Portable Electronics Ltd // Technology you can carry.

Look out Google, you may have a new, unlikely challenger.(author unknown)

My new favorite Twitter app is my6sense. It's also my new favorite Facebook app. And my new favorite Google Reader app, and my new favorite Google Buzz app. My6sense pulls content from all those streams together, along with other content on topics you choose, and, based on what you read and share, learns to serve you the content you'll likely be most interested in. Their press release puts it best:

"Unlike other applications, which rely on editorial input, social referrals, or popularity, the my6sense smart reader application intuitively senses what's important to each user and prioritizes content for everyone as an individual — making content consumption seamless, efficient, and most importantly, personally relevant."

An iOS version has been available for some time, but be assured, this is no clone. It feels like a true Android app, makes use of the native "Share" intent and includes a widget. My6sense is free and hits the Android Market this morning. Go snap it up and let us know what you think!

Update: The Android masses have temporarily brought my6sense's servers to their knees, causing server errors within the app. Says something about how our numbers are growing, doesn't it? The folks at my6sense are aware of the issue, and working to fix it.

The full press release is below.

my6sense launches the world’s most intelligent personalized stream reader for Android
Company expands reach of “Digital Intuition” app to deliver the ultimate social and news content experience.

TEL AVIV, September 2 2010 – my6sense, developers of the world’s first personalized stream reader that uses 'Digital Intuition' technology, announced the launch of its Android app, aimed to revolutionize the way we receive and discover content. Extending the reach of the popular program to the world’s fastest-growing mobile platform, my6sense is also the first company to add ranking support for Google’s social sharing network, Buzz. The free Android application is available immediately for download at the Android marketplace.

Unlike other applications, which rely on editorial input, social referrals, or popularity, the my6sense smart reader application intuitively senses what's important to each user and prioritizes content for everyone as an individual — making content consumption seamless, efficient, and most importantly, personally relevant.

Using the company’s leading ‘Digital Intuition’ ranking technology and equipped with rich, intuitive features, the new app transforms users’ social and news streams into a powerful and unique content discovery experience.

One of the major features that enhance this approach to more efficient contentis a dashboard widgetwhich dynamically surfaces users’ most valuable informationnuggets. This gives users ‘Instant Intuition’ – immediate access to view their most-relevant content and updates directly on the home screen of their Android device.

Additional killer features include: a main channel displaying the user’s most important updates and content from all sources (news, RSS, blogs and social streams), streams of personalized top content which users can view with just one click from Social Networks such as Facebook and Twitter, fresh content packages from a wide array of topics and a search tool. On top of that, users can share items directly from the app, and there is no limit to the number of feed subscriptions one can have – as my6sense’s intelligent personalization engine can take on the challenge of information overload, surfacing the very best and most relevant content.

Moreover, my6sense is delighted to announce that the application offers support for Google’s new social network, Buzz, leveraging the service’s powerful API. The result is the first application in the world to prioritize Google Buzz entries, doing so in a clean and intuitive way for the mobile device.

As the world of information morphs from a web of static pages to real-time streams, my6sense's groundbreaking digital intuition technology tames the vast amount of information cluttering news feeds and social sites. The application’s hyper-personalized streams allow users to focus on the content they want to see, at the right time and in the right context. The company has enjoyed significant success with its iPhone application, and is excited to join the millions of smartphone users who have made Android their choice for mobile computing.

"my6sense’s digital intuition technology discovers the finest nuances of your preferences and behavior — and makes sure the right updates, ideas, insights, and news will find you when you want them most," said Barak Hachamov, Founder & Chairman, my6sense. "Android customers have made their platform choice to avoid limits on what they can or cannot do with their phone, and we too want to avoid limiting your experience to traditional streams based on time or simplistic filters."

Personalization is claimed these days by few content curation tools and social streams. The majority of these tools base their rankings almost entirely on global and socially-local popularity of the information. Instead, my6sense views various popularity factors as only one piece of a very complicated puzzle that forms individual preferences of each one of us. In fact, the importance of popularity may significantly vary between the users, and even for the same user in different contexts. Focusing on true personalization of information delivery, my6sense intelligently (and transparently) considers each user's natural information consumption behavior to truly understand what and in what context that user would like to see first.  As a result, the personal "Digital Intuition" agent of each user at my6sense learns to mimic the human ranking function of its owner, providing him with an enhanced content experience.

In addition to the company’s new Android application and existing iPhone application, my6sense recently announced their Attention API. The API allows developers to harness my6sense as a customization engine, personalizing their content stream for their users. The new wave of social recommendation feed readers, for example, could offer hyper-personalization. Two companies leveraging my6sense’s personalization service include a business social networking site in the UK and the largest mobile operator in Israel.

Download This: my6sense originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

UPDATE: It seems there is an overwhelming amount of requests to my6sense’s servers, causing users to have trouble downloading the application. my6sense is aware of the issue, and hopefully you should be able to download my6sense shortly.

With the rapid expansion of the internet over the last few decades, we now have a tremendous amount of information readily available at our fingertips. With 24/7 RSS feeds, news blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc., we are constantly being overloaded with information. One company is attempting to streamline the way we consume this content by providing an innovative new way to customize our content according to our viewing behavior.

You’ve probably never heard of my6sense. This is probably for good reason as until now, their smarter RSS reader has only been available on that fruity company that shall remain nameless. At about 11am EST this morning, my6sense went live on the Android market. So what exactly is my6sense, you ask? And why does it matter?

