New Android apps worth downloading: Zagat update, LiveHive, Freak Tower

Find a great restaurant to enjoy this week with the help of Zagat, the trusted restaurant guide app. It just got a big update that adds a revamped user interface, among other handy features. We've also got LiveHive, a productivity app that makes it easy for teams of coworkers to stay coordinated and share files from various sources with one another. Finally, Freak Tower is a management simulation game in which players construct the tallest tower they can, and then defend it from giant monsters.

Zagat update (Free)

What?s it about? Restaurant guide app Zagat brings users information about restaurants in several different cities, providing information about where you should eat, how good the food is, how much it costs and more.

What?s cool? Zagat is a well-known and trusted name in restaurant guides. For years, it was available only in print, but with the rise of mobile apps, you can now get Zagat restaurant information instantly, no matter where you plan to eat. The app includes expert restaurant reviews and ratings, as well as recommendations for where to eat for any occasion, and some powerful search capabilities. Zagat's latest update has reworked the app's user interface with a new look, adds the ability to look at menus before you head out to various restaurants, and provides lots of articles to read as well as rating info.

Who?s it for? Zagat currently supports nine major U.S. cities, so be sure your city is supported if you're looking for reliable ratings on restaurants.

What?s it like? Both Yelp and YP Local Search & Gas are great for getting local ratings on businesses, including restaurants.

What?s it about? LiveHive is a productivity app that helps coworkers stay in sync, providing the ability to team members and managers to see how far along each person is and share documents and files.

What?s cool? LiveHive is all about keeping you and your coworkers informed. The app allows teams to create common workspaces for various projects, allowing one user to share important documents from sources such as Google Docs, while another updates the ?Activity Stream? that lets team members see how far along everything is. LiveHive also includes the ability for managers to choose who can see what in the app, and provides extras like the ability to share info across social networks as well. The app provides three free workspaces for users to manage and share among coworkers.

Who?s it for? LiveHive is great for employees looking to keep members of a team organized.

What?s it like? You might also try Google Docs and Dropbox for coordinating and sharing various files and documents.

What?s it about? Create and manage a tower filled with residents who live and work within the confines of the building in Freak Tower ? but beware of the attacking giant monsters that you'll have to ward off from time to time.

What?s cool? Freak Tower is a simulation title, so it's primarily concerned with building and maintaining the ?tower? part of the title. Players add rooms, install businesses, attract new residents and assign those residents jobs in hopes of earning more money and other resources and further expanding their tower. In addition to managing businesses such as seedy night clubs and used car dealerships, however, you'll also have to help defend your tower from attacking monsters bent on destroying it. Keeping your citizens healthy will result in them helping out in your tower's defense, and you can raise your own monster to stand as a defender against various creatures.

Who?s it for? Players who enjoy simulation titles with a bit of a humorous twist should cehck out Freak Tower.

What?s it like? Check out Tiny Tower and Sky Burger for more management action.

Download the Appolicious Android app

Source: http://www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/13617-new-android-apps-worth-downloading-zagat-update-livehive-freak-tower

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PaperDude VR resurrects Paperboy with Oculus Rift, Kinect, KickR and a bike

One sad aspect of modern tech is that it's all but ruined our dreams of slinging dead trees for comic book money after school. However, gizmos have enabled a killer sequel to the best paperboy simulation ever. Using a smattering of electronics -- and a real bike! -- PaperDude VR is the followup we never knew we wanted. Joining an Oculus Rift VR headset, Microsoft Kinect and Wahoo Fitness KickR into a sweat-drenched union, PaperDude VR creates an almost zen-like experience of tossing newspapers, knocking down road barriers and busting windows.

Nostalgia's a powerful drug, and we'd love a ride to see if chasing the dragon of our youth is as good as we remember. Given developer Globacore's history though, the chances of seeing this outside a specialized kiosk are slim to none. Regardless, we have one niggling question: Do pixelated paperdudes dream of 8-bit dogs?

Filed under: Gaming

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/31/paperdude-vr-paperboy-oculus-rift-kinect-game/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Prepare to Be Shocked!

So ... do the "1 trick" ads really work?

