Tag: Driving »

Driving can be stressful, but paying for gas can be even worse. Fuel Monitor, a free app from Adir Genish, is meant to ease some of that pain.

Fuel Monitor runs in the background and uses the iOS device’s GPS location functions, along with your car’s model information, to monitor driving excursions and display fuel consumption data. It also offers up tips on how to cut down on fuel consumption as well as assists with finding parking spaces, locating your car after it’s parked, and an “Accident Kit” should anything unfortunate happen along the way.

And really, who doesn’t want to cut down on their refueling costs?

This week at 148Apps.com, we helped everyone looking to expand their iOS device's musical footprint with a round-up of Bluetooth speakers. Site editor Rob LeFebvre says, "Bluetooth is a fantastic technology. It lets me connect my iPhone or iPad to a ton of different devices, including speakers, keyboards, other computers, headphones, and mice without wires. The latest version, 4.0, draws very little power and features an increased signal range of up to 100 feet.

148Apps received three different portable Bluetooth speakers recently, and we decided to put them all through their paces, to better understand which ones might be better for specific uses. We’ll be looking at the Braven 600, the CubeEdge, the Disco 2, and the Logitech Boombox."

Get more of Rob's take on these units at 148Apps.

Over at GiggleApps.com, Amy Solomon was in a traveling mood, as she reviewed Geography Drive USA, calling it, "A wonderfully engaging educational app that teaches about American geography in ways children will love.
As one can imagine, it is not uncommon for friends and family to ask me to recommend apps for their children in grade school as many apps out there are for preschool-aged children. Geography Drive USA is a title that I can easily recommend as an application that is both highly educational and a lot of fun."

Read Amy's full review at GiggleApps.

And at AndroidRundown.com, our KickStarter Spotlight of the week covered Pixel Kingdom. Joseph Bertolini writes, "Today we’re looking at a game that is the brainchild of a college sophomore from Central Florida and it is a fresh take on the game-type that was popularized by games such as Plants vs. Zombies; where waves of enemies come down set lanes, and it is up to the player to deploy defenses down each specific aisle. Named Pixel Kingdom it is a small twist on this idea is that here these defenses are actively moving down their lane in an endless battlefield against the ranks of evil. Thrown in are a handful of bosses that fill multiple lanes, such as random dragon attacks."

Read the full spotlight at AndroidRundown.

So there you have it - another week in the life of the 148Apps network of sites. Stick with us every day by following us on Twitter or Pinterest and Liking us on Facebook. There's more content just right around the corner.

Waze is more than a navigation app; its developers promise to help us all outsmart traffic together with a combination of social and database-driven technologies. The new update adds even more social features, including collaborative driving directions, live maps, new interface and design, as well as iOS 6 and iPhone 5 support.

Here's a list of all the new features:

✓ See friends driving to your destination & everyone's ETA
✓ Send a pick up request to grab anyone's location & navigate to them
✓ Share your drive by sending a live map of your route & ETA to anyone
✓ New design and UI throughout
✓ Sign in with Facebook
✓ Nearing destination bar
✓ Toll road usage indication
✓ Private messages
✓ Parking location pin
✓ Support for iOS6 and iPhone 5

Carmageddon is a retro / revival game funded through Kickstarter. In the game you drive a car and destroy as much as you can. The original was a cult classic. Now that Carmageddon has hit the App Store, it's free for 24 hours.

Regular commuters will know that driving can get pretty dull and tedious. Sure, you can turn the radio on but even that can turn uninteresting after a time. What you need is a sense of being part of an epic adventure, right? In which case, backing Mission: Escape might be exactly what you're after.

Currently in development and in need of Kickstarter backers, Mission: Escape is the brainchild of Fernando Macias-Jimenez. Recently graduated from the California State University in Chico, California, Fernando is a young composer with a passion for writing music to a set scene.

Recently, while driving through Chico and listening to David Arnold's Quantum of Solace soundtrack, he realised something.

"I was driving about 30 miles per hour and I was pretty much alone in the street, yet the music suddenly gave me this rush of thrill and made me feel like I was in an action movie, with people chasing me and so on. The feeling was so vivid that it made me say out loud to myself "wow, that was awesome". A few days later I though, "wouldn't it be awesome to have something that would take that feeling one step further and REACT to how you are driving so that the music doesn't seem arbitrary and generic, but customized to what you are doing at the moment?""

Fernando then joined together with others and came up with some great ideas and features, eventually leading to the creation of Mission: Escape.

The music is set to be 100% original with the focus on being "very epic" and "very fun". The app will react according to situations such as if you're waiting at a stop light, it'll turn calm and serene, while once acceleration kicks in, the music will turn more cinematic and exciting. Sound effects of enemies and messages from "home base" will also be included. It sounds thrilling but what of the safety aspect? Surely, it could turn things risky?

Fernando explains, "The speed limit is definitely a big one since it's the most obvious to cause problems. This also happens to be one of the "easier" ones to implement to some extent. Others, such as overtaking, are a bit more difficult to determine. However, we are trying to develop a security system that will try to gauge if the driver is driving recklessly and will advice the user to stop doing so or it will shut down the application. The way we would do this would be by detecting aggressive actions such as harsh acceleration, hard stopping, extra sharp turning or movement (changing lanes too fast), among other things. The iPhone will easily give us information when a user is doing something like that. The only thing to do is to create a balance point so that the security system only works when the user is actually driving recklessly and not because of something else," with the plan for plenty of testing and development to ensure it works well and in the right scenario.

Fernando was also keen to point out that safety will take priority alongside such exciting thrills.

It all sounds pretty intriguing to me and certainly an unique way of using such technology. Check out the Hands-on demo video below as well as the Mission: Escape Kickstarter page. We'll be sure to keep an eye on the app's development.

Wired brings to our attention a new app for Escort radar detectors. From Wired:

The app links up with an Escort radar detector via Bluetooth, and when your detector catches a signal bandwidth that might be a police speed gun or red light camera, it sends the data into the software’s global database.

It's an interesting use of iPhone technology and one that could save you money if you drive a lot.

Ask Media and Bedre Gardsdrift, Norwegian agritechnical magazine, has released a new game involving tractors called Farmorama for iOS and Android.

Farmorama has players pick a favorite tractor based on real world models and get ready for a big Farmorama tractor race. Tractors include New Holland, Case IH, Valtra, or Claas. All tractors are equipped with cab suspension, CVT transmission, and four-wheel drive.

The game includes five different tracks to race tractors on with varying degrees of hills, jumps, barns, stones and fog. Players can pick up fuel cans during the drives and earn bonus points. Players can try to beat their own or friends’ top scores or share scores on Facebook to challenge friends over the social network.

Farmorama was developed by MottiMotti, a Norwegian development company that specializes in mobile apps and games. Some of their experience includes doing animation for Hollywood.