Android Apps January 21st

Android Apps January 21st: "

Google Translate: An amazing new feature brings Google Translate alive. No, really. It translates what you’re saying in English to Spanish or vice versa, on the fly, in a conversational mode. Let’s let Kat explain:

It’s as easy as pressing a key when the language is being spoken-let’s say you’re trying to order some food in Spanish. It translates what you say into the phone on the fly, and then reads the Spanish version out loud, so the waiter can understand. They can then respond in Spanish, and the phone will convert it to English, speaking it out loud.

It’s only English and Spanish for now but you know more will be coming. Free.

ATM Hunter: I hate it when I can’t find a good ATM and am forced to cash out at some seedy liquor store that sells FourLoko in the back room. With MasterCard’s new app, ATM Hunter, you can find specific bank ATMs, surcharge-free ATMs, 24-hour ATMs and even wheelchair accessible ones near you. Users can even add ATMs to the app too. Free.

Kongregate Arcade: You get over 300 different flash-based games on your phone for free. Some of them have to be good! Oddly, it got pulled from Android Market but can still be had on their site directly. Requires Android 2.2 with Flash installed. Free.

Jet Car Stunts Lite: It’s the free ‘lite’ version of the full $2 app but it has 8 courses that aren’t in the full version, so it’s almost like an expansion pack. It’s a racing game that’ll track your fastest time so you can brag to your friends. Quick and pretty damn addictive. Free.

SeamlessWeb: The president of the SeamlessWeb fan club is without question Gizmodo’s Sam I Am Biddle. And he’s a pretty smart dude! So if you’re in one of the 14 cities where SeamlessWeb makes it dough, take Sam’s advice and use the SeamlessWeb Android app to make all your future food orders. The app will use GPS to find delivery-friendly restaurants nearby. Then you can check out restaurant ratings, cruise through menus, and place your order for delivery and make Sam happy. Free.

ABBYY Business Card Reader: As old school as business cards are, people still love handing ‘em out! But what to do with them when you get them? Type in the info? Uh, no. Use ABBYY’s Business Card reader to take a picture of the card and let it do all the legwork for you. It uses OCR software to work its magic. $10

NASA Spinoff: See everything that NASA has done in one purple Android app. Gary says:

If you can live with the app’s bizarre purple layout-inspired by the Crab Nebula?-there’s a good amount of content in here. A timeline of NASA innovations is good for boning up on what it’s been up to since it was founded in 1958, plus there’s a simple Google Maps tab showing where many NASA inventions can be found around you today. Plus there’s an occasionally updated news feed.

Booty Symphony: Quite possibly the awesomest combo ever: T-Pain and butts. Kyle eloquently explains T-Pain’s Nappy Boy’s Booty Symphony :

It’s not as crazy as it sounds! Just tap the various booties on the booty soundboard-including snippets from Nappy Boy songs like Tay Dizm’s “Point Em Out” and Young Cash’s “I’m a Freak”-to create a short, stimulating 30-second video. OK, maybe it’s more crazy than it sounds.

Ah-mazing in an app. Free or $3.

Send an email to Casey Chan, the author of this post, at cchan@gizmodo.com.

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Why You Learn More Effectively by Writing Than Typing

Why You Learn More Effectively by Writing Than Typing: "

The act of writing helps you clarify your thoughts, remember things better, and reach your goals more surely. Here’s a look at the science and psychology behind writing, and why the pen may be mightier than the keyboard.

Photo by sun dazed.

Many productivity experts and writers have long espoused the power of writing things down (in fact, paper is our many of our favorite to-do list manager and we’re a little fanatical aboutour favorite pens).

Why Writing Works

Patrick E. McLean’s defense of writing longhand is a poetic dissertation on the subject; words can rush out in their raw, feral state when the pen is your tool. Technology, meanwhile, can be too distracting and distancing.

Maybe you’re on the other side of the fence, though, and think all this just a lot of pure romanticism: People may feel more comfortable and productive with pen and paper because that’s what they’ve used most of their lives (and what we as a species have used for centuries), but some like typing more and can do it more quickly. Certainly, more of us are becoming fast typists by necessity and the art of handwriting is deteriorating.

A couple of studies, though, substantiate why the physical act of writing really does boost learning and goal achievement. Hoping to provide actual scientific proof on the efficacy of writing down and sharing goals (to make up for an often-quoted mythical Harvard/Yale study of goals), a psych professor at Dominican University of California found that people who wrote down their goals, shared them with others, and maintained accountability for their goals were 33% more likely to achieve them, versus those who just formulated goals. (One can argue that in this instance, typing would be equally effective; see “Why Writing Works Better Than Typing” below for why writing still may be better.) Another study found positive effects of writing on learning foreign words, and a survey of note-taking studies found several examples where taking notes helped students with recall and academic performance.

The research results may seem common sense or obvious to many of us. If you’re interested in the biology behind writing’s effect on our achievements, though, here’s a little background: Writing stimulates a bunch of cells at the base of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS acts as a filter for everything your brain needs to process, giving more importance to the stuff that you’re actively focusing on at the moment—something that the physical act of writing brings to the forefront. In Write It Down, Make It Happen, author Henriette Anne Klauser says that “Writing triggers the RAS, which in turn sends a signal to the cerebral cortex: ‘Wake up! Pay attention! Don’t miss this detail!’ Once you write down a goal, your brain will be working overtime to see you get it, and will alert you to the signs and signals that […] were there all along.”

Why Writing Works Better Than Typing

There may also be a scientific basis for the pen’s superiority over the keyboard when it comes to writing development and cognitive functions. Dr. Virginia Berniger, who studies reading and writing systems and their relationship to learning processes, found that children’s writing ability was consistently better (they wrote more, faster, and more complete sentences) when they used a pen rather than a keyboard; these are, of course, subjects without a penchant for using either tool. We also previously covered the WSJ article that connected handwriting and cognitive abilities; in one of the studies cited, adults learned new symbols and graphic shapes better when they reproduced them with pen-and-paper instead of typing them.

