Android

Smartphone applications can ease the business of trading contact information with new acquaintances and facilitate on-the-fly video conferences, thus enhancing your social-networking capabilities. Bump , from Bump Technologies Inc., is a free app for iPhone and Android that passes contact information or photos from one smart device to another by, yes, bumping them together. The move does not depend on both parties having the same type of phone, and it looks magical. What happens is that both devices communicate with Bump Technologies' cloud servers, which detect the smartphones' locations and their simultaneous "bump" to make an educated guess that the devices are trying to contact each other.

ALTHOUGH they both aim to give Philadelphians a quick, mobile way to send reports of neighborhood problems to the city department that can best address them, the Nutter administration's Philly 311 mobile app and City Councilman Bobby Henon's CityHall App aren't the same animal. Like the blue-collar, plain-speaking councilman himself, Henon's CityHall App is the one you'd most like to have a beer with. It's a simple, user-friendly way to take a photo, write a comment, send it off and get a quick response.

WASHINGTON - Cellphones using Google's Android operating system are at risk of being disabled or wiped clean of their data, including contacts, music and photos, because of a security flaw discovered several months ago but unnoticed until now. Opening a link to a website or a mobile application embedded with malicious code can trigger an attack capable of destroying the memory card in Android-equipped handsets made by Samsung, HTC, Motorola and Sony...

Here's a look at smartphone applications to foliate a family tree, digitize and post old family snapshots, and probe for family connections among obituaries published around the world. Ancestry , by Ancestry.com, for Android and Apple, is free - at the start. When you load Ancestry, it asks you to sign up. You'll have to decide if the family tree you'll build is public or private. Going public makes it a bit easier for possible distant relatives to find you and get in touch. To start building your tree, tap on the icons marked with your name, "Add Father," and "Add Mother" to fill in details and add photos.

The new Kindle Fire HD may not stir you to pass along your old iPad as a hand-me-down. But if you own an earlier small tablet running on Android or another operating system, or even last year's original Kindle Fire, you'll want to take a close look. The Fire HD isn't for everyone. Like its predecessor, it still draws potshots for seeming, as one critic put it, "like a shop window onto the world's biggest content department store. " Yet Amazon has refined an already impressive $199 device, while foreshadowing what it promises before Thanksgiving: an 8.9-inch Fire HD, including a 4G wireless version, that will compete more directly with Apple's 9.7-inch iPad.

As the political conventions wind down, and the campaigns crank into overdrive, there are plenty of smartphone applications to add to the arsenal for following the presidential election. Each of this week's offerings is free, and all but one are available for both Android and Apple devices. Ad Hawk by the Sunlight Foundation, available from Google Play and the App Store, tells which groups are behind political advertisements. The Sunlight Foundation is a nonpartisan group that advocates for government transparency.

As the political conventions wind down, and the campaigns crank into overdrive, there are plenty of smartphone applications to add to the arsenal for following the presidential election. Each of this week's offerings is free, and all but one are available for both Android and Apple devices. Ad Hawk by the Sunlight Foundation, available from Google Play and the App Store, tells which groups are behind political advertisements. The Sunlight Foundation is a nonpartisan group that advocates for government transparency.

The political conventions put the election season into high gear, so here are some free apps for following the campaigns and candidates from Tampa to Charlotte to the voting booth Nov. 6. Stitcher Election Center 2012 is an area featured prominently on the Stitcher Smart Radio app for Android and Apple devices. It pulls together political coverage from podcasts and radio and television audio streams. For the GOP convention, Stitcher is providing the live audio feed from CBS Radio news.

The political conventions put the election season into high gear, so here are some free apps for following the campaigns and candidates from Tampa to Charlotte to the voting booth Nov. 6. Stitcher Election Center 2012 is an area featured prominently on the Stitcher Smart Radio app for Android and Apple devices. It pulls together political coverage from podcasts and radio and television-audio streams. For the GOP convention, Stitcher is providing the live audio feed from CBS Radio news.

THESE kids today! All they want to do is play with your iPhone or iPad. So why stop them? If you're smart about it, you can safely start educating the little ones in their strollers with one of those smarty devices or a dedicated children's tablet. M-Edge Supershell cases for the iPhone 4 & 4S, iPod Touch and iPad 2 (and newer) tablets offer an ultraprotective foam surround that absorbs shocks. "Go ahead drop it on the concrete, repeatedly," dared a demonstrator. Priced from $25 to $35, Supershells come in lots of bright colors.