Services and applications

Even if you have insurance to cover the cost of your health care, understanding and managing it can still be a nightmare. You go the the doctor or get a procedure or lab test and typically have no idea what it will cost. A bill arrives, but you still don't often know how much you owe and how much the insurance company will pay. Eventually the insurance company mails you an "explanation of benefits," but even that can sometimes be indecipherable.

Enter Simplee, a free online personal health care expense management system. Like a Mint.com for … Read more

Sprint's new flagship handset, the Evo 3D, is out today and with it comes a "first" for the carrier. But I'm not talking about the 3D camera or the glasses-free 3D display, as neat as they may be.

Rather, I'm referring to the new freedom to remove preloaded software that users will get. The Evo 3D is the first Sprint smartphone to offer such capability and without forcing you to hack or root.

Often called bloatware, these preinstalled titles chosen by the carrier and handset maker to help create a unique consumer experience. And of … Read more

When Hewlett-Packard's WebOS tablet debuts next week it won't have nearly the number of apps as its competitors. But the company thinks it can use that to its advantage. That's where WebOS Pivot comes in.

HP introduced the feature of its HP App Catalog today for the first time. Pivot is essentially a magazine, published every month, with its app store. It will highlight featured applications, interesting developers, and popular apps.

Pivot will have articles and photos from "journalists and photographers affiliated with leading publications," and guest columns from "notable" writers, according to the company's release. All of the content will be about, you guessed it, apps. The content will be tailored by geographic region where HP devices are available and published in English, French, German, and Spanish.

Several questions probably pop to mind. Like, what does HP know about content publishing? But even more importantly, why go through all the trouble with a monthly publication for apps? … Read more

Some days, it seems that the majority of human being are, in one sense or other, drug-assisted.

Those drugs might be purely medicinal. They might be recreational. But seldom does it seem that one encounters a natural human being any more.

Scientists in Norway believe that they are in possession of a way to test just how much drug assistance is occurring not merely in individual humans, but in larger populations.

I am grateful to CBS News for sending me to the outer regions of Chemical and Engineering News, a place I don't often frequent.

There, I find revelations … Read more

As Android users begin to purchase additional mobile devices such as tablets, the issue of app compatibility rears its ugly head.

Believe it or not, compatibility between Android handsets and applications can vary. On the handset side, developers are able to target specific models based on various factors including processor type and carrier. With tablets, though some apps say they work on Android 1.5 and up, they aren't compatible with the Honeycomb OS.

Fortunately, however, Google aims to clear things up with the latest addition to the Android Market. In the desktop version of the Market you'll now find a function that checks applications and games against your devices. You can find out if a title will work on the gadgets that you own and determine whether an app is compatible across all devices on which you've logged in using your Google account.

Google hasn't yet made the feature official, but I've tried it for the last couple of days and it seems to be fully in place. It's possible that it was integrated ahead of the Android Market coming to Google TV this summer, since it would clear up confusion over which apps would work on the set-top box.

Even with all of the recent strides the Android Market has made, there's still a bit of work to do. For instance, I'd like to be able to hide or archive devices so they don't clutter up the screen. I've reviewed a considerable amount of handsets over time, so it's beginning to get confusing when scanning through my list. … Read more

Excuse us for not getting to this yesterday--E3 and Apple's WWDC keynote kept us a tad busy--but MetroPCS sneaked out a little announcement of its own yesterday by unveiling a visual voice mail service.

Like the services available on other carriers, MetroPCS' visual voice mail will enable customers to listen to individual voice messages without having to scan through their entire lists. Voice mails will show up on the phone's display along with the contact's picture and they can reply to the message by calling back or by sending a text message or an e-mail.

The … Read more

Apple has finally entered the music-in-the-cloud arena with the introduction of iTunes on iCloud, making it a competitor to Google's Music Beta and Amazon.com's Cloud Player. Here, we compare all three services. We'll update and amend the chart below as we get more information.

… Read more

Looking for a really good fitness application for your phone can be a pain in the butt--and exhausting. At which point, you're done trying. The GPS is off by (insert miles here), Facebook integration doesn't work, it has less than a handful of workout scenarios, no customization...

CardioTrainer has been in the top-apps list in the Android Market since the market was first introduced. CNET reviewed the lite version in May 2009, and a lot of bugs have been fixed in those two years--I mean, you'd hope so right?

On Amazon's Appstore for Android you can download the full, ad-free version of the Pro version (typically $9.99) for nothing. Features include auto-mapping, six levels of interval training, 20 levels of difficulty, audio and video feedback during workouts, pedometer, more than 40 different preinstalled workouts to choose from, and a built-in music player. There's a customization setting if your workout isn't in the predefined list.

There is a precursor to installing this app on Amazon, however. You must download and install the free (or lite) version of CardioTrainer first. Once that's done, download and install the Pro version. And there you go! Unlocked, free and fully-featured.

CardioTrainer Pro will be Amazon's free App of the Day until 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT tonight. Try it out. There's always the option of uninstalling if it doesn't suit your needs, and free is free. … Read more

Directed at the tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans, or for those who want immediate dermatology-related diagnoses, Skin of Mine is a platform for measuring and monitoring moles and other skin conditions.

The app--updated in mid-May and compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad--is now available for $2.99.

The setup is simple: create a free account at SkinofMine.com, upload symptom photos to receive automated analyses, and pay on average $50 to receive a certified diagnosis directly from a Skin of Mine medical professional (these include doctors, nurse practitioners, and physicians' assistants) of the user's … Read more