Review: Apps to make holiday shopping easier (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO – Even if you love to shop, it can be a pain this time of year. Stores are crowded, gift options seem endless and it’s hard to determine if you’re getting the best prices. If you have a smartphone, though, there’s a simple solution: Apps.

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SAN FRANCISCO – Even if you love to shop, it can be a pain this time of year. Stores are crowded, gift options seem endless and it’s hard to determine if you’re getting the best prices.

If you have a smartphone, though, there’s a simple solution: Apps. There are tons of mobile apps to help you save time and cash this holiday season. Most of them are cheap or free.

I tried several apps meant to ease holiday shopping frustrations and found a bunch that make the task easier — and a few that make it more fun.

Price Check by Amazon and RedLaser (free, available for iPhone and Android) — With these two apps on my phone, I felt like a low-price-finding machine. Both let you search for items by typing in the name or by scanning a barcode. With Price Check, you can also search for items with your voice or by taking a photo of things like books and DVDs.

RedLaser, owned by eBay Inc., is great for finding items online and in nearby bricks-and-mortar stores. I found myself checking prices on everything from watches to collapsible water bottles, sometimes just for the heck of it. I used it at a local Sur La Table cookware store to compare prices on a set of water glasses before buying them, and was pleased to see the $19.99 price was lower than at some online retailers and a nearby Bloomingdales department store.

RedLaser also includes a handy feature for making simple shopping lists, and a history feature that records all the items you’ve looked up, so you can go back and find things later on.

Price Check’s layout is slightly more attractive than RedLaser’s, though it’s limited to the Web since it gives online-only results from Amazon.com and companies that sell through Amazon.com Inc.

I really like the way Price Check displays search results, with the product at the top of the screen and three tabs that let you quickly scroll through prices, a description and user reviews. And if I found an item’s price was lower online than in the store, it would be simple to buy it through the app.

The best part about Price Check is the abundance of product reviews (the same ones you see when you go on Amazon.com or use the Amazon Mobile app). They’re indispensable for looking up potential gifts and helping me think twice before making purchases.

Gift Plan ($2.99, available for iPhone) — If you have a hard time organizing your gift list, or tend to misplace it after writing it out, you’ll like Gift Plan.

The app lets you make elaborate gift lists for family and friends. You can set up lists of potential presents, jot down people’s likes and dislikes and — even more helpful for those of us who never remember such things — their clothing sizes. The app’s “Occasions” tab shows you upcoming holidays or birthdays, and a “Shopping” tab helps you track gifts you plan to buy.

Gift Plan denotes each gift-giving occasion with a different color, which makes it easy to spot them on the app’s built-in calendar, and you can choose when and how often you want to be notified about upcoming events.

Another cool feature: You can set up a passcode to keep sneaky loved ones from snooping at your list.

Shopkick (free, available for iPhone, Android) — Shopkick essentially turns shopping into a game, where you get real-world rewards for going to local stores. If you hate shopping, this can make a painful activity more fun. If you adore shopping, the app may be harmful to your wallet.

The app shows a list of nearby stores, each of which you get a certain number of “kicks,” or points, for visiting. Click on a listed store and you can see available deals and opportunities to pick up more kicks (if I stopped at a local Best Buy, for example, I could get 75 kicks for scanning photos of three different GPS devices). You can also link your Visa debit or credit card to your shopkick account so you’ll automatically get points for certain purchases. Collect enough “kicks” and you can get rewards such as gift certificates to Target or Best Buy.

I quickly got sucked into visiting as many nearby stores as possible, including some I rarely enter, simply so I could rack up more points. Somehow, I also ended up buying several items for myself — fleece pajama pants at Old Navy, a white sake bottle and matching cups at Crate & Barrel — even though I was supposed to be buying gifts for others.

Lemon (free, available for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone) — As you spend, receipts pile up. For me, this means a wad of disorganized paper slips in my wallet and digital receipts lost in the bowels of my email inbox. Lemon offers a sweet solution.

