Google Maps Gets Public...

If you can step back for enough time to see some of the other things that Google does you would maybe see less of the evil, greedy Google that seems to be the popular point of view these days and see places where they actually help people. They do this even without taking your data and “forcing” you to use their Google+ service which is simply their front for world domination. Take the new Public Alerts feature in Google Maps. It’s pretty cool and it makes good sense.Whether you are traveling into an area where an alert might be in effect r you have concerns right near your home you can now check a map to get the information you want. On the Google LatLong blog here is an example of what you would see on a map if there were public alerts set in motion. If you click on an alert you will get the alert detail much like you would on the Weather Channel or from some other weather source. There’s not much else to discuss about this other than the thought that while we like to get whipped into a SilVal frenzy about Google’s “evil intentions” we should pay some attention to the smaller things as well. Maybe they should post a permanent alert over the Silicon Valley warning of heavy hot air gusts and limited visibility due to the fog of arrogance and self importance? I’m just wondering.

Want A Complete Year-En...

I’ve been meaning to write about this for awhile now, but I’ve been a bit under the weather and, well, email is not a subject I always enjoy — in discussion or in practice. Yes, as many have written before, we have a love-hate relationship with email, which has been shown in even starker relief with the redesign of Gmail. We first wrote about ToutApp back in June of last year and again in November , because they are a young startup (backed by some smart people) trying to give us a shot at greater email productivity. Put simply, ToutApp integrates with Gmail and scans your inbox to parse through emails to identify the most commonly-sent mass emails, then creates a dynamic template for that email chain, allowing users to autofill recipients, auto-CC, attach files, etc. ToutApp also lets your outbound emails be tracked both for views and clickthroughs, so that you know when the recipient of the email has opened it and is planning a response. It may sound invasive to some, but it’s a great tool, and you have to respect Tout Founder TK Kader’s perspective on email and entrepreneurship . Those put off by this scanning may balk at Tout’s year-end offer, but for those who receive a lot of email, I highly recommend it. ToutApp has been offering something called “Your 2011 Emails In Review” that gives you a thorough look at everything from how many emails you received versus how many you sent, to what time of day you spend most time in your email, to the top recipients of your emails. More than 10,000 people have jumped on the bandwagon, which shows that this has already been a big success, publicity-wise for Tout. Yes, you have to give Tout access to your email inbox, and as I said, some may balk at this. But if you’re willing, in less than 72 hours, Tout can give you a fairly complete set of analytics on your email habits. Catching a glimpse into your email activity can give you a better shot at productivity, efficiency, and, perhaps, a peace of mind. Perhaps not the latter, but at least your email will get a thorough vetting. It’s nice to know what time of day I’m at my busiest, what day of the week, what buzzwords appear most in my email chains, and who is the unfortunate soul who receives most of my email communications. (Your mom!) This can help improve working relationships, your relationship with your inbox, and perhaps even with yourself. I saw nearly 70,000 emails in 2011, and that doesn’t include my personal email. All in all, at over 100,000 emails, I saw how much people respond to the emails I wrote, and had the time for a bit of personal reflection on how best to optimize this percentage, along with how frequently I’m responding. Unfortunately, Tout’s Year In Review is only for Gmail and Google Apps users, but it’s worth a look for those Googlers out there, and it’s a great complement to ToutApp’s freemium CRM email service (and $1 iPhone app). Check it out, and let the emailing begin — with improvements for 2012.

Genius: New App Wakes Y...

This is smart: a new alarm clock application for the iPhone and Android wakes you earlier if it snowed last night. Called simply, “Winter Wake-Up,” the app lets you configure its settings to wake you up earlier than your scheduled alarm depending on weather conditions, with separate settings for both “Frost” and “Snow.” Credit where credit is due, I stumbled across the app not out of necessity (it’s 70

Amazon Debuts Store To ...

