February 2009 Archives

Research firm TippingPoint DVLabs has a prize of $10,000 to award to someone who can hack a mobile phone without touching it.

The company will hold the Pwn2Own contest at its CanSecWest Applied Security Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Contestants will have the opportunity to hack an iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, or BlackBerry device.

In her blog post, Terri Forslof, TippingPoint's manager of security response, says the winning hacker can break into the phone via e-mail, SMS text, or Web browsing.

Mobile application development company Mobui has a new interactive tool for TV viewers: a chat application called Mobui Audience Chat, which allows television broadcasters and studios to chat live with audiences on the air on their mobile devices. Viewers can post opinions, comments, or questions in chat rooms.

The application runs on the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile operating systems.

"From Top Chef to I Love Money 2, many of today’s popular television shows are using the mobile phone to transform their audience from passive viewers to active participants," said John Burry, founder and CEO of Mobui, in a statement.

Burry says Mobui works with networks such as VH1, Nickelodeon, and TiVo on platforms to interact with viewers.

The application also has an avatar feature for audience members and allows them to send SMS invites to friends to join chats.

We first decided to check out Guitar Toolkit ($9.99, available here) because we recently bought an acoustic guitar and we needed a way to tune it. The tuner that comes with Apple's GarageBand was having trouble hearing our notes, even with a reliable microphone, so we turned to the iTunes Store for help. Guitar Toolkit's digital tuner makes quick work of adjustments: it heard our notes perfectly and had us strumming in tune in under a minute.

There's much more to Guitar Toolkit, however, While there are several guitar tuners available from iTunes, none of the others offers the range of useful information you'll find here. The app offers an easy-to-navigate chord library that shows us just where to hold our fingers for over 1,500 chords.

It also has includes a metronome that supports time signatures (by providing a different sound for the downbeat of each measure) and offers a flash interface if you'd prefer quiet help. While we've been using it with a standard six-string guitar, the app can also be set to tune 12-string guitars and 4- and 5-string basses.

It's not just a tuner, but a powerful guitar resource and it's handy for this beginning player (or guitar gods of any level) to have on hand.

With its unusual method of delivering content, Ziibii (available here) isn't for everyone, but many will find it interesting enough to take a look. The app lets you subscribe to RSS feeds, Flickr keywords, Twitter accounts, and more, then watch updated content scroll across the screen in what's called "the river."

If the scrolling view is too odd for you, Ziibii also offers a list view of new content. You can tap any item to view a longer entry, or tap a tap a red button to the right of it to replace it with a new entry. It adds a random flavor to your browsing: you can stock it with your online favorites, but you still don't know what you'll get.

We're not going to say this is the greatest Twitter client in the world or that it's even the most useful way to get updated information, but it presents an appealing random interface that we're really digging. When so much on the Net is structured and organized, it's fun to be surprised once in a while.

So darn cool! iAmbigrams ($2.99, available here) lets you create your own word designs which can be read right-side-up and upside-down. Input two different words and in only seconds the app makes a savable ambigram that combines the two. We also like inputting the same word twice to create a symmetrical design. The company offers a lite version (available here) capable of making just two ambigrams, if you want to try it out. Make one with your first and last names and you'll be amazed and how impressive the results are.

Pocket Express (available here)provides one-touch access to customized news, sports, weather, travel, movies, and more. Get news from the Associated Press, scores for NFL, MLB, and NHL teams, and either current, 48-hour, or 7-day weather forecasts. You can also view local movie schedules and flight status times. The cherry on top is the daily horoscope. It's a central location for everything you need to start your day.

Forget smart cards: Charismathics says its iEnigma gives companies a way to enable two-factor authentication on their iPhone. Get the full story here at InternetNews.com.

Antenna Software has announced what it says is the first mobile IM platform geared specifically for the enterprise. Called Amp TM, the software offers the security necessary for mobile workers, and the company says it will increase worker effectiveness. The application runs on BlackBerry, iPhone, and Windows Mobile devices.

