StreamS HiFi Radio

Download the StreamS HiFi Radio app and you will have access to Internet radio in the car. High quality digital audio is guaranteed with this app and, in using pioneering buffer controls, a strong quality signal will be maintained even in areas where signal strength is not always consistent. Favourite internet radio stations can also be selected and stored via the user-preference dedicated AppRadio interface.

Dash Command

Sounds exciting! The Dash Command app enables users to see all key performance specifications in real time. The live data that is displayed on the screen of the AppRadio head-unit includes fuel consumption, fuel level, engine speed, engine temperature, diagnostics, braking and acceleration, all the things that are displayed on a dash board anyway only a lot more accurately, meaning you’ll never have to guess how much fuel’s left in the tank and be on tenterhooks to whether you’ll make it home or not! Although be warned, this app does require the use of an optical cable that is sold separately.

AUPEO!

Again based on personal tastes, the AUPEO! App enables drivers to customise their music playlists constructed on personal preferences. Based on a list of attributes, such as favourite artists, favourite genre of music, and AUPEO! will provide you with a playlist centred around such preferences.

[Source: Pioneer AppRadio’s new apps: Now there’s no excuse to run out of petrol!]

Fortunately my very specific prayers have been answered with the Scosche MyTREK Wireless Pulse Monitor, a high-tech way to jazz up your workout and keep you in control your fitness. A tad smaller than one of those new-fangled iPod nanos, the Scosche MyTREK Wireless Pulse Monitor straps to your arm with velco and connects to your iOS device by the magic of Bluetooth. One you sync the two it should prompt you to download the free Scosche myTREK app that will track your workouts and monitor your performance.

The app has gotten pretty dire feedback on iTunes for constantly crashing and having “the wrong calander” but the app I used (running the latest version of iOS) had absolutely no issues.From within the app you can select a type of workout and a playlist and you can control musical playback and volume using the buttons on the Pulse Monitor. Sadly it doesn’t play nicely with other audio apps, so I’d shift a workout playlist out of Spotify and keep a couple of spare podcasts in iTunes rather than Instacast if that’s your thing (it’s my thing).

One you’re strapped in the myTREK will automatically calibrate itself and calculate your pulse then provide a visual representation to mirror your activity. It’s fun leave it on during a Michael Bay action movie to see if you drop down to sedate levels or if you blood actually boils at the thought of what he did to Transformers.

The myTREK also features built in GPS so you can check the distance you’ve run (if you’re outdoors obviously) and see how many calories a 10 minute jaunt around the park really knocks off. Audio prompts provide real-time feedback and you have up to 5 hours of workout time thanks to the lithium-ion battery. And if you don’t want to carry your iPhone on you as you hop from spot to spot it has a working range of up to 33ft – handy if you’re doing circuits.

The Scosche myTREK is available from Apple UK for £129.95.

[Source: Scosche myTREK Wireless Pulse Monitor review]

For people who record audio on the go, their “best” option just got better with the new Tascam iM2 – a high quality stereo microphone for the iPhone. I’m a big fan of such devices and used to adore my Blue Mikey for recording podcasts on the go from a few years back (up until the release of the iPhone 4 when the device regrettably stopped working).

Featuring a pair of 180 degree adjustable condenser microphones of the same high quality as TASCAM’s best-selling DR-series recorders, the iM2 plugs into the 30-pin dock connector at the base of iOS devices. The iM2 contains its own microphone preamp and analog-to-digital converter for low noise and premium audio quality. Unlike mics that use the built-in iPhone preamp, the iM2 can handle up to 125dB SPL sounds for the loudest concerts and instruments.

Worried about unexpected background noise throwing your record off balance? The iM2 packs a built-in stereo limiter to tame sudden loud sounds. You can adjust the microphone level via a knob on the side, making it quick and easy to adjust without looking at the unit. The iM2 is powered through the dock connector so no battery is required. If you intend to be recording for lengthy periods of time, there is a micro USB socket on the side that enables you to charge your device. This means with the right set up – a tripod, iPhone 4S, Glif tripod adaptor and an iM2 you can record high quality audio and video, edit it on your phone and share it with the world.

There is also the free Tascam PCM Recorder app which works wonderfully with the iM2 for recording pure audio. The TASCAM PCM Recorder app has input and output level faders with an “on-screen” meter to help check levels. High and low EQ is built-in, as well as stereo limiting and a low cut filter to prevent overload. Users are able to record mono or stereo files at CD-quality for up to 12 hours. After recording, files can be accessed through iTunes or uploaded to SoundCloud right from the iPhone. TASCAM PCM Recorder app is available now as a download from the iTunes store.

