Gaming app Playd that  allows you to you rate, share, and discuss the games with your friends is offering new features this month.

The features include:

In addition to the new features Playd has made new fixes like crash-proof systems on both iPhone and Android, push notifications per account so that users can have up to as many accounts as they want.

For more about Playd visit: http://playd.it or follow @getplayd on Twitter.

Ever wish there was an Instagram for hair? Well, your wish has come true with the new app from House of Mikko, I Love Your Hair.

The I Love Your Hair app is great for those looking for new styles and also for hair stylist who are trying to promote their work.

The app allows users to post photos of their hairstyles and get hair inspiration from pictures uploaded by other users.

This app eliminates having to try and describe what look you want to your hairdresser. Now you can simply look it up and show them.

Users can browse hairstyles by hair length, hair texture, hair color, and hair type.  You can also search by occasion, like weddings and proms.

I Love Your Hair is simple to use. Take a photo of your hair, upload it, and share with your friends via Facebook and Twitter.

The user can add details to the photo to make it searchable, such as style, hair color, or even tag the photo with the name of the salon and stylist who did it.

This is a fun but also useful app. It allows users to discover new looks and also share their own with others. You can also follow beauty bloggers, stylists and other hair experts to find the latest in hair trends.

The app is available on iPhone and iPad.

Many people have a hard time correctly pronouncing fashion designers and label, even the stars who walk down the red carpet on a regular basis. Minority founder, Monique Woodard created mobile app Speak Chic to help everyone get it right every time.

The Speak Chic app launched this week under mobile app company, Rebelle, also founded by Woodard. It targets fashion lovers who shop a lot, but can help anyone who wants to sound like they know what they are talking about when it comes to fashion.

Users can search for a brand and will then be provided with the phonetic spelling and the correct audio pronunciation.

Other things Speak Chic has to offer: 

• Approximately 300 fashion brands and designers
• A personal favorites menu to save brands you will use the most
• History on iconic fashion houses

“With the popularity of flash sales sites and diffusion lines, more people have access to high fashion,” said Woodard. We wanted to create an app that went beyond showing fashion and helped users become more fashion savvy.”

Speak Chic is available for iPhone and iPad for $1.99 at the iTunes App Store.

GoToMyPC is one of the most used remote desktop services on the market. Powered by Citrx (one of the premier online collaborations services in and of itself), GoToMyPC is perfect for IT support or your average user who wants to access a computer from anywhere. Since many people are starting to use their smartphones as a go-to computer in their pocket, it makes sense that GoToMyPC has added iPhone support.

If you already have a GoToMyPC account and have it linked to the computer you want to access, controlling that computer with your iPhone is just a few taps away. Some of main features include:

Read the rest of this article at PCMag.com

Have I ever told you all how much I dig Evernote? I use it everyday and constantly find new ways to implement the “remember everything” service into my everyday life.

One of the things I do heavily is forward emails to Evernote from Gmail. Things like receipts that come to my inbox, I quickly forward them to Evernote by using the designated email address assigned to me when I signed up what seems like ages ago. What I then have to do is open Evernote, find the note that’s stored in my default notebook, and manually move it to the appropriate notebook and add tags to the note to quickly find it later – That was until I found out that you can send notes from email to their right folders with tags using Twitter-like characters in the subject line.

Two of the things you quickly learn once you hit the Twittersphere is how to “mention” people in tweets, and how to add hashtags to tweets so your message can be found when anybody searches that hashtag. Sending emails to Evernote works the same way

Read the rest of this article at Brotha Tech

Can a good reporter with smarts and some technical savvy become a news app developer? ProPublica, the online news organization that has blazed a path in creating innovative news apps, is offering a paid fellowship to find out.

The News Application Fellowship is a pilot project that will give one person the opportunity to work side-by-side with ProPublica’s News Apps desk and its news app developers. You’ll learn how to create news apps like Dollars for Docs and the Opportunity Gap.

“We know that out there in the news universe there are whip-smart people who are starting to teach themselves how to program by reading books and building stuff they never show anybody; people who want to take their graphics talents to the next level and to start working on the back-end code as well,” reads the description. “If that’s you, hurry up and apply already.”

Read the rest of this article at 10,000 Words

Don’t you hate it when the one food entree’ you want to try doesn’t have a fancy picture next to it on the menu? For all of us who are not adventurous “foodies” and need more proof that a dish at a restaurant at least looks good, check out the MenView app for iPhone.

Simply search for the restaurant to view the menu, and the app sections off the entree’s into according to its type (appetizers, main dishes, desserts, drinks, etc.). From the looks of it, some of the info is pulled in from the usual suspects: Yelp, Google, etc. But most of it comes from users themselves. If you can’t find your restaurant, or a photo of the food you want to try, MenView lets you add the restaurant and upload a photo of the menu item with related information…once you register or login of course. Additional features include the ability to flag a dish as “Looks Good” and/or “Had It” as well as adding comments and sharing the dish with your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

Read the rest of this article at PC Mag

REDMOND, Wash. (CBS Seattle) – Microsoft has been granted a patent for its “avoid ghetto” feature for GPS devices.

A GPS device is used to find shortcuts and avoid traffic, but Microsoft’s patent states that a route can be plotted for pedestrians to avoid an “unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.”

Created for mobile phones, the technology uses the latest crime statistics and weather data and includes them when calculating a route.

via: CBS Seattle

Also Read:
New Microsoft Mapping Patent Factors In Demographics and Crime Stats
The joy of Microsoft’s ‘avoid ghetto’ GPS patent

What are your thoughts on the Microsoft ‘Avoid Ghetto’ Patent? Good, bad, safe, and smart?

The rapid proliferation of mobile devices is making it possible for not just communities, but also entire nations, to narrow the digital divide between society’s have’s and have-not’s. Not only are these mobile devices more affordable for lower-income individuals, they also are more accessible for individuals in hard-to-reach or under-served areas. In fact, IBM recently predicted the elimination of the global digital divide within the next five years, thanks to a renewed emphasis on building out the infrastructure for mobile networks and expanding the functionality of what we can do with our smart phones – everything from paying bills to monitoring our health to getting real-time information about agricultre. Eliminating the digital divide is supposed to create a “mobile multiplier” for economic growth, but is it actually possible that it could lead to a new type of divide between the mobile have’s and have-not’s?

Read the rest of this article at Big Think

As they say… everything is going mobile. With proof and information for businesses the Chetan Sharma Consulting group recently published results from their 2012 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey. Take a look via the slideshare document.

Once chart stood out to me in the presentation was the “What will be the biggest mobile stories of 2012″ saying Amazon’s entry into the mobile area and Microsoft/Nokia resurgence. Interesting and time will tell.

Where do you see mobile going in 2012?