but a new competitor, Fast Society, is particularly valuable for what it doesn’t do: it requires no lengthy registration, and it will not keep a group text active into perpetuity. It also costs nothing, and it lets you easily make free conference calls. Fast Society’s ability to establish a group’s expiration date is a major advantage. Think about it. Groups are fluid things, with members coming and going according to the situation. You may want to connect with 12 people at a concert, or a bachelor party or convention, but after the event, who really wants to receive daily missives from the group member with sharing issues? And who wants to deal with the politics of cutting off the group discussion after a certain member’s last text? With most of the available group-texting apps, you can let a group lay fallow easily enough — and on GroupMe for iPhone, you can delete a group manually. Read More

Square

| FREE | Square, Inc.

State of the Art - A Simple Swipe on the iPhone, and You’re Paid - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

It’s always thrilling when somebody looks at the Way Things Have Always Been Done, and then asks: Why? And then goes on to change the world forever. 1967: Why is it necessary to wait in line for a human teller if all you want to do is withdraw cash? 1974: Why shouldn’t your document on the computer screen look the same way it will when it’s printed? 1991: If shampoo always settles to the bottom of the bottle, why is the cap on top? Recently, a San Francisco company has been asking an equally groundshaking question: Why can’t everyone accept credit cards? Look, credit cards are great. There’s a paper trail, there’s fraud protection, there’s incredible convenience — just swipe and go. But why is it that only companies accept them? Why can’t we use them to pay the piano teacher, the baby sitter, the lawn-mowing teenager, even first graders at their lemonade stand? Why aren’t credit cards accepted at garage sales, food carts and PTA bake sales? Heck, when your tipsy buddy wants to borrow $20 for a cab home, why can’t you eliminate the awkwardness and future conflict by just running his Visa card on the spot? “Well,” you’re surely spluttering, “because — well, just because! That’s just how it is. Only actual companies take credit cards, everyone knows that!” Yeah, but why? The company asking that question is called Square. Its chief executive is Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter — heard of it? Square is not only asking why, it’s proposing to change that rule for good. There are actually some good reasons individuals don’t accept credit cards; the whole system is a nightmare of fees and red tape. To become a credit card merchant, you have to buy the card-reading equipment, which costs several hundred dollars. You Read More

MoMA

| FREE | MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art

App Smart - Apps as Guides to New York Museums - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

The next time you’re about to visit a museum, do yourself a favor and drop in on your favorite app store first. Most institutions have not yet created a mobile app, but as a group, museums are headed in that direction. In the last few months, free apps were released by the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History, in New York; the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (which also has an Android app). I recently tested the newest museum apps for New York. While they take distinctly different approaches, they demonstrate the vast potential for technology to help people make the most of a museum visit. They can also point to a restroom in a hurry. The Museum of Natural History Explorer, which arrived in July, features a navigation system that, while flawed, helps users find exhibits and museum facilities more easily than with a printed map. While visiting the museum with my wife and two children, for instance, we knew we couldn’t tackle the entire building in a few hours, so we opened the Tours section of the app and chose the Highlights Tour from among the four itineraries listed. (We could have also found specific exhibits in a nicely arranged directory.) The Highlights Tour includes three options, depending on the number of preferred stops. The real magic of the app begins when it finds the nearest attraction, or plots a course between you and any other exhibit you choose. Unfortunately, it can be unreliable. In various places in the museum — near the Giant Sequoia exhibit, to name one — the device had a hard time finding me. A spokesman, Lowell Eschen, said the museum was still working out the kinks in its geolocation technology. Read More

CardStar

| FREE | CardStar, Inc.

