Software : Google IO: Google Play for Education brings Android to the classroom at Google IO |
- Google IO: Google Play for Education brings Android to the classroom at Google IO
- Google IO: Google Play Music All Access hits crescendo during IO keynote
- Google IO: Google presses start on Google Play game services during IO keynote
- Buying Guide: Best antivirus: 10 home security suites reviewed and rated
- Updated: Top 265 best iPad apps 2013
- BlackBerry connects instant messaging to Microsoft
- Interview: 'Good software should be at least as smart as your dog'
| Google IO: Google Play for Education brings Android to the classroom at Google IO Posted:  Android engineering director Chris Yerga returned to the stage during Google's IO keynote today to unveil Google Play for Education. The new Google Play service was "built from the ground up" for educators and provides tools for them to practically engage students using Android technology. Educators will be able to easily send apps to all their students at once, purchasing bulk licenses on schools' dimes. Google Play for Education will launch in the fall, but developer can begin submitting education apps immediately at developer.android.com/edu. Google starts the party rightGoogle today kicked off its three-day Google IO conference in San Francisco with several key announcements. Google senior vice president Vic Gundotra took the stage to kick things off at the sixth annual Google I/O conference. He revealed that over one million were watching the keynote live on Youtube alone. Google also announced its new subscription music service Google Play Music All Access, its own version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, Google Play game services, and more. Stay tuned to TechRadar over the coming days for more Google IO coverage. |
| Google IO: Google Play Music All Access hits crescendo during IO keynote Posted:  Android engineering director Chris Yerga stood up at the Google IO keynote this morning in San Francisco to introduce Google Play Music All Access, Google's new subscription music service. "So you guys want to hear about music?" Yerga asked. He called Google Play Music All Access "a uniquely Google approach to a subscription music service." He said Google Play Music All Access will help guide users through a world of music without any hassle. The service will include music recommendations made by automatic algorithms as well as specially curated recommendations and playlists. Radio without rulesIt's "a music service that's about music, and the technology fades to the background," he said. The service will make it easy to view upcoming tracks and "swipe away" unwanted tracks, which will help it compete against more restrictive services like Pandora and Spotify. Yerga called it "radio without rules." Google Play Music All Access includes library, radio, and "listen now" features and is available for $9.99 per month today in the U.S. Google will also offer 30-day free trials, and those who start a trial before June 30 will pay only $7.99 per month. Google Play Music All Access will be available in more countries soon, Yerga promised. Developing... |
| Google IO: Google presses start on Google Play game services during IO keynote Posted:  Google today announced Google Play game services for iOS and Android at its Google IO conference keynote in San Francisco. Hugo Barra, Google's vice president of Android product management, took the stage during the Google IO keynote to show off the new set of gaming-specific Google APIs. "Let's talk about gaming," Barra said. Google Play game services includes cloud saves that work across devices, achievements, and leaderboards that use Google+ circles. Barra showed off leaderboard functionality in the Android version of the popular indie game World of Goo. He also revealed that Google Play game services will include matchmaking services to facilitate multiplayer gaming, but failed to show it off due to network difficulties during the keynote. Google Play game services will be available starting today. Developing… |
| Buying Guide: Best antivirus: 10 home security suites reviewed and rated Posted:  It's no secret that the web is a dangerous place, and a good antivirus package is a must-have for pretty much every home PC that could be used by the whole family. If you're short of cash, then there are plenty of quality free alternatives around, as we highlighted in our Best free antivirus software feature. Of course the free antivirus tools don't offer quite as much functionality as their most costly cousins, though. And independent testing also reveals that commercial packages will often (although not always) deliver the best protection. So if you're looking for the maximum security then you should at least consider a paid package. Here we've found 10 of the best home antivirus tools available for you to buy, listed in price order. 1. F-Secure Anti-Virus£19.95/US$39.99 (around AU$30) - 3 PCs, 12 months
While some companies try to win you over by the length of their feature list, F-Secure Anti-Virus takes a more back-to-basics approach. There's no anti-phishing support here, no icons in your search engine results, no real browsing protection at all. The program is solely about monitoring your PC extremely closely, detecting and removing any threats before they can cause any harm. This focus seems to be working, too, with the F-Secure engine coming at or near the top of the list in recent testing by both AV Comparatives and AV-Test. Virus Bulletin don't report quite as impressive results, and we found the program delivered more false positives than we'd like. Still, at half the cost of many competitors - and to protect 3 PCs, not just one - there's no doubt that F-Secure Anti-Virus is an exceptionally good deal. Score: 4.5/5 2. Avira Antivirus Premium 2013£21.99 (around AU$33.50/US$34) - 1 PC, 12 months
At almost half the price of some of the competition, you might expect Avira Antivirus Premium 2013 to be a little underpowered. But yet, if anything it offers more features than most, with the program including a browser tracking blocker and highlighting dangerous websites in your search engine results, as well as delivering all the real-time protection you'd expect from an antivirus tool. The package is also a little more complex than some others, just marginally more likely to slow you down (though you'd probably need to be using a stopwatch before you would notice). But test results are generally above average, particularly for file detection. We've found the program performs well in real life, and on balance Avira Antivirus Premium 2013 is a good value for money choice. Score: 4/5 3. BullGuard Antivirus 2013£24.95 (around AU$38/US$39) - 1 PC, 12 months
If your inbox is always overflowing with junk, then BullGuard Antivirus 2013's bundled spam filter may seem appealing. The program also scans web links in your search engine results and social networking streams for potential danger, while of course monitoring everything you download and access for malware. But the spam filter isn't particularly accurate, unfortunately. We found the browsing protection to be only average. And while the independent testing labs generally give the package solid scores, well inside the top 10, they're also not exceptional. Put it all together and BullGuard Antivirus 2013 is a capable package, perhaps worth using if you like the company, but otherwise you'll find better programs elsewhere. Score: 3.5/5 4. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013£24.95/AU$59.95/US$39.95 - 1 PC, 12 months
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013 offers all the usual antivirus detection, watching everything you do for potential threats. But that's just the start. Its USB Immunizer tries to prevent malware from infecting your USB flash drives. And the program also provides a host of web tools, checking social networking links, warning you of risky sites in your search engine results and preventing access to known phishing sites. The Bitdefender engine is rated consistently highly by the independent testing labs, too, generally appearing in the top five. You may see a small impact on your PC's speed performance, but Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013 is still an excellent package at a great price. And its value only gets better if you want to cover more packages: a 3-PC licence can be yours for £29.95 / AU$74.95 / US$49.95. Score: 4.5/5 5. G Data AntiVirus 2014£29.95/US$29.95 (around AU$45) - 1 PC, 12 months
