Services and applications

Assembling the IT emergency kit

Much of the world is consumed watching the coverage of the enormous disaster that recently struck Japan. As if a massive earthquake and subsequent major tsunami didn't cause enough death and destruction, they unleashed a cascade of failures that led to serious nuclear power plant accidents that have yet to be contained, and that threaten lives and indeed the inhabitability of an entire area of Japan. It's simply horrific.

We humans think that we're in control of, well, everything. We have plans and lists and goals and policies and fallback positions. Then something like this comes along … Read more

Amazon putting finishing touches on app store

The Android Market is about to face stiff competition in the next few weeks once the Amazon's app store goes live. In fact, the long awaited application distribution center may be the biggest competitor to the Google store, even more so than GetJar.

Earlier this week, Android users found that they could navigate their browser to amazon.com/apps where they would see a short list of apps and games. As initially discovered by AndroidNews, the Amazon store offered a few titles at prices lower than the Android Market, some as much as 40 percent less.

While most apps … Read more

Sprint lays out plans for future of Direct Connect service

After keeping us in suspense for the last couple months, Sprint today finally laid out concrete plans for the future of Nextel's Direct Connect network. The carrier says it will retain the basic elements of the push-to-talk (PTT) network, but it will transition the service from iDEN to CDMA by the fourth quarter of this year.

The move will be a centerpiece of the carrier's "Network Vision" program that it announced last December. By consolidating the incompatible networks, Sprint promises to enhance coverage and data speeds, boost capacity, increase network flexibility, and reduce operating costs.

Since … Read more

Family trades temper tantrums for iPad

When a school therapist suggested that a family buy their autistic 3-year-old son Hudson an iPad, the Holmquists were willing to give it a try, and turned to ChipIn to raise money for a tablet for their child. Now the family is telling news media the device is a miracle.

Hudson, who was diagnosed with autism in 2010, went from several violent meltdowns a day (including one screaming session that lasted from morning until late evening) to, well, fewer violent meltdowns.

"The iPad has given us our family back," Laura Hudson told FoxNews.com. "It's unlocked a new part of our son that we hadn't seen before, and given us insight into the way he connects with his world."

Perhaps more surprising is that autism experts aren't surprised. Hudson is able to use the tablet not just for gaming and making puzzles but even for communicating ideas to a family that is really just now getting to know the kid behind the tantrums. … Read more

Google rolls out Instant Previews on Android, iOS devices

Google announced earlier this week that it has enabled Instant Previews for Android handsets running Froyo (version 2.2) or later. Like its desktop counterpart, it allows you to see search results in a handy image format before clicking blindly on a link.

The feature is perfect for a number of scenarios, such as step-by-step instructions and how-to guides. What's more, providing a cached screenshot preview of the results is very convenient for smaller screens. I know I've grown frustrated by having to navigate the mobile browser back and forth, looking for the right page.

Instant Previews does … Read more

When ER doc consults iPad, don't panic

Nobody likes a conversation interrupted by the mobile-device grab, that increasingly familiar maneuver by which someone betrays a total lack of interest in said conversation and searches for whatever else might be going on in the world instead.

But when your physician gets device-happy in the middle of your next doctor's visit, even in the ER, chances are it's for a good cause, such as looking up the latest on your condition in a reference guide.

Rosen and Barkin's best-selling 5-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult has, for years, been a six-pound, 1,300-page clinical reference tome designed to support urgent care providers. Now, Unbound Medicine is releasing the new-and-improved fourth edition for mobile devices (including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, etc.) in a "proven, rapid-access format."

At $99.95, the price tag is heftier than it is for the paper product (at the time of this posting the hardcover is $81.64 on Amazon), but it features not only the guide's 600-plus urgent care topics and updated protocols and treatment guideline, but also personalized "favorites" (perhaps not the best word) for symptoms and conditions a user might encounter more frequently.… Read more

Twitter updates iPhone app

Just a few weeks after it updated its Android app, Twitter today sent out a major revamp of its free iPhone app to the iTunes App Store. As with most software updates, there are both good and bad changes here. The former definitely outweigh the latter, but Twitter needs to step in and correct one irritating addition. Here's the full list of changes.

What's welcome

A redesigned Tweet compose screen with buttons for adding usernames, hashtags, photos, and location Automatically shortens URLs to 20 characters (I like this, though having the option to use a third-party source would … Read more

Rumor: RIM's BlackBerry Messenger coming to Android, iOS

Research In Motion is said to be prepping cross-platform versions of its popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) application for release later this year. According to multiple sources close to Boy Genius Report (BGR), an Android version "is definitely a go" with an iOS counterpart also on the horizon. Android Atlas reached out to RIM to confirm the report, but spokeswoman Marisa Conway responded that "RIM's standard policy is to decline comment on rumors and speculation."

One theory is that a stripped-down, lighter version of BBM will allow Android users to communicate across platforms with other clients, … Read more

Hot spot coming to AT&T iPhone 4

After it unveiled the new iPad 2 today in San Francisco, Apple also announced that iOS 4.3, the latest software version for the iPad and GSM iPhones, will be available for download March 11.

Compared with iOS 4.2 the update doesn't bring a lot of new features, but it offers all iPhone 4 owners the personal hot-spot feature that debuted on the Verizon iPhone 4. We've expected as much since we saw the beta release of 4.3 in January, and AT&T has yet to confirmed that it will support the feature on its … Read more