Software

Text messaging makes sharing a secret in the digital age remarkably fast and easy. If you're trying to keep the texts themselves a secret, Hide SMS can help. It's a stylish lockbox for all of your text messages. Sadly, it only works with plain texts. Apps, contacts and even picture messages aren't included.

This app shows up as different names in the Google Play store and in your apps locker. You may see it referred to as Hide SMS, Keep SMS or KeepSafe depending on how you're looking at it. Once you load it, you have … Read more

Old-fashioned cardboard photo cutouts are now on your smartphone! Funny Photo Effects offers to put your face on all sorts of goofy characters. Sadly, it seems way more interested in hitting your phone or tablet with ads than helping you laugh.

Funny Photo Effects is supposed to find your face in the photo you submit and paste it on the cutout you want. However, the facial recognition sometimes takes forever to complete. More often than not, it will tell you your photo won't work and won't even bother to try to find a face. What's worse than … Read more

It's hard to get excited about a folder-downloading app until the exact moment you need one. Folder Downloader for Dropbox does exactly what you'd think it would, but lacks all of the style and form of Dropbox's own app. However, if you need an app like this, you'll love it.

In case you couldn't guess from the name, this app does require access to your Dropbox account to work. Giving it the right permissions only takes a few seconds, though. How fast the app actually does its business depends heavily on your connection. Folder Downloader … Read more

Usually when you talk about eyes in photo editing, it's all about red-eye removal. This app goes so much further than that to make your eyes look any color in the rainbow. Eye Color Changer looks a little cartoony and bizarre at times, but that's probably the effect most people are going for.

This app's menu could use some major editing itself - it's quite the eyesore. It houses eight buttons, but only two of them actually go to features in the app you really want to use. The rest beg you to rate the app … Read more

Keeping track of cash flow is the first thing you learn in "Running a Business 101." Expense Manager takes a lot of the effort out of budgeting so you can focus on other things. It's a stylish app that lets you clearly figure out where exactly your money is going. The only way it could be better is if it actually helped you make more.

Expense Manager does most of its work from a menu that fits right in with stock Android. It looks like Google itself designed it. The app lets you color-code your spending and … Read more

If you look at the iPhone's do-it-all home button with envy, this app is a treat. It adds a super-powered menu button to all of your home screens and even to most of your apps. If you're stuck on Android 2.3 or earlier, Easy Touch (iPhone style) is a solid launcher that taps into some of your phone's hidden powers. However, if you're on Ice Cream Sandwich or later, the app will just get in your way.

Once you go through this app's lengthy tutorial, it sticks a 1X1 button widget on each of … Read more

Hot off the presses of Google IO 2013, Google Music is back with a new name, look, and service. Formerly known as Google Music, Google has now opted to brand their player as part of the Google Play Service. And though the name doesn't exactly flow very well, Google Play Music is now much more than just the cloud-powered player that comes with Android.

In an effort to compete with the likes of iTunes, Spotify, and Pandora, Google has come out full force with new label partnerships that include Universal and Sony. The result is a completely overhauled app … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Engineers on the Google Android team say they are still working hard to ensure that Android updates are rolled out to new devices in a timely fashion.

During a fireside chat at the Google I/O developer conference here Thursday, 11 members of the Android development team fielded questions from the audience of developers. Android team members acknowledged the continuing issue of fragmentation within the Android ecosystem. But they also said they planned to continue a rapid pace of innovation.

"This is something we think about a lot," said Dave Burke, engineering director for the … Read more

Opera Software and Trond Werner Hansen have settled a lawsuit against that alleged the former employee spilled trade secrets to rival browser maker Mozilla.

Werner on Thursday told CNET said the suit was settled, but said he couldn't share details.

"But I'm very happy it's over and look forward to being able to focus on my music and other projects again," he said.

Opera said it was happy, too. "I can confirm that the case against Trond Werner Hansen has been dropped by Opera by reaching an agreement which has been satisfactory to both … Read more