On the surface, my6sense is a way to streamline your feed so that your Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Buzz all appear within the same stream that can be sorted by either relevance or time of posting. Below the surface however lies something my6sense calls “Digital Intuition,” which continually learns about your viewing behavior while you are viewing content in the my6sense application. my6sense then uses this learning to customize your content so that ultimately what shows up at the top of your feed are only the things you were likely to click on already.

How they accomplish this continually learning AI is somewhat of a mystery to me, though my6sense is willing to bet it’s a mystery to you as well. On the main screen of their homepage, there’s a box entitled “What the hell is Digital Intuition?” in which they encourage users who think they have my6sense’s Digital Intuition process figured out to send an email with a description or video to the applications creators. This is a pretty confident message on the part of my6sense, but reviews of the iPhone application posted on their website (from prominent sources nonetheless) seem to suggest that my6sense is really onto something with their Digital Intuition process.

So how well does my6sense actually work? Honestly, I have no idea, as I’ve only been using my6sense for a little over an hour. The beauty of my6sense is that it gets better and better the more you use it, so it’s a bit too soon to tell. You can be sure I will post a full review in a week or two once I get a better feel for my6sense. For now, I encourage you all to try it right along with me and let us know what you think in the comments.

my6sense is now available on the Android market for the low low price of free. At launch it will only support 1.6+, but will be adding support for 1.5 devices in coming weeks.  For more information on the app, head over to my6sense’s website.

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Angry Birds. The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake! Dish out revenge on the greedy pigs who stole their eggs. Use the unique powers of each bird to destroy the pigs’ fortresses. Angry Birds features challenging physics-based gameplay that requires logic, skill, and force to crush the enemy.

Price: Free

AndroidTapp.com Android Game Review:Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Very fun, challenging and addictive game which makes it so popular
• Really smooth game graphics and game play

Cons

• Although in “Beta” some HTC Evo & HTC Incredible owners are getting “Forced Closed” errors

Features:

Angry Birds is one of the most popular games for iPhone and has made  it’s way to Android with a “Beta” label. Your objective is to sling up to five angry birds at a loosely made structure with pigs inside and destroy it all giving the birds their vengeance. Get bonus points for destroying it all with birds left over, else if you don’t destroy it all and use all your birds you fail the round.

Video: Angry Birds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNNzRyd1xz0

Fun Factor & Addictive:

What makes this game a hit is how easily it becomes addictive and can have you spending hours figuring out best possible ways to destroy the structures in the least possible slings.

Graphics:

Angry Birds on Android has the same super smooth graphics and game play as on iPhone. The stages can be panned around to get a better idea of where you need to strike, merge that with fluid parallax movement and vibrant vector graphics and you’ve got a lively winner!

Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:

Angry Birds features background sound effect snickers, which sound familiar to Gizmo and Gremlin tauts from the classic Steven Spielberg movies, that can be toggled.

AndroidTapp.com Rating

(4.3 out of 5)

Should you Download Angry Birds? Yes! Definitely check out this highly fun and addictive game!

This content was originally posted at AndroidTapp.com

If you are looking for a marble-rolling, maze-traveling game, Lava Ball 3D is the game for you.

Please note: you will not be able to run this on 1st generation Android devices. I would only run this game with at least a 1GHz processor. I tried it on a MyTouch 3G and it locked on the level select screen. I then reviewed it on an EVO and it ran like a champ. It seems the lag is caused by the lava background.

The free version allows 4 levels of game play. The full version offers 32.

The are 4 modes: Preview, Practice, Arcade, and Hardcore.
Preview mode only allows you to view the map by scrolling around to find all the gems before playing.
Practice mode doesn't award points and you re-spawn when you die. There are no points awarded in this mode.
Arcade mode requires you to colled all green gems within a specific time limit. When you die, you lose $50 and re-spawn from the last gem.
Hardcore mode requires you to collect all the purple gem with in a specific time limit. Purple gems can be much more difficult collect than the green. When you die in the mode, you lose. No re-spawning.

The game play is truly Marble Madness meets Labyrinth, as mentioned on the developers site. It is very challenging to grasp the controls at first. The control you have over the ball is incredible. You can drop the ball over a side and bring it back to collect gems. When you fall into the Lava there is a obnoxious scream each time without an option to disable sound. You have to turn down the media volume to disable.  The game is fun, but VERY challenging.

App Review: Lava Ball 3D originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

Lease coming up and looking to move? College student heading back to school for the new school year and looking for a different place to stay? Padmapper hopes to provide you with the tools to make your search as easy as possible, and it does the job quite well.

Launching the Padmapper application takes you to the all familiar Google maps, where you can either use geolocation to search for apartments and houses to rent around your current location, or you can scroll around on Google maps to find your preferred location and search houses and apartments there.

Simply click the menu button, then “search here”, and Padmapper will search Craigslist, Apartments.com, ForRent.com, Ookla, and other apartment websites to find the apartment or house of your dreams! The apartments appear as the standard Google map markers, and clicking on one of the markers quickly pulls up more information on the selected location. You can then click on a website link to go to the full listing, place a green marker so you can come back to that listing later if you like it, or email or call the person who listed the apartment or house to get more information.

Even better, Padmapper allows you to filter your search by selecting the minimum and maximum number of bedrooms, and bathrooms, the total price of the apartment, and the maximum price per bed. You can also filter by sublets/non-sublets, and apartments that allow dogs or cats.

Pretty awesome stuff, actually, and I wish I had something like this back when I was in college looking for apartments.

Pros

• Easy and intuitive to navigate. If you understand Google Maps, you’ll understand Padmapper.
• Filters make your search as easy as humanly possible.
• Very easy to contact the people listing the house or apartment right from your device.
• Search is as simple as scrolling around the map.
• Easy to tag places of interest by clicking on the map marker, then the frog icon. The marker will then turn green, which stands out pretty well.