Once you download the app and sign up with its corresponding website, Lemon.com, you can scan your receipts with your phone’s camera and the service will automatically identify the name and location of the store along with the amount you spent and the purchase date (if you want to see the whole receipt image, that’s saved, too). Lemon is good for online shopping, too: If you buy anything on the Web, you can have online retailers send the receipt to your lemon.com address so they’ll be easier to keep track of. And if you want to back up some old e-receipts with the service, just forward them there yourself.

You can use preset labels like “personal” and “credit card” to add details to your receipts, or add your own. I made a “gift” label to identify holiday items and was happy to see I could also view them by category.

The holidays can be stressful, but with a couple of these apps on your smartphone you’ll likely find gift-giving less so. Your wallet might even thank you for it, too.

___

Rachel Metz can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rachelmetz

Your Laptop’s Wi-Fi Might Cause Male Fertility Problems (Mashable)

[brightcove video="1303335080001" /] [More from Mashable: Personal Computers: A History of the Hardware That Changed the World] Men beware. The Wi-Fi from your laptop could be hurting the health of your sperm

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[brightcove video="1303335080001" /]

[More from Mashable: Personal Computers: A History of the Hardware That Changed the World]

Men beware. The Wi-Fi from your laptop could be hurting the health of your sperm.

A new study, published in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility by researchers from Argentina and the U.S., found that semen samples placed a little more than an inch under a Wi-Fi-connected laptop experienced more DNA damage and mobility issues than regular sperm. The samples were taken from 29 healthy men with an average age of 34.

[More from Mashable: Wi-Fi Day Is Here: What’s the Best Network Name You’ve Encountered?]

After just four hours sitting under a Wi-Fi-connected laptop, 25% of the sperm samples were no longer mobile and nine percent showed DNA damage. Meanwhile, only 14% of the samples stored away from the computer were inactive, and they showed minimal DNA damage.

“Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the Internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality,” the report said. “At present we do not know whether this effect is induced by all laptop computers connected by Wi-Fi to the Internet, or what use conditions heighten this effect.”

The study also tested the sperm next to laptops that were not connected to Wi-Fi. They showed some damage — though less than the connected laptops. This suggests heat may also be a factor in impacting the health of your swimmers.

This is not the first time a study revealed that laptops might be harmful to sperm. A widely-reported 2010 study found that men who keep their laptops on their laps may be hurting the quality of their sperm due to scrotal hyperthermia — that is, elevated temperatures in the testes.

The latest study noted that more research needs to be conducted to learn the true effects of electromagnetic radiation generated by a laptop’s Wi-Fi connection — since it was conducted in an artificial setting.

Male infertility is not uncommon. In fact, about one in six U.S. couples have difficulty conceiving. According to the American Urological Association, a man’s fertility is a factor in 50 percent of these cases.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Blackstone, Bain to lead Alibaba’s bid for Yahoo: sources (Reuters)

(Reuters) – Private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital will lead a bid for the whole of Yahoo Inc after agreeing to team up with Alibaba Group, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The two buyout houses are eager to acquire Yahoo’s core U.S. operations, one of these people said, adding that the composition of the consortium, which will also involve Japan’s Softbank Corp, has not yet been formalized

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(Reuters) – Private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital will lead a bid for the whole of Yahoo Inc after agreeing to team up with Alibaba Group, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The two buyout houses are eager to acquire Yahoo’s core U.S. operations, one of these people said, adding that the composition of the consortium, which will also involve Japan’s Softbank Corp, has not yet been formalized.

Alibaba and Blackstone declined to comment, while a Bain spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Nadia Damouni, Greg Roumeliotis and Soyoung Kim in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Summary Box: Review of smartphone shopping apps (AP)

APP-Y HOLIDAYS: A number of cheap and free smartphone apps can ease holiday shopping, and some can even make it more fun. SOME WINNERS: Price Check by Amazon and RedLaser (free, available for iPhone and Android) make it easy to search for the best prices on items by typing in a product’s name or scanning a barcode. —Shopkick (free, available for iPhone and Android) makes shopping like a game by giving you points when you visit local stores

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APP-Y HOLIDAYS: A number of cheap and free smartphone apps can ease holiday shopping, and some can even make it more fun.

