5 Amazing Android Apps for Coffee Addicts

January 31, 2013 by

Roasted coffee beansThis is a guest post by William Judd.

Good morning everybody and welcome to this article! Today we’re going to be looking at five brilliant Android apps for coffee lovers. If coffee is the secret to your ebullient nature, then this is the app for you. Let’s get right into it, shall we?

5. Hidden Menu Coffee Drinks
There’s something about ordering a drink that’s not on the menu that’s quite exciting – particularly when you actually get it! This app taps into that excitement, offering a range of secret menu items you can ask for at Starbucks. These are all modifications of existing drinks, ensuring that your barista doesn’t need to be in on it to be able to fulfill the order. You’ll get both a plain English version and a Starbucks-specific code for each drink, allowing you to easily show or tell the barista what you’d like. With twenty-five recipes on tap and a further 50 available by purchasing the Pro version, you’ll definitely have some experimenting to do.

4. Coffee Recipes
This app is similar in idea, but offers a much broader execution. While the Hidden Menu app offered only Starbucks drinks, this app shows you 90 different coffee recipes that you can make yourself or ask your friendly neighbordhood barista for. With a range of apps including both well-known options and rather esoteric ones, even the most jaded coffee orderer will find plenty new to try. This is a good app for trainee baristas, as it’ll widely expand the range of drinks at your disposal.

3. Coffee Finder
This app is again for the lovers of the big American and Canadian chains – Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Dunkin’ Donuts and the like. These and five other chains are shown on a map, allowing you to easily find the nearest coffee outlet wherever you are. This is, however, limited to the United States and Canada – when I used the app in the United Kingdom, I found that only Starbucks offered up any results. If you are in North America, this is definitely a great app, but those in other nations are probably best off using the standard Google Maps app.

2. Coffeemania
This app is similar to our number 4 entry, but offers an even greater number of coffee recipes. There’s more than 250 in total, with a wide range of options including hot and cold drinks and even coffee-based food. There are also some informational sections, which contain educational material on brewing methods and vessels (although some options, like senseo pods, aren’t shown). The app is not brilliantly laid out, but it gets the job done and is more than worth the free install.

1. Baristame
This is the best app on the list by far, as it offers both solid educational content on espresso based drinks and a beautiful design. With excellent diagrams of each drink in its database, you’ll find Baristame is a pleasure to use. Each drink also contains information on its origin and any variants that exist. If you want to test your coffee knowledge, you can do so in the quiz mode that the app offers. The Pro variant is probably the most worthwhile of any of the apps on this list – for $1, you get a lot of additional educational content, including information on brewing methods and even coffee-producing nations. A well designed app that’s perfect for coffee lovers!

Conclusion
So there we have it – five coffee app selections for Android. Thanks for reading the article and be sure to let me know in the comments below what you thought of it. If you find any great coffee apps that you’d like to share, please do so in the comments or message me on Twitter @wsjudd - I’m always interested in finding out that next great app! Have a good day and I’ll see you next time.

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Valve unveils their Steam Box

January 9, 2013 by

Valve Steam BoxThis is a guest post by William Judd.

This Consumer Electronics Show has been an unusually good one for PC gamers. Not only has Nvidia announced Project Shield, a hand-held Android games console that uses their new Tegra 4 processor to stream videogames from your PC, but Valve has finally officially announced their Steam Box.

The idea of the Steam Box is that it is a Valve-endorsed gaming computer designed to be hooked up to an HDTV in the living room. The Box hooks up to Valve’s Steam online store and gaming community, allowing you to play PC games with the ease of a console. Steam recently released their “Big Picture Mode” update, which added a console-style UI suitable for using with a controller on an HDTV. The Steam Box should have a small physical footprint and should offer a fairly good price to performance ratio, allowing it to play the majority of games at HD settings.

Speaking to The Verge in an extensive interview, Valve Software CEO Gabe Newell described three levels of hardware: “Good”, which would cost around $100 and would come down in price from there, “Better” which would cost approximately $300 and “Best” which could cost as much as any top-of-the-line gaming PC.

