Massa-Bidal sells some of his designs on his online store, but these terrific book covers aren't available just yet. Perhaps if we all pester him enough he'll put them up? The Tumblr, Twitter and Flickr ones would look great on my wall. [Retrofuturs via Flickr via SuperPunch via Gearfuse]

Tick Talk Robot: In the mornings of the future, humanoid, quasi-British, deep-voiced robots will lull you with a reading of the day's news, stroke your hair, and breathe fragrant, bacon-scented air across your cheek until you wake. Until then, there's Tick Talk Robot, which does pretty much the same thing, except without all the roboculinary eroticism. Two dollars.

AppButler: This isn't quite as cool as the press materials make it out to be, but it's still not a bad idea, considering how much easier it is to arrange apps with iTunes 9. As it stands now—as a web app—AppButler gives you a bunch of free icons to place on your springboard as dead links, which act as labels (News, Productivity, Music, whatever) for your apps, so you can make interesting homescreen layouts. A native version—whatever that would look like—is mired in the approval process as we speak.

Riddim Ribbon: A new concept rhythm game showed off at Apple's iPod event this week, Riddim Ribbon shoots your avatar/ball/blob/thing down a pathway, on which you have to hit lots and lots of targets. The more you hit, the more the song builds; the fewer, the sparser the instrumentation gets. This one comes out in October, unfortunately.

Fantasy Sports Stats Grabber: Aggregates cross-league stats in a Fantasy-league-friendly way, so you can keep closer track of how much money you've lost to your coworkers in this bizarre ritual of manhood that I'll never, ever understand. A buck.

Flickr: Better late than never, Yahoo. At least the app is good at what it does, which includes uploading and geotagging photos, and managing your account. Warning: It can be sluggish, especially when loading thumbs. That's nothing to get too worked up about though, seeing as this one's a freebie.

Navigon: Navigon was only a killer feature or two away from a clear victory in our iPhone nav app Battlemodo, and with the latest free update, it may have gotten one. Or two! Now it features a full, proper-noun-reading text-to-speech engine for giving you vocal directions, as well as inbuilt music controls, which replace the iPhone's limited default popup panel. Obvious, maybe, but still awesome.

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor: You play a spider with an extremely overactive web gland, and hop around a bunch of levels, trapping bugs and solving mysteries. The demo video at the app's website makes a better case for playing this lovely little game than I can, but I will say this: Spider game, I love you. Three dollars.

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory. Have a great weekend, everybody!

At heart, this is a fairly basic photo uploading app: Logging in brings you to an account management dashboard, where you can browse your photos as well as your friends', and search Flickr as a whole. It's quite a bit like their web interface, except with all the hallmark advantages of a native app, i.e. a more responsive interface, and direct camera integration, with geotagging.

The app seems to have a tendency to slow down while thumbnails are loading, and there's no way to zoom in on photos within the app, but hey, this thing's free—and there are still plenty of alternatives in the App Store if it doesn't quite do it for you. [Flickr via Techcrunch]

I've to admit that I used to tote my DSLR or a point-n-shoot everywhere, and now I don't thanks to the iPhone. Whenever I need a snap, I just take out the iPhone and fire away. I miss the quality and flexibility of my real cameras. And I really wish the iPhone had a camera as fast and good as a nice point-n-shot. And I really really REALLY wish for instant camera access and a physical shutter button. But even with all those missing features, it's oh-so-much more convenient. And most of the time—I hate it sometimes—I just care about the moment.

On top of that, once I started using the iPhone like a Lomo or a Holga—having CameraBag helps—and just catch whatever was going on, I stopped worrying about megapixels, aperture, and ISO settings. So I'm not surprised about the Flickr phenomenon. [LA Times via PocketLint]

If you can't get enough of your Obamas and Bidens and Emanuels and presidential dogs, look no further. If not, look at little further.

Also, if you've got one of those digital picture frames with Flickr support, you can probably hook up your frame to directly feed photos from the White House stream and pretend you're some kind of secret agent or witch, being able to see their every move. [Flickr]

The national maps—like the one above, which shows the most photographed landmark in each of the top 20 most photographed cities—are somewhat predicable, with photo density at its highest around population centers, especially large, scenic ones. Natural sights, like the Grand Canyon, make a strong showing, and the results generally support my theory that most peoples' vacations consist of trudging to a location of note, snapping a photo to prove that, yes, they actually went, and going directly back home, depressed.

The results get much more interesting at a local level. On the left are New York City and San Francisco, which were the first and third most photographed cities, respectively. Popular tourist destinations are prominently featured on these maps, but in addition the increased density of photos between these destinations form a sort of photo "track" along which tourists, apparently anxious for lack of monument-type things to photograph, take pictures anyway.

Researchers are said to be mulling the possibility of constructing some kind of online travel guide from the wisdom of the photo-taking crowd. Regarding that "wisdom": Apple's Manhattan cube store, a place that sells iPods, is the 5th most photographed place in NYC—just in front of the Statue of Liberty, which probably welcomed your ancestors to this country. What now, James Surowiecki?

