10 Favorite iPhone Apps

* Dragon Dictation (free). Speak to type. In general, excellent accuracy. After the transcription appears, one tap slaps the text into an outgoing e-mail message, text message, Twitter or Facebook update. Or just copies it to the clipboard. Not as good as dictating directly into any box where you can type, as on Android phones. But much faster than typing with your finger. My review is here.
* Ocarina ($1). People complain about their kids becoming addicted to their gadgets. But on long rides, I’m delighted that my son and daughter spent hours practicing this bona fide wind instrument. Blow into the microphone, learn the fingerings of the four “holes” on the glass screen … beautiful music. It was one of the first apps I reviewed.
* Google Mobile (free). Speak to search Google’s maps. Now with Google Goggles built in: Point the phone’s camera at a book, DVD, wine bottle, logo, painting, landmark or bit of text, and the hyper-intelligent app recognizes it and displays information about it from the Web.
Bonus suggestion: Google Voice. Hot off the presses! This app finally surfaced on the app store after a year and a half in limbo, as Apple mysteriously refused to approve it. But it’s here, it’s sweet, it offers free text messages, cheap international calls, free transcripts of your voicemails, and a raft of other useful features. I reviewed it just this week after its release.
* LED Light (free). The LED “flash” on the iPhone 4 is incredibly powerful; you could practically light up a runway with it. It’s fantastic for reading menus and show programs in dim light, for inspecting plumbing and car parts in narrow spaces, and for removing splinters. Unfortunately, turning it on involves opening the Camera app, switching to video and turning on the video light. Right? Not anymore. Just open this app to activate the LED instantly — bright and easy.
* FlightTrack Pro ($10). Incredible. Shows every detail of every flight: gate, time delayed, airline phone number, where the flight is on the map, and more. Knows more — and knows it sooner — than the actual airlines do. Better yet: the Pro version auto-syncs with Tripit.com. You book a flight online; you forward the receipt to plans@tripit.com; and Tripit puts the flight details into FlightTrack Pro wirelessly and automatically. You never do any data entry at all. I reviewed it last year.
* FakeCalls. When you tap this icon on your Home screen (it’s disguised and labeled only FC), in about ten seconds, your phone rings. It’s a fake call from — anyone you’ve selected in advance. (I have mine set to Barack Obama, but that’s just me.)
The simulation of the iPhone’s traditional incoming-call screen is perfect — ring tone, contact info, Mute and Hold buttons, the works. Ideal for extricating yourself from difficult situations, like meetings or bad dates.
* Line2 (free). Gives your iPhone a second phone line with its own number — one that makes or receives calls over Wi-Fi when you’re in a hot spot (no AT&T minutes!), or over AT&T when you’re not. Unlimited texting, unlimited calling, $10 a month. I’ve reviewed it several times, most recently in September.
* Twitter (free). Most free Twitter apps are a bit on the baffling side. This one is the official app from Twitter, Inc., and it’s simple and clean.
* SoundHound (free). Beats Shazam at its own game. Hold this app up to a song that’s playing on the radio, or even hum or sing the song, and the app miraculously identifies the song and offers you lyrics. It’s faster than Shazam too.
* Bump (free). If you and another iPhone owner both have this app, you just bump your phones together to exchange business cards. Sadly, it’s gotten a lot more complex as it’s matured, to the extent that a buddy and I could barely figure out how to store the received “card.” But although there are many similar apps, this is the one most people are most likely to have already, making bumping extra convenient.
What else is on my iPhone? Red Laser. Glee. Kayak. FlightBoard. OnTime. The New York Times, of course. Skype. Kindle reader, B&N eReader. Dictionary. Facebook. WeDoodle. TEDPlayer. Mint.com. FingerFoos. Scrabble. Remote (for Keynote). SpawnHD. FourSquare. Pandora. MobileMe apps (FindiPhone, iDisk, Gallery). Yelp. Flickr. And about 65,000 little games and fun apps deposited by my kids on car trips.
Happy apping!

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A Facebook Founder Begins a Social Network Focused on Charities

Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebookchief digital organizer for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, knows a thing or two about building online communities. and the

Now he is applying his expertise to a new venture called Jumo, which aims to connect people with nonprofits and charitable organizations.

