MealSnap for iPhone counts the calories, you eat

MealSnap for iPhone has this straightforward title that says it all – snap a picture of your meal and this app will do all the calorie counting to make you reconsider your decision straight away. Well, you still have to eat something, but this Double Whopper with extra mayo may find a replacement for something much less harmful and actually healthy.

The application was developed by fitness social network DailyBurn and gives you almost instant feedback. To do that, it matches the taken picture to a database containing nearly 500,000 meals and food items. You then get the mind boggling range of calories typical for the said Double Whopper or whatever you have in front of you.

Your way to the biggest loser crown can now be easily shared on Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare, so you can get some social support. Or risk being defriended, that is. DailyBurn CEO elaborates on the social features of MealSnap:

"The pure act of tracking something can cause a psychological change that can help people on their health and fitness journey," he said. "Just the simple fact of logging it makes me more aware of what I'm eating."

A journal for the food-obsessed, MealSnap will surely find its audience. All yours for $2.99.

source: iTunes (Meal Snap) via Reuters

Calibrate the battery stats on your Android device with a simple app

If you tinker with your Android device often, flash ROMs, and other general shenanigans, your battery stats maybe a little messed up, due to the fact that the batterystats.bin system file remains optimized for your previous states.

The loving folks from XDA-Devs, however, have found a way to simplify even the mildly technical process to clean up your battery stats. You just have to install an app, of course, wait until your phone is fully charged, and then press the "Battery Calibration" button.

The app gets rid of the old batterystats.bin file, and starts you with a clean slate. After a short while of gathering usage trends, Android OS creates a new file, this time with battery consumption patterns from your new ROM, presumably improving on your battery life, which is always a welcome achievement with Android phones.

Head over to the XDA thread below for details, or scan the app code if you want to try it out for yourself.

source: XDA-Devs via SprintUsers

Samsung announced plans to release a couple of bada 2.0 smartphones later this year

It was not long ago when we reported that bada 2.0 is already on its way. Samsung's proprietary mobile OS is getting a new major release this summer bringing a revamped interface, overhauled multitasking experience, and a list of other improvements to Sammy's smartphone-oriented platform. News about bada 2.0 don't end here since the French division of Samsung announced that two devices running the new platform have already been scheduled for launch later this year.

Samsung of France held a press conference last week, at which company representatives announced that the first smartphone to ship with bada 2.0 should be expected in September of this year. Even though its exact name is still unknown, the said device will most probably join the Wave family and is meant to become its new flagship handset. As far as its technical specifications go, here is what has been mentioned to date:

• 3.65-inch touch-sensitive display
• 7.2 Mbps HSDPA radio
• 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with a VGA front-facing one
• Support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC

A second bada 2.0 smartphone is expected to follow in November, but it will be more of a mid-end device with a relatively modest 3.14-inch QVGA display and a 3-megapixel camera.

Since bada 2.0 is expected to launch in July, this could mean that current members of the Samsung Wave family might get an update before the launch of these two handsets, but that is just a wild guess for now. Nevertheless, back at MWC in Barcelona Samsung did mention that even the original Wave will be able to run the new platform, so we do not see a reason why such an update may not be possible.

source: bada World (translated) Samsung Hub

Gartner predicts rosy future for the iPad, Honeycomb to trail

Gartner is a well-trusted tech oracle, but when it comes to predicting events in a 5-year timeframe, predictions become largely equivalent to palm-reading. Well, there might be one exception – tablets. Apple has basically created the tablet market with the original iPad and Gartner's latest prognosis says that Cupertino is to remain the dominant company. But even Steve Jobs won't be able to sustain the overwhelming popularity that the iPad is enjoying nowadays – the tablet's share will slip to some 69% this year and continue falling to around 47% in 2015.

Google's Android Honeycomb has the support of pretty much every other manufacturer out there, but this – in Gartner's views – won't prove enough for a quick start. Honeycomb tablets are to conquer the market gradually, starting from a 14% share in 2010, to reach nearly 20% this year and sprinting to the finish to close the gap with almost 39% in 2015.

