flyer

I've been on the phone with several iPhone application developers this week and the common thread has been that all are excited about the success of the iPhone App Store. But one of the developers wanted to point out that one of his applications that's been around since the beginning, but hadn't seen much exposure yet. After checking it out, I decided to include it in this weeks post.

This week's applications include a free photo-driven social-networking application and a game that plays like a classic stand-up arcade game from the past.

PhotoShare (free) from Big … Read more

Regular Crave readers have seen a steady stream of products unveiled in the months since the Transportation Security Administration issued guidelines for "checkpoint friendly" bags, which let you zip through airport security checkpoints without removing your laptop.

Eager to see how manufacturers would tackle the new product category, we obtained a handful of bags--from the huge Mobile Edge ScanFast Backpack to the tiny Solo Netbook Mini--for real-world testing. At first we were concerned that TSA agents wouldn't know about the new bag designs and would make us remove our laptops anyway. But we carried several of … Read more

Well this is paranoia-inducing.

Yes, that is a photo of a camera attached to a miniature helicopter. It's called the DraganFlyer X6. It's a remotely operated device designed to carry wireless video or still cameras.

Measuring about 3 feet in diameter with the rotor, the X6 has three motors to spin its carbon fiber blades and is capable of carrying a maximum weight of 1.1 pounds. This means your typical point-and-shoot camera, budget dSLR or camcorder should be able to fit properly on the bird. It comes with an anti-vibration camera mount which minimizes shaky videos or … Read more

We have a theory: At some point in the universe there's a convergence of birding and technology, along the lines of math and music. It's the only explanation we can come up with for so many avian gadgets that seem to come our way, which often indicate a particular demand for technologies that identify birdcalls.

Not all of them are the most practical, however, as underscored by the unwieldy size of such products as the "Sound Sleuth" weighing you down, fittingly, like an albatross around your neck. But the "iFlyer BirdSong Wand" seems like … Read more

Wipbox is a relatively new service that helps people sell things on Craigslist and eBay. Wipbox charges a small fee to help you put together a really slick-looking listing and figure out some of the subtle aspects of getting an item to sell quickly based on what category and service it's listed in. If you've ever wanted to sell something on either of the two classifieds services but have been unsure about a good starting price or the best way to convey the product information, Wipbox does the heavy lifting for you.

To get started quickly, you can do a search for your item. It's not free at $0.25 a pop, but it gives you the starting and closing costs for your item in various categories (for eBay) or locales (for Craigslist). For example, if you're here in San Francisco, your item might fetch more money in surrounding neighborhoods. Likewise, on eBay, putting it in a different category can dramatically improve the closing price. You're paying Wipbox to do the legwork.

In testing, we came across some skewed numbers for certain search items. For eBay, it was likely due to auctioneers incorrectly labeling their items or adding extra words to their titles to boost search engine presence. For Craigslist, we ran into problems with the search grouping together multiple SKUs. For example, a search for an Xbox 360 pulled in results with a difference of about a hundred dollars due to the system having two versions, each at a different price. For popular items such as iPods though, drilling down to the specific model number helped with these issues.

Wipbox bases its statistics on 30 days of eBay listings, and a full week of Craigslist sales, so whatever information you're getting is fairly current for market value. To find general price ranges for online auctions, there's also Mpire, a service that tracks auction prices on eBay to show you whether or not it's in demand--a little bit like Farecast does for airplane tickets.

The real catch to using Wipbox is its listing creator. Wipbox will pull in a description, user reviews, and specifics from Amazon.com. You can either pay $0.15 to have this information posted straight to your listing, or copy and paste the code field by field into eBay or Craigslist's listing creation box for free. … Read more