The site, which is being unveiled on Tuesday, aims to “do what Yelp did for restaurants,” Mr. Hughes said, indexing charities “to help people find and evaluate them.”

Individual charities, projects like building a school in rural Africa and broad issues like gay rights will all have dedicated pages on Jumo.

Relevant news articles, Twitter posts and YouTube videos will be added to the pages, and users can add their own feedback and comments. Users can also find their Facebook friends and follow their adopted projects and issues on the site.

The idea is to take the principles that helped Mr. Hughes organize a network of volunteers into a successful political force and apply them to a much broader universe of causes and issues.

Mr. Hughes is not the first entrepreneur to venture into this territory. Causes, a Facebook application, and the Web site Global Giving are among the many existing ways to find and support charities online.

But Mr. Hughes said Jumo would not be primarily about soliciting donations. Instead, he said, the site would first try to deepen ties between its users and their favorite causes.

“The more connected that individual is to an issue they care about, the higher probability there is they will stay involved over a longer period of time,” Mr. Hughes said.

To start, the Jumo site was seeded with more than 3,000 issues and groups. But “anyone with a social mission can create a page,” said Mr. Hughes, who thinks Jumo could become a simple way for smaller charities to establish a social media presence.

Jumo will allow only organizations that have been certified as tax exempt to solicit donations, as a way to discourage fraud.

Jumo is itself a nonprofit, and will rely on payments from users and sponsorships from organizations that want better promotion on the Web site.

One challenge for Jumo will be figuring out how willing are Internet users to share details about their donations, which they can choose to display on their Jumo profile pages, said Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the Altimeter Group, a consulting firm. “The same dynamics of other social networks may not transfer to this activity,” she said.

But Chris Bishko, director of investments at Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm that contributed to the $3.5 million in grants that Jumo raised before its release, said that it was not such a long shot.

“One thing we’ve learned with Internet companies is that if you can lower the barrier and lower friction, then activity follows where it didn’t exist before,” he said. As an example, he pointed to the flood of donations via text message that followed the earthquake in Haiti last January: “We saw what people were willing to do.”

Another issue for Jumo is social network burnout. Will people who are spending time on Facebook and elsewhere be willing to add another site to their lineup?

Mr. Hughes said Jumo was not intended to compete with Facebook.

Instead, he predicts that Facebook will become a ubiquitous backbone for the social Web, and that people will also use niche sites focused on specific interests and communities. Jumo will send out e-mails and updates tailored to its users to help them stay engaged, he said.

It is not yet clear how much the Internet and social media can help push people to move beyond just “following” and “liking” things, but a social network like Jumo could be a crucial first step, said Steve MacLaughlin, director of Internet solutions at BlackBaud, a global provider of technology and services to nonprofits.

“It’s still not clear whether or not followers translate to volunteers and donors,” said Mr. MacLaughlin. “But people that are more engaged with nonprofits are most likely to become a donor or support them in another way.”

The financial impact could be tremendous, he said. Of the $300 billion that was donated to charities and nonprofits in 2009, only 6 percent was submitted online.

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U.S. School Graduation Rate Is Rising

The nation’s high school graduation rate, which declined in the latter part of the 20th century, may have hit bottom and begun to rise, according to a report to be issued Tuesday by a nonprofit group founded by former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

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“The United States is turning a corner in meeting the high school dropout epidemic,” General Powell and his wife, Alma J. Powell, wrote in a letter introducing the report.
The report cites two statistics. The national graduation rate increased to 75 percent in 2008, from 72 percent in 2001. And the number of high schools that researchers call dropout factories — based on a formula that compares a school’s 12th-grade enrollment with its 9th-grade enrollment three years earlier — declined to about 1,750 in 2008, from about 2,000 such schools in 2002.
But the report notes that progress in some states and school districts had not been matched in others. Tennessee and New York made “breakthrough gains,” sharply raising their graduation rates from 2002 to 2008, the report says. In Arizona, Utah and Nevada, graduation rates dropped significantly.
The 88-page report, “Building a Grad Nation,” was published by America’s Promise Alliance, along with two other groups. “I like this report because it shows that progress is possible against all odds,” said Marguerite W. Kondracke, the alliance’s president.
Daniel Losen, a former Harvard lecturer who researches graduation issues, said the report “might be a bit on the rosy side.” He added, “We might be beginning to turn a corner, but we’re not coming out of it yet.”
The report cites school districts that have made progress, as well as some where the crisis has worsened.
In 2005, researchers at Johns Hopkins University identified Richmond High School in Indiana as a dropout factory. But from 2006 to 2009, teachers, community leaders and professors joined in an effort to help students stay in school, raising the graduation rate to 80 percent from 53 percent, the report says.
In Las Vegas, however, dropouts soared during the building boom of the last decade because many young people quit high school for jobs in construction and landscaping. Today, many dropouts there are unemployed.