It may be one of the more expensive packages here, but G Data AntiVirus 2014 does come with plenty of features. As well as all the regular antivirus functionality (on-demand and real-time scanning, behaviour monitoring, hourly updates), the package includes extra tools to help secure your online banking and shopping activity, an app for your Android tablet or smartphone and even a tool to improve your PC boot time. What's more, all this technology really delivers. Independent labs seem to love G Data, with recent additions regularly coming in at (or close to) the top of the list for both raw detection rates and real-world protection. If there's a small down side, it's that reports suggest G Data will slow your PC down a little more than some of the competition. We doubt it'll be enough that you'll notice, though, and if you need maximum protection then G Data AntiVirus 2014 looks like a great choice. Score: 4.5/5 6. Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2013£29.99/AU$39.95/US$39.95 - 1 PC, 12 months
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2013 is a good all-round package, which manages to tick all the main antivirus boxes: easy to set up and use, check; on-demand and real time scanning, check; highlighting of dangerous web links, check. There's a virtual keyboard to help you bypass keyloggers. And the new edition has plenty of welcome optimisation options (smaller and faster updates, reduced battery drain on laptops, and more). This all works very well, too. The program does a great job of preventing access to malicious websites, and we found it offered capable and effective antivirus protection. Testing labs also rate Kaspersky highly. There is a minor performance hit to your PC, and the price isn't the best, but on balance Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2013 is a solid and reliable security choice. Score: 4/5 7. Avast! Pro Antivirus£29.99/AU$49.99/US$39.99 - 1 PC, 12 months
While most antivirus tools rely on detecting and blocking malware before it runs, Avast! Pro Antivirus provides a second line of defence. The program's sandbox means suspicious programs can be launched, but in an isolated environment where they can't infect your system, which is an excellent option that could protect you from even the latest, undiscovered threats. Avast's more standard antivirus technology is a little more ordinary, at least in comparison to the commercial competition. The most recent independent testing places Avast! in the low end of the top 10, and our own tests show reasonable, but not outstanding performance. Still, it's a capable program, and the sandbox alone could protect you from threats that other tools will never recognise. Avast! is definitely worth considering. Score: 3.5/5 8. AVG AntiVirus 2013£29.99/AU$51.50/US$39.99 - 1 PC, 12 months
Every antivirus package needs a little something extra to help it stand out from the crowd, and AVG AntiVirus 2013's standout extra is probably its Android support, with antivirus and theft protection available for your Android smartphone or tablet. The core features are unfortunately a little more ordinary. We found the package offered only average antivirus and online protection, and independent testing further shows AVG dropping to the lower end of the top 10 lists. Of course this still isn't bad at all, but the problem for AVG is that it gives a basic version of its product away for free. And this makes it its own biggest competitor, because even if you like AVG, there's really not enough in this version to justify the extra cost. Score: 3/5 9. Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus Plus£39.95/AU$59.95/US$39.95 - 1 PC, 12 months
Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus Plus stands out immediately for its strong social networking protection. Not only does the product highlight dangerous links in your Twitter and Facebook streams, it also works with Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, MySpace, Mixi and Weibo. There's a Facebook Privacy Scanner to help properly evaluate and control your Facebook privacy settings. And you get more general (and very effective) blocking of antiphishing websites, too. The independent labs tend to give the program good ratings for its core protection, and we've also found Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus Plus delivers when it matters. So although it's relatively expensive, if you need the extra social networking tools then the program could be worth a look. Score: 4/5 10. Norton AntiVirus 2013£39.99 - 3 PCs, 12 months - or AU$59.99/US$49.99 - 1 PC, 12 months
Symantec's baseline security tool monitors your downloads, emails, instant messages and more for malware, looking to block malware before it can do any damage. There's also simple web protection, with the package checking a website's reputation, and letting you know if there are any problems. The standard package in the UK covers three PCs for one year, which is much better value than some of the competition - though in the US and Australia the standard package covers one PC for a year. There have been some recent disagreements about the tool's effectiveness. AV Comparatives ranked the Norton engine very poorly for file detection in one test, but Symantec has questioned the validity of those figures, and labs such as AV-Test still place Norton in their top 10. One area where the package really does excel, though, is in its impact on your PC. Believe what you read in some places online and you might think Norton's packages are "overweight" and "bloated", but this idea is very out of date. These days they install quickly, use minimal system resources, and testing from companies such as PassMark regularly shows they're among the most lightweight security tools around. Score: 3/5 |
| Updated: Top 265 best iPad apps 2013 Posted:  If you've got yourself an iPad 4 or iPad mini, you'll want to start downloading the best iPad apps straight away. And if you already have an iPad 3 or older iPad, you might want to update it with some new apps. It's the apps that really set iOS apart from other platforms - there are far more apps available on the App Store for the iPad than any other tablet. So which which ones are worth your cash? And which are the best free apps? Luckily for you we've tested thousands of the best iPad apps so that you don't have to. So read on for our best-in-class apps for each major category, followed by some more specific lists of the best free and paid for apps and games. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Books
The best library of literature to choose from, cross platform support via Whispersync, a great choice of fonts and ways to read… Kindle is the most comprehensive reading app out there, and an essential download. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: iBooks iBooks doesn't have quite the same selection of books as Amazon's Kindle service, but it's made with the typical level of Apple polish, and is a pleasure to use. It's also compatible with your own PDF and ePub files, so your reading material doesn't have to come from Apple. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Me Books Me Books is a brilliant app that enables you to take old picture books and make them new again with interactive features. Listen to famous voices read out Ladybird books, Peppa Pig stories and other favourites, or record your own voiceovers and sound effects, and choose where to tap to activate them - it's all completely customisable. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Book Creator for iPad Unsurprisingly, Book Creator for iPad enables you to lay out and publish books directly from your iPad. It's no professional tool, but that's part of its strength - anyone can quickly add in text, videos, pictures and audio to produce interactive ePub books. They'll work in iBooks and other software, and the quality is excellent. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Little Fox Music Box This meticulously crafted musical storybook has loads for kids to get into. There's plenty of animation and hidden actions in Little Fox Music Box to uncover in scenes based on various classic songs. The designs are by an Oscar-nominated artist, and there's a karaoke mode, if you're feeling brave. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Business