Valve would look to build its own Steam Box running Linux, but would also work with other hardware partners to create an entire new class of computers running along similar goals. While the Valve-built Steam Box would have tightly controlled hardware standards like a traditional games console, other Steam Boxes could have a range of specifications and features decided on by their manufacturer.

The Steam Box created by Valve won’t just be useful in the living room, however. The Box would also work as a server, with next-generation versions of the box running post-Kepler Nvidia architecture being capable of running as many as 8 disparate displays and controllers.

Valve are also investigating innovative new game controller. Newell stated that Wii Sports, the launch title for the Wii, remains the pinnacle of motion-based input, so Valve have moved onto other options. Biometrics look like they’ll provide a potentially new avenue for exploration, as instead of replacing mouse and keyboard or controller based input, they would instead add new inputs that would allow the game to respond to your heart rate and other subconscious clues. Gaze tracking was also mentioned by Newell as an area of interest.

Overall, the Steam Box definitely seems to be an interesting new development for PC gaming. For too long, the attention has been on fairly inconsequential mobile gaming developments like tablets and iPhone accessories - with the Steam Box, we may see something much more exciting. Valve revolutionised the industry with their Steam gaming service and marketplace, and it looks like they could have a similar evolutionary leap on their hands with the Steam Box.

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Do you rely on your sat nav?

November 21, 2012 by

With society becoming more and more reliant on technology, GPS satellite navigation devices have become a part of every day life. You can download them on your smartphone in minutes and, theoretically, be directed to wherever you’re going via the fastest route. Sounds great, yes, but is this all too easy? Are we becoming too reliant on the sat nav to get us from A to B? Here, Izzy from PassSmart, looks at how the sat nav has become a part of our lives, and how our reliance on them could be putting us, and others, at risk.

Distracted driving

The dangers of distracted driving are all too well documented. Texting or speaking on a hand-held mobile behind the wheel are both offences which, in the UK, could land you with a £60 fine and three points on your licence.

So, what’s different about sat navs? They’re legal, yes, but they can still cause a driver to lose concentration. Whether you’re trying to type in an address whilst on the move, or looking at the screen instead of the road, there’s no doubt that – if used incorrectly – a sat nav can be distracting.

In becoming too trusting of sat navs, drivers are at risk of blindly following the directions and missing vital road signs, obstructions or changes in road layouts. Sat navs are, after all, technology, and technology can fail. At best, you’ll find yourself circling the same road, but you only have to do a quick internet search to find stories of accidents in which a sat nav has played a part.

Loss of common sense

Just a couple of weeks ago, a young driver found herself driving onto a Croydon tramline during rush hour, after following the directions of her sat nav. Although the driver escaped unhurt, the results could have been catastrophic.

We’d all like to think that this mistake wouldn’t happen to us, but how often do you trust your sat navs instructions over your own initiative? Have you ever missed a no entry or one way sign because you were simply following your sat nav?

It’s important to remember that a sat nav is just a guide. It’s not in control of the car. It can’t predict the broken down car around the corner, or the child playing at the side of the road. You, as the driver, are responsible for expecting the unexpected, regardless of what your sat nav is telling you.

‘Inattentional blindness’

A study, conducted by researchers at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, addressed the phenomenon of ‘inattentional blindness’, applying it to sat nav use.

They found that drivers who were following a sat nav could be ‘blind’ to visual information that might clutter their already focused brain. In concentrating on the information that the sat nav is feeding their brain, drivers can be ‘blind’ to what they see going on around them.

“Our research”, Professor Nillie Lavie from UCL explained, “would suggest that focusing on remembering the directions we’ve just seen on the screen means that we’re more likely to fail to observe other hazards around us on the road, for example an approaching motorbike or pedestrian on a crossing, even though we may be ‘looking’ at where we’re going.”

Sat navs are, undoubtedly, useful devices when used correctly. Remember that they are simply a guide, can provide incorrect information, and can’t predict hazards. Most importantly, trust your own initiative. You didn’t, after all, pass your driving test by letting a machine do all the hard work for you!