Read the full report here (WARNING: there's math). [Physorg]

Apple has every right to be proud of the fact that it got its act together, and everything that was all herky jerky back in July 2008, when the $99-per-year MobileMe launched, is now working as billed. The push email shows up immediately, if you use your me.com account. Ditto for the push contacts and the push calendar, though you can't use web cals like Google's or Yahoo's if you want to be super synced. The gallery works great; as a dad I upload tons of pictures and videos to the MobileMe gallery right from iPhoto, but with iPhoto '09, I can upload them to my free accounts at Facebook and Flickr too. There's even iDisk, a smoothly integrated 20GB cloud storage service, which now has a public drop box for file sharing, just like YouSendIt. And if you have a time capsule NAS/wireless access point, you can remotely access your disk using mobile me, as well as use back to my mac remote desktop control. (The service tracks the dynamic IPs of all your machines, so each machine can always keep track of the others.)

Maybe you're catching on to the real problem here. It's not just that you "free" junkies who read Gizmodo wouldn't be caught dead paying $100 for anything but a 50" flat-panel TV. It's that the service itself is made up of many pieces you already have. This presents a complicated economic argument: If you already have an online photo gallery and a free or company-given email account that you like and use, why would you pay to have those things twice, just to get contact syncing for your phone and a decent online storage system. Wouldn't you go find a less elegant online storage system for a lot less money, and content yourself with syncing your phone to your computer's address book every couple of days?

I said that the service worked as billed, and it does. My favorite component is the contact syncing, because anytime I add anything on my phone or my computer, the two are instantly in sync. But I'd achieve the same result, with less magic, if I remembered to sync my iPhone every so often.

I did have one problem with contact syncing, but I bring it up mainly to tell how easy it was to fix: I had imported a bunch of contacts from email accounts online, and some contacts got corrupted along the way. I had 18 contacts, out of 250 or so, that wouldn't sync from Mac to iPhone or MobileMe web portal. The fix was easy: Go in and change something about the entry, like adding the person's company name or a fax line, even their kid's name. As soon as you tweak the entry, boom, it gets uploaded.

Most other exchanges in MobileMe have been without incident, even exporting my Google Cals in a big bunch, then manually importing them into iCal from time to time. But the very fact that I use MobileMe for some services and free web apps for others, and the fact that I am in many cases the one making sure everything talks to everything else, underscores the point I'm making, that MobileMe is a confederacy of programs that have nothing to do with each other.

In the end, even after it's working well, it's difficult to recommend for two reasons: The money, which I've sufficiently covered above—a hefty sum when contrasted to free web-based simulacra—and the compatibility, not with your device "ecosystem" but with everybody else. Who uses iCal or Me.com mail? Google wins those battles for sure. Even though I swear by MobileMe Gallery, most people I know prefer Flickr, or just Facebook.

There's a solution. Apple could offer some things for free, and some things cheap. Just bought iLife '09 or a new Mac? Guess what, you get to upload your photos to a MobileMe Gallery. Buying an iPhone? Syncing your contacts and calendar is a $2/month add-on. I think iDisk could easily be a success at $25/year, all by itself, as long capacity goes up each year automatically based on capability. It's not like these component parts have anything to do with one another anyway.

My mother-in-law recently switched to a Mac after eons on a PC. I looked over her shoulder as she was placing the order, and when we came to the part where she could get MobileMe at the low introductory price of $70, she asked me if she should. I thought for a second, and realized the answer was no. I may keep her grandkid's pics on MobileMe Gallery, but she's perfectly happy with Picasa, and there's a beta version of that for the Mac out now. For free. [MobileMe]

The daddy and junior pic is a winner.

[Submit your photos]

We want to make a gallery of all the coolest audio gadgets that you can find. Old, new, shiny, broken, expensive, cheap, colorful, emo—any spectacularly awesome shots of headphones, speakers, listening equipment, or even a microscopic look at your dirty eardrum. Basically, just send us anything audio-related that will make us speechless—which is quite difficult for some of the Gizmodo boys—and we'll post up a gallery of the best ones we get.

We're also hoping to see some photos of insane stage setups at Coachella, and if you've been reading our First Album stories, I'd also like to invite you guys to upload a shot of some album art along with a caption of what it meant to you.

All you have to do is log in to your Flickr account and go here, join our group, and then click "send to group" on your individual photos you want added to our pool.

[Gizmodo Flickr Pool - image from joey joey joey]

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

We want your photos. All you have to do is log in to your Flickr and go here, join our group, and start hitting "send to group" on your individual photos you want to add to the pool.