Ad screengrab

You?ve seen them. Peeking out from sidebars, jiggling and wiggling for your attention, popping up where you most expect them: those ?One Weird Trick? ads. These crudely drawn Web advertisements promise easy tricks to reduce your belly fat, learn a new language, and boost your credit score by 217 points. They seem like obvious scams, but part of me has always wanted to follow the link. What, I wonder, makes the tricks so weird? How come only one trick (or sometimes "tip"), never more? Why are the illustrations done by small children using MS Paint? I?ve never pursued these questions, though, because a fear of computer viruses and identity theft has always stayed my hand. One curious click, I imagine, and I could wake up hogtied on an oil tanker headed to Nigeria.

Thankfully, Slate has allowed me to slake my curiosity, and yours. They gave me a loaner laptop, a prepaid debit card, and a quest: to investigate these weird tricks and report back to you. I also contacted a bevy of marketing experts to help me parse what I found. The individual tricks themselves are peculiar, but the larger trick?of why this bizarre and omnipresent marketing strategy works?tells us a lot about what makes us click, buy, and believe.

Newly emboldened, I clicked on my first ad, which promised a cure for diabetes. Specifically, I hoped to ?discover how 1 weird spice reverses diabetes in 30 short days.? The ad showed a picture of cinnamon buns. Could the spice be... cinnamon? Maybe I would find out. The link brought up a video with no pause button or status bar. A kindly voice began: ?Prepare to be shocked.? I prepared myself. As ?Lon? spoke, his words flashed simultaneously on the screen, PowerPoint-style.?As soon as he started, Lon seemed fixated on convincing me to stay until the end. ?This could be the most important video you ever watch,? he promised. ?Watch the entire video, as the end will surprise you!?

Every time Lon seemed about to get to the spicy heart of the matter, he?d go off on a tangent. This video wouldn?t stay on the Internet for long, he said. The cure is for people ?ready to put down the flaky answers.? Indeed, ?if you?re looking for a miracle cure or new age fad, leave this page now.? Lon also took pains to trash the medical establishment. Big Pharma has been lying to you, he said. They profit every time you take their pills, or inject yourself with their needles. But the secret spice Lon discovered can free you of the lies and the needles. You will ?look and feel like you were never sick.? Your doctor will confirm your cure, astounded.

What is Lon up to? ?People tend to think something is important if it?s secret,? says Michael Norton, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School. ?Studies find that we give greater credence to information if we?ve been told it was once ?classified.? Ads like this often purport to be the work of one man, telling you something ?they? don?t want you to know.? The knocks on Big Pharma not only offered a tempting needle-free fantasy; they also had a whiff of secret knowledge, bolstering the ad?s credibility.

It?s doubtful, though, that Lon has much in the way of insider info. He?s an actor hired by Barton Publishing, a firm based in South Dakota that puts out a wide variety of crankish health literature?there?s nary a foodstuff that isn?t the cure to some ailment in one of Barton?s booklets. Most ?one weird trick? ads are hard to trace back to a specific marketing firm with flesh-and-blood employees, but Barton is open about the kind of publishing it does, with pictures and bios of their contributors on its website. (Notably, the first person listed is not a homeopath but a ?split tester.?)

The Barton brain trust seemed surprisingly sincere, which I kept in mind as I turned to my next ad. I clicked to learn ?the REAL reason why Obama is trying to take your guns away.? You?d think health quackery and gun paranoia would have little in common, but soon I was brought to a page with a self-playing, pauseless video and a male voice urging me to watch to the end. Apparently Obama has signed an executive order authorizing him to institute martial law and ?steal your food supply,? but ?Matt? has developed ?a weird but incredibly effective system? to survive the coming storm.

In the interests of journalism, I also checked out the ?1 Weird Secret That Pornstars Use to Get BIG DICKS.? Sure enough, this involved a dude talking at me while words flashed on the screen: ?Stay until the end of this video... it will shock you.? But before he spilled the beans on ?what?s holding you back from the big penis you deserve,? he needed to regale me with tales of his buddy Kyle, who added 2 inches and improved his confidence with the ladies.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/how_one_weird_trick_conquered_the_internet_what_happens_when_you_click_on.html

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Artist Nadja Verena Marcin Travels to Florida to Recite Nietzsche in Zero Gravity

Some speak their minds in words while others do so in the form of art. But New York based performance artist Nadja Verena Marcin goes above and beyond. Literally.

