Bob Sorokanich

Android Apps of the Week: Silent Text, MetroNap, PrivacyFix and More

Well, it’s Friday, and despite it only being a four-day work week for many of you, we’re still proud of you for making it to the end. Here are the best of the best Android apps we found this week, one for each day of working our fingers to the bone. Silent Text: Whether your…

Pricing on Nokia’s Lumia 1020 just dropped to $200 at AT&T and Microsoft stores. The smartphone with the muscular camera debuted at $300 originally, and for a short time Microsoft stores will throw in the $79 camera grip for free. [via AllThingsD]

Oh hey, NASA launched its official Instagram account today. So far it’s all moon-related, anticipating tonight’s launch of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, but it’s definitely worth a follow. [NASA]

Topsy, Twitter’s Google, Now Searches Every Tweet Ever Sent

Twitter’s been around since 2006. If it was a kid, Twitter would be in 2nd grade, and totally grounded for having such a potty mouth. But trying to search through old tweets is a major frustration, because Twitter’s built-in search function favors messages it thinks are newest and most relevant. Topsy changes all that, with…

Google’s iOS Authenticator Update Nuked User Data Before Being Pulled

Google’s updated Authenticator app for iPhone rolled out last night, bringing new retina graphics for iPhone 5 users. Unfortunately, it also brought a nasty little glitch that wiped out user account info, leading Google to pull it from the App Store. Apparently, users who installed the new update found all the services they’d connected to…

A Common Liver Drug Could Be Key to Curing Parkinson’s

The tragedy of Parkinson’s, which progressively robs patients of their physical abilities, is that while certain drugs, therapies and devices can restore some quality of life, so far we haven’t found a way to stop brain cells from dying. Now, researchers in the UK and Norway have found a drug that could keep brain cells…

iPad Apps of the Week: The Converted, Blackbar, ReadQuick, And More

The best weekend of the end of summer is nearly here! Or already here, if you’re the kind of person who knocked off work before 6pm. Or not here at all if you work weekends. Anyway, in honor of Labor Day, we labored all week to find you the best iPad apps. Dig in! The…

iPhone Apps of the Week: The Converted, Flickr, Blackbar, and More

It’s Friday night, and you know what that means: we’ve got a fistful of apps for you and your iPhone. Which is a lot like a fistful of dynamite, without the explosions. A fistful of dynamite apps! Yeah! The Converted: This is a highly visual conversion app that actually gives you a sense of the…

Android Apps of the Week: Digg Reader, Dynamic Notifications and More

It’s Friday, it’s the weekend, it’s Labor Day weekend — it’s a good day to be alive. And for Android users who’ve been dying to get their hands on some sweet new apps all week, it’s an especially good day. Check out the best of what’s out there this week! Digg Reader: This is a…

What Happens When You Stuff iPhone 5 Guts in an iPhone 5S Body?

If you haven’t seen a million iPhone 5S housing pics of varying believability by now, you’re either doing something very wrong, or very right. But looking at an alleged 5S case by itself doesn’t tell us much about the improvements over the regular 5, so Jonathan at TLD endeavored to see how many of the…

Nokia took the wraps off its Here Auto connected car platform today. Consisting of in-car software, cloud services and a mobile app, the system lets users instantaneously share planned routes between computer, smartphone and dashboard nav system. Next step is to start courting car manufacturers, but Here Auto will be demoed at Germany’s International Motor…

Aziz Ansari Stand-Up Special Is Netflix’s Next Big Premiere

Netflix has been making some big moves lately, outgrowing its days as a virtual Blockbuster (remember Blockbuster?) to offer some seriously great original programming. Its upcoming launch into the world of comedy will pack some power too — Aziz Ansari’s Buried Alive stand-up special debuts on Netflix November 1st. https://gizmodo.com/orange-is-the-new-black-about-so-much-more-than-life-i-1219000669 While this isn’t the first…

DirecTV’s spruced-up mobile app with voice control has made the jump to the Android world. Just like the iOS app released earlier this month, the app lets you do things like schedule DVR recording, and uses spoken word search to find programming. [Google Play via Engadget]

Google Hangout video chats have been quietly upgrading to 720p HD, and the mothership says all users should have high definition soon. The quality boost is part of a long-term upgrade that has Hangout moving toward a system that won’t require installing any plugins, but that’s still down the road. [Gigaom]

Warrant or No, Cops Can Use Aluminum Foil To Block Smartphone Wiping

The legal debate over whether police need a warrant to search a suspect’s cellphone is more than just raging on — it’s headed to the Supreme Court. But even if the nation’s highest court decides a warrant is needed, the authorities could still block you from remote-wiping your phone while they wait for the legal…

Hue Menu, introduced today, lets you control your psychedelic Philips Hue color-changing mood lights from your Mac computer. Most Hue owners control their setup via mobile app, but now you can set the color palette of the room while looking like you’re doing work. [Mac App Store via TechCrunch]

New Drug Could Save Migraine Sufferers From Horrors of Bright Light

If you’ve ever had a migraine, you’ve probably experienced photophobia, the painful sensitivity to light that sends you scurrying, eyes closed, to the darkest dungeon you can find. In that moment, you’re probably wishing for a way to (temporarily) unplug your eyeballs and put an end to the agony. Researchers at The Salk Institute could…

Scientists Control One Person’s Body With Another Person’s Brain

Sit down for this one. Researchers at the University of Washington have figured out how to send commands from one person’s brain to control a different person’s muscle movement. In technical terms, it’s the world’s first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface. How’d they do it? Vulcan mind meld? Nope, just the regular ol’ internet. What in…

Google Says Local Content Could Come Back to Chromecast

Yesterday, Google upset lots of folks by pulling the plug on the most awesome aspect of Chromecast, the ability to play local content through a third-party app. Today, the company’s saying it was an inadvertent mistake, and that local content will stay. What gives? https://gizmodo.com/google-is-crippling-chromecasts-best-feature-1200683643 Soon after Chromecast arrived, developer Koushik Dutta put together a…

This Is What a Warp Drive Will Sound Like (Sorta)

Antimatter, the evil-twin-like opposite to every particle in the universe, is pretty wild stuff. While in the sci-fi world it powers warp drives, here in the frustrating confines of reality we still haven’t figured out how to harness it. But thanks to some mad scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, now we know what antimatter…