App name: OmniPlan OmniPlan is a project planning app, and it means business (no pun intended). It's a lot more expensive than your average app, but being able to get all the parts of your project recorded and planned in a way that's easy to refer to could help you hugely later on. It's packed with features, and you can collaborate with others using it. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: OfficeTime You might need to keep track of how much time you're spending working for billing reasons, or just because you want to see what tasks are taking up the most time. Either way, OfficeTime is a really simple way to keep on top of things. It syncs with the iPhone version, so you don't need to have your iPad with you, and even sends the information to a Mac or PC. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: LogMeIn Though you can use various file-syncing and transfer services to view your computer's files on your iPad, sometimes you just need remote access to your PC or Mac. LogMeIn gives you control of your computer from anywhere for free, though you can pay a subscription to enable more powerful features, including easy file transfers from your computer. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Adobe Reader Adobe's free PDF-reading software does more than just open PDFs (which iOS can do anyway). You can use it to mark up PDFs with a drawing tool, and add notes. You can use it to fill in PDF forms, and sign documents to email back (or print). Adobe Reader also supports opening password-protected PDFs and PDF portfolios. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Quickoffice Pro HD If you want to be able to tinker with Microsoft Office documents easily, Quickoffice Pro HD is a complete package in one app. You can view word processing files, presentations, spreadsheets and PDFs. It even supports more advanced features such as Track Changes. If you need to work with DOC, XLS or PPT files a lot, this is the app to get. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Education
App name: Learnist Learnist is kind of like Pinterest for education - you can use it to browse and create learning boards, with mix media and text from different sources to give you all the information you need. This app is a little weak when it comes to creating the learning boards, but it's easy to find boards on all sorts of topics, packed with information. It's a great way to find out about a new subject. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: iTunes U iTunes U enables educational institutions to provide course notes and materials for students, including lecture recordings (whether that be audio or video). You can take notes while watching lectures and subscribe to the courses to make sure you don't miss anything. Even if you're not at university, you can use its free course to get learning about new topics! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Move the Turtle. Programming for kids Replicating the old educational idea of programming a 'turtle' to move around using the Logo programming language, the Move the Turtle app… well, does just that. This app offers a grounding in how software works, teaching your child to build commands and solve problems. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Little Digits There are lots of counting and arithmetic apps on the App Store, but Little Digits is genius in its simplicity. The iPad can detect up to 10 touch inputs at a time, so this app tasks your child with placing the correct number of fingers on screen to match the numbers. It really helps kids to make the connection, and there are maths problems to keep them advancing. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: DK The Human Body App DK has been doing a great job of bringing its considerable educational muscle to bear on the iPad, and DK The Human Body App is no exception. Full of detailed diagrams, huge amounts of information and even a rotatable 3D human body with layers you can toggle on and off, it really shows how interactive apps can enhance the way we learn. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Entertainment
App name: Netflix Netflix offers the best range of TV for £6 per month, even if its UK offering pales compared to what's available in the US. Still, you get multiple seasons of plenty of great shows, along with loads of films, both older and newer. Clever features such as tracking your place in shows across platforms make it a winner. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Lovefilm Player for iPad Lovefilm (now owned by Amazon) has expanded out of being just a DVD rental company to offer streaming TV and films. Its TV content isn't up to Netflix's standards, but it often has flashier, newer films, and you can get its streaming-only service for just £5, for your Lovefilm Player for iPad app or other connected devices. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Sky Go If you're a Sky subscriber, Sky Go is an essential download. Depending on your package, you can watch up to 32 live channels, including movies and sports, and Sky's on-demand catalogue. It even works over 3G, so you can watch the football just about anywhere. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: BBC iPlayer The BBC led the way in on-demand content with the launch of its browser-based iPlayer, and this slick BBC iPlayer app streams a great range of high-quality video content to your iPad. Its custom interface is easy to browse, and you can now even download shows to watch offline while travelling. It also enables you to watch live TV. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: zeebox This app takes the idea of the iPad as a second screen while watching TV to a new level. Zeebox wraps up information about the show you're watching with social streams, it's got information about viewer opinion and can even be used to control certain set-top boxes. It can even be something as mundane as a TV guide, if you're so inclined. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: TVCatchup Live TV You can turn you iPad into a TV with a hardware add-on such as the Tizi, but if you've got a decent internet connection, it's much easier to use this TVCatchup Live TV app. Using it, you can stream the Freeview channels directly to your iPad, with a now and next guide so you can see what's on. It's simple, but works brilliantly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Finance
App name: Account Tracker Keep track of your spending and balance over multiple accounts with the useful Account Tracker app. It offers support for multiple currencies, enables you to set up alerts to warn if you're going to go overdrawn, enables you to search for transactions and export the information for sending out or analysing later. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Meter Readings Meter Readings is a great way to avoid any nasty surprises when your gas or electricity bill comes. Use it to keep track of your household meters, and it'll show you usage patterns over time, estimate what the cost will be, and even enable you to check your bills by comparing its figures to what you're being charged. And yes, it'll remind you to take readings. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Food & Drink
