You just might find out about layoffs at your company on the way to work, if a new iPhone app dedicated to cutbacks and hires does its job.
The layoff and hiring news app receives real-time data feeds from website layoffdaily.com.
Info includes today’s layoffs news (at this writing, those cuts include from “Chicken Soup For the Soul” to Lamborghini and Utah State University), plus previous two day’s layoffs and, to balance things out a little, a section dedicated to news about which companies are hiring (American Welders Society, call centers and Six Flags New England.
Work on the set of NBC show “Heroes” has its down time. So actor Greg Grunberg, who plays Los Angeles cop Matt Parkman with the ability to hear people’s thoughts, pulls out his iPhone nearly everywhere. To keep himself busy, in between takes on the studio lot, he uses the device to send missives to Twitter. He broadcasts them to the more than 20,000 friends and fans following him.
Grunberg also started a business to create a free iPhone app called Yowza — think mobile coupons, it’s expected to launch shortly — with two men he befriended on Twitter but hadn’t met in person.
French software development company Visuamobile is planning to launch an iPhone app called ELIZA AI, based on the 1966 artificial intelligence computer program trained to respond to questions like a therapist, that is by asking other questions.
Though the program is dated, Leca says the Eliza iPhone app still had the same effect that surprised creator Joseph Weizenbaum back at MIT in the day — at a certain point people forget ELIZA is not a human therapist.
“What seemed really interesting, and I have tested it at the office, is that people are reluctant to show you what they have been discussing with Eliza,” Dominique Leca of Visuamobile told Cult of Mac. Leca, who handles business development at the Paris-based company, had the idea for the app. “And, to tell you the truth, Eliza has helped me several times. The fact that she constantly asks you to explain yourself is a great way to analyze what you think.”
Set to be released for free download on the visuamobile store on iTunes March 3, Leca said the Eliza app will likely remain gratis but the company has more sophisticated psyched-up apps in the works, like one based on AI chat robot ALICE, that will probably be fee-based.
Potentially fake reviews — written by people who didn’t buy or download the app — were recently removed from the app store on iTunes.
When the app store launched in 2008, you could review the app even if you didn’t buy it. As a result there were a lot of static reviews, both good and bad, as companies tried to push their products or topple competitors.
In September, Apple announced a ban on non-customer reviews from the apps, but the old reviews were still visible.
Until a few days ago, when the slate was wiped clean. The move seems to have removed some of the static: SEGA’s Super Monkey Ball review count dropped from 4,197 to 3,710 while Namco’s Pac Man reviews shrunk from 395 to just 122.
CBS just released a free app for the iPhone, bringing everything from episodes of the new 90120 to McGyvver and CNET reviews to your device.
Many early reviews of the TV.com app are enthusiastic, commutes are much more entertaining when you can watch an episode of CSI: Miami, the season premier of Tudors then customize your own feed.
Some frustrated would-be viewers, however, complained about videos not loading,scarcity of full episodes and iffy quality.
If you try it, let me know how it works (or doesn’t) for you.
“Wheels on the Bus” is an iPhone app in five languages, based on the nursery rhyme, with extras like instruments kids can play and a recording feature, hopefully providing hours of entertainment for kids and perhaps a bit of respite for parents.
My only reservation about the app, named “Staff Favorite” in iTunes and currently the number two paid education app, comes from the song itself, perhaps one of the most annoying kiddy tunes to ever hammer itself into the tired brains of parents. A friend of mine with a two-year-old daughter was so fed up with the ditty (the doors on the bus go open and shut, open and shut) that “Wheels on the Bus” became shorthand for “Mommy needs a few cocktails or something bad will happen.”
Jonathan Zdziarski, creator of the first iPhone forensics toolkit, has developed a new iPhone app called AMBER alert, aimed at helping find kidnapped children in the US.
These alerts are issued when missing child cases are granted Amber status — kidnappings of children under age 17 who police believe to be in danger of bodily harm or death.
Zdziarski’s iPhone application will provide a real-time feed of recent alerts including victim photos and information, suspect photos and descriptions, vehicle photos and descriptions and a reporting mechanism allowing users to report sightings.
The Amber Alert program was created in 1996 after the kidnapping and killing of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman from Arlington, Texas.
Casinos in Nevada were warned by gambling regulators to keep an eye out for a card-counting program that runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch that illegally helps players beat the house in blackjack.
Card counting itself is not illegal under Nevada gambling laws, but getting electronic help to count cards is a felony.
In blackjack, card counting techniques help players determine when they are likely to win a hand and adjust their bets accordingly.
Casinos were warned last week by the Nevada Gaming Control Board in a memo (pdf). Nevada learned of the program from gambling regulators in California, where officials at an Indian casino found customers using it and tipped state authorities.
The memo says the app is called Blackjack Card Counting program and describes how it works: “The program calculates the “True Count” and does it significantly more accurately. The card counting program uses a choice
of four (4) card counting strategies. For each strategy the user presses the button that contains the face cards as they are drawn from the deck. Depending on the strategy and on the value of the card the button will
either add or subtract 1 or 2 from the “Running Count.” It can also be used in “stealth mode.”
