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Journeys & Notes

Leave notes for others travelling the same route

C

reated by

Microsoft

Garage, this

experimental travel app

has some similarities with Field Trip

and Foursquare. However, rather than

checking into places and leaving

notes on a map, here you check into a

journey. Just tell it where you’re going

from, your destination and how you’re

travelling – there are no fewer than 21

options, including on foot, bicycle, car,

train,planeandrocketship!It’llthen

show you the distance, along with

how many other users have taken the

same trip and the most popular travel

methods employed. There’s no map

view of the route, however.

Scroll down and you can see any

notes left by other users. If no one has

travelled that exact route before (it

doesn’t seem to aggregate similar

trips), you’ll be shown as the trailblazer.

Either way, you can leave your own

notes about the route; it could be an

observation about a place or

landmark, some travel advice, a story,

an opinion, whatever you like. It’s

perfectly safe since you use a given

username – ours was ‘brave pigeon’!

As there’s no pre-moderation of posts,

the system could be open to abuse,

but there is a facility to fl ag up anything

inappropriate. There’s also an option to

replytootherpeople’snotes–with

your username or anonymously –

although as yet no way to follow

another user, so the social aspect is

currently a bit limited.

Overall, Journeys & Notes is a pretty

cool idea to build up a community of

travellers. However, since it’s only just

been released, there doesn’t seem to

beawholelotofcontentatthetimeof

writing, at le

time, thoug

potential to

of useful and

made by fell

• particularly
  and bike ride

There are certainly plenty of travel methods to

choose from, including rocket ship!

»like this? try this!

Field TripGoogle’s app sends

alerts about local points of interest, or

browse them via a map

Starting up your own business? Primer, from Google Learn, offers

bite-size lessons to help busy startups with advice on aspects such

as content marketing, PR and search engine advertising.Each lesson

takes up no more than five minutes and

can be accessed offline. They’re written

in an entertaining and jargon-free style,

but the info should prove useful for

anyone not savvy about marketing a

business online. Both hypothetical and

real businesses are used for case

studies, helping to explain the benefits of

things like blogs and social media so you

can connect better with customers.

Primer offers some sound advice, and a

few interactive elements, although the

search engine advertising section is a

blatant sales pitch for Google AdWords.

»PriceFree

»Designed forPhone

»Requires Android4.3

Primer: Marketing for

Startups

Tidbitsofadvicefornewbusinesses

BUSINESSPLAN&STARTSTARTUP»Tutorials help you formulate

a business plan, then stay on track and motivated

»like this?

try this!

Androidify

Turn yourself into an

animated robot!

WeallloveAndroid’slittle

green robot and now with

Androidify we can

transform it into versions of

ourselves, family and friends.First,

alter the size and shape of its body

parts by swiping them. Via a selection

of options at the bottom, you can

then alter skin colour and choose

from a wide selection of clothes,

shoes, hair, beards, glasses, hats,

jewellery and other

accessories. It’s a

lotoffuntoplay

around with. Finally,

choose from a

large range of

looped animations

and share your

creation as a GIF.

»PriceFree

»Designed forPhone and tablet

»Requires AndroidVaries

TIDAL

High-quality music

streaming for audiophiles

»PriceFree + subscription

»Designed forPhone and tablet

»Requires Android4.1

For folks who find the tinny

soundofMP3sgrating,

TIDAL will be music to the

ears.Using the lossless FLAC format,

it streams songs at 1,411kbps for

CD-quality sound – best appreciated

using headphones. As well as

requiring a decent web connection,

it’s a bit pricey: after a free seven-day

trial it’s £19.99/$19.99 per month.

TIDAL boasts a pretty comprehensive

library of more

than 25 million

tracks, along with

over 75,000 HD

music videos. The

slick app features

user playlists, an

offline mode and

music ID facility.

Contentisabitsparse so

far,butit’saninteresting

idea with good potential

»specif

» verdict

Designed for

Requires Andr

Price Fr

Some of the hypothetical business

examples are amusing

Read the no

left by other

travellers, w

option to rep