Sticky
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Chrome will provide clearer warnings for insecure retail sites
Chrome's developers have futzed with the way that it displays insecure sites over the past few years, and for now, non-HTTPS sites display a "neutral" info symbol. Google warned that would change soon for certain types of sites, however, and we can now see how with the Chrome 56 beta. Any non-encrypted HTTP pages that collect passwords or credit card numbers will prominently display as "not secure" in the URL bar. That, Google says, is the prelude to a bigger scheme to clearly mark all HTTP sites as non-secure, something it kind of did before.
Sticky sensors will monitor your body's organs
Health sensors that attach directly to your organs to are potentially very useful, since they can measure miniscule electrical signals and other details that might otherwise fly under the radar. There's just one problem: actually sticking those devices on to something that soft and squishy is tough. However, a team of Japanese researchers may have a solution. They've developed gel-based sensors that monitor electrical activity and strain while adhering to just about anything, including the gooey wet insides of your body. The key is the gel itself, which is made of the polyvinyl alcohol you might find in protective gloves or eye drops; it allows a grid of sensors to make contact without peeling or slipping off.
TUAW's Daily App: Sticky
I'll say this: Sticky is an original one. It's sort of a platforming game, though there are no real platforms involved. You play as a little orange blob named Sticky, tasked with saving the world from invading black blobs that slowly move from one side of your iPhone's screen to the other. Sticky can defeat these enemy blobs by bouncing on their heads, so it's your job as a player to catapult him back and forth around the little levels in order to hit the bad guys exactly right. The game is fun, cute and intuitive, and while it's pretty easy to beat the individual stages (at least until power-ups and more obstacles get added into the mix), each stage also rates you out of three stars, so you need to race against time to try and grab a perfect rating as well. Hardcore gamers will want to clear out all of the levels, while younger (or just more casual gamers) can bounce Sticky around and still enjoy playing. Full Game Center (and Crystal -- Chillingo is publishing) integration extends the experience, and the fact that it's only US$0.99 means it's probably worth a try if you're interested. It probably won't pull me away from Tiny Wings completely, but it's another fun casual experience.
Stick It for iPad: Beautiful "To-Do" notes application
There's not a lot of apps that make me sit up, take notice and go "yes!" Stick It for iPad is one of those apps. Introduced to me by Mark Peterson, a developer who hangs out in the same #iphonedev channel that I do on freenode, his app ticks a lot of the boxes that I have been looking for for free form note making. Stick It combines sticky notes with a cork board metaphor. You can create new notes, edit their text (and adjust their color, fonts, and so forth), and paste them onto one of five separate boards. This allows you to work with an "immediate" to-do board, a "grocery shopping" board, and so forth. You organize and name these boards, however you wish. Peterson has provided a wide range of note choices. You can use standard Sticky shapes, paper attached by "tape", talk bubbles, Rolodex pages, and more. It's visually stunning, with a lot of creative options that should suit anyone's taste. There's even a datebook calendar option, as you can see in thescreen shot. One of the features I absolutely adored was the option to convert a layout into a lockscreen photo. That's simply brilliant, letting you update that screen to match your current to do list. You can even preview how the lockscreen will look, so you can adjust your notes for best visibility. Other options allow you to e-mail a picture of your to do's or save them to your camera roll. In the end, Stick It is smart, it's simple, and it's versatile. And for just $0.99, it's a bargain. This app rocks, and is well worth checking out. TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. Promo code requests are not guarantees of reviews.
Yellow sticky in the sky, are those new iMacs that I spy? Apple Store down 8:30p ET
It's Monday night in America, and that means one thing: football. OK, two things -- time for an Apple Store update, and football. The store is down as of 8:30 pm ET (thanks for the tip, Will T.), and with the ongoing rumors of hardware refreshes, combined with a steady stream of tidbits about reduced iMac inventory around the country... well, you might just wake up to a pleasant surprise. Let us know what you see when it comes back up, mmkay? Update 9:15pm: Apparently, nothing much. It's back with no visible changes, everyone exhale. Update II, 1:20 am: And now it's down again. What on earth are they smoking over there? P.S. If you haven't noticed the Deals of the Day ticker on our front page (powered by our friends at Dealmac.com), take a peek -- maybe you can get a bargain on a previous-generation Mac.