A quick search of the iTunes store for “card count,” showed several card counting apps, it’s not clear which one the casinos were warned about.
It looks like to live the 21 story, you don’t even have to be a card-counting geek…
Image used with Creative Commons license, thanks to nataliehg on flickr.
You’re only supposed to use it to make jokey text messages from famous people or, according to the people who made it , “spook friends pretending to get texts from their parents or girlfriend/boyfriend” (it’s apparently aimed at 12-year-olds), but this iPhone app could become the cheater or slacker’s best friend.
It’s easy to imagine using Fake Text app to head out early for cocktails or a Playstation tournament knowing you have a text message from your boss or spouse as back up.
It’s the app that’s launched, whatever, a lot of downloads. iFart Mobile lead developer Joel Comm elaborated about the beginnings of the talked-about app in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.
If you have not downloaded the app and have been wondering exactly why anyone would pay $.99 for a souped-up electronic Whoopee cushion, here’s what it does:
Answer: It’s an electronic entertainment or sound machine. It produces flatulence noises. There are a number you can select from. Each has their own name and you push the button to fart now and it makes the sound. We built in a few other interesting features like the sneak attack which you can set to go off after a certain number of seconds or minutes. And the security fart, which when you put the phone down after five seconds, it goes into alarm mode and if anybody picks the phone up, and it detects motion, then it lets off the designated sound. We also included fart a friend, which lets you e-mail a selected sound to another e-mail address. And then there is the ‘record a fart,’ which lets you add a custom sound to the selection wheel.
This free iPhone, iPod app from 1-800-flowers.com could come in handy, the idea of using a meeting deadzone to order a forgotten birthday gift (sorry mom!) appeals to me immensely.
You can order stuff from the site, namely flowers, plants, balloons, plus cookies, cakes and wine and cheese, some for same-day delivery.
Caveat: the first few user reviews are on the low side, with one person having to go through customer support to access an existing account, so you might want to make sure you’ve taken it for a spin before Valentine’s Day next week.
iPhone app developers are busy, smart people. In addition to keeping us entertained with apps, they also bake.
Organized by Gavin from Antair Games, indie developers were invited to bake cakes and send in the pictures in a contest of skill that took them away from the computer and into the kitchen. Prizes include, surprisingly, apps and some iTunes gift certificates.
There are some pretty sweet cakes, like the “sneezies” one above (thought I’m still a little perplexed over the iFart entry), so head over to 148 apps to vote for your favorite before the January 25 deadline.
Developed by two anesthesiologists, this iPhone app helps log cases, keeping track of who has gone under for what in the operating room.
Some functions include:
— Record a new anesthesia case log on the fly, even if you don’t have a wireless connection (your iPhone will sync data to the CaseLogs server once it regains connectivity).
— Browse Case Log History to quickly find a patient record and open the entry for easy editing (your anesthesia records are organized chronologically).
Launched a couple of months ago, iAnesthesia:Case Logs reviews are generally favorable, it seems that the app (view demo here) helps get rid of manual methods like collecting stickers to log patient procedures but has been criticized for omitting a field for patient names over privacy concerns.
Soccer fans can keep up with Champion’s League games and Italy’s Serie A games on their iPhones thanks to a free web app developed in cooperation with Sky.
Stats, line-ups, photos and play-by-plays (for the moment, in Italian only) are available at https://i.sky.it/
The web app was developed by CEFRIEL, an ICT research hub for three Milan Universities, with a special eye to Apple-friendly design. One example: a list of team members can be rotated horizontally to a soccer field view which shows the positions they play.
A lot of men here in Italy used to walk around with transistor radios on Sundays listening to soccer games. Of late, these have been replaced by videophone services that allow fans ignore wives and friends while having a stroll. Although it would’ve been nice to be able to watch the games live, this lets sports fans keep on top of the score without ruining conversation over Sunday lunch.
Say you lose your iPod or iPhone and some good Samaritan finds it, but there’s no way for them to get it back to you because there’s no contact info on it.
If you’ve got an iPod Touch or iPhone, enter an $0.99 USD app called DogTag, which adds an ID icon and allows you to put the contact info of your choice.
Even If you’ve got a passcode, the info is still accessible as a DogTag wallpaper. The brainchild of Ian Cinnamon, who has been programming since age seven, the app was released a few days ago, and so far the handful of reviews are mostly positive.
For older iPods, one quick way is to name your device with an email address (my iPod nano and older pods support the “@”). This way, if the iPod is plugged in, your contact info pops up on the desktop and in iTunes.
You can also add your info to “contacts” or “notes” on iPods, too so they don’t have to plug it in to go looking for you. (Although if they really dig, the name information you assign will come up, too, in the settings>about screen).
I hit on naming mine with an email address after spending a frustrating 20 minutes at the gym trying to convince the guy at lost and found that yes, the iPod containing, among other things, just the contralto part of “Lacrimosa” and three cover versions of “Mah Na Ma Na” was, in fact, mine.
Have you devised a good way to ID your iPod or iPhone? Any luck with getting it back?
Sharing is caring, let us know in the comments.