"With Amp IM, there are no longer any obstacles to adoption of mobile instant messaging in the enterprise," said Jim Hemmer, CEO of Antenna Software, in a statement. "Amp IM enables workgroups to communicate quickly and efficiently with one another, but most important, it does so within the security and control of an enterprise mobility infrastructure."

According to Hemmer, companies can integrate Amp IM into its Antenna Mobility Platform and take advantage of telco-grade performance, reliability, control, and compliance.

Canadian bookseller giant Indigo Books and Music has launched its answer to Amazon.com's Kindle book reader. Shortcovers is a software-based reader for smartphones and today became available on the BlackBerry Storm, Curve, and Bold, the Apple iPhone and the Google Android.

The Shortcovers library of available ebooks benefits from Indigo's longstanding relationship with top publishers—giving consumers a deep and broad range of content.

Thousands of current titles are available through the service. How many titles? 50,000 books, chapters, news, magazine articles, short stories, blog posts and more.

After reading a first chapter for free -- same as on a Kindle -- you can purchase a whole book or continue to buy it one chapter at a time.

Download The Presidents' Music ($2.99, available here) and you'll get streaming access to four albums by The Presidents of the United States of America, the band known for the songs "Peaches," "Lump," and "Kitty." Collectors will enjoy listening to FroggyStyle, the band's previously unavailable 10-song demo album. The app also delivers rare demos, live tracks, and other unusual finds. This is a new way for bands to communicate with their listeners and we hope many other musicians follow suit.

Tired of walking up to the jarring sounds of a traditional alarm? Wouldn't you rather be roused by something a little more pleasant? Relax Alarm Clock Lite (available here) combines an easy-to-read digital clock display with 10 natural sounds, including bamboo flute, forest rain, and wind in the trees. You can also use the app to fall asleep gently, by selecting a sound and setting the built-in timer.

Brought to you by Lucky Magazine, Lucky at Your Service (available here) is a digital shoe shopping concierge. Use it to browse dozens of the latest shoe fashions from the magazine, find nearby stores that carry them, and check to see if your size and color is in stock. The app even lets you zoom in on pictures to study the details.

Joining the "I can't believe this is a cell phone game" club is Shooter ($.99, available here), a stunning first-person shooter. As gunnery sergeant Bob Lee Swagger, you need to clear your name after being accused of an assassination attempt on the president. The game offers 30 levels that require a steady shooting hand to succeed. Earn medals by completing dangerous missions and choose from a large assortment of weapons. This game offers many hours of gameplay for a super low price.

In the past, software makers for the PC would develop software primarily for Windows or Mac OS; the choices were limited.

For mobile phones and smartphones, however, app development is far more complicated, as BusinessWeek reports.

Companies joining Apple in the crowded field of mobile app stores include Nokia, Microsoft, French carrier Orange, Samsung, and German provider Deutsche Telekom (DT), just to name a few.

As BusinessWeek explains, the various OS formats provide lots of choices for consumers and steer clear of monopolistic OS battles that plagued the desktop in the 1990s, but they will give software developers a headache as they try to reach the various platforms -- in fact, they may skip some altogether.

Which platform do they target? "When someone comes out with a new device, you just have to go with your gut," MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe tells BusinessWeek.

Available for a short time at this introductory price ($.99, available here), Keeper is a safe for your personal data. Use it to store all of your passwords, notes, log-ins, credit card info, and more. Your data is protected with 128-bit AES encryption. We love the self-destruct mode, which erases your data if an intruder inputs an incorrect password five times.

Rush to grab a copy of this sound app (available here), which is only free until February 27. It offers a large collection of ambient tracks which can help you relax, fall asleep, or even work better by blocking out distracting sounds. Unlike other sound apps, AmbiSounds lets you layer sounds to get exactly the environment you want. It also offers a favorites list, so you can quickly get to your top sounds.