Have you found yourself in a tricky situation after following your sat nav’s instructions? Do you prefer to stick to reading the map and foregoing the technological approach? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

This guest post was written by Izzy Guarella on behalf of PassSmart.com; the UK-based company who match learner drivers with driving instructors in their area.

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If content is King, long live the King

November 19, 2012 by

This is a guest post by Matt Rawlings

The recent Google updates have changed the face of SEO forever. No longer is it all about stuffing a website full of keywords with the hope that Google ranks it higher than all the competitors. Today, since the bizarrely named Penguin and Panda updates have come in, it’s all about high quality, unique, regular and informative content that site visitors – and Google’s crawlers – actually want to read, not what’s being forced upon them.

Websites pre-Penguin used to be filled with anchor text, links and key terms with the hope that the search engines would index them all and reward them for their efforts by placing them at the top of the rankings, allowing visitors to find them more easily. Today, the focus is actually on the freshness and quality of the content itself. If an article is placed online, filled with “spammy” keywords and links to here, there and everywhere, it will be penalised accordingly, rewarding the site with a drop in the rankings and subsequently costing them traffic as well as potential sales, depending on the nature of the site of course.

This is where those working in the industry, providing their online expertise – like Vroom, an SEO company based in Dublin – have had to adjust their tactics and really earn their money. They’ve had to adopt new techniques and strategies to meet the goals set by their clients and to stay on top of their own game in the process.

Regular content doesn’t necessarily mean several pieces each day – this can get into the “spammy” bracket – but keeping the site updated with material that is truly unique, never seen before, never copied, however you want to phrase it, and that – most importantly – is relevant to your audience.

For instance, if you’re a technology website, with the aim of providing really informative articles about the latest laptops, smartphones, SEO developments, social media rumours and the ongoing battle for manufacturer supremacy between the likes of Apple and Microsoft, you should steer clear from writing about fashion because it doesn’t fit the look and feel of the site. The search engine crawlers, clever as they are becoming, will see this and penalise you if you start to go too far off topic, too regularly.

The most important thing you should remember is that it’s all about high quality content. If you haven’t got something important, interesting and relevant to say, don’t post it. You can compromise the overall quality of the site as well as your rankings, and you should take pride in the appearance of your website, especially if you’re trying to make sales. If people don’t like the look of your business, they’re less likely to do business with you.

Content is the future of SEO strategies, whether it’s in the form of blog posts on your site or guest posting campaigns to enhance your brand visibility, get it right and you’re on the road to success.

How do you handle SEO on your website? Have you noticed any radical changes in traffic levels recently that could be a result of changes at any of the big search engines? As ever, let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Microsoft rumoured to be working on Xbox Surface Tablet

November 14, 2012 by

According to a report posted on The Verge, Microsoft is building its own 7 inch tablet for gaming. Called the Xbox Surface, the tablet will run a stripped down version of Windows with a custom kernel. While basic tasks like messaging will be included, the focus will be on providing an ultimately portable Xbox gaming experience that can still be connected to TVs and sound systems for a more traditional console experience.

The hardware, which was originally leaked in June, is quite impressive. The spec calls for a 7″ display running at 1280 x 720p, two IBM Power7 SCMs (for a total of 12 CPU cores) running at 3.1 GHz, 5 GB of DDR3 memory, and a custom 28 nanometer GPU from AMD. There’s also slated to be a 250 GB 10,000 RPM mechanical hard drive, and support for a number of peripherals including USB storage via 4 USB 3.0 ports, wireless game controllers, headsets, component video / HDMI, and Optical Audio. The system should support up to 1440p output – something that makes me incredibly happy, considering I’ve just picked up a 27″ 2560 x 1440 display.

The Verge are reporting that the hardware for the device hasn’t yet been nailed down, but could include a custom ARM processor or an unannounced Intel system-on-chip. The hardware production process is said to be ‘secret’ and not with the partners that traditionally have made the Xbox console. The Xbox Surface should debut ahead of the company’s suspected future Xbox console.

