Few things are more impressive than an expansive vocabulary, so why not use it to your full advantage? New & Noteworthy app, Vocabology, not only enables, but encourages this. Vocabology brings you Words of the Day from multiple sources, including Urban Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, and more, and even from multiple languages. This means you can constantly show off your mastery of the English language while demonstrating your worldliness with inflections of Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian, and French jargon. The app encourages full absorption of your newly acquired lingo by allowing you to partake in timed quizzes, save words as favorites for later revisiting, and create your own sentences with the words that can be shared and saved as well. The app also allows you to conduct automatic web-searches of the words so you can have even more background information to boast as you casually slip them into conversation. Your friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers, peers, and everyone else you may talk to will start to wonder when and how you became so verbacious, but they don’t know the secret: you have Vocabology in your back pocket.

Gone are the days when ordering a cup of joe was simple. Now you’re faced with an overwhelming amount of options for coffee types, drink styles, preparation methods, add-ins, leave-outs, flavor profiles, the list goes on-and-on. And God forbid you order something passé, or worse, you mispronounce it. Fortunately, there’s an app to help guide you through café confusion and introduce you to the exciting and enticing realm of espresso. If you’ve been daunted by the condensed coffee form until now and not understood how a macchiato, mocha, and mochachino differ, then Spro has the savvy you need. Straight from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, Spro delivers instructions on how to craft 14 different espresso-based drinks. This is useful if you dare to make it yourself, or if you’re simply curious about what goes into various concoctions. Furthermore, Spro gives you the correct pronunciation of each drink name as well as the history behind each drink, so you can at least feign the requisite knowledge and sophistication when indulging in your beverage. Spro also inspires your palate with their Drink of the Week and encourages espresso explorations with their Create-A-Drink tool, which enables you to combine various ingredients and see what happens. Whether you’re simply curious about the myriad options available at coffee shops, you are trying to enter the world of espresso, or you are a seasoned coffee snob, Spro is guaranteed to trigger your tastebuds.

Even though it is easy to get wrapped up in day-to-day life, there’s no denying it: our would is truly a wonderful place with more to see and offer than we can ever know. While we might not be able to make it around to all the wonders of the world within one lifetime, the wonders of technology certainly help to bring us closer than ever before. Geo Walk – 3D World Fact Book is one such tech tool that not only shows you all the amazing things that are out there, but is a stunning visual and educational tool for everything out there. As an app, it enables you to access over 500 of the world’s most awe-inspiring landmarks, places, people, and even animals and plants. Since it comes from the makers of other notable apps like Star Walk and Solar Walk, you can bet that the graphics and interface do justice to the things the app portrays, making using the app as enjoyable as soaking up the content. For example, if you’re curious about something in a particular place, you have two options for looking it up: spin the globe to your desired location, or a card stream mode than allows you to sort through topics until you encounter one of interest. You can also filter topics by category, and you can always take advantage of the quiz mode, turning the app into an incredibly useful educational tool or simply a fun way for the family to learn together. Finally, the app does not require internet, so you have access to all its offerings no matter where you are. With Geo Walk – 3D World Fact Book, the world is literally in the palm of your hand.

Wikipedia is revolutionizing the way we learn about things, and is certainly a useful tool to have handy at all times. However, the traditional Wikipedia app requires internet connection, so if you can’t access WiFi or don’t want to use up data roaming, you’re out of luck… or are you? Wikipedia Offline is sneaking its way into peoples’ hands and hearts. It is by no means a new app, but upon my recent discovery of it, I wondered where it had been all this time? Wikipedia Offline enables you to download Wikipedia in its entirety so that you can search, scroll, and enjoy all the wonders of Wikipedia without relying upon Internet accessibility (beyond the first download). Yes, the app does cost you $8.99 and about 3GB of space, but how can you put a price on knowledge? And the app doesn’t just deliver content; there’s real-time search, image galleries, embedded images and tables, customizable text and font options, in-page search, subsequent content updates, bookmarks, histories… basically everything you know and love Wikipedia and its apps to do. Wikipedia Offline harnesses all the greatness of the database without the added hassle of internet connection, so nothing can stand between you and your indulgence of random facts and knowledge.

If you ever thought about touring Havana and need a guide – this app is perfect.

Just to let you know, this app can’t be downloaded in Cuba because of all that bs U.S.-Cuba politics. It won’t work anyway but if you try, you will probably find yourself locked in one of Castro bros’ places…

So get this app BEFORE you get to Cuba. Read the rest of this entry »

Everything goes digital and mobile – including popular magazines. So let’s check out what they are like on the iPad. I will examine Fortune, GQ, Men’s Health, Newsweek, Outside, Popular Mechanics, Sports Illustrated, and Time. Read the rest of this entry »