Over the next two days, I will be at the Streaming Media West Conference in Los Angeles, getting schooled in the fast-moving world that is online video.

Old-media bigwigs and new-media luminaries will abound, talking about stuff like the emergence of platforms, the evolution of entertainment, the pivoting of strategies, and, of course, the corporate battles that underlie all of the above. Meanwhile, hordes of software vendors will be promoting their latest technology in hopes of becoming the next big thing.

Perhaps at the crux of it all will be mobile software, which will surely be on display at the conference. With tablets and smartphones now firmly planted in the mainstream, every media publisher seems to be racing to create its own app, believing it could be a key to the future. Maybe we'll run into a few there.

Don't forget Google TV. As you might have heard, the search giant has significantly updated its living-room platform by giving it the Honeycomb treatment. This not only means a much-improved user interface, but also a steady stream of Google TV-optimized applications courtesy of the Android Market. Hopefully we'll get a look.

And what about the content creators themselves? With ... [Read more]

Time-lapse photos are a fun way to document a series of moments happening around you with a camera.

And now there's an awesome app available for Android that lets you bring this same method to your smartphone or tablet. All you need is a quick download and a bit of setup to get started.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 1: Download Lapse It from the Android Market. There is a free version that will only allow lower-resolution photos and a Pro version, which allows images up to 720p.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 2: Open the app and press the Start new capture button.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 3: Set the time interval of your photos by pressing the timer button on the left, and then enter the interval in seconds. This example will work with 2 seconds as the interval.

Step 4: Press the Capture button (big red dot in the top left-hand corner) to start taking pictures!

Hint: The menu will be hidden when you start taking pictures. To get it back so you can stop the camera, slide your finger ... [Read more]

IM+, the popular instant-messaging application for Android, jumps to version 5.0 today, bringing with it a revamped tablet-optimized interface, improved battery usage, and several other really nifty features.

Beyond its shiny new interface, the big addition to IM+ is its support for Android's native Share tool. Now you can select text from other apps or your browser and easily add it to an instant message through IM+. Sure, this seems like a basic feature, but that's precisely why it's a big deal that IM+ is finally getting it.

Additionally, IM+ now offers group chats for AIM, iChat, and ICQ, an IM+ widget that lets you change your status from your Android Home screen, and the option to select different notifications (sound, vibrate, LED) for active chats.

IM+ version 5.0 is available now for free in the Android Market. You can also upgrade to the ad-free IM+ Pro for $9.99.

Adobe has begun selling its Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements software through the Mac App Store.

Adobe Systems and Apple may not see eye to eye over the Flash Player plug-in, but they've come to an understanding with the new app store era of software distribution.

Adobe announced today that both its consumer-oriented photo and video software, Photoshop Elements 10 and Premiere Elements 10, are now available on the Mac App Store. The move parallels what Adobe already has done with iOS apps and expands on its earlier sales only of Photoshop Elements 9 on the Mac App Store.

The Mac App Store, a standard feature of recent versions of Mac OS X, lets Apple account holders download software to their computers the same way they might download apps for their iPhones. I see five implications of Adobe using the Mac App Store compared to traditional ways of selling software.

Bye-bye boxed software First, and most obviously, it accelerates the move to software distribution by download. Adobe has been doing this for years through its own site, and plenty of other software arrives over the Net, but some folks are still accustomed to getting CDs or DVDs in a cardboard box. That's especially true it comes to mammoth downloads like Photoshop Elements, at 1.21... [Read more]

Normally when you want to sign a PDF you have to download it, print it, sign it, scan it, and then e-mail it back.

This can get pretty annoying if you're doing all these steps often. That's why having an app that can let you sign PDFs right from your Android device is very convenient. Sure it'll set you back $3.99, but it's worth losing the frustration for a mere four bucks, right?

Step 1: Install SignMyPad on your Android device.

Step 2: Open a PDF from your e-mail or downloaded files.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

When opening PDFs from Gmail, just click Download and then use SignMyPad to open the PDF.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 3: Click the Add button in the top right-hand corner and select signature from the pop-up list.

Steps 4 and 5.

Step 4: Sign your name in the box that pops up and click Done. Then drag your signature to the appropriate area of the PDF (scaling is done with the s... [Read more]