I’ve got to admit – I’m massively excited about this. We’ve seen attempts at a gaming tablet before – with Razer’s Project Fiona and the Wikipad – but if there is anyone in the world who can do it well, it will be Microsoft.

This article was written by William Judd. William writes for Mobile Fun, who recently opened a US store that is stocking a wide range of Samsung Galaxy Note 2 cases.

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Chrono Trigger comes to Android

November 7, 2012 by

This is a guest post by Will Judd. If you’re waiting for the interview with Robert Llewellyn, don’t worry – it’ll be online later in the day.

chronotrigger The Super Nintendo was an brilliant gaming console, producing some of the best RPGs that have ever been made. While Final Fantasy VI, 7th Saga and Breath of Fire are excellent titles, the one that sticks out in most people’s minds is Chrono Trigger.

If you haven’t played the game before, suffice it to say it is a unique RPG with a wide and memorable cast of characters, a good progression and battle system, and an awesome setting. If you have, you’ll understand my excitement.

Chrono Trigger has been released for Android. While you could quasi-legally play the game on an emulator before now, without a controller connected it wasn’t an ideal experience, and with a controller it was a bit of a bulky conveyance.

The new release works much better on touch screens and still supports controllers, allowing the best of both worlds. Better yet, the Android version is a port of the 2010 Nintendo DS re-release, which includes extra areas, items and cutscenes.

If you’re looking for a long and epic RPG to devour your time on the go, then this is an excellent choice. While the price is relatively high for an Android app, it’s much cheaper than finding an original SNES cartridge or even the Nintendo DS re-release.

While the app works on both phones and tablets, I reckon that probably the 10″ tablet will be the best way to play this title. This game could be an essential Google Nexus 10 accessory – I know I’ll be playing it once mine arrives!

Chrono Trigger is truly worth it – if you haven’t played it before, you’re in for a treat. If you have, prepare for a trip down memory lane. Now all we need is an Android version of Chrono Cross, and we’ll be set.

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Celebrating the British Games Industry

October 24, 2012 by

This is a guest post by Kevin Ball. Infographic supplied by The Accountancy Partnership

British Games Industry Infographic

Click for larger version

The video games industry is the most profitable entertainment industry that exists, outstripping cinema, DVD and music in terms of profit accumulated and units sold, and this has been the case for a while, particularly in Britain. So why is the British games industry constantly overlooked by the mainstream press? When a British film makes a few hundred million at the box office or wins an Oscar then it is front page news but when a British games company, Rockstar, makes a game that generates more than $1 billion, GTA IV, this news is given a few inches in the technology columns of a Sunday supplement. Why is this?

The argument that people aren’t as interested in games as they are in films or music doesn’t hold much water because the sales figures say different. I would suggest that it might be the case that the games themselves are not particularly British and, therefore, people assume they aren’t. Think about it; ask a non-gaming friend where they think the company that made Max Payne 3 is based. What will their answer be? America? Japan maybe? I doubt they’ll say Edinburgh. The games companies could do themselves and the British industry a favour by announcing their whereabouts in their press releases.

The British government has helped the British games industry by providing tax breaks for the entertainment industry as a whole. These tax breaks are similar to those found in countries like Canada and France. Incidentally, it was the absence of such a tax system that saw Electronic Arts, among others, close their UK offices in recent years; so hopefully these tax breaks may entice a few of the big hitters back Britain. That said, did anyone from the government actually say “Hey, come and make more games in Britain”? No they didn’t – our Prime Minister simply requested that British film makers take advantage of these tax breaks by making more mainstream films. Does David Cameron even know that Batman: Arkham City, which was made in Kentish Town, generated more money than the last James Bond film? Probably not.

The most recent example of clueless government attitudes towards the British games industry came in the form of a Creative Scotland report by the Scottish government that valued the games industry in Scotland at £0. By focusing the criteria of the report on areas that ignored the intricacies of video games development, the report managed to completely side-line not only Rockstar but a number of independent games companies in Scotland. Considering Scotland’s prolific nature within the industry, as well as the industry renowned university courses available at Dundee’s Abertay University, this is frankly ridiculous.

