Tag Archives: Apple iOS

Word Lens – Translate Spanish to English Instantly on your iPhone

Posted on December 23, 2010 | 1 comment

The Word Lens application is amazing, one of the best uses of augmented reality yet! word-lens-logo.pngYou just point it at a sign (or any text) and it removes the words that are there and superimposes the translation over the old text.

The program is free and if you want to test it out, it’s two translation modes: “erase the text” and “reverse the letters”, while not very useful, make a great demonstration. The Spanish-to-English dictionary is $9.99 (they also have English-to-Spanish for an additional $9.99).

spanish-sign-word-lens.jpg
Here’s the sign that was taped up that I wanted to read.

It’s not the best video, but I really wanted to demonstrate this in a real world example. And since in the middle of recording the video I realized it was time for my bus, it’s pretty real world…

You’ll want to make the video full screen to actually be able to read it (and maybe you’ll need to pause it to really see what’s going on).

As I said you’ll want to look at it full screen (in HD) or you won’t be able to see the action on the iPHone screeen, so be sure not to just watch the embedded version.

I forgot to mention, no internet connection is required to use it! Once you purchase a dictionary it’s on your device (I assume it runs on the iPod touch with the camera also), it’s actually got a “dictionary” where you can look up words.

UPDATE: Also available for Android devices and Glass.

UPDATE: Now they also have Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian, and French available. To be clear the program translates back and forth between English and the other languages, but does not translate between the other languages (yet!).

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VLC free video player for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Get it now (while you still can).

Posted on October 31, 2010 | Leave a comment

So a nice free video player came out for the iPhone (which also works on the iPad and iPod Touch) called VLC Media Player;
vlc-iphone.png
it’s the video player for Macintosh and Windows (IMHO).

What’s great about this program? It lets you play all sorts of video files on your iDevice without converting them first. The other bonus is that it lets you delete them when you are done, freeing up space for photos and video. It plays more than a few formats, but if you try some high-def Blu-Ray files it’s not going to have enough power to play them.

Here’s the problem, it might get pulled from the iTunes store due to some weird legalities*. So download it now. I actually think it’s been out for the iPad for a while, but it just came out for the

* Short answer with small words – The (source code) software is free and the program can must be freely distributed, but technically the iTunes app store puts on protection, so technically it’s not freely distributed, you must have an iTunes account.

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News Reading with Doppler – FREE until July 20th, 2010

Posted on July 10, 2010 | 1 comment

I like using a NewsReader on my iPhone (or iPod Touch) and one of my favorites is Doppler. It’s easy to use and it synchronizes with Google Reader so it makes off-line reading easy to do. So this means that when you read an article it marks it as read on Google so you don’t end up reading it again.

doppler.175x175-75.jpgIt caches all your RSS feeds for off-line reading so it’s pretty fast when you’re going through the news since it cached it in advance; but this means you do click to click on the link a minute before you’re ready to read since it doesn’t download in the background. I usually tap it before I leave the house since it’s faster on the WiFi, even if I don’t read it soon, it’s cached most of the recent articles so that when I do sync over 3G it’s already got most of the new news…

TIP: When configuring to sync with Google it lists all your individual feeds at the top of the list, but if you scroll to the bottom of the list you can choose your “folders” as defined in Google Ready

I’m mentioning this software today because it’s free for download until July 20th, 2010. It’s worth the money, but free is better, isn’t it?

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Electronic Arts games on sale! Scrabble, Monopoly, Boggle and more.

Posted on April 1, 2010 | 1 comment

Many Electronic Arts games appear to be on sale today. It’s looking like an Easter sale, up to 80% off, so it may be throughout the weekend; no promises though… scrabble-badge-notification.pngScrabble $2.99

  • Dragon’s Lair $2.99
  • Monopoly $2.99
  • BattleShip $1.99
  • Connect Four $1.99
  • Life $1.99
  • Boggle $0.99
  • Yahtzee $1.99
  • Spore Origins $0.99
  • And a few more.

    I only own a few: Scrabble is awesome (and lets you play over the Internet via Facebook) I did a review here, Boggle, Lemonade Tycoon and Sim City are all pretty good. Do you play any of the EA games?

    * These are affiliate links, so I get a (very) small kickback if you buy one of these. But it is a really good deal on some of these games.

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    The Apple iPad

    Posted on March 7, 2010 | 1 comment

    How could you not want one of these? The ad makes it feels like it’s something out of Star Trek and that’s before they run the Star Trek movie promo clip!!

