Bitcoin Digital-Wallet App Hits Android Market

There's a new, unconventional form of a digital wallet available for your Android phone. The Bitcoin app for Android turns your smartphone into a wallet for Bitcoins, a form of alternative, decentralized currency that has been circulating on the web for a few years.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/07/bitcoin-android-app/

Janine Hillenbrand Vivien Strupp Elena Lasch Hans-Jürgen Haake

Scrabble Helper helps you improve your Words With Friends gameplay

scrabblehelper
If you play Scrabble (or a scrabble-like game) from time to time, you may want to check out Scrabble Helper. This simple website is a godsend when you're at a loss for words. Simply enter whatever letters you have, and the word you'd like to connect with. Scrabble helper comes up with a whole bunch of suggestions sorted by score.

The site lets you select one of five dictionaries - Scrabble International/US, Lexulous International/US, and Words With Friends. Some people might say this constitutes cheating -- I think if the other side knows you're doing it, it's definitely not cheating. And it doesn't take the challenge out of the game, because implementing Scrabble Helper's suggestions and deciding which words you'd like to connect with still takes a fair bit of thought.

Very handy, though perhaps not one for the Scrabble puritans in the crowd.

Scrabble Helper helps you improve your Words With Friends gameplay originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/14/scrabble-helper-helps-you-improve-your-words-with-friends-gamepl/

Heidemarie Stegmann

Google's Rube Goldberg Nexus Game Is Totally Addictive [Games]

Fixtation: Bike Repair Stations with Vending Machines

We’ve covered self-service bike stations before, but the Fixtation at the Uptown Transit Station in Minneapolis is worth a special mention as probably the best example yet — and not just because of its cool name. The Fixtation combines a repair stand equipped with most of the tools you’ll need for basic repairs, including tire levers, [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/07/fixtation-bike-repair-stations-with-vending-machines/

Lea Linden Kevin Fickenscher Amelie Schweizer Elfriede Oltmanns

OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows

ommwriter
I have a thing for full-screen text editing. I use WriteMonkey for my creative writing needs, and VIM in a full-screen PuTTY session for my Web development work. That being the case, I'm all over the monospace, dark-background, focused editing scene.

OmmWriter attempts to take that aesthetic and make it somehow more spiritual, with three picturesque backgrounds and ambient background audio tracks (there are seven of each in the paid version).

I'm of two minds about this app. On the one hand, yes, it's beautiful. But if you want music as a background to your writing, why not pick your own soundtrack with Winamp or Foobar2000 running in the background?

OmmWriter also offers three keyboard-clicking sounds, which are kind of nice. None of these features are groundbreaking, really. OmmWriter could be seen as a way to gently ease into the world of distraction-free writing -- in case something like WriteMonkey's dark background is just too oppressive for you.

After the fold you can see a video showcasing several of OmmWriter's features and creative soundscapes.

Continue reading OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows

OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/ommwriter-brings-its-clean-calm-writing-interface-to-windows/

Henrik Brenner Karla Reusch Wilhelm Klassen Nathalie Füllgraf

Google Abandons Realtime Service But Is Looking at Wrapping It Into Google [Blip]

Choosing the wee hours of a national holiday to tweet out the news, Google today announced that they're disabling their Realtime service after less than two years since it launched. Never fear, though—they're looking into adding the functionality to Google+. Better hop to finding someone to invite you to the service, then. [@GoogleRealtime via @DarrenWaters] More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/x781IRF3t9A/google-abandons-realtime-service-but-is-looking-at-wrapping-it-into-google%252B

Gabriela Schnee Rita Imhof Angelika Frey Mika Bernhardt

Mark Zuckerberg Is The Most Followed User On Google

In what must be somewhat embarrassing for Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the most followed user on Google+, according to the Google+ Statistics counter. The Facebook CEO has 21,213 followers, compared to the Google CEO at 14,798, Google social czar Vic Gundotra at 13,783, Google co-founder Sergey Brin at 11,629, blogger Robert Scoble at 11,389, Google spam avenger Matt Cutts at 9,153, TWIT founder Leo Laporte at 7,566, Google's Bradley Horowitz at 7,187, TechCrunch's MG Siegler at 6,579 and blogger Gina Trapani at 5,649.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/WLJjPKeHmQs/

Lea Linden Kevin Fickenscher Amelie Schweizer Elfriede Oltmanns

South Korea plans to convert all textbooks to digital, swap backpacks for tablets by 2015

Well, that oversized Kindle didn't become the textbook killer Amazon hoped it would be, but at least one country is moving forward with plans to lighten the load on its future generation of Samsung execs. South Korea announced this week that it plans to spend over $2 billion developing digital textbooks, replacing paper in all of its schools by 2015. Students would access paper-free learning materials from a cloud-based system, supplementing traditional content with multimedia on school-supplied tablets. The system would also enable homebound students to catch up on work remotely -- they won't be practicing taekwondo on a virtual mat, but could participate in math or reading lessons while away from school, for example. Both programs clearly offer significant advantages for the country's education system, but don't expect to see a similar solution pop up closer to home -- with the US population numbering six times that of our ally in the Far East, many of our future leaders could be carrying paper for a long time to come.

South Korea plans to convert all textbooks to digital, swap backpacks for tablets by 2015 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/h8vxn2d_pqI/

Ulrike Kellner Nicola Kohnen Laura Ungricht Edith Berner

ZENandTECH 6: De-cluttering

ZENandTECH 5: Food fightOur podcast feed Download Directly Subscribe via iTunes Do you own your stuff or does your stuff own you? This week on ZENandTECH, Georgia and Rene talk about the joys of de-cluttering your life, and how getting rid of the physical clutter can help you get rid of the mental clutter as well. Read on [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/ZI-uS414e9Y/

Franziska Spanier Erna Van den Hout Laura Pauli Janna Löhnig

Celebrate the Birth of Your Nation with a Toot From This DIY Fog Horn [Video]

The beauty of this DIY hand-pumped fog horn lies in the fact that the parts are interchangeable—the annoying sounds one could create with it are literally endless! More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/l7miBbW4wa8/celebrate-the-birth-of-your-nation-with-a-toot-from-this-diy-fog-horn

Heinrich Peller Viktoria Barz Emma Sauter Rosemarie Ramsauer