Cons

• Not a dang thing (see below)

Final Verdict

Yes, I’m skipping right over the cons, because as hard as I try, I can’t find anything wrong with this application. Yes, some people if you read the market comments have had some problems with selection, or glitchiness, but I haven’t experienced any of those issues.

Bottom line: If you’re in the market to rent a new apartment or house, you need to give Padmapper a try. It’s pretty damn awesome, and I only wish it had been invented sooner.

Padmapper can be found for free on the Android Market.

Padmapper Padmapper Inc. MARKET QR Gallery

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Well, what have we here? It seems that popular mega-retailer Target has quietly released an Android application into the market. Though the 1.0.1 release is still fairly basic, it still manages to sport all the basics people might need from an Android app, and will hopefully only get better with time.

The main screen has three ways to view Target content; users can view the weekly ad for their region, view clearance items, or college essentials. I assume the college essentials will be a seasonal topic that will change from time to time, but without an official press release (that I can find anyway), it’s a bit too soon to tell.

After perusing a bit through some items, it doesn’t appear that you can purchase anything directly through the Target application, but you can view the item’s availability at nearby stores (right down to the aisle you can find the product on), and get directions and store hours for your store of choice. This feature could come in pretty handy, though it would be very nice to see them add the ability to purchase items from directly within the application.

One additional feature the Target app integrates that is a bit surprising is a barcode scanner. I don’t know what use the barcode scanner is going to have other than looking up a price for something that might not have a price displayed, but the inclusion of the scanner is enough to pique my curiosity. I don’t believe Target would go the route of allowing customers to price compare like a ShopSavvy or a Barcode Scanner would, so time will tell whether or not the barcode scanner will actually come in handy for anything.

The Target app is currently available in the Android Market for the low, low price of free. Head on over to the market and download it today! Make sure to let us know what you think about the Target application in the comments.

Target Target Inc. MARKET QR Gallery

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UPDATE 2: Seems it might work on all devices 1.6+ as Rovio promised. There were just some market installation glitches.

UPDATE: It seems Angry Birds only works on the market for Android 2.2.

Earlier this morning, Rovio Mobile released  their highly-anticipated Angry Birds Lite Beta onto the Android Market. Angry Birds was initially released on the iPhone in December of 2009, and quickly became one of the most popular games in the Apple App Store.

For those who haven’t heard of Angry Birds, the game puts you as a flock of birds trying desperately to get back your eggs that were stolen by a group of no-good pigs. Each level has the pigs hiding in various structures, and you have to slingshot your aviary-bretheren as weapons to try to knock down the pig structures. Gamers unlock new levels by making sure that either every pig is either directly hit, or by knocking down the structures that house them.

Gameplay

The Gameplay is simple and addictive. Simply draw your finger backwards on the screen and adjust your trajectory upward or downward, and let that birdie fly to knock out those thieving pigs.

Game Depth

Though the beta only has twenty levels, it looks like the final version will have hundreds of different levels, which should amount to hours and hours of fun. Now, this is just speculation based on the beta release, but we will provide all the information in our full review once Angry Birds hits the market for real.

Overall Impressions

I only played Angry Birds for about 15 minutes, but had to practically tear myself away in order to write this mini-review. I think we can safely say that once Angry Birds is released, it is going to be one of the top games on the Android platform.

If you haven’t yet tried out the Angry Birds Lite Beta (which we couldn’t blame you considering it’s only been out for an hour or so), we highly encourage you to head over to the market to try it out for yourself!

Angry Birds Lite Beta Rovio Mobile MARKET QR Gallery

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Vlingo continues to push their voice application forward, adding new features and enhancements all the time. Today finds the company partnering with foursquare to make check-ins even easier. Now, it's possible to tap the screen and say "Check in to Taco Bell" rather than opening foursquare and checking in manually. Further, it's possible to find out where your friends are by simply saying, "Where are my friends?" or "Who's nearby?" into the voice widget.

I spent some time playing with the latest build of Vlingo and absolutely love it. It's far more accurate than most folks would expect it to be, and a breeze to learn. Aside from the foursquare integration, users can also have the app help with texts, emails, directions, and open apps. If you're running an Android phone with 2.0 or higher, I definitely recommend downloading Vlingo.

*****PRESS RELEASE*****

Vlingo Partners with foursquare
Checking In Just Got Easier With Voice

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (September 2, 2010) – Vlingo Corporation, the world’s leading provider of intelligent voice applications that turn your words into action, today announced a new feature for Android users that allows consumers to use foursquare simply by speaking to their phone. With a seamless integration, Vlingo users can now speak to their phone to check in, connect with their friends, or shout out an update on foursquare.

“Location and social networking have become an integral part of consumers’ everyday lives—so having a strategic alliance with foursquare to provide users with a simple, easy way to connect with their friends is a natural fit for Vlingo,” said Hadley Harris, VP of Marketing at Vlingo. “Vlingo’s mission is to quickly connect our customers to the people, businesses, and services that are important to them. Integrating with foursquare’s industry leading platform is a natural way to help facilitate those connections.”

"We've been very impressed by Vlingo's applications and we're thrilled that they've decided to support the foursquare platform," said Holger Luedorf, VP of Mobile and Partnerships for foursquare. "By making it easier for Android users to check in and communicate with friends through foursquare, Vlingo is broadening our consumer appeal."