Analytics firm Pinch Media tracks application usage based on over 30 million downloads. Get the full story here at InternetNews.com.

At last, multimedia message are available on the iPhone. If Apple wouldn't do it, at least someone else did. Open Multimedia Messages and you can send a photo with a text message to anyone you like. The app lets you snap a new picture or grab one from your photo library, and it lets you select addresses from your Address Book.

We love how easy this app (available here) makes messaging. There's a quick setup when you input your name and phone, but after that there's nothing to it. If you're tired of having to e-mail pictures when any other phone in the world lets you text them, this free app is for you.

With a full set of features and a low price ($2.99, available here), Tweetie has quickly become our favorite Twitter client. The app offers features we haven't seen in others, including themes (there's on extra theme, found under the iPhone's settings, that lets tweets take the form of conversation bubbles) and a location search that lets you know what people around you are twittering about.

The best feature, though is the trend search. We've seen Web pages that offer this, but not iPhone apps. The trend search shows you what the hot conversations are on Twitter at any given moment, so you can get in on the conversation. Other great features include a search tool and the ability to block or unblock users directly from your phone.

Post a tweet with Twitter and you'll be able to grab an image from your photo library or take a new one. At first we thought the app was missing a link shortening tool, but it simply does so automatically. There's no button.

This was Digg co-founder Kevin Rose's top Twitter client on a recent episode of Diggnation and now it's our fav, too. By the way, once you've started Twittering go to @tdreier and hit follow. Thanks.

Suffering a crisis of confidence, the industry's leaders rush to mimic features popularized by one of the space's smallest new entrants. Ger the full story here at InternetNews.com.

If you've got a TiVo Series 3 DVR, you're going to want to get DVR Remote ($2.99, available here), which lets you remotely control your TiVo and browse the Now Playing information right from your iPhone. Any TiVos in your house are automatically detected, so there's no setup at all. We love that you can edit the button layout, and that it works the same way as button re-arranging on the iPhone's home screen.

We've seen reference books converted into iPhone apps before, but they've always cost as much as a printed book. That's changing as free titles come along. If you write and you're occasionally at a loss for words, keep FreeSaurus (available here) on hand. It'll provide you with colorful synonyms so that you can find just the word you need.

Enabling emoji emoticons has become a hot feature for iPhone apps. Sure, this typing app lets you practice iPhone typing skills, but the reason people are buying it is because it enables the Japanese emoticon library called emolji on your phone. After you load the app, go to Settings/ General/ Keyboard/ International Keyboards/ Japanese/ Emolji and turn emolji on. After that, you'll be able to use over 400 adorable emoticons when typing in any app. Just press the globe icon next to the on-screen keyboard when typing. Check it out here for $.99.

We thought the iPhone's ability to identify songs was amazing (such as with Midomi (http://blog.iphoneguide.com/2008/11/app-of-the-week-free-midomi.html), but this app delivers something we've never seen before. WhatTheFont (available here) can identify any font you throw at it, after you've snapped a picture of some sample words. It's great for designers or anyone who simply cares about good design.

According to The Las Vegas Review Journal, the Nevada Gaming Control Board has warned Las Vegas casinos to look out for iPhones or iPods running the card-counting app Blackjack Card Counter by Poulet Maison.

Downloadable from Apple's App Store, the program keeps track of the "true count" and the iPhone or iPod vibrates when it reaches the count you specify.

The iPhone app has a stealth mode to turn off the display while counting. Although the app usually costs $4.99, for a limited time Apple was selling it for $1.99.

Using a device to help you count the cards violates the Nevada Revised Statutes law NRS 465.075.

