There is a seemingly endless stream of food/restaurant rating/check-in apps popping up all the time. All of them aim to help you find good food, and many of them do it very well. Nosh is among the newer faces in the pack. The app wants to help people find the best thing to order, and eventually aims to use the feedback it gathers to help restaurants. It launched just three months ago from Firespotter Labs, whose CEO Craig Walker was one of the founders of Google Voice. The app now has 1 million ratings of dishes, and on Tuesday the company announced a series of updates, including the integration of Google Places.

Some of the other changes in version 2.0 of Nosh include:

• They finally snagged Nosh.com. Yes, when they launched the best they could do was Nosh.me.
• Besides an iOS and Android app, there’s now an interactive web interface for Nosh.
• Nosh is now international, going outside the U.S. for the first stime.

But the one that most impacts how people use the product is this: Integration with Google Places. Places is Google’s Yelp competitor, and clearly Nosh is competing with Yelp too, so that makes this Google marriage very convenient. Places integration means every restaurant, bar, bakery, brasserie, bistro and diner Google knows about is built into Nosh’s database of dining establishments. And that’s very helpful for what Nosh is trying to do, which is have millions of places and their full menus available in its database. With the help of Google, for any place a Nosh user could ever want to walk into, they can instantly see what’s available to order, what is recommended as the best thing to eat, and naturally, what to avoid based on low user ratings.

Another cool thing Nosh is trying has to do has to do with ratings. Recognizing that users can rate a lot of dishes a “5-star” (the highest rating), which eventually can dilute what “best” means, Nosh has added superlative options: If you rate something a five star or a one star, the app will ask you afterward whether it was the best dish you ever had or the worst. That will show up on your profile, and of course, you can continually change the best and worst things you’ve eaten.

Once that data is aggregated, “it makes it a little more interesting information,” Walker said, being deliberately vague about what Nosh would be doing with that. But it seems logical that a restaurant would be keen to know if its dish (or dishes) was the worst or best thing a diner had ever eaten.

Walker, who spoke to me by phone Tuesday, says this is all in preparation for much more to come in Nosh’s quest to use social and mobile tech to flip the restaurant business on its head.

“The reason I got in to this was I was going to put some money in a friend’s restaurant and I realized restaurant owners dont have very many tools. What they’re armed with is not great. How can we provide services that will make that picture a little clearer and how do you get the diner involved?” he asked.

“I don’t want to ask the waiter what’s good, I want to ask the guy who was eating here what’s good [...] We’re looking at Nosh as a perpetual evolution of the entire restaurant and dining experience.”

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Flash analysis: the future of Yahoo
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When it comes to music equipments, Focusrite is a name to reckon with. They have steadily created a niche for themselves in the music equipments market, and have always been bringing state of the art solutions. The same holds true of their new product, the Focusrite Saffire PRO 24, a cool gadget for people who love recording and mixing music.

Buy the Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 at your nearest recording equipment store.

The Safire PRO 24 has some wonderful hardware components, software as well as interface, all of which make it a an easy task to create music with this piece. Bundled along with this package is a gigabyte of musical material that is royalty free to explore and experiment with the Focusrite Saffire PRO 24.

The core design of this model is its interface technology and tacit use of the pre-amps. The use of pre-amps to reduce the amplification distortion, stands out to be a marvel of an innovations, and has raked in several accolades to the master minds who created the Focusrite Saffire PRO 24.

If you thought, that’s the only good thing about the Focusrite Saffire PRO24, then you’re wrong; another cool thing about this product is the audio interface that has the capability to make gives even the simplest of sounds a hi-fi touch. The Firewire software is used to run the interface in combination with the other features of this state-of-the-art technology for musicians who would like to record their own music. The Focusrite can be used to produce either analog output or input.

With the Saffire PRO 24, you can create high quality music, efficiently and effectively, thereby improving your productivity rates. Hence one could do the mixing stage independently by simply being connected to the computer and keeping the Firewire interface open.

Music production was never as is as it is with the Saffire PRO24. It also helps in enhancing the music and giving it the finesse of professional music through its various modules and facilitating software. 

The instrument is decently priced and seems a value for money investment. The Saffire PRO 24 is apt for any musician who seeks the use of latest technology for creating as well as recording his music.

If one is using a turntable and microphone, the pre-amp facility will offer superb dampening of distortion that occurs during amplification. Another great feature of the PRO24 is the pre-mixer that gives you access to a wide choice of pre created sounds and loops that you can use to create custom music that you dreamt of.

The kit offers superior music creation technology suitable for a pro as well as an amateur artist, and will keep you hooked for hours. It’s a must-buy product that can be used at either your home or even in professional studios.

by sun dazed

What is a Cool Gadget?

Every since I was a little boy I had a love and fascination of gadgets. Most men and boys do. Why? Here is a true, life story.

When I was young, digital watches were new. TV ads showcased many digital watches because they were so popular. The week, day, month, and date were displayed on the watch. If I had a watch like that, I no longer had to walk over to the calendar to know the date. All I would have to do is look at my new digital wristwatch. How easy was that?!