Vlingo’s integration with foursquare raises the bar for social applications because users now have the flexibility in how they connect with the people that are important to them. By just speaking into their Android device, users can use their voice to launch foursquare and:

Check in to locations
o Check in Hong Kong Express
o Check into Logan Airport
Locate friends
o Where are my friends?
o Who's nearby
Send shout outs
o Shout headed to Fenway for the Sox game
o foursquare shout at Starbucks grabbing a latte

This latest release of Vlingo also lets users conveniently share Vlingo with their friends easily with the new “Share Vlingo” button. They can also update Facebook, Twitter and/or foursquare at the same time by just saying “social update” and speaking the update.

“Vlingo widget” to:

send text and email messages
search the web using Google or Yahoo!
update Facebook and Twitter status
open built-in and 3rd party applications
speak into any application with the Vlingo Everywhere voice keyboard
SafeReader – hear incoming text & email messages while you drive
SuperDialer - one-click calling to an infinite address book, and reviews, maps and directions for
any business.

Availability, Compatibility and Price
Vlingo is available for Android 2.x and above. U.S. users can download Vlingo on device from the
Android Market for free. Click here to see how you can use foursquare with voice.

Vlingo plans to roll out this functionality to other Vlingo supported platforms in a future release.

Follow Vlingo on Facebook at http://facebook/vlingopage, on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vlingo and on the Vlingo blog at http://blog.vlingo.com for regular news and updates.

About Vlingo
Vlingo’s intelligent voice applications turn your words into action. Simply speak to your phone to connect with the people, businesses and activities that are important to you. Vlingo is the safest and easiest way to get things done while on the go. Send text and email messages, search the web, use Google maps, update Twitter and more. Founded in 2006, Vlingo is backed by Charles River Ventures, Sigma Partners, Yahoo! and AT&T and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more
information, go to www.vlingo.com.

About foursquare
Foursquare is a mobile application that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. It is a friend-finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things, and rewards them for doing so. Foursquare lets users "check in" to a place when they're there, tell friends where they are and track the history of where they've been and who they've been there with. For more information on foursquare, visit http://foursquare.com/about.

Vlingo Continues to Evolve, Partners with foursquare originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

Our friends from Hexage have just announced that downloads of their Android games have surpassed one million and to celebrate they are having a special sale this weekend. Hexage currently has four games in the Android Market including Everlands, Totemo, Radiant, and Buka. Starting this weekend (Sept. 4-5) you will be able to purchase any of these hit titles for less than 0.99 USD.

All of the games have free demos in the Market, so check them out now to see which you enjoy (Tip: my fav is the old-school shooter Radiant).

Show Press ReleaseWe are happy to announce that downloads of our free lite games — Radiant, Everlands, Totemo, and Buka — have surpassed 1 MILLION!

“We would like to thank all of you who decided to play our games by setting up a LIMITED TIME SALE 60% OFF on all Hexage games.

Visit the Android Market this weekend and purchase any of our games for less than 0.99 USD!”

Sale will begin on Saturday 4th and it will last till Sunday 5th.

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CoPilot Live is a fully-featured GPS system for your Android device. It includes turn-by-turn directions, live traffic, local gas prices, various route options, and more.

Price: $19.99 – $59.99

We’re giving away 2 full licenses of CoPilot Live (North America) at random to those who comment below! Contest ends on Sunday, October 12th, 2010.AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:(Tested using an HTC Evo running Android 2.2)
Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Maps are downloaded directly onto your SD card so navigation features work even without a wireless connection as long as GPS in enabled
• Multi-stop trips
• Lane assist eliminates confusion in unfamiliar multi-lane high traffic areas
• Additional maps are available for other countries such as Europe, UK, Australia, and more
• Route recalculation is quick and seamless

Cons

• HUGE download. The North America region download for this app is almost 2GB stored to your SD card
• No voice search feature. One of the most used functions on my Evo with the 2.2 upgrade.

Features:

CoPilot Live is a great app for anyone who finds themselves using GPS navigation often. This, of course, coming from someone who uses Google Maps often, having the offline capability was a huge plus! CoPilot sets itself apart from other navigation softwares by simply offering many services you would normally find only on a dedicated GPS device. Even better, you have more than one voice to choose from rather than the standard TTS voice (which on long trips can get annoying and causes use of the mute button) your given using Google Maps. This application is available on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows Mobile. On your desktop, you can customize a variety of features for CoPilot Live using the free Windows software called CoPilot Central, also available from ALK.

There are several versions you can buy of this app (All available in the Android Market): North America, South Africa, UK + Ireland, Europe, and Australia. Using this app I only tested the North American maps in their most current form.

Key Features:

• Accurate navigation to either house number or street level
• Quick re-routing when needed. I’m no longer nervous about missing a turn! Pre-loaded maps allows on the SD this to be possible.
• Several different views for navigation to choose from (2D, 3D, and Driver Safety)
• Enhancements such as speed limit indicator and lane indicator display just makes using this app that much safer
• Works in either landscape or portrait mode
• Thousands of POIs available for North America (almost too much to handle!)
• Share location via SMS. Cool feature to let your loved ones know where you are.
• Navigation available either by car, motorcycle, bicycle, RV, or walking. (I only tested the car method but feel free to send me a motorcycle or RV!)
• Download maps for several areas on one SD card
• Live Services (see below)

Live Services:

CoPilot offers a variety of different premium services that requires a data connection. Not all services are available in all areas. These are:

• Live Weather: Choice of local weather, at destination, or in another city (either Fahrenheit or Celsius). Provided you with current and 5-day outlook including highs & lows with weather conditions for the day. Clicking any of the 5 days will send you externally to AccuWeather’s websites.
• LiveLink: I was unfortunate enough not to get to try this out but it sounds very interesting. In theory, you would share you location with others either via their CoPilot Live application on-screen or via email to others through the CoPilot LiveLink website. I could see this being very useful amongst a group of travellers, only if everyone had the same application installed.
• Live Traffic: Shows any traffic-related incident in the area. Throughout my usage, I typically found construction as the items it provided me with. It separates this in two formats: via Map or via list of major highways effected. You can choose to automatically avoid the incident or select it manually.
• Live Fuel Prices: Shows the prices of nearby gas stations. Great information but no way to change whether the information is sorted by price or distance without going into the settings. Does allow you to be specific on the grade of fuel and the search radius.
• Live Local Search: Find different items of interest either nearby or in another city. Google Search SPOILS me so I was not impressed with the functionality of this feature. Area of improvement for sure.

