NASA

The NASA Visualization app is your window into the world of NASA research. The app presents the latest NASA research news in an easy-to-digest format. Each article is written for the lay person and amateur scientist with images and video to complement the writing. Topics range from space-based exploration to climate change, another popular area of NASA research. The app itself is pleasantly arranged and can be viewed in either portrait or landscape mode. Each article has a captivating headline image pulled from NASA's impressive photography library. Articles can be viewed by selecting from an index or browsing the headlines individually. Navigation among articles is a bit awkward if you use the arrows,but you can always use the more familiar swiping gestures. The arrows are large and easy to tap, once you get used to them, though. The content is great. The articles are scientific enough to keep the amateur scientist interested, yet basic enough for the average person to understand. They are also topical and not obscure; you get to read about glaciers and solar flares! New articles appear every 2-3 days and a badge tells you how many new articles are available to read. Articles also include extra images and even video clips. The video supports Airplay so you can watch the clips on the big screen if you own an Apple TV. The NASA Visualization app also lets you share content via Facebook, Twitter, or email. You can copy the article's URL and even read it using Mobile Safari. The NASA Visualization app is a must-have for the NASA fan or science buff looking for something to read in their spare time. The app is available for the iPad only and requires iOS 4.3 or later. You can download it for free from the App Store. Read More

In our continuing tradition of rounding up new mobile application releases we found interesting and/or exciting over the past month, we present you with this new list of apps for July 2011. This month, we found a lot of great new iPhone apps, some Android and tablet apps, and a bunch of "notable" application updates. As always, share your thoughts on those we missed in the comments below. Spott: This app uses your phone's GPS to point to map out nearby film and TV locations. Great for entertainment buffs. ($0.99, iTunes and $1.13, Android Market) Nosh: This food-spotting and reviews app lets you photograph, share and track great places to eat and the meals you've had there. (Free, iTunes and Android Market) Facebook for Every Phone: This new app brings Facebook to over 2,500 phones worldwide. To download, go to m.facebook.com or enter d.facebook.com/install in your mobile browser. MyMoby lets families privately share their location with each other and send alerts when needing assistance. (Free, iTunes, Android and BlackBerry) Batphone: This experimental app uses the phone's microphone to record the sounds in a room to develop an acoustic "fingerprint" for that space. The idea is that this type of location-detection could be used in future apps when GPS is not available. There's nothing much you can really do with this app right now, but what a cool concept! (Free, iTunes) Capture: Instead of wasting time hitting "record" or adjusting settings, the Capture app starts recording video as soon as the app launches. Finally, you can record the kids before the moment has passed!($0.99, iTunes) Trover: Newly launched app Trover was an undiscovered gem until the big press push this month surrounding the app's update. With Trover, you can connect with others to discover places and things nearby using photo-sharing combined with geolocation. (Free, iTunes) Summify: This new iPhone app delves into the social news space to deliver periodic summaries of the news from your friends on Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader. (Free, iTunes) Trimit: This app summarizes webpages into either 1,000, 5,000 or 140 character summaries for easy reading and social sharing. (Free, iTunes) Katango: Like the idea of Google Circles but happy on Facebook? Katagno automatically organizes your Facebook friends into groups, then allows you to share just with them. It's automagical! (Free, iTunes) Evoz: This app turns your iPhone, iPod or iPad into a baby monitor by working with another iOS Read More

Browsing the App Store this weekend?  If so, here are ten applications released recently. Get the latest insight into NASA’s projects through your iPad with this official app.  As you’d expect, there’s plenty of interactive content including videos and presentations.  Free, iPad only. An unusual social network where ‘TaskRabbits’ can be commissioned to perform tasks, errands or any other to-do list item they choose to help you out with.  It’s limited distribution at the moment, but a great idea.  Free, US-Only. A rhythm-based action game from Taito with simple controls and a wide variety of music included, plus there is Game Center and universal iPhone/iPad support.  The current price is listed as being 67% off, so get it while you can.  $0.99/£0.69. A 3D racer with a similar look to Death Rally.  There’s a championship mode, upgradeable weapons and an online multiplayer mode too.  $0.99/£0.69. Gameloft’s latest is another stealth shooter, with the twist of being able to play as one of three different agents, each with their own set of skills.  The game also has both a local and an online deathmatch mode.  $6.99/£4.99. An unusual hand-drawn arcade adventure from Konami, which has an allergy-prone pig chasing monsters!  50% launch special.  $0.99/£0.69. An app which lets users watch Flash videos in their browser.  There’s also a ‘channels’ list with selected videos to see too.  Universal for the iPhone and iPad, and priced at 50% off.  $1.99/£1.49. A freemium game with several levels as a demo, and 72 in total available after making an in-app purchase.  The game is a physics-based marble roller.  Free. An interactive storybook made especially for the iPad.  Roxie Munro’s Doors has great hand-drawn graphics, animations and the option to have the book read to you by the author.  $2.99/£1.99. A visual brainstorming app for the iPad where you can sketch your concepts, edit them, export them as PDFs or use a VGA/HDMI cable to view them on a large display.  $6.99/£4.99. Read More

