As an avid weather stalker, I can confirm that most of the programs and apps we turn to for our immediate climate info tend toward stale, overly-detailed interface crammed full of information that the majority of users aren't terribly concerned with. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad sites like Wunderground exist--the granularity is great--but the design is just so Web 1.0. Enter Weather Doodle, an arty iOS app with a creative and minimalistic interface with the ability to draw in even those who scoff at reports in favor of stepping outside.

What's great about Weather Doodle is that it presents the weather in a very simple way while still providing a visually-appealing interface. Each location screen is contained within what looks like an old television set--you know, the kind with the rounded edges. Cute and colorful animation displays the current conditions, whether its raindrops falling gently from the sky, a zig-zag of lightning poking in and out of a cloud, or the suns rays circling around the big yellow orb. At night, even the stage of the moon is represented in the image.

The amount of information on display is up to you. At its simplest, Weather Doodle shows just the current condition artwork along with the temperature and location name up top. A click for a bit more info will pop up textual current conditions (such as "mostly cloudy"), wind speed and direction, and the humidity. You can also switch over to forecast mode, which displays the expected weather conditions over the next five days.

Additional features include the ability to add any city on earth with a simple search (with some granularity for larger metro areas), as well as the option to switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit temp measurement and mile and kilometer distance measurement (for wind speed purposes). There's also an art shoppe where you will be able to find more themes by various artists, though there's not much in there as of press time.

In fact, if there's one complaint we have, it's the limited themes that come with the app. For the 99-cent purchase price, you only get one, and each additional theme is set to be an additional 99-cents. Not that that's an absurd price point for artwork--digital or no--but it would be great if an additional one or two themes were included in the original download. That being said, it's a lovely little app, and anyone with an eye for style and an interest in weather should check it out.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

There are a great number of travel Web sites on the Internet that let you search flights, hotel listings, and car rentals, but if you want a quick way to get that info while on the go, check out the new Kayak for iPhone app. Though Kayak has been around for some time, this latest version for iPhone includes a completely redesigned interface and faster search results making it much easier to get your travel plans in order quickly. Like the older version, Kayak works seamlessly with the Kayak.com Web site.

Instead of the older tilelike interface, Kayak has instead gone with a list view in this version that makes it easy to browse flights, hotels, and car rentals. Once you choose the type of info you want, you can enter your travel dates and Kayak goes to work finding you the best deals. As Kayak searches sites, it presents you with a progress bar and updates flights as they come in.

Beyond regular travel searches, Kayak also offers extras like the My Trips section where you can keep all your travel info (flights, hotels, car rentals, etc.) for a specific trip in one place. You also get a Flight Tracker so you can check early to make sure your flight will be on time. Our favorite feature might be the Price Alert, which uses a specified search and sends you price alerts every week via push notifications so you can hunt down the best deals over time.

Kayak comes with several other useful tools for more info, like baggage fees for specific airlines, airport information, and even a place where you create a checklist of what to pack (with premade general lists you can use) for your vacation or business trip.

Anyone who travels for business or just wants to check prices for various vacation destinations around the globe should check out this latest version. With a streamlined interface and faster searches, Kayak is definitely one of the better travel apps at the iTunes App Store.

With all the hubbub of the holidays and the ensuing CES trade show, a nifty multiprotocol chat client flew right under my radar. Imo.im recently released free apps for Android and iOS devices, allowing users to instant message friends on a variety of networks from one clean and simple interface. Luckily, the company followed up with some additional news that made it through the inbox flurry: the apps now also support voice chat, allowing users to record and send up to 30-second audio messages.

While voice chat is certainly a nifty feature for some, I'm more excited about the broad appeal of the overall app. Imo collects MSN chat, Yahoo IM, AIM/ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, Skype, Facebook, and MySpace into one streamlined app, letting you seamlessly switch between clients to chat with contacts, which are--for most of us--spread across many of those. You can keep concurrent sessions with any and all of the services, and the company states it will leave you logged into your computer if you're using its Web-based client as well. This prevents the hassle of having to log in again when switching between your desktop and portable device.

Imo includes the option to receive push notifications, so you will be notified of incoming messages even if not actively using the app. There's also a tabbed interface for previewing messages across clients before deciding which to respond to first. In addition, you can keep chat sessions open for up to 72 hours, search chat history and contacts, and type in landscape mode.

I haven't had a chance to fully test the Imo app yet, but the Web-based client seems good thus far. As mentioned, both apps--for iOS or Android devices--are currently free, so there's no reason not to snag a download and check it out for yourself.

Last October, PBS took the wraps off an eponymous iPad app, allowing tablet users to stream full episodes of public-television favorites like "American Masters," "Nova," and "MotorWeek." iPhone and iPod users were promised their own version in November, but it never materialized.

Thankfully, PBS for iPhone is finally here. It's missing a few key elements, but it's still a great way to watch great shows on the go--free of charge.

The app is divided into four sections: Previews, Spotlight, Schedules, and Programs. Most of these are self-explanatory; as with the iPad version, the Schedules section provides you with a calendar of current and upcoming programming from your local PBS station.

However, unlike the iPad version, this one lacks both search and bookmark features, which is puzzling.

What's more, according to a PBS rep, the app contains more than 300 hours' worth of full episodes from various shows, including those mentioned up top. The problem is finding them: although it's easy enough to browse the Programs listings, you'll find dozens of previews and short clips mixed in with the handful of full-length episodes.

The iPad version has buttons for toggling between previews, shorts, and full episodes, but here you have to troll each list in search of runtimes longer than, say, 30 seconds or three minutes.