App Smart - Apps Give You Loyalty Card Prices Without the Loyalty Cards - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

All those loyalty cards you have dangling off your keychain or plumping your wallet? Gone. In their place, smartphone users will have free apps like Key Ring or Cardstar on their cellphones. And if you’re the type who likes to search for bargains and clip coupons in the Sunday circular, these apps throw you a high-tech bone. Starting this week, Cardstar and Key Ring will include such things inside the app itself, so you can tap a button and have a coupon delivered to your cellphone. No snipping, no ink-stained hands. No worries about leaving the coupons behind on the kitchen counter. There are a few bumps along the way to this shopping utopia, and we’ll get to those in a minute. But as more supermarkets join the trend — as seems almost certain — and as the software developers fix some minor flaws, these apps could become essential to shopping. Both Key Ring (for Android and Apple devices) and Cardstar (for Android, Apple and BlackBerry devices) serve as repositories for your loyalty shopping card numbers. While you type your loyalty numbers into Cardstar, Key Ring uses your cellphone’s camera to scan the card’s bar code. This is a hit-or-miss proposition, though. Depending on which type of phone you have and how dog-eared your loyalty card is, you can waste huge amounts of time trying to enter your information this way. Fortunately you can simply type in the card number, the way a clerk might when the store’s scanner fails. You choose retailers from a list, or, if a local store isn’t on the app’s list, you can type in the name and enter your loyalty membership number, and the apps will create a new entry for you. Ideally, you could then go to the store, open the app during the Read More

ToonPAINT

| $1.99 | Toon-FX

App Smart - Paint, Sketch or Distort Bad Photos - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

I rarely take photos with my phone because I am a lousy enough photographer with a real camera. The various app markets brim with software to help people like me. But I recently stumbled onto something far more useful: apps that take your lousy shots and help you turn them into something ridiculous, bizarre or maybe even beautiful. The short list includes, for Apple users, ToonPaint ($2), SketchMee ($3 for iPhones, $5 for iPads), Unicorn Shots ($1) and Color Splash ($2). For Android are free apps like PicSay and Pic Paint. On BlackBerry, Picture Magic ($5), Doodle ($1) and PhotoColor ($3) are worth a look. As is almost always the case, there are more, and better, apps in this category for iPhone users than for those with Android or BlackBerry devices. For people who are contemplating their next phone, the broader issue here may be worth quickly noting. IPhone app developers can create programs for one platform and just a few (very powerful) devices, and sell them on what is arguably the best software market, iTunes. Android and BlackBerry developers have a potentially bigger market, given the number of devices in circulation. But developers grumble about tailoring their apps to so many different types of BlackBerrys and Android phones, only to have the apps sell weakly on the less popular software stores — the Android Market and BlackBerry AppWorld. Those factors could change, of course, but for now it means Apple users will benefit from better software. Take, for instance, ToonPaint. The app lets you quickly choose an image from your iPhone and transform it into a cartoonlike sketch. Using a small range of options, you can tweak the thickness and spacing of the lines, and then apply a Technicolor dash. ToonPaint’s developers deserve high marks for making software simple enough Read More

Google Goggles

| FREE | Google Inc.

App Smart - Seeing the World Through Phone Apps Like Goggles and Layar - NYTimes.com - The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

I have faith that once the novelty of the coolest new smartphone feature wears off, I will again walk the streets with my eyes open to the world around me, not to the screen of a smartphone. Until then, forget it. The best new thing to hit smartphones is augmented reality. These apps, like Goggles (free, for Android phones) and Layar (free, for Android and Apple devices), are like space-age glasses. Point your smartphone in any direction and look through the camera viewer, and it will reveal information about what it sees. Want to know the artist responsible for the print hanging in that restaurant? The name of the building with the enormous gargoyles? The last selling price of that house up ahead? Pull out your smartphone and press a button. There are limits, of course, even for apps like Goggles and Layar, which are two of the more promising entrants in this category. Neither will recognize your plate of beef stroganoff and tell you what’s in it, nor will they tell you the name and number of that beautiful stranger in the corner. But those limits are nothing compared to the jolt you’ll get when they work. I opened Google’s Goggles on a MyTouch 3G Slide, from T-Mobile, and pointed it at a reproduction of a vintage poster I’ve had hanging in my living room for years. The poster is in French. The app snapped the poster’s photo and I watched it quickly scan the text and image. A moment later the app offered a translation of the text and links where I could find the poster online. While in New Haven, Conn., last week, I pointed the app at the Yale Repertory Theater. Goggles scanned the sign and offered me a Wikipedia page on it, as well as a Read More