Amazon is making it easier for its users to discover recommended content today with the launch of a new ‘ best of’ digital store , where consumers can find recommendations from Amazon’s team of editors on the year’s best of movies & TV shows, music, video games, software, mobile apps, magazines and Kindle books and more. Basically, Amazon will recommend the best of any type of digital content that the company sells. Of course, the timing of the launch is meant to coincide with holiday shopping season, which has historically brought record sales of digital content for Amazon. Last year, from Christmas Eve through December 30, Amazon customers purchased over three times more digital content, including Kindle books, magazines, movies, TV shows, music, and digital games as compared to the weekly average for the year. Amazon says that in terms of specific days, the company sees the largest jump in digital product sales on Christmas and during the week following the holiday. Amazon has published lists of its Best Sellers for Kindle books and other categories, but this appears to be a more curated, editorialized list of content from Amazon experts. A centralized place for Amazon’s top recommendations for more than just books and movies makes sense considering the growing number of consumers who are looking to the e-commerce giant for software, apps, TV shows and more. And the destination could be a centralized place to find a variety of digital content for Amazon’s new tablet device, the Kindle Fire. Here’s a preview of some of the recommendations Amazon is making for books, magazines, TV shows, movies, Android app, Android games, and software: Top ten recommended Kindle books: 1. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Issacson 2. “11/22/63” by Stephen King 3. “The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach 4. “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” by Laini Taylor 5. “The Circus Ship” by Chris Van Dusen 6. “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle 7. “A History of the World in 100 Objects” by Neil MacGregor 8. “The Litigators” by John Grisham 9. “Then Again” by Diane Keaton 10. “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Top ten recommended magazines: 1. Us Weekly 2. Cosmopolitan 3. Vanity Fair 4. National Geographic 5. O, the Oprah Magazine 6. WIRED 7. Glamour 8. Better Homes & Gardens 9. Reader’s Digest 10. Men’s Health Top ten recommended movies: 1. The Social Network 2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 3. Bridesmaids 4. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest 5. X-Men: First Class 6. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 7. Crazy Stupid Love 8. You’ve Got Mail 9. Cars 2 10. The Fighter Top ten recommended TV shows: 1. Walking Dead 2. Arrested Development 3. Lost 4. Breaking Bad 5. Sons of Anarchy 6. The X Files 7. Sesame Street 8. Glee 9. Parks and Rec 10. Friday Night Dinner Top ten recommended albums: 1. Florence + the Machine, Ceremonials 2. Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More 3. Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon: Experience Version 4. Adele, 21 5. Bon Iver, Bon Iver 6. Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto 7. Foster the People, Torches 8. Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues 9. Wilco, The Whole Love 10. The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow Top ten recommended Android apps: 1. ESPN Score Center 2. LinkedIn 3. Quickoffice Pro 4. The Weather Channel for Android 5. EasyTether 6. Exchange by Touchdown 7. Pandora 8. Urbanspoon 9. MapQuest 10. Zillow Real Estate Top ten recommended Android games: 1. Angry Birds 2. Words with Friends 3. Bejeweled 2 4. Atari’s Greatest Hits (Missile Command Free) 5. Asphalt 6: Adrenaline 6. Plants vs. Zombies 7. Top Girl 8. Fruit Ninja 9. Cut the Rope 10. Little Piano Top ten recommended digital video games: 1. Battlefield 3 2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution 4. Dead Island 5. Saints Row: The Third 6. Dungeon Defenders 7. Magicka 8. Disney Universe 9. Sonic Generations 10. The Sims 3 Top ten recommendations for digital software: 1. Microsoft Office Home & Student 2010 2. Office Mac Home and Student 2011 (Family Pack) 3. TurboTax Deluxe Federal + E-file + State 2011 4. Norton 360 Version 5.0 5. Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade (Home Premium to Professional) 6. Quicken Deluxe 2012 7. Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 for Windows 8. Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set for Mac 9. PaintShop Pro X4 10. Anime Studio Debut 8

The Top 20 iPhone And i...

