Applications

iPhone Public Radio app adds on-demand content

Is today my birthday? No? Because I just got one helluva gift: Public Radio Player 2.0, the latest version of the killer radio-streaming app, which now lets you listen to your favorite shows on-demand.

Missed last week's "This American Life"? No problem. The app has the latest episode. Want to catch up on "Talk of the Nation Science Friday?" You'll find several weeks' worth of back catalog. Same goes for "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me," "Fresh Air," "Marketplace," and countless other radio gems.

Granted, you can … Read more

GoodFood App - The Dinner Saver

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm not a fan of driving around cities I'm not familiar with. My sense of direction is nearly non-extinct and I often stick to the interstate, only venturing off for gasoline and food. When I do need one of these necessities, I do my very best to get them close to an on and off ramp so I can't get lost.

Because of my fear of big city adventure, I'm often found eating fast food, and I miss out on the good eats I might be able to find just a street … Read more

More Shots at Google

Someone needs to rectify the growing disparity of applications that Google has for other mobile users and what is available on the Palm units. I had hoped that the Pre would bridge this gap with the new webOS offering incentive for engineers to expand their audience reach, but so far to no avail.

I mentioned previously about my frustrations with the lack of a built in public transit on the Google Maps application. This time around it is Google Latitude that I have found out is not available.

Now, I was nowhere near as upset about this one because my … Read more

Twitcam turns Twitter into a video streaming hub

The folks at the video broadcasting service Livestream have a new tool out for Twitter users called Twitcam that lets anyone with a Twitter account start streaming their own show, complete with live chat.

Each page the service creates gets its own URL, which users can come back to at any point and watch once the live-streaming portion of the show is over.

As for the chat, it's all handled via tweets. Anytime someone replies to one of your tweets where the link to the show is included, the app counts it as a reply. It then aggregates these in one place, so everyone who is watching your show can see the entire conversation. It's not exactly the best way to handle it, since sometimes it's nice to have some basic text chatter that doesn't fill up your Twitter stream with stray tweets, but it's done in a way that keeps everything tightly-organized.

Livestream says that Twitcam was built in about a week and uses new player tools that are going into an updated version of its API that will be released in the near future. The company hopes these will let anyone build a similar service with their own branding, and audience tools--preferably with a chat system that does not require so many tweets.

An archive of the live chat I used while testing this service out is embedded after the jump.

See also: Justin.tv's CamTweet (which is in private beta)… Read more

Pre WiFi (easy breazy!)

Connecting to Wireless Internet on the Pre is really quite easy, and very handy. By choosing the WiFi option from the Applications (or even touching on the top right of the screen and choosing "turn Wifi on") it immediately starts looking for networks. While I did not try out all types of wireless protection (like WEP, WPA, WPA-2, etc...), I did log on to a open network, an open network with a portal requiring a password to proceed to the internet, and onto a friends protected network; I was able to easily connect to each. I found on the password protected portal, I was easily redirected to the login page, but once I authenticated, it was difficult to tell it was successful and tried to keep re-entering my password. However, I opened a new browser found I was connected no problem.

… Read more

Sprint Navigation = Fail

I was raised in the country. While I'm good on the road and am a confident traveler I tend to find myself tensing up when I enter an unfamiliar city.

When I got my Samsung Instinct I was so excited because I now had GPS navigation with me at all times.

Or so I thought.

The Sprint Navigation has gotten me lost on several occasions and tends to annoy and frustrate me more than it helps. I don't know if it just doesn't update often enough, or what, but as you're passing the road you should … Read more

Today only: Free astronomy apps for iPhone

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, astronomy apps SkyGazer and SkyVoyager are available free of charge from the App Store. Normally they're priced at $2.99 and $14.99, respectively.

SkyVoyager is a planetarium app that gives you a precise view of the sky from any position on Earth. If you have a telescope that's linked to a computer, the app can control it via Wi-Fi.

SkyVoyager features a database of 300,000 stars and 30,000 deep-sky objects. Definitely sounds like a must-have for hardcore astronomers.

If you're a beginner or … Read more

Pre Users Have LOTS of Media Syncing Options

A brief overview of media syncing options for the Pre.

Okay, so, say what you will about iTunes, Palm Pre users have many solid options for syncing media.

Pre Central just released a great overview and description of the many options and why you might prefer one over the other. Since I am a Macbook Pro user, I'll be looking at the following Mac-friendly options:

1. DoubleTwist (Free) about which Pre Central says, "If you feel like sticking with iTunes and don't want to deal with the hassle of not updating, then doubleTwist media sync is for … Read more

Mac Office gets service pack update

Microsoft is releasing the second service pack update to Office 2008 for Mac, the company said Monday.

The free update, which is expected to be available later on Monday from Microsoft's Web site, is designed to improve speed and stability as well as add new features for connecting to SharePoint servers and to Microsoft's Office Live Workspaces.

"With SP2 we are not only delivering on top customer requests midcycle, but also taking a first step in bringing Microsoft software plus services to Mac users," senior product manager Mike Tedesco said in a statement. "This connection … Read more