Business-card readers
Physical business cards haven’t lost their cachet in the digital world. But the combination of smartphone cameras and free apps has basically eliminated the need to buy equipment to scan the cards into your digital phone book. Here’s a quick look at two apps for the iPhone:
CamCard does a good job of scanning a business card’s details immediately. The program is spot on with phone numbers but struggles to accurately read names and addresses. If you don’t mind editing a couple of fields in the contact before saving, this is a decent program to use. The free version allows you to save 10 contacts during the first week after download and two per week thereafter. Pay $7 to lift the limits.
CardMunch comes from business social networking site Link-edIn. The free app doesn’t immediately add the contact to your phone after scanning. Instead, the image is uploaded and is manually transcribed by LinkedIn. During my tests, it took only a couple of minutes for the contact to show up digitally after the upload. The results, as you would expect from manual transcription, are highly accurate. A LinkedIn account is required to use the app. — Andy Vuong, The Denver Post
Medical advice at your fingertips
Pocket First Aid & CPR from the American Heart Association catalogs quick, easy-to-understand information so you can respond to and treat a medical emergency before help arrives. Some of the emergencies include choking, seizures and possible spinal cord injuries.
There are 36 videos and 46 illustrations throughout the app. The videos add clarity and authority; it was helpful to see the CPR video with visual information on chest compressions and which kinds would be too much or too little to help.
Available for: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad; Android ($2.99 Android Market/ $3.99 iTunes). — Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times
Something for the little ones
Jellybean Jigsaws A to Z is a simple program to keep your kiddo busy while helping her learn the alphabet and potentially assist with the development of other skills such as problem solving. It features more than 70 image puzzles. You can adjust the difficulty down to as low as 1 missing piece to as high as 16 pieces. After a puzzle is completed, the app names the object in the image as well as the starting letter. Recommended for ages 3 to 6, though my 2½ -year-old loves it. The program costs $2 and works on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. — Andy Vuong, The Denver Post