The watch that really caught my eye had an alarm. As a young boy, that was especially cool. It could be set to go off whenever I wanted. It was awesome to have an alarm with me since it was part of my wristwatch.

This watch also had a stopwatch. Now, my friends and I could time our races. This was a feature used a lot since it was convenient and easy to use.

All those features were great, but there was one feature that beat them all and no other regular analog watch at the time could do. It had a light that allowed me to see the time at night.

What makes a watch gadget so cool?
– Convenience—attached to my wrist and always with me
– Easier lifestyle—built in calendar and light
– Fun Features—alarm and stopwatch unique to that era
– Cool—stylish like James Bond

As time went by, watches grew in features. They came in smaller packages and added functionality such as a calculator. I did use this feature but it was more of a cool thing just to know that any combination of numbers someone threw at me could be added quickly. When they came out with the databanks, I definitely had to get one! Now all my phone numbers and important dates could be stored. They no longer had to be remembered on my own.

Going to stores to see the latest cool watch features was a must. As an adult, it is still enjoyable to see what new features are being developed and how enticing it may be to buy a new and improved one.

Once a gadget is liked, interest in the next upgrade, functionality, and features usually occurs. Some watch added additions are atomic timers, water resistance, multiple alarms, altimeters, compasses, barometers, remote controls, TV tuners, MP3 players, MP4 players, AVI players, cell phones, heart rate monitors, and solar power.

We have talked about watches as a cool gadget and have came up with a working definition. Now let us try this definition with something else—pocketknives. Why do guys love pocketknives?
They are cool gadgets! Pocketknives have:
– Convenience—always with you
– Makes life easier—handy blade to open bags, boxes, etc.
– Fun Feature—mini scissors
– Cool—compact

Some gadgets may have one or more of the above definitions; however if a gadget has all four, you can be assured that it is a cool gadget.

If you’ve enjoyed all the exciting information you read here about gadgets, you’ll love everything else you find at top-10-gadgets.

When it comes to music equipments, Focusrite is a name to reckon with. Over the years they have established a name in the music solutions industry by introducing new professional music production systems along with the software to optimize the process of music production. Their latest offering, the Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 is for the pure pleasure of those interested in recording and mixing music.

Learn more about the Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 at your local recording equipment store.

This cutting edge gadget has high quality drivers, interface and software that make producing music a breeze. If that was not enough, you also get 1GB of loops absolutely free, for you to experiment your newly bought Focusrite Saffire PRO 24.

The core design of this model is its interface technology and tacit use of the pre-amps. One of the most noticeable highlights of the Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 is the use of pre-amps to bring down the distortion that occurs during amplification and this piece of technology has won its makers several awards and rave reviews.

If you thought, that’s the only good thing about the Focusrite Saffire PRO24, then you’re wrong; another cool thing about this product is the audio interface that has the capability to make gives even the simplest of sounds a hi-fi touch. As an add-on, you also get access to the high-end Firewire software, which helps you record your own music. The gadget comes with analog input and output options.

The Focusrite offers several facilities to increase the productivity levels as well as the quality of the music produced. Hence one could do the mixing stage independently by simply being connected to the computer and keeping the Firewire interface open.

Music production becomes easy with the Focusrite. This gadget can make even simplest of music sound professional thanks to the several high-end technology and software that come bundled along with it. 

The instrument is decently priced and seems a value for money investment. The PRO 24 has been created keeping in mind the needs of musicians who want to utilize the technology of the times for producing and recording music.

If one is using a turntable and microphone, the pre-amp facility will offer superb dampening of distortion that occurs during amplification. The pre-mixing facility offers a range of pre-loaded music which can be used in combination to produce the kind of music one can only dream about.

The kit offers superior music creation technology suitable for a pro as well as an amateur artist, and will keep you hooked for hours. It’s a highly recommended product, that will do wonders to your music production capabilities.

Any of y’all beat BioShock 2? Me neither. Played it for, eh, 20 minutes, then moved onto Napoleon: Total War. Don’t worry, though: the game is on my “to do” list. Also on my “to-do” list: whinge about an MMO based on BioShock.

Right, the rumor, which comes to THE INTERNET by way of super-secret sources somewhere deep within the bowels of somewhere, is that 2K Games is hard at work on a BioShock MMO.

Things in favor of a BioShock MMO:

• Rapture is a fully realized world, and one that absolutely should support an MMO

• There’s a big BioShock fanbase. MMOs only work when there’s plenty of people playing

Things not in favor of a BioShock MMO:

• Not everyone wants to pay X-Amount per month to play a game (assuming it’s a plain ol’ monthly subscription model)

• Will it be a shooter? Do shooters really translate to MMOs?

Questions, questions.

This the the cool thing to do now, though: create a successful franchise, then float the idea of making an MMO about it. See: Call of Duty…

By the way, the BioShock Web site reminds me why I hate Flash so very much. It’s just so needlessly complicated. Like, why does a Web site need an introduction? Sigh.