App name: Jamie's Recipes The Jamie's Recipes app gives a bunch of recipes for free, but after that you'll have to buy 'packs' to see more content. They're well worth it, though, with easy-to-follow instructions, beautiful images and great search features. You can also add ingredients you need to a shopping list, synced to an iPhone. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Cooking Planit HD Most cooking apps assume a certain level of competency - especially if you're going to actually make the food in the time predicted. Cooking Planit HD is for complete beginners. It offers great features, such as being able to save meals (combinations of dishes), but the killer feature is its super-easy, step-by-step instructions. A timer on the screen helps you keep on top of cooking times, and tells you exactly what to do in what order to keep things going smoothly - no experience necessary. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Basil Smart Recipe Manager Basil Smart Recipe Manager is a bit smarter than a standard recipe app. Instead of just being loaded with its own cooking ideas, it can search various cooking websites and turn its recipes into easy-to-follow instructions within the app. There's a large list of compatible sites, so you'll always be able to find something amazing to cook. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: BBC Good Food This free BBC Good Food app comes with 20 recipes when you download it, but you can buy extra recipe packs to bulk out its options, and they're great value. Each one has nearly 200 new recipes in, and covers a different area, from healthy eating, to quick cooking and, of course, delicious cakes - among others. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: toptable for iPad Sometimes, you don't want to cook. It's a good thing, then, that the world is packed with great places to eat. The toptable for iPad app enables you to make bookings at thousands of restaurants right from your iPad, either by searching or just browsing a map to see what's nearby. It also offers restaurant reviews and menus. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Games
App name: Hero Academy This turn-based strategy game is perfect for mobile hardcore games. The aim is to defeat your opponent on a chess-like board using your team of fantasy heroes. Hero Academy's asynchronous play means that you can take your turn, wait for your opponent to go, then take your turn whenever you want. It all means it's pick-up-and-play, but it offers a huge amount of depth in how you can play it. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Bastion This engrossing RPG tasks you with saving a destroyed civilisation, through beautifully designed broken worlds. Guided only by a mysterious narrator rivalling Morgan Freeman for gravitas and solemn intonation, you pick a range of weapons and fight hordes of enemies to restore the titular Bastion. It's a brilliant experience, with a choice of controls for the touchscreen. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Splice: Tree of Life Splice: Tree of Life is an artistic puzzler that takes place in a microbial world. In each level, you have to reshape the structure you're given in a target number of moves (or 'splices'). It rewards forward planning, and isn't shy of giving you some extremely difficult puzzles to work with. It works perfectly on the iPad, and will steal hours from you. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Need for Speed: Most Wanted Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a blistering arcade racer that puts you in various desirable cars, racing to beat your opponents and outrun the police. Drifting around corners, boosting with nitros and major crashes are the order of the day. As you progress and pick up points, you can combine them with the points you get from the console version to climb the leader boards. It looks great, handles brilliantly and is a huge amount of fun. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Jetpack Joyride If you've got a couple of minutes to spare, Jetpack Joyrideis the perfect game. It's an endless runner with simple controls - touch to go up, release to go down - but the addition of vehicles and gadgets mean no two runs are ever the same. It's a fast-paced reflex-tester, and it records your high scores on Game Center, so you can compete against your friends. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Letterpress A brutal game of word combat - in Letterpress, you have a grid of letters, and you take control of letters by using them in words. The aim is to have the most letters in your control when the board gets 100% taken. the strategy comes from the fact that you can't use words twice, and it's easy to take control of your opponent's letters. A turn-based battle of strategy and vocabulary, Letterpress is really easy to play, and you can try it for free. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Health & Fitness
App name: runtastic PushUps PRO Runtastic PushUps PRO is designed to help push you develop your fitness and strength, enabling you to select training regimes, motivating you during workouts and storing information on how well you do each day. It's actually part of a range from runtastic, including sit up and squats, if you prefer. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: iCircuit Training The iCircuit Training app offers 18 pre-designed circuits, to get you doing different exercises that train every part of your body. You don't need equipment for any of them (though a bit of space might be wise). There are videos to show you how to perform the 50 different exercise types, and it keeps logs so you can track your progress. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker Keep track of how many calories you're consuming each day with the Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker app's huge database (over two million foods). Once you start seeing how much a chocolate bar will add to your daily total, you might think twice about it if you're trying to lose weight. Even if you're not, it can help you to keep a handle on how healthily you're eating. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Lifestyle
App name: Amazon Windowshop Amazon Windowshop presents you with a grid of items, making it easier than ever to flick through what's on offer. It's divided into columns of different product types, so you can quickly browse the bestsellers in any category. Select an item and you get all of the usual Amazon information, and you can buy right from in the app. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Louvre HD Instead of a hefty coffee table book full of art, you can just fill your iPad with it. The Louvre HD app offers 770 of the Louvre's masterpieces to browse through, which can be searched by artist or time (and you can add your favourites). If you want to add an element of ambient class to proceedings, you can set it to show them as a slideshow (and it can even play classical music). -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Day One Journal If you want to keep a diary of your days, this is the best way to do it electronically. Day One syncs across your iPhone and iPad, so you have it with you everywhere. Write text entries, add photos and locations, tag entries so they can be found later and much more. Oh, and you can set a passcode lock for the app, so prying eyes don't get in. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: eBay for iPad With eBay having long since passed from virtual garage sale to virtual shopping mall filled with known selling brands, it's a more popular way than ever to buy things. The eBay for iPad app presents it all clearly and crisply - it's filled with photos and the items, with prices nice and prominent. You can customise its home screen with your favourite searches, too. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Cards Cards enables you create physical greetings cards to send out to people from your iOS device. You can order beautiful letterpress cards, customised with your photos and words. It grabs information directly from your phone, such as adding the names of places photographs were taken, and enabling you to choose who to send it to from your contacts. It'll even send you a notification on the day your card is due to arrive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Medical