Disney art director Stéphane Kardos has created a fascinating series of quick sketches with his iPhone using the Brushes app, most of them with a slightly gritty urban feel miles away from Magic Kingdom style.
You can check more out on flickr where he intros the iPhone sketches by saying that they were done in five or ten minutes, less for the sunset ones.
As we reported before, iPhone art even if not yet ready for art galleries looks like it may be moving in that direction.
A little bit old school, a little bit new school: the Record 001 app lets you work the image of a vinyl record with your fingers in a shout out to turntable days.
Digital DJs can backspin, pause and scratch like they would on a real record on an iPhone or iPod touch screen.
Record 001 has mixed reviews so far — the first release comes with just two oddball tracks “World Peace” and “The Fashion Song” — calling it a quirky demo app but not regretting the $1.99 price tag.
See if you don’t get a smile out of the video, though.
Rapper Lil’ Wayne recently launched an iPhone, iPod touch app designed to give fans a taste of what it’s like to be him.
Well, what it means to look a little like 25-year-old Dwayne Carter, or to paraphrase the old cosmetics slogan: “You, only blinger.”
The app developed by Lil’ Wayne and his record company Universal Music, comes from epictilt, the makers of iPhone app ESPN Cameraman.
The Lil’ Wayne app adds gold jewelry, his trademark teardrop tats and oversized hats to your pics. If you’re unsure you want to pop $0.99 for it on iTunes, you can check out a photo gallery here. The app allows fans to check out other Wayne-ified photos and buy his music.
One guarantee: you get to look fierce but avoid Lil Wayne’s real-life arrests with corresponding mug shots.
We recently wrote about iBreviary, an iPhone and iPod Touch app that gives the morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayer or complines for the day.
The Italian priest who had the brainwave for the app, Don Paolo Padrini, informed us that the 1.2 version of the prayer app, which he says has the blessing of the Vatican, is now available in Spanish, French, English and Latin (for those, like the Pope, who want a return to pre-Second Vatican Council days) and a version that follows the Ambrosian Rite, for the five million Catholics or so in the Milan area.
iBreviary costs $0.99 on iTunes and now also comes with a how-to page to help those unfamiliar with daily prayer rituals. The original Italian-language version was gratis, Father Padrini says the price of the app is a contribution for the developers.
Don Padrini also says an app is in the works for Facebook called that “Praybook” that will let groups use the Breviary via social network.
iCan Drive may help Europeans navigate driving tests.
Back in 2006, the EU approved plans for a single drivers license to replace the over 100 different driver’s license standards on the Old Continent.
Countries have until until 2033 to phase it in, but there’s a good chance if you have to renew, your pan-european driver’s license test is going to have a few new things on it.
This iPhone, iPod touch iCan drive app carries quizzes for all official 664 tests for the EU driver’s license. It covers both A class (small scooter) and B class (standard car) licenses.
Developed by Italian Daniele Perilli, the quiz gives results immediately, totals errors and gives all acceptable answer for every question.
There are some 6,891 road-ready questions available in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic.
The Amazon Mobile app could get you out of a few Christmas-present dilemmas. The app gives iPhone and iPod Touch users access to wish lists, shopping carts, one-click shopping, plus all the customer reviews and ratings that may make last-minute buys less of a shot in the dark.
It also includes a nice feature called “Amazon Remembers” which lets you save snapshots as visual post-its if you see something you want to buy later. The app saves the photo and searches for similar items, too.
Released a few days ago, it’s had some good reviews, including a five-star rating from “ericthewhat” who says: “Great. I can definitely see my drunk-texting problem becoming a drunk-shopping problem.”
In the first release, one of the useful things you can’t buy or download from Amazon are MP3s.
From the mobile app you can put MP3s on your wish list and then buy from your computer, but it’s a bit of a buzzkill for what otherwise seems a useful app.
There’s an idea you have for a killer iPhone app that no one has made yet. Trouble is, you have the idea but aren’t a developer. Step in iPhone Freelancer, a site that aims to pair idea-happy luddites with the tech people to make those apps happen. Employers post projects, then freelancers bid on them. It just launched a couple of days ago, but there’s already one project for a game with a budget of $250-500:
“I am looking for someone to develop an iphone app in the spirit of ibeer. You will have to know the SDK development kit provided by apple or some mobile phone equivalent. The app is meant to be a simple form of entertainment. If you start with an existing game and can just change the images, that would be fine too. I just don’t have the skill to do it on my own.”
Given the recent spate of stories on of developers making big bucks on iPhone apps, the idea is good, though savvy programmers are sharing iPhone-related gigs already.
Italian priest Father Paolo Padrini came up with the idea of a free prayer app for iPhone and iPod Touch users. This virtual breviary, or book of hours, gives the morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayer or complines for the day.
Right now, it’s available only in Italian but Spanish and English versions are on the way.
A free app from magazine Consumer Reports available on iTunes may help harried shoppers decide in a hurry which model is worth it in the coming holiday season.
Categories include: cars, electronics, home and garden, babies and kids. Early adopters have a few complaints (centered around the search function, or lack thereof), it could still come in handy.
