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.