App name: Gray's Anatomy Premium for iPad Gray's Anatomy turns the old medical tome into an interactive iPad extravaganza. It contains all the illustrations from Gray's Anatomy at high resolution, as well as 3D models. You can also search the app, create you own notes for illustration, save bookmarks and email information you want to share from the app. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Muscle & Bone Anatomy 3D Muscle & Bone Anatomy 3D is a reference app for the muscles and skeleton that features 3D models of the body with labels linking you through to more information. It also has the ability to group muscles into 'actions' and see how they combine to let you move in real life, and there are quizzes to test your knowledge. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Patient.co.uk Nobody wants to come across as a hypochondriac, but it's still sensible to check your symptoms whenever you feel ill. The Patient.co.uk app offers a large database to search, with information on various diseases and conditions, as well as general health information. The information comes directly from GPs, and the app enables you to find local health services if you're in England. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Music
App name: GarageBand GarageBand really is music-making made easy. It enables you to play a collection of software instruments and record them to put together a song. for beginners, there are Smart Instruments, which simplify playing the instruments, while experienced musicians can plug in their own guitar or some MIDI instruments to record. You can then edit the track and send it out into the world. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Rdio The Rdio music-streaming service will set you back £9.99 per month for mobile access, but what that gets you is one of the most impressive libraries out there for streaming, great streaming 'radio' stations, offline listening and unlimited playlists. The Rdio appis really easy to use, too. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: djay Further proving that the iPad can become just about anything if developers try hard enough, djay turns it into a pair of decks. Choose two tracks from your iTunes library, and get mixing. With mixer, tempo and EQ controls, automatic beat matching, cue point triggering and loads of other features, it's actually a surprisingly professional setup. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: DM1 - The Drum Machine This vintage drum machine app takes the kind of setup that might have set you back hundreds of pounds in the past and delivers it your iPad, for under a fiver. Packed with 86 drum kits, and filled with features for getting just the sound you want, electronic musicians will lose themselves in this DM1 app for hours at a time. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Equalizer Pro If you want more control over how your music sounds on your iPad, Equalizer Pro is the app to get. Whether you just fancy tweaking the balance of a song, or whether you want to do it for everything to complement your headphones, this app gives you total control over your music's EQ. You can draw curves with an unlimited number of points, and see (and hear) the results immediately. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Navigation
App name: TomTom UK & Ireland A turn-by-turn navigation app like this is only really of full use on a 3G/4G iPad, due to its inclusion of a GPS chip, but even if you just have a Wi-Fi model, TomTom UK & Ireland's mapping is second to none, its instructions are clear and accurate, and you can opt to have live traffic data for a small extra fee. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Waze social GPS traffic & gas If you don't want to pay £40 for TomTom's mapping service, Waze's community-driven approach is hard to beat. The Waze social GPS traffic & gas app will still get you safely around the country, and includes traffic information, along with road, hazard and police information, supplied by the community. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: AA Parking Trying to find a parking space can add a huge amount of time onto a journey if you don't know where to go. Do your research with the AA Parking app beforehand, though, and you'll know exactly where you need to end up. It could even save you money, by helping you find the cheapest (or free) car park. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: CamerAlert Doing your research with CamerAlert could save you a bunch of money. It's able to show you the locations of speed cameras around the country, so you'll always know where the danger is. To keep its database up to date, you need to pay a subscription, but it's worth it to ensure that you don't get a hefty fine. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: AA Time Machine AA Time Machine isn't really so much a navigation app as one for history buffs, but it's clever anyway. It enables you to buy maps from the past to overlay on today's maps, to see how things have changed. You can go from 1816 through to today, and see how areas have built up (or, indeed, disappeared) over time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: News
App name: Instapaper Instapaper is one of the iPad apps that absolutely everyone should own - once you've tried Instapaper, you'll wonder what you did before. It enables you to save articles you've found online to read later - it downloads the text and caches it offline. It means that if you spot something interesting and don't have time to read it, you can send it to Instapaper and eventually browse it whenever you're ready. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Reeder for iPad Reeder for iPad is a Google Reader client that presents your saved RSS feeds in a way that makes them incredibly easy to browse and leaf through. You skip through everything that's accumulated in a clear layout, and it's got loads of social and reading features, including sending articles to Instapaper. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Flipboard: Your Social News Magazine Starting out as a way to merge your social feeds with your RSS feeds, Flipboard has grown into a mini publishing platform in its own right. You can still use it to turn your Twitter, Flickr and Facebook feeds into mini magazines, effectively, but it also offers interesting articles through its 'Cover Stories' feature, and includes content from the New York Times and Rolling Stone. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: BBC News If you want to make sure you're always up to date with what's happening in the world, BBC News is the app to get. It presents all of the BBC's online news stories in an easy-to-browse interface, complete with relevant video content. You can can personalise the app to highlight the topics that are most relevant to you, and watch the BBC News channel live at any time. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: The Early Edition 2 The idea of The Early Edition 2 is that you create a daily newspaper, just for you. You tell it where to get content from, using individual RSS feeds, or by linking it to your Google Reader account, and it pulls in all of the words and pictures and lays it out. Everything will be available offline, so you can still read it on the Tube. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Photo & Video
