I was going through the app listings the other day and came across LocalScope, a unique local search tool that helps you find things near your current location. Obviously, many people already use Google Maps (no current version for iOS) for this purpose and the Yelp-powered Apple Maps gets better every day, but after looking at LocalScope (reviewed below), I went on a search for other apps that tailor their results just for what is right around your area.

This week's collection of apps is all about searching for services around your location. The first gives you tons of listings and a surprising bonus feature for finding your destination. The second offers a slick radial interface and tons of categories to pick from. The third is LocalScope, and uses social data to find places, videos, and images from people around your location.

Editor's note: I was unable to find Android versions of the apps in this collection.

When you go to a listing you get all the info and you can hit that green car icon for turn-by-turn directions.

AirYell (Free) is the only free app in this collection, and while it's not as pretty ... [Read more]

Don't let the name fool you: the Humble Bundle 4 for Android also includes Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of each game.

Most game bundles have one thing in common: the games have been around awhile. They might be solid titles, sure, but many times they're so old that most gamers already have them.

Not this time. The Humble Bundle 4 for Android comes with five games, four of which are making their Android debut. In fact, they're not even available via Google Play yet, so you couldn't purchase them separately if you wanted to.

Don't have an Android device? Don't sweat it: you also get licenses for the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of each game.

As with other Humble Bundles, this one works like this: you decide what price you want to pay. A penny? Sold. A dollar? Sold. $65.09? Sold. Whatever amount you deem fair, you can divvy it up among the developers, a couple of worthy charities, and the Humble folks.

If you pay at least $1, you'll get license keys for use with Steam, a convenient way to download and manage your games. And if you beat the average purchase price (currently $6.05), you'll get a sixth game: the award-winning oldie-but-greatie, Machinarium.

All the ti... [Read more]

A while back we urged you to install an iPhone app called Lost Kidz. Once installed, the app would alert you if a nearby parent had lost a child, providing critical details to ensure his or her safe return. And as a parent, for a yearly fee of $0.99, you could send out alerts should your child wander off and go missing.

With Hurricane Sandy having wreaked havoc through much of the northeast, and with thousands of pets and their owners having been separated, a similar app to help reunite owners with their lost companions will prove to be useful. Enter Lost Petz.

The concept is the same; users can download the free app to receive alerts of nearby missing animals. Each alert is complete with a picture and the name of the pet, the location the animal was last seen, and of course, contact information for the owner.

Lost Petz alerts are location based, and will be received by anyone running the app within a 10-mile radius.

There's a $0.99 fee per year if you'd like to send alerts for your missing pet(s). There's no limit on how many alerts you can send once you've subscribed. In order to help with relief efforts, the makers of Lost Petz will be donating all proceeds from the subscription fee for the next two weeks to the Am... [Read more]

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Alerts on our connected Android devices can sometimes pick the worst moment to sound off. For instance, when you're in the middle of working with raw meat in the kitchen or carrying in 10 bags of groceries at once -- these are prime opportunities to get alerts... right? Yeah, not really. So why not just have your device read the alert to you? That's exactly what SpeakMe does.

The capability to read notifications out loud is available on most versions of Android. However, that option also reads each menu item, each action -- and everything in between -- to you. This can become quite bothersome if you're just using the feature for convenience. SpeakMe will not speak each action to you, and will allow you to set custom wait times between incoming messages.

To get started, you'll need to ... [Read more]

Support for Apple's Retina displays and other high-DPI screens, arriving in Lightroom 4.3's photo-editing module but not yet elsewhere, is helpful for judging fine details like wispy hair.

A test version of Adobe Systems' Lightroom 4.3 has added partial support for Apple's Retina displays and other high-resolution screens.

The Lightroom 4.3 release candidate, available on Adobe Labs, shows photos in the develop module so that one pixel in the original photo occupies one pixel on the screen. That means a much sharper and detailed image than with the older Lightroom 4.2, which scales images so that one pixel on the photo occupies four pixels on the screen.

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