[Source: Tascam iM2 review: CD quality recording comes to the iPhone]

Almost as predictable as the wave of articles about unwanted gifts, bumper post-Xmas sales and people stabbing each other over cut price trainers is the wave of articles about “getting fit in the New Year”. And we at Latest Gadgets are sticklers for tradition.

Not for the first time in my career a tech company emailed me and asked if I’d like to try a weight loss gadget. I try not to get insulted. The company – FitBit and the gadget is the sleek looking FitBit Ultra weight loss tracker, the wellness widget that’s been taking America by storm.

The FitBit Ultra is a tiny USB key shaped dongle that you can clip to a belt or necklace. The design of the dongle is pretty sleek in a really nice matt black and a belt clip design. There is a single button that cycles through the hidden display – revealing the time, how many steps you’ve taken, how many stairs you’ve climbed and how many calories you’ve burned. You can also hold the button to log activies such as sleeping or skiing.

The Fitbit Ultra tracks steps, distance, sleep patterns and even stairs climbed via a state-of the-art altimeter, and includes an on-device display for real-time feedback. Fitbit Ultra’s accelerometer and state-of-the-art altimeter technology work together to track movement from climbing the stairs, so there is no confusion with taking a lift or escalator. Online, Fitbit.com compares daily climb activities to well-known landmarks around the world such as The Eiffel Tower and Machu Picchu and even Big Ben’s 389 steps.

Because I’m lazy, one of my favourite FitBit features is the USB hub that attaches to a PC. It automatically uploads all your data to Fitbit.com whenever your dongle is within wireless range, making it easier to keep track or your activities.

Have friends? Fitbit.com has a range of social features to help users stay motivated including messaging and achievement badges for reaching landmarks for stair climbing, steps walked and distance travelled. And it is fully integrated with all social media platforms if you feel the need to overshare. A weight management support tool, Food Goal, is also included which dynamically changes based on activities you complete during the day and calories consumed.

Fitbit’s online motivational support is available on your PC or Mobile, or via Fitbit’s iPhone app (well mobile website). It also includes a stopwatch – so that users can challenge themselves to beat a previous time and a clock.

Fitbit Ultra is available in blue or plum and is £79.99 SRP.

For more info head to Fitbit.com

[Source: FitBit Ultra review: A good looking gadget to help you look good]

While their respondents favoured the mobile phone above their car or laptop, they also discovered that 74 per cent of them did not regularly back up their personal data on their phone, and 85 per cent of them would ot be able to locate their phone if it was lost or stolen.

What really made me laugh though, was that more than a third said they checked their mobile phone every time they went to the toilet. They must have pretty tough bosses…

Anyway, the upshot of this is that they could all protect their phone using the Lookout mobile app, which protects against malware, spyware, and phishing scams. Lookout can help you locate a lost or stolen device and also backs up important personal data such as contacts, photos and call history.

The app is also capable of identifying and blocking infected apps before they can have a serious impact on smartphone users and stops the user from visiting unsafe websites and locates stolen or lost phones.

Lookout Mobile Security is a free app for smartphones, iPhones and tablets and is available on the Android Market at market.android.com and Apple App Store at itunes.apple.com.

[Source: App will Lookout for your mobile phone data]

Image courtesy of Flickr user mik_p

Tap Free Pain

$1.99

If you’ve got the time and someone willing to massage you, than the Tap Free Pain app, with its 200+ pain relief and relaxing massage methods is guaranteed to help relieve those ‘I’ll never drink again’ feelings. You can even customise your own hangover relief program and save it for instant access after your next bender – We thought you said ‘never again!’

If you’ve not got the time or someone to massage you, then the Tap Free Pain app is effectively useless.

Hangover Meter

$0.99

Making light of our dire state of mental and physical inertia is the Hangover Meter app, which ‘measures’ how bad your hangover is, in order to, we presume, encourage ‘hangover’ competitions among mates and the one with the worse hangover is crowned champion!

Drink ‘n’ Track

$0.99

For those more serious about canning the plonk is the Drink ‘n’ Track app. This health-conscious app tracks your drinking habits with the aim of keeping your drinking in line – Perhaps this one’s best left until after Christmas.

Hangover Cures

$1.99

Now this one’s more like it. If you’ve tried absolutely anything not to wake up after a night’s boozing with a mouth like a wrestler’s jock strap, then check out Hangover Cures, which has 40 unique and crazy ways to beat those hangover blues.

Brainwave Hangover Relief

Free

If hangovers leave you cringing back under the covers at the slightest sound then the Brainwave Hangover Relief app, could be the ‘cure’ for you. Giving out low-frequency sound waves this innovative app is meant to provide relief for hangover symptoms – Although you may look slightly ignorant sat with headphones on all day ignoring all external sound.

[Source: Five hangover relief apps: Just in time for the party season!]