Usefulness:

CoPilot is great for those who do a lot of traveling. This application feels like it wasn’t designed for just your average trip across town, however, it could easily be used for any destination no matter how far away it may be. Offline usage is a huge advantage and makes traveling in areas with limited cellular signal much easier. The additional services that CoPilot offers makes trips less of a headache and more enjoyable for you and your family.

Ease of Use:

Being used to Google Maps, this app takes on a different approach to how to use navigation software. It resembles a dedicated GPS device heavily so if your used to that platform, this should be a breeze.

Frequently Used:

If you need directions to an unfamiliar area, want up-to-date information on your common routes, or plan or traveling further than your own internal-brain-navigation can handle, this will be used often. Even though I know the route to work, I used it everyday just to keep updated on traffic.

Interface:

All icons and text is large and easily readable on the screen. Menus are a bit excessive at times but that can be viewed from a positive and negative standpoint. Lots of options and settings means lots of way to customize your experience with this app.

Battery Life (Updated):

This was one of my main concerns with this app (and all GPS nav apps for that matter). I’m happy to report that battery life with this application was minimal! During most trips, I saw about half the battery usage I normally see using Google Maps or Sprint Navigation. I guess it makes a big difference to not be connected to the internet the entire time. In fact, a couple of times I used this application turning my mobile internet off completely and had no issues aside from not being able to use Live Services. Very pleased with this app’s battery usage!

AndroidTapp.com Rating

(4.25 out of 5)

Should you Download CoPilot Live? For anyone who uses GPS navigation more than once a week, YES! The added features and offline capability alone are enough to justify getting this app. Skeptical at first but after a few days of use it’s definitely worth the money.

This content was originally posted at AndroidTapp.com

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past few months, you will be aware that location based Check-In services are the latest and greatest aspects of social networking. This is highlighted by the new Facebook Places service. GetGlue isn't your average location based Check-In service, in fact it doesn't feature your location at all, though it does have Check-In and it's highly addictive.

To begin, getglue.com should be your first stop to find out more about the service and set up an account before downloading the app. But here's a quick overview; instead of checking in to your current location you check in to what you're currently doing specifically with categories such as T.V. Film, books, topics, music and video games as well as a few others. If there is a book or program you can't find, you can email GetGlue to ask them to add it. Also there is the ability to 'Like' or 'Dislike' any of the activities you can Check-In to. You can also earn stickers, kind of like FourSquare badges, the difference here though is if you earn 7 or more GetGlue will send you actual physical stickers per your request!! There are a few other little features on there but those are the biggies.

This is a review of the app though and not about the service so lets focus more on that. Functionality of the app is great, it does the main thing you need it for (Checking-In) very well, with options to post to Twitter and Facebook too. Also when it posts to Twitter it even includes a # tag! It also has a Stream tab which shows what your friends are currently doing and then underneath recent entries for everyone else. There is then a Rate/Pick tab, which I rarely use as there is no search function, which is very disappointing as I came to search for a film I had just watched so I could 'Like' it and there was no easy way to find it. Then there is a stickers tab which shows your earned stickers and then a few you can earn, though not how, cheeky! The last tab is 'You' which is access to your profile including subscriptions and subscribers, messages and everything you have 'Liked'.

What disappointed me about the app though as the UI, it's very basic, using Androids native tabs which I hate, I think they're quite ugly. It could definitely be made to look a lot nicer, and hopefully with future updates they will improve it, but it does what it was designed to do even though it doesn't look pretty whilst doing it.

Overall the service and the app are great. I found once I started liking things that I could think of off the top of my head, GetGlue started to give me suggestions of other things I might like, which I did and thus got more suggestions and I found I could keep on going 'Liking' things for hours. One other thing I have found though is that I don't use the Check-In service for everything I'm watching, mainly because I don't want people to get updates through Facebook and Twitter every half hour for the show I'm currently watching. I tend to check in and share with Facebook and Twitter with cool things that I want people to know I'm doing, or if they will earn me a sticker. Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments section below, also if you want to subscribe to my updates my username is Ryan654 which incidentally is my Twitter username, I could always do with some more followers.

App Review: GetGlue originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

One of the main reasons people use their Android phones is for the built-in GPS functionality. Back in October 2009, Google pissed off just about every GPS company by launching their very own free GPS navigation system, Google Navigation, which tightly integrates this service with the Android platform. The one catch with Google Navigation? You have to have a data connection to use it, which can create some problems when there is a network outage or you happen to be in an area with spotty (or no) coverage.

Enter CoPilot Live. CoPilot Live has been around for a while now (since summer 2009 or so), but usage dropped right around the release of Google Navigation. After all, it’s fairly difficult to compete with a service that’s being offered for free without differentiating yourself in some key way. Well, CoPilot live is trying to do just that by showcasing the fact that CoPilot live can be used all the time, whether you have a data connection or not. The way they accomplish this is by loading the maps directly onto your SD card rather than downloading local maps every time you take a trip. We will discuss this a bit later in the review.

