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Six Must-Download Apps of 2012
HUNDREDS of thousands of apps are added to both to iTunes and the Android Marketplace every year. Sometimes it can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. With the popularity of smartphones surging, there has been a flood of apps -- some good, some bad, some amazing -- but unless you are reading app blogs, endlessly surfing on your phone trying to see what new has been released or even if you use the I'll-download-whatever-app-is-free-method, it can be a struggle to keep up with the cool, useful and innovative apps for your phone.
To help cut through the digital clutter, Mashable has outlined their Six Must-Download Apps of 2012. They include savvy location-based apps like Highlight (one of the startups that created the most buzz at South by Southwest this year; other apps with this buzz in the past include Twitter and Foursquare); Clear, a ultra simple to-do list that will make you more productive than ever; and Flipboard, a customizable digital magazine app that gained a legion of dedicated users on iPad and is now available for your phone.
While iPhone and Android users keep getting more access to apps for their devices, BlackBerry continues to slip behind the competition, as many startups see an uncertain future for the smartphone maker and won't put their limited resources into devices that aren't selling as well as they did. BlackBerry desperately needs a new operating system if it is going to remain relevant in today's rapidly evolving telecommunications industry.
How You'll Watch the Olympics in 2016
THE Olympics have just wrapped up and the summer edition won't be back on TV for another four years, but dedicated couch potatoes -- the type who absorb every obscure sport, track-and-field event, endless races, dives and water polo matches in the pool and a bunch of other sports that nobody cares about except during the Olympics -- might be excited to know there should be some innovations by the next time the big summer sporting gathering takes places in Rio in 2016.
Those innovations include: a sharper-looking HD broadcast (both TV sets, cameras and the tools to broadcast should be improved by then); faster online streaming for your phone or tablet that will let you bring the Olympics in HD wherever you may be; and the fact you'll be watching most sports in real time, instead of CTV and NBC's time-delayed schedule that made watching some events totally anti-climatic as the winners had been splashed all over the news already. With Rio sharing a time zone with the eastern seaboard, the broadcast schedule will be a lot more viewer friendly.
The Tubey Awards
MOST TV awards show are cookie-cutter similar. If you're more interested in categories like Most Redemptive Character in a Sucky Show, Most Wrongly Underused Character or Most Appalling Reality Star, the Tubey's will be offering 80 categories you aren't likely to see on a traditional awards show.
Voting runs through Sept. 9, and winners will be announced in mid-September.
Anthony Augustine is a freelance music, technology and pop culture writer who spends way too much time in front of a computer. Got a site you think he should see? Email him at anthony.siteunseen@gmail.com or follow him at twitter.com/anthonya.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 24, 2012 E3
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