Maybe you need a little hand from MicroStrategy’s iPhone app, Usher. This app lets you set up and manage all those parties and drinks events from start to finish.

How does it work? Well, first of all it allows you to send out personalised invitations using Facebook. Create an event from your iPhone and then use filters to identify who you want on the guestbook – so no laboriously scrolling through your long contacts lists,.

You can then manage your guest list – checking RSVPs in real time, managing VIP lists (if it’s that kind of event!) and sending out last-minute invitations. Usher will sort a printed guest list for you too if you wish.

Mobile tickets are then delivered to your guests’ smartphones, so they don’t need to worry that they might forget a printed invite. For those without a smartphone, tickets can be accessed on a browser or printed from the web.

If you have doormen (or women) at your events, they can check people in using Usher on their iPhones and validate their tickets using a Facebook photo, QR Code, Sight Code, Usher Code or Phrase Code. The organiser can then see who has arrived by checking their own phone.

This sounds a great idea for the party planner and anyone who organises PR events. Try it out for free by heading to the www.usher.com website and clicking on the link to the App Store.

[Source: Be the perfect party planner with Usher]

So it’s great that there are so many apps out there aimed at little ones. Two recent launches features a couple of very popular characters – Postman Pat and the My First JCB crew.

The Postman Pat Special Delivery Service app has been released to celebrate Pat’s 30^th birthday – and he doesn’t look like he has aged at all!

There are eight games to choose from, all with easy, medium or hard settings to choose from – and even slightly older children will enjoy them. I thought my five-year-old might turn up his nose at Postman Pat, but he really enjoyed the games on a harder setting;

Choose from the likes of:

Thompson Farm: Help Alf round up the animals into the right pens.

Post Office Sorting Game: Help Pat sort the letters and parcels into the correct sorting bins.

Train Game: Help Ajay direct the trains. Look for the coloured lights on the signal posts then touch the junctions to change the direction of the arrow points.

One point – the instructions (as on so many apps aimed at littlies) are written, so you do have to explain how to play the games. This seems to be the case on lots of apps and sites aimed at preschoolers – maybe it is to ensure that parenst don’t just leave them to their own devices – but spoken instructions would be great so that little ones could play on their own if they wanted.

The app costs £1.99 (which is a small price to pay for a bit of peace and quiet!) from iTunes

For those who don’t have a child obsessed with all things vehicular, you might not know about the My First JCB characters. Joey JCB, Marty Mixer and Doug Dumptruck are very popular with small boys who love anything to do with construction.

This is the first time they have appeared on a smartphone app – and the My 1^st JCB app has nine games and activities for them to try out. You can have a race, play a memory game, piece together simple jigsaws and do a dot-to-dot.

This app is not as involved as the Postman Pat one and is definitely aimed at the younger end of the market. Without the easy, medium an hard settings on the games, this is not an app that will grow with your child as the Postman Pat one will. But still lots of fun for small boys up to four who loves their construction vehicles.

The app costs £1.99 from iTunes

[Source: Kids’ favourites appearing on an iPhone (iPad and ipod touch) near you]

Blurb Facebook

Note that last order dates for the services vary depending on products and delivery options, but tend to be around December 12-16. Please check before ordering!

Nero Kwik Media Software

Nero has added a new photo service to its free Kwik Media software. This lets you design and print your own customised calendars, cards and photo books – show off your holiday snaps, print a ‘boast book’ for grandma or send a family calendar to an aunt who lives abroad.

Great for showing off your holiday snaps, creating a gift for the grandparents or sending a family calendar to Mum for her birthday.

With Nero Kwik Media, the user can complete a high-quality, ready-to-order photo book, calendar or greeting card in minutes. Photos can be tagged and filtered using facial recognition so they can found quickly.  Also the pre-configured background themes and layouts can be edited and changed to make your project completely personal to you.

The free Nero Kwik Media software lets you manage, sync and share photos, videos and music across PCs, Android smartphones and tablets.  There are also tools to edit and enhance photos, create slide shows, burn your content to DVD and Blu-ray, and post photos and videos to social networks.

Photo products typically ship within five to 10 business days.

Go to: http://kwikmedia.nero.com/eng for details.

Snapfish

A favourite of many of my mum friends is Snapfish. As well as offering bargain prices for photo printing – especially if you have a big batch to get printed, Snapfish also offers a number of personalised gifts.

A customised calendar or mini photobook, for example, each come in at less than £15. Or how about getting your own image on the stamps you use to send your Christmas cards? They cost from £7.80 for a sheet of 10 x 1^st class stamps.

You can capture your special moments in a personalised photobook – choose books of up to 150 pages – plenty of room for all your family and friends from over the years to be included in a memory book for a partner or best friend. Soft cover book prices start from a stocking filler price of £2.99.