App name: Camera+ for iPad Camera+ is essential on iPhone, but it's also great on iPad, even if you don't take many photos with your tablet. It syncs with the Lightbox of Camera+ for iPhone, so any photos you take appear on it automatically. Then, you can apply all the edits you need on the larger screen, giving you more space to see what you're doing, and have more controls to hand. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: iPhoto iPhoto looks fairly simple, but it's full of surprisingly powerful tools. You can apply all sorts of filters and brushes, applying spot fixes and tweaks rather than having to make changes to your entire photo. It's all been heavily optimised for the touchscreen, and comes with great photo-sorting features, including creating 'journals'. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Adobe Photoshop Touch It may not be the full desktop version of Photoshop, but Adobe's tablet version of its image-manipulation app is still mightily impressive. Adobe Photoshop Touch features lots of advanced tools, all tweaked for touchscreen control. You can still work in layers, and produce amazing final images. The tutorials are great, too, enabling anyone to learn to use it quickly. Read: Adobe Photoshop Touch review -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: iMovie Apple's video-editing app offers intuitive gesture controls, making it easy to select clips, import them into your project, trim them, split them and move them around in the timeline. You can also add sound effects, record voiceovers and add soundtracks. iMovie also has the fun Trailers feature from the desktop version, guiding you through making a short, fun film. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Luminance Luminance offers one of the simplest photo editing interfaces out there for beginners, but delve into it and you'll quickly find a huge range of sliders and options to tinker with, bringing the most out of your photos. It works in layers, so you can experiment with building up changes and easily go back to how it was before. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Productivity
App name: Pages Pages isn't the app you'll reach for when you just need to type something simple, but it's unsurpassed for when you need to lay out something more complicated. It's easy to change the look of your document, change the flow of the text and drop in images - the words will flow about the pictures flawlessly. Font control is just a tap away, too, making this a great, simple publishing app. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Keynote Keynote is incredibly powerful not just as a presenting tool, but as a creation one. You can put together slideshows with all sorts of animation using its simple tools, with the Magic Move tool offering serious levels of customisation. And by hooking your iPad up to a projector (or using AirPlay), you can show your presentation on the big screen, while notes are displayed on your iPad. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Byword Byword is designed to be a distraction-free writing environment, focusing you solely on what you need to write, whether that's a letter, a speech, or a list of the best apps for iPad. It offers word and character count tools, and extra keyboard buttons for commonly used punctuation. It can save your files to Dropbox or iCloud, and you can edit in Markdown for writing blog posts. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Things for iPad Things is the ultimate task manager. It's not cheap, but it's incredibly powerful, enabling you to sync tasks across devices, manage the timing of your tasks, divide them up by category, tag them for filtering, add repeating tasks and due dates... if you need to keep on top of a lot of activities, there's no better way. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Evernote Evernote is a mixture of note-taking, reminders and organisation. It enables you to add, well, just about anything as a note, that you can go back and review from any device, thanks to its cloud syncing. You can divide different areas of your life with Notebooks, and even add images of handwritten notes, which Evernote will scan and make searchable. To get the best out of it, you need a premium subscription, but it'll help you organise your life. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Agenda Calendar Calendars need to give you lots of information at a glance, and Agenda Calendar is designed to be as slick and simple as possible. Supporting Google Calendars, iCloud and Microsoft Exchange through the default Calendar app's integration, it makes scheduling as easy as it can be. It also integrates with the iOS Reminders app, and you can use gestures to control your view quickly. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Dropbox Dropbox is one of the best cloud syncing and storage services, and its app is just as good. You're limited in what you can upload to it (just photos and videos from your Camera Roll), but you can access all of your files and folders. The app itself can view many files, but if there's something you want to open and edit in another app (such as opening a presentation in Keynote), you can just the Open With... command. Because of this, it's the perfect way to transfer files to your iPad. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Due - super fast reminder Apple's built-in Reminders app is good, but it lacks a few handy features that Due provides. Due makes it fast to add reminders, but it also puts loads of extra options just a tap away. You can set a reminder to recur, or to turn an audible alarm on or off, or you can delay a timer by 10 minutes, an hour or a day, all with just a single tap each - no need to go delving into menus. It makes it much easier to manage the little tasks you might otherwise forget. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Reference
App name: Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomy This collection of anatomical drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, from the Windsor Collection, enables you to get closer to these ancient drawings than you could ever hope normally. The drawings are presented in stunning detail, complete with notes (translated into English). In Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomy you can translate the mirror writing, see how closely the drawings match the real human body, and get insight into the works from the collection's curator. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Pyramids 3D Pyramids 3D is a genuinely amazing app for history buffs. You can explore a 3D version of the Giza Plateau, and go into the tombs in full 3D environments, including into tunnels closed to the public in real life. All the tombs are presented with their hieroglyphics, and you can even see the paintings as they were when new. It's all guided by experts, and there are 3D models of many objects found within the tombs, including Tutankhamen's golden mask. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Atlas by Collins The Atlas by Collins app presents the Earth in different globe views, each one offering a huge amount of information and detail. There are physical maps, political maps, environmental ones and many others, including modern topics such as communications and energy. You can zoom down to street level, and explore hundreds of thousands of locations. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe accompanies the BBC series of the same name, and goes well beyond what you can see in a TV series. There are videos and articles, sure, but you can also explore space, from the surface of Mars out to beyond the boundaries of our solar system. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Star Walk for iPad Star Walk for iPad is an augmented reality app that makes it easier than ever to know what you're looking at when you look up at the sky at night. It can track and pick out the constellations, point out planets and other objects (including the International Space Station), give you more information about what you're seeing, and you can even go back in time, to see what the sky looked like in the past. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Social Networking