Setting a Route

The whole purpose of having a GPS navigation application (or standalone GPS-unit) in your car is to safely and successfully travel from Point A to Point B, perhaps stopping at points C, D, and E along the way. As such, one of the most essential components of a GPS navigation application is how easy it is to set up routes to get you where you want to go.

In CoPilot Live, you begin by entering the City or Zip Code of the destination, then the name of the street you are navigating to. Finally, you enter the business/house number or cross street. That’s right, a total of three different screens to enter a simple address. Though not a dealbreaker, it seems much more complicated than simply typing in an address into a single bar ala Google Navigation. I’m confident users can get used to either way of entering destination information.

CoPilot Live allows you to enter destination information in multiple ways. For example, you can use CoPilot Live to navigate to a location on the map by simply selecting a waypoint on the map itself. Though this might not be as useful for precise directions, it will certainly help you navigate to an area that’s “close enough” to your final destination.

CoPilot Live also makes it very easy to set multiple stopping points along the way, which is very handy when going on road trips with multiple stops at places of interest.

Finally, you can easily navigate to places of interest by selecting a few categories (i.e. Restaurant > Bar and Grill > Destination), and then picking which location you want to go to. CoPilot live does the rest.

Summary

Overall, CoPilot Live offers multiple means of getting you where you want to go. Though in some ways it is on par or slightly better than Google Navigation, in other key ways it leaves you scratching your head.

Navigating the Route

No GPS application is worth a lick unless the navigation process is intuitive and works well. As someone who has driven through all parts of the United States, I think I can safely say that some of the standard routes in Minneapolis are pretty wonky, and sometimes frustratingly confusing. Though it has the potential to aggravate drivers, it seems it’s the perfect testing grounds for navigation systems, in my humble opinion.

Over the course of the past week or so, I’ve tested CoPilot live on seven different routes in and around the Twin Cities. The navigation screen was pleasant enough; you are represented by a big red triangle and because the maps are preloaded onto your phone, the streets (with names) come and go in real time as you travel. This is a welcome feature especially in those areas that don’t have 3G yet, let alone 4G or HSPA+ (though those places are becoming few and far between).

All in all, the navigation process works as well as you’d expect, but with a few potentially large hiccups I experienced with the voice turn-by-turn directions. First, while navigating some of the more complicated sections I mentioned earlier, CoPilot Live’s voice instructed me to turn AFTER the exit had already passed. Because I was testing CoPilot Live, I was following the voice-guided navigation to the tee, and missed my exit. Because the alternate route CoPilot Live provided was through the heart of downtown Minneapolis, my 15 minute trek quickly turned into 45.

The second hiccup is the voice-guided navigation itself. There are some very cool features in CoPilot’s voice guidance system to be sure: you can select from multiple voices in over 20 different languages, for example, but the quality of the voice-guided directions themselves are not up to the standards that Google Navigation has set. Here’s an example taken from my routine drive to work every day:

Google Navigation: “In a quarter mile, take exit 17C for Washington Avenue North”  - Simple, Elegant, and detailed enough to let me know exactly what I need to do to get off of the freeway, without looking at the screen.

CoPilot Live: “In two tenths…of a mile, take exit” – Simple, yes. Elegant and Detailed enough? Not at all. Though the exit details appear at the bottom of the screen, this requires me to look directly at the GPS unit in order to figure out where I’m supposed to go (this area has 3 exits within 1/4 mile, hence the need for exit 17C noted above).

I know, I know, people with GPS units tend to look at them a lot of the time anyway, but it’s arguably less safe and convenient than having just enough information to successfully navigate to your destination without having to look at the screen.

Summary

CoPilot Live does many of the core navigation features as well as you’d expect from a navigation system, but really lacks in the voice turn-by-turn directions area. The quality of the directions is a bit less than it’s Google counterpart, and on two separate occasions it told me to take an exit after I’ve already passed the exit.

Other Features

One of CoPilot’s saving grace features is the point-of-interest integration. Users can find points of interest around their location simply by clicking on the places-like icons that show up on the map. Then, you can simply navigate to the point of interest with a few easy button clicks. This works a lot like places, but operates as a layer over the map itself.

Another cool feature is the ability to share your coordinates via SMS, so you can easily update friends as to your whereabouts if you’re lost, or let a family member know when to expect your arrival, or all kinds of other cool uses. Yes, you might not use it much, but it can be very handy in several situations.

Multiple map modes allows you to view your navigation content in 2D, 3D, or Driver Safety Navigation modes so you can enjoy your navigation the way you want to.

Pros

• Maps stored on the SD Card – allows you to navigate anywhere you want to go without the need to be connected to 2/3/4G.
• Was quick to load navigation routes.
• Though entering in route information was a bit more complicated, the text prediction was fairly good making it easy to enter in street names and cities.
• Access to maps from all over the world – handy for the traveling Android user.
• Ability to share location via SMS.
• Has biking, walking, and RVing directions in addition to the standard auto nav.
• Live Traffic, Gas Prices, Weather, etc.

Cons

• Maps stored on the SD Card – Takes up about 1.73GB of your SD card, which is a death sentence if you actually keep things (music, apps, CyanogenMod nightlies) on your SD card.
• Sometimes told me to take an exit after the exit had already passed – this of course will depend on your location, and the layout of your city in general.
• Voice guided navigation in general doesn’t hold up to the standard that Google Navigation set.
• $29.99 price (though they often discount it to $19.99).
• Have to buy maps for each country you travel to.