The law reads as follows:

NRS 465.075 Use of device for calculating probabilities. It is unlawful for any person at a licensed gaming establishment to use, or possess with the intent to use, any device to assist:

  1.  In projecting the outcome of the game;

  2.  In keeping track of the cards played;

  3.  In analyzing the probability of the occurrence of an
       event relating to the game; or

  4.  In analyzing the strategy for playing or betting to
       be used in the game, except as permitted by the
       Commission.

According to Nevada state law, felony charges can ensue if device-assisted card counters are caught, resulting in a prison term of one to six years or a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Yahoo introduced its Yahoo Mobile application to simplify connectivity to various mobile Web applications on the iPhone. Available in late March, the mobile app will provide access to tools such as voice search, social networks, maps, news, and instant messaging.

"We believe the new Yahoo Mobile will transform the way millions of mobile users around the world will interact with the Internet," said Marco Boerries, Yahoo's executive vice president, in a statement. "Yahoo Mobile will enable users to create their own Internet starting point on their mobile device so they can better discover, connect to, and stay informed about the people and things that are important to them."

Yahoo plans a version for other smartphones, such as BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, for late May.

To try a beta of Yahoo Mobile on your iPhone, go to http://mobile.yahoo.com on your handset.

No mater how you receive your channels, What's On TV (available here) will let you know what programs are on at any time. Keep this guide on hand and you'll always know when your favorite shows are starting up. This app is free and ad-free, so snap it up.

With iStat ($1.99, available here) you can see your iPhone's stats for memory, disk space, WiFi and Cell IP address, as well as uptime and load averages. You can also view and e-mail your phone's unique ID and MAC address. The polished app lets you view perfectly detailed stats about your iPhone, so you'll never wonder about system performance.

Ultimate Todos ($0.99, available here) is a powerful and elegant to-do app for quickly managing and organizing daily tasks. It synchronizes with Toodledo accounts, lets you sort to-do items by importance, and lets you create custom folders. You don't even need to type in your entries with this app, as it lets you create voice notes just as easily.

This is a tie-in with the show Paranormal State on A&E, but it's also a fun little gag to pull on your friends. In automatic mode, Paranormal State EMF Meter (available here) pretends to be an electromagnetic field (EMF) meter, surveying your home for the presence of ghosts. But in manual mode you can game the results with your thumb, so that the meter shows a high reading whenever you want.

First there was Rolando, and now Crayon Physics Deluxe ($4.99, available here) has come along to show that inventive and visually impressive gaming is thriving on the iPhone.

This game presents a crayon-drawn world where you need to perform a simple task on each level: roll a ball over to a star. The twist is how you do it.

You need to draw objects on the screen that will move the ball. What you draw is up to you. We love the open nature of the game, which let us work however we wanted. Draw a box and it becomes real in the cartoon world, with real gravity. It falls down and, if it's over the ball, pushes it. Draw a ramp and the ball will roll down it.

The levels gradually get more challenging, requiring us to think of clever ways to move the ball. In a world of Bejeweled imitators, this is something we haven't seen before. It's fun and surprising, and a great buy if you need an occasional diversion.

We continue our look at iPhone Twitter apps with TwitterFon (available here), which has the advantage of being free. It was also endorsed by Alex Albrecht on a recent episode of Diggnation.

We love that TwitterFon offers a large and easy-to-read display, so that tweets (updates) aren't crowded together, as with other clients. It doesn't provide clickable links, though, so we had to wait until we were back on our desktop client to open pages or TwitPics.

Creating a reply with TwitterFon was simple, and the app let us attach a photo either from our camera or our library. There's also a search tab for finding specific content.

TwitterFon is more basic than paid Twitter clients, but what it does it does well. For twitting on the cheap, this is a great choice.

By the way, once you've signed up for a Twitter account, go to http://twitter.com/TDreier and hit Follow. Thankewveramuch.

Version 2.0 of Quickoffice's mobile productivity application, MobileFiles (available here), went live in the App Store for $3.99 today.