App name: Tweetbot for Twitter (iPad edition) Tweetbot is an app designed to make Twitter as friendly as possible. It's got a clear, uncluttered interface, gesture controls for accessing information quickly and loads of great, original features, including being able to specify at what times you don't want notifications to disturb you. It can even sync your place in your timeline between it and its iPhone version. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Blogsy If you want to blog from your iPad, Blogsy is the app you want. It supports posting to WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Drupal, Joomla and loads more, and is packed with features. Add images from Flickr, Picasa and more, style text, write and edit HTML, post to multiple blogs, schedule posts, save local drafts, edit pages... for bloggers, this is the only tool necessary. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Find my Friends Find my Friends enables you to see your friends and family's locations, if they've given you permission. You can have it on all the time to make sure your kids are safe, or just for a small period, such as if you're trying to get a group to meet up. You can set location-based alerts too, so you'll know when someone arrives. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: MyPad+ for Facebook, Instagram & Twitter MyPad+ combines Twitter and Facebook in one app, enabling you to see your Facebook Messages, Twitter DMs and Mentions all in one place. It's also great for browsing the social networks, with a big clear news feed, gesture navigation, Facebook chat and Instagram support. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Skype for iPad If you want to video chat with someone who isn't using an Apple device, Skype is the way to do it. Skype for iPad also supports voice calls and instant messaging, so you can communicate however you want. You can share photos from within the app, and it works over 3G and 4G, if your iPad supports it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Sports
App name: MLB.com At Bat The MLB.com At Bat app offers news, analysis, scores and schedules for free, but with a premium subscription, you get access to a large archive of games and highlights from last season and before, including some classic games. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Coach's Eye Record yourself or someone else taking part in their sport, then play it back in slow motion and analyse it with Coach's Eye. You can go through frame-by-frame, or just play it back, and you can draw on the screen to point out highlights (or errors), and add an audio voiceover. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: CoachNote Whether you're playing with the Champions League or with your pub team, it pays to know your tactics. CoachNote enables you to plan player positions and movement for a range of sports. You can animate 'plays' by moving players around, which can be recorded to play back or share elsewhere. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Sky Sports for iPad For Sky Sports subscribers, Sky Sports for iPad is the ultimate companion app. Watch Sky Sports channels live, follow multiple matches at once in split-screen in the Champions League event centre, or get player profiles and live match stats while watching on a big screen. For F1 races, you get split-screen video, multiple camera angles, highlights and live race data. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: My Football Pro HD My Football Pro HD is a comprehensive football app that offers data for 800 leagues across the world. Follow just about every team's scores live as the matches are played, with plenty of stats to mull over, and even get Push notifications if something happens to your team. Of course, you can choose favourite teams, so you get the most important information first. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Travel
App name: Google Earth Get the full power of Google's information about the world with the Google Earth app. It offers 3D cities, tours of famous places, layers of information - including roads, borders and more - and enables you to see photos from around the world. You can get a surprising amount of information about pretty much anywhere in the world, all with one free app. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: TripAdvisor The internet has given everyone a voice, and people most use it to talk about what they like and don't like. Harnessed in apps like TripAdviser, that's a very good thing. Get information about everything from the quality of food in a restaurant to whether a hotel is good value, and find great things to do in places you've never been before. TripAdviser can really take the worry out of going to a new place. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: National Parks by National Geographic America has some the most beautiful national parks in the world, and the National Parks by National Geographic app is full of stunning photos of them, as well as lots of great information about what you find there. You can see maps with points of interest highlighted, get information about what activities there are to do, and what flora and fauna you'll find there, and personalise the app for the kinds of things you like to do. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Tube Map Pro It pays to know exactly where you need to go on the London Underground long before you leave home. The Tube Map Pro app provides a Tube map, along with live updates for the quality of service on each of the lines, so you'll know in advance if there's going to be engineering delays. It can plan your routes for you as well, and tell you how long the journey should take. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Live Street View Google Maps may have disappeared from the built-in Maps app, and taken Street View along with it, but you can get it back! This Live Street View app offers Google Street View for anywhere that it's available, just by tapping on the maps provided. On top of that, you can use its 'live' Street View function to have it act as a kind of augmented reality app, showing you the Street View for where you're currently pointing the iPad, so you'll know if you're in the right place. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Utilities
App name: Find my iPhone Despite the name, Find my iPhone is more than capable of helping you find your iPad - though you can use it on your iPad to find your phone, if that's what you need. Tying into iCloud, it enables you to track the location of any of your devices (though the accuracy may depend on whether they have a GPS chip, or are connected to the internet). You can also use it to cause a misplaced device to make a loud sound, you can send a message to the device, or lock or wipe it completely, if you think you can't get it back. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Chrome Unfortunately, Google Chrome isn't as fast as Safari on iOS, but it does have a load of other features that make it worth a look, especially if you use it on the desktop. For a start, it can sync tabs and bookmarks with the desktop version, but it also offers a unified search/address bar, Google voice search, a clever home screen and some gesture controls, along with an easy-to-use Incognito mode. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: 1Password Pro 1Password Pro enables you to keep your passwords and other sensitive information handy on your iPad, but protected. You can even use it to log into websites with a single tap, and it's all protected by high levels of encryption. It can sync with the iPhone, Mac and Windows version of 1Password, so you've got all your information everywhere you need it. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Air Display If you often have your iPad docked near a desktop computer, why not use it as a second screen? That's what Air Display does, either mirroring or extended or Mac or Windows desktop onto the iPad. You can even use the touchscreen to control your computer, meaning that you could put, say, tool palettes in Photoshop on the iPad, leaving more space on your screen. For apps that have multiple windows, such as a movie editor, you could put your file browser on the iPad, leaving more space for editing. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Air Video iOS is only able to stream movies in iTunes from your computer over Wi-Fi, but Air Video can stream just about anything. Use it to access any video file on your desktop computer and watch it on your iPad. Even videos in formats the iPad doesn't support aren't a problem, because Air Video will transcode them on the fly, turning them into a suitable format as they're playing, provided you have a fast enough computer. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best iPad apps: Weather