Here are some helpful guidelines as to what kind of photos we are interested in:

• Random stuff, weird things, and interesting photos. Send us your random photos too. As much as we love you guys, and we'd love to see the picture of your neighbor's cute dog, it's not necessary. Now your neighbor's cute dog playing the Wii and kicking your butt at the same time? Maybe.
• Gadget/product shots. Obviously, a gadget blog is nothing without its gadgets. So send us photos of your brick cellphones, your modded desktops, and your atomic science kits. Old or new, as long as it's interesting.
• Advertising. See any interesting Mac vs. PC ads? Did you run into Lauren?
• Stuff you see on the street. If you see anything gadgety in your daily trappings of what you call life, please add them to the pool.
• Images of the day. Anything you guys would like to submit for images of the day.

[Gizmodo Flickr Pool - Image credit Superjuanvi]

By pulling GPS metadata from uploaded photos (and then skinning that data in a neat 3D visualization), users can see how photographers/tourists see a given area. There's overlap, yes, but that's entirely the point. It's a project more about capturing stereotypes (like the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Statue of Liberty in NY), than giving a Google Street View objective turn by turn of an area. Add tags like "party" to the mix, and that worldview is altered in very interesting, less predictable ways.

As strange as this may sound, I could totally picture this visualizer on the PlayStation 3. The platform has focused quite a bit on a unique photo experience, and the style isn't so far from Sony's. All they'd really need to do is network it. [MIT via GearCrave]

All you have to do is be registered on Flickr, go here, join our group, and start hitting "send to group" on your individual photos you want to add to the pool.

What kind of photos would we like to see in our Flickr pool, you may ask?

• Gadget/product shots. Obviously, a gadget blog is nothing without its gadgets. So send us photos of your brick cellphones, your modded desktops, and your atomic science kits. Old or new, as long as it's interesting.
• Advertising. See any interesting Mac vs. PC ads? What about when LG had to modify their slogan, "Life's Good"?
• Stuff you see on the street. If you see anything gadgety in your daily trappings of what you call life, please add them to the pool.
• Images of the day. Anything you guys would like to submit for images of the day.
• Random stuff, weird things, and interesting photos. Send us your random photos too. Got anything interesting? As much as we love you guys, and we'd love to see the picture of your neighbor's cute dog, it's not necessary. Now your neighbor's cute dog playing the Wii and kicking your butt at the same time? That's a different story.

There you go. [Gizmodo Flickr Pool]

Even though that guy from Dyson is right re: these things never, ever drying your hands sufficiently, it's fascinating to see the variety of designs. (Looks like Wilson has yet to run across an AirBlade in his travels).

Check out the full set on Flickr, and Douglas's portfolio site as well. [Flickr, Douglas Wilson via Build]

Undo send, sadly, only has a five-second window to take it back (you can boost it to 10), so you better have excellent reflexes. Previews work a lot like the image preview you're used to. Here's the YouTube preview in action: [Gmail Blog, Cnet]

As with photos, regular users are severely limited in what they can upload: two standard-quality uploads a month. Pro users can upload to their heart's content, but a 90-second cap remains in place for all uploads. The HD video feature is a natural, intelligent progression for the service, added just in time for the impending avalanche of HD-capable still cameras, which are less useful for creating long-form videos than they are for taking photos that just happen to, you know, move a little bit. Check out the fledgling (but spectacular) Flickr HD Pool, to see what I mean. [Yahoo! Blog via Business2Press —Video from Flickr User Mike Black]

The phone also comes with a full suite of photo-specific features, such as Flickr Uploadr, ShutterSmile (snaps when it detects a smile) and BestPic (takes 9 rapid-fire photos, keeps the best) enhancements, as well as Photo and Video Blogging apps. The geotagging uses aGPS to carry out it's function, has an auto-rotating screen and dedicated camera buttons, but the phone only makes use of an HSPA cellular radio.

The C903 is essentially a lesser-equipped version of the 8.1-megapixel C905, but I prefer the look of the the C903, personally. The phone is expected to hit stores in Q2 2009. [Sony Ericsson via BB Gadgets]

Among the many online weather and emergency alert services, job listings, and the like, the Bush years also found a few more interesting new tools. The Library of Congress began posting photos of their incredible catalog on Flickr, for example, and the FBI created widgets for locating sexual predators and most wanted criminals. New tools for college students helped them find loans and compare schools, and finally we were able to pay taxes online. Diplomatic and Intelligence agencies jumped on the Wikipedia bandwagon with Diplopedia and Intellipedia, respectively.

Sure, it's not free broadband internet for all, but let's give credit where credit's due. That Flickr page is amazing! [Nick Thompson via Wired]

Apparently the unofficial Apple junkie of his office, jpegsrock's coworkers thought it would be apt to welcome him back in an appropriate manner—by smearing Steve Jobs' mug all over his desk. It's a sight that's awesomely astounding, and possibly a sweet and funny homage if a bajillion faces watching your every move is your thing (yes, even while you're eating). I'm glad I'm not forced to deal with my coworkers' pranks on a daily basis: knowing them, they'd put Legos in my coffee and hang Mickey Mouse ears from the ceiling, but only after giving me a wedgie. God bless. [Flickr via TUAW]