MobileFiles allows users to view and transfer files between a desktop and mobile device and vice versa over Wi-Fi. The software also gives iPhone users a way to access, view and retrieve files stored remotely in their iDisk folder from an iPhone or iPod touch.

With the upgrade, users can now e-mail and access iPhone contacts from within MobileFiles.

Here are some more MobileFiles features:

View files on your iPhone or iPod Touch in landscape or portrait mode, with pan and zoom

Download from multiple iDisk accounts or friends' shared public iDisk folders

Store downloaded files on your iPhone or iPod Touch for faster offline viewing or listening

 Manage your files with our built-in Filemanager for convenient file organization

 

Quickoffice is in the process of developing a version of its eponymous mobile office suite for the iPhone.

Need to create a romantic mood this Saturday? Love Songs - 100 Greatest of All Time ($1.99, available here) is the perfect way to set the mood, awaken passion, and romance your sweetheart. The app plays the full tracks of the greatest love songs ever made. It's a romantic radio station just for you.

Enjoy inspiring and edifying talks from the Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) conferences on your iPhone. TED integrates multiple information feeds from the conferences, so you can finally see what the famous gathering is all about. The app (available here) also lets you bookmark your favorites, so you can find them again later.

Software download turns the popular music/entertainment device into a Wi-Fi telephone. Get the full story here at VoIP Planet.com.

Still haven't fallen in love with a mobile-web-access tool? It seems there's no shortage of developers who have ideas for making your mobile Web experience faster, easier, sleeker or just more fun. Pocket Express, long available from Handmark, is one such tool.

Pocket Express is an on-device portal that you customize for the news, sports, weather and travel information you want to keep tabs on. It's free and works on most smartphones (including Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, Palm OS and the iPhone) and many feature phones, through Java and brew support.

Organizational tabs segregate your main page view from other categories such as Extras. When viewing a tab, you get a grid of icons you can select for quick access to that page. It will save and customize search information, too, so if you're often checking flight status for arrivals at a certain airport, that airport code will come up.

Earlier this week, Handmark acquired FreeRange Communications with the aim of expanding Pocket Express with the the other company's publishing platform. Major media outlets—the The Wall Street Journal, CBS, and the Associated Press, for example—use FreeRange's platform to mobilize mobile content.

Shortcovers, a new service from the Canadian book giant Indigo Books & Music, aspires to be the smartphone alternative to Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. Set to launch later this month, the company says Shortcovers will deliver more than 50,000 titles (books, chapters, news, magazine articles, short stories, blog posts and more) anywhere, anytime online and on your mobile device. After reading a first chapter for free -- same as on a Kindle -- you'll be able to purchase a whole book or continue to buy it one chapter at a time.

Apple accessory company mStation Mophie has given the iPhone 3G an extra lease on life. The company's Juice Pack Air is a rechargeable 1,200 mAH lithium-ion external battery that doubles the amount of talk time from 5 hours to 9.5 hours.

The Juice Pack Air, which promises to be the thinnest battery extender yet for the iPhone, will cost $79.95 and features a standby mode to switch between the standard and additional battery life. It'll be available in black, white, and purple.

Mobile users can keep an eye on the four LED lights on the external extended battery as well as the indicators on the iPhone.

The unit should be available this spring at Apple retail stores and at mophie.com.

Reports are surfacing that a future version of the Apple iPhone may be a videophone. As Gizmodo reports, a recent iPhone patent refers to videoconferencing functionality.

The patent application reads:

In some embodiments, the functions may include telephoning, video conferencing, e-mailing, instant messaging, blogging, digital photographing, digital videoing, Web browsing, digital music playing, and/or digital video playing. Instructions for performing these functions may be included in a computer-readable storage medium or other computer program product configured for execution by one or more processors.

It adds that in other embodiments:

...an optical sensor is located on the back of the device, opposite the touch screen display on the front of the device, so that the touch screen display may be used as a viewfinder for either still and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user's image may be obtained for videoconferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, the position of the optical sensor can be changed by the user (e.g., by rotating the lens and the sensor in the device housing) so that a single optical sensor may be used along with the touch screen display for both video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition.

