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Apple Maps Now with Street View! The Day Has Arrived

Apple maps was under a lot of pressure from the get go. There were problems with the launch, and the newest OS was ripe with issues in its map app. Even after it was repaired and the latest patch released, there was still one main aspect missing, street view. This staple of the google maps app has set a precedent which all other map apps must now either include or be left to perish. Finally, Apple Maps has Street View. We can sleep easily tonight.

For just $0.99, Street View will automatically be placed into the Apple Maps app and make it a finally complete mapping app with real life images of the locations you’re searching for. After downloading the app, not only is Street View now incorporated into your Apple Maps package, but Street View can also be used as its own unique app to simply view locations as they would appear in Street View without having to navigate through Apple Maps.

It doesn’t seem like a huge deal that the map package has gone this long without Street View, but in this age of information and instant gratification it has big a big stink in the already somewhat weary market of Apple Maps. Now that it is here the app is complete and the Apple Map users will have nothing to gripe about, for now.

App Source: Street View for iPhone

Pilo 1, 2, & 3 – The 3D Interactive Adventure Game to Get Your Kids to Bed at Night

There are a plethora of apps for the iPad that are geared towards children. In fact, learning and experiencing is one of the greatest advantages that children in this age of technology have going for them. With the tablet structure they can easily use their fingers to develop their dexterity and brain at the same time. There is an award winning series of interactive, 3D story books called Pilo for the iPad. These stories are not only incredibly entertaining and make it easy to learn and follow for any kid, but they now offer another amazing feature.

Every parent, babysitter, or caretaker has had to deal with a child that simply would not go to bed, or threw a fit at the mention of a bedtime. Pilo is now here to help. In the second installment of the app, Pilo 2: The Pillow Fairy, Pilo takes an adventure of sleepy time proportions and allows the reader, or the child being read to, to take on a whole new experience of bedtimes. The character of the Pillow Fairy makes bedtime an adventure and takes the dread out of sleeping and replaces it with joy and intrigue.

The waking nightmare of the child who refuses to sleep will exist no longer with the aid of Pilo 2: The Pillow Fairy. The Pilo series in general hasn’t won almost every award there is for being useless, and not worthy of the praise. Pilo is one of those childhood classics of this generation. They will grow up not with paper books and bound tales, but with interactive, 3D animations on tablets and mobile devices. This shift is drastic, but not for the worse. Make sure to check out all of the three Pilo installments for your child’s learning pleasure: Pilo 1: Interactive Children’s Story Book 3D Animation and Puzzle Game, Pilo 2: The Pillow Fairy, and Pilo 3: Interactive Children’s Story Book 3D Animation Cooking Game.

Pilo will add an all new element of excitement and learning joy to any child’s life. Make sure to check it out and find out what Pilo can help teach your child, or even get them to look forward to nap time.

App Source:

Pilo 1: Story Book3D Animation-Puzzle Game

Pilo 2: The Pillow Fairy

Pilo 3: Story Book-3D Animation-Cooking Game

Sony Playstation 4 and DualShock 4 Controller Announced

The long awaited day finally came. The next generation of Sony gaming system was announced and demonstrated, but not shown yesterday. This was an odd occurrence since they unveiled the performance of the machine, but not the actual system itself. The other thing Sony has been very adamant about is that this is not simply the next console. It is going to be a homes entertainment system as it has attempted to do with the last few PlayStations.

Sony has been on the cutting edge of technology for a while. The PS2 was so successful because it was the cheapest DVD player on the market for a while, and then the PS3 tried to follow suit with BluRay. There’s no telling if the PS4 will harbor some sort of gem like that yet, but the innovation will almost positively be there.

DualShock-4

In terms of specifications, it will house an x86 processor, and 8GB of GDDR5 high speed memory. The controller is also going to be a new central part of this system. It is dubbed the “Dual Shock 4” and has a touch pad, and light bar which will be used to identify players from the systems 3d camera. There is also a headphone jack which will be used for those headsets and in game talking.

All of the power house specs combined with PS Vita integration, and apps to make iOS devices and Android devices possible controllers as well, this system has a ton going for it already. The graphics are going to be stellar, the performance insane, and the games will be along the line of the same titles that have been successful on the systems for years.

With no actual hard release date set it’s hard to predict when it will actually hit shelves, but the sure thing is that it will fly off of them. Surely in time for the 2013 holiday season to get in on that madness we will just have to wait and see.