The reason I think it is important for the British press, government and games companies to publicly back the industry in this country is a simple one: the future. Don’t we want to see a Britain that celebrates its game industry the same way Japan does? Don’t we want the future of triple-A games to come from the mind of a kid from a British tower block, suburb, town or village? A kid who is sitting playing a game right now and thinking “I want to do this”? The only way to achieve this is to celebrate what we already have and strive to make it even more successful and accessible.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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Star Wars: The Old republic goes Free-2-Play

October 22, 2012 by

Droid and Jedi in the desert

After launching to much fanfare and with a massive budget last year, Star Wars: The Old Republic has proven that it takes more than a load of cash and a Star Wars license to sell an MMO against World of WarCraft. After poor sales and few new subscriptions in the months that followed the launch, developers Bioware have made the tough decision to go Free 2 Play.

That means that they’ll be ditching the subscription fee requirement, allowing players to continue to pay for the full experience but also allowing others to experience a large chunk of the game for free, with the hope of converting them to paying subscribers or at least have them make in-game purchases.

I played The Old Republic on and off for a month, getting most of the way through the game, and I found that the single player content is really up to Bioware’s high standards. The game is much more fun to play singleplayer than any other MMO I’ve experienced, and it’s this part of the game that will be completely free to play – every story mission for every class you can play with a free account. You can also reach the highest level in the game – 50 – without paying a dime, if you choose.

Of course, there are restrictions elsewhere, primarily in the multiplayer and cooperative elements of the game. You can only play 3 PvP games and three flashpoints (cooperative dungeons) per week. Most purple items are unavailable. You need to buy a weekly pass to access space missions (one of my favourite parts of the game!). You also can’t access the cargo hold of your ship or use more than one crew skill. There are loads more restrictions here, on almost everything in the game.

All in all, it’s a fairly limited set of restrictions that will make even doing the singleplayer content a lot harder. You’ll be able to do it, but if you’re actually wanting to spend the hours required in the game, then buying full access will definitely be worth your while. This is a really intelligent way for Bioware to allow people to try the game without risk, then only commit to a subscription when they’re ready.

You can find more information on the game and the restrictions in the F2P version here. I’d say it’s worth a look, particularly given the much lower cost of the game and the high quality of the singleplayer content. It’s not a new Knights of the Old Republic, but it’s close.

This article was written by William Judd. William writes for Mobile Fun, the UK’s leading online retailer of iPhone 5 leather cases.

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Coffee in history: The surprising effects of your favourite caffeinated beverage

September 26, 2012 by

This is a guest post by William Judd.

Coffee beans in a heart shapeCoffee is the second most-traded good in the world, after petroleum, and it is a ubiquitous indulgence in the western world that’s consumed by millions each morning. It’s hard to become that big without turning up in some odd places, and coffee has definitely done it all. Did you know that coffee was a key part of the development of stock exchanges, computing equipment and even revolutions? Read on to find the secret life of coffee.

5. Coffee breaks

The coffee break is commonplace across all kinds of businesses in the western world and beyond; a routine social gathering where workers take a few minutes to talk with their colleagues and higher-ups over a warm cup of coffee. The coffee break’s popularity in the United States is thought to be down to the work of behavioural psychologist John B. Watson, who developed Behaviorism and later worked with Maxwell House, a large coffee brand in the United States. The coffee break may have its origins even further back this though, with Time writing in 1951 that coffee breaks were written into union contracts. The true origin of the coffee break apparently originated in the late 19th century in the small town of Stoughton, Wisconsin, where the wives of Norwegian immigrants took regular breaks with coffee. The town still celebrates Stoughton Coffee Break Festival each year.