SOME WINNERS: Price Check by Amazon and RedLaser (free, available for iPhone and Android) make it easy to search for the best prices on items by typing in a product’s name or scanning a barcode.

—Shopkick (free, available for iPhone and Android) makes shopping like a game by giving you points when you visit local stores. They can be redeemed for rewards like gift certificates.

—Gift Plan ($2.99, available for iPhone) simplifies the process of making gift lists and helps you keep track of gift-giving occasions.

Film business strikes back at Google over piracy act (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (TheWrap.com) – The film industry came back swinging Wednesday, calling recent claims by tech companies including Google that online piracy legislation will destroy the internet “nonsense,” while also labeling those assertions as an effort to “gin people up.” Speaking at a phone briefing with the media, Michael O’Leary, senior executive VP for global policy and external affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), said that the scourge of online piracy “is only getting worse” and that proposed legislation in Congress would go a long way toward combating the problem. He argued that the recent outcry from Google and other tech companies against the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) had more to do with economics than with concerns about civil liberties. Opponents of the bill, including many public advocacy groups, say it is fraught with potential unintended consequences that could censor free speech and smother innovation.

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WASHINGTON (TheWrap.com) – The film industry came back swinging Wednesday, calling recent claims by tech companies including Google that online piracy legislation will destroy the internet “nonsense,” while also labeling those assertions as an effort to “gin people up.”

Speaking at a phone briefing with the media, Michael O’Leary, senior executive VP for global policy and external affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), said that the scourge of online piracy “is only getting worse” and that proposed legislation in Congress would go a long way toward combating the problem.

He argued that the recent outcry from Google and other tech companies against the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) had more to do with economics than with concerns about civil liberties.

Opponents of the bill, including many public advocacy groups, say it is fraught with potential unintended consequences that could censor free speech and smother innovation.

Speaking alongside O’Leary, Kathy Garmezy, associate executive director for government and international affairs for the Directors Guild of America, pointed out that 75 percent of film earnings typically come after theatrical release, thus the industry’s long-established revenue stream is particularly vulnerable to illegal online distribution.

If producers can’t recoup their investments, Garmezy said, then fewer films will be made — something she said the industry is already experiencing.

Also at the conference, Scott Harbinson, international representative of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employee’s Union, said the fact that his organization, which represents workers “behind the camera,” is on the same side as the studios points to the severity of the problem for the industry.

He said piracy “erodes from the bottom up,” and affects those who toil at the less glamorous end of the industry such as grips, electricians and hair stylists. He also pointed out that most of the industry’s pension and health plans are funded through residuals, which are being decimated by online piracy.

The MPAA says that $58 billion is lost annually from the theft of movies, music and video games and that one-quarter of all internet traffic is copyright infringing. It points to a study that found that 77 percent of “sites that commonly link to or host infringing film and television material get more traffic from Google than any other site online.”

O’Leary said Hollywood and Silicon Valley should be working together for their mutual survival. He suggested the piracy rift between the two industries stemmed in part from a “beltway” mentality seeking to profit from conflict.

Still, O’Leary had strong words for Google, which he said had provided little more than “rhetoric” in its professed efforts against online piracy.

He mentioned that a Google representative had no answer at a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing when Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) asked why tech giant still allowed access to an infringing website called “Pirate Bay.”

He could not say whether efforts by MPAA president Chris Dodd had made any headway in efforts to find common ground with the tech companies.

The Obama Administration has yet to take a position on the legislation, but O’Leary said that both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have made statements supporting copyright protection.

The MPAA offered pages of written arguments rebuffing many of the critiques of SOPA, saying that it would not pose a threat against free speech or usher in censorship.