According to Gizmodo, videoconferencing may have been down the line in priorities after GPS and 3G capabilities. Now that those features are standard, Apple may be looking to include video, including the simple act of recording moving images, in the group of next major enhancements to the iPhone.

VentureBeat is reporting that Google may have kept multitouch capabilities out of the Android gPhone to avoid a patent fight with Apple.

According to the site, an Android team member says Google complied with an Apple request not to incorporate multitouch into its smartphone platform and -- by extension -- the first gPhone, the T-Mobile G1.

The latter company recently won a patent for multitouch LCD gestures, which allows users to use more than one finger at a time on a smartphone touch screen, for instance.

The multitouch patent (#7,479,949) granted to Apple is titled "Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics." The company applied for the patent on April 18 of last year.

During Apple's earning call last month, COO Tim Cook hinted at a possible legal fight against Palm for the Pre's multitouch capabilities, something Google appeared intent on avoiding by bowing to the iPhone maker's request.

Palm says it will go ahead with plans to launch its Pre smartphone. The longtime PDA vendor also says it will defend itself if necessary against any legal action by the iPhone maker.

If you love taking photos, you're going to love Photo fx ($2.99, available here), the most impressive photo filter app yet. It creates simulations of many popular, award-winning Tiffen glass filters, optical lab processes, and photographic effects. The 26 filters here are organized into five categories, so they're easy to navigate. When you've found one you like, you can customize the appearance with on-screen sliders. If you don't like what you've done, give your iPhone a shake to reset the controls.

This is the app you've been reading about, the one created by a 9-year-old. Lim Ding Wen lives in Singapore and he's created a really fun and inventive sketch pad for little iPhoners. Doodle Kids (available here) lets you draw with a line of random shapes in random colors. To clear the screen, give it a shake. Tapping with two fingers gives you a clear screen in a different color.

Google launches technology for automatically synching contacts and calendars with iPhones and Windows Mobile devices – Microsoft claims credit. "For iPhone and Windows Mobile devices, Google Sync allows you to get your Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar events to your phone. Once you set up Sync on your phone, it will automatically begin synchronizing your address book and calendar in the background, over-the-air, so you can attend to other tasks," according a posting on the Google Mobile Blog on Monday. Get the full story here at InternetNews.com.

Give your iPhone a tickle with BellyButton ($.99, available here). You'll get a variety of high-res "skins" so that you can tickle whomever you'd like, from a six-pack to a hula girl. You can even tickle a navel orange. Customize the giggle, from a collection of five (which includes males, females, and a baby). Best of all, these belly buttons are guaranteed lint-free.

Got a Wi-Fi-enabled HP inkjet printer? Then you'll love HP iPrint Photo (available here), which enables easy and fast wireless photo printing. Just tap to print borderless 4x6 photos directly from your phone. Skip the computer and print out your memories instantly.

Mobile application provider Handmark has acquired mobile technology company FreeRange Communications in an effort to expand its Pocket Express mobile content portal to support FreeRange's publishing platform.

Media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CBS, and the Associated Press use FreeRange's platform to offer its content on mobile devices.

With FreeRange, mobile users don't need to launch a browser to access the content, just the icon for FreeRange content. FreeRange calls its publishing platform "the fastest way to read news on your phone."

According to FreeRange CEO John Maroney, FreeRange looks to expand its mobile reach through the deal.

Pocket Express is available for a number of mobile platforms and devices. These include the iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 and UIQ, and the Palm OS.

Sent a sweet note for Valentine's Day. With Be Mine ($.99, available here), you shake your iPhone to get a random candy heart message, then add a personal message of your own. When you're done, save it to your photo library and then e-mail it to your special someone. The app offers over 100 unique hearts.