I have just used Snapfish to create a magic mug (the pictures appear as you fill it with a hot drink) for my husband from my little boy. You can squeeze up to 15 pictures onto a mug – a great gift to keep at work. Plus a calendar for Nanny, filled with pictures of her grandchildren – a whole year of lovely images for £14.99.

www.snapfish.co.uk

Blurb Facebook

My favourite pics tend to go up on Facebook, so rather than go back and trawl through the hundreds of images I’ve taken this year, it would actually be easier to take them off my Facebook page.

The people at Blurb have obviously had the same thought because they have just launched a new bookmaking flow that lets Facebook users turn their album photos into professional-quality books.

The Blurb photo book flow for Facebook lets you use your Facebook photo albums, along with their captions and comments into quality photobooks. The resulting  7×7 inch square format books, start at £7.

To create a book, sign into your Facebook account on the Blurb website. Once the albums are selected they will then autoflow into a Blurb book and a personalised cover will be automatically chosen.  Photo comments and captions associated with a picture are also captured.  You can buy or edit your book using Blurb’s online bookmaking tool, Bookify.

The images are automatically optimised to high print quality and there is an option to share and sell your book from the Blurb.com bookstore, as well as to create an ebook for iPad.

Books are delivered in seven to 10 days.

More at www.blurb.com/apps/facebook

Jessops

Jessops has long been a favourite with photographers and it also offers an online service with a wide range of photo gifts.

One of our favourites are the Skins, which can be personalised with your own image for iPhones, iPads and PCs.

If you’re on a budget there are mugs, jigsaw puzzles, mouse mats, gift wrap and cards, snow globes, stationery sets, cushions, key rings and lots more, whether you’re looking for stocking fillers or something a bit more substantial. Keen chefs could even be unwrapping their own personalised apron on Christmas morning.

Until December 6 2011, Jessops is offering 50% off its photo calendars – use the code XMASCAL.

Go to http://photo.jessops.com for more details.

Bonusprint

Trawling through a huge box of old family photos recently, I came across piles of Bonusprint envelopes filled with badly-dressed people with questionable hairstyles – and yes, many of them were me. It’s hardly surprising, as BonusPrint has been around 1979.

However, there’s’ nothing old-fashioned about the service it now offers online. BonusPrint has all kinds of personalisd photo gifts for you to choose from, from Photo Cards and Photo Books to prints, calendars and diaries.

As my small boy has come home from school several times with some other child’s Ben 10 lunchbox, being able to personalise a child’s lunchbox is absolutely inspirational – and at £9.99 it’s pretty much on a par with the prices charged for your average character themed box.

For someone who loves their kitchen, or who has just moved into a new home – how about a personalised glass chopping board or glass placemats?

There are loads more ideas – head to www.bonusprint.co.uk for all the details.

Photobox

Finally, Photobox is another favourite in our household. On our first wedding anniversary, I was struggling to come up with a clever paper-based gift until I logged on to Photobox and found their beautiful collage photo posters – I grouped together some favourite photos of our time together for a truly unique gift.

As well as the usual posters, calendars and photo books, Photobox has also introduced Christmas photo baubles this year – great as gifts for grandparents, or for a baby’s first Christmas, or even as a lasting reminder of a loved one who has passed away.

Also new this year at Photobox are the personalised photo snow globes.

Head to www.photobox.co.uk, where new customers can get 30 per cent off their first order using the FIRST30 code.

[Source: Christmas gifts that are pretty as a picture]

This means that Sky TV customers can have access to hundreds of films via their tablets and smartphones, as well as at home on their TVs.

Sky Movies subscribers can use Sky Go to stream movies on demand over a Wi-Fi connection (there should be 3G capability by the end of the year). They will be able to see content from all 11 Sky Movies channels – films they can look forward to over the next few weeks include Black Swan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Little Fockers and Limitless.

This is the latest expansion to the Sky Go service, which lets customers view Sky content using their iPads, iPod Touch, iPhone, PC, Mac and laptops. SkyGo was launched in July this year and has nearly two million users to date. It also offers access to channels such as Sky News and Sky Sports.

Earlier this month, Sky also launched a dedicated Sky Movies App for iPhone and iPad, offering listings for movies currently showing on Sky Movies and at the cinema, movie trailers and the option to record movies via Sky+ remote record.

A Sky Go app for Android handsets should be available in the next few months.

Sky’s attempts at world domination look set to progress next year when the Sky Go experience will be supported by the ability for Sky customers to use at least 5,700 public Wi-Fi hotspots, ins coffee shops, restaurants, pubs, transport hubs, hotels and gyms. This follows Sky’s acquisition of the Cloud, a public Wi-Fi network.

The Sky Go app is available for free to Sky customers from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore

[Source: The sky’s the limit as Sky Movies come to tablets and smartphones]