Similarly, the MPAA states that the law would not require online entities to police their own sites; rather, it only asks them to cooperate with authorities when a rogue site is identified.

Siri-ously? Can we find a decent voice assistant for Android? (Appolicious)

Siri voice assistant alternatives are being marketed to Android devices with alarming regularity.

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Siri voice assistant alternatives are being marketed to Android devices with alarming regularity. Since the Siri technology was first embedded into iOS 5 on the new iPhone 4S (even though a Siri app had been available for some time), a number of Android developers have brought similar apps to Android. There’s also been a number of voice assistant apps that have been available for quite a while.

Google’s Android OS already has built-in voice commands. It may not be as personalized or sophisticated as Siri, or have captured the public’s imagination, but the technology has been around for a while. It can do things like search, call people, send text messages and so on. Still, it is a little devoid of personality and not always 100 percent accurate. So how do some of the new (and old) Siri alternatives for Android shape-up?

Does Cluzee have a clue?

Just released this week was Cluzee, which received one major media shout-out, but is being ridiculed by actual users. BGR wrote about this app, claiming it to be Siri’s first real competition. “We’ve spent the past day testing the app and it has worked quite well for us so far,” wrote Zach Epstein. “The scope of available commands is far more narrow that Siri’s, but there is plenty of functionality in this first public build of the app and we have high hopes for future versions.”

Opinion within the Android Market, however, is much more critical. With just an average two-star rating from over 600 so far (including over 350 one-star rankings), clearly many Android users aren’t so convinced. Many user reviews claim that there’s definitely some potential here, but constant force-close problems and instability issues are evidently hampering things a bit. A Siri-killer it most certainly isn’t, but perhaps with a few more updates, things will get better.

The Skyvi’s the limit

There’s also Skyvi, and so far, this has been received a bit more positively. It’s certainly not perfect, but is at least respectable. One thing that is interesting is that a lot of folks seem to be having fun with Skyvi. The results aren’t always right, but heck, at least they’re getting a laugh or two out of it. Once again, it doesn’t appear to be quite as competent as Siri yet, but it’s still a viable alternative for Android users to to download for free.

Tried and tested

It’s encouraging to see some Siri-like apps making their way to Android. The thing is, for a while now, Android already had a bunch of decent voice-assistant apps prior to Siri stealing all the headlines. For example, Vlingo Voice Assistant has been out for well over a year, garnered over a million downloads already, and has an average of 4.3 stars from almost 30,000 reviews. If that isn’t proof that Android already has some great voice assistant apps, I’m not sure what is. Vlingo lets you call people, send SMS or email, voice dial, search the web, find local restaurants and much more. It’s always getting updated and continues to improve. Plus, you don’t need a brand new iPhone 4S to use it. Sure, it might not be as pretty or have the ‘cool factor’ of Siri, but if it gets the job done, that’s good enough.

There’s also Speaktoit Assistant, featuring a lovely buddy who will answer your questions or perform various tasks like finding information or launching applications. It doesn’t seem as popular in terms of downloads as Vlingo, but it has been well received and garnered some good reviews. Once again, there’s a ‘fun’ element here and it has a personalized feel that matches Siri somewhat.

So for now, maybe it’s better for Android users to steer away from some of the more recent Siri clones which are clearly trying to cash-in on the iOS assistant’s popularity, and stick to some of the apps which have already proven successful and are often updated. If you don’t like one, there’s probably another one you can download instead, and perhaps within a few months even Cluzee will match the functionality of its peers.

Whichever way you look it, Android users are siri-ously (sorry) spoiled for choice for when it comes to free voice assistant apps.

