clips

Yep, the Nice Clip is just a clip. That's all. But if you're frequently misplacing your camera's lens cap or looking for someplace to put it while you're shooting, it's a clip worth buying.

It attaches to any size, style, and brand of lens cap from 49mm all the way up to 82mm using a strip of 3M adhesive. Then, when you take off your cap, you can simply slip it on a strap, pocket, or belt loop. … Read more

Short messaging services (SMS) are very popular, but can end up costing you a lot if you don't have an unlimited plan for your smartphone. All the apps in this collection offer more features than standard SMS clients, and can often be more fun to use. For instance, some send pictures, show you when a message is read by the recipient, or send videos and voice clips. There's even an app that lets people without smartphones reply to you from a user-selected phone number.

Kik is a simple yet functional messenger app. No other service can match … Read more

From the Are You Kidding Me files today comes VizLingo, a New York-based company that takes the words you type and creates quick-cut videos out of them. You type in, "I want to buy some cheese," and you get a five-second video of the concepts, "I," "want," and so on. Go see what I mean.

Let me be clear about this. I don't get it. These vids don't help comprehension. If they did, they wouldn't need subtitles. And the emotional content whipsaws all over the place due to the quick cuts.

But, says CEO Azeo Fables, that's the point. "We're responding directly to the A.D.D. generation, who wants things quick and fast. The clip length is tuned to the mindset of users who watch music videos."

Fables says his target demographic, 14- to 24-year-olds, has not been well-served by text messaging, in which it's hard to embed emotional content save for emoticons. He also believes that the clip library now on the service (30,000 tagged clips taken from Fables' post-college around-the-world video tour) will eventually be supplanted by user-generated tagged videos.

VizLingo has raised $1.8 million in venture funding and there are 11 people working on the project. Fables believes revenues may come from third-party content providers. If you use the word "car" in a clip, maybe you'll get a Ford-provided image. Also, he hopes to integrate the VizLingo function into existing messaging platforms, hopefully at a profit. Mobile apps are on the way.

I don't dispute that this is a fun experiment. And props to the VizLingo team for at least trying to come up with two-second video clips to illustrate words like "is," and "fund." Anything that pushes the boundaries of language and expression is likely to get some initial interest. But I believe this experiment is a novelty, not the dawn of a new post-text form of communication. I'm shocked it's raised so much money. Maybe the millennials that Fables is targeting will prove me wrong, but I doubt it. … Read more

The MP3 player will never die. You can show me your smartphones and your tablets and all of the dozens of ways we have now to listen to music, but there will always be a place in the world for a cheap, reliable MP3 player.

SanDisk's latest Sansa Clip Zip is proof of this point. Starting at just $49 (4GB) and decked out with an enviable array of audio format support (including AAC and FLAC), an FM radio, a voice recorder, a stopwatch, and a 1.1-inch color screen, the Clip Zip is destined to become the same kind … Read more

Let's face it: PowerPoint presentations can be pretty boring, especially if the presenter reads directly from the slides, one by one. But with iSpring Free, you can take your PowerPoint presentations up a few notches by inserting Flash files directly into your slides and even publishing the presentations themselves as Flash videos.

If you're familiar with PowerPoint's user interface, then you'll have no trouble navigating iSpring Free as it integrates itself into the Ribbon as an extra tab. The menu options are few, but they get to the point: Publish and Insert. As its name suggests, … Read more

A Twitter follower recently asked how he could go about importing some MP3 files into the iOS Voice Memo app. After doing some research, and trial and error, we were able to come up with a solution that worked.

Using iTunes, people can import their own voice notes or sound clips, regardless of device or platform they were originally made with. In just a few short steps you will convert the files, import into iTunes, mark as a Voice Memo, and finally sync them to your iPhone.

Let's get started.

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Editors' note (September 20, 2011): Apple has released a major software update to Final Cut Pro X. Additional features added include support for XML, custom starting time codes, Xsan event and project compatibility, support for media stems/audio channeling, full-screen view toggle for Lion users, and GPU acceleration.

The bottom line: Final Cut Pro X is truly a dramatic rewrite of Apple's mature and well-developed video-editing software. It borrows some interface elements from iMovie that may disappoint seasoned professionals, and also it loses many key features that are simply an absolute necessity in the professional world, like XML export. … Read more

Flixlab is a free app that has been available on the iPhone for a couple of months now, letting you quickly make movies and share them with your Facebook friends without a lot of hassle. Today, the Flixlab app was updated to include a cooperative movie-making mode: you'll now be able to take pictures and videos of an event with a friend and then quickly share and combine the content from both of your iPhones into one video.

Flixlab takes all the busywork out of making good-looking movies by adding all effects, transitions, and music before you share them … Read more

Awesome Note for iPhone lets you manage messages, memos, and ideas in several unique ways. An intuitive interface lets you use themes to help categorize information the way you want and get to the information you need quickly. Awesome Note includes a few demo categories (shown as folders) that you can use to see how your notes and info will be laid out. You can create new folders by hitting the add folder button in the lower right, selecting your preferred color, and adding a title. Opening a folder displays your notes for that category laid out as thumbnails so … Read more