The difference, Berniger notes, may lie in the fact that with writing, you use your hand to form the letters (and connect them), thereby more actively engaging the brain in the process. Typing, on the other hand, involves just selecting letters by pressing identical-looking keys.

Of course, whether the pen or the keyboard is better for you depends on your personal experience and comfort with these tools. As a compromise, perhaps we should all get stylus-friendly tablet PCs or digital pens.

The author of this post can be contacted at tips@lifehacker.com

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Star Wars Leather Wallets

Star Wars Leather Wallets: "

We know as a faithful fan of Star Wars, you have many ways to keep your favorite characters around you, for instance leather wallet themed by Star Wars just like the following two.

As we can see from the image, these are two Star Wars themed leather wallets officially licensed by Lucasfilm. Each wallet measures 8.5 x 3.5 inches, and is made of genuine leather, and lined with nylon. The two wallets feature silk screened artwork themed by Darth Vader, Stormtrooper. Besides, same as normal wallet, the Star Wars leather wallet comes with enough room for your dozens of bills, and four small pockets for your credit cards.

The Star Wars leather wallet is priced at $19.99 USD. If you’re interested, jump to ThinkGeek for more detail, Additionally, if you need more Star Wars themed gadgets, you might like to check Death Star cookie jar, R2-D2 alarm clock, and more via tag “Star Wars”.

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Copied Oracle Files Not Part of Android After All

Copied Oracle Files Not Part of Android After All: "

According to a report at ZDNet, earlier reports indicating that Google's Android operating system had directly copied code from Oracle/Sun were greatly exaggerated. The controversy was ignited today when an article called out a number of files available in the Android open source repository. These files, the reports said, were exact copies of files that Oracle makes available, but they were not marked as such. Many of them had the Apache license attached instead.

 Now that everyone has had some time to digest the news, we see that this is simply a mistake. 7 of the files are part of the unit test tree, and are only a developer tool. These are not shipped with Android and cannot be called part of the OS. An additional ZIP file contained more Oracle files, this time related to an audio chipset driver. This file was added by a user for unknown reasons. It too is not part of Android. In fact, the most recent version of the repository doesn't even have many of these files.

If the original information had panned out, it would have been a big headache for Google in their legal battle with Oracle. The latter company claims their code has been inappropriately included in Android. Do you think there is some shady business going on at Google?

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DSLR Camera Shaped Chobi Cam One Mini Camcorder

DSLR Camera Shaped Chobi Cam One Mini Camcorder: "

Have you remembered that impressive Chobi mini camera series? Now JTT released a new DSLR camera shaped mini camcorder named Chobi Cam One.

As shown in the image, Chobi Cam One is a very miniature camcorder shaped as a DSLR camera. It measures 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.6cm, and weights about 12g. Using the mini camcorder with LCD screen, you can capture pictures in 1600 x 1200 resolution in JPG format or record videos with sounds in 640 x 480 resolution in AVI format. And the built-in memory card slot is compatible with microSD and microSDHC with up to 32GB storage capacity. Besides, the integrated micro USB port allows you to quickly charge the mini camcorder (about 1 hour). Along with Chobi Cam One, JTT also released several matched lenses including x2.0 telephoto lens, x0.5 wide angle lens, and fisheye lens.

The DSLR camera shaped Chobi Cam One mini camcorder is priced at 9,800 Yen (about $118 USD). If you’re interested, jump to JTT official site for more details. No doubt, the mini camcorder should appear in GeekStuff4U. Let’s wait and see.

Update: Chobi Cam One has been available at GeekStuff4U.

Additionally, if you’re also interested in other Chobi series, you might like to check the Chobi G200 mini camera and its waterproof mini digital camera.

DSLR Camera Shaped Chobi Cam One Mini Camcorder Source

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Thanko USB Cup Warmer Integrated USB Hub

Thanko USB Cup Warmer Integrated USB Hub: "

We always forget our hot coffee on the desk when we are busy. So a USB cup warmer is very necessary. Check out the following one, this Thanko USB cup warmer also integrates a USB hub.

As we can see from the images, this is a multi functional, stylish USB cup warmer. The whole cup warmer measures 143 x 143 x 62mm, weights 190g, and compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 standard. In addition to keeping your coffee or tea warm, the USB cup warmer also features a blue LED screen to show you the date and the temperature of your coffee, and the built-in 4-port USB hub allows you to connect various USB gadgets with your computer through the cup warmer.

The Thanko USB cup warmer integrated USB hub is priced at $35.76 USD. If you’re interested, jump to GeekStuff4U for more details.

Additionally, if you need more practical USB hub, you might like to check Thanko’s LCD USB hub station, Quirky’s Space Bar, and more via “USB hub” tag.

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Angry Birds Keychain Collection

Angry Birds Keychain Collection: "

We’re trying to get all three stars for our Angry Birds. Maybe you’ve achieved this objective, maybe your next target is the Angry Birds keychain collection.

As shown in the first image, this is a handmade collection set that consists of three familiar Angry Birds including red, blue, and green. Each Angry Bird is handmade from polymer clay, and coated with a glossy finish. Apart from that, each bird comes with a key ring in order that you can keep your favorite Angry Bird and keys close at hand.

The handmade Angry Birds keychain collection is priced at $20 USD. Of course, you can also spend $7.5 on one Bird. If you’re interested, jump to Etsy for more details.

By the way, if you need more Angry Birds gadgets, you might like to check the Angry Birds cake toppers, Angry Birds plush toys, and more via “Angry Birds” tag.

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