New Android apps worth downloading: Messaging + Google Voice, Where?s My Valentine?, QuestLord

Messaging + Google Voice is a straightforward app that lets you send text messages either from your phone?s cellular number or your Google Voice account. We?ve also got some solid games: Where?s My Valentine?, a holiday-themed version of the popular Where?s My Water?, and DungeonLord, an 8-bit dungeon-crawling role-playing title.

What?s it about? DreamBig has combined Android?s stock messaging app with Google Voice, allowing for a lot more functionality if you?ve installed Google Voice on your phone or tablet.

What?s cool? You?ll need Google Voice for Messaging + Google Voice to work at its best, but once you?ve installed it, the app can send messages both across your cellular plan, or through your Google Voice account. That means you?re able to control where your messages are sent from and what number appears, giving you an added layer of privacy. With Google Voice integration, you can also see who is sending messages back to your Google Voice account without having to switch into the app or check your account on a computer.

Who?s it for? If you like filtering some messages through a Google Voice account instead of sending them all directly from your phone number, try Messaging + Google Voice.

What?s it like? Also worth trying is the standalone Google Voice app, as well as Handcent SMS.

What?s it about? Riffing on Disney?s Where?s My Water? and Where?s My Perry? for the holiday, Where?s My Valentine? brings 12 additional puzzle levels to players with a V-Day theme.

What?s cool? The puzzle levels available in Disney?s Where?s My franchise are well-loved by players, because they require smart thinking and careful planning in order to solve them. In Where?s My Valentine?, players get to interact with both mascot characters from the franchise, Swampy ?and Perry, in two sets of levels, all of which feature hearts. The mechanics at work in Where?s My Water? and Where?s My Perry are back, requiring players to carefully cut through dirt to allow water to flow downward to a goal in Swampy?s levels, and to utilize the three forms of water to succeed in Perry?s.

Who?s it for? If you like puzzlers, you should try Where?s My Valentine?, as should anyone who?s had a good time with this franchise before.

What?s it like? Grab Where?s My Water? and Where?s My Perry? while you?re at it, as both are pretty great puzzle titles.

What?s it about? Delve into dungeons and fight monsters as you explore for loot in QuestLord, all in an 8-bit world.

What?s cool? QuestLord is an interesting combination of old and new. It?s a 3-D dungeon crawler role-playing game, which means that most of its gameplay includes players walking around grid-based dungeons as they search for treasure and fight off monsters. The new part is the game?s use of touch controls, which are gesture-based. You?ll find new gear and weapons as you explore, become more powerful, and wander through a huge world that includes more than 160 maps.

Who?s it for? Fans of role-playing titles, dungeon crawlers and old-school graphics should definitely apply to become a QuestLord.

What?s it like? Check out Dungeon Quest and Block Rogue for some more dungeon-diving action.

Download the Appolicious Android app

Source: http://www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/13216-new-android-apps-worth-downloading-messaging-google-voice-wheres-my-valentine-questlord

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Diagnosed with brain cancer: An insurer adds to the nightmare

When my 40-year old sister was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, her one, overriding wish as the days ticked down was to die in her own home with her husband Steve and me sitting next to her, eating meals she liked that we cooked as opposed to coping with the institutional food she was being served, and for her three beloved cats to be lying on the bed with her.

It was a simple enough request, one that would comfort the patient and save medicine a lot of money.

There wasn?t anything that could be done for Janice medically so she didn?t need hospitalization. Because the tumor was on the brain?s interior, surgery was impossible and radiation did nothing to stop its growth. About all that her family practitioner and oncologist could do was show us how to manage her pain when it came.

Her hospital stay was costing more than $10,000 a day, and I was helping pay non-covered costs. Yet when Janice told her HMO she wanted to die at home and asked it to pick up the cost of a daily visit by a visiting nurse or health care aide, she was turned down cold because, the insurer said, her group policy didn?t cover the expense. The ludicrousness of the situation didn?t occur to the HMO: It was willing to pay up to one hundred thousand dollars for her to die in a hospital sometime over the next ten or 15 days, all that she was expected to live, but it wouldn?t cover a couple thousand for daily home care so she could die peacefully in her own bed.

For Janice, Steve and me, this simply added to the nightmare we were living. Only four months earlier, my sister was a healthy woman who held a junior executive position, volunteered in her community, puttered in her gardens, spent time with friends and family, and played with the cats. When she started feeling ?off,? her doctor couldn?t figure out what was wrong and tested her for everything from Lyme?s Disease to fibromyalgia and most kinds of ailments in between. Running out of ideas, she sent Janice to an oncologist in sheer desperation. The specialist had her own difficulty finding what was causing Janice problems. Brain cancer was discovered almost by accident because its source was hidden from the battery of almost daily tests she was enduring; brain cancer almost always begins somewhere else in the body. In the end, the cancer?s origin never was located.