The other major contender out there seems to be RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook. The 7-inch tablet holds ground with its business allure and QNX-based platform, but it will encounter one major obstacle on its way – apps. Nevertheless, Gartner forecasts bright future for the tablet which will supposedly occupy 5.6 of the market this year, only to reach the healthy 10% in 2015. But finally, HP's TouchPad will face the most difficulties. Gartner's predictions speak for a slow start for the tablet which will finish 2015 with a weak 3% presence.

Just last week, the analysts from Gartner presented us with their 5-year perspective on the cell phone market, but it was a whole different story with Android on top of the charts and Windows Phone picking up pace. Microsoft's OS, somewhat surprisingly, is not even in the forecast here, which makes us think that we might see a whole new model to reflect the three-horse race that Redmond wants to stage. Whatever the future brings, one thing is certain – the market will be a very competitive one and this is always good for the end-user.

source: Gartner via mocoNews

Adobe Photoshop Touch SDK released to control CS5 with your iOS, Android or BlackBerry device

We are still expecting the full-fledged Photoshop for the iPad to arrive, but in the meantime a few apps that connect with the desktop Adobe Photoshop CS5 version will suffice. We heard about these companion Photoshop apps way back in November last year, and next month they should be hitting the app stores of the world.

To satiate our thirst for image editing on touchscreen devices, Adobe also releases the Photoshop Touch SDK. It serves as a platform to develop apps taking advantage of a new update, called Photoshop CS5 Extended, which allows for real-time communication with iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices.

The first fruits of this labor are the Nav, Eazel and Color Lava apps. Nav is a collection palette for up to sixteen of your favorite tools, and you can also assign colors with it. It allows you to navigate around up to 200 files already in your Photoshop workflow, rearrange or zoom into them with ease, all from the comfort of your iPad.

Color Lava mixes paint like you would do with an old-school palette, and can be used to create color themes or swatches on its own, or sync them with desktop Photoshop later on.

The third one, Eazel, is actually the one that stands out as the real productivity app, as it can be used as a standalone app for painting, and it is fully touch-optimized. Place your five fingers on the touchscreen, and the intuitive interface allows you to align opacity, paint brush size and color, all with the tip of your finger.

Wet and dry paint can be applied for various color combos, and the paint even dries up with time, just like it would in real life. Take that, art class, and drops of paint everywhere on our clothes. The resulting masterpiece you create with Eazel can be then sent to Photoshop CS5 and rendered in any resolution, ready to be printed at will.

We can't wait to play around with these apps, which should appear in the App Store next month, hopefully the full-blown touch version of Photoshop won't be long to appear too.

via Gizmodo

Reese Witherspoon says she misses her privacy

NEW YORK – Reese Witherspoon mourns the loss of her privacy.
The Oscar-winning actress says she sometimes sits in her car crying because she cannot go out in public as much as she'd like.
Witherspoon says in the May issue of Vogue that although much of her life belongs to other people, but she wouldn't trade it.
The 35-year-old says that whatever she's lost, she's gained tenfold in life experience.
Witherspoon also says she feels blessed that her friends help provide some privacy.
Her latest film, "Water for Elephants," will be released April 22.
Witherspoon plays a scrappy circus star willing to do whatever it takes to survive. The Depression-era drama is based on the best-selling novel.
Robert Pattinson co-stars as her love interest in the film.

Wills, Kate to NW England in last pre-wedding trip

 
BLACKBURN, England – Ignoring a steady rain, Prince William and fiancee Kate Middleton visited northwest England to support youth charities — the last trip in their pre-wedding tour of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Adoring crowds lined up early Monday in Blackburn to get a glimpse of the royal couple, who plan to marry April 29 at Westminster Abbey in London. One of them, Lillian Sleigh, braved the weather in her wheelchair, which was decorated with Union Jack flags and pictures of the royal couple.
"I came here early, even though it's pouring with rain, to make sure I get the best chance of seeing William and Kate," she said. "They're a lovely couple and as for William, his mother Diana would have been so proud of him."