TGI Black Friday for Android

The TGI Black Friday app doesn't just provide you with a comprehensive listing of Black Friday deals, it also gives you some nifty tools to make sure your shopping experience goes smoothly.
The most important part of the TGI Black Friday app is, of course, the coupons. The app, along with its sister site tgiblackfriday.com, aggregates an enormous number of Black Friday advertisements, many of which are leaked up to a month ahead of time. The coupons from these ads are then listed in the app, and can be browsed by date added, store name, or category. Don't feel like swiping through a bunch of listings? You can also search for products or stores straight away. TGI Black Friday even lets you download and view PDF scans of the advertisements directly from within the app, which is great for verifying the legitimacy of deals.
One thing we love about TGI Black Friday is its built-in shopping list creator. While browsing through coupons, you can use it to keep track of everything you plan on buying. And of course, when the big day hits, all you have to do is fire up your list to make sure you haven't forgotten anything. We also appreciate the app's sharing tool, which lets you share any coupon with friends via Gmail, Facebook, or any of your other installed apps. It sends the product name, sale price, and even a link to the listing on tgiblackfriday.com.
Overall, we highly recommend TGI Black Friday. It's great not only for planning your after-Thanksgiving shopping trips beforehand, but also for referencing items when the big day finally hits. Its list of coupons is comprehensive, and it's sharing and shopping list tools can't be beat.

PRI for Android

Take your favorite public radio programs from PRI with you!.

Tote Notes for Android

Ever made plans or laid out action steps while on a business call, and wish you had taken notes? Maybe you were on your Bluetooth headset while driving, or you couldn't find a pen. Or maybe you just plain hate scrawling anything on paper at all.

Enter Tote Notes, a brilliantly conceived app that pops up after voice calls so you can dictate notes before you forget any important details. It not only records voice notes, it e-mails them to you, and even transcribes them to text so you can easily search for them later.
Here's how it works. Download the app and go through the quick setup process. First, tell it whether you want Tote Notes to activate after every call, or only after calls during "work hours" (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.). Next, enter the e-mail address that you want your Tote Notes sent to. From there, every time you end a call, a Tote Notes dialog box will pop up asking whether you want to record a note. If you do, anything you say will automatically be recorded and e-mailed as an MP3 file, along with the contact info of the caller (if it's saved in your phone's address book), and a transcript of your recorded note in the body of the e-mail. In all of our trials, the app worked like a charm, and the transcriptions (powered by Google Voice) were more or less spot on.
The free version of Tote Notes only allows a maximum recording time of 30 seconds; the Pro gives you 2 minutes. Either should still be enough time to get out all of the important details.
One thing we think Tote Notes can improve on is its settings; we wish we could set a custom activity period. For instance, we might want to set our workday for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesdays through Thursdays (wouldn't that be lovely). Also, it would be really nice if we could set Tote Notes to pop up only after calls with specific contacts.
Overall, we think Tote Notes is a great tool for busy professionals who often arrange meetings, make deals, or discuss other important details over the phone. It provides a uniquely convenient way to take notes, works beautifully, and best of all, it's free.

Android app tells you if Carrier IQ is on your phone--kinda

All the controversy surrounding Carrier IQ has prompted a developer to create an application that helps Android device owners determine whether their handset is running the software.
Dubbed Voodoo Carrier IQ detector, the application, which is available in the Android Market, helps "you find out as easily as possible if your Android device hosts CarrierIQ rootkit or not." The free application is open source, and its developer, "supercurio," says he's willing to work with others "for collaboration and contributions."
But before you download the program, beware that it might not be so accurate. Supercurio admits in the app's listing that its "results are not reliable yet" and that he plans to provide several updates that will eliminate the current false positives it's generating.
Carrier IQ quickly became a target for the privacy community last month after Android researcher Trevor Eckhart exposed what he called, the company's "rootkit" running on Android-based devices. Carrier IQ's software, Eckhart argues, records keystrokes and SMS messages, among other information, and then transmits it all off the phone for use by Carrier IQ customers.

UNO goes free in the Android Market

UNO, one of the most popular paid card game apps for Android, is now available for free download.
Previously only available in its $2.99 paid download form, the new ad-supported UNO Free still offers the same nostalgia-inducing gaming experience.

For those who have never played UNO (or have never experienced childhood), it's a classic color and number-matching card game for up to four players. And with its Android incarnation it can be played via Wi-Fi with friends, or against computerized opponents. The app also has a Tournament Mode that increases in difficulty and includes a bunch of unlockable achievements, just to keep things interesting.
UNO Free is available now for download in the Android Market. Meanwhile, for an ad-free experience, you can still get the original UNO for Android for $2.99.

