rec

Dashboard cameras and black-box technology are great ways to cover your tush in the event of a fender bender. Whether an honest mistake or an intentional insurance scam, video evidence that an accident wasn't your fault can save you big bucks.

While the technology is fairly cheap, odds are that you've already got a GPS-enabled camera suction cupped to your windshield or dashboard on the back of your smartphone. Why not work with what you've got and take advantage of this hardware with a dashboard-DVR app like DailyRoads Voyager for Android?

Essentially, what this free Android app does is continuously record video of the road ahead using your phone's camera while also tracking vehicle speed, location, and G-forces using the onboard GPS receiver and accelerometer.… Read more

If you're looking for a simple and precise tool for recording a computer's every movement, 7 Cove DemoRec provides the solution. The videos it creates are perfect for presentations, tutorials, and more, thanks to its easy operation and fast results.

The program's interface feels a little clinical but is simple enough to operate, and we never needed to consult the Help file. The program's primary function works like a VCR remote: you simply press Record, and 7 Cove records all your actions until you press Stop. The results are a perfect facsimile of everything that happens … Read more

Yelp.com may be the place to go for writing and reading restaurant and business reviews online, but the iPhone clamors for a different model. Goodrec beautifully fills this void with a full-featured application that lets you search or browse among restaurants, bars, books, movies, wine, and local venues for short reviews. A color-coded key shows you the number of positive, mixed, and negative reviews alongside short-form reviews. You'll also be able to rate each product and write a bite-size review, adding photos you can snap directly from the application. If friends are also using Goodrec , you can filter … Read more

With Earth Day upon us again, CNET News.com green reporters sat down and selected five leading companies in five different clean technology categories. Here are the ones to watch in the recycling realm:

1. GreenFuel Technologies: Large oil companies and many academics favor capturing carbon dioxide, turning it into a liquid, and storing it underground. Politically, though, that's a tough sell.

GreenFuel, with a pedigree from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and millions in venture funding, wants to feed captured carbon dioxide to algae, and then turn the algae into biofuel. The company is still fine-tuning … Read more

Editor's note: CallRec was tested on a Treo 650.

Pros: Records independently of app, tracks remaining storage, two recording input options, multiple ways to share Cons: No trigger hot key, two-second lapse with phone call recording

At a baseball game last summer, my friend recorded the incessant howls of a boisterous seatmate with his smart phone, replaying it in my ear with tinny imperfection. Too bad he didn't have a Palm device with CallRec tucked onto his memory card to forever capture the fan's clamorous "woo-woooos" with lifelike clarity.

CallRec is a midsize piece of commercial software (207KB on-phone storage; $30) that makes clear recordings of your notes-to-self and phone calls, and has enough options for tweaking the recording quality to cut out most background noise. The clean, understandable interface provides screen-touch buttons to start, stop, and replay recordings, though you can also initiate and end sessions by pressing the Treo's side button. CallRec names recordings with a time stamp, but it's easy to rename files, and to organize them by file name or duration. … Read more