The Dow Jones average’s largest daily point gains (AP)

The 490-point jump in the Dow Jones industrial average on Wednesday was the seventh-largest one-day point gain on record. Here are the others: Oct

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The 490-point jump in the Dow Jones industrial average on Wednesday was the seventh-largest one-day point gain on record. Here are the others:

Oct. 13, 2008. The Dow rose 936.42, or 11.1 percent

Oct. 28, 2008. The Dow rose 889.35, or 10.9 percent

Nov. 13, 2008. The Dow rose 552.59, or 6.7 percent

March 16, 2000. The Dow rose 499.19, or 4.9 percent

March 23, 2009. The Dow rose 497.48, or 6.8 percent

Nov. 21, 2008. The Dow rose 494.13, or 6.5 percent

(asterisk)Nov. 30, 2011. The Dow rose 490.05, or 4.2 percent

The Dow has had much larger one-day percentage gains, mostly in the early 1930s. Here are the top five:

March 15, 1933: 15.3 percent

Oct. 6. 1931: 14.9 percent

Oct. 30, 1929: 12.3 percent

Sept. 21, 1932: 11.4 percent

Oct. 13, 2008, 11.1 percent

Watch the adorable Qbo robot recognize itself in the mirror for the very first time (Yahoo! News)

Only a small number of animals have been observed to recognize themselves in the mirror, and even humans spend the first 15 months or so of their lives blissfully unaware of what they look like. But robots with the right features (and a little help) can apparently also be self-aware, as demonstrated on this video of The Corpora’s pint-sized Qbo bot.

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Only a small number of animals have been observed to recognize themselves in the mirror, and even humans spend the first 15 months or so of their lives blissfully unaware of what they look like. But robots with the right features (and a little help) can apparently also be self-aware, as demonstrated on this video of The Corpora’s pint-sized Qbo bot.

Qbo is designed to recognize faces and objects, and these two features combined enable him to identify himself in the mirror once prompted by a human. All the little guy needs is a few seconds to process and learn how he looks like. While Qbo needs human input to be self-aware right now, The Corpora is working on making the bot’s self-recognition completely autonomous. It also plans to conduct a test with two bots facing each other to find out if Qbos can distinguish the difference between looking in the mirror and seeing a look-a-like.

Qbo is an open-source robot helper with webcam eyes, microphone ears, and wifi and bluetooth connectivity. Without arms, it definitely can’t fold your laundry, but it can DJ and be the life of the party.

[via Engadget]

This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

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Summary Box: Central banks’ move jolts stocks (AP)

BIG LIFT: Stocks soared Wednesday after the world’s leading central banks acted to reduce banks’ borrowing costs. The central banks of Europe, the U.S

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BIG LIFT: Stocks soared Wednesday after the world’s leading central banks acted to reduce banks’ borrowing costs. The central banks of Europe, the U.S. and others reduced the cost to banks of borrowing dollars.

WHY IT MATTERS: Markets have been rattled by concerns about banks that hold large amounts of debt issued by European governments. As a result, those banks have had trouble accessing the dollars they need to fund their daily operations. Many fear a default by a European country could topple one or more banks. The central banks’ action removes some of that pressure.

THE DOW: The Dow Jones industrial average leaped 490 points, its biggest daily gain since March 23, 2009. That was the month that stocks started rising from their lowest levels in 12 years.

Spotify expands into apps to expand music service (AP)

NEW YORK – Online music provider Spotify is adding free apps to its service to broaden its reach and expand what people can do with its vast trove of digital tunes. Spotify Inc. said Wednesday that it is adding apps from Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines, Internet radio service Last.fm, and a slew of others

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NEW YORK – Online music provider Spotify is adding free apps to its service to broaden its reach and expand what people can do with its vast trove of digital tunes.

Spotify Inc. said Wednesday that it is adding apps from Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines, Internet radio service Last.fm, and a slew of others. The Swedish company, which launched its service in the U.S. in July, is also letting developers build new Spotify apps, though it will vet each one.

At a launch event in New York City, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner called Spotify the “ultimate jukebox.” With the apps, Spotify might be betting that it’ll be more than that. That is, a music platform that people keep coming back to so they can share with friends, read reviews or find nearby concerts.

Spotify has 10 million active users, 2.5 million of whom pay for its service.

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