Need a taxi? Just tap a button. Taxi Magic (available here) makes it that simple. The app links you with nearby taxi computer dispatch systems to let you easily book a taxi wherever you are. You'll even get live updates of where your taxi is and when it will come. Online booking works in over 25 cities, while the app give you call options for over 4,000 more.

Like a stoic chess player, Apple gives nothing away, but the hints are there as to what could be next. And naturally, there's no shortage of speculation. Get the full story here at InternetNews..com.

With Twitter now reaching the mainstream, we thought we'd look at several of the most popular iPhone Twitter clients.

If you're new to Twitter, it's a messaging tool that allows you to broadcast short notes (called "tweets") to your online followers and to follow messages sent by other people. Sign up for an account here (http://twitter.com) and then follow this writer's Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/TDreier).

Twitterific comes in free and premium versions. Both offer a simple interface that lets you view tweets as they come in. Twitterrific Premium ($9.99, available here) lets you view messages in black text with a white background, while the free version only shows white text on a black background, which is harder to see. The premium version is also ad-free, while the free version shows a small ad for each 50 messages.

The app is loaded with helpful hints to help you get the most out of the features, and it allow for sending direct messages, re-tweeting a message (forwarding a twitter message with your own comments), and sending a Twit Pic (you can choose a photo from your library or take a new one).

The downside here is, naturally, the price. While it has stronger features than other free Twitter apps we've seen, there are lower-cost apps that match Twitterrific Premium's features. We'll explore another of them next week.

When we listen to streaming music, we're often trying to find the best new artists, the best sounds we haven't been turned onto yet. For new music discovery, you can't beat student-programmed college stations. That's why we're thrilled to see College Radio Tuner (available here) show up, an app that connects us to over 20 small but fascinating stations.

A simple dial interface lets us pick the station we want and then, after a moderate buffer time, we're listening to new sounds. We wish this had been around in our own pre-streaming college DJ days, when our college's sub-1 watt signal almost covered the whole campus, but not quite.

While there's a lot to like about College Radio Tuner, there's huge room for improvement. The station list doesn't identify where the colleges are, and many of them are new to us. Also, the app is supposed to display artist and song information, yet it doesn't for every station. A way to save favorites would also be a welcome addition.

Search giant takes initial step to bringing its library of 1.5 million public domain books to mobile readership. Service to work on its the Android-run T-Mobile G1, the iPhone, some Nokia models and other mobiles using an open-source architecture for browser application. Get the full story here at InternetNews.com.

With ControlPad ($2.99, available here) you an turn your iPhone into a wireless trackpad and keyboard. Even better, it works with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, with no installation required for Macs and some Linux systems. It's the perfect couch accessory if you're running a home theater off one computer.

The iTunes Store doesn't let you demo apps, so we're always happy when a developer creates a free lite version of their app so that people can try before they buy. Now's your chance to get a lite version of the insanely popular Super Monkey Ball for free (available here), to try out the adorable/challenging 3D balance game. Super Monkey Ball Lite contains three stages from the game, plus a tutorial.

Will the iPhone maker turn to a new touchscreen patent or the addition of video features to its bestselling mobile phone? Get the full story here at InternetNews.com.

Adobe's been trying to bring its Flash technology to the iPhone for long time now. The lack of Flash support is a real problem for iPhone users, as Flash technology is the most widely used format for delivering animations, videos (YouTube, Hulu, NBC.com, etc.) and interactive applications on the Web.

It is well known that the fly in the ointment towards delivering Flash to the iPhone has been Appl. That is until now. It appears Adobe and Apple are now working together to finally delivering the technology to Apple’s mobile devices.

Speaking with Bloomberg about the topic over the weekend, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said, "It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating." He added, "The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver."

While it is still not known when iPhoners will get their Flash fix, at least we now know Apple is on board with the idea.