    Direct link to the Apple iPad commercial. hands_pad.jpg

    Actually, I think I’ll pass this time around. I’d ditch my iPhone if it were a phone, but really don’t need another device to carry around and I have a laptop. To get the GPS it sounds like you need the 3G card (otherwise it just uses the WiFi for an estimate). And it doesn’t have a camera of any sort. Yet…

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    Everyday Looper App

    Posted on March 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

    I don’t even know how to describe the Everyday Looper application for the iPhone. It lets you makes loops live and you sing along with them. I can’t sing along, but maybe you can.everydaylooerapp.png

    Hmmm… Here’s a better description: Remember in elementary school when you sang “Row, Row, Row your boat” and someone else would chime in so they were singing the previous sentence at the same time? This seems like it would let you do that, but with yourself (and do it live). If you still don’t get it, just watch the video.

    Direct link to the video.

    Looks like a complicated interface to learn but a very impressive video! I do not have this app but I thought it the video was very cool

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    Scrabble for the iPhone: Now with PUSH! – Review

    Posted on December 5, 2009 | 1 comment

    If you’ve thought about Scrabble for the iPhone (or iPod Touch) it might be time to try it, if you play Scrabble on Facebook it’s past time to try it!

    scrabble-push-sm.pngI’ve always been a Scrabble fan and on my Palm Treo I used to play Scrabble all the time. While this version by Electronic Arts is excellent, I think the Palm OS was a little better; I think because the stylus made it easier to play, on this version they zoom you in and then you have to zoom back out (which works much better than it sounds).

    They advertise that you can play with someone on the same WiFi network, but that’s no big deal to me, if they’re that close, just set up a board! The amazing part of this program is how it interfaces with Facebook, you can have multiple games going and it keeps track of them all and you can invite people to play and all that stuff, it works great. I did not play Scrabble on Facebook previously but I liked the idea of playing someone from a distance. I haven’t challenged anyone that I haven’t played in real life, but I will. The problem is that I don’t spend that much time on Facebook it’s inconvenient to keep checking to see if it’s my turn?

    scrn_iphone_scrabble02.jpgFor a while the game has been popping up with a tip saying it works with push notifications (but it didn’t). I’ve only been using the app for a week and the latest version (that I think came out yesterday) now supports push when it’s your turn. At least when it’s your turn on Facebook they’ll send a push alert to your iPhone or iPod touch (I’m not sure about playing someone on the same WiFi network). I also noticed if that it’s alerted you that it’s your turn when you launch the app it takes you right to the game board!

    This is great but it’s a little odd, there are three kinds of push notifications: alerts (text pop-up), sound and badges (alters the app icon, see below) but they chose to not to implement the text alert; while they may have had a reason to think you don’t need them you do have on/off options for all the different notifications. I can see how it would be overwhelming for those who are playing 20-50 games at a time, for me, I’d like the text alert since if I don’t hear the sound (not likely) I have to keep peeking at the app icon/badge (which is way better than having to launch the application). The push alerts aren’t perfect (they don’t always show up), but I’m think that might be an Apple thing and not a Scrabble problem.

    scrabble-badge-notification.pngI’ve not played with the computer much, but some people complained that it’s too easy (the Palm OS version had 3-5 levels) and I’ve had no one to play with on WiFi but I suppose it’s probably similar to Facebook play.

    Available on SCRABBLE

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    My iPhone 3gs External Battery – review

    Posted on December 4, 2009 | 1 comment

    The iPhone eats battery power. The more you use it the more it eats. As a result, the more you use it the unhappier you get when it dies.

    Maximal Power External Battery for i-Phone, i-Phone 3G, and Ipods (Black) Maximal PowerSo I picked up this 1900mAh external battery and it was a great investment.

    I keep it in my bag and it’s great when I need it. It’s not just powering your phone, it’s charging it! So once you remove it from the phone, it’s been charging your phone in the meantime.

    Honestly, it doesn’t snap on very well, so it’ll fall off if you place it in a jacket or suit pocket and aren’t careful, but it won’t fall off if you’re using it for most non-gaming applications. It seems to fits well with my Seidio case (review).

    For $14 (at Amazon), this is the best stocking stuffer you could get the iPhone enthusiast in your life (or iPod Touch or any iPod device I guess); if only it came in colors!

    It always seems to have a charge whenever I need it. Although it’s rare more than a few weeks go by when I need it.

    It you plug in the battery into a charger and the iPhone into the battery it’ll charge both. This brings me to my biggest complaint: I wish that when it was on the phone and plugged into the sync cable it’d charge both devices and pass through the data so I could sync at the same time.

    This works with the current Amazon bonus of $5 worth of MP3 downloads with purchase (I think this is good only once per cart, not for multiple items in the same cart).

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