It's hard to complain about free streaming TV shows, especially those of the caliber produced by PBS, but I do think this app needs a few tweaks to fully realize its potential. Meanwhile, PBS Kids programming remains MIA, though I'm told a dedicated app for that is in the works. Yay!

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Google just fired a broadside in the Web's codec wars.

With its alternative WebM video-encoding technology now entering the marketplace, Google announced plans today to remove built-in Chrome support for a widely used rival codec called H.264 favored by Apple and Microsoft. The move places Google instead firmly in the camp of browser makers Mozilla and Opera, who ardently desire basic Web technologies to be unencumbered by patent restrictions.

"Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies," said Mike Jazayeri, a Google product manager, in a blog post.

A codec's job is to encode and decode video and audio, a technologically complicated balancing act. Codecs must reduce file sizes and enable streaming media that doesn't overtax networks, but they also must preserve as much quality as possible--for example by trying to discard data that the human senses won't miss much and cleverly interpolate to fill in the gaps.

One big change coming with the new HTML5 version of the Web page description language is built-in support for video; most Web video today employs Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in, which uses H.264 and other codecs under the covers. Although HTML5 video has promise, disagreements in the W3C standards group have meant the draft standard omits specifying a particular codec. Chrome was the only browser among the top five to support both WebM and H.264, but now Google has swung its vote.

Google's move triggered flabbergasted glee among advocates of the "open Web"--one that employs open standards and shuns patent barriers. "Ok this is HUGE, Chrome drops support for H264," said Mozilla developer Paul Rouget in a tweet.

But not everybody is so happy. Don MacAskill, chief executive of photo- and video-sharing site SmugMug, bemoaned the move. "Bottom line: Much more expensive to build video on the Web, and much worse user experience. And only Adobe wins," he tweeted. "I want WebM. Badly. But I need time for hardware penetration to happen...This means the cheapest way to develop video on the Web is to use Flash primarily. Before, we could do HTML5 with Flash fallback."

H.264, also called AVC, is widely supported in video cameras, Blu-ray players, and many other devices, but it comes with significant royalty licensing fees from a group called MPEG LA that licenses a pool of hundreds of video-related patents.

WebM, though, has been an open-source, royalty-free specification since Google announced it last May. It comprises the VP8 video codec Google got through its acquisition of On2 Technology and the Theora audio codec associated with an earlier and otherwise largely unsuccessful royalty-free codec effort.

It's catching on--for example with smartphone chip support from Rockchip announced last week. Hardware decoding means computing devices can decode WebM faster and without quickly sucking batteries dry. And Adobe has pledged to build VP8 support into a future version of Flash Player.

The move spotlights the role Google has earned in the Web development world by building its own browser. Chrome, which now accounts for 10 percent of browser usage worldwide, according to analytics firm Net Applications, is a vehicle Google is using to try to promote its own agenda on the Web.

One big part of that is speed--fast page loads, fast graphics, fast encryption, fast JavaScript, and more that helps expand activity on the Web. But there are plenty of cases where Google uses Chrome to advance favored standards such as WebGL for 3D graphics, Web SQL and Indexed DB for offline data storage, and WebM for HTML5 video.

Some Web developers including YouTube have begun embracing HTML5 video. But because the standard is mute on the issue of a particular codec, and because browser support can't be counted on, Web developers typically rely on Flash, which is installed on the vast majority of computers in use today.

Apple, with its own technology agenda to push, is keeping Flash off the iPhone and iPad despite Adobe's attempts to reengineer it for the low-memory, anemic-processor, battery-constrained world of smartphones. For video, those devices rely on video encoded directly with H.264.

Adobe has become a major Google ally since Apple began taking a very hard-line stance against Flash in 2010. Google has heavily promoted Adobe's mobile Flash agenda and built its Flash Player directly into Chrome. Adobe gave WebM a big boost by building it into Flash.

The partnership illustrates the pragmatic, political limits to Google's open-Web advocacy. Flash Player is proprietary software, and building it into Chrome certainly helps preserve its relevance.

"If Google is dropping H.264 because their 'goal is to enable open innovation,' why not also drop support for closed plugins like Flash?" tweeted Daring Fireball Apple-watcher John Gruber.

One big uncertainty for WebM is the intellectual property purity of WebM. Google proclaimed a royalty-free codec, but that didn't stop MPEG LA from saying it's considering offering a VP8 patent pool license. "We assume virtually all codecs are based on patented technology...MPEG LA doesn't favor one codec technology over another; we are like a convenience store that offers patent licenses for any number of codecs as a service to the market," said MPEG LA Chief Executive Larry Horn last May.

More than half a year after Google released the software, though, no new pools or patent litigation has emerged, and WebM has attracted new allies. That doesn't mean litigation might not be waiting in the wings: "A codec is like a mechanical device with hundreds of parts. Any one or more could be the subject of a patent," said Steven J. Henry, an intellectual property attorney at Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, and patent holders may wait for years before "springing the trap."

So far, that's a theoretical concern, though, and Mozilla's then-Chief Executive John Lilly said last year, "Right now we think that it's totally fine to ship, or we wouldn't ship it...We're really confident in our ability to ship this free of encumbrances."

It's possible Apple and others could embrace WebM. Microsoft has refrained from glowering too harshly on WebM even as it's issued an H.264 plug-in for Firefox users on Windows. But even if a change of heart occurs today, it will take a long time for tech giants like Apple and Microsoft to regear.

Updated 2:10 p.m. PT with further detail and commentary.

Originally posted at Deep Tech