By Lisa Caplan on July 29th, 2011 It's been another week of hot new releases. We've gathered five of our favorite free and paid apps for iPhone and iPad that hit the App Store on the last week of July. This is truly a case of "from the sublime to the ridiculous," but they are all worth checking out. The Economist World in Figures 2011 Edition. This iPhone reference app pubslihed by The Economist Magazine has facts and stats about over 190 countries around the globe. Whether looking for trivia or doing market research The World in Figures has tons of data and the ability to let users compare countries side-by-side. $0.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad Released: 2011-07-19 :: Category: Reference Futurama Head in a Jar From the sublime to the silly, but fun. MTV released Futurama Head in a Jar on the tail of Comic-Con – where it was previewed – as a free iPhone entertainment app this week. As the name implies, users get to create their own Groening-style heads with customizable hair, eyes, and even species. The decapitated go right into the Head Museum where head-collections can live on prominently displayed on shelves of their own. FREE! iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad Released: 2011-07-22 :: Category: Entertainment NASA Visualization Explorer The space shuttle’s missions have been grounded permanently now, but that doesn’t mean reaseach done in space is dead. There is the International Space Station, of course, but NASA also has a fleet of research spacecraft in use as well. Nasa Viz allows iPad users to access the most advanced research findings from those vehicles along with videos on space-related topics. The app contains stunning photographs, lots of text information and both mini documentaries and animated simulations. NASA promises one fresh story a week. FREE! iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad Released: 2011-07-26 :: Category: Education Gesundheit! There’s been a veritable flood of hot new games released in the last week from almost every major gamehouse. Konami’s entry, Gesundheit! is the one we most want to just stop and look at. It’s an arcade puzzler with solid gameplay, but the hand-drawn art elements both in the cut-scenes and within the game itself are nothing short of breath taking. The soundtrack is almost as pleasing to the ears as the graphics are to the Read More

NASA has just released a neat Visualization app for the iPad and it’s a cool way to use your tablets to gain some perspective on this little, blue marble that we all live on. The NASA Viz iPad app is jam-packed with information about Earth, as you can view multiple photos of the planet from the skies. There are a host of different models to interact with including those which show how many satellites are surrounding us, a view on where plan thrive, how much carbon is being released where and more. Each section includes multimedia information in the form of texts, pictures and videos. The NASA Viz iPad app is brand new so it may still have some bugs. On the reviews, multiple users have said that you can’t get out of the instructions menu. I haven’t opened that because I’m scared I’ll get caught in that deathtrap, so just beware. You can download the app from here (iTunes link). Marin Perez has torture tested cell phones and smartphones for industry leaders like CNET and InformationWeek. He remembers when 4G was just a screen on PowerPoint presentations and is fascinated with the amount of innovation out there. Marin has spent a lot of time with BlackBerry and Android but he finally broke down a bought an iPhone to see what all the hype's about. He also has too many tablets. Read More