Two weeks ago, Marcin boarded a tiny 1979 Rockwell Commander airplane above Tampa Bay. Soon after take off, the pilot of the plane, Howard Chipman, let the plane fall towards the ocean. For Marcin and the three others on board, this was all part of the plan.

The goal was to reach zero gravity. As the plane dropped, Marcin floated inside, reciting quotes from German philosopher Nietzsche's "God is dead" text.

It was all to create a stunning piece of performance art that marries art and science, titled Zero Gravity. To Marcin, zero gravity is "a beautiful state of mind. It's thoughts without judgement, it's utopia, it's being inside of longing, dream, and desire."

"In our Western society there is a gap between body and mind that we need to learn how to bridge," said Marcin. Her physical state of floating juxtaposes the intellectual state of her mind as she quotes Nietzsche, and the gap is filled.

"I intend to create consciousness and meaning on a metaphorical level; in other words, a work of art. By confronting the audience with this experience, I want to share it with them as though they are in the state of zero gravity," she explained. The video of Marcin's performance is as close as most of us will ever get to the state of weightlessness. But why quote Nietzsche? Reciting "God is dead" sounds dark, and some might wonder whether the artist believes in Atheism. But that's not quite the story.

Nietzsche wrote the text in 1882, far before humans traveled to space or experienced zero gravity, yet his descriptions, Marcin says, seem to allude to it. "Later he even writes, 'I have come too early. My time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of me,'" said Marcin. With that, she was struck.

She believes the text -- "What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward in any direction? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing?" -- serves as the perfect metaphor for our time, a time in which we are trying to achieve balance and grasp on to belief. "I wanted to set his words free from being an Atheist statement. I am interested in the deep emotional quality of the text, the respect for life, and the pride that goes along with it. I think the text is meant to awaken those who don't have belief, who are lost, who lack orientation, and who are already dead," said Marcin.

When asked if she was at all concerned with the risks tied to her performance, she said, "I am not afraid once I make an active decision. I am actually more afraid of life, because life is confusing and criminal. It doesn't always wait for your decisions."

To prepare for the stunt, Marcin ran as fast as possible on the treadmill while focusing on the text on a small piece of paper. "I suppose after that nothing is as sickening as that," she said.

Through her artwork, Marcin explores "human behavior, elemental emotions, and physiological reactions through role-play and confrontation works that engage the audience." It's not the first time Marcin's work takes daring to another level. At the Fischer Landau collection in New York, she balanced on a 10-foot high wooden construction as she read from an ?criture automatique, writing done in a subconscious state. "I never rehearsed balancing in that height. It was scary as hell and that tension became part of the experience of the audience who slowly collected in the middle of the street creating a temporary piazza," Marcin said.

Marcin hopes to bring her audience to a new level of consciousness. Besides that, she hopes to get art and astronaut wings out of this utopian experience.

Though Marcin is partnered with 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel in New York, the video of her performance will be featured at Coup de Ville 2013 in Sint Niklaas, Belgium. Her Zero Gravity project is sponsored by Aurora Aerospace pilot Howard Chipman and WARP, a non-profit arts organization, and was curated by Stef Van Bellinge.

Follow Cultist on Facebook and Twitter @CultistMiami.

Source: http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/cultist/2013/07/draft-_nadja_verena_marcin_and.php

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In new apps, hand gestures control the action

By Natasha Baker

TORONTO (Reuters) - Like waving a wand, new apps are bringing a bit of magic to computers, enabling users to zoom, pan and control the action with hand gestures.

A new app store called Airspace, launched by San Francisco-based company Leap Motion last week, has 75 apps that are all controlled with the wave of the hand.

"Right now in front of your computer, there's dead space. You're only using your desktop, where your keyboard and mouse rest, and the surface of your monitor," said Michael Zagorsek, vice president of product marketing for Leap Motion.

"We take all that otherwise useless space in between and make it come alive," he added.

All of the gesture apps from Airspace use a small device called the Leap Motion Controller, which costs $79.99. It has sensors that can detect motions and translate them for the apps.