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Besar UFO Inggris Itu 20 Kali Lapangan Bola

Badan Arsip Inggris kembali membuka ribuan file tentang penampakan benda misterius di langit alias unidentified flying object (UFO), Kamis 5 Agustus 2010.

Salah satunya adalah penampakan pesawat raksasa misterius yang besarnya '20 kali lapangan bola' di atas Bandara Manchester, Inggris, Januari 1995.

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Pemilik iPad Lebih Pelit dari iPhone

iPad, tablet PC buatan Apple tak bisa dipungkiri merupakan perangkat yang hebat. Namun, apakah alat itu sebenarnya bermanfaat? Data yang dirilis lembaga riset Nielsen menunjukkan banyak pemilik tak bisa membayangkan apa yang bisa dikerjakan dengan alat itu.

Dari survei terhadap pemilik iPad dan perangkat lain yang terhubung ke internet terungkap bahwa 32 persen pemilik iPad tidak pernah men-download aplikasi apapun. Sebanyak lima persen pengguna lainnya hanya men-download aplikasi gratisan.

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Mau iPad 2 jutaan?

Dua operator raksasa di Inggris, yakni Orange dan T-Mobile, mengumumkan tarif baru untuk produk bundel iPad sebagai upaya mereka untuk menarik pelanggan dengan memangkas biaya di muka.

Baik Orange maupun T-Mobile menawarkan Apple iPad 3G Wi-Fi 16GB dengan banderol harga 199 poundsterling, atau setara Rp2,7 juta, per unit pada pelanggan lamanya.

Harga ini memang terdengar cukup murah. Tapi, sebetulnya pelanggan juga akan dipungut 25 poundsterling, setara Rp350 ribu, per bulan selama dua tahun ke depan.

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Terjerat Hukum Gara-gara Gaduh Saat Bercinta

- Rumah adalah wilayah pribadi sang penghuni. Tak ada yang bisa mencampuri aktivitas penghuni di dalamnya. Namun, menjadi lain jika aktivitas di dalam rumah itu mengganggu kehidupan orang lain di sekitarnya, termasuk aktivitas seksual.

Seperi dikutip dari laman Telegraph, pasangan suami istri Stefanie Mueller, 24, dan Lucas Zetsch, 25, harus berurusan dengan pengadilan gara-gara dituduh berisik saat berhubungan seksual di kediamannya di pinggiran kota Lichtenberg, Jerman.

Sidang kasus itu digelar menyusul pengaduan sekitar 10 tetangga mereka pada pertengahan tahun lalu. Dalam aduannya, para tetangga mengaku terganggu dengan suara berisik yang tercipta setiap malam dari rumah pasangan tersebut.

"Kami tidak membuat suara gaduh," kata Mueller dalam sidang yang berlangsung di Berlin, awal pekan ini. "Kami hanya melakukan hubungan seksual secara normal, tidak berlebihan," Zetsch menambahkan.

Namun, hakim langsung menimpali, "Mungkin bukan Anda yang berisik, tapi kasur Anda. Berdasar keterangan saksi, selalu ada suara-suara menggedor dan berdecit setiap pukul 11 malam sampai 1 pagi dari rumah Anda."

Hakim mengenakan pasal antipolusi suara dengan sanksi denda sebesar £86 atau sekitar Rp1,25 juta. Namun, pasangan itu menolak membayarnya.

Kasus serupa juga pernah menimpa pasangan Steve dan Caroline Cartwright di Pengadilan Newcastle, Inggris. Atas sejumlah aduan tetangga, keduanya mendapat hukuman untuk melemahkan desahan saat bercinta. Mereka dilarang berteriak, dan mengeluarkan suara mengganggu saat berhubungan intim.

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