Unless you've been living under a rock lately, you know that today's launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, mission STS-135, signals the end of the shuttle program as we know it and the closing of a chapter in American human spaceflight. Weather and ten trillion other mechanical considerations permitting, the launch is at 11:26 a.m. ET and you can watch a live stream of the events right on NASA's website. You can also watch the launch on the NASA apps (listed below). Given the historic nature of the launch, you'll probably be able to find it on television as well. If you won't be near a TV or internet connection, don't worry. We've got your back. Here are five apps to keep you in the loop through the final countdown and beyond. NASA App for iPhone and iPad - These apps are really robust and pack a lot of cool stuff into one neat package. Stream NASA TV right to your phone or iPad, watch videos of everything from spacewalks to astronaut training exercises, and browse thousands of images taken in space. It even has Facebook and Twitter integration so you can blast all your friends with rapid-fire status updates during the excitement of the launch. They'll just love you for it. Really. GoAtlantis - This app was designed specifically for the STS-135 mission and helps you track Atlantis' post-launch movement in real-time. Watch the tiny orbiter on your screen zip around earth in low-earth orbit as it catches up and eventually docks with the International Space Station (ISS) two days later. The coolest feature in this app is its ability to predict when the ISS will pass over your location to you can catch a glimpse as it goes by. Yes, you really can see it winking and blinking in the sky if you know just where to look, and GoAtlantis will tell you. AstroApp: Space Shuttle Crew - As the mission clock ticks down, use the time to learn the history of the Space Shuttle program, its missions, and the astronauts that flew them. Commissioned by NASA, AstroApp contains full biographies of each crew member and are searchable via mission or alphabetically. For the imaginative at heart, app developers threw in a nice little tool that allows you to superimpose your face onto a flight suit so you see what you'd look like if you were ready for liftoff. Mission Read More

NASA Lunar Electric Rover Simulator is a simple educational application that puts you in command of an LER with seven destinations to explore on the moon. It is advertised as a game, and technically it is, but it seems much more educational than entertaining. There are three modes of difficulty to play in: easy, medium and hard. The only objective to the game is to navigate your rover to each of seven lunar structures scattered around the map. You must travel to each structure in the assigned order, and must do so while trying to conserve power. Your rover loses power as you travel, but you gain some back with each successful stop. The radar will display your rover’s position and the destination will blink. Getting to each structure is incredibly simple, with no real obstacles to dodge along the way. You must park in the correct orientation for the mission to be complete. Once you’ve reached your destination, you will be presented with a 3D view of the structure and some facts about its function on the moon. Then, it’s on to the next one. Controlling the rover is also very simple. Your right thumb controls forward and reverse while your left thumb controls left and right. While the controls do work well, the rover’s animations are fairly crude, as the turning is jerky and the wheels do not turn with the rover. There is no sense of suspension, so the rover appears to be a static image floating over the map. There are two different styles of graphics in this app. During actual gameplay, the graphics are very basic, appearing almost grainy at times. However, when you reach a structure, a 3D image of that structure appears, which really looks amazing. You truly get a sense of what that structure looks like and how it functions. This application is actually very difficult to score. As a game, it just isn’t very good at all. The gameplay lacks any sort of challenge, the graphics are primitive and the sound effects are just adequate. However, as an educational application, it’s fantastic. The images are high quality and the facts about each structure are very interesting to read. It was fascinating to learn so much about the future of a functioning lunar outpost. This app should be categorized as educational rather than a game. But, either way, it’s still worth downloading, even Read More

Space — the final frontier, and all that jazz. As the folk over at the Hubble Telescope website say, “Your body may be trapped at your desk, but your imagination can roam the far reaches of the universe, thanks to the wonders of the web.” Here’s a spaced-out selection of sites and social media resources that will have you reading the thoughts of astronauts, taking a virtual tour of the International Space Station, and viewing galaxies far, far away. Get your space geek fix below, and, as always, please do share any resources we’ve overlooked in the comments box. There’s a ton of space agencies around the globe, together boasting an estimated $44 billion annual budget to find out more about space. While capabilities vary dramatically from country to country (not all have basic launch capability, let alone manned spaceflight, and the only two with lunar landing capability are NASA and the Russia’s CCCP), most are doing interesting work that can be perused online. NASA dominates online as it does in space (which might have something to do with the fact that its funding is currently around $12 billion ahead of even the nearest agency), offering the best online experience. You could easily lose yourself in the official NASA site, which is highly recommended if you have a spare 36 hours or so to kill. Other official online destinations for the major space programs around the globe include the European Space Agency, with which Canada enjoys the special status of a “Cooperating State.” Staying in Europe, both France’s Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales and the German Aerospace Center offer English language versions of their sites, as does the Russian Federal Space Agency. The official online destination for the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is painfully dry, but chock full of fascinating content if you can stand to stick around, while in contrast, the China National Space Administration site takes a more poetic approach to space exploration. At one point, they explain why the moon is liked by the people of Earth: “because of its thin brilliance that brings lovers with quiet warmth in the night, it is likened to a jade plate or a lovely and graceful woman.” It goes without saying that the Hubble Telescope’s official site is the go-to place for some amazing real-life space imagery. Thankfully, the official site offers a wealth of photography via galleries, most of Read More