Painter Freestyle, a free app for Windows created by the Canadian software company Corel, mimics how artists work. Lightly moving a finger, or paintbrush, toward the computer produces a light brush stroke, while pushing in harder makes a darker, bolder one.

Google Earth's free apps for Mac and Windows let users pan around the Earth with hand motions and zoom in to explore different regions.

With Unlock, a Windows app, users can password-protect their computers and unlock them simply by waving their hands over the controller. The app, which costs $4.99, works by detecting the unique characteristics of an individual's hand.

The popular game, Cut the Rope, has also released a free app for the controller. But instead of swiping on a touch screen, users swipe through the air to control motion. Gamers playing Sugar Rush can steer midair using their fists.

Thalmic Labs, a Canada-based startup, has developed a wearable device called MYO that uses gestures to control apps for gaming, 3D modeling and remote control of other devices. The company plans to ship MYO, which costs $149, to customers who pre-ordered later this year.

Microsoft's Kinect device, available worldwide, also uses gestures to control games, fitness and entertainment.

Although hand gestures are gaining in popularity, Zagorsek does not think the keyboard or mouse will disappear anytime soon.

"There's nothing wrong with the mouse and keyboard today. They have literally millions of pieces of software making those tools effective," he said.

But he envisions a bigger role for the technology for three-dimensional tasks.

"In the real world, you can mold something like a piece of clay in minutes, but to do it on a computer requires hours of training and hours of work," he explained.

"The idea of being able to reach into your computer and manipulate a digital environment is really powerful," he added.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apps-hand-gestures-control-action-090136484.html

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TweetDeck Just Got Worse and Twitter Blames Google

If you?re a heavy TweetDeck user?we are bloggers, and thus ,we are heavy TweetDeck users?you might?ve noticed that notifications got way crappier this week. It turns out, it?s not Twitter?s fault, it?s Google?s. Hmph.

If you use TweetDeck?s Google Chrome extension, you would?ve noticed the change immediately when it switched over because it?s so much worse. Previously, notifications showed the entire tweet styled as a block that you could configure to pop up in your preferred corner of the screen. The new notifications are boring and decidedly less useful strips of text banished to the top right corner. Compare the before and after in this image.

Notwithstanding the content of the sample tweets, you can clearly see that the old style on the left is way more useful. Not only do the notifications on the right not show you an avatar?they don?t even show you the entire tweet. And lets not under-estimate the utility of configuring where they?re popping up?when every other notification is in the top right, it?s nice to be able to put some in another place. Or at least, that?s how I used them.

So yeah, worse. What happened?

Well, it turns out it?s all a result of changes in the Chrome software. I tweeted my discontent at @TweetDeck, and an engineer responded that the old notifications were depreciated in the new version of Chrome.

@mariojoze The old ones were deprecated on the latest version of Chrome. Sorry!

? Ram?n Arg?ello (@monchote) July 27, 2013

For a further explanation, let us turn to the April 15th entry on the Google Chrome Developers page on Google+:

With the release of the M28 developer channel of Chrome, we are officially deprecating HTML-based notifications for Chrome Extensions in favor of the new Rich Notifications Chrome API. Developers that are using HTML notifications should migrate to the newer Rich Notifications API, as support for the existing createHTMLNotification() feature will stop working in a future release of Chrome.

In other words, those richly-styled notifications you used to love? No longer supported. But remember how it was Google?s fault? It?s not Google?s fault! It?s the fault of the monolithic World Wide Web Consortium. From Google+, ibid:

Why the change? When the W3C introduced the web notifications API, they originally specified two flavors: plain text notifications and richer HTML-based ones. The W3C has since removed the HTML option from the spec.

Now, none of this would mater if Twitter was still actively developing its desktop application. Oh wait, it?s killing that too.

Source: http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/07/tweetdeck-just-got-worse-and-twitter-blames-google/

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Obama Says He?ll Evaluate Pipeline Project Depending on Pollution

[unable to retrieve full-text content]President Obama said that he would evaluate construction of the Keystone XL pipeline on the basis of whether or not it would add significant amounts of carbon to the atmosphere.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/us/politics/obama-says-hell-evaluate-pipeline-project-depending-on-pollution.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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