Google Maps 6.0 goes indoors

With today's jump to version 6.0, Google Maps for Android is taking its powers indoors.
Instead of just dropping you off at the front door of your destination, the improved app is now helping you find your way around the inside of the building. Once you've stepped into a building with coverage, just zoom in to see a detailed floor plan, and as usual, the "blue dot" icon will indicate where you are. You can swipe around just as you would with an outdoor location, and even check out different floors using the numbered selector on the right. Otherwise, whenever you move to a different floor, the floor plan will update automatically.

Defender for Android

In Defender for Android you must have fast fingers and a sound defensive strategy to protect your medieval castle from monster attackers. Luckily, you have a pretty sweet bow (with unlimited arrows) and a pocket full of magical spells to help you in your efforts.
As monsters charge your castle walls, tap and hold your finger on them to shoot your bow. For larger waves of targets, you can also drag your finger across the screen to get that machine-gun-spray effect. And when you find yourself being overrun by a particularly feisty pack of monsters, just drag one of your powerful spells onto the screen and watch the magic happen. But be careful, because you have a limited amount of Mana (energy to perform magical spells), and it can deplete rather quickly.
To start the game, you are equipped with only a tiny reservoir of Mana and a basic bow. As you progress, however, you begin to collect coins and jewels, which can be used to make purchases from a long menu of upgrades. You can strengthen your castle walls, purchase a larger Mana reservoir, learn new spells, up your strength and shooting speed, and of course, unlock new bows.
With its fun tap-and-drag style of game play and its incredibly addictive upgrade trees, we think Defender for Android is a winner. In future iterations of the game, we'd love to see more spells and enemy types, but even as it is now, we highly recommend this free download.

Google Catalogs for Android

The Google Catalogs app for Android Honeycomb tablets aggregates shopping catalogs from over 100 popular retailers. It lets you search and mark items as favorites, gives you links to make purchases directly from retailers' sites, and even lets you create and share visually stunning collages made up of your favorite products. However, as great as the app sounds on paper, it unfortunately suffers from some annoying performance issues that just can't be ignored.
The interface of the Google Catalogs app is beautiful. It's easy to navigate, features high-resolution graphics, and flips through pages quite smoothly. Items on catalog pages are marked with a small price tag icon. Click one to open up a larger picture, description, price, and even a link to purchase the product on the retailer's Web site. You can also easily add items to a Favorites list or share individual products, pages, or entire catalogs with friends.
Finally, where Google Catalogs shines brightest is its Collages feature, which lets you create, save, and share collages featuring any item from your Favorites list. With the beautifully simple collage editor, you can drag images around, change backgrounds, crop, layer, and even add borders and text boxes to your creations with ease. These collages are perfect for keeping track of collections of items you plan to purchase as well as images or pages you might find inspiring.
Unfortunately, where Google Catalogs falls short is its performance. The app suffers from laggy loading times, and chronically force closes. Also, it can't reorient itself as you rotate your device, which is annoying, to say the least.
Overall, we love the idea of the Google Catalogs app, and believe it has tons of promise. But with its laggy loading times and tendency to shut down for no reason at all, it's difficult to give it high marks. We suggest standing pat and waiting for the next update.

Google Catalogs Screenshots

ChuChu Rocket! for Android

In ChuChu Rocket, your objective is to guide hordes of frantic mice (ChuChus) to their rocket ship by dropping arrowed tiles on the ground. As the mice move about the screen, simply swipe in front of them to drop a tile and point them in a direction to run. While the game may not sound very difficult, there are, in fact, an assortment of obstacles and an army of evil cats that very well could have you pulling your hair out by level 10.
There are three different game modes to choose from in ChuChu Rocket: Puzzle, Challenge, and Battle. Puzzle is the basic offering, while Challenge gives you specific, brain-teasing objectives to complete, and Battle pits you against up to three other players. Each is fun in its own way, but we found Challenge to be the most addicting, with levels that ask you to do things like rescue a hundred mice in 30 seconds, or avoid a labyrinth full of cats.
With its ridiculously fast-paced gameplay and absurd storyline, ChuChu Rocket is undoubtedly one of the more interesting puzzle games out there. Whether you used to play it on Dreamcast or you're just now hearing about it, we think it's definitely worth a download.