Editor’s note : Contributor Brad Spirrison is the managing editor of mobile app discovery services Appolicious , AndroidApps.com and AppVee . With this post, he continues an annual tradition of picking the best iOS apps of the year. It’s telling that Apple chose an app that debuted more than 14 months ago, Instagram, as its “ iPhone App of the Year ” for 2011. This should not imply that there was a shortage of quality and groundbreaking apps released this year. Far from it. From social magazines to music discovery apps to console-quality games that players can hold in the palms of their hands, there are hundreds of new titles in the iTunes App Store that will inform, organize, and entertain virtually anyone who owns an iOS device. As more choices become available to different kinds of consumers, however, it’s difficult to identify the undisputed champions of the app world. We picked 20 of the best iOS applications that came out or received significant updates in 2011. The list is a healthy mix of free and paid titles that can run on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. (We will follow up with a separate top 20 list just for games, which are not included in this list). There are hundreds of additional titles worthy of mention, and we selected our favorites based on the production value of an app more than its popularity on the Top Seller charts. You might take issue with some of the apps included here as well. But with about 600,000 apps available for iOS devices, everyone is entitled to their own favorites. Here are ours. 1. Flipboard After launching exclusively on iPads last year, this pioneering social magazine expanded to all iOS devices in December. Significant updates to the app — including LinkedIn integration and the inclusion of many more third-party publishers like Conde Nast — make Flipboard the best iOS app of 2011. The new iPhone-specific Cover Stories feature that showcases what users are most interested in is also a game-changer. 2. Photosynth Who would have thought that one of the most enjoyable and innovative iPhone apps of the year would be developed by Microsoft. That’s the case with Photosynth, which lets users quickly and reliably capture panoramic 360-degree gyroscopic images simply by moving their cameras. 3. SoundTracking This next-generation music detection app lets users not only identify what song they are listening to, but also seamlessly share the track with friends and followers from Facebook, Twitter and foursquare. SoundTracking also lets users tap into what their friends are listening to and tagging. 4. Google Translate This language translation app from Google excels above all others for its ability to audibly translate spoken words into other languages. Google Translate’s simple and elegant interface translates text between 63 languages and lets users star notable translations and access them for later use. 5. SkyView – Explore the Universe City dwellers in particular appreciate this astronomy app which uses augmented technology to display stars, planets and satellites that otherwise would be obscured. The dead simple point-and-use functionality, 3D graphics and snippets of celestial background information can make anyone a happy and well-informed stargazer. 6. GarageBand While Apple created an ecosystem for thousands of third-party developers to innovate and market their wares to iOS devices, the company is also capable of producing its own killer apps. Having GarageBand available on the fly for less than five bucks is music to the ears of working and aspiring musicians and podcasters. 7. Tiger Woods: My Swing This app, which is also available on the iPad, is arguably Tiger’s greatest professional accomplishment of 2011. Users can compare side-by-side videos of their swings next to Tiger’s. For those spooked by Tiger’s potential skills regression, an option exists to customize alternate “swing lines.” 8. iMuscle Beyond measuring heart rates and determining how many calories are burned during a workout, iMuscle — also available as a separate iPad application — provides more than 450 unique exercises and stretches. Fittingly, the app offers 3D views to help users target the muscles and areas of the body that deserve the most focus. 9. Snapseed While there were worthy and less expensive photo editing apps released for the iPhone and iPad this year, none were better than the $4.99 Snapseed. The app’s user-friendly interface combines a nice mix of basic editing tools and cool effects that will please beginner photographers and experienced shutterbugs alike. 10. Super 8 Super 8 is an innovation in advertising as much as it is a real cool retro camera app. A promotion for the JJ Abrams/Steven Spielberg film of the same name, the app lets users create their own Super 8-style movies on their iPhones (scratch overlays and shaky cameras included). Nice to see a major studio release something more thoughtful than a cheesy commercial. 11. Spotify Spotify was worth the wait. Three years after launching in Europe, this music streaming service finally made its way to North America in July. The iOS application combines access to Spotify’s deep library with great playlist creation and social networking capabilities. Well worth the $10 monthly subscription for hardcore music fans tired of iTunes. 12. Pinterest Embracing the minimalist style of Tumblr, this blogging app allows users to create virtual bulletin boards of their favorite things. Friends and followers can then re-pin their own comments on words and images that attracted them. This is not an app for the verbose. 13. Quora A must-have mobile extension to the popular questions and answers site, the Quora app captures information about nearby locations using the GPS capabilities found within iOS devices. Where else can you tap into the collective wisdom of the digerati wherever you travel? 14. Weather+ With mainstays like The Weather Channel and Accuweather already available for iOS devices, it’s difficult for other upstarts to find any sunlight. Weather+ shines through the clouds by providing looped visualizations of each type of weather forecast displayed at any time of the day. 15. IntoNow A Shazam for television, IntoNow identifies what a user is watching on TV merely from picking up signals from its audio track. IntoNow, which was recently purchased by Yahoo!, uses proprietary fingerprinting technology called SoundPrint. The app also makes it easy to share what you’re watching with friends and followers. 16. Bill James Baseball IQ Armchair baseball general managers can now access the Sabermetric wizardry of acclaimed baseball statistician Bill James with this free iOS app (that debuted for $14.99). The level of detail here is unprecedented for any piece of software that can be displayed in a device smaller than a baseball mitt. 17. Google Currents Google’s Flipboard competitor is the best pure news aggregator available for mobile devices. While currently no match for Flipboard in terms of social integration, Google Currents is faster and offers more intuitive customization options with third-party publishers. Not surprisingly, it’s also the best way to tap into Google+ profiles from thought leaders like Robert Scoble and Guy Kawasaki. 18. HBO GO Beyond the premium content this app serves up to HBO subscribers, HBO GO is pioneering how broadcast and cable networks make programming available to users on-the-go. The ability to tap into an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm from any place at any time is a pretty, pretty, pretty good thing to have. 19. Procreate Simply the best painting app available for the iPad. The clean and simple interface enables painting in real time. There is enough variety and options to appeal to painting pros as well as talentless amateurs just having some fun. 20. Garmin StreetPilot onDemand While turn-by-turn navigation technology is not revolutionary, packaging it within a 99-cent app (with an eventual $2.99 monthly subscription) is. The app also features great pedestrian-friendly walking directions. Top image:  Daniel Y. Go