Final Verdict

CoPilot Live is a fairly good application for those of you who absolutely need offline access to navigation features, or if you want to travel to foreign countries without racking up immense roaming charges. For most U.S. users, the added features you’d get from CoPilot live simply isn’t enough to justify the $20-30 you’re going to spend on the application (not to mention the nearly 2GB of storage space on your SD card needed to store the maps themselves). Bottom line, if you do a lot of international travel and/or you’re not quite happy with Google Navigation, I encourage you to check out CoPilot Live as an alternative. For the everyday user going from simple point A to point B within the U.S., it’s probably not enough to overthrow Google Navigation from the Navigation throne.

CoPilot ALK Technologies, Inc MARKET QR GIVEAWAY

Want to try out CoPilot Live for yourself? The folks over at CoPilot Live were gracious enough to give us 3 application/SD card combos (with maps pre-installed) to give away to you lucky readers. We have already given one away at the Twin Cities Android Meetup we sponsored a week ago, but we have 2 more to give away to you!

How do you enter? Simply leave a comment in the comments section below, making sure to fill out the email address field so we can contact you to get your shipping information. You must leave a comment by 7 P.M. Central Standard Time on Sunday, September 5th to enter the contest. Winners will be contacted as soon as possible after the Sunday drawing to collect contact information so we can ship the material out to you.

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We’ve been a bit busy and short-handed this week at Android and Me, leaving a single staff member to suggest all three apps this week. Aren’t you guys lucky?

This week I’ve rounded up a collection of three utility apps I find myself using frequently to get things done. upStream is a Flickr uploader, adbWireless allows you to connect to ADB over wifi, and Floating Image is a rock solid photo slideshow. All three have earned a permanent spot on my phone, now I share them with you.

Clark’s Pick
upStream

Being a rabid photo nerd has left me on a seemingly never-ending hunt for the perfect Flickr uploading app. For the past few months though, the search has been called off as I’ve recently discovered the holy grail that is upStream.

upStream is a photo uploader with a simple interface that allows you to push pictures to your Flickr account with ease. upStream gives you complete control over sets, collections, geolocation, even linked blogs. I recently starting using upStream to push my silly day-to-day pictures to Flickr and on to Twitter, thus completely bypassing the need of janky, little Twitter-only photo hosts.

upStream has a perfectly usable user interface that makes setting photo details and uploading a snap. You can easily set the title and description of a single photo or select the whole batch to add a common tag or location. As you’d imagine, upStream is integrated with the Android share intent and pops up as an option just about anywhere you can share a photo.

The developer has even personally responded to emails and implemented fixes I’ve needed and changes I suggested- a surefire sign of a solid app. If you’ve been on the hunt for a feature-rich Flickr uploader, stop looking.

upStream Hooligan Software MARKET QR Clark’s Pick
adbWireless

Just the other day I was marveling at the head-scratchers showing up in the Market- I thought it’d be fun to continue that trend.

abdWireless (as the name suggests) is a simple utility for creating a wireless ADB connection as if you had your device tethered via USB.

Turns out, that’s a pretty handy bit of programming. In fact, I took this week’s screenshots while connected via adbWireless. If I wanted to, I could have done so with my phone in the other room.

Alright, so it’s not life or death functionality, and the app itself is really just a single, huge red button, but the wow factor more than makes up for it. Developing on a device through a wired connection is a pretty neat trick and I thought it deserved to be shared.

adbWireless MrSiir MARKET QR Clark’s Pick
Floating Image

Anyone that takes as many photos as I do probably does a fair bit of sharing and since we’ve got the web covered with upStream I thought it might be useful to single out an app for person to person encounters.

Floating Image is a photo slideshow application with a lonnnng list of custom features and settings. Not only can the app load up your local phone pictures, it can hook to feeds from the web (yes, like Flickr) for a full-on, web-connected, photo-scrolling free-for-all. You can change the animation type and the timing of the effects. When you click a photo floating by, it enlarges, full-screen, for easy viewing.

It has a perfect random-but-not-too-random sort order, scrolling images by in related groups but slightly out of the order I captured them in. For some reason I like this. It makes my photos feel fresh and I find myself scrolling through looking for even more of my own photos.

Floating Image is a perfect way to share a collection of photos with someone in person. Or by yourself. Really anytime you combine high resolution photos with fancy movement you can’t go wrong.

Floating Image Mark Gjøl MARKET QR

Sidenote: This is the first post using our new Market link codes. Each time we reference an app in the Market (in a review, head-to-head, top list, etc) you’ll see a gray bar like the ones you see above. Inside you’ll find the app title, developer, and download links.

Clicking QR will open a barcode you can scan with your phone to locate the app in the market.

Clicking the MARKET will launch an actual market:// link, perfect for cloud-to-phone services (like ChromeToPhone and FoxToPhone). With a ToPhone add-on installed, you can send things from your computer straight to your phone, no hassles or scanning needed.

Things for the mobile site remain largely unchanged (except now you’ll get an app title instead of plain ‘Download from the Market’ text). Enjoy!

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Ninja Kaka is a simple and fun game, which has an extremely straightforward gameplay. Fruits will be tossed up from the bottom of the screen and players will attempt to slice them by swiping their finger through it. Within limited time, the more you slice, the more points you’ll get. Leaderboard also available for users to get competitive.

Price: Free, $1.99

AndroidTapp.com Android Game Review:Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Fun and challenging game
• Responsive controls

Cons

• The spin-off of popular iPhone game Fruit Ninja, it’s missing a lot of cool features like bombs, various play modes, choice in the sword type, etc.

