For those people (you know who you are) who wake up, stumble to the bathroom, and look to the mirror hoping to see a species of Homo other than sapiens, you’re in luck, thanks to a new app for the iPhone and Android phones. MEanderthal combines an uploaded photo of your face with an early human one created by a paleo-artist using early human fossils. LiveScienceexplains:
“You choose which human species you’d like to become, including: Homo floresiensis who lived between 95,000 and 17,000 years ago; Homo neanderthalensis who lived 200,000 to 28,000 years ago; and Homo heidelbergensis who lived 700,000 to 200,000 years ago.”
What changes might you expect when you’re Neanderthal-ized? For one thing, your schnoz will most likely expand quite a bit. This larger nasal organ helped early humans warm up and moisturize the cold, dry air during the ice age (no humidifiers back then).
“Big noses also meant sloping cheekbones compared with the flat cheekbones of modern humans. Neanderthals, especially males, also had big brow ridges and receding chins, she added. The large brow ridges are also found on chimps, gorillas and orangutans.”
The app will bring today’s humans in closer touch with our ancestors, some scientists say… perhaps a little too close.
For those too busy (or self-important?) to pocket the iPhone while walking down the street and too safety-conscious to blunder out into traffic while texting, we’ve got just the app for you, via Gadget Venue:
The application is called Type and Walk and makes use of the camera on your iPhone to push video in to the background of an application where you can type on top of the video, thus being able to see obstacles as you are walking.
Type n Walk was designed to work with your favorite apps — not try to replace them. Use it to compose your email, text message, status update, or tweet and paste it into your target app (or the browser) to send.
Yes, the app shows you the same thing you’d see if you just looked ahead of you without the iPhone, the same way people have for thousands of years, and animals before them for millions of years. Is it genius? A signal that our species has really, finally gone too far with this technology thing?
The iPhone app is called Blower and it works by moving air through the speakers of your iPhone (strictly speaking, the same thing happens when you play music through those speakers, but let’s not be too harsh on the novelty part of the application).
Check out the app in action:
Or you can use it to blow away “herbs.”
This actually seems like a lot more work than just, you know, breathing on the candles, or dragging your hand across the table. Whatever, it’s only $0.99.
Stare into the backlit screen of the magic iPhone as Irene’s Spirit reveals the unknown… This spooky new app claims to have the power to bring messages from the spirit world.
OK, so this is obviously a trick. But can anyone out there explain to us how this bit of wizardry actually works? If you’ve plunked down the $1.99 for the app, please clue us in.
Also, please tell me that if you ask, “Where is my bike?”, Irene tells you to look in the basement of the Alamo.
UPDATE: The developer’s of Irene’s Spirit were kind enough to let us preview the app. I’ll just say that like any illusion, Irene’s Spirit runs on showmanship, slight of hand, and a little knowledge about your audience.
From one of our tweeps, @carolyn_w: Ok here’s a hint. “Irene” reads minds about as well as the person who is using/controlling the app.
A new baby translator is now available for your iPhone. It won’t translate your babies gurgles and screams into “lavish attention on me, and entertain me,” or “I want what the cat’s eating,” but the inventors claim the app will analyze your baby’s cries and tell you roughly what the little one is trying to say.
The Cry Translator uses patented technology to analyze the tone and duration of the cries and match them to one of five possible types: hungry, sleepy, annoyed, stressed or bored.
No, the translator wasn’t built by Herb Powell (of the memorable Simpsons episode), but rather by Spanish developer Biloop Technologic. The developer claims that the app was shown to be 90 percent accurate in clinical trials, although they don’t say if these trials were published in a scientific journal (so presumably not). However, if your wailing baby befuddles you, or if you want to be an obnoxious back-seat parent, you can pick up the translator for $9.99.
The folks behind the best-selling book, “What’s Your Poo Telling You?” aren’t satisfied with being mere bathroom reading material. So they’ve dropped a new iPhone app, the Poo Log, which allows you to time, log, and graph your BMs—and learn about your gastrointestinal health while doing so.
The ‘Poo Log’ is a digital timer and journal for recording and studying the wondrous uniqueness of each bowel movement. With a clever mix of bathroom humor and legitimate medical information, the ‘Poo Log’ allows the user to track his/her digestive workings and graph their ‘poo’ – all with one hand.
According to the app‘s developers, AvatarLabs Inc, the tracker features medically accurate info that is suitable for all ages, and of course helpful tips such as, “Light a match. Now.”
Listen up, iPhone users. If you’re a little uneasy flying the friendly skies, don’t worry: Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic, will talk you through it. Branson has released a new iPhone app to help you make it through your flight. It’s for sale in Apple’s app store for about the same price as an in-flight beer.
Dubbed the Flying Without Fear app, it features an introduction by Branson himself, a video explaining how flying works, FAQs, relaxation exercises, and an emergency panic button to press for breathing exercises. And it’s Whoopi Goldberg endorsed!
The app is based on Virgin Atlantic Airways’ Flying Without Fear course, which supposedly has a 98% success rate. The idea is not bad: anything that can make your mind busy during those awkward moments of liftoff would probably be helpful, and an iPhone app seems like a perfect way to do just that. Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic, claims “the app will put many travelers at ease and enable them to prepare for their first Virgin Atlantic flight.”
However it’s unclear how this app will help during the most nerve-wrecking parts of flying—takeoff and landing—since airlines require you to turn off any electronics that have an on/off switch. Guess you’ll just have to calm your nerves at the airport bar the old-fashioned way.
To our graduate student readers: As if constant emails from your boss weren’t enough, soon you’ll have no excuse to avoid the “got any data?” question—even when you’re out in the field. A new mobile app now lets researchers collect and analyze data from anywhere in the world, using their cell phones.
It’s not all bad: The software could help you unload some of your work by allowing citizen scientists to snap pictures from their own backyards, and contribute them to research projects.
The software, called EpiCollect, is especially useful for researchers performing field work because they can use their phones to capture images, plot their location with the phone’s GPS, and send the results of their work to a database that anyone can access in real-time. BBC News reports:
The EpiCollect software collates data from certain mobiles—on topics such as disease spread or the occurrence of rare species—in a web-based database.
The data is statistically analyzed and plotted on maps that are instantly available to those same phones.
A current project is using the software to track the occurrence of the amphibian fungal infection chytridiomycosis.
The software only runs on Google’s Android open-source operating system, but an iPhone app is on the way in the near future, say the developers from Imperial College London.
Discoblog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. Email tips and suggestions to vgreenwood [at] discovermagazine [dot] com.
For those people (you know who you are) who wake up, stumble to the bathroom, and look to the mirror hoping to see a species of Homo other than sapiens, you’re in luck, thanks to a new app for the iPhone and Android phones. MEanderthal combines an uploaded photo of your face with an early human one created by a paleo-artist using early human fossils. LiveScience explains:
A new 
The folks behind the best-selling book, 
Listen up, iPhone users. If you’re a little uneasy flying the friendly skies, don’t worry: Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic, will talk you through it. Branson has released a new 
To our graduate student readers: As if constant emails from your boss weren’t enough, soon you’ll have no excuse to avoid the “got any data?” question—even when you’re out in the field. A new mobile app now lets researchers collect and analyze data from anywhere in the world, using their cell phones.