Posted 03/09/2010 at 6:12am | by J.R. Bookwalter While most developers won’t hesitate for a moment to sign Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement in blood to have even a piece of the App Store action, a new legal analysis reveals some disturbing reasons as to why you might want to think twice. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has gotten their hands on a copy of Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement and have distilled a few choice nuggets which should give most developers pause before they drink the Kool-Aid, as it were. Thanks to the existence of the NASA iPhone app, the EFF was able to use the Freedom of Information Act to ask the space agency for a copy of the license agreement dated March 17, 2009, and here’s some of what they discovered. Section 10.4 of the agreement “prohibits developers, including government agencies such as NASA, from making any ‘public statements’ about the terms of the Agreement.” The EFF finds this section “strange,” noting that the Agreement itself is not “Apple Confidential Information” as defined in Section 10.1 -- meaning that “the terms are not confidential, but developers are still contractually forbidden from speaking ‘publicly’ about them.” Section 7.2 makes it clear that if you use the iPhone SDK to develop your app, you can’t sell it anywhere but Apple’s own App Store. All well and good, unless your app should get rejected -- meaning you are then prohibited from distributing it through Cydia or Rock Your Phone, both available for jailbroken devices. Section 3.2(e) was widely reported on when first added last year, which essentially bans jailbreaking to begin with. But it doesn’t stop there: The EFF notes that “it appears to prohibit developers from tinkering with any Apple software or technology, not just the iPhone, or ‘enabling others to do so.’” That could preclude iPhone developers from making iPods work with open source software, for instance. Section 8 is one of the more draconian: Apple can “revoke the digital certificate of any of Your Applications at any time.” Yes, that means that Apple essentially has a “kill switch” built into the App Store and they can remove your app from it at any time. Finally, Section 14 states that, “no matter what, Apple will never be liable to any developer for more than 50 dollars in damages.” That’s right: Apple has developers by the short hairs to Read More

Browsing the App Store this weekend?  Here are nine new or updated apps worth taking a closer look at if you are: Familiar to PC and Mac gamers, this is the port of the same game over to the iPhone.  Like the removed StoneLoops! of Jurassica, you must fire an orb into a snaking line, match up three colours together and they disappear.  There are power-ups, secrets and three different game modes to enjoy.  Wonder how long this one will last? An iPhone remix of the 80s Mac game Airborne.  As with the original, you must fend off paratroopers, tanks and missiles while conserving your ammunition and aiming well, in order to get a good high score. A streaming radio app which works over 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi, and supports some 10,000 stations from all over the world.  GPS integration lets you find local stations and the visualizer has 8 different displays.  Future updates include WMA support and background operation. Updated to version 3.2, this free dictionary app for your iPhone features 200,000 definitions, a spell check and a thesaurus.  It may be simple, but it’s great for kids at school. The iPhone version of the hugely popular problem solving TV gameshow.  Play through four zones – Medieval, Futuristic, Aztec and Industrial before entering the Crystal Dome!  Both campaign and challenge modes are included along with OpenFeint support and a soundboard from the TV show.  Look out for an update adding more levels in March. A free game from the space agency.  Guide your electric rover around the surface of the moon as you support the activites of Earth’s lunar outpost.  It’s educational too, as there are images and information on what the actual prototype vehicle does, as well as proposed lunar outpost designs. Got something to hide?  TigerText will cover your SMS tracks by never really sending the message, leaving no record of it on either phone or your network, but you and your recipient will never notice the difference!  It’s free for 100 messages, but the you’ll have to pay a subscription fee. Although the title makes it sound like a weather report, this is the sequel to the World War II FPS.  Graphically, it looks amazing, but there are concerns about the control system, so be prepared for a steep learning curve with this one!  Brothers in Arms 2 has a multiplayer mode over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. A Read More