Features:

Ninja Kaka Fruit Dojo is a fun and challenging game of strategically using your Ninja slicing skills to chop random fruit stacking up points to advance to the next level under a timer. The key is slice in higher number combos without misses, a miss or no cuts in the higher rounds result in points taken away, and the speed of the game increases making it more challenging.

How to Play Ninja Kaka Fuit Dojo

• Swipe in any direction on the screen to slice the fruit, recommended to slice at least 3 or more pieces with every strike without missing.
• Each round has a timer and point threshold to beat, hence combo slices are vital
• Each advance in rounds get even tougher as the game speed increases
• Missing fruit subtracts score
• Nothing cut subtracts score
• Cut target fruit awards high score, miss target fruit and get penalized

Fun Factor & Addictive:

Though it’s a simple game it’s really fun, addictive and can get quite challenging as you’re not just slicing fruit but figuring out the best way to slice 3 or more without missing to maximize points.

Graphics:

The game features smooth & delicious fruit splattered 3D game graphics and is very responsive on Android devices with higher processor speeds.

Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:

Ninja Kaka only uses sound which can be toggled.

AndroidTapp.com Rating

(3.9 out of 5)

Should you Download Ninja Kaka – Fruit Dojo? Yes! A Good Game for Killing Some Time (or Fruit) with a Challenge!

This content was originally posted at AndroidTapp.com

The live streaming and broadcasting space gets a little more crowded today with the addition of the Justin.tv application.  Designed for phones running Android 1.6 and above, the free app lets users provide live video anytime, anywhere.  The title works over both 3G as well as WiFi connections and allows for sharing via Facebook and Twitter.

Although the arrival of the Justin.tv app comes after comptetors Qik and Ustream, it does offer a few goodies. For instance the hardware video encoding puts less strain on the batter while the bitrate gets tweaked based on your data connection.  Videos can be recorded in both portrait and landscape modes  and are automatically saved upon completion.  Click here to read more and to download and install Justin.tv today!

Justin.tv Gets in on Android Streaming Action originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

Remember that new version of the Google Voice app we told you about last week, the one that's part of the leaked G2 ROM and includes a revamped widget? Well, you don't have to wait for the G2 to get it. The guys over at XDA-Developers have pulled it the leaked ROM so you can install it like any other app.

As some of you may remember, when the latest Google Voice update came out it improved the speed of placing calls, but in the process eliminated the possibility of taking advantage of unlimited calling via MyFaves or a Friends and Family feature.  This new app also has that "fix," so if you're still running an older version of Google Voice, you may not want to upgrade. Also, since it's a pre-release version of the new version, it may have some issues, but knowing that, feel free to give this a shot.

New Google Voice Ripped from G2 ROM originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

Angry Birds for those few that aren’t familiar is one of the top selling games for Apple’s iPhone and iPad and is about to wing its way onto the Android Market.

The basic premise (and it is going to sound odd) is that some malevolent pigs have stolen the eggs from a flock of (reasonably upset) birds who are now out to get their eggs back. Armed with a slingshot and a variety of birds that offer different attack styles you launch the birds at the pigs fortresses in an effort to knock them down and kill the pigs.

As bizarre as that sounds the gameplay is really addictive and the visuals in all of the versions that I have seen are absolutely fantastic so this is a real feather in Android’s cap (I swear that’s the last bird allusion).

If you want to get in on the beta the word from Rovio is that they are going to distribute it starting this Friday to anyone signed up for their mailing list which can be found at android.angrybirds.com.

Update: As a result of the huge response to the news of the upcoming beta release Rovio has decided to just release the Angry Birds Lite beta into the Market on Friday.

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Lately it seems like every few days I discover something in the Market (usually through AppAware) that leaves me highly impressed or scratching my head. Instant Heart Rate did both.

Instant Heart Rate uses your phone’s built in camera (and flash, if you’ve got one) to measure the color of the surface of the skin on your fingertip. In doing so, the app is able to detect tiny shifts in color each time your heart beats. When sitting still and in good light, I’ve found the app to be a near perfect stand-in for a real heart monitor. It really can dial into your pulse, even displaying the beats visually on-screen with a blinking heart icon.

I haven’t tested Instant Heart Rate without the flash- I assume it wouldn’t perform nearly as well. With the flash though, my fingertip was glowing bright red and the app seemed to have no problem picking up my pulse.

There are a handful of other heart rate apps in the Market, but most of them rely on 3rd party hardware (like a bluetooth heart monitor) or on manually entering your pulse/beats. As far as I know, this is the only one doing it using just the phone hardware.

You guys getting accurate readings with this thing? The comments in the Market look fairly positive but I’m always interested in what our readers think. Go try the app then vote in the poll below- I want to know how accurate it is in a large sample test.

View Poll

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Yahoo hasn’t quite seen fit to announce it yet as their website still claims the app is “coming soon,” but for you Android wielding Yahoo fantasy owners the app is now available for download via the QR code or just search the Market for “Yahoo fantasy football.”

The app will allow you to set your roster, add and drop players, and also provide real-time fantasy scoring updates. This is definitely a boon for those busy fantasy owners that can’t squeeze in the time to watch every game, but still want to keep tabs on what is going on with their squad.

The basic visuals of the app look good, but I can’t really comment on the functionality of the app at the moment as my league’s draft isn’t until tonight and prior to your draft the app merely lists your team and league. So if any of you that have already finished up your draft decide to give the app a shot let us know what you think. (Also if you have any awesome sleeper picks for this season that you want to share please feel free.)

Update: Based on feedback from readers the app is limited to those with at least 2.0 or above and isn’t showing up in the Market for users in all countries.

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