App name: Magical Weather Magical Weather is an animated weather app that makes getting the temperature less boring. It looks beautiful, but more importantly, it presents all the information you need at a glance. See the weather for up to nine locations at once, or see hourly forecasts or seven-day forecasts. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
App name: Phases of the Moon If you like a spot of moon-gazing, Phases of the Moon is a simple app that serves its one purpose brilliantly. It shows you the current phase of the moon with a big, stunning image and some extra information. Useful buttons enable you to look at how the moon will be on a particular date, and quickly see when the next full moon will be. Want more app ideas for your iPad?Top 80 best free iPad appsMany great free iPhone apps cost 59p or more in their iPad incarnations, and the quality level of what's still free is often ropey. But among the dross lie rare gems - iPad apps that are so good you can't believe they're still free. Of those we unearthed, here are our favourites. Read: 50 best free iPad apps Top 70 best free iPad gamesThe App Store offers plenty of iPad gaming goodness for the (unintentional or otherwise) skinflint. Our pick of the 30 best free iPad games are below. Read: 30 best free iPad games 15 best iPad mini appsThese 15 apps really suit the way the lighter, more portable iPad mini is designed to be used, so there are great apps for reading and fun games for on the go and some ways to play around creatively, among others. Read: 15 best iPad mini apps |
| BlackBerry connects instant messaging to Microsoft Posted:  BlackBerry has extended the business functions of its BlackBerry 10 system with new messaging functions and an analytics tool for app developers. It has added a new feature to its BlackBerry Enterprise Service with a free update to its Enterprise Instant Messaging, enabling BlackBerry 10 smartphone users to communicate over Microsoft Lync and Office Communication Server and IBM Lotus Sametime. The BlackBerry Enterprise IM 3.0 app supports presence, one-to-one and multi-party instant messaging. Messages are integrated within the BlackBerry Hub, and it's possible to use the BlackBerry Balance function to separate business messages from personal apps and content. Frank Cotter, Vice President of Mobile Computing at BlackBerry, said the move is designed to give remote workers access to various systems to make them more responsive to colleagues. Analytics moveBlackBerry has also announced that by the end of June it will be ready to release Flurry Analytics, a tool that developers can integrate with their apps for access to user data. It provides developers with a consolidated dashboard across a number of platforms to provide information such as audience demographics, customer acquisition and user engagement. The moves are part of a broadening of the capabilities of BlackBerry platforms. At this week's BlackBerry World event it has announced plans to launch its messaging application on iOS and Android and unveiled a new developer toolkit. |
| Interview: 'Good software should be at least as smart as your dog' Posted:  Evernote lets you share notebooks with other people you work with, as well as friends and family. It's most useful when there's something in a shared notebook that might be worthwhile for a project you're working on. That should happen without you ever needing to remember to search, says Evernote's CEO Phil Libin in an interview with TechRadar. "I want to know that someone on my team has expertise about a particular subject when I'm interested in that subject," he says. "I shouldn't have to go around asking if anyone knows about it. The content needs to support an outcome right now because there's far too much information to deal with effectively otherwise." Libin isn't a fan of traditional approaches to this problem. He dislikes the term 'knowledge management', and says that many tools fail because they are in not integrated into the way people work. He cites the example of the company trying to set up a wiki that failed because people updated it sporadically, soon making it patchy and out of date. Evernote is designed to overcome this by combining a company resource with a place where people organise their own information, but the real trick is making it easy to find useful information from other people. Libin says that having to carry out a search is not the answer as it interrupts the thought process. He discovered that, counter-intuitively, it's more useful to present information when someone is taking notes rather than when they're reading about things, because they are expanding mental energy to create something. This makes them more receptive to anything that can save them work. "The goal for this is to be so magical you don't notice anything special is going on," he says. "It just feels like you're entitled to this information. We want the experience of Evernote to feel like it's completing your thoughts." Doing that means starting not with the indexing or search or data analysis that makes it work, but with the experience of how the user will see the information. Magical experience"We don't even think about how we're going to implement it; we just design the experience and say this experience would be really magical and then can we can see what's feasible to implement. Sometimes it's actually really, really, really simple." In the Evernote mobile software, if you start a new note, it checks your calendar to see if you have a meeting scheduled. If you do, it uses it as the title of the note, and if not it uses your current location. Libin says that users love the feature, and that it wasn't hard to build. "There's no data science in there. If we had started by trying to figure out mathematically clever things that we could do, we would never come up with 'Look at the calendar'," he explains. The same is true of a feature in the latest version of Evernote Food, which autocompletes the captions on pictures of food in restaurants. "People ask if we're doing image analysis or machine learning or passing it on to humans via Amazon's Mechanical Turk, and how can it be so fast… We just pulled the menu of a restaurant and we're autocompleting from that. " Is that disappointingly simple? "The complexity of the implementation has absolutely nothing to do with how it's perceived - and the value," Libin points out. "Many development cultures fetishise complexity, especially engineering driven cultures. That's the wrong approach. There are other that fetishise simplicity as its own goal and that's the wrong approach too. "I think the right approach is start with designing the experience. Once you've designed the experience, sometimes the implementation will be extremely complex, sometimes it will be extremely simple, one is not better than the other. "It's challenging but once you get into it, in hindsight it's just so obviously the right way to do it. And it's a lot more fun; you get to make cooler things." Clippy was wrongIf you've been using software for long enough, this kind of contextual information might make you think of Clippy the Office Assistant, asking if you want help writing a letter. Libin is ambivalent about the comparison. "The whole industry was set back so much by things like Clippy, just because they got the character design so wrong. They were trying to do the right thing but they did it too soon and they did it clunky and it became mock-worthy and for 20 years it was just ridiculing Clippy. We are actually trying to do something that's a good a version of what they were trying to go for. But it needed another 20 years of development to make this happen." The goal for what he calls augmented rather than artificial intelligence is to be "at least as smart as your dog" when it comes to dealing with you. "Your dog knows things about you. There are certain mental states your dog is really good at picking up on. "A computer should at least anticipate what you want, when you're happy or unhappy with something or you're frustrated. It should have a level of intuition around how you're feeling when you're using something. That's incredibly difficult - but it's fun to work on." |
App name: Kindle
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