Memorylage for Windows 8: Memories and Collages all in One

Windows 8 has been heavily publicized as a service which creates dynamic views and better layouts of images and icons than any other system. The thing is, most of these services are only as good as the operating system or app can utilize them effectively. Memorylage for Windows 8 is a great app that allows photo cropping and editing to fit into a new layout. This means making a digital collage of sorts of your memories, hence the app name, “Memorylage”.

Gone are the days of painstakingly cutting out clips of newspapers, magazines and other media for collage making. Nowadays with digital pictures and movie stills, collaging is a matter of cropping and placing, not physically cutting and pasting. Memorylage makes the most of this technique with a great interface that allows this to be done with professional quality by anyone at home.

Allowing the user to scan in images, take new images with a photobooth, or take images from their stock albums, this creates a literally endless array of possible collages and mixes. You’ll be able to get exactly what you want from a funny mixture of odd photos, to a professional and seamless string of high quality images.

As apps go this one for Windows 8 is made very well and flows extremely smoothly with the built in methods. Customization is simple and effective and editing and placing the pictures comes naturally. If you’re someone who edits photos into collages or likes keeping arrays of associated pictures in one place then this app will do just that the best.

Source: Memorylage for Windows Phone

[Image Credit: Windows Store]

The Top 5 Google Chrome Extensions to Make Gmail Perform Better

Almost everyone uses gmail for their email these days. Whether it’s your primary account, or a sub-account you have linked to some service you subscribe to, gmail is pretty inescapable in our everyday lives. Here are the top 5 Google Chrome extensions to close some of those gaps and answer some of those wishes for features they never quite included as defaults.

1. Mail Checker Plus For Gmail :

This is a toolbar extension basically. It will alert you with a notification if you have received an email and allow you to do everything you would in a full Gmail window through a window that expands when clicked. It is a great time saver and space saver rather than always having a tab open specifically for Gmail. There is also a huge amount of customization preferences with the extension which always help out a lot.

2. KeyRocket :

This is kind of a personal cheat sheet extension for using shortcuts and keyboard presses to have specific actions done while in Gmail. This doesn’t actually alter Gmail in any way, but if you do something in Gmail and you have this extension a little pop up will come up telling you what button press you could have done which would have saved you time. It’s pretty useful if you’re a shortcut junkie like myself. In no time you’ll be navigating Gmail through way more shortcuts than you ever knew existed.

3. Boomerang :

This app is a huge time saver, and sometimes a life saver for those of us who sometimes might be forgetful or even a bit uninspired when remembering to do things with email. Boomerang has saved me a few times, to say the least. It basically allows you to write an email and choose to send it at a later date, or send a recurring email at the same time of day for future messages.

4. WiseStamp Email Signatures :

This is a service which you can link to your Gmail signature. It is incredibly useful for those of us that have social media and blogs and want to include those in the signature of our emails without using code or other much more complex methods. After signing into WiseStamp and linking your networks you can set exactly what you want to show up there from social media to blogs to new blog posts and quotes, really anything you can think of.

5. Rapportive :

Rapportive is a great extension for people who are emailing others with social media profiles. It basically opens up a smaller window within the Gmail message of the person who sent the message containing their information, social media profiles, and even their latest Tweets and posts. Clicking on these posts opens up a new window or tab on the relevant social media network.

[Image Credit: Chrome Web Store]

NARR8: The New and Innovative Experience with Motion Comics

It has been a long time since something truly innovative has hit the world of modern media and entertainment. Since forever the two realms of comic books, cartoon series, and gaming have been their own spheres, untouched and uncombined. NARR8 offers an experience which combines each one of those into a single, amazing user journey.

It is somewhat difficult to even describe what NARR8 is because there is legitimately nothing out there like it. It is part E-reader, to read the content of the comics, part game to interact with the text and characters, and part cartoon to see the movement of the characters in each episode. It really is the best of each of those worlds wrapped up into one package.

I had no idea what to expect when I first saw this app and heard about it. It made almost no sense to involve all of those things into one app. It can sort of be compared to hearing about what we have as a modern IMAX movie to someone only familiar with black and white silent movies. Combining sound and color into that realm seemed almost crazy, but once you experience it the effect is undeniable.

NARR8 comes out with new episodes on a very frequent basis. For the quality of animation and illustration that it has that is truly impressive. There are 6 completely different series being run at this point on NARR8 to follow each with their own story lines and unique animations. You’ll find yourself getting lost in all of the excitement of each one and waiting anxiously for the newest episode to be released. Whether you’re a fan of animated comics, movies, or interactive games or not you’ll see the appeal in the motion comics by NARR8.

Google Play: NARR8 App for Android

[Image Credit: Google Play Store]