Flash-based video support is something common to desktops and is already (or will soon be) available to a number of other mobile platforms. These include Windows Mobile, Google Android, Symbian, Qualcomm BREW, Sony Ericsson, and Linux.

The technology has already shipped on over 800 million mobile phones. This number is expected to exceed a billion handsets this year.

Almost a year ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs indicated the iPhone and iPod touch wouldn't be supporting Flash technology. Why? Because, as it stood, Flash wasn't good enough for Apple's mobile devices.

Jobs said, “The full version of the Flash player "performs too slow to be useful," and Flash Lite, Adobe's version for mobile phones, "is not capable of being used with the Web." He added, "There's this missing product in the middle," but "it just doesn't exist."

Looks like Apple's changed its mind.

Cool iPhone apps for news and information, games, entertainment, tools and more. All free iPhone downloads. (And yes, the list includes free Sodoku, Aero Guitar, and Lose It.) Get the full story here at Datamation.com.

It's not a Steve Jobs simulator, it's the iPhone's most successful job listings app, something useful to far too many people these days. Use iJobs ($.99, available here) to search thousands of sources and millions of listings from all over the Web. You can search for words in the title, description, or other fields; search by area; and filter by category, company, and more.

Having an iPhone doesn't mean only streaming YouTube videos. With today's download (available here) you can find and play videos from several video hosts using Truveo's video search tool. The Truveo app makes it easy to find either professional or amateur videos, or to browse by category. With 133 million videos now searchable, you're sure to find plenty you're interested in.

Is this the future of comics? Sparks Part 1 ($.99, available here) features a superhero noir thriller presented as a motion comic, with simple animation effects. The story is performed by season actors, including Michael Pare, so that the effect is somewhere between a comic and a movie. This first of seven parts introduces Ian Sparks, a would-be masked vigilante.

If you've got a Wi-Fi digital frame that's powered by Seeframe, such as this one from eStarling (http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/reviews/article.php/3799126), you can use the Seeframe app (available here) to quickly send new pictures to it. Sure, you could also e-mail your pics, but the app makes the process quicker and easier.

New Google Latitude software targeted at BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhone. It allows users to contstantly broadcast their locations. Friends can track them on a Google map. Get the full story here at InternetNews.com.

After a few tweaks, the application that Apple denied under the name Podcaster has been approved under the name RSS Player ($1.99 for a limited time, available here). The app lets you subscribe to RSS feeds and download or stream the attached audio files, and it remembers your position in a file so you can start listening again at a later time. What it doesn't do is let you search for podcasts through the app, a feature that apparently troubled the folks at Apple.

Sensi Dial is an innovative phone dialer that takes advantage of the iPhone's touch screen. The app (available here) allows you to dial your friends and family by performing a sequence of gestures. With a series of taps and swipes, you can make calls to your favorite people. If you'd like to try it out act quickly, as it's only free for a limited time.

Despite a market slowdown, ABI Research reports that the iPhone has a bright outlook in 2009.

As Ars Technica reports, Apple met the goal it set of taking 1 percent of mobile phone market share in 2008 -- in fact, it took 1.1 percent. This mark was eighth among the top mobile vendors, with Nokia taking first place.

With features such an innovative multitouch screen, the iPhone stood out from the competition -- though other companies such as Palm are looking to match this functionality.

Today mobile software company Spring Wireless announced the expansion of its operation into the United States. Founded in 2001, Spring primarily provided business software on PDAs for field workers in Brazil, according to Shakil Haroon, general manager of the company's U.S. operations.

Following launches in Moscow, Brussels, and Paris, Spring Wireless secured financing from Goldman Sachs and New Enterprise Associates to launch its business in the United States.

The company offers its mSeries and Fusion software programs to help enterprises automate business processes in the field. The platforms are compatible with devices such as Symbian phones, RIM BlackBerry models, and the iPhone.

BlackBerry maker spent more for Storm's snazzy features, according to component breakdown report. Get the full story here at InternetNews.com.