Thus goeth down the Apple Store
Shall I compare thee to a yellow sticky note? Thou art more foreboding and less indicative of closure. Rough winds do shake retail commerce before May And downtime hath all too short a date. Sometimes too excited the yellow sticky shines And often is his gold complexion dimm'd And sometimes when credit-cards decline By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; Thy momentary downtime does not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair new product; Nor shall Apple introduce what wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou waitest; So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, Fair 3M's scrap of parchment shall cheer thee. Thanks, verily, to all ye who have sent tidings of this news.
Stick 'Em Up: An enhanced replacement for Apple's Stickies
For anyone looking to get just a little bit more out of the Stickies app that Apple includes on every Mac, Stick Em Up by Jim McGowan might just be the app for you. Since he also writes Do It, the powerful todo list manager that we're a fan of, McGowan seems to have an eye for improving other apps and tasks that some of us perform on a daily basis. Basically speaking, Stick Em Up is a replacement for Apple's Stickies that offers one significant enhancement: categories. Notes can be grouped into whatever categories you'd like, which are all navigable by the keyboard and can all be effortlessly displayed and hidden. This allows all sorts of useful workflows to include Stick Em Up instead of having to look to another heftier note storage app like Yojimbo, or keeping multiple apps open just to get through the day. Users can create a category of Web Clippings stickies in which you can toss temporary URLs and images, but then hide that category at the end of the day and save room for all the other sticky notes you need to work with for another task. It's a subtle but liberating feature for a simple tool that offers a surprising amount of flexibility.As with Do It and all his other software, Jim McGowan offers Stick Em Up as donationware from his site.
Sony to sell PS3 I.O.U. in Japan
How's it go? "There's a sucker born every minute."According to Mainichi Interactive, in anticipation of hardware shortages, Sony will be selling PlayStation 3 vouchers in Japan this holiday. It's unclear if the "I.O.U." will require a small down payment or the entire ¥49,800. Either way, you're better off grabbing a sticky, writing the note yourself, and slapping it on your kid's forehead.[Thanks, pandlcg]
Chronos replaces StickyBrain with SOHO Notes 5.5
StickyBrain, one of the leading 'digital junk drawer' apps that recently entered a 4.1 beta testing phase, has been officially discontinued by Chronos in favor of SOHO Notes 5.5. Current registered users of StickyBrain 4.0 will receive an upgrade to SOHO Notes for free, while users who own licenses for any previous StickyBrain versions (1.x, 2.x and 3.x) can upgrade to SOHO Notes 5.5 for a mere $25, the price offered in the past for upgrading from StickyBrain 3.x to 4.x.Why is StickyBrain being dissolved in favor of SOHO Notes, you ask? Chronos has published an announcement and FAQ explaining the decision, but here's the short version: SOHO Notes is basically the big brother of StickyBrain; they're almost the same app, derived from the same codebase, except SOHO Notes included three key features that Chronos used to charge extra for: SOHO Notes can synchronize notes between multiple computers using a .Mac account (seamlessly, in the background). SOHO Notes can access multiple note databases simultaneously. SOHO Notes is multi-user capable which means users can share notes with others over a network using the product's client/server technology. Now, with SOHO Notes taking the helm, its price has dropped to $39.99 to keep it more in-line with StickyBrain's previous price, as well as the competition like Yojimbo and DEVONthink. Feature-wise, this new version of SOHO Notes 5.5 offers some powerful new goodies, such as the ability to import and catalog almost any kind of file, send notes to your blog, a DockNote that makes it easy to get info both in and out, audio recording notes, full-screen editing of notes, a Daily Journal/Diary category that can automatically date/time stamp notes and much more.Whether you love your hate StickyBrain SOHO Notes, this should be good news for the 'digital junk drawer' market, as this price drop and the new features should help keep everyone's innovative juices flowing.
iSticky offers notes with reminders, sending via Bonjour, more
Sticky notes are great, but sticky notes that can have reminder alarms, be sent to other Macs via Bonjour, sent over the web and SMS, archived and more - are better. If any of these features have your inner nerd excited, then check out iSticky - a sticky note app on steroids. Also on the feature list are themes, categories, encryption, document linking and more.While we don't think iSticky is Universal yet (at least, the author isn't bragging about it on the site), a demo is available. iSticky also offers a wide range of licenses depending on which features you need and whether you need a family/business pack. Prices run from $16 USD (single license, Bonjour sending but not over the web) up to $90 USD for a 12 license pack with all the toppings. Check it out if Apple's Stickies just aren't cutting it for you anymore.