Now, just ten weeks after being diagnosed, Janice was preparing to die yet her HMO was making a painful situation as difficult as possible.

I phoned Janice?s physician who was furious and promised to call the HMO. I recall her saying, ?Not only is this best for the patient, it?s a whole lot cheaper for the HMO!?

Meanwhile, nearly beside himself with rage, Steve called Janice?s employer and begged for help. Fortunately, she worked for a company consistently rated as a ?best employer? in Minneapolis, the city where they lived. When the head of the benefits department notified a senior vice president what was happening, the executive swung into action.

First, he called Steve and assured him that if the HMO wouldn?t cover the cost, the company would. Then he phoned the insurer and raised holy hell, insisting that the business had been paying for a top of the line benefit plan and if the HMO would not take care of Janice?s needs, they would find a new carrier when the policy was up for renewal. But the HMO refused to relent.

In the end, Janice got to come home for her final eight days, thanks to the employer that covered the cost of a visiting RN who showed up every morning and the health care assistant who arrived each afternoon. She died quietly one afternoon in late July, four days after her birthday. Steve was holding her hand as I read a book aloud to her, and the three cats were sleeping next to Janice as she passed away.

I said a painful goodbye to my kid sister that afternoon and recalled holding her in my lap the day she was brought home as an infant. And I cursed a pound foolish insurer that did its best to increase everyone?s suffering in Janice?s final days.

James Bliwas is a winner of the?2012 Costs of Care Essay Contest.

Source: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/02/diagnosed-brain-cancer-insurer-adds-nightmare.html

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Homes wrecked, dozen hurt in Mississippi tornado

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) ? Residents shaken by a tornado that mangled homes in Mississippi were waking up Monday to a day of removing trees, patching roofs and giving thanks for their survival. More than a dozen in the state were injured.

Home, commercial, and standby electric generators at GeneratorZoo.Com

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Source: http://robwire.com/2013/02/homes-wrecked-dozen-hurt-in-mississippi-tornado/

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Former jailed student Amanda Knox talking to ABC

NEW YORK (AP) ? Amanda Knox, the college junior who spent four years in an Italian prison after being accused of murdering her British roommate, is telling her story to ABC News.

The network says Knox will sit down with Diane Sawyer for a prime-time special airing April 30. The exclusive interview also will be featured on other ABC News programming.

Knox was an American student studying in Italy when, in 2007, she became the center of a murder case that seized the world's attention. She was convicted in 2009. But after an appeal, she was acquitted and released in October 2011.

The interview is timed to the publication of Knox's book, "Waiting to Be Heard."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-11-TV-ABC-Amanda%20Knox/id-ab71cd8f4e944bf0b20725f81b9ed5af

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Union-Endicott wins STAC cheerleading competition

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Source: http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20130210/NEWS01/302100056/1112/

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Court says Obama recess appointments invalid (reuters)

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Netflix and YouTube's DIAL promises to be open alternative to AirPlay

It's already clear that most of us prefer watching Netflix on TV rather than on our PCs or tablets, but it appears the subscription video pioneer isn't content with just direct streaming. As we learned at CES 2013, Netflix is currently in cahoots with YouTube to build out a multiscreen initiative called DIAL (which stands for "discovery and launch") that could provide real competition for Apple's AirPlay. It works in essentially the same way -- DIAL lets you play streaming video on compatible TVs without having to launch the app first -- but there are a few key differences. Unlike AirPlay, DIAL lets you launch apps, even web apps, on the TV -- if it's a Smart TV, you'll even be redirected to download an appropriate app from its app store. However, it can't send URLs to the TV and mirror displays like AirPlay can, supposedly to avoid protocol conflicts as it builds its network of partnerships.

And that's where DIAL's growing momentum comes in. According to GigaOm, DIAL is an open protocol, which gives it massive dev and OEM appeal. All Google TV boxes already have it, while Sony, Samsung and LG are reportedly very interested. Scott Mirer, director of product management at Netflix, said the latter two have already incorporated it in some 2012 TVs, with more coming in the future. More important is the support from app devs and content providers -- BBC, Hulu, Pandora and Flingo have already signed up to take part in the effort, with Chrome purportedly working on DIAL compatibility for browser-to-TV page-flinging. On the whole, it's a promising path for not just Netflix and YouTube, which have previously only released relatively limited remote control applications, but the second screen movement in general.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Source: GigaOm

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/1udq8jDerYY/

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