4. Haitian Revolution

Saint Domingue was the most treasured colony of the French empire in 1791, with the Caribbean colony producing about 60% of the world’s coffee and 40% of the world’s sugar at the time. Around 452,000 slaves worked to harvest the coffee, controlled by only 40,000 whites and 28,000 free blacks and mulattos. While the white plantation owners were scared of a slave revolt and prepared accordingly, when the revolution came in 1791 they were unable to stop it. The conflict continued until 1804, when plantation owners were roundly defeated and the plantations burned. The revolution brought a stop to slavery in the colony, which was reformed as the independent Haitian Republic. The revolution was the most successful slave revolt in the Americas, and was one of only two successful revolts against European powers before the 19th century – the other being the United States. Coffee production has never recovered, but that seems a trivial price to pay.

3. Espresso machine

According to my part-Turkish flatmate, the first espresso machine was developed in Italy by an inventive business owner irritated with the long coffee breaks his workers took. He devised a machine that forced water at high pressure through coffee grounds, producing a single-serve coffee drink that could be produced quickly. While it’s a cool story, I sadly haven’t been able to find any citations for it. According to what I have been able to find, the first espresso machine patent for an industrial espresso machine was developed in 1884, but it wasn’t until 1901 that key improvements including single-serve were perfected. Espresso has continued to evolve as a rapid single-serve beverage, most noticeably with the development of encapsulated single-serve coffee pods in 1959.

2. Stock exchanges and businesses

Coffee houses quickly became popular places for wealthy businessmen and intellectuals to meet in Europe and the United States; indeed such establishments were nicknamed penny universities (after the cost of the drink and the quality of the discussion therein). The biggest stock exchange in the world was started by 64 traders at the Tontine Coffee House in New York; it is now called the New York Stock Exchange. A number of other massive firms also began life as coffee houses, including the East India Company (which started life as the Jerusalem Cafe) and Lloyds of London (which began as Lloyd’s coffeehouse).

1. Webcams

My favourite instance of coffee prompting scientific enquiry came in 1991, when the very first webcam was developed. It was engineered in the Computer Science department at Cambridge, where a camera was pointed at a coffee pot and hooked up the network. Computer scientists working in the university could connect to a web page to check the level of coffee in the pot, potentially saving themselves a wasted trip. The same coffee camera was still running in 2001, when the development of high-speed Internet allowed the past vision of video telephones to finally become a reality. The webcam has since become ubiquitous on portable computers like laptops, mobile phones and tablets although the coffee cam has since shut down.

Conclusion

So there you have it – five interesting instances of coffee in history. I hope you’ve discovered something interesting about coffee. If I’ve left anything off, let me know in the comments below!

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First reviews of iPhone 5 released

September 24, 2012 by

This is a guest post by William Judd

iPhone5With the release of the new iPhone comes the corresponding release of reviews from across the industry. Overall, the iPhone 5 has scored highly with critics across the board, who cite the improved hardware design, taller screen and faster performance as excellent reasons to upgrade. The feared lower battery life due to the larger screen and LTE seem not to have materialised, as Engadget reports that the phone lasts just as long or longer than the previous iPhone 4S even when using LTE.

Joshua Topolsky of The Verge calls it “the best iPhone yet”, but notes that the whole phone feels very safe, and that while that will appeal to the majority of the population, Apple seems to have lost its disruptive influence that it had when it debuted the first few versions of its iPhone.

iOS 6 has had a much rockier time of things, with many outlets reporting the widespread issues users have reported with the new home-grown Maps app. The new app dispenses with Google’s maps data for a home-grown solution, and in many cases the coverage is much worse than what came before, with missing details, a lack of integration with common navigation tasks and occasionally straight up wrong information.

Elsewhere, iOS is seen as a slight step forward but nothing too exciting, with the new Passbook app being well organised but lacking NFC support or use-cases for some people and not much really changing. Twitter and Facebook are now more nicely integrated into the OS, as are sharing options, but these still pale in comparison to what is possible on other platforms, noticeably Android.

Overall? It’s definitely worth an upgrade if you’ve got the cash, but the iPhone 5 isn’t the shake-up that some of us hoped it would be – unless you’re talking about the new connector demanding new iPhone 5 accessories. Hopefully with the expected release of the iPad Mini later this